The Cutting Room Floor · Quarryville Church

3. Forgiveness (Feat Dr. Dave Smith)

March 29, 2021·51 min·4 clips

A psychologist studied forgiveness after his mother's murder and his brother's suicide.

Dave Smith comes in as a Bible professor and ministry leader. The host introduces him through Bible study, True North Ministry, and a Georgia conference where Dave's way of teaching changed how he understood Bible study itself. The point is plain, and it asks a lot. Bible study is work the people do, not a performance the pastor handles while everyone else listens. That shape carries into the rest of the episode. Forgiveness is treated less like a polished spiritual theme and more like something that gets into bodies, worship, and resentment. Jesus' words stay in the middle. Dave keeps returning to the prayer about forgiven debts and forgiving debts, asking what it means to take Jesus seriously there. The host slows things down and follows unforgiveness where it actually goes: anger, sadness, vengeance, and the need to know everything before letting anything go. Even the jaw gets attention. The conversation notices where anger sits in the body, from the stomach to the face, without turning that into a trick or system. Worthington's work gives the ache some language. Dave says that work can help the person who needs to forgive move through feelings strong enough to block even the desire to forgive. Then the theological point lands softly, which makes it hit harder. Bitterness can make a person unlike Jesus, not because the pain is fake, but because the heart starts giving itself to hate. The host catches the reversal. The feelings named in unforgiveness begin to look like the opposite of Jesus when they become a place to live. The ending stays personal. Dave thanks the host for leading a church through COVID by moving Bible practice online and into small groups when it was inconvenient. No tidy moral gets stapled on. Forgiveness remains hard, embodied, scriptural, and communal, something entered with honest attention instead of rushed certainty.

As heard by us

A measured faith conversation that makes forgiveness feel immediate and practical.

This conversation treats forgiveness as something lived in the body, not just talked about. It keeps circling back to anger in the jaw or stomach, resentment, and the way bitterness can harden a person.

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Why you'd press play

If bitterness has a grip on you, this conversation names where it lives.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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