Our host Scott Rae recently donated a kidney to his brother, Mark. It was a long, arduous journey in which God was clearly present along the way. How did it affect each of them spiritually? How did it affect their relationships with family? And how can we think biblically about a life-saving medical procedure such as this? Sean interviews both Scott and Mark to hear about their emotional journey.



Episode Transcript

Sean: Welcome to a special episode of the Think Biblically podcast. Our regular co-host Scott Rae recently donated a kidney to his younger brother Mark, who is here to join us as well. What was this journey like? How was God used to form each of them spiritually? And how do we think about such experiences biblically? I'm your host today, Sean McDowell, and this is the Think Biblically podcast brought to you by Talbot School of Theology, Biola University. Scott, we're going to get to you because I know our audience is eager to hear how you're doing and what this experience was like, but Mark, why don't you jump in here and just introduce yourself a little bit to our audience.

Mark: Thank you, Sean. I appreciate it. So glad to be here. My name is Mark Rae, same last name as my brother. I'm 67. And just to introduce myself a little bit, I have 25 years experience in sales and marketing and 25 years of experience in ministry with pastoral leadership, with church, with parachurch, and now working for a seminary here out of Houston, Gray School of Theology. So, we followed some of the same path. But with that, we've had some divergence in what we've been able to do and what the Lord has allowed us to be able to accomplish. And lots of connection between the two of us and lots of times that we've had conversations about what's next and what do we do and how do we do it. Good to have an older brother in ministry who's gone before me and has brought some of that wisdom to the table for me, and I'm grateful for that.

Sean: I noticed you mentioned how old you are, but not how old your older brother is. So, we'll let Scott in a minute release that to us if he wants to, but—

Scott: Not a chance.

Sean: [laughing[ I thought that was coming. I love it. I can only imagine the kind of conversations that you have in the Rae household. People ask me all the time, what's it like in the McDowell household, given what my dad does ,and we have vibrant, live, fun conversations. I know that's the case for the two of you. But let's jump kind of into this journey that you've been on. And one more question for you, Mark, tell us a little bit about your journey with kidney failure in the sense of when did you first notice it? What were some of the symptoms? How did you find out and what the beginning of that journey was like?

Mark: Great question. Let me take you back a little bit. I was pastoring a church in Midland, Texas. Went to see my primary care doctor for a checkup. They look at two numbers in your blood numbers. One's called the GFR. One's called the creatinine. Your GFR is supposed to be above 60. Your creatinine is supposed to be one or below. My GFR had jumped down to about the low 50s, high 40s. And my creatinine had jumped up to about 1.5. So, my primary care physician said you need to go to a nephrologist and get this checked out. First thing I'd heard of it, this was 10, 12 years ago, maybe 15 years ago. So, going to a nephrologist in the Midland Odessa area, basically he said, "There's not much going on here. We think they did a little ultrasound, kind of checked out the condition of both kidneys." And basically he said, "Lay off the salt, lay off the protein. You're going to be just fine for the next 20 years." Well, my numbers continued. One continued to go up and one continued to go down, which is the opposite direction of how they're supposed to go. And when I finally got here to the Woodlands where we now currently live, I met with a nephrologist here who had been recommended. He decided to do a biopsy. So, we went in, did a needle biopsy into the kidney, came back and we got an actual diagnosis. And the short of it is this, it means that my kidneys were inflamed. That inflammation led to scarring. The scarring leads to lack of function in the kidney. The interesting thing about this, Sean, is that he tracked it all the way back to the beginning of my numbers dropping, which was 2001. Now, as he started to plan this out, what we saw was my decline was very, very slow. So not noticeable. Most doctors wouldn't say anything about it until my numbers got to the number where they began to question it 10, 12 years ago. My nephrologist here after the biopsy basically looked at me and said, "We need to find the cause." And I will tell you, I went through months and months and months of testing after testing after testing, testing for things like diabetes, autoimmune disease, genetic components, environmental components, trying to find out what would cause this scarring. And they had a diagnosis, but this is the interesting thing about it. We could never find a cause. There is no, and I love this, my nephrologist here, he said, "I'm going to give you my idiosyncratic diagnosis. And that is this: we're all idiots. Something medically has occurred and we're not smart enough yet to figure out what medically occurred that is causing both of your kidneys to decline at the exact same rate. You have no inflammation in your body. You have no autoimmune disease. The normal things that you would see is the function for why this would decline. I had none of them, zero. So we could not figure out why, but we've been tracking and tracking and tracking and seeing my kidney function decline and decline.” So, about five years ago, he looked at me and he said, "You need to prepare yourself. You're going to need a transplant." And let me just tell you for somebody to say, "You're going to need a kidney transplant," was, "Wait a minute. There's got to be something else we can do. I don't want to have to have a transplant." Well, so three years ago, my numbers got to the point where I actually got put on the state of Texas kidney transplant list, which means now I'm looking for a donor. And in the state of Texas, that's an eight year wait. So, with an eight year wait, I started talking to my brother and to my sister—my younger sister and, yes, my older brother. So, in having this discussion, they both jumped up and said, "We're in. Whatever it takes, we're in." Now with my nephrologist, he said, "Here's what we want to do. We don't want you to have to go into dialysis." So, we were tracking my numbers to the point that if we could get one of the two of them tested to be a match, we wanted the transplant to take place before I would have to hit dialysis. And we got within—when the transplant finally took place, you talk about God's perfect timing, we got within three months. So, if the transplant hadn't happened in March, when it did, by this summer, I would have gone into dialysis. And the reason you don't want the dialysis from a transplant standpoint is that there's every possibility that dialysis can affect the success of a full transplant. So, both my sister and my brother agreed to be tested. They took them one at a time. My sister was not a good match. My brother stepped up. He was a great match. And so, with that great match, with a great kidney, the transplant doctor, when he took it out of him, told us later, he said, "They pulled out this kidney and they went, 'This is beautiful.'" [laughter] I guess transplant doctors have a different view of beauty, but there was this work of art. Work of art that came out of him and got put into me. So, we did it within the time. God's incredible timing to get that done right when it needed to be. And that was March 22nd. And so, I've just gone beyond 30 days in recovery and lots more to come. But that's kind of the process we've been through and what's been there and how it's been there. And it's been a fascinating thing to see God step in and begin to do things and take it out of our hands.

Sean: Now, I want to come to you, Scott, and hear about when you first heard about this. But I do have to say, not that I'm surprised, but Mark, man, you are super articulate and thoughtful. And so, if something really does happen to Scott, we've got an easy substitute here to just step in and pick up right where things were left off. [all laugh] But all kidding aside, Scott, I'm really curious when you first got that call or in person and your brother says something really serious about his health that might involve you.

Scott: Yeah, this happened about in September of 2023, because my sister was first up because she was considerably younger. And she had a couple of deal breakers right off the bat that disqualified her. So, you didn't really get to the point where they are really serious under the hood, look at your health. So, in September, we found that she had been disqualified. And so early October, I knew that I was going to have to start doing the testing for this. And this is testing like I've never had before. So, I combined this with our trip to the evangelical theological society just happened to be meeting in San Antonio that year. And I had to go to Houston to do all this testing. So, I just took a day on each end of ETS and went for a day's worth of testing on both sides. In those two days, they took I think at last count, it was about 80 vials of blood, in those two days, 70 different tests that were done. I think easily $50,000 worth of testing. I got a look under the hood of my health that I never anticipated. And it turned out that all the news was great. I mean, I was thrilled with what they found out. And the transplant people they're obsessed with making sure that there is nothing in my health that would compromise my ability to live with one kidney successfully. And so, they just pulled out all the stops. And so, I got cleared on the health aspects for my part in November. And then in January, we did the main genetic test to ensure compatibility. And there are a handful of genetic factors that have to line up to ensure that you're compatible. And if you're not, my brother would have rejected the kidney right off the bat. And so, I had enough it wasn't it wasn't entirely perfect, but I had enough of those genetic factors line up to where they said you are very compatible. We got the green light to go ahead. Set a surgery date for the end of February. It was just after my 70th birthday. So, I told my brother, "I'm giving you a kidney for my 70th birthday.” And it turned out three days before I was supposed to leave to go to Houston for the surgery I contracted COVID. And I was, I admit, I had a few words with the Lord about his timing for this. And I'm pretty sure I know where I contracted it, but that delayed it 30 days. And so, I basically went into quarantine myself. Mark had been in quarantine for a while, but I went into quarantine myself, just ensuring that I was not going to be exposed to anything that might jeopardize this again, because I knew we had to get this done in March. Or, you know, he was looking at dialysis. And that was something we really wanted to avoid.

Sean: Now, Scott, if I'm not mistaken, doing this show, I think was my idea. Didn't I say, hey, let's do a show and talk about it. Is that how you remember it? And I said, Do you think your brother will join us? And you said, “I gave him a kidney. It's the least he can do is come on the show and join us.” And I'll never forget that. I was like, fair enough. Now, Mark, I'm curious, you mentioned this was an eight year delay in the state of Texas. And you're in that window that's getting tighter because of COVID. Now, if he wasn't a match or weren't able to go forward, what would have happened?

Mark: Well, you're on an eight year wait list. So, you're put on the national kidney donor wait list. And in the state of Texas, it's eight years. There are other states that it's not quite so long. And there are people that will actually relocate to another state to have that time window reduced. But here in the state of Texas, if Scott had not been a match, then I'm at the mercy of finding a match through the donor system, either a living donor or a non living donor. A living donor, you have at least a 50% more success rate, higher success rate than you do with a non living donor. So, it would put me back in that list. And the difficulty was more than likely, even with dialysis, I probably would not have made it the full eight years on that wait list if we hadn't found the donor. So there's a side of this that is, is it life and death? Well, no, not immediate. But is it life and death? Yeah, it is. Because the real possibility existed that at the end of going on dialysis at the end of that completion, which is about a five year process, getting to the end of an eight year wait—I might not have survived the dialysis in the eight year wait to actually get a donor. So there was a beauty in—and Scott's being a little, a little humble about this. There are five markers, and he hit three of the five perfectly, which from a donor standpoint is gold for this to be a great kidney to come in. Okay. So yeah, the outlook was not was not great.

Scott: I'll add just one thing to that too. The Transplant Center in Houston has a donor matching network to where I could have donated to somebody else who I would have been a match in exchange for Mark getting somebody else who was a match.

Mark: Yeah, I'd stay at the top of the list.

Scott: Yeah. So if I had donated somebody else, he moves right to the top.

Sean: Gotcha. Thanks. Thankfully, that wasn't necessary. Did you have any second thoughts about this? Scott, did you ever think, Oh, what am I going through? He was a lousy brother anyways. I'm obviously kidding on the second part, but it's natural given, you know, just the nature of living on one kidney that you might have some kind of second thoughts.

Scott: You know, I think the only second thoughts I had were during the recovery process. Am I really sure I wanted to have done this? Because the recovery has been a bit more rigorous than I was planning on. But in terms of going forward with this, you know, it was really pretty simple and straightforward. I just wanted him to live. And, you know, according to his doctors, without the transplant, he had three years to live, with dialysis five. So if I didn't do this, you know, he was, you know, he wasn't going to live. And I did, I refrained from telling my coordinator that he, that my brother actually offered me $20,000 to give him a kidney. No, he did not do that. [all laugh] That would have disqualified us immediately. They're actually very careful to make sure that my decision to do this is totally voluntary. And it's not colored by any factors outside of my desire to see my brother live. And that's to not create a kind of a market of demand where people get paid off.

Sean: Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Well, I'm curious how both of you just spiritually prep for this because I actually had two surgeries in the fall for a totally different condition. And I had never had surgery before, but in this case, they were just fixing something, let alone having an organ taken out of my body or an organ put into my body. Just start with you, Mark. How did you prep for this? Just spiritually and emotionally?

Mark: Um, I guess the best way I can describe it is this. You go through a kind of roller coaster of emotions. And part of that roller coaster is really, I'm going to have a kidney transplant. That can't possibly be. And still there has been an element through this whole thing, Sean, of you can't come up with a reason why my kidneys are failing. Is that really the case? Because what you're always told is if we had an underlying cause, we could remove that underlying cause and this wouldn't be necessary. So there's that whole side of it that is, I'm not sure I understand why I'm in the position I'm in. And then the roller coaster of I'm going to have it. Well, wait a minute. I mean, God's hands now I'm back up on the upswing. Then I hit the peak and I go, you know, Lord, I know you've got this, but do I really have to have a transplant? So, there was a tremendous amount for me that was just simply praying. Praying for me to see the Lord's hand in this; praying for me to see his calming effect over this. You know, Philippians 4 tells us that we can have the peace of God and the God of peace. I was really searching for the peace of God and the God of peace to be with me in the midst of something that, you know, you hear other people have transplants—and God introduced me to a number of people who have had kidney transplants or other transplants that I saw over the course of the last six months prior to the surgery who said, I'm 15 years into a transplant and things are great. I'm, you know, I'm 20 years into my transplant and things are great. So, God began to kind of give me a vision of this, this can actually work and it can actually be good and I can actually survive. You know, the fallout from that, Sean, is if I don't get it, I was not ready for the Lord to be done with me in three to five years. He may have other plans there, but three to five years is a short window to prepare yourself. So, a lot of prayer, a lot of just quiet and alone time, a lot of prayer with my wife, and just, just really kind of centering myself around, Lord, this doesn't make sense, but I'm trusting you. That's kind of the basis of where it was with me.

Sean: It makes a lot of sense. We talked about a couple things. Number one, not knowing the cause is just really unsettling, isn't it? Is it genetic? Is it something I ate? Is it environmental? That adds a level of like, so if I get this transplant, is it going to happen again? Like we don't know those things. And so that's where really, like you said, that trust comes into play. But with my, you know, my issue in the fall was amazing how many people I met. And when I told them, we're like, I went through that, I went through that. It stunned me. And that was some of the most encouragement that I had from others, which reminds us to be able to encourage other people when they're hurting in a way that we can relate to. Scott, maybe you could talk a little bit about how you prepped for this.

Scott: Yeah. I admit initially I had some sentiment where I said to myself and to my wife, you know, I really wish my sister was qualified to do this because after the number of vials of blood they had taken, you know, passed over a hundred, you know, I was ready, I was ready to kind of get my life back. And I think we were so concerned about getting to the place where we could get the surgery done, especially after we had had one false start already and we really couldn't afford another one. And I just hadn't thought much about what the aftermath was going to be like. I hadn't thought about, you know, what I was going to feel emotionally. I hadn't thought about, you know, what I was going to feel physically. I mean it was 10 days before I could bend down and tie my shoes. Gosh. And I had to sleep sitting up for the first two weeks because it was so uncomfortable just to lie down. And there were side effects from the pain medication that were challenging. And I thought, this is a lot more rigorous than I thought. And the level of fatigue that I experienced, they said you'll feel fatigue. And I wish they had said a little bit more than that, because this is fatigue, like I've never felt. And it's the body adjusting. And it helped me put myself in Mark's shoes for the last three or four years. Because that's the level of fatigue I think he'd been feeling for that, for that whole time. And this, my level of fatigue got old after about two or three days. And so, I think what I've had to process spiritually is more in the aftermath than in the preparation. Because I've had people who are just saying be patient. People said, after all, look, you're old, you had an organ taken out of you. Be patient with yourself and listen to your body. You know, you need to rest. Do so. Don't think you can power through everything. Well, none of those things are things that anybody would say I'm particularly good at. You know, I don't listen to my body very well. I'm not very patient with myself when I have things to do and things that need to be done. So, I think trusting the Lord to rest and to give the attention I needed to the recovery. I missed a number of sessions that, Sean, you had subs for, thankfully they did really well. But I'm so glad to be back at that. But, you know, there are just things I had, I can't do these things. And I've never been in a place where I've had to say that. And so, the trust and my time with the Lord and my ability to trust Him for those things when my body just wasn't cooperating, that was hard. And so, I think most of how I was formed and being for it was in the aftermath of this, not so much the preparation beforehand.

Sean: Oh, that's really interesting. I'd love to hear how this affected your wives and that dynamic in a relationship there. Because, you know, this fall I mentioned there were a few days I was in so much pain. I literally had no emotional energy to give to my kids, to my wife. She picked up the slack and was just an absolute saint during that time. It was the only way that I could put it. Mark, how was that for you? How did it, and this is a longer process for you. So you could answer this from the beginning all the way till now. Talk about that dynamic a little bit, if you will.

Mark: Well, God has blessed me tremendously with a wife who has stood beside me through this. She's walked this whole way with me. And I think where Scott was correct, we were working so hard to get ourselves to the surgery that once the transplant occurred, there's a whole other side of this. So, our end of it has looked a little bit different in that we were quarantining for three months. So, we were not going to church, not being in the office, not doing the things we needed to do, not being with people prior to the surgery. Since the surgery, there's a very strict protocol because I have no immune system right now. In order to have my kidney function, they've had to basically wipe out my immune system medically, which means I can't catch anything. I can't be around anybody. S,o we're still quarantining and probably will have a good three months. We're past our first month, but another three months. So, when it's all said and done, we will have been quarantining for about six months. One thing when you're in the middle of COVID, another thing when nobody else is quarantining. So, my wife is incredibly outgoing, loves to be with people, loves to be around people. And so, one of the really difficult things for her has been not being able to be connected to all of her people, the people at church, the people in Bible studies, the people in small groups. We've had to do a lot of that by Zoom calls, by video calls. And that's been a really difficult thing. We're looking forward to the day when we can actually begin to re-engage with society. But that's still a ways away. And it's been difficult for her because if she catches something, I'm going to get it. So, she's had to walk that path with me, which has been a very difficult path. The second thing that's been really hard for her is that when I came out of surgery, there were certain things I couldn't do. I can't lift anything over five pounds for the first 30 days. After that, I can't lift anything over 10 pounds for two more months. Things that I would normally do around the house, things that I would do to help. I'm not supposed to be in the grocery stores. I'm not supposed to go around people. I'm not supposed to drive. There's a number of those things that I'm not supposed to do, which means the burden of that falls on her. And I don't know if—let me share this. She, nine years ago, had a traumatic brain injury and it has caused a reduced function in her brain so that an absolute necessity is the need for habit. She's gotta have a very consistent pattern to her day so that she can keep up with it. The hard part is now she's got me at home. She's having to pick up the slack and that pattern of life has had to change dramatically for her. The second part of this is it's really affected her and her ability to get through a day without it really affecting her brain. The combination of the quarantine, not seeing people, and this change in her habits during the day, her pattern of life during the day, has made it really difficult. We're both really excited for the time in which I can re enter, I can come back. The beautiful thing is we love each other and we really like being together because we're getting a whole lot of time together. Just the two of us.

Sean: For young people listening, it's a reminder. In your vows, when you say through sickness and through health, you better mean it because it's coming. It's only a matter of time. That commitment makes all the differences it has for both of you. Scott, your thoughts?

Mark: Just real quick, I think you also found one other thing. That is when you are forced into this type, it takes you out of your comfort zone of just the natural things that happen during the day and you do focus on each other. It's been a really great thing to see us focus on each other and spend a tremendous amount of time together. You hear a lot about couples. You're saying when the kids leave, they have nothing to talk about. We've looked at each other and said, "Well, that's never been us." We love being together and we love talking with one another. It's been a really beautiful extension of that relationship.

Scott: I'm married to a saint, too, and I can attest Mark's wife, Melissa, she deserves canonization here at the earliest possible opportunity. What my wife, Sally, helped me with was to process all the emotional stuff that came out afterwards. She helped me tie my shoes and get dressed and take walks and all that kind of stuff, but mainly processing the emotional stuff that came out. I think for one, it caught us both a little off guard how overwhelming that was because this stuff just all came out when we didn't expect it and didn't see it coming. But I think for me, she helped me process the relief that I experienced once this thing was done and recovery was all I had in front of me because really what we were so focused on was just getting this thing done. The relief was so significant. But the other thing that was so significant, I've had people be grateful for me for a lot of things, but never like this. I've never had somebody express this level of gratitude to me for anything. That was a little overwhelming for me. I did not see that emotion coming. Especially when their youngest son came in, he lives in Dallas and came for a couple of days during the surgery, he made a special effort to come to my room the day after the surgery and just say basically, "Thanks for what you've done for my dad." It was really special. I think the other part that was really overwhelming was just the number of people who prayed for us both. Most people who prayed for us prayed for both of us at the same time. The amount of support and encouragement we got was totally overwhelming. So, you put all those things together. If I didn't have somebody to process that with, doing that by myself, I don't like that idea. But she was really helpful in that regard.

Sean: This is so rich and so helpful. Let me end with a question for each of you. Are there any biblical reflections that coming out of this really stood out to you? Maybe passages that you held on to, maybe biblical truths that came alive. For me, I was thinking about this. Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but you've got this condition, Mark. You can't fix yourself. It literally takes somebody willing to sacrifice of themselves and give to you to have life. There's something very akin to what Christ does in a sense for us. There's a kind of substitution here that's powerful. What it means to love somebody is literally to sacrifice. That's gone throughout my mind a few times as I've thought about this. I'm curious what your takeaway might be, Mark.

Mark: Well, first thing, and I would say this biblically, and I would say this to anybody, is that prayer works. Scott had this revelation of how many people prayed for us. We've had people praying for us for a number of years because they've been following, "How's your kidney? What's happening with your kidney? What's going on?" And when we finally had that deadline date for the surgery in place, the prayer was just ramped up. And I will tell you, it's been an overwhelming feeling to know how many people had us focused, centering their prayers. I'll give you one really quick story of how God takes prayer and really answers it. We were praying specifically for the surgery. And when Scott went into surgery, they found that his kidney didn't have one artery, it had three. It's one of the reasons why they said it's a beautiful kidney, but it was unusual for him to have three arteries. Well, the surgeon that was assigned to me to put the kidney back into me, that surgeon they pulled off of the rotation and brought the two best surgeons in the Methodist transplant system who have over 70 years of experience. They came in, they thought they were going to have to use cadaver veins or artificial veins to put it in, but these two guys figured out how to not have to use anything other than what was in my body to put this thing back in. What God knew was that that kidney was going in me, and it would take the cooperative effort of the two best transplant surgeons in the Methodist system to be able to make this happen. And it happened right then. So, you ask what's the first thing biblically, I would tell you, prayer works, it works phenomenally, and God answers in ways that we have no idea how he's going to answer, but he does. And are we looking for it? First and foremost, that's it. I think the second thing is that I've come to the realization we are truly fearfully and wonderfully made. To think that a kidney from my brother can come into me and actually function, which it started functioning within 15 minutes! That kidney was functioning and functioning on its own. What God has done to create this human body that we inhabit, what he's done to create that and what the medical advancements that are there, the things that are there. And believe me, we prayed for miraculous healing. God chose to reveal himself this way. And it's been a really spectacular thing to see him show up and to do things that we can see scripturally he's promised he would do.

Scott: I can attest to the fearfully and wonderfully made part in my own recovery, because what happens, the one kidney I have left expands, it gets bigger, and it gets more efficient. That's just the way the body works. You know, fearfully and wonderfully made. Absolutely. That's not the kind of thing that happens through time and chance and random mutations. So I don't lose half my kidney function. I'll lose some, but you know, the one kidney just sort of naturally compensates for the loss of the other one. How the body knows to do that, it's a mystery, but I think it's tough to deny that there's not a designer involved here just, just through what we've seen with this.

Sean: Those are great reflections. Mark, you've given us a sense of how you're doing your recovery, but Scott, when I asked you last week, I think you said about 80%, where are you at? And can we expect you to be back now regularly on the podcast?

Scott: Yes, you can. I'm still probably at 80%, honestly.

Sean: Okay.

Scott: But, I'm able to work full days now without paying for it dearly the next day. I still need to be a little bit careful and manage my energy. But yeah, I'm looking forward to just being back to full strength. My guess is probably another two weeks then I'll be back at 100%.

Sean: About two weeks. Okay, good. Well, we'll look forward to that, but it's great to have you back and healthy. Mark, thanks for taking the time to join us and to share. This has been so interesting. At some point, you and I have to meet in person and just swap some stories about your brother, which we didn't get into today. Maybe we'll do a follow up.

Scott: It's going to be a long time before he can be around strangers. He's going to be in quarantine for a long time to come. [all laugh

Sean: I love it. That's great. Well, this has been a ton of fun. Thanks to both of you for just your willingness to share something like this. It's obviously so personal, so powerful, and you've obviously both been incredibly reflective on it. So we appreciate you both coming on to share.

Mark: Thank you so much. Appreciate the opportunity.

Sean: This has been an episode of the podcast Think Biblically: Conversations on Faith and Culture. The Think Biblically podcast is brought to you by Talbot School of Theology at Biola University. We have programs in apologetics, spiritual formation, Bible and theology, ministry and family, online and in person to submit comments or ask questions or suggest issues or guests you'd like us to include. Please email us at ThinkBiblically@Biola.edu. That's ThinkBiblically@Biola.edu. And if you have some words of encouragement for either Mark or Scott and want to email them in, we'll make sure that you see those. If you enjoyed today's conversation, please give us a rating on your podcast app and consider sharing with your friend. And remember to join us Friday for our weekly cultural update. And in the meantime, remember, Think Biblically about everything.