And sisters. For our purpose ofr theme today we are going to stay to stay with brothers. Brotherso brothers. I have had the privile of going to this group brothers to brothers a few times now. I l be coming back and going back. N i asked them if they would likeo have a representative from mosaic on the program they unany they unanimously recommended reginald laus. Welcome. Its a pleasure to be here. Great to have you. Thank your taking the time to be here this. One of the things before we geto brothers to brothers, i always e my audience to know who you aree of your background, some of you. Sherry little bit about what yor experiences have been. I am raised in oakland, nort. North oakland. I have lived in other places in the city of oakland. Im a member of Temple Baptist church. Been there for, oh, 40 years. Okay. I was the chairman of the deacon board at one time. Im sl a deacon there. I am a believer. A believer. I teach class ix, sy school class ix, an adult class. Ix, an adult class. Maybe 35 or0 people attended. That must be interesting. It is. We really try to makee word become alive in our lives as our understanding. I also teh also teach Old Testament. Thats what i understand. Old testament one and two wih the Leadership Institute that was founded by dr. Smith senior. I am a and him and aryan graduate. Graduate of San Francisco state. Okay. High school at oakland tech but i am married to Dolores Gibson miles, the flower of ber. Of berkeley. She is going to be looking at be looking at this. Yes. We live up in marin county. I was in lawenforcemenr 30 years. 30 years. Started in the brooklyn Polie Department for 30 years. I came over to novato as a captain and a deputy chief there. I still live up in novato. I did not know you had a police background. I was at a jl day and they said that their chh their church does a lot of workd liles has been that liaison. They said, he is a police offic . I said i did not know that. Oh yes, he has had a lot of expense a lot of expense in lawenforce. You have a great reputation for. I always believed in, you kn, matthew 5 10 said blessed are te peacemakers for they shall be cd children of god. I always wanteo be a peacemaker as opposed to a peacekeeper. Anybody can keep te peace if you have enough power d weapons and authority. A maker, a peacemaker, has to listen andd all factions and try to navigate and create a peaceful solutionr everybody. Where everybody is a. Is affirmed. Where everybody ist hole. I like that concept and unde. We know there has been a lot of tension in our communities, ande American Community with police. Im sure you have had to walk tt line at times. I have been one of the fiercs but i love tops, but i have to be honest, they, in this last, is a 20 or 25 years, they have walked away from their ethical. Not all of them. No. Not all of them, but there ia percentage there that have walked away from the ethical ung of who and what they are. In ouy and our community. Thereby, we have mario woods and eric garnea garner emma it is just you are speaking from experi. Not a critic outside, from inside and that makes a difference. Yeah. And they are not happy, are not happy, some of them are not happy, but the truth is thet that they have to get back to ethics. Thats right. The truth setss free. Mario woods, 56, 120 pound, homeless with a penknife and nine officers. They are all shog all shooting. Terrible. We are going to come back to brothers to brothers. Im glad e had this introduction of what yu do and who you are. Thank you fr being with us but please join un our next segment with reginald. Brothers to brothers and some oe work he is doing. Will is what you will so which s years ago i was will will will of the you you will just is your cv is powered by of [ music ] [ music ] welcome back to mosaic. We he been speaking to reginald lilesu have heard some of his great background and experience. Now one of the reasons i invited him i invited him is to talk about brothers to brothers. Tell us a little bit about brothers to br. Brothers to brothers has been has been going on for about 20 s 20 years. It emanated or startd or started from a gentleman by the name of her bluffton. Who was trying to bring african amen men together and focusing on bible study and just navigating. Navigating life. So, it started with two or Three Friends that he knew that attended church wih him. It has grown to now we will we will have a session every tuesday night and maybe 65 or 7n come. They are an eclectic group. We have seventhday adventists, baptists, a large gp of catholic, we have muslims tht attend. And we have some people who are agnostic, et cetera. And you have a methodist now. And then we have, you know, fulk who have been very accompld in their careers. We had the prt the president of the junior colr district. We have had presence of colleges. Former mayors. Andr and former city council persons. Lawyers, businessmen, develops businessmen, developers. Stuck e of the things i found interestig found interesting my first time as they said they wanted two ths not to be mentioned. Your title and your denomination. That is correct. So it doesnt get in the way. Get in the way. Thats correct. We had to leave that at the door. They tro go on a first name basis. They t everyone. We have to listen. Thats what we are working hard. Hard on. Forcing ourselves and sometimes it has be forced to really hear what your brother i. We use the platform of studyinge scriptures. We read the bible from genesis to revelations. Ann we start over again. , times have you gone through the bible . I have been there, i would s, would say, 10 years and at least four. Four times. Thats good. Sometimes we get, maybe, thre or four versus and then people raise their hand and have a quen or they want to expound on the. From that exchange we believe tt believe that what needs to comet come out and needs to be heard is heard. I heard you mention earlier t you teach the Old Testament. Why that . Some people would say why not the new testament . Y not the gospels . Why not paul bg the primary choice . Some people say the Old Testament is so comx and difficult and challenging. It is in some places, but its important that we understand weo follow jesus christ need to undd that jesus christ wasnt a chri. He didnt read paul. He didnt read matthew or mark or luke. Hs trying to reflect on the profits and the law and he was trying o say, i think, this is how you have been taught. Im going to l to you another way of looking at of looking at this in the contet of where you are and where you e living now. This is not to be ad from god that is exclusionary. But inclusive. Okay. I think when we understand tt understand that and then the ats the attributes of christ, the christology of christ, then i be we can understand better how we should live. What was jesus talking about when he was quoting isaiah . What was this ay show moment when he was runningy from the profits of the bile . Wt was that all about . Do we have the same situations here . I dont think you can really understandw testament scriptures unless youd you understand what they are reg off of, how they are evolving of of that. They are echoing off of what they know, but they have been taught. Launching out into a new way of applying it to their lives. Its often said without the s you dont get the fruits. You nd to have that history, that heritage. Sound like a rapper. Thats pretty good. Thats right. Without the roots you dont get the fruits. We can understand e shouldnt call it the old testat Old Testament. So, we should und it as such. And we can understad it as such, we should understano those people were. They were african, asiatic people. We should embrace that and understand that. And then apply that evolution, how the scriptures evolved through timeo the day and how we are evolving. Are evolving. I dont believe gd has stopped revealing god its p to gods creation. God is still speaking. I lik. I like that too. I noticed in the two times ie come that each individual is able to speak. Listening is also listening is also some of the ss that we developed. I didnt heay say you are wrong to say that. We dont allow that. We alsot allow arguments. We can have ane an exchange. You can have a person saying i believe it is ts and how i heard it. Another pern can say i have heard this. We dt have that direct backandforth arguments or debates. Why is that . Too much confli . Much conflict . Peoples feelings get hurt. Icu. We are not there to hurt or e on anyones feelings. We are the to open up their mind. We believe in the renewing of the mind. I have heard often times s will say i have never heard it like that before. Well, thats fine. As you well know, learninn be a struggle. It takes couraget it . Thats right. Thank you haveo launch out on things that you dont know and to see if it is being embraced. We pray for thee of the holy spirit. We believe t the holy spirit is an entity, an an entity, an agent, that is hee with us. So, areuided by it. Ilso prherstobaanother segmei is nswe need to take break and we will come right ba. Please join us again with regind lyles, brothers to brothers. [ music ] [ music ] as reginald mentioned earlie, there are brothers from all bacs who come. One of the persons who persons who come is an author ad he happens to have the authors. I think it would be good to lift to lift him up and tell us who e is. Yes. His name is ronald cole. Reverend ronald cole. His books book is, paying attention, the l journey. Ronald cole is a dear. I think we met one another when we were in the fourth grade, thd or fourth grade. He is a phenoml minister of god and servant of. Of course, we both serve under jaclyn thompson, the Senior Pastor at allen temple church. E love her dearly. This is a grea. A great read for men to see howd how god has used an individual. This gentleman is a very uncommn man, but he writes for the common man. Okay. Why brothers . Why men . Y that emphasis . Well, that is one of the strg issues of our growth. I have hed folks say, well, we need time wn we can be alone and to talk, et. Et cetera. I hope that we can ee can evolve into having men and n and women. At this point thats where it is. When we have our r, and we do have a retreat every , we have brought in like dr. Jaclyn thompson who presented in who presented in front of us. And then reverend dr. Pope has also presented. And dr. Thompsod a session for us together. I dont see it as sexist, byy means but i see it as men need certain things and women have certain groups but thats the way i see it. That i think youe probably right about that. But i about that. But i think we needo have a time when we come togeth. We will see what happens. We will just follow the holy spirit holy spirit and see what happen. What happens. I can take it eitr way. As i mentioned earlier in the earlier in the introduction, thy translation says brothers and ss and sisters in harmony and unity. Yes i think that is the ultimate. Is the ultimate. If the bible was written by n it probably would be a whole lo. Right. There are a lot of verses tht wouldnt be in there. That obeying her husband and submittg and all of that kind of language. Right. And women be silent. And be silent in church. That was just horrendous. I was in seminary and heard f a story about Howard Thurman who about Howard Thurman who was reg was reading the scripture to hir his grandmother no formal educa. Formal education. When he got to got to the point where it said women should be silent in church should be silent in church his r said, how we, dont read that p. Right. Also, that part about severance be obedient to your m. Yes expect grandmother said, i dont want to hear that eithe. Which is a way of controlline controlling people. I think the gospel is liberating. I believen a liberation theology. That is e context from which i come. Thats what i try to promulgate. To promulgate. One of the interesting discussions when i went the last last time was that we talked abt the text in the context of peops lives. Some people wanted to tak more about the context of peopls lives. We had a long discussion about that before we got into te bible study. Some people say wee here for the text. What are your are your thoughts on that . I think it has to be a combi. I dont think that literalists g the text without context, withot context, without making some hermeneutical application the the text wont serve us. Thee is not merely a history lesson. When it is looked at like that, that allows us to not think thae have to act out with what the be is asking us to act. It is almot is almost apart from us. Is oute of us. The word of god is suppod to be in us. We are supposed to apply our lives and our action,r behaviors based on the truth ane heroes within the bible. If a ho does something that is not godle are not to replicate it, becauss in the bible. Right. The text has to be challenged, it has to be wrestled with within the confins of where we are living. Like jacob wrestled with god. Wrestled with god. Exactly. I dont believe thad would come to me and speak to mn the mandarin language. I dont understand mandarin. God will speak to me in a language in the language in the context of whici understand. And then use me youd would want me to be used. I think the bible is alive, e alive, because 3000 years ago t spoke to the people then and itl speaks to us now. It is still speaking to us now. Thats what makes it so dynamic. I do believe god speaks to folks that speak mandarin. We have one more segment. Thk you so much for all that you have shared. Please, join us ine last segment with reginald lyle. We speak about the scripture anw important it is to our lives. [ music ] [ music ] we are so grateful for regind lyles. We are speaking about the are speaking about the bible ane scripture. We want to say in these last few minutes, how doet word speak to us in our day and . We are living in some difficult times, as you will know. We have a person in the white house who is antitheticals far as i am concerned. Meanspid concerned. Meanspirited and causing a lot of pain. The scrie the scripture will educate us on on folks like that and tell us t to give up hope your faith. Gods still in the blessing business. And that these better times aren the horizon. What about those who consider evangelical who overwhelmingly support the president . I dont know how you can ovey support someone who lies and hae horrible moral lifestyle that ts one has. I pray for my evangelical brothers that they would wake up, because theyre t supposed to follow that type of. I think thats pretty provocative. I dont censor anyone who comes on my show. I t everyone to hear what you have d have said. I appreciate your th. Your thoughts. If youre following someone o can separate babies from motherg is wrong with your application of jesus christ and his love for love for his people. How would you apply it in tes of seeing the scripture in light in light of that . You quote scre quite well. What are some of ths the scriptures you would say tok that kind of injustice against that injustice . First of all, old man, you kw what is good. Do justice, mercyd walk only before your god. Micah before your god. Micah 6 4. He is not doing justice. He is in oligarch and meanspirited and he has caused more pain than no. Than not. Why do you think micah put je first before love and money . I believe justice is the foun of love. You have people who cae a lot of things, gambling, drugs, money, but justice is thn of which the house of love is constructed upon. If no justices then you cant love a person. That is why i understand the song, what has love got to do with it . I dont how anyone could dise with that. I understand why people welcomed, i should say, d you to be the spokesperson for s to brothers, thank you. Thank you. I will be seeing you again s. Again soon. I will be a brothers brothers to brothers against th. That come early and have a meal with us. We will see you next month. [ music ] [ music ] area studios. After months authority track down a man who killed and an 8yearold girl. Wedonve soph but just to be able to prevent this from happening to any other other kids in the future would be our goal. And the smoke spreads across the bay area from a wildfire bug near tahoe. How much longer it is likely to hang around. First it was martinis. They. Ive just been lucky