The Big Sandy Mountaineer -

Erik Siestsma is the pastor of the Big Sandy Community Church of God, which has been going on for 11 years. They have had a regular live stream on the Church of God Facebook page on Sunday mornings for many years. He also has patchingcracks.com, a blog where he writes. You can also google him on Youtube, although he isn't as constant there. He has started a deep dive facebook teaching session on Wednesdays for 30-60 minutes.

He loves to research, and much of what he finds ends up on the cutting floor, so he started the Wednesday morning teaching session to bring up the information he had to cut. It's live but recorded, so you can also go after the fact when you have time.

"This is sometimes just me covering all the rabbit trails I wanted to talk about; There's so much history. I'm a researcher. I love to read. I love to research. I love to study; it's kind of what is important. I periodically email a guy who's a professor in Jewish Studies in Boston. I found him on Twitter and asked him some questions. And you know, when I hit the spot I don't understand something, I send him an email, and he'll answer some questions. He will recommend books. I found a guy who has a doctorate and teaches physics, and I was trying to understand something about physics. I found him on Twitter, and we email now and again and talk now and again. I got people like that all over the country. A philosophy professor at the school I went to in Chicago when I went to college there. His specialty is ancient, ancient Greek and Roman philosophy. I asked him Bible questions or philosophy questions, and we interacted. That kind of stuff is cool. I really enjoy learning. I love digging. When I preach, I'll often preach from whatever I remember from what I studied."

"He learns so much information that he doesn't have time to present on a Sunday morning. "I can teach it in another setting. I spent a huge amount of time a few weeks ago studying the ancient patronage system. The entire Roman Empire was run on it. I researched it. I studied patronage. If you were the wealthier, more powerful, or influential person, you would pay people to be your friends, and so like they would receive benefits from you. They were expected to do things when it was their turn. It was something that fit into something I was reading what I was preaching on at the time, and I knew there was just no way to include all of this cool, historical information." It ended up on the cutting floor.

I asked Erik if he would prefer to be closer to an academic world because there aren't many places for that kind of discussion in rural Montana.

Erik said, "Well, that's true. And it's not true. Okay. People find it interesting. I have these

conversations with people or like the deep dive thing. People kind of come around, say, Oh, wow, this is a really interesting thing, or I'll include something in the sermon that many people will say, you know, I love the history. I love the historical background. I love the cultural context. I mean, that's something I get a lot of positive feedback about. There are the people around here, you know, they're brilliant. They're really intelligent, educated people in this community. It's easy to say, Oh, well, it's farmers, you know. They're brilliant people here, and it's fun to talk about these things.

I've been a Christian for 30, some odd years now, and I love I love the Bible. I've learned to love the word of God. When you study these things, dig deep, and like swimming and absorbing it, it gives you a better understanding. And that's amazing. I love that. I also like that my dad's got a master's degree in history. I think it was his first master's degree. I don't know how many he's got, I'm going to say it, and you're going to quote me, and he'll call me and say no. I think my dad has like seven master's degrees or something ridiculous. My father's a brilliant guy, and he didn't work in academics either. But he read it, studied it, learned it, and loved it." Erik mentioned to me that his dad taught him to love to study. He called his father and asked, "Can you talk to me about Greek and Roman coins and their significance? The use of this particular denomination and how it intertwined with emperor worship. We had an hour-long conversation.

The internet has made it possible to meet experts anywhere on anything so that I can interact with them again; like the Jewish Studies books I bought, I bought a set of them in my Bible software. And it's like, you know, several 100 books from this particular author I interacted with in Boston. He holds the chair for this. The world is the way it is. You can find experts. I was reading about an interesting fact related to the crucifixion, and I found a woman with a doctorate in ancient Roman torture techniques. Her doctoral dissertation was on Ancient Rome, and I traded emails with her to ask questions. It's one of those things you know, the world is fascinating, and it's open right now. You can get any information--there's so much online. You can buy books and have them in your house by the end of the week.

Of course, he has to find a place to put the books. "I know I've got junk everywhere. I collect things and well, everybody's got their hobbies. Right. And I have a lot of like Star Wars and stuff like that. Yeah, my Star Wars ships." He has quite a few of those on shelves behind me in my deep dive setting. "I've got a handful of velvet bullfighter paintings on my wall. I got started on those because of Peps. Of course, he's got those velvet paintings everywhere, and I picked up some velvet Bullfighter paintings."