Bible study with one primary goal, learn to love like Jesus. Join Wes McAdams for in-depth, encouraging, and relevant studies of biblical passages and biblical topics. Formerly, CrossTalk Podcast.
What Does Matthew Teach Us About Discipleship? with Travis Bookout
Sep 04, 2024
This episode of the Radically Christian Bible Study Podcast tackles some crucial questions about discipleship and following Jesus in today’s world. What does it really mean to be a disciple of Christ? How do we reconcile Jesus’ radical teachings, like loving our enemies and not storing up treasures on earth, with the realities of modern life? The conversation explores the tension between obedience to Jesus’ commands and the challenges of living them out in a world that often seems at odds with Christian values.
The discussion centers on Matthew’s gospel, examining how it presents Jesus as the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies and the ultimate authority. The podcast explores key concepts from the Sermon on the Mount, unpacking what it means to be salt and light in the world without trying to change it through force. It addresses the nature of Christian obedience, the role of forgiveness, and the hope of resurrection that makes discipleship worthwhile despite its costs.
The guest for this episode is Travis Bookout, the preaching minister for the Maryville Church of Christ. Travis has written books on the gospels of John, Mark, and Matthew, and is currently working on his Doctorate of Educational Ministry from Southern Seminary. Travis brings both scholarly insight and practical experience to the conversation about discipleship and living out the teachings of Jesus in today’s world.
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Transcript (Credit: Beth Tabor)
Welcome to the Radically Christian Bible Study Podcast. I’m your host, Wes McAdams. Here we have one goal: Learn to love like Jesus. As many of you know, we’re in the middle of a series on discipleship, and the gospel of Matthew has a lot to teach us about being disciples of Jesus. My guest today just finished a book on the gospel of Matthew, and it is excellent. He has so much wisdom to share with us. My guest is Travis Bookout. Travis is the preaching minister for the Maryville Church of Christ. He’s written books on the gospel of John, Mark, and now Matthew, and is currently working on his Doctor of Educational Ministry from Southern Seminary. He has been married to his wife, Lauren, for 16 years, and they have two sons, Oliver and Levi.
Before we get to that Bible study, I want to read from Matthew chapter 28, starting in verse 18, which says, “Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.'”
I hope that today’s discussion and conversation and Bible study is encouraging to you. I hope that it gives you a better appreciation of the gospel account of Matthew, and, as always, I hope that this conversation helps all of us learn to love like Jesus.
WES: Travis Bookout, welcome to the podcast, Brother.
TRAVIS: Hey, thank you so much. Glad to be here.
WES: It is fantastic to get to visit with you, and I’m excited about this conversation. I’m excited about telling people about your new book on Matthew, God With Us. It was fantastic. I really enjoyed reading that, and I can’t wait for other people to read it, as well. But today we’re specifically going to talk about discipleship, and I’m asking all of the guests that are part of this series on discipleship what their take or their definition of discipleship is. So how would you define what it means to be a disciple?
TRAVIS: That’s a great question, and it’s one that, you know, I don’t know that I have a super unique or creative answer. What I wrote down was being a faithful learner who shares and embodies the beliefs, actions, and mission of the teacher, and I think that’s basically ‑‑ it’s a transformation into the image of the teacher through listening and through following and imitation, and I think that’s ultimately what Jesus calls us to be, and, you know, Matthew has some helpful ways of taking that from just a definition to something you actually embody and do.
WES: Yeah. And I love a lot of those words that you used, transformation into his image and embodiment, and Matthew does give us a pretty unique take on discipleship. So I’d love to hear your thoughts, in general, about the gospel of Matthew even before we talk about the specifics of how that relates to discipleship. But what did you notice as you have been studying? I’m sure you’ve been pouring into and allowing this book to pour into you quite a bit here recently, so what’s your take on the gospel of Matthew?
TRAVIS: Good book. I like it. Matthew’s fantastic, and it is ‑‑ you know, each of the gospels ‑‑ you know, especially you have like the three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and they have a lot of similarities, and one of the things that I tried to focus on in the book that I wrote are some of the ‑‑ what makes them unique from one another, and Matthew has a couple of things that seem to be ‑‑ not that they’re absent in the other ones, but they are a special point of emphasis in the gospel of Matthew.
One of those key ideas is that Jesus is the fulfillment of so many scriptures from the Old Testament, or from the Hebrew scriptures, and how those come to a deeper and fuller meaning when you look to Jesus. And what that meaning often represents, I think, is that Jesus should be seen in comparison to a lot of key figures and key ideas from the Old Testament.
So one thing that can sometimes be problematic for readers is you read through Matthew, and he’ll say “This happened to fulfill what the prophet said,” and he’ll quote, like, Hosea 11:1, and you go and you read Hosea 11:1, and it says, “When Israel was a youth, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.” And you read that and you think, well, okay, that’s about Israel coming out of Egypt, like that’s the Exodus story. And then you keep reading Hosea and you come to find out that the son is a disobedient son who keeps going after idols and all of these things. And you think, how in the world does Jesus fulfill a passage that’s about Israel being disobedient?
And I think the way you do that ‑‑ and this is just kind of an example of the type of thing that Matthew regularly does when he uses the word “fulfillment,” is Jesus should be seen as the faithful Israel who comes to fulfill and complete what was lacking in the Israel that God had called. So Israel was called with a mission and, repeatedly, they don’t fulfill their mission or they fall short of their mission, and so Jesus, as an Israelite, comes and takes on the identity of Israel and he fulfills what was lacking. So Jesus does go to Egypt and he has his own Egypt story, his own Exodus story where he comes out of Egypt. Jesus does go to the wilderness, but where Israel failed and a generation died, Jesus is tempted but is overwhelmingly successful. Jesus is able to go up on the mountain like Moses did and get to the heart of what the law was always intended to produce in the Israelites, and he is trying to produce that in his disciples, so that, as Israel is called to be a light to the nations, the disciples can be the light of the world. And just all the way through you see that Jesus is taking on these different roles. He takes on a role like Moses. He takes on a role like Israel. He takes on a role like David or the son of David. And then, in every one of them, you see that Jesus is not only taking on that role, but he’s doing it in greater and in superior ways than could have been seen or recognized beforehand. So that’s one of the unique ways that Matthew tells the Jesus story.
Along the way, he does several other things. He presents Jesus as this authoritative teacher. There are like five major speeches in the gospel of Matthew. If you take those speeches out and you take out the birth narrative and, depending on the manuscripts, the resurrection narratives, Matthew is a whole lot like Mark. It follows a lot of the same structure, a lot of the same chronology, and even the same wording. But Matthew has a birth narrative and a greater resurrection narrative, and then it has these five speeches interspersed. And I think those five speeches ‑‑ they give us deeper insight into what the kingdom is all about, the kingdom message, so that’s a key idea, is the idea of the kingdom of heaven, and it shows how to live in that kingdom, how to faithfully endure for that kingdom. It answers some of the mysteries of that kingdom. It shows you the mindset of humility that’s essential to the kingdom, and the hope in the coming of the kingdom.
And so you can look at these five speeches, and afterwards you come to realize that Jesus is speaking not only with the authority that comes from some great rabbi or some great person, but he’s speaking with the very authority of God. So he’s introduced in the book as “God with us,” and by the end of it he has all authority in heaven and on earth. Like there’s no person who can have all authority in heaven and on earth. The person who has all authority in heaven is God, and we might see counterfeit authorities on earth, but Jesus is the one who actually is the supreme authority overall.
And so Matthew ends ‑‑ I love the Great Commission. I think it sums up so much, and it will lead into our discussion of discipleship. It ends with Jesus on a mountain. Like Moses went on a mountain, Jesus has been on a mountain regularly throughout the gospel of Matthew. The mountain is an important setting. You know, in Matthew 4, he’s on a mountain with Satan, and he’s offered all the kingdoms of the earth, and he rejects them. And then Matthew 5, he goes up on a mountain again to talk about his kingdom, the kingdom that he is actually representing and he does actually bring, and it’s the Sermon on the Mount. But then you keep reading. He tells his disciples to be the light on ‑‑ or the city that’s on the mountain, you know, the city on a hill, but it’s the same Greek word as mountain. He goes back up on the mountain again in the transfiguration, where he is literally compared to Moses and Elijah and is shown to be superior to them. The Mount of Olives is where he goes before he is arrested.
And then the final verses of Matthew, he’s back up on a mountain and he is worshiped while he’s on that mountain. The disciples gather and worship with him, which, you know, if you’re comparing him to Moses, Moses went up on a mountain, but Moses wasn’t worshiped there; God is the one worshiped on the mountain. So Jesus is on the mountain, he’s being worshiped, and then he says, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me,” which is something that can only be true of God, and it’s with the supreme authority of the divine being himself that Jesus offers the commission to go out and to make disciples.
So I think all of that is kind of Matthew’s way of demonstrating that the whole story of Israel has been leading to Jesus and is fulfilled in Jesus. And he comes not only as a great Moses or a great son of David or Israel, but as the embodiment of God himself, with all authority to cause us to go out and to transform the lives of people into becoming followers and disciples of his.
WES: Yeah, yeah. Amen. Well, it’s such a wonderful way that you’ve laid everything out, and I just feel like studying the gospel accounts is so important for Christians. I laugh because that should be obvious, I think. But I think back to growing up and, you know, what I heard in church, or just the impression that I got ‑‑ I don’t know that anyone ever said anything like this, but I just think I got the impression that what really mattered was the death of Jesus, and we spent, it seems like, very little time talking about who is Jesus, his life, the way that he lived his life during those 33 years, the things that he actually taught us to do.
I think what seems to get emphasized ‑‑ this is what Scot McKnight calls “the gospel of sin management.” That may not be original to him, but that idea that all that really matters is that Jesus was perfect, Jesus died on the cross to save us, and now you should read the epistles and do those things there and not do the bad things. And going back to who is Jesus and what did he teach us to do, how did he teach us to live is so fundamental. If we’re going to be, as you said, transformed into the image of our teacher, into the image of our rabbi, we have to know what he did, how he lived his life, and the things that he has taught us to do.
So let’s talk about that idea of discipleship, and specifically to the gospel of Matthew, how does Matthew give us a unique perspective on what it means and looks like to be a disciple?
TRAVIS: Well, one of the reasons that I wanted us to get to that mountaintop scene at the end of the gospel of Matthew with the Great Commission is because Jesus is very explicit there about what discipleship is. He says, “Make disciples of all the nations.” So if Jesus has all authority, then that means even though there’s other kings and governors and things like that throughout the world, there’s all kinds of nations ‑‑ ever since the promise given to Abraham, there has been this vision of the nations uniting together with Israel under the one true king, and Jesus is now that king, the one with all authority. That’s the way a king speaks. So he says, “Go into all the nations and make disciples,” and then he follows that with two essential parts of making disciples, one of which is baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, which, again, if you’re looking at clues to the divine identity of Jesus, he’s on a mountain, he’s being worshiped, he has all authority in heaven and earth, and he is named with the Father and the Holy Spirit in the baptismal formula.
So anyway, you have this description of baptizing in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but then he says, “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, and I’ll be with you always, even to the end of the age.” I think that final phrase, “I’ll be with you always,” is really important for discipleship, also, to know that we’re not doing this alone, that we’re not on our own. It connects back to the first fulfilled passage in Matthew. It’s from Isaiah 7:14, where he’s given the name Emmanuel, which means “God with us.” And I think, from the beginning, we’re told Jesus is God with us. At the end, we get this picture of him divine, on a mountain, saying, “and I will be with you always,” and there are a couple of clues in Matthew as to how he’s with us.
For example, in Matthew 18, you have Jesus saying, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there in your midst.” Like, he’s with us in the community of believers. You see that again in Matthew 25, where he separates the sheep and the goats, and he says, “When I was naked, you clothed me. When I was hungry, you fed me. When I was in prison, you visited me.” And they’re like, “When did we do this?” And he says, “As much as you did it to the least of these, my brothers, you’ve done it to me.” And so how is Jesus with us? Well, in one way, he’s with us through the community and he’s a part of the community with us.
But all of that is to say discipleship is something that we need to remember is done with the community and is done with Jesus. Very difficult to do on our own, and we’re not called to do it on our own. We’re called to be a city on a hill, not an individual standing up on a nice hill. But he does mention that it is baptism and then teaching to observe all that Jesus says, and so disciples are baptized people who followed the teachings of Jesus and practiced them.
So when you conclude with those words, what the reader is encouraged to do is to think, okay, so what did Jesus command? And so you go back to the beginning of Matthew and you read it again, this time paying attention to what types of things did Jesus say. And if I’m supposed to observe all that Jesus has said, well, it’s gonna make the Sermon on the Mount a really important part of discipleship. It’s gonna make Matthew 10, the second major speech, a really important part of discipleship, Matthew 13, Matthew 18 about forgiveness and about little ones versus great ones in the kingdom. Like, humility is going to become an essential part of discipleship.
And I think it’s important that Jesus was not just some armchair theologian who sat there and spoke the words of the Sermon on the Mountain and said go do it. If a disciple is someone who learns but also imitates, it’s important to know that Jesus not only taught, but also did. And so when Jesus says things like, “You’ve heard that it was said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I say to you, if someone slaps you on the cheek, turn the other to him also. If someone sues you for your cloak, give him your tunic, also. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two” ‑‑ you keep reading Matthew, and every one of those things Jesus says, he also does. He is literally slapped on the face. He is literally taken to court unjustly. His clothes are literally taken from him by his enemies. He is literally forced to march by Roman armies. It’s like Jesus ‑‑ I think that’s intentional, that the things Jesus teaches are also the things he does.
So if we’re gonna be disciples, we gotta go back through and see what he teaches and look at his life and see what he does, and his life leads him to the cross, and it’s no accident that he tells us, if we’re going to follow him, we have to carry our cross. A lot of times following Jesus leads to uncomfortable places. It leads to death. And, I mean, I’m reminded of Bonhoeffer’s words in The Cost of Discipleship, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die,” and those are powerful words, but, really, that’s the call of discipleship, to completely lose yourself in following Jesus wherever that takes you.
WES: Yeah. Well, there’s so much in Matthew, as you’ve pointed out, about his authority, about obedience, about doing what he tells us to do as a king ‑‑ as you would expect a king to do, would be to tell us what to do and how to live our lives. So I think that that brings up an interesting question, too, is just about obedience. In fact, you said it really well in your book. You said, “Obedience is critical, but not central. Jesus’ obedience is central.” So what did you mean by that? What does that mean, and why is it important to kind of keep in our minds that we have to be obedient to the teachings of Jesus, but it isn’t our obedience, our obedience to do all of these things and don’t do all of these things, that actually saves us.
TRAVIS: Yeah. So, honestly, that’s tough sometimes. When you’re reading the gospel of Matthew or you’re reading the book of Romans, like even the way they use the word righteousness, it’s not quite the same. You know, in Matthew, righteousness is something, like, you do, you know? Fasting and praying and giving in Matthew 6 are all called ways of practicing righteousness, and we’re told that our righteousness needs to exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. And so it sure sounds like, man, if I’m going to be a righteous person, I have to do all of this stuff.
But then you read Romans, and righteousness is like ‑‑ “There’s none that’s righteous, no not one,” and righteousness is a gift from God to those who place their faith or allegiance ‑‑ I’ll probably borrow the word allegiance a couple times in my answer from Matthew Bates. He has some excellent books on understanding faith in the New Testament. But when you give your faith to Christ, righteousness is a gift from God that you can’t attain on your own. So what do we do with that? And I think one direction people have taken it is to devalue the significance of obedience, and I don’t think that’s the right path.
When you read Matthew, like at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus has this comparison between the wise man and the foolish man, these two builders. And who is the wise one? He actually hears and does what Jesus says. So the Sermon on the Mount is not just for us to memorize or to learn or to see essential truths that would be great if someone did them sometime. It’s not just a picture of what heaven’s going to be like. You know, some have suggested the Sermon on the Mount is this glorified demonstration of what God actually expects, and what you’re supposed to do is read it, recognize how short you fall, and then thank God for his grace, you know? And I think that’s gonna happen, sure, but that’s not the purpose of it. The purpose of it is for you to actually do it. You know, that’s how Jesus ends it. And so our obedience is absolutely critical. You have to obey Jesus if he’s actually your king, and I think that putting your faith in Jesus is more than just a mental assent to a couple of facts about him. It’s actually pledging your allegiance and fidelity and faithfulness to him throughout life, and that will include your heart and your mind and your body. And that’s so much of what Jesus is trying to do, is he’s trying to unite those things so that not only do you not commit adultery with your body, you don’t lust in your heart. Jesus wants all of it in obedience to him, and so obedience is absolutely critical.
However, the reality is I have not fully obeyed the Sermon on the Mount, and that’s going to be a constant struggle. That’s going to be a constant ‑‑ I’ll be grappling with that my entire life. And so what is my hope of salvation? Jesus, I don’t think, teaches the Sermon on the Mount and says, “And any mistake along the way will discount you from my kingdom.” In fact, right in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, he offers this prayer where it describes, I think, some of the most important kingdom values, and in this prayer, he says, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us of our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
But that phrase right there about forgiveness, I think, is really important because it’s not the fact that I am perfect at following the Sermon on the Mount; it’s the fact that I’m forgiven when I fail to follow the Sermon on the Mount. And where does that forgiveness come from? Well, it comes from the fact that Jesus was perfect in following the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus actually did the things that he said and he did them perfectly so that Jesus, in loving his enemies, didn’t kill them or destroy them. He went to the cross for them. He tells us to love our enemies, but that’s not something he himself wouldn’t do. He not only loves his enemies, he went to the cross to die for the salvation of his enemies so that even me and you and all of us who fail to live up to his call can have hope in a God who loves even his enemies. He loves us and he saves us, and that’s why our obedience to Jesus as Lord is critical. If we’re going to say that he’s king, if we’re going to say that he’s Lord, we have to do what he says. But you will fail, and it’s the fact that he also loves his enemies, the fact that he also suffers for the good of others, the fact that he gave his life for us means that we can have hope and assurance of our standing before God even in spite of our failures.
WES: Yeah, yeah. I think that that word ‑‑ and I also really enjoy Matthew Bates’ work on that idea of allegiance and how that’s tied to the pistis in the New Testament, or faith. And, in fact, I’m preaching ‑‑ this whole year here at McDermott Road my theme is loving loyalty. I think words like loyalty and allegiance and faithfulness are so important. In fact, I started the year by introducing this idea, and I talked about how, as a husband, I am not a perfect husband. I said you can ask my wife and she’ll tell you that I’m not a perfect husband, but I am a faithful husband, and I have been faithful since the day we got married, but I have not been perfect.
And I think we understand that when it comes to marriage, that even if you look at our marriage vows ‑‑ I mean, I used 1 Corinthians 13, I think, probably in my marriage vows, but, you know, I made all of these promises to my wife about how I was going to love her and I was gonna do all of these things. Have I kept all of those promises to a T? Have I dotted every I and crossed every T? Have I been perfect in my obedience to those marriage vows? Well, probably not if you’re measuring it that way, but I have been faithful. I’ve been a faithful husband. In fact, my youngest son was a little appalled that I would claim to be faithful, and I said, no, no, no, we should be able to say that, to say, I’ve been faithful to my promises, I’ve been faithful to my spouse, my wife.
And I think the same should be able to be said about God, that we have been faithful to God. We have been ‑‑ I think there were so many Israelites who could have said that, who were faithful to Yahweh. None of them were perfect except Jesus, but they were faithful to Yahweh. The vast majority, of course, were
not just not perfect, they were also not faithful, and Jesus calls us to faithfulness, to loyalty, to allegiance. And does that include obedience? Absolutely it does. But he understands that we’re not perfect. He is merciful. He’s gracious. He’s slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. This is the way God has always been.
But I think that we ‑‑ as you said, we go so far ‑‑ I used to listen to a lot of reformed, Calvinist type of teaching that literally teach about the Sermon on the Mount, that that should be your reaction, is read it and say, oh, what a sinner I am, and then just be grateful that Jesus has saved you without any implication. No, no, no. Now it’s time to go to work and be obedient to the teachings of Jesus. And this is actually ‑‑ if we’re going to take Jesus seriously, we have to not only take him seriously when he offers to die for us and to cleanse us of our sins, but we also have to take him seriously when he says build your life on my teachings, go and obey everything I’ve taught you to do and teach others to do the same thing. So it’s both. It is yes, we are forgiven because we’re imperfect, but we’re also called to a life of faithful obedience in Christ.
TRAVIS: Yeah, I think that’s absolutely right. And yeah, it’s like you get to the end of the Sermon on the Mount and it’s a call to go and do it. You get to the end of the gospel of Matthew as a whole, defining what discipleship is, it’s a call to observe all the things that he has commanded. So like doing is essential, but then, as you read through it, you get to Matthew 18, where you have this guy who owes this debt, can never in a million years repay, and the king forgives him of it. I mean, so forgiveness is absolutely a part of the system because that’s who God is and it’s why we should forgive other people, because we’re supposed to be demonstrating to the world around us who God is. That’s why you obey. I mean, you don’t obey because God is in need and he can’t make things work in this world without us. God can do what God wants to do, but our commission is to show people who God is, and forgiveness is an essential part of that. So that should motivate us to be forgiving people, but also it ought to thrill us and fill us with joy that we serve a forgiving God.
And so, yeah, you’re not gonna perfectly embody the Sermon on the Mount. You won’t be the perfect husband. You won’t be the perfect citizen. You won’t be the perfect follower of Jesus, but you can be forgiven. And like you said ‑‑ and I think that’s a great distinction, you can be faithful. He can know that your allegiance is with him even with your failures. It’s the progression of your life, you know? The commitment you’ve made in the progression of your life into discipleship and into following him, I think, is what defines our allegiance and our faithfulness.
WES: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Let’s kind of switch gears a little bit, but still on the topic of the Great Commission, there is this commission that Jesus gives his followers at the end of this gospel account to go into all the world, to make disciples, but at the same time, you make the point in your book that following Jesus, specifically following his teachings in the Sermon on the Mount, is not about changing the world for Jesus. I think sometimes we’ve gotten it into our head that our job as the church or our job as Christians is to go and make the world a better place, that we’re supposed to force our neighbors to follow Jesus, to implement strategies or to implement policies that reflect God’s will and to make the world more obedient to God because we’re Christians. So what’s the distinction there? How do we distinguish between being salt and light and making disciples, but at the same time recognizing that our job is not to take the world over and make it better for Jesus? That’s not what the Sermon on the Mount’s about.
TRAVIS: Yeah. So I think that’s a really good question, and it is a question that ‑‑ the answer, I don’t think, is what I want the answer to be. Sometimes I want the answer to be, no, Jesus tells you that if you turn the other cheek, that your enemy will be so impressed by your kindness and your meekness that he’ll say, you know what? I shouldn’t hit this person again. In fact, what I should do is ask this person, why are you the way that you are? And I could tell them, well, the reason I’m this way is because of Jesus. And they could say, well, tell me more about Jesus. Like I hope that happens, and that might happen. That type of thing can happen and that type of thing has happened. But it’s also very likely you’re just going to get hit again and then mocked for being so foolish, and following Jesus opens you up to that.
Jesus was ridiculed. Jesus was mocked. There were a lot of people who, instead of following Jesus or being so impressed by the life of Jesus, they absolutely rejected it, and that’s one of the reasons why the cross is such an offense. You know, we’ve had 2,000 years to get used to the idea of the cross, but when Paul’s out evangelizing, teaching the message of self‑sacrifice for others, teaching the message that the Messiah, the king of all, gave his life on a cross, it was foolishness to the Gentiles and a stumbling block to the Jews, but to those of us who are called, it’s the power and the wisdom of God. We see something different in that than other people do.
And so what that means is, by embodying the message of the cross, we very well may simply be opening ourselves up to persecution or to mockery or to look like fools for the sake of Christ. But our goal is not to only do the things that will transform the world. A lot of things we do might not transform the world. If our goal was to transform the world, that would open up the door to leaving the teachings of Jesus behind and simply going with what works. You know, trying to be very pragmatic, trying to think, well, this will have an impact, that won’t have an impact, so I’ll do this and not that, and that’s not the way Jesus wants us to think about this. Jesus gives us things that might work in some instances, but very often won’t. And when it doesn’t, he says rejoice anyway that you’ve been considered worthy to be persecuted. You know, blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness.
But I think our mission in the things Jesus says is not about pragmatism and it’s not about if we do this, then everyone will be so impressed that they’ll become followers of Jesus. Rather, I think what it is is to represent God and his faithfulness and his goodness into a world that’s lacking it, and that’s what it means to be the salt of the earth, to be the light of the world, to be a city on a hill.
You can do a lot with coercion and force. People have. Like, there have been massive changes in this world because of coercion, force, violence, and all of that. But that’s not ‑‑ our job is not transformation by whatever means necessary. Our job is to follow Jesus, to show the world who God is. Why do we love our enemies? It might not change our enemies, but he says, “Love your enemies that you may be sons of your Father who’s in heaven, who causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust and the sun to shine on the good and the evil.” When you look at that, it’s saying the reason you do it is because that’s who God is. He says, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” Like, why are we peacemakers? So that we can be children of God, we can be like God. And so when we are peacemakers, when we love our enemies, I don’t know what it will do to others. I hope and pray that it will change them, but even Paul says, “I planted, Apollos watered, God gives the increase.” If there is change, that’s what God does.
In Matthew 13, Jesus gives a parable about the wheat and the tares, or the wheat and the weeds. And there’s the question, should we go pull up all the weeds? It’s like, no, that’s not what you do. You be wheat. You be the best wheat that you can be. You be a faithful presence. You show the world a better way. You be a kingdom of priests. You be a holy and royal nation. Like, you represent God’s goodness to the world, but God’s the one who will change the world, and that’s the hope that we live with, that there will be a day when the angels come and they separate the wheat and the weeds.
So I think the Sermon on the Mount is giving us something that, yes, hopefully, prayerfully, people will see it and be transformed. I think Christianity has done a tremendous amount of good in this world, and I think it has made changes, so praise God for that. But my goal is not to change the world by any means necessary because that can open up the door to a lot of things that Jesus didn’t say. Jesus gives me a way of transforming my life into conformity with the image and the will of God, and if I do that, then hopefully people will see the goodness of God in me and in the community of faith. Whether or not they change, that’s God’s business and that’s their business, but I’m supposed to be faithful regardless.
WES: Yeah. Yeah, and I love how you put it in the book, that I don’t know if it will change others, but I know that it will change us, that it will change you to be obedient to Jesus. It does change us. And it’s interesting; we live in a time right now that’s kind of interesting to watch, where religious people, even those who claim to be followers of Jesus, are making claims that, well, turning the other cheek ‑‑ and, for some reason, that always gets used, even those words ‑‑ “Turning the other cheek used to work, or it worked at one time, but it doesn’t work anymore, so now is not the time to turn the other cheek. Now is the time to do these other things.” And like you said, we can’t accomplish the will of Jesus by abandoning the way of Jesus. We can’t find a different way to live our lives and to function in the world and think that we’re accomplishing the will of Jesus. The will of Jesus is for us to be obedient, is for us to be faithful and to do what he said regardless, and, as you said, to look at the life of Jesus and then his apostles and the first 200 years of Christian history and think that, quote‑unquote, “it worked” to turn the other cheek back then, as if they weren’t persecuted, as if they weren’t thrown to the lions, as if they didn’t face all kinds of horrible persecution exactly as Jesus said that they would, and then to think that our world today is so much more hostile than their world that we can’t actually do what Jesus told us to do. It’s just ludicrous. But it’s really a misunderstanding, I think, of the entire gospel, of the cross itself, really.
TRAVIS: Well, I mean, like you said, if you read something Jesus says, step one, and then step two, you ask yourself, will this work, and how you answer that question depends on whether or not you’ll follow it, you’ve missed the boat entirely. The question is not will this work? The question is, is this faithful to Jesus?
WES: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I met a guy one time, he was a recent ‑‑ I want to say convert. He had recently been baptized, but I think that he’d kind of been rushed into baptism, maybe, I’m not sure. But he was a prison guard and he worked in a local prison, and then he had a Bible study with me to say, I’m kind of second‑guessing whether or not I want to be a Christian. In fact, he was toying with the idea of being a Muslim because he was listening to the words of Jesus, and he said, I work in a violent environment with lots of criminals and this turning the other cheek and loving your enemies, I just don’t know that I can buy into that. And I thought this might be the most intellectually honest reason for rejecting Jesus that I’ve ever heard.
And at the end of the day, I just have to present Jesus, and whether or not he accepts him ‑‑ I can’t say, well, if you don’t like that version of Jesus, here’s a different version of Jesus that you might appreciate more, or, hey, if you give this a try, it might work for you. Jesus is really, really honest about this is going to get you in a lot of trouble, and if you’re not ready to pick up your cross and follow me, if you’re not ready to die for me, then don’t become my disciple. And the fact that we have sort of buried Jesus’ teachings about what it actually looks like to be a follower of Jesus and haven’t put those out front, I think goes to show that we’ve had a different approach to making Christians while maybe not making disciples.
TRAVIS: I think that’s a good distinction. I’ve had a situation where there’s someone I was studying with who’s not a believer, and it was interesting. It wasn’t like the miracles were the problem with coming to faith. It was an atheist. It wasn’t like the flood ‑‑ even this person said there was probably a flood. It was just interesting, like some of the things that they were willing to accept, but it was reading the Sermon on the Mount and Jesus saying love your enemies and Jesus saying do not resist the evil person, and they’re like that’s ludicrous. You can’t live in a world like that. Evil people will just run amok all over the place. And you’re tempted to say, well, Jesus doesn’t really mean that, but as soon as you start changing what Jesus says to make his message more palatable, you’re not creating disciples of Jesus. You’re creating disciples of a culture that thinks this will work well or you’re creating disciples of yourself.
So much of the history of interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount ‑‑ and I think we see it a lot today, and it’s something that I try to not do in the book, but we’ll see how good I do. But so much of the history is a history of just trying to find creative ways to get around the teachings of Jesus. How can we love our enemies? Well, okay, you love your enemies. Well, who are my enemies? Well, that’s not applying to politics. That’s not applying to foreigners. That’s not applying if you’re in this career. That doesn’t apply if you’re ‑‑ and it’s like, man, okay, I don’t know, maybe. But instead of reading the Sermon on the Mount trying to find as few ways as possible to apply it, what if we really grappled with, what if I applied it here? What if I applied it to this person? What if I applied it to this political party? What if I applied it in a time of war? Would that change who I am? And I wish we would seek to apply it more and at least be willing to admit where we fall short rather than try to change what Jesus says to make it so easy that it doesn’t impact our lives.
One of the things that you’ll see as you read the Sermon on the Mount is Jesus will often compare his teaching to just what other folk do. He’s like, “Your righteousness should exceed the scribes and Pharisees.” He says, about greeting those who greet you, “Don’t the Gentiles do the same?” He says, “Don’t the tax collectors do the same?” He says, “Don’t offer long prayers the way the Gentiles do.” Like so many of the teachings are rooted in this idea that there’s a surpassing righteousness, something that’s different than the culture. So if we then interpret loving your enemies to mean, you know, don’t kill the guy down the street who wronged you, well, okay, but everyone agrees you shouldn’t do that. You know, if you say, it’s okay to kill provided you have a good reason, well, then, that’s ‑‑ again, everyone agrees with that. Jesus is calling us to something that not everyone agrees with, and if your intuitions feel that it’s wrong, you might be right. Maybe Jesus is saying something that we will have an initial visceral reaction to. It will not sit well with us. In fact, if Jesus isn’t doing that, then it’s likely that it’s not actually Jesus you’re listening to anymore.
WES: Yeah, yeah. And I think about how many things Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount that apply to so many different people in so many different situations with so many different perspectives, especially today. We’ve talked a lot about loving your enemies, but we could also talk about sexual immorality and how Jesus says, hey, it’s better to pluck your eye out or cut your hand off than it is to go into hell with all of your parts.
TRAVIS: Yeah, there’s a thousand other things. Yeah.
WES: And so to take Jesus seriously on that is just as radical in our culture today. But, again, I hear Christian religious people discussing what does the Bible say about sexual immorality or what does it say about sexual ethics? And we debate a lot about, well, what does Romans 1 mean or what does 1 Corinthians mean? And we talk a lot about Paul, and people will even make the claim that, well, Jesus was for loving everyone and Jesus wouldn’t be for coming down hard on sexual sin, and it’s like, wait, have you read the Sermon on the Mount, either? And there’s so much there that applies to all of us if we take it seriously.
TRAVIS: Yeah, lust itself ‑‑ before you even get to what things people are doing, lust itself, he says, is something that you should be lopping off limbs for. And so it goes to show that Jesus ‑‑ when it comes to money, you know, it’s hard to take seriously what he says about money. When he says, “Do not store up for yourself treasure on earth,” I wish he would say, like, “Do not greedily store up for yourself treasure on earth,” because then I could just say, okay, so as long as you do it without greed, you’re good, or you could take what he says and you could find some angle to make it a lot easier to accept. But, really, I think if you’re storing up for yourself treasure on earth, a responsibility comes with that to be giving that treasure away, and so there are a lot of ways that we can read what Jesus says, whether it’s sexual ethics, whether it is wealth, whether it is anger.
There’s actually a funny thing in the history of translation ‑‑ or of the copying of the Sermon on the Mount, where a phrase gets added to what he says about anger. Where he says, “I say to you not to be angry with your brother,” and it adds the phrase “without cause.” That’s in some of the manuscripts, and it’s not in the earliest ones, but eventually that got added, and it’s really easy to see why because, you know, you can see, you know, don’t be angry, but, dude, there’s some reasons you gotta get angry at someone, and so we need to just kind of lessen it a little bit. But then you ask the question, well, everyone agrees you can be angry with cause. If there’s a good enough cause, that wouldn’t separate you from the scribes and Pharisees or from anyone. Everyone would agree with that.
And so, yeah, you go through, and whether it’s divorce, oaths ‑‑ that’s a tough one because, you know, how often do we add to our “yes” and “no” in order to make ourselves sound more credible? And what Jesus wants us to do is don’t add more words to your “yes” and “no.” Instead, live a life of credibility. That’s a lot harder. It takes a lot longer. But you should live in such a way that people will hear your “yes” and it will sound the same as if you said, “Upon the life of my children, I give my oath.” You know, you don’t need to add all those words if you’re actually living with the type of integrity that Jesus is calling us to have.
But it applies to a lot of areas, and there’s nothing I read in the Sermon on the Mount and I walk away thinking, whew, okay, I got that one mastered. It’s like every time I read it, I end up recognizing, okay, there’s more to being a follower of Jesus than what I’m comfortable with.
WES: Yeah. And it goes back to what you said a minute ago, that we find all kinds of creative ways of getting around what Jesus says, and we say, well, you know, that’s obviously hyperbole. He doesn’t really want us to cut our hand off or pluck our eye out. And I would say I agree. I agree; it’s hyperbole. But I always use as an example, if I tell you that it’s raining cats and dogs outside, and you say, well, that’s just ‑‑ that’s a figure of speech; you don’t mean that literally, and then you go outside as if it’s not raining at all, then you’ve made a huge error in how you’ve interpreted what I’m saying. So yes, you’re right, it is a figure of speech, but you’re wrong to dismiss it as if a figure of speech or a metaphor or a hyperbole doesn’t actually mean something important. In fact, sometimes we use those kinds of hyperboles or metaphors or figures of speech because a plain, just surface‑level, very basic way of saying it wouldn’t capture how important and significant this is.
TRAVIS: Yeah. Hyperbole means that a truth has been exaggerated. It doesn’t mean that you’ve said something false, you know? And I think that’s a really good illustration with the cats and dogs. But, yeah, so Jesus says, you know, plucking out eyes and chopping off hands ‑‑ okay, the early church wasn’t literally doing that. But the question you should ask, okay, what have you actually sacrificed? What have you amputated or gotten rid of to get rid of lust? I know a lot of people ‑‑ you walk around with a smartphone in your pocket, you have access to pornography 24/7. Okay. Would you be willing to live without that? Is that something you could amputate for the kingdom? Is that something you could get rid of?
You know, I think the idea of giving up things for the kingdom because the sacrifice you make now is far less damaging than hell will be, then those are sacrifices we need to make. But a lot of times, if we think it’s hyperbole, we think, okay, so you shouldn’t lust, and we just kind of walk away. But we don’t really think about the sacrifice that ‑‑ or I don’t want to say “we” don’t ‑‑ some people do ‑‑ but it’s common or easy to not do that.
WES: Yeah. Well, I think that that leads really well to our last question, and that is, why is it worth it? If following Jesus really does demand sacrifice, if it does demand, at the worst, taking up our cross literally and dying for Jesus, if it calls us to this life of self‑sacrifice, if it calls us to not store up treasures on earth, to even hyperbolically cut off our hand and pull out our eye ‑‑ if that’s the life that Jesus calls us to, then why is it worth it, and how can we present it to other people in a beautiful and compelling way? How do we become disciples, and how do we convince others to become disciples if it really is so costly?
TRAVIS: Well, I don’t think it’ll be easy, but I do think there are a couple of things to keep in mind as you consider why you follow Jesus, and one of those ‑‑ and this isn’t maybe the most exciting one, but the fact that it’s just true, Jesus really is ‑‑ like God really did come to earth. Jesus really is Lord. You know, when we talk about the gospel ‑‑ maybe it was N.T. Wright who said something like the gospel is not the good suggestion or the good invitation or the good advice. It’s the good news, and the news is declaring something that is true. Jesus really is Lord. And so if you care about doing what’s right and what’s true in the world, then it does matter.
But secondly, I would say that truth can really be good and beautiful. That truth of what Jesus says, it takes perhaps a tremendous amount of faith to see it, but it really is a more beautiful world when we love our enemies rather than wanting to destroy them, or it really is a more beautiful world when, instead of thinking how much wealth can I accumulate for myself, I put my trust in God and I store up my treasure in heaven, which I think actually is a reference to using your wealth for the good of others and for the poor. It really is a more beautiful world, and I think we see that when we see acts of generosity. We appreciate those. And when we see stories of forgiveness, we appreciate it. We can see beauty in that. And Jesus is calling us to live in a kingdom that is not defined by violence, the accumulation of wealth, by hatred, by power, by rising up in status, but rather it’s a kingdom where the least are the greatest and the last is first, and not everyone finds beauty in that. You know, there are some who famously think that that will lead to absolute chaos and the weakness of humanity, but I believe there’s beauty in that, and it’s something that the more we see it, I think the better things are.
But even with those things, Jesus is specifically asked that question by Peter. This is at the end of Matthew 19. Peter is saying, Lord, we’ve left everything for you. Like, is this worth it? And Jesus gives an answer, and it’s an answer that contains truth and it’s an answer that contains beauty, but it’s also an answer that contains hope. He says that there’s nobody who, having given up family or possessions or the farms or all these things for the kingdom who will not receive back a hundred times more so in the regeneration or in the new world. And he says when that day comes, you will receive so much more, including eternal life.
And I think ‑‑ I think, even now, it’s like when you look at the church family, when you look at the community of Christ, I have more mothers and I have more brothers and sisters. I have family and I have community, and that’s something that makes the suffering worth it. When you suffer alone, there’s something tragic about that and there’s something in that that makes it really hard to continue on, but when you suffer and when you make sacrifices as part of a community for the common good with other people who are doing the same, then you have a fellowship in that and a sharing in that that is transformative for yourself and for that community. And like we’ve talked about, maybe sometimes, in the world around us, that that’s something we pray for.
I remember years ago, living in Monroe, Louisiana, there was a flood that came and it flooded our house, and my wife Lauren was pregnant at the time and we ended up having to leave our house, but you know who we left with? Some members of the church came and we were able to walk in waist‑deep water from our house to the nearest road. They had a car waiting for us. They took us to their house and we stayed with them for several days. And then we had to get some things fixed on our house and we stayed with other members of the church. We had a church that we didn’t even ‑‑ we’d never even gone to before sent us money to help with some of the repairs. There were people that we knew who were family; there were people who we didn’t know who were family. And my family was also very kind to us, but we didn’t live near any of my family. My family didn’t live in Louisiana, but we were still surrounded by family. And I think following Jesus creates a community of family, and that’s the type of thing that can help you overcome so many of the obstacles of this life.
Plus, finally, the resurrection and the new world. There’s a new world coming. There’s a regeneration, and the resurrection really is why doing what is true and beautiful matters. The resurrection is really why it matters that Jesus is Lord, because the suffering we have in this life, I mean, to use the words of Paul, wouldn’t be worth it if there weren’t something eternal and true on the other side. He says we would be, of all people, most pitied.
And so I think the reason we do this, it is with hope and with trust that what God says will come about, and that’s why the gospel of Matthew ‑‑ we are called to carry our cross, and the Sermon on the Mount does take Jesus to the cross, but that’s not where the gospel ends. The gospel ends with the resurrected Lord being worshiped on a mountain with all authority in heaven and on earth. The story ends with a commission to go out and to find, within all of the nations, those who will be disciples of the one true king and those who will give their allegiance to him. The resurrection is where the whole story culminates.
So like Philippians 2, Jesus was equal with God, and yet he “did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but he emptied himself, he took the form of a servant, he came in the appearance of human, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God highly exalted him and bestowed upon him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee would bow, of those in heaven, those on earth, and those under the earth, and every tongue would confess that Jesus Christ is Lord of the glory of God the Father.” The one who humbles himself will be exalted.
There is a tremendous amount of humility that comes in following Jesus. You can’t put yourself first, but God will see, he will exalt, he will raise you up, and I think that makes it worth it.
WES: Yeah, absolutely. Amen, Brother. I love the already and the not yet of what you’re saying, Brother. Thank you. Thank you for this conversation. Thank you for your book. I can’t wait for other people to read it. It’s fantastic. And thank you most of all for your work in the kingdom, Brother.
TRAVIS: Thank you so much, and thank you for reading the book and for giving me your thoughts. Thank you for this opportunity. I love the work that you do. I love your podcast. I love your books and your writing. You’ve had a positive impact on my life and my ministry, and it means a whole lot.
WES: Thanks, Brother.
Thank you so much for listening to the Radically Christian Bible Study Podcast. If you have just a moment, we would love for you to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you’re listening. It really does help more people discover this content. I also want to thank our guests who join me each week; Beth Tabor, who volunteers her time to transcribe this podcast; and our whole McDermott Road Church family who make it possible for us to provide this Bible study for you. Now let’s all go out and love like Jesus.
How to Create a Disciple-Making Culture with Marcus Stenson
Aug 28, 2024
In this episode of the Radically Christian Bible Study Podcast, Wes McAdams and Marcus Stenson tackle the crucial topic of discipleship and how to create a disciple-making church culture. They address common misconceptions about discipleship, explore why many churches struggle to prioritize disciple-making, and discuss how individuals can embrace their role as disciples even in challenging environments. This conversation is particularly valuable for those feeling frustrated with church stagnation or wondering how to move beyond mere church attendance to truly following Jesus.
The episode delves into biblical concepts such as the transformative power of discipleship, the importance of both “growing” and “going” in the Christian walk, and Jesus’ model of investing in individuals. They also discuss how the early church’s understanding of discipleship differs from modern church culture, encouraging listeners to reimagine their approach to spiritual growth and community impact.
Marcus Stenson, the guest for this episode, brings a wealth of experience and passion to the conversation. He currently serves as the preaching minister at the Leander Church of Christ and is a co-founder of Christians for Kenya, a nonprofit focused on equipping Kenyans to spread the gospel. Stenson is also a team member at Be1Make1, an organization dedicated to empowering disciple-making. His practical insights and strategic approach to fostering disciple-making cultures in churches make this episode a must-listen for anyone seeking to deepen their faith and impact their community.
Welcome to the Radically Christian Bible Study podcast. I’m your host, Wes McAdams. Here we have one goal: Learn to love like Jesus. It is great to be back after a long break. I’ve really missed releasing new episodes, but we’ve still been recording episodes and we have some fantastic conversations to share with you over the coming weeks. We’re starting a new series on discipleship, and today we’re going to talk about how to be a disciple‑making church. My guest today is my good friend, Marcus Stenson.
Marcus currently serves as the preaching minister at the Leander Church of Christ, north of Austin. He’s a cofounder of Christians for Kenya, a kingdom‑facing nonprofit organization that focuses on equipping Kenyans to spread the gospel through education and humanitarian aid. Marcus is also a member of the team at Be1Make1, an organization dedicated to empowering the disciple‑making purpose that lives inside everyone.
I want to begin today by reading from Ephesians 4, starting in verse 11, which says, “He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”
I hope that today’s conversation is an encouragement to you, and I hope that it, as always, helps all of us learn to love like Jesus.
WES: Marcus Stenson, welcome back to the podcast, Brother.
MARCUS: Hey, Wes, thank you so much. It is always a good time here. Happy to be here.
WES: So excited to have you, and I know that this topic that we’re talking about is close to your heart. It’s something that you’re passionate about. So let’s talk about discipleship. First, how do you define that term?
MARCUS: That’s a great place to start. I define discipleship as closely as I can to what we see walked out in the scripture, with a little bit of context. And what I mean by that is a disciple, speaking of what we read of in terms of a disciple in the New Testament, is a person who has dedicated their entire life to following a rabbi or a teacher. They have decided not only am I going to listen to this person’s teachings, but I actually want to model my entire life after this person. And so when we see the disciples who are called to Jesus follow him, they’re dropping everything. Their life is now all about being like Jesus.
And so our walk with Jesus modernly, in my view, is really about two things, and the first is growing like Jesus grew. And I just look at Luke when it says that Jesus grew in stature and wisdom and in favor with God and man, and, one, just put a little mental note that yes, Jesus grew, as hard as that is to fathom, in all of those different areas. So if I’m going to be like Jesus and a disciple of Jesus, I need to be committed to growing like he grew in those areas, as well. It’s about growing like Jesus grew, and, to me, it’s also about going with Jesus into mission or going where Jesus went. And so when I think of discipleship, I think of those two terms, growing and going.
God tells us many times in the New Testament that the point of our faith and the point of our discipleship is to be continually transformed more and more into the image of Christ. That’s that idea coming through strongly in the writings of Paul, as well, and so when I think about discipleship, I think about that as it pertains to daily spiritual rhythms. What was Jesus doing and committed to that I see exemplified in his walk that I need to be committed to and exemplify in my walk, too? I want to grow like he grew.
And then, you know, Jesus doesn’t grow us just for the sake of knowledgeable acquisition or just to say that we grew or so that we can feel like good disciples. He always grows disciples so he can send them, so then the going part happens, right? And those are the two ways that I would define discipleship.
WES: Yeah, I love that, growing and going. That’s so good. That’s so good. So how do you think that a lot of people misunderstand ‑‑ as you’ve taught, as you’ve made disciples, as you’ve helped others to make disciples, how do people misunderstand the word discipleship? Because it’s kind of a religiousy, churchy word that we don’t really use outside of church context, so how do people misunderstand that?
MARCUS: Yeah, it can kind of seem like a buzzword. It’s kind of a double‑edged sword at this point in time. I think a lot more people are talking about discipleship, and it’s something that’s been talked about in past eras, as well, with varying results and varying applications, and sometimes we have to press up against those a little bit. But just for the common, everyday person that I encounter and that I work with, I think that the idea of discipleship does sound super‑religious. It can sound a little hooey, and sometimes I think that the biggest obstacle that we have individually is that we consider it like it’s another thing that we’re supposed to do. It’s almost like another thing that we add to the list that we keep about how to be a good Christian or how to be faithful or how to incur or curry the favor of God so that he’ll be pleased with us, almost another checklist, if you will, that we need to make sure that we take care of so that we’re in good standing with God.
But being a disciple and being in discipleship to Jesus, and even making disciples, is not performative in that way. It’s diagnostic, really. When you think about it as another thing that you should do or need to do, it invites a whole lot of other issues to the table because then you start thinking about, well, where do I get the time to go and make disciples, right? How do I fit this into my already busy schedule? And now I feel guilty and now I feel ashamed that I never do this, or I don’t commit to this, or I don’t feel qualified to do this. But when I say that it’s actually diagnostic is that, really, being a disciple is something that you’re called to do in the scheme of your everyday life as it is already, as you go walking along. And even being a disciple‑maker and helping someone else along that path is the same thing. Discipleship is less about creating extra time or finding a way to create extra time, and it’s more about inviting the rhythms of Jesus into the time and life that you already have, and it’s about inviting other people into the life that you’re already living, as well. So it’s not about creating more. It’s about kind of living through a different perspective and lens where you already are, if that makes sense.
WES: Yeah. I was thinking about Colossians 3:17 as you were talking, “Whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to the Father through Him,” that idea of this is about everything that you do. It’s about learning to be a follower of Jesus in your workplace, in your school, in everything that comes out of your mouth, everything you think, everything you do. You know, one of the
misunderstandings I think that I encounter ‑‑ and I just thought of this as you were talking ‑‑ is that a lot of people that I talk to think that when you say disciple, you mean apostle, like they think of the 12. They think of the 12 disciples who, as you said earlier, literally followed Jesus, as in they walked where Jesus walked, they lived with him, they learned from him every day, and they certainly were amongst his first disciples, but it’s a much broader term that included a lot of other people who followed Jesus, and the people that would continue to follow Jesus in subsequent generations, including us.
And so I think that maybe there’s a misunderstanding, and it kind of goes with what you were saying, that a disciple is like a super‑Christian or something. Like you have Christians, you know, you have saved people, people that, you know, they’ve been baptized and they go to church and that kind of thing, but then if you ask them if they’re a disciple, they think, well, I don’t know if I’m a disciple, or they think of just a select group of people who literally followed, walked with Jesus in the first century. They don’t necessarily think of that as something that, quote‑unquote, normal Christians are supposed to be and do, and it encompasses everything that we do in our life.
MARCUS: Oh, yeah, that’s such a good point, and I just remember that Jesus told those apostles ‑‑ or those super‑Christians, as we refer to them, to go and make disciples. He didn’t tell them to go and make more apostles, so everybody who becomes a follower of Jesus becomes a disciple. That’s how it’s supposed to look, and so I think you draw out a really good point there not to conflate the two in drawing that distinction there between apostles and disciples. Every follower is a disciple of Jesus.
I do think, though, it can help in a way. Because the word disciple carries such a different kind of flavor and connotation in our church makeup today, it’s a really good opportunity to talk about what that actually means, and it is an opportunity to call yourself deeper into a spiritual rhythm and in patterning your life after Jesus as opposed to just maybe showing up on Sunday, or whatever idea we had of Christianity before, in playing a part in this large matrix. So yeah, I love that.
WES: Yeah. Well, and I think it’s helpful to point out that the word Christian ‑‑ that’s the word we use all of the time. It’s in the URL of my website; it’s in the title of my podcast. So we use “Christian” all the time. It’s not a bad term, but it’s not a term that, apparently, first‑century followers of Jesus used about themselves. It seems to be something ‑‑ it occurs very seldom in the New Testament. It seems to be a term that others used about them, and they said, well, you know, they’re calling us this, but Luke says they called the disciples Christians. They called these followers of The Way “Christians.”
So I think it is helpful for us to really adopt this idea of discipleship and to call ourselves disciples and think of ourselves as disciples because, to your first point, it’s about growing, it’s about going, it’s about doing, it’s about being a follower of Jesus. It’s not just about being saved. It’s not just about eternal destiny. And I think, so often, we think, well, I became a Christian, I am a Christian, and what we think that means is I’m going to heaven when I die. I’m in a saved relationship with God rather than I am in the process of being transformed into the likeness of Christ; I’m in the process of becoming more and more like Jesus every day of my life; I’m doing everything in word and deed in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is a much different idea than simply I’m a saved person.
MARCUS: Yes, so much, and one way that I’ve kind of tried to articulate this is even based on what you just said, where Christians were first named that in Antioch. “Christian” is what you are called; it’s what you’re named. But a disciple is who you are; it’s central to your identity, and there’s a deeper aspect to that, and it calls all of you into that being in terms of your identity, your esteem. How you evaluate your standing with God is based on a measure of discipleship and not just the name that the world has to call us because we’re so radically different from what they see around them everywhere else, so yeah.
WES: Yeah, absolutely. So let’s talk about this idea of ‑‑ well, actually, let’s let you share a little bit about Be1Make1. This is one of the reasons you’re so passionate about discipleship and disciple‑making. So tell us about Be1Make1, because I think that that’ll help set the stage for the rest of our conversation.
MARCUS: Yeah. Man, Be1Make1 is an organization that I have the benefit and the privilege of being a part of that the idea really started for back in 2015. Back in 2015, myself and a couple of really good friends, a couple of brothers in arms, so to speak, Chip and Anthony, we sat in a dusty church office in Athens, Ohio, and we had all been in ministry for some time at that point and we kind of started carrying this burden around, and we’d come together because we came to find out that we shared this burden. And what we started to encounter almost everywhere we went, in a lot of different church contexts ‑‑ and this is certainly not prescriptive or descriptive of all church contexts, but in so many we were seeing folks that were incredibly dedicated to the faith, but they were dormant, and they were aware that they were dormant and they were upset by the fact that they were dormant. They were serious about the faith. I don’t really know many folks more serious than our faith tradition in the churches of Christ about their faith and about doctrine and what it means to their lives. But along with that seriousness also came a level of being stagnant that, also, instinctively they knew was not good, but there was just this inertia that it seemed like everyone was incapable of overcoming.
And then the one that really got me the most was that folks that are just genuinely faithful to the core, in every measure by which you could even measure faithful, but absolutely fearful at the same time, paralyzed with fear, and that fear really fed into the dormancy and the stagnancy that everyone was experiencing. And we all three just kind of agreed that we had a passion to see people actually experience the joy and peace and power that Jesus actually promises his disciples, and we started to work very diligently to figure out how we can get back to the original mission that Jesus gave us in a church context, and that is to just simply be disciples who make disciples, and what started there has grown over the last almost decade now. It feels crazy to say.
And we’ve just been endeavoring to help the individual live in that spiritual rhythm that I talked about a few minutes ago, to grow to be more like Jesus and then, ultimately, going with Jesus into his mission, whatever that mission is for them personally that God has called them to; and then also to help church leadership come to alignment in mission and vision and values and how they can start to shift or make the pivot out of what I like to call the Field of Dreams ministry complex into one of a disciple‑making culture.
There’s one thing that I became absolutely convinced of, and that is through being told dozens and dozens and dozens of times by so many people, “We want to share the gospel,” “We want to be known in our community.” But I became convinced that it’s human nature not to share something that they’re not absolutely confident in, and so it was going to take a total ‑‑ not a reimagining, but really just getting back to the heart of where this really begins for us individually, between us and God, and then congregationally, between us and God. And so that’s what Be1Make1 does. We build on mission leaders, and on mission leaders, build or nourish on mission churches, and it’s just our goal to see everybody tap into what Jesus has for them. So I would love to dig deeper on any specific aspect, but that’s where that comes from.
WES: Yeah. Well, it’s that idea of leadership and churches, and you used the phrase “disciple‑making culture.” So if a church is going to become a disciple‑making church, that that’s their vision, that that’s their culture, that that’s their mission, that they are committed to that and passionate about that, what needs to be ‑‑ what do their practices need to be? What does their vision need to be? What do they need to prioritize? Maybe priorities are something we need to talk about.
MARCUS: Absolutely. So there are a couple things here. This is a great question. I love it. The first thing ‑‑ and I say this not to be critical or accusatory of anyone in any church context. This comes from my personal experience in working with lots of different church‑leadership groups. I think the first thing you have to do is you have to change the goal, and I think the goal so many times, especially in a church that maybe doesn’t feel like it’s thriving, is to get people in the doors, and if we’re being honest, if we ask, you know, what do I want for them when they visit our church or when they finally come ‑‑ I want them to like us. I want them to have a great experience. I want them to find people like them and maybe they’ll come back. And if they keep coming back, they’ll get baptized and then our church will grow and we’ll have a young family or we’ll have kids and then we’ll feel really good about what we’re doing.
And that’s not to say that any of that is wrong in and of itself, but I think it’s really important for churches to ask themselves, is what we want for people when they contact the body of Christ here the same thing that Jesus wants for people when they contact the body of Christ here? If you’re gonna be a disciple‑making church, you gotta care more about getting them everything that Jesus promises them, first and foremost, and beyond them just liking what they experience when they come. And that kind of flies in the face of our model that’s really worked well in our country since probably 1960 or ’70, where you try to have the best preaching, the best praise, and the best programs, and that’s why I call it Field of Dreams. If you build it, they will come, and, hopefully, they just keep coming. So that’s the first thing: Change the goal to what Jesus’ goal is for every person.
The second thing is to recognize, as a leadership team, that you are chosen and you have relationships and spiritual formation that you are stewarding. And as church leadership, you have a responsibility to provide a picture of what spiritual maturity looks like and a pathway for how it’s achievable, and that means that you can’t hope that your church is going to be filled with disciple‑makers, or disciples for that matter, if you’re not committed to going first and doing that yourself. So be committed first to being what you want to see.
And then kind of a related recommendation on this is prioritize the action over the announcement. Traditionally ‑‑ because above all, especially elders, who I respect and love and always have the best intention at heart, they fear, above all, losing people on their watch or being one of the guys that, you know, the church went off course in some way during my tenure. And so those two fears dominate a lot of actions that are taken or not taken, and then we usually try to craft announcements about new programs or new initiatives that will not upset the people that we don’t want to lose, and, therefore, we have to be really conservative in what we’re talking about and we end up trying to speak to folks that are probably going to be disgruntled anyway and it ends up ruling the culture.
So, you know, be in action first because the thing that will churn over a culture at a church are the stories that are being told and the testimonies that are coming from action that is already happening, right? And that way, when the announcement is made, the demonstration of the benefit and the value has already been lived out live and direct, and you’re not in the position of trying to convince anybody of something new that you guys need to do; you’re just sharing something incredible that God is already doing in your church, even if it starts small.
And so when you’re sharing something that everyone already agrees is a need and a desire, as opposed to trying to convince somebody of something new and scary, your chances for success go through the roof as opposed to where you were operating from before. So change the goal. Know that it’s on you, as leadership, to go first and to show a picture and a pathway, and then prioritize action over the announcement. Just start being disciples that make disciples before you ask anybody or try to convince anybody that this should be the grand design of our entire church. So those would be my three.
WES: Yeah. Man, I love that. That’s so good. And, really, going back to that idea of changing the goal and really having discipleship as the goal, it really does change how we, quote‑unquote, do church, how we lead a congregation. And I think often about ‑‑ I keep coming back ‑‑ in this series, I keep coming back to Luke 14 and Jesus’ words, his admonition to count the cost before you become a disciple, and his warning that if you take on this [mantle] of discipleship, if you come and follow me, it’s going to be costly, and not everyone can pay the cost. So if you’re not going to take up your cross and follow me, if you’re not willing to hate your father and mother, your wife and your children, your own life, then don’t bother coming and being my disciple.
And I think how different that is as a strategy than the way that we typically, quote‑unquote, do church or the way that we try to attract people. And we just ‑‑ again, as you said, we want people to like us. We want people to attend. We may even want people to get baptized. But, again, I think there’s a slight difference between what we think of as making Christians, getting people saved, and making disciples, and churches that are really passionate about making disciples, they set a high bar for themselves and for other people because Jesus sets a high bar. He doesn’t ‑‑ Jesus doesn’t go out and say, hey, we’d really like for you to come to church on Sunday. We really want you to be a church attender. He calls people, follow me, like your whole life, like everything, 24/7. I want you to come and follow me, learn from me, become exactly like me, take up your cross and die like I’m dying. I mean, it’s everything. It’s total, 100 percent commitment. And to the people that say, I don’t know; that seems like a lot, Jesus says, okay, see ya, and I don’t know that we’re willing to do that. I don’t know that we are willing to let people walk away.
And I think often about John 6. I think about the fact that Jesus is willing to let people leave. He even asks the 12, “Do you want to leave, as well?” And of course they say, “Where else would we go? You have the words of eternal life.” But I wonder, are we willing to do that? Are we willing to look at our congregations and say this is a place for people who want to be disciples and make disciples; this is a place for people who want to become like Jesus, and we are going to hold each other to that standard; we’re going to hold each other accountable to growing and going?
MARCUS: Yeah, I think you bring up a really good point there. It’s not just the person that comes new to your church that might walk away. It’s ‑‑ unfortunately, there are some folks in your number, when you say to them, hey, we are serious about this. This is what we have been called to as a congregation ‑‑ there’s going to be some uncomfortability there, and that’s why it becomes a challenge for leaderships. And I don’t want to diminish that at all. I’m not saying that this is easy to count that cost and say, you know what? There’s a certain culture that we are committed to having here. There’s a mission that we’re called to and we’re all in on that. It might not be for everybody, and we’re okay with that. That is probably the scariest thing that any shepherd or elder can even think about. But you make a really good point, Wes. I don’t find one place in the New Testament where Jesus was just trying to get someone to synagogue the next Saturday. He was about creating lives that were modeled and shaped and formed after him, and, ultimately, that’s our job, too, and that’s what we have to be committed to.
WES: Yeah. And even talking about, quote‑unquote, doing church or what does the assembly look like ‑‑ I mean, I think there’s so much that could be said about the transformative power of worship, the transformative power of what we do in the assembly, what we do when we break bread together, when we share the cup together, when we sing songs together. In fact, I think we could
spend a whole hour talking about that, about the way that our worship assembly, however you want to phrase that ‑‑ how that contributes to making disciples. And if a congregation, if the leadership has that mentality, that the answer to the question, why do you sing, is not, well, because it’s wrong to do anything else. You know, the answer to why do you sing is because we want to be followers of Jesus. We want the Spirit of God to dwell in us richly. We want to be transformed into his likeness, and singing to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs is part of that process of becoming more and more like Jesus. I think everything that we do, both in our individual lives and when we come together on Sunday and Wednesday, and whenever else we come together, would all contribute to that disciple‑making and disciple‑being process.
MARCUS: Agree. As we kind of talked about in a past question, so much of this comes down to not necessarily not doing things that we’re committed to doing, or even adding something new always. Sometimes that’s appropriate, but it is why we do what we do. Why we do what we do informs everything about ‑‑ everything from how it feels, to how it presents, to what you gain from it, to how it blesses other people. The perspective that you bring into it will change what you get out of it. I like to say the story that you live in is the story that you live out. What is our story as an individual in relationship to this God that has created us and, for some reason, lavished so much favor and grace on us? What is our story as a congregation, a community of believers who come together to pour into each other to that end, to glorify this God every single Sunday? It really changes the dynamic and the why you are there, not necessarily the what, because we need to be in community worshiping the Father together, but it does put a slightly different twist on why we’re there and what it means to us.
WES: Yeah, absolutely. And it gives us a metric, too, doesn’t it, to be able to look at ourselves and to look at what we’re accomplishing as a church family, also, to say, are we accomplishing that? If the goal is simply being present and checking that off of our list, that, yep, I showed up, I showed up, I showed up, I showed up ‑‑ for 35 years, I’ve shown up. If that’s the goal, if that’s the metric, then we feel like we’ve accomplished something even if we haven’t grown, even if we haven’t gone, even if we haven’t done this process of becoming more and more like Jesus or going and making disciples of others. But if that’s the metric ‑‑ if the metric is, are you becoming more like Jesus, well, that really requires some introspective examination, and that requires us to go and actually do something in addition to just showing up. And, again, showing up is important, it’s good, but to what end? What are you accomplishing in showing up? What are you trying to accomplish? Or do you even realize there is something to be accomplished in the showing up?
MARCUS: I think, just to add to what you’re saying, we really have such an opportunity because churches that are looking at this and wrestling with this ‑‑ not even just churches corporately, but disciples that are wrestling with this and looking at this, I think we leave so much on the table in terms of our ultimate purpose on this planet and in this life by not tapping into this. Jesus is saying I’m going to give you a life of significance, not just a life of temporal significance, but eternal significance. If you become like me, if you walk with me, if you live this life, the things that you do and the life that you live are going to matter forever.
And if it’s really just about attending for 35 years, you may wake up 35 years later and still be racked with anxiety that you haven’t done enough, that you haven’t been good enough. You might wake up and never be able to share with another soul because you’re really not confident in your own security and well‑being. It changes the way that you can treat your brothers and sisters because you carry this guilt or shame around with you on a daily basis. You haven’t really gotten to the bottom of why God has actually put you here on this planet. And I think just walking with Jesus in a daily rhythm, and understanding what that looks like and letting God work on you, coming together and letting God work on you in community with other disciples, provides you so much more depth and richness of life as you go from day to day, and resources with which to even meet stress and the trials and tribulations that are sure to come, that this really is the best way to do life.
It’s not just something that we intellectually know, and we read it and we go and hope that it actually comes to pass someday. Right here, right now, living as a disciple is the most fulfilling and rewarding way that you can walk this thing out. And I just hope and pray that more and more brothers and sisters can kind of latch onto that and sink their teeth into it because it really is beautiful and powerful.
WES: Yeah, yeah, that is beautiful. And I think it goes back to what you said in the beginning about this confidence that comes from knowing that we’re saved by grace through faith, that we are saved as a gift from God and that it’s not about this legalistic checklist of things that we’re trying to accomplish, but about a relationship that we have with Jesus and a relationship that we’re trying to share with other people because we know how good it is, we know how wonderful it is, and we’re so excited to have experienced it ourselves, and we want other people to experience it, as well.
MARCUS: Yeah, a faith and a sharing that comes from an overflow of gratitude as opposed to one that is compulsory or something that is something that you have to do is totally different. I am famous ‑‑ well, famous is definitely an overstatement. I shouldn’t use that word. I have been known to say that we’re all disciple‑makers anyway. We make disciples of all sorts of things. You make disciples of the books that you read and the shows that you binge on Netflix and the restaurants that you eat at. I don’t even live in DFW anymore, but everybody knows about [Hutchins] BBQ. Shout out to those guys over there. They’re doing good work. I make disciples of lots of things. Anything that has truly blessed and impacted my life, I’m prone to make a disciple of it and share with people.
And so when I say being a disciple or disciple‑making is diagnostic, if you don’t have that with Jesus, it might be a red flag or a clue to you that something is a little bit convoluted in your conception of how this works between you and him, what you’re actually doing here.
So I want everybody to have that overflowing joy. It’ll take the pressure off of you. If you think, you know, I need to go and share Jesus with somebody because that’s what I need to do to be good, it’s always going to be arduous. It’s always going to be stressful. It’s always going to be ridden with anxiety. You’re always going to feel like you need the perfect script and the perfect words to say instead of it being what Jesus really designed it to be, an as‑you‑go, organic exercise in which someone is actually just asking you, “Why are you the way that you are?” “Why do you have joy when I know that your life is going through utter turmoil right now?” “Why don’t you lash out at people? Like I would have lashed out, but you never lash out. What is that?” “What is this peace that you have? I’ve seen you in grief and it doesn’t look like grief that I’ve seen before.” These are the things that become present in a life, the fruits of the Spirit that cause people to ask questions, and your opportunities to make disciples are going to come much more naturally than you ever imagined. It’s just going to be sharing from the overflow. Not something that you do, but it’s just who you are.
WES: So what do you think we do ‑‑ and you may have already touched on some of this, but what do you think we do collectively, as churches, as congregations, that build hindrances or roadblocks, obstacles that keep us from being disciples and making disciples and growing as disciples, things that become part of our programs, our systems, our cultures that become a roadblock to accomplishing this mission because we sort of had a different mission in mind and we didn’t have this perspective, and so we’ve set things up that actually have unintentionally hindered people from growing as disciples?
MARCUS: Yeah, there’s probably a lot that comes into play here, and we did talk a little bit about ‑‑ I briefly mentioned that sort of Field of Dreams ministry approach, and I only would go into a little bit more depth on that because I want to make sure that everybody knows that I’m not critical of this. I think that the way that we kind of learned to set up church and do things and do church successfully was a product of a very unique period of time in American history. What I mean by that is, you know, there was a point in time where, you know, the data will tell you that 70 percent of people were in church somewhere every Sunday, and in that place and time, you can devote an awful lot of energy to just being the best church out there, and this is where Rick Warren and those guys over at Saddleback kind of patented the three P’s model, and everyone else adopted it with varying degrees of success.
And as the culture moved away from regular church attendance, we found ourselves in a position of not really relating to the culture so well anymore, not really having talked a lot about discipleship because, you know, it wasn’t really about that. It was about just presenting as the church in town that everyone’s going to go to since pretty much everyone’s in church. But now there are less than 20 percent of people in church every Sunday, and, really, that’s if you’re counting three out of every eight Sundays as regular attendance. So the environment in which we find ourselves is so very different, that if we are still married to that approach to ministry, if that’s how we’re going to make every decision, it will get in the way of organic disciple‑making culture.
Something that’s kind of an aside to that is just the way that we talk about this. Just to go a little bit deeper on action over announcement, in that Field of Dreams approach, we want to make the perfect announcement for a new program or a new initiative, and if that’s the way you want to try and bring an idea of disciple‑making to your church, you make it programmatic, but disciple‑making is not programmatic, it’s cultural, and so it will fail.
If anyone out there is familiar with the product adoption curve, this is just human psychology and how it works. In every single new ‑‑ I guess when you introduce something new to a market, you’re going to have 2.5 percent of people that are, like, innovators. They’re on it because it’s new and it’s exciting. That exists in a church. It exists when Apple drops a new phone. It’s the same phone every year, but they’re going to camp outside. They’re going to wait in line in a tent or something like that because they’re the innovators. After the innovators, you have early adopters. Your early adopters are 13.5 percent of the population, and they will do what the innovators do because they have the influence, and they’ll do it once the benefit has been established or demonstrated to the market. The next 34 percent is early majority, and the early majority will do whatever the early adopters do because the early adopters are people of influence in the community. The late majority will follow the early majority. That’s another 34 percent. And then you have 16 percent of any given population that are just laggards, and if you’re a laggard out there, you still have like the original Razr flip phone, and you are now trendy again because Razr flip phones are back. But that 16 percent is always going to exist. It’s just how people work.
The mistake that churches make ‑‑ and this gets in the way of a disciple‑making culture ‑‑ is what we try to do, since we look at those two, the early and late majority, 68 percent of a church population in any given context, and since that’s the largest percentage, we want to make sure we don’t upset those people. Whatever we’re going to do, those people got to be bought in, and so we will try to craft an announcement that will appeal to that 68 percent and somehow still motivate people to move in a different direction, and that seldom works. Matter of fact, most of the time it doesn’t work, and, you know, you probably have heard story after story after story of, well, we always try to do something and then it just never happens, or it fizzles out, or we do it for a little bit and then it stops. This is the kind of culture that this exists in. But the real cool thing about this is, if you understand how this works scientifically and datawise, in order for any new introduction to reach momentum where it’s going to be adopted by the early and late majorities, all you have to do is get the first 16 percent. A new product will reach momentum when it hits 16 percent. Most people probably have no idea that there are still more Android phones out there than iPhones because there’s such social pressure to have an iPhone and have blue bubbles instead of green bubbles. That’s because they reached momentum a long time ago, but they’re not even the majority in the marketplace.
So if you’re in a church context and you’re saying we really want to be disciple‑makers, we want to be a church where we are disciples who make disciples, what you got to do is you have to be willing to go first. In most churches, that 2.5 percent, those innovators, could be just your elders and your ministry staff. It might be some deacons or a couple of key players there. It’s actually much smaller than you think. If you take your church ‑‑ if your church is 200 people and you say we only gotta get 16 percent of people here to believe that they’re a disciple who’s supposed to make disciples and to start doing it before it will become the culture of our church, that is way different from saying we have to craft an announcement that motivates and moves 68 percent of our people immediately. So the mentality that ‑‑ that Field of Dreams, make the announcement, start the program will get in the way every time because it overcomplicates what this really is. So that’s the first thing.
The second thing is, I think sometimes there’s an unwillingness to create intentional spaces for discipleship to occur, and we come by it honestly because Sunday is so important to us, and it’s going to remain important to us. But when I look at the life of Jesus, we see him operating in different spaces of community, and I think it’s important for us to provide the space as much as we can for every disciple to develop in those same spaces. I’ll give you an example. Jesus spent time in the erémos, the wilderness. Without question, daily, with regularity, he’s got one‑on‑one time with his Father all of the time. That’s a spiritual rhythm that every disciple should be in. I can’t really be responsible for that, or you can’t, as a church leader. That’s up to the individual disciple. Then he had a transparent space with three disciples, Peter, James, and John, who got to see him not only transfigured on the top of the mountain in all of his glory that wasn’t accessible to everyone, but also saw him deep in the dark garden when he’s shedding tears and sweat drops of blood that not everyone got to see, either. So these were people that were doing life with him in a way that the peaks and the valleys were visible, and they kept each other accountable and they walked together. Every disciple needs that, too.
From there, Jesus had the 12, and we’ve talked about them today. That’s a personal space, and he was on mission with those guys in a special way that he wasn’t with others. Churches that are serious about disciple‑making will create a space for people to find their 12 there in that context. That might take the form of a small‑group ministry. It might take the form of another ministry that’s happening at the church. But if all of your energy is just dedicated on get people here on Sunday, and you’re not creating the space for some folks to get transparent with one another or personal with one another, you’re kind of cutting your own legs out from under you in terms of creating a space where folks can be disciples who make disciples.
Social space for Jesus ‑‑ he had the 70. He sent the 70 out. They were on mission with him, too. That’s a little bit more analogous to our regular church gathering on a Sunday, where everybody is coming together. Teams develop, ministries develop. That’s the easy one for us because our entire way of church is centered around that social space. And then there’s the public space. Jesus, you know, sat in front of the multitudes with his disciples. They fed those that were needy. They healed dozens and dozens of people, and that’s the going part. When we’re not together in that transparent space, that social space together as a body, are we still on mission together in public? Are we still going with Jesus in that mission to make an impact positively on someone’s life so that they are provoked deep within them to ask the question, “Who are these people? I need to call them something. I think they call them Christians. What is it about these people? Why are they helping us? Why are they invested in us?” And so that would be one of the unintentional obstacles, as well, just not facilitating those spaces, and the expectation that you talked about before, that this is what it looks like, this is the pathway to spiritual maturity. We are already walking it; we want you to walk it with us.
WES: Yeah, that’s so good. And I can’t help but think that so many of our congregations are set up with the potential for exactly what you’re talking about but without the intentionality. Without the goal or the vision of it being to serve that purpose of being and making disciples, then it becomes something different. And I keep coming back to the idea that so much of what we do is about information, maybe inspiration, but very seldom transformation. And so we like to inform, and sometimes we like to inspire, but it just ends there. But if our goal is transformation, it’s a much more difficult goal. If our goal is actually to take people from where they are to where they need to be, which is more and more like Jesus, that’s difficult because then we have to deal with the fact that, oh, well, we’re kind of resisting the Spirit here. We’re quenching the Spirit here, and we need to repent and we need to change, and there needs to actually be change over time. If we are the same people today that we were 10 years ago, something is failing and we need to repent drastically.
But if we just teach to inform or teach to inspire, well, then we can feel like we did a great job and we can pat ourselves on the back. We’re informing people. They know more Bible now than they used to know, or they feel inspired every week and they feel like, oh, that was a great sermon or that was a great Bible class or that was a great small group or whatever. But if they’re not actually ‑‑ if we’re not actually being transformed, there’s a problem and we’re falling short. But, again, we have Bible classes, we have small groups, we have big assemblies. People are out in the community. They are in the workplace. They are in the school. They are in the public. But if we’re not doing those things with the intention of being and making disciples, then we’re falling short of the mission.
MARCUS: I love that you say that. Actually, I laughed ‑‑ someone said, the other day, if you don’t look at your Facebook memories from 10 years ago and feel embarrassed, then you’re not growing, and I thought that was a really funny way to look at that. But yeah, it’s true. There is no living thing in God’s creation that ‑‑ I mean, if it’s not growing, it’s dying. That’s just kind of the way things work. And we got to be growing as disciples because sanctification is not a process that finishes this side of the new heavens and the new earth.
I want to speak to potential fear. If someone out there is kind of weirded out by this whole disciple‑making pivot and church culture already, let me try to assuage your fears a little bit. What Wes just said is so important because we have a lot of the skeleton in place already. Those spaces sometimes exist almost completely in different church contexts and dynamics. They’re just not purposed towards that. One of the greatest fears that I hear when I sit down with folks is that there are a lot of sacred cows here. Like we can’t get rid of VBS. We can’t get rid of this program or that program, and that’s really not a viable way to approach it. A better way to approach it is to say, okay, here are the things that we are doing already. How do these or how can these be purposed towards the goal of disciple‑making? How can we maybe reinvent this thing that we love to do but has been losing steam and we feel like we’re supposed to do it? How do we revitalize it with this mission that draws us all together and unifies us and galvanizes us and gives it a greater purpose than just we’ve always done this here?
So you might find that you won’t find everything that you’re afraid of ending up on the cutting floor on the cutting floor. You just might find that there’s new life in the places and the context that you already have if there’s purpose and intention behind them, if there’s a unifying vision and a mission and value as the way you carry yourself in that space behind them. So I want to encourage anybody or any church that is looking at this not to get intimidated or afraid of what you might lose by making this a focus because you really only stand everything to gain.
WES: Yeah. So well said. So let’s talk to the person who is not just in the 16 percent; they’re in the 1 percent. Like they’re listening to us and they’re like, amen, Marcus, I 100 percent want to be a disciple. I want to make disciples. I want to be part of the overall mission of the church. I want to be part of the Great Commission and making disciples, but they’re part of a congregation that is stagnant, that isn’t focused on this, that has no desire to do this, that really doesn’t want to change, that they want to keep doing what they’ve been doing and they’re really not interested in reimagining what they should be, what they could be. And so how do we encourage that person that feels like they’re all by themselves and they’re not part of a community that’s committed to this mission, and what can they do in their context, do you think?
MARCUS: Excellent question, and those people exist. I’ve had the privilege of working with a couple, and my advice is always to them, and my advice is to you, if you find yourself in this position, always look at Jesus. We can’t have this whole conversation about patterning ourselves after Jesus and growing like he grew and then abandon it if we’re in a non‑ideal circumstance. It’s always going to be the answer: “What Would Jesus Do,” like an old bracelet we used to wear in 1993. What would Jesus do in this situation? One of the concepts that I like to teach, and I really like to dig in deep on, is called invest in the one. It’s one of the skills that I think Jesus was incredibly proficient at, and what we see in Jesus’ ministry is, whether he was in a larger or smaller discipleship context with the folks he was in community with, he impacted a lot of people one at a time: one person at a time, one feeding at a time, one healing at a time, one conversation that really shouldn’t have been happening at a time, and it teaches us that even that one person, in Jesus’ eyes, is worth it. It’s worth the investment.
And the gospel, when it impacts one life, has infinite power, so please don’t be intimidated or think that you need everyone else to come to consensus about doing this discipleship thing before you begin, because Jesus, in his example, was able to take the most socially outcast, the most destitute and turn them into some of the greatest disciple‑makers and evangelists in history. I love Jesus’ interaction with the woman at the well, not because she’s a woman that he shouldn’t have been talking to, not because of the life that she led before that time that we focus on so much, but because she became a woman who led an entire village to Jesus, and not I or maybe anyone else on this podcast right now has that on their resume. So don’t think that it has to be a big movement. The greatest movements start with one. Find the one that you’re supposed to invest in and start making a disciple right there.
And in addition to that, it might not even be somebody that is outside of your church. It might be somebody that is right there in front of you that you see every week, who you don’t really know that well for some reason, or maybe God has kind of been tugging on you, there’s something going on in their life. Huddle up with that person and start walking out these rhythms of Jesus together. Give each other permission to encourage and keep you accountable with one another, and you’re going to be surprised with what God is going to do with that. What will happen in a church where nothing is happening and all of a sudden one or two people start happening is word will spread very quickly, and the question is gonna come, well, how ‑‑ like we haven’t had guests here in at least three years. All of a sudden, you know, Wes has got a new ‑‑ what is going on with that? Or, wow, someone got baptized. The preacher didn’t even do it. What was that? Someone got baptized on Saturday. What are we doing on Saturday? Those stories, those testimonies will be much better at inspiring and convincing the folks that are in your context that this is a worthwhile endeavor. So be the one who makes the one, and you’ll be surprised how fast God can generate momentum like that. I’ve seen that happen several times. So that would be my encouragement to you. You can do way more than you think, and every one person is worth it in God’s eyes.
WES: Amen. Amen. So well said. Be the one that makes the one. I just can’t help but think that, yes, it would be ideal ‑‑ it would be ideal if everybody in your congregation ‑‑ if your elders, if your preacher, if your deacons, if your friends, if everybody was on board, if they were all passionate about this, but we can’t wait for the ideal situation to start obeying Jesus. That’s what discipleship is. Discipleship is obeying Jesus when it’s in season and when it’s out of season, when it’s easy and when it’s hard, and so we just do what Jesus would have us to do. We strive to be faithful regardless of the situation, and that’s it.
And I’m so glad that you said that it might not be a person outside of the body. It may not be somebody who is not a Christian. It might be a saved, baptized person, but they’re really not growing as a follower of Jesus, as an apprentice of Jesus, as a disciple, and your influence, your encouragement, your admonishment, your just being friends with them and walking with them and letting them see you be a disciple might be the encouragement that they need to start being the person that God wants them to be.
MARCUS: 100 percent. So much of this discipleship thing is about the one‑anothering one another that we read about in the New Testament, and it starts there. Ultimately, if you did have someone that you were discipling that comes into your church body, you’re going to want them to see that community. You’re going to want them to see that love. You’re going to want them to see that discipleship on display, so start right there with who’s in front of you and let God create all of the other opportunities organically as you go throughout your day. Keep your head on a swivel, keep your eyes up, ask God to show ‑‑ who am I supposed to invest in today?
When we are talking about people outside of church ‑‑ I used to think that this was where this fits, but, actually, sometimes it fits with folks that are inside of your church. Your biggest opportunity to make a disciple or to create a relationship that matters is probably somewhere buried underneath of your deepest agitation or frustration. It’s the places where you feel hurried, you feel rushed, you feel annoyed. That’s a place where I would be very serious about inviting God into and just seeing what he does with that situation because he has a way of turning those on their heads, and it can be really incredible to see what he does working in those situations.
WES: That’s good. That is so good, Brother. Thank you for this conversation, Marcus. Thank you for being a disciple, for making disciples, and for all your work in the kingdom, Brother.
MARCUS: Thank you so much for having me. This has been a great conversation, and thank you to everyone who’s listening. If you’re feeling the tug that there’s more to this than just showing up every Sunday, there is. And it’s not always easy, but it is beautiful. It is powerful. There’s joy, there’s peace, there’s purpose in it. So chase it down. God will meet you there.
WES: Amen.
Thank you so much for listening to the Radically Christian Bible Study Podcast. If you have just a moment, we would love for you to rate and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you’re listening. It really does help more people discover this content. I also want to thank the guests who join me each week, Beth Tabor, who volunteers her time to transcribe this podcast, and our whole McDermott Road Church family who make it possible for us to provide this Bible study for you. Now, let’s go out and love like Jesus.
How to Prepare Yourself for Worship with Daniel Dalp
May 29, 2024
In today’s fast-paced world, it’s easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of daily life, leaving little time or energy to prepare our hearts and minds for the Sunday worship assembly. We often show up to church gatherings feeling distracted, exhausted, or preoccupied with the cares of the world. This episode of the Radically Christian Bible Study Podcast tackles these challenges head-on, exploring practical ways to cultivate a mindset that is truly focused on worshiping God and encouraging our fellow believers.
Drawing from the teachings of the Apostle Paul in Colossians 3, the conversation delves into the importance of setting our minds on things above, rather than being consumed by the fleeting concerns of this world. Today’s guest, Daniel Dalp, helps unpack the biblical concept of corporate worship and the role it plays in shaping our spiritual lives. Wes and Daniel also examine the communal aspect of worship, highlighting the need to encourage and uplift one another, and how our mindset can either foster or hinder that process.
Daniel Dalp is the creator and host of the brand new podcast, “For Your Sunday Morning Drive.” Dalp’s unique perspective stems from his own experience as a preacher and his desire to help others prepare their hearts and minds for meaningful worship. With a keen understanding of the challenges families face on Sunday mornings, he offers practical tips and insights to help listeners cultivate a worshipful attitude, even during the journey to the church building.
Welcome to the Radically Christian Bible Study Podcast. I’m your host, Wes McAdams. Here we have one goal: Learn to love like Jesus. Today we’re visiting with my friend, Daniel Dalp, about his new podcast, “For Your Sunday Morning Drive.” It’s all about helping Christians prepare themselves mentally and emotionally to worship God, but also to encourage each other on Sunday mornings.
Before we get to the podcast, I want to thank Freed‑Hardeman University’s Graduate School of Theology. They’ve been sponsoring the podcast over the last few months, and I really appreciate their sponsorship, and I also appreciate what they’re doing for the kingdom of God. We’ve been telling you about their master’s and doctorate‑level programs, how they offer a unique blend of academic rigor, spiritual formation, and practical application to both deepen your understanding of scripture, but also sharpen your ministry skills. They offer flexible online courses, so of course you can pursue your graduate degree from anywhere in the world. Right now, in order to make it more affordable, all application fees are being waived and scholarships are available. So if you want to find out more about Freed‑Hardeman University’s Graduate School of Theology, visit fhu.edu/RadicallyChristian. And, also, I want to mention that this will be the final podcast for this spring season. We’re going to take a break over the summer. I’ve got a lot of stuff going on personally and also in the church here, and so we’re going to take a few months’ break, but please stay subscribed so that, in the fall, when we relaunch the podcast, you will get all of the new episodes. And take this opportunity to share the podcast with other people so that when we relaunch in the fall, we’ll have a lot of new Bible studies, a lot of new guests, and we’ll be able to, as always, encourage each other to love like Jesus.
But before we do anything else, I want to read from Colossians chapter 3, starting in verse 1. Paul writes, “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”
As always, I hope today’s Bible study and discussion is an encouragement to you, and I hope that it helps all of us learn to love like Jesus.
WES: Daniel Dalp, welcome to the podcast, Brother.
DANIEL: Hey, Wes, thanks for having me on. I appreciate it, man.
WES: It is good to get to visit. I’ve known you, we’ve been sort of connected online for a lot of years, but it’s good to finally have you on the podcast.
DANIEL: Yeah, it’s interesting to see those circles that we all kind of run in but we don’t really ever interact, but I’m certainly excited to be here.
WES: Well, I’m excited about your new work, your new podcast. It’s really fantastic. It’s really unique, and I’m excited to talk about what it is, help people to understand about it and check it out, hopefully, but also how it got started and where the idea came from. So tell us about the podcast and what made you think of it.
DANIEL: Absolutely. So the podcast is called “For Your Sunday Morning Drive,” and how it kind of developed is I have about an hour‑and‑15‑minute drive to work with the congregation in Hawesville, Kentucky, and it was really kind of just dead space, right, where ‑‑ we get ready, we’re in this mad rush to leave the house and make sure everybody is ready to go to worship, and then there’s this hour‑and‑15‑minute lull where I’m like, I don’t know what to do here. And then we get there ‑‑ and I think you’re probably familiar with it, too. I won’t speak for you, though, but as a preacher, you have all of these things that you have to prep and make sure that this is ready, and it kind of felt like, on the way there, I was losing the intentionality behind worship. And so I would listen to a bunch of brotherhood podcasts, yours, and then there’s just so many others that are out there right now, and they’re all doing such good works, and it was really helpful for me to kind of help recenter my mind.
And as I was driving, I would stop and I would share one of these posts, if I found one of these podcasts to be specifically really helpful, and I would say, “Well, here’s some thoughts for your Sunday morning drive,” and that kind of got me thinking. And the more I thought about it, I said, you know, this could be a really interesting space to fill and something that could help a lot of people, and if they’re having the same issues that I’m having with making sure I’m prepared for worship, then let me see if I can help them. So that’s kind of where the idea came from. They’re short, really digestible episodes with that intentionality behind it to help prepare our minds for worship.
WES: Yeah. Well, to say that they’re short might be a little bit of an understatement because I think that I listened to all of the episodes on my drive from my house to the church building, which is not nearly as far as your drive from your house to your church building. So they’re, what, about five minutes long?
DANIEL: Right. I try to keep it around five minutes long. The format is they ‑‑ you know, there’s a prompt to kind of help move you along and focus your mind spiritually, and then there’s some discussion questions at the end. And I think, at the time of this recording ‑‑ I don’t know when it’s going to come out, but there’s about five episodes, and I’ve got one in the chamber for Sunday, so…
WES: That’s fantastic. Well, they’re short enough that I think families with even young kids that don’t have a long attention span ‑‑ I think families, no matter what their situation is or how long their commute from their house to their church building might be, I think everybody can get something out of it, has time to listen to it, and then even the discussion question is probably my favorite part of it ‑‑ maybe my second favorite part. My first favorite part is the intro that you play every week, the little girl that asks ‑‑ or the little boy, I don’t know which ‑‑ that says, “Are we there yet?” Is that your family or is that ‑‑
DANIEL: That’s my daughter, Evelyn. She’s six, and she saw me down there with a microphone and she’s like, “Dad, what are you doing?” And I was like, “Oh, come here and I’ll show you.” And so she’s like, “Can I do it?” And that’s kind of where that came from. And, yeah, she steals the show, as far as I’m concerned.
WES: I love it. I love it. Yeah, that is definitely my favorite part of the show. You hear the car start, the door close, and she asks, “Are we there yet?” And it’s really, really good, and I really think people can get a lot out of it, and I think the mindset behind it, the intention behind it is really important. But, in fact, speaking of mindset, one of the things that you quote every week is Colossians 3:2 about setting our mind on things above, not on things that are on earth. So let’s talk about that idea behind Colossians 3, that passage there, and why setting our mind on certain things, setting our mind on things above, why is it so important, not just for Sunday morning, but all the time.
DANIEL: Well, I think if we look at Colossians as a book, it has, of course, some amazing application to it, and if we are narrowing our view specifically to Colossians 3, there’s this list of things that Paul tells us to stay away from, right? He says you set your mind above because that’s where Jesus is, that’s where Christ is, on these above aspects of our lives. And if we look at our motivations for, like you said, not just Sunday mornings, but every day, our intentionality informs our purpose, right? So if I’m going to go throughout my day and just live however I want without purposefully directing my mind to God, then of course I’m going to move all over the place spiritually, and, I mean, I don’t think that’s any more important than whenever we’re coming before God in worship.
WES: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think the church at Colossae is dealing with so many different philosophies and ideas and things that distract them or get them focused on something other than Jesus, and Paul’s point throughout the whole book is the supremacy of Christ and how, if you have Jesus, you have everything, that he is the beginning and the end of knowledge and understanding, that if you have Jesus, then you have all that you need, and how many philosophies there were that they were dealing with that were pulling their minds away from Jesus.
And I think about the world in which we live and how many voices with which we’re bombarded constantly, and so ‑‑ not just on our drive to worship on Sunday morning, but every moment of our life we are bombarded with advertising and we’re bombarded with podcasts and with YouTube and with social media, and there’s so many voices that are competing for our attention and our affection that I think that Christians are ‑‑ to just be able to sit down in worship or throughout their day, throughout their week, to be able to focus on Jesus, I think, is so difficult. It’s always been difficult in many ways, but I think especially today, in our culture, it is incredibly difficult because, again, even after we turn the radio off or we turn the podcast off or we turn off the computer, those things are still going through our mind and we’re still just kind of swimming in a noisy cacophony of all of these ideas and thoughts.
DANIEL: And worldliness, right? There’s just so ‑‑ we can’t escape it. It’s always around us. And I don’t think that’s any more evident than whenever we look at, you know, just everything that’s infiltrating through media, and like you said, just you turn on any screen and it’s there, and we’re supposed to ‑‑ according to Colossians 3, we’re dead to these things, right? We’re no longer involved in them: immorality, impurity, greed, evil passions. All of these things are to be set aside because we’ve been made new in Jesus. And how do we claim to be made new in Jesus if we’re still living over here with the old mindset? It’s certainly something to think about, and we should inform our decisions by that.
WES: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I think anything that can help us to recenter, reorient, refocus our minds on Jesus on any day of the week is valuable, but especially on Sunday. I always like to say ‑‑ there’s a silly little saying that I say all the time, is that Sunday not only makes for a better week, it makes for a better life, that when you gather with other Christians and you share the bread and you share the cup and you sing these songs together and you go through these things on a weekly basis, it transforms us. I think that worship and that gathering, that corporate worship, that collective gathering of people all focused on Jesus and worshiping him, I think it’s supposed to be transformational.
So let’s talk about that specifically. Where do you think most families’ minds are? What’s the struggle here? When we show up for the assembly on Sunday morning, what’s the struggle?
DANIEL: And I don’t want to speak for everybody, but I’ll just speak from my perspective. I think Sunday mornings ‑‑ they can be stressful, they can be this awkward, empty space. You know, we don’t really know what to do with ourselves during this time period before we start worship, and I think a lot of it comes from this autopilot mindset that sometimes we can get in, right? And then we wonder why maybe I don’t feel like I’m getting a lot out of worship or I don’t feel like I can put a lot into worship.
Whenever we are on the way to church or on the way to meet with our brethren and we’re getting there and we’ve spent all this time rushing and getting ready to put on our Sunday best ‑‑ and I know you’ve had episodes where you’ve talked about that in the past, but that should be more of a mindset, right? I’m making my mind right for worship, and then we walk into the building and, all of a sudden, we’re expected to, like, flip this switch and, “Okay, I’m here, I’m ready to learn in Bible class, I’m ready to be here for worship,” and I don’t really think it works that way. I think it’s more about building up to that and really putting ourselves, everything that we have, into worshiping God in Spirit and truth. I think a lot of families ‑‑ at least I know mine does, we kind of struggle with that idea of ‑‑ there’s so many things pulling at our attention. Let’s talk about the drive there to begin with. A lot of times, you know, we’re already talking about what we’re going to do after church before we even get into worship. How are we expected to worship God in a substantial way if we’re already thinking about when this thing gets out, right? It’s certainly worth, I think, a thought and preparing our hearts accordingly to that.
WES: Yeah. I’m so incredibly thankful for my parents, particularly my mom. When we were growing up, she was adamant that, on Sunday mornings, the television did not come on, that we listened to things that were edifying and encouraging and would sort of put us in the right mindset for the worship assembly, but I don’t think that that’s common. I don’t know. Again, you only know what you know, you only know what you’ve experienced. And so I feel like there is ‑‑ maybe the best analogy for me is like having a meal, that ‑‑ when I was growing up, again, my mom would tell me, you know, you can’t eat that because it’ll ruin your appetite. You’ll ruin your dinner if you eat this thing. So you wouldn’t eat a candy bar right before you sat down for a meal, and if you did, you probably wouldn’t have an appetite for the meal. Even though the meal is better and you might actually enjoy the roast and the potatoes and the bread, but because you
ruined your appetite on a piece of chocolate, now you really don’t have an appetite for that because you ruined it with junk food.
And I feel like, not just on Sunday morning, but even on Saturday night, if we don’t go to bed on time, if we don’t think about the mindset we’re going to be in, the mood we’re going to be in, if we are just constantly filling ourselves with junk food of entertainment and we’re watching movies and we’re watching television and we’re streaming some series on our phone, then when we get to worship, of course our attention span is not going to be what it’s supposed to be. We’re not going to have the right ‑‑ again, I keep coming back to the word mindset, but it’s also about our emotionality, and we’re really not ‑‑ we’re not in the right space. We’re not in the right frame of mind to think about the Lord and his holiness and to be filled up with those things. We may want to, but sometimes I say, you know, our want to isn’t what it’s supposed to be. You know, we want to want to, but, in reality, we don’t really want to be there. We don’t want to be listening to a sermon or a Bible class or be singing these songs because our heart and our mind has been given over to these things that may, in and of themselves, not be wrong. The show you’re streaming may not be wrong, but it’s junk food and it’s distracting you even after it’s turned off. It’s distracting you from the worship.
DANIEL: Yeah. And I’m glad you brought up that point about, you know, getting to bed on time, right? That has such a huge impact on the rest of our day. And I had a brother in Christ, he’s since passed, Jim Clem, but whenever ‑‑ he was a Bible class teacher when I was in high school, and he would always ‑‑ you know, he’d see all of us, our youth group, walk in bleary‑eyed and exhausted from staying up to who knows how early in the morning, and he would say, “Daniel, worship starts on Saturday night.” And I’d always ask him, “What does that mean?” He goes, “You prepare your mind, you prepare your heart, and you make sure you’re prepared to be in worship on the Lord’s Day.” And, you know, we typically wouldn’t do that with our jobs; we wouldn’t do that with any kind of family gathering. We’d make sure we were adequately prepared. It’s concerning, I think, that, on some level, we’ve relegated worship to the bottom of that list when it certainly should be up at the top.
WES: Yeah. Well, I’ve never really thought about it this way, but the Jewish calendar ‑‑ in fact, you could even say the Biblical calendar that starts with the days of creation, it begins with evening and then morning. It doesn’t begin with morning and then evening, the way we typically think of a day. In the West, we tend to think of there’s morning, and then there’s evening later on, but the Biblical creation account gives us ‑‑ there’s evening and then there’s morning, that, really, in some ways, Sunday should begin ‑‑ like your Bible class teacher said, it should begin on Saturday night. And so Saturday night we should be welcoming in the Lord’s day, welcoming in this day on which we’re going to gather together with our brothers and sisters and not only learn, but also worship, and you just have to be in the right mindset for that. We wouldn’t take a test, we wouldn’t encourage our kids to go to school and take some big test ‑‑ the ACT or SAT, we wouldn’t encourage them to take that without sleeping and eating well and being rested in order to go into that, or if there was going to be a big day at school tomorrow, we’d want to be well‑rested for that. But, for some reason, we take for granted this huge blessing and responsibility of coming before the throne of God and offering up the fruit of our lips, the sacrifice to God of praise, and we’re just exhausted, we’re thinking about other things, we’re dozing off, and we’re really not where we’re supposed to be.
DANIEL: Yeah. And you’ve got to imagine, how does God feel about that, right? I mean, it impacts so many areas of our life, especially on a Sunday, right, whenever we’re thinking about the Lord’s Supper and in a worthy manner. Are we really doing that? Are we really there? And then there’s also the aspect of what are we doing for everyone else, our brothers and sisters, right?
WES: Yeah. Well, that’s exactly what I want to get to next, is so often we talk about what we get out of it, and I think we shortchange ourselves when we show up and we’re not in the right frame of mind for what we’re doing. We shortchange ourselves and we don’t get out of it what we should.
But you used a phrase earlier about “put into it,” and I think sometimes we ‑‑ not only do we neglect the putting into it as far as what we’re offering to the Lord, but Hebrews 10, when the Hebrew writer talks about the assembly, he’s talking, in context, about stirring one another up and encouraging one another. I mean, I could worship by myself, and I do, and I should worship by myself. All of us should, you know, spend time in prayer. If you’re praying, you’re worshiping God. If you’re singing in your car, you’re worshiping God. But there’s something to this gathering together, and part of why we gather together is to encourage each other and stir up one another. Let’s talk about that for a second and just ‑‑ if we’re not in the right mindset when we show up, how does that impact the other people that are gathered with us?
DANIEL: Sure. And I love the word that you used, this offering that we’re bringing to the table, right? Because if we go all the way back to the beginning and we think of the sacrifices that were given to God, he always, always wanted the best to be given from his people. You know, we look at the rejection of Cain’s sacrifice, we look at Malachi, where, you know, the priest gave that which was defiled, right? But then we ‑‑ in the New Testament, we also have the aspect of saying, you know, this sacrifice I’m offering up to God, it involves more than just me because I’m also impacting my brothers and sisters. You know, we look at Hebrews 10:24‑25, and so often we relegate that verse to ‑‑ whether or not that’s correct, right? There’s also discussion on that ‑‑ to saying ‑‑ you know, that’s the you‑have‑to‑show‑up verse. And I get it, right? Because if I’m going to be stirring up my brothers and sisters to good works, part of that is you got to be there, right?
But we also look at the aspect of ‑‑ I think when we come to the aspect of putting on our Sunday best mentally, we’re doing that because I’m going to go and I’m going to uplift my brethren with song, and I’m going to be there with them as they’re praying, and I’m going to comfort them, and I’m going to love them, and I’m going to encourage them through my fellowship. If we’re not stirring up and encouraging our brethren, or if we’re not in a place to do that, that might be the Sunday, that might be the day that they need us to do that. And if we’re not coming to the table prepared, we’re not just letting God down, which should be our first and foremost priority, but we’re also having an impact on those that are also trying to worship, and I think we’ve all experienced that. We look around and, regardless if we should be doing that or not on a Sunday morning, we notice, right? And it can dampen our worship. It can really start to bring things down and discourage us.
WES: Yeah. Well, you mentioned “I don’t know if we should do that or not,” the looking around. I think we should. I think ‑‑ I really think we should, not in a “we want to catch people sleeping” or “we want to catch people distracted” kind of thing, but we ‑‑ not in a judgmental way, but that’s sort of the beauty and the joy of it. In fact, I was in a building that was very much unlike the building in which I worship, that their auditorium where they do their worship gathering was very dark, you know, very little lights over the seats, and all of the lights were on the stage. And I just thought, what would it be like to be here on a Sunday morning? I wasn’t there on a Sunday morning, but I just was thinking, you can’t see anybody. You can’t see your brothers and sisters. What’s the point?
And I feel like so many people, over time, will get to the point where they are asking, if they’re not already, why come if ‑‑ especially if your congregation live streams, you know, why be here at all in person if all I’m doing is sitting in a dark seat watching people on a stage or listening to people on a stage? I think the whole point of a gathering is that this is coming to ‑‑ you used the word “table.” We’re a family that’s centered around a table, and if my family shows up at the dinner table, you can’t just be an individual that’s like, “Hey, I don’t want to talk to anybody. I don’t want to look at anybody. I’m just here to eat.” You know, “I don’t want you looking at me. Keep your eyes to yourself.”
DANIEL: Sometimes.
WES: Yeah, sometimes, right? But that’s not the way it should be. And when we come to a family table, it is about spending time with the Father and spending time with the Son, but it’s also about spending time with the brothers and sisters, and we have to have that mentality when we get there.
I think about Paul’s admonition to the church at Corinth, that they were taking the Lord’s Supper without, he says, discerning the body. And I think, there, it kind of has a double meaning. It’s the body of Jesus, I think, but also the body of Christ, the brothers and sisters in Christ, because they weren’t thinking about each other and they were eating while another person hadn’t even shown up yet, and they weren’t waiting for each other and they weren’t making this meal a communal meal, a family meal. They were focused on getting full individually and forgetting each other. And I think we can do the same thing if we just show up with this mentality that’s like, “Well, at least I’m here. I’ve checked the box. I’m here.”
DANIEL: Right, yeah. And I love that you brought that up, Wes, because I think that a lot of times, whenever we look at the verses we’re discussing, there can be that danger to say, well, this is ‑‑ I’m just going to show up, and at least I’m showing up, right? As preachers, we get to look at everybody and we see everything that’s happening out there in the audience, right? And what’s so great about that on a Sunday morning is ‑‑ my favorite part is looking and seeing the kids, right? How are the kids involved? Because we have a ton of little ones at Hawesville, and it’s such a joy to be able to see them and their crazy antics and everything that’s going on, right? That’s uplifting. It’s also uplifting to be able to see your brethren looking at a new mom or looking at someone that’s struggling with their kids and you see, instead of people looking around in judgment, “I’m going to go and help this person. I want to share the love of Jesus and show that.” That’s incredibly uplifting.
And I think whenever we look at forsaking the assembly, we need to widen our scope, right? We need to look at that more in terms of how am I forsaking my brethren even though I’m still here, than in terms of, well, that’s just about showing up to worship, because I can be present in worship and still not be fully engaged and still be forsaking my brethren.
WES: Yeah. Yeah, and if we come ‑‑ even that idea of getting something out of it might ‑‑ even that idea ‑‑ and I think you should get something out of it. I think you should receive a blessing by being there. But so often, I think that idea that “I’m here to get something,” that even gets in the way of giving something, and then we might actually be not getting something because we’re not giving something. Because there’s this reciprocal loving one another, and it’s only in that, when you give, that you actually receive, and I think sometimes, when we show up where we think of the stage, as it were, we think of the podium ‑‑ we think of that as our content device and we’re just listening to content. Then the other people in the room are only potential distractions, and we say things like, “Well, their kids were so distracting this morning,” or “That person was so distracting this morning; they really kept me from worshiping,” as if it’s all about ourselves, rather than, like you said, if we see them as somebody who ‑‑ “I’m so thankful they’re here,” and “Wow, maybe this is their first time. Maybe they’ve not been to worship before. How can I help them? How can I serve them? How can I encourage them?” It’s in that loving each other and stirring each other up to love and good works ‑‑ that’s where we actually do receive the blessing, and we’re not receiving that blessing because we’re showing up to get rather than to give, I think.
DANIEL: I think there’s a certain level of humility that we have to still have, right, when we’re coming to the throne of God in worship and we’re looking around and we’re seeing all of our brothers and sisters that are there with us. We want them to feel as encouraged as we are, and if we’re not encouraged and if we’re not in the space to encourage, maybe that’s something we need to work on. Are we going to be there, you know, every single time? Well, probably not, because we’re going to have stuff going on in our lives that’s ‑‑ which is also one of the reasons we come to worship, right, and that we assemble and we fellowship with each other, is so that we can be lifted up. And I agree; I think it needs to be ‑‑ instead of this constant thought of “What am I getting out of worship” ‑‑ especially if that’s a decision that’s made not to come, right? It kind of presents itself as, “Well, I’m trying to steal this thing away from God and just hoard it all to myself,” when, in reality, I’m there to give worship to God and to encourage my brethren to give more.
WES: Yeah, absolutely. And it’s amazing how all of that is enhanced by everyone else that’s there, especially when everyone else that’s there ‑‑ when we all have the same mindset. I think often about this family that I know, not here at McDermott where I am now, but where I used to be. But there was this mom who would sometimes come with her son who has Down’s syndrome, and her son was a big boy. He’s bigger than she is. And so if he decided that he was going to go somewhere or do something, there was very little she could do to stop him, and sometimes he would come up onto the stage. He’d come behind the pulpit where I was, and I loved those moments. And I would just ‑‑ I’d sit down by him. Sometimes if there’d be a song leader up there leading singing, then he would just kind of wander up to the stage and maybe sit on the pew behind or just sit on the floor, and I’d come up there behind him and I would just sit behind him. I’d put my arm around him and we’d just sit there until he decided ‑‑ ’cause I couldn’t move him, either ‑‑ until he decided he was done and he wanted to go back with his mom. And she was so embarrassed and she was so apologetic, and she would say, “Well, we don’t need to come,” and “I’m sorry we were here,” and “I’m sorry we were a distraction.” And I said, “No, you being here makes us better people. This is why we are all here, and it makes us better by caring for each other.”
And I think about what the first‑century gatherings must have been like. You know, sometimes they gathered in a rich person’s home, but I’m sure sometimes they gathered in whatever home or structure they could find. And to this day, we have brothers and sisters around the world where it’s not unusual for a chicken or a goat or a child with special needs or a baby ‑‑ and they all cared for each other, and it wasn’t a professional production. It was a matter of mutual encouragement and participation, and they’re all gathered there as co‑contributors to this offering that we’re giving to the Lord and this love that we’re giving to each other.
DANIEL: I’m so glad you mentioned that last part, Wes, because sometimes one of the reasons we get ‑‑ I guess persnickety is the word I’ll use about what happens during worship is because, to be honest, sometimes it comes off as quite performative. And we get this idea ‑‑ let’s use babies crying because that’s the most common one, right? They’re going to mess up our audio or ‑‑ my goodness, what an un‑Christian attitude to have. And I haven’t always been the best at keeping that good mindset and showing people the grace that they need, but the people that are around us and are worshiping with us, especially if there’s a visitor there, they’re going to know that we are Christians by our love, right? And how we handle ourselves in these situations, it can mean the world to somebody. And if we handle it the wrong way ‑‑ and, you know, I’m sure ‑‑ I know I’ve done that occasionally ‑‑ that can rob someone of their joy and of their ability to focus during worship because now you’re thinking about, “Well, look how he responded to that,” and “Do I belong here?” And “Am I good enough to worship God?” Well, the answer to that is of course you belong here, right? Shame on us whenever we make it more about the production or make it a production instead of worship.
WES: Yeah. Amen. Amen, Brother. This is why I get so excited about the thought behind your podcast, that even just these five minutes can help ‑‑ I hope that people start earlier than that, but just this five minutes, and then maybe even the discussion that is generated from listening to your podcast, but if you can help two or three or four or five or six or seven or thousands of people to have the right mindset, then the exponential encouragement that will come from that, not just to the people that listened to it, but the people who are benefited by associating with and fellowshipping with those that listened to it, because now their mindset is in the right place and now they can give like they were unable to give before.
But maybe let’s add to that. What else can people do in addition to listening to this podcast? I encourage everybody to listen to your podcast, but in addition to that, what else could people do to sort of help them have the right mindset on Sunday morning?
DANIEL: And that’s kind of the goal behind the podcast, right? I’m not trying to compete with the message that’s going to be preached that morning. I want it to be short, where it can kind of help flip that switch, and there’s a ton of different things you can do. I’m going to talk to some practical ones that I find useful, because, you know, the podcast probably isn’t going to be for everyone, nor is it going to be a solution for everyone. But if you’re ‑‑ the first thing you mentioned earlier, make sure you’re preparing the night before. Maybe you look at ‑‑ I don’t know how many bulletins are still sent out in an email ahead of time, but a lot of times you’ll have the sermon topic and a scripture reading. Get your family together and read over that. That way, on the way to church or while you’re in worship, you say, you know what? I know what this sermon is going to be about. I know where to focus my mind.
Spend time in prayer. Maybe you spend the whole drive to church in prayer and talking to God and talking with your family. I put on a lot of worship music ‑‑ acapella worship music, and, man, that can really help to prepare yourself. And on that point, too ‑‑ it’s not just about the message that’s preached; it’s not just about the prayer. If you know what songs are going to be sung ahead of time, maybe spend some time learning those songs at home, singing them with your family. That’s something that my daughter, Evelyn, has really loved to do lately. She’ll be sitting in church and she’ll tug on my shoulder and say, “Dad, can we sing this at home?” And, man, talk about an impact on me. Yes, thank you. Absolutely we can.
And there’s just a lot of things that we can use, and I think the biggest one is just to make sure we understand who we are there for and that it’s not about making sure everything or everyone or ourselves are looking perfect that morning or whether our kids are behaving well. It’s about, are we there for God? Are we giving God what he deserves? Because he deserves our very best. And along the way, are we also building up and stirring up our brethren to love and good works? And if we keep those things in mind, it becomes less of a thing that we have to do every week, it becomes less of a just routinely planned action, and I think it becomes more of a ‑‑ this is something that I am looking forward to, and I think a lot of people struggle with that.
You know, we all know that we should love worship and we should enjoy worship and we should be excited about worship, but I don’t know that we always feel that way, and I understand it. And I think there’s a big aspect of that ‑‑ if we prepare our mindsets, it can help us understand why we should be excited about it. And that’s what I’ve come up with, and that’s kind of what I’ve looked at this week, is I’ve kind of looked over and thought about that question. Did you have anything that you could add to that? Because I’d love to hear it, as well.
WES: Well, I love some ‑‑ I just want to go back to a couple of things that you sort of said or hinted at, especially the idea of we spend so much time thinking about what we’re going to wear to worship. We may lay it out ahead of time. We may do an extra load of laundry ahead of time, and we spend more time thinking about what we’re going to wear, what’s on the outside of us than what’s on the inside of us, and that’s exactly the opposite of what ‑‑ we have so few pictures of the assembly from the New Testament, surprisingly, so few sort of direct references to what was going on or what should be going on in the assembly in the New Testament, but we have a couple of references. James is one of them, and he’s very explicit that if somebody shows up wearing, you know, fancy clothes, don’t pay special attention, don’t show partiality to him. And we have these references over and over again to not put a greater emphasis on what is on the outside of a person than what is on the inside of a person, and we prepare ourselves externally, but forget to prepare ourselves internally, and I think that is such a huge mistake.
I want to go back to also what you said about the songs. I never really thought about reading over the songs ahead of time, but what a brilliant idea that is, what a great idea. There’s been times, as the preacher, I have not appreciated the forethought that went into the song selection that our worship leader has done to coordinate the songs with the sermon until I’m standing in the worship, and I thought, wow, that song fits perfectly with what I’m preaching, and he really thought about the words of every song and making sure that they lined up. And I look around and I think, I wonder how many, like me, have missed just how coordinated all of these words are in order to help us focus on one idea this morning.
And if we went into the assembly already doing that ‑‑ in fact, we send out our worship list of songs and prayers ahead of time to the whole congregation. Every Saturday, that goes out to everyone, and I’ve never even thought about, hey, what a great exercise that would be on Saturday night, to look over those songs and look it up online, look up the lyrics and read through those as individuals or as a family and think about, okay, what big idea is being communicated? Because these are words, not only that are going to be sung to us, but are going to be sung from us, and we’re singing these things. Have we even stopped to think about the words that we’re singing?
DANIEL: I think there’s just so many things that we can do when it comes to preparing our minds for worship, and a lot of them ‑‑ you know, sometimes I think we’re looking for these big signs in the sky, like “This is how I magically change my heart overnight” kind of ideas, and a lot of it just comes down to practicality. What’s going to work for my family might not work for the McAdams family, right? And to that extent, the amount of time it takes for me to put my mind in this mindset might be different depending on how long we’ve been doing it, right? It’s a process. It takes time. Don’t get discouraged.
WES: Yeah, definitely. Well, Daniel, this has been such a wonderful conversation. It’s been incredibly encouraging to me. Your podcast has been encouraging to me. Before we close, why don’t you tell people a little bit more about where they can find the podcast and make sure they get subscribed so that on their next Sunday morning drive, they can be listening to it.
DANIEL: Yeah. Well, I certainly appreciate that, Wes. Yeah, “For Your Sunday Morning Drive,” it can be found on any of the major podcasting apps. Also, we’ve recently entered into partnership with Ministry League, and you can find us on their app or ministryleague.com. They have a lot of great resources for family worship, as well as personal development as a Christian, and it’s all free. So if you’re interested in looking at that or any of the other wonderful podcasts that are on the Ministry League network, please check them out.
WES: Fantastic. Well, thank you for a great conversation and thank you for your work in the kingdom, Brother.
DANIEL: Thank you, Brother. I appreciate it.
As I mentioned in the introduction, this will be the last episode for a few months, but we will be back in the fall with brand‑new episodes. Until then, I want to thank today’s guest, Daniel Dalp; Beth Tabor for transcribing, my McDermott Road Church family, and all of you for listening. Now, let’s go out and love like Jesus.
Do Not Wrestle Against Flesh and Blood with Kerry Williams
May 22, 2024
The apostle Paul wrote, “We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12). However, many Christians today struggle with truly understanding or appreciating the reality of spiritual warfare. We often dismiss or gloss over biblical references to demonic forces, the unseen realm, and spiritual battles. Why is having an awareness of these things important? How should we think about the forces of evil and darkness described in the New Testament?
This discussion centers around biblical teachings on spiritual warfare, including passages like 2 Corinthians 10 and Ephesians 6. It explores the nature of our battle against the devil and demonic forces, rather than against flesh and blood. Biblical concepts are examined, such as Christ’s ministry being focused on reclaiming what belongs to God from Satan’s domain. Today’s guest, Kerry Williams, shares insights into adopting a spiritual mindset and understanding the overlapping realms of the physical and spiritual worlds.
Kerry Williams serves as the Dean of Graduate Studies at Sunset International Bible Institute. He is also director of the Tahoe Family Encampment. Williams has over 30 years of preaching experience and has written books on the topic of spiritual warfare, aiming to inspire greater passion and knowledge about standing firm against the schemes of the devil.
Note: Some links may be affiliate links. Meaning, if you choose to buy something through these links, we receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Transcript (Credit: Beth Tabor)
Welcome to the Radically Christian Bible study Podcast. I’m your host, Wes McAdams. Here we have one goal: Learn to love like Jesus. Today we’re going to be talking about spiritual warfare. What does it mean to engage in warfare? What does it mean to wrestle against the demonic forces in the heavenly realms, but not against flesh and blood? Our guest today is Kerry Williams, who is the Dean of Graduate Studies at Sunset International Bible Institute. He is also the director of the Tahoe Family Encampment.
I know that you’re going to enjoy this conversation, but before we get to that, I want to read from 2nd Corinthians chapter 10, starting in verse 1. Paul says, “I, Paul, myself entreat you, by the meekness and gentleness of Christ ‑‑ I who am humble when face to face with you, but bold toward you when I am away! ‑‑ I beg of you that when I am present I may not have to show boldness with such confidence as I count on showing against some who suspect us of walking according to the flesh. For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.”
I hope that today’s Bible study and discussion is encouraging to you, and, as always, I hope that it helps all of us learn to love like Jesus.
WES: Kerry Williams, welcome to the podcast, Brother.
KERRY: Thank you. It’s really good to be here.
WES: Well, it’s great to have you. I got to listen to a sermon that you did ‑‑ I think it was probably last year, so it’s been a little while since you did it, but I just got to listen to it recently, and it was fantastic, about spiritual warfare, and it’s interesting that that seems to be a theme that I keep coming back to on the podcast. So there’s been a lot of discussion about sin and about evil, and evil even beyond the evil that we can see in the world, which is kind of where I want to start the conversation is, you know, there are so many mentions in the New Testament about spiritual evil, evil that we can’t see, demonic forces. I think about what James says about wisdom that is earthly, he said is unspiritual, and he even uses the word demonic. Paul obviously talks about the forces of evil, the rulers and authorities and powers.
But I think sometimes, or at least the way that I grew up, we just kind of read over those as sort of a rhetorical flourish or just some sort of rhetorical device, and we, you know, just take it to mean that it’s really bad or something like that. But we don’t often, I think, think about and are aware that there are forces of evil and darkness. And you mentioned in your sermon about demons existing in the spiritual plane and that sort of overlapping with the physical plane, so let’s talk about that for just a little bit, if that’s okay. Just why is it important for us to have an awareness of demonic forces, spiritual evil forces, and what should we think about that?
KERRY: Well, kind of building on what you said about why it is, perhaps, that we don’t dive into this very deeply, I think that it does have to do with just glossing over things that maybe we don’t fully understand, but I think there’s kind of a root reason for that, and that’s kind of in our very identity of how we approach, homiletically and hermeneutically, the scriptures, how we ‑‑ I mean, we’re Restorationists and we come out of the Restoration tradition and the Restoration background, which you and I both believe in strongly in that homiletic to be able to restore New Testament Christianity. But in my studies, it kind of opened my eyes because in my doctoral work, I did a lot on Restoration fathers and kind of the background of where that all came from, and it just kind of clicked with me we’re not comfortable with anything we can’t clearly define because we come from that Lockean, Baconian, logical tradition where we’re trained to find, well, if the Bible says it, that’s what it means. But what do we do with the subjects ‑‑ and pretty much, across the board, every subject where there’s vagueness in scripture, where it’s a gray area of, “Well, it seems like this or it might be this,” rather than concretely? We’re not good with that. I mean, we struggle with it.
And what I found was that, you know, you look back in our background and we very much want to give people concrete answers. We’re very formulaic in how we approach the scriptures, which I think is not a bad thing at all. In fact, I think it’s caused us to arrive at truth that needed to be found and brought to the religious world and to the lost. So it’s not a critique of it, but I think we became so adjusted and used to that, that we get to the point where, if it’s not something we can give a clear yes or a clear no ‑‑ I mean, we all know how formulaic we are about things. I mean, “hear, believe, repent, confess, be baptized.” I mean, those steps ‑‑ you don’t find that in any place in scripture where those are ordered in that way, but yet extremely formulaic. Some of our old preachers, I’ve heard lessons from them about the five steps very plainly, and you can’t get the steps out of order.
Well, how does that even work when it comes to, like, repentance and confession? Some of that stuff is lifelong. It begins, you know, but we just want it to be so clear, step by step by step, that ‑‑ you know, five acts of worship. I mean, we are great about formulas, but there are some things in scripture that just do not fit into any type of formula, and across the board we’ve been this way. Think about the Holy Spirit. I mean, some of the arguments that are made about the Holy Spirit, when you talk about “word only” versus whether there’s an actual indwelling and all of that ‑‑ I mean, we try to approach a subject that we just can’t really fully understand in all of its completeness, and, in that, we come up with all sorts of trying to find concrete, absolute yes or no’s.
WES: Yeah, yeah. Do you think ‑‑ and I heard in your sermon that you taught philosophy, I guess, at a college level.
KERRY: Yes.
WES: And do you think that this is ‑‑ that a lot of that ‑‑ you mentioned several, you know, reasons we think this way, but do you think that this is sort of a Western mindset that we have as we approach the scripture as opposed to more of an ancient Near Eastern/Eastern mentality that they would have had when they wrote the scriptures that we are trying to ‑‑ I almost feel like we’re trying to analyze and break down like you would if you heard a poem or a song and we’re trying to look at it scientifically or mathematically. It’s like, that’s not how it works. That’s not how poetry works or that’s not how this genre of literature works. And so do you think we have that tendency to read it through a very Western lens?
KERRY: I definitely think that, you know, our Western virtue/ethics type of philosophy ‑‑ I mean, our way of looking at life, even today, is so very different than the Eastern world. You know, they have a very, very Confucian mindset where harmony matters. I mean, you know this when you go and you watch a baseball game in Japan today. They don’t tell ERA; they don’t tell batting averages. They aren’t concerned with the individual at all. They’re concerned with the whole, with harmony, and your place in the larger society or group, or whatever it may be, where we come from a very Western mindset that comes from the Greeks and Romans, primarily, and they had more of a meritorious type of approach to things, a meritocracy, you know, that you need to achieve the very best individualistically that you can, and we adopted that.
That’s even true in our founding documents. I mean, Benjamin Franklin was a virtue ethicist, and we see that so much. It runs through our society top to bottom. And so, yes, I think that has ‑‑ you know, the scientific method came about, John Locke, Bacon, those guys who influenced our thinking. And if you read Campbell, I mean, he was powerfully influenced by those kind of people, and Stone, to a little less degree, but pretty heavily, as well. And so they searched the scriptures, and reason is what is promoted over and over and over. Reason, reason. And so that kind of comes to almost, like you said, a scientific method of how do you pull out evidences and ‑‑ I mean, think about even the hermeneutic of command, example, and necessary inference. Well, the idea of necessary inference is that you can come to a reasonable, logical conclusion from evidences that is applicable and binding.
And so, yeah, those are good things. I mean, I think we’ve ‑‑ I appreciate them and love them and will never abandon them. However, some of this stuff in scripture, they were looking at from a mystical perspective, and there is not much room for mysticism in how we currently ‑‑ or at least how I grew up and how it sounds maybe you grew up ‑‑ in how we were taught to look at scripture. We were taught to find the concrete, to find the absolute, and just not really given any tools to be able to look at things that we know, from the start, don’t fit in that box.
Here’s a great illustration. So I teach a doctoral class on Revelation, and, really, all of the classwork that we do is trying to find a date because, as you know, the entirety of Revelation changes based upon how you date the book. And as we’re diving into that, one of the things I emphasize in the first class is that when you write your final project ‑‑ because in a doctoral course, it’s, you know, 35, 40 pages; it’s a big project ‑‑ I will dock you on your grades if you write to me like most of our brothers do when they write in their commentaries, which is like this: “Well, this is a hard subject, but I found the answer.” I mean, you’ve read commentaries on Revelation. Have you seen that kind of thing before? “I mean, I found it. This is what it means.” I’ve been teaching and studying that book all my life since I’ve been in ministry, 30‑plus years, and I’m not willing to say I know what it means. I mean, I know what I think it means and what is most logical and reasonable for me to assume on it. But even on stuff like that, we have to approach it like, “Okay, here’s the formula. Here’s the answer.” There’s no room for questioning, no room for, “Well, it might be this, but we just can’t be sure, but the overall message of the book doesn’t change.” We don’t do that much. We want to tell people exactly what those horns mean, exactly what those beasts are, without question. I mean, that’s how we approach stuff. And when it comes to spiritual warfare, just like the Holy Spirit, just like apocalyptic literature, that formula just ‑‑ it doesn’t work very well, so you know what you do? A lot of people just avoid it.
WES: Yeah, because I think we assume that if there’s not certainty on something, if there’s any sort of ambiguity about it, it must not be important. And if I can’t ‑‑ if the Bible doesn’t lay out in XYZ, ABC, very, very clear terms what is a demon, where do demons come from, why are there demons ‑‑ you know, if the Bible doesn’t lay all of that out, then it must not be important.
I was thinking, as you were talking, about the way that I grew up reading the gospel accounts and how different it is now for me, because when I would read the gospel accounts, you know, I was just looking for, you know, what did Jesus do? You know, he was born, he lived, he was perfect, he died, he was buried, he rose. That’s it. And then what do I need to do in response to that? You know, I need to repent and be baptized. Well, when you just sit down and read the gospel accounts, it’s kind of shocking now to me how much of it is about spiritual warfare, how much of it is about Jesus reclaiming what belongs to his Father from the domain of Satan, and so much of it is about casting out demons and the demonic, and we just sort of gloss over all of that, and we say, well, you know, yeah, that happened, but it really isn’t important for the story.
Not too long ago I was preaching a sermon about the cross and about atonement theories, and I asked people, what part, if any, does the demonic world play in your atonement theory? Like does that have any ‑‑ is there any space in your imagination for what is the cross all about and what does that have to do with Satan and the demonic forces of evil? Because for Paul and for the gospel writers, for Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, I think it had a lot to do with what Jesus was up to, what Jesus’ ministry was all about, what the cross was all about, and what the resurrection is all about and even his current and present reign. And so we have just sort of dismissed all of that and we’ve made everything about just me and God and forgot that there are other spiritual forces that exist in the heavenly places, in the unseen places that we just are not aware of, and we sort of dismiss the significance of them.
KERRY: Well, the discomfort is real. I mean, I’ve been doing seminars on this. I’ve written a couple books on spiritual warfare and a novel on it, and I’ve done these seminars around the country. I remember, several years ago, I’m preaching in a place and my mom and dad were able to come, and there were several classes going on at the same time. And you’ve got to understand that, to my mother, the greatest preacher who ever walked the earth is Jesus, and number two is her son. I mean, she’s my mother. Okay? And my mom didn’t come to my class. My dad did, but my mom didn’t come to my class. And I asked her afterwards, I said, “Mom, what” ‑‑ she said, “Well, I went to the other class.” I said, “Mom, what” ‑‑ she said, “Well, if you’d just teach on something else except for that hocus‑pocus stuff,” she said, “it just makes me uncomfortable,” and that’s my own mom, who would come and hear me read out of the telephone book. But she is uncomfortable with it because you just can’t get clear, defined answers, and that’s what she’s been taught to expect and to find comfort in.
WES: Yeah. Let’s talk a little bit about 2nd Corinthians 10, because that was one of the texts that you used in your sermon. For Paul, as he’s explaining his ministry and the way that he operates, how do you think that he sees himself engaging in spiritual warfare? I think what we sort of imagine sometimes that that means, “spiritual warfare,” or what spiritual warfare entails is kind of different than what the New Testament writers have in mind, what Paul has in mind in Ephesians 6 or in 2nd Corinthians 10. But how does his apostolic ministry ‑‑ how is that spiritual warfare, do you think?
KERRY: Well, he makes very clear there that the weapons of our war are not carnal, and I think that is so powerful historically, that the Lord’s church was persecuted and the government powers that be, the most powerful empire that’s ever been on the face of the earth tried for hundreds of years to stamp out Christianity intermittently. You know, different emperors were worse than others, but at the end of that 300 or so years, you find the Emperor Constantine is converted to Christianity, and not one sword that we know of was ever drawn in the name of Christ because this war is of a spiritual nature, not physical. And the thing is, is that we’ve made so many things so physical ‑‑ which this is true in scripture. I mean, you can’t miss all the holiness passages. You can’t skip over, you know, not to live like the world and be like the world. There’s no doubt that there is a physical component to what we do and who we are and who we’re called to be. But I think we focus sometimes so much on that physical component: stay away from ungodliness, live a holy life, you know, strive for righteousness. And all of that is true and good, but it still kind of restricts it to the things that we can interact with with our five senses, and if we can’t interact with our five senses, we don’t think of it as being powerful.
And I wonder if the most significant moment in the real world ‑‑ I mean, I say this all the time, you know, that we’ve seen all sorts of science fiction and things that try to describe the idea of living in two worlds. I think like The Matrix and things like that are probably pretty good. I mean, when I saw that film for the first time, I was kind of floored because I’d already studied a lot of spiritual warfare, and I’m like, this is kind of what it’s like. You know, we live in a very, very clear world to us, as far as what we can see, but there’s another world that we can’t see, hear, taste, touch, or smell that is the real world. And the scriptures tell us that we live in both ‑‑ concurrently in both. And so as we go about our days, it may seem like a very insignificant thing when we’re sitting across a table at Starbucks with our Bible open, but the way I understand what Paul is saying there about the casting down of arguments, and then he says in Ephesians 6 that our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against princes ‑‑ I mean, the war is not against wicked people in Washington who are casting [votes], you know, and producing all these laws that are ungodly. In fact, I see Christians so worried about that all the time and, like, you know what? We really should expect wicked people to do wicked things. It shouldn’t surprise us. And we get all involved in all that when it’s probably more significant, in the spiritual world, sitting across the table at Starbucks with your Bible open than even what you do in the ballot box or what we do civically or ‑‑ I mean, that is the war that the Bible says matters, the war over the souls of people and then the war that goes on within us.
I mean, I often say the devil ‑‑ and I talk about the devil all the time because of the spiritual‑warfare emphasis, but the devil is our second greatest enemy. I mean, the greatest enemy is the one that we have to master within ourselves, and that is a spiritual war in and of itself. That is the powerful ‑‑ I mean, Romans chapter 7 ‑‑ talk about a passage that we gloss over ‑‑ where Paul talks about “The things that I do are the things that I hate and the things that I even practice,” some versions use. “Who will deliver me from this body of death?” He’s not talking about the Paul that he used to be, because the context is he’s talking about his own struggle, and he didn’t have a conscience problem before he became a Christian. He says, “I did everything with a clear conscience.” Now he’s aware of his struggle, his sarx, his flesh, sinful nature, whatever word you want to use, and the war that is within him. We’re talking about, arguably, one of the most mature Christian men that any of us could ever aspire to, right? But yet that war is going on within him.
And I think, to understand spiritual warfare, we have to think spiritually. We have to try our very best to imagine ‑‑ that’s why I’ve tried to write on this even some fictional things. Not because ‑‑ and I make very clear it’s probably not this way, but at least these things are consistent with scripture, and I want to get people’s minds thinking about what could be going on around me. Am I really here alone? You know, I think people think that we’re alone. But are we alone? Are we ever alone? I mean, angels, demons, the devil ‑‑ I mean, the Bible says that they’re here, and there are so many instances where they’re witnessed. You know, like every time you see something like Balaam’s donkey ‑‑ the donkey saw him, saw the angel when Balaam couldn’t, and the Bible doesn’t say that part was a miracle. Now, the whole talking thing is ‑‑ yeah, that gets miraculous, but he sees it. Elisha, when the servant comes up on the wall, opened his eyes, and then he sees them ‑‑ they were there before he saw it. They were real, just couldn’t interact with our five senses.
WES: Yeah, I love the way that you describe that as sort of this overlapping world and that they’re both here, they’re both present. In fact, you used the words “real world,” and we do tend to think about the physical world, the things that we can see that ‑‑ the seen world, we tend to think of that as the real world, but there’s a sense in which the unseen world is ‑‑ for us especially, is more real. It is where our hope lies, is in this unseen world, and also where this battle is being conducted. And, you know, I think about Ephesians 6, and I think about the way that Ephesians 6 was always taught to me when I was growing up and this spiritual armor that we put on, the armor of God that we put on.
KERRY: Burger King crowns, right? And trash‑can‑lid shields.
WES: Yeah. And I always saw the poster that we would put up in Bible classrooms. In fact, there’s probably still, you know, tons of those even at this building right now, and, you know, it’s always kind of bothered me that we focus all of our attention on the metaphor of the helmet and the breastplate and the sword and the shoes and the belt, but that’s not Paul’s point. His point is that salvation and righteousness and the gospel and the word of God, these are the things that protect you. These are the things with which you are doing battle. And I always tell people, if you read Ephesians 6 and you come away afraid, you’re not reading it right. Either that or you’re not armed; you’re not wearing the armor. But if you are equipped with salvation and righteousness and the Word of God and the Gospel of Peace, then we have nothing to worry about and we can engage in this war, even a war that we can’t see but that we are aware of, but we engage in it in a way that might seem rather ordinary.
I was talking to college students one time and talking about spiritual warfare, and I said, really, we engage in it through Bible study, through prayer, through fasting, through worship. You know, all of these things are acts of spiritual warfare, and it seems rather mundane and ordinary, and in a way it is, but we have to, I think, put on these spiritual lenses, as you were saying, and I think that’s ‑‑ I think you’re exactly right. Like, not only The Matrix you mentioned, but I think about C.S. Lewis and the world of Narnia that he sort of painted, that that world exists and that we actually exist in it and are doing things within that world by doing these things that seem ordinary but are anything but ordinary.
KERRY: Right. Well, and people don’t ‑‑ I think the way we read it is that ‑‑ I’ve asked people before, in seminars and things, who do you think the devil is personally working on today? You know, because the way I read the New Testament, he just kind of followed Jesus around for three and a half years, right? But the devil ‑‑ I mean, if you understand him to be a fallen angel, which I think Ezekiel and ‑‑ you know, even when it says “don’t fall into the same condemnation as the devil” when it’s talking about an elder must not be a new convert and his pride that matched up with his ‑‑ I think there’s just a lot of evidence that he was an angel, if not the archangel ‑‑ I kind of suspect the archangel ‑‑ before. And, indeed, if that’s true, if he fell, then he’s certainly more powerful than any human being, less powerful than God by infinite measure, but he would be bound by the rules or the laws that affect angels.
Well, in Daniel chapter 10, you have him ‑‑ Daniel prays for interpretation to a vision, and this angel appears to him three weeks later, and the angel says, “Well, I couldn’t get there, but I was held up by the Prince of Persia and I couldn’t get free for 21 days. And then Michael, the archangel, came and fought with that Prince of Persia, and now I’m able to bring you this message.” But that tells us something. Angels are bound by time and space. In other words, they can’t be in two places at once, and it tells us that their perception of time is exactly the same as ours because it was the same three weeks for the angel that it was for Daniel.
Now, what that means is the devil is in one place right now on this earth. And so I’ve asked people, well, who do you think he’s working on right now? And the answer is always a president or Beyonce or something. You know, people always say something like that, and I’m like, why? He’s got them. You understand the world kind of runs on autopilot because of our own flesh, right? So who’s his enemy? Is the president his enemy? No. Beyonce is not his enemy. I mean, you know, whether it’s a movie star or a politician or whoever it may be, no, that’s not the war. The Bible says the war is between Christians, us, and the devil, and that all those people out there are not the enemy. I mean, he says our struggle is not against flesh and blood, period.
I understand the devil uses the enemy powerfully and that he can use people and make them very dangerous to us, but they are still not the ‑‑ it’s kind of like Omaha Beach in World War II. That was a dangerous place for our soldiers to land because they had land mines, they had barbed wire, they had mortar emplacements. But even though the beach was dangerous, the beach was the objective, not the enemy, and so you might have to fight against the beach in order to win the beach back. And that still happens, right? That’s the nature of ‑‑ so I think what would help Christians more than anything else is to get out of their mind that people are the enemy. People are not the enemy. I mean, yes, people are wicked and they’re being used mightily by the enemy sometimes, but they’re not the enemy. But you see, that’s how we see spiritual warfare, in such simplistic terms that are inconsistent with everything the scriptures teach, which is that it is us versus him, the devil, and his minions, and the most significant thing that can happen happens over coffee tables or at Starbucks or happens over email, if you’re studying with somebody. Our weapons ‑‑ going back to the 2nd Corinthians passage, our weapons are not carnal but for the tearing down of arguments. Why? So we can win the souls of people back to him.
WES: Yeah. Well, that’s why I always like to tell people that we should think of people that have positioned themselves as our enemies, have positioned themselves against us, unbelievers and people in the world ‑‑ we should think of them as prisoners of war. We should think of them as prisoners of our enemy rather than our enemy, that our goal ‑‑ as you said, they’re our objective. Our objective is to liberate them, and so if we were, you know, in a physical battle, in a physical war, we would recognize that the prisoners of war ‑‑ even if they’re being used or leveraged against us, they are people to be liberated and freed from their captors just as we once ‑‑ we once were those people. We were on the enemy’s side because we had been captured by those lies and by that deceit. Not that we were innocent in it, of course, we gave into it, but we were captured by the devil to do his will, and so we should have compassion on those that are so enslaved to the evil one and we should be seeking to set them free, to liberate them, rather than to destroy them or fight against them.
KERRY: Well, you know, evidence that we see this wrong is when you ask another question ‑‑ I ask a lot of stimulating questions, and one of the questions I also ask is, well, so who’s on the offense and who’s on the defense in this war? And I’m telling you, most believers get that wrong, right? Because they think of us as being on the defense, and, indeed, we’re surrounded by ‑‑ we’re way outnumbered, but according to Ephesians chapter 6, I mean, the true dynamic is we’re like special forces that are armed better, right? And yes, we’re behind enemy lines and we’re surrounded by the enemy every single day, but we’re better equipped and we’re ‑‑ if we have our scriptures and we know them, we’re better trained. But yet people see ‑‑ that’s why I think sometimes the church today ‑‑ and you know this; you speak places, and things ‑‑ brethren are beaten down and they think that the world’s never been worse than it is.
That is ‑‑ historically, as a historian, that is absolutely not true. If you look at the scale of where the world’s been ‑‑ I’m talking morally, righteously, however you want to describe it, we’re still on the top edge. I mean, it could be a lot worse than it is, but yet, we just have our experiences, and we think it’s so bad. And so we have kind of a circle‑the‑wagons kind of mindset, that we gotta survive, we gotta defend, we gotta survive. But what does Matthew 16 say? Jesus says, you know, “On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.” And I’ve studied a lot of military history, and what I’ve never read is any offensive army carrying their gates with them. That is not a tool of offense. That is a tool of final defense. And Jesus doesn’t describe his churches on the defense. He describes his churches taking the fight to the very gates of Hades, and that’s what we’re called to be, because in the end, I mean, it’s abundantly ‑‑ we can’t lose unless we quit. I mean, that’s just the ultimate truth of ‑‑ if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we can’t lose unless we quit. I mean, we’re invincible to the enemy. In the real world, now, yes, we could suffer and we could face all sorts of problems in this life and we could even have our lives taken from us physically, but we cannot lose. And so all he tries to do, everything ‑‑ the devil’s strategy, it’s summed up in this: Get us to either turn ourselves over to him or to quit. That’s it. That’s his entire objective. So if he can tempt us with sin, where we abandon our faith, well, then he gets us. If he can get us to be so afraid or not do anything or be so distraught about what’s going on in the world that we just sit back and worry about ourselves, then we’re no threat to him. That’s his entire strategy.
WES: Well, that’s sobering. That’s really sobering. Kerry, you work a lot with the church in various ways, with preachers and teachers and evangelists, and even with members and Christians of the Tahoe Encampment and through Sunset, and so I want to just talk practicality here. How do we help those people that are our leaders, whether they’re leading in a congregation or they’re leading in their home ‑‑ how do we help them to see the battle that’s going on and to be engaged in it, to be on the offense and to go in wearing the armor of God and prepared to do the work that we’re called to do? How do we help get the church across the globe engaged in the battle?
KERRY: Well, you know, of course, from my perspective, I think it has to do with education, but more than that. We hear that word as the solution to every problem in the world, right? “Well, if we just have more education.” Well, yes, but what I’m meaning more by that is knowledge and passion. I mean, our people have to get passionate about this and be able to understand who the enemy is. I mean, you know, I think, theologically ‑‑ and we don’t have time to talk about all that today, but there’s some underpinnings of why spiritual warfare is hard for us to grasp, and I can prove it to you by this. I mean, I’ve been preaching 30‑plus years; you’ve been preaching a long, long time. I have never, ever, in all of the grief that I’ve seen in people’s lives, which I would never, never disparage that or ‑‑ I mean, we hurt for people, but I have never seen a believer, when they’re going through pain, blame the devil, but you know how many times I’ve seen them blame God? There is a deep theological problem with that. Clearly, we don’t understand God and we don’t understand the devil, because God is not the enemy, right? But yet, theologically, that’s where people go. I don’t know, have you seen that kind of thing before?
WES: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there’s books and there’s seminars and there’s all kinds of things about God and sort of dealing with and grappling with and wrestling with our anger at God when bad things happen. But yeah, again, the whole point of the scriptures is that this is not the way that our good God intended the world to be, nor the way that ‑‑ nor his intention for the future.
KERRY: Well, and we’ve bought into a subtle Calvinism that almost makes us think that everything that happens in the spiritual world, the devil has to get direct ‑‑ now, there’s a difference between direct permission and indirect permission. You know, if you give your kid the keys to the car and you say “Go,” I mean, just because you didn’t tell them they couldn’t go there, that’s kind of indirect because you made the circumstance, right? But direct permission, where, “Well, Dad, can I go here? Yes or no?” ‑‑ it’s almost like people think that the devil sends an email to God every time he wants to do something awful, and God gives him permission or he can’t do it. That is just not true in Scripture. I don’t know where we got it, but people believe that en masse.
So I think, first of all, we have to get people to see God. It hurts me so much for God. I want to defend his character. I don’t think that anything ‑‑ now, he does chasten us, he does discipline us, but the big, bad terrible things in life are not God. I don’t believe it. And, you know, if you can get people passionate about this, then maybe when they’re hurting ‑‑ I mean, I talk to God every day, but I talk to the devil every now and again, and what I mean by that is I’ve screamed out his name and said, “This hurts, but you will never win. Bring on the rain because you will never win,” because I see him involved in these processes in my life, and I don’t think people see it. I mean, maybe they could intellectually when they’re hearing this podcast or whatever, but when their life has fallen apart, it’s like the devil’s out of the equation and it’s all God. And what does that do to his character? I mean, the God who loves us so much he’d give himself for us. No. And so I think that’s the first thing ‑‑ that’s what I try to do, is inspire passion about these things in people’s lives to show God’s character. He’s on our side. In everything, he’s on our side.
I’m the Dean of the Graduate School at Sunset, teach a lot of classes there, master’s and doctoral. I have a class on spiritual warfare because if I can get preachers to be passionate about it, then that’s the process of getting members to be passionate about it. I direct the Tahoe Family Encampment. We always have something on spiritual warfare every year because I think it’s such an important topic. As I said, I finished a novel. It’s called Angel at War, and it’s kind of the ‑‑ I call it the opposite of The Screwtape Letters, if you’ve read that, because that’s about a demon, and my novel is about an angel as he’s defending a Christian and everything that happens in there. And I don’t know that that’s exactly how it is, and I make that clear in the foreword of the book, but I want to get people’s minds rolling on this, and then, of course, through seminars and things.
And I think that’s where we start, is we have to be passionate about it ourselves, and, you know, you won’t be passionate about something if you don’t have a powerful reason. And my reason is I’m tired of even Christians who disparage ‑‑ unintentionally much of the time, but disparage the character of God because, you know, it’s almost as if we didn’t ‑‑ you know, we read all those Old Testament stories and we just see the horrible details sometimes, but we don’t see the God who ‑‑ when Abraham lied about Sarah for the second time, Abimelech’s the one that’s gonna be punished, and why not Abraham? Well, that doesn’t even seem just. Because Abraham was God’s friend and Abimelech wasn’t. And you look through David ‑‑ I mean, what a colossal sinner, what an immensely flawed man, but yet he is that man after God’s own heart because, you see, that’s all the way through scripture. Spiritual things are what matter the most. Now, the other stuff matters, too, but they matter the most. But it’s like we push those to the side and ‑‑ no. I suppose it’s possible to get passionate about the details, but when you see the big picture, I think that’s where my passion comes from, is I want to defend God, who is my Lord, my Savior, and my friend. I want to defend his character, and I want to show that he is not the enemy. He is our great help, our great comfort. He is our great weapon as we face against an enemy that, frankly, he hates us and he’s malicious. And it’s funny because he’ll give people wealth and power and influence only to pull it out from under them and laugh in their face. That is his character.
WES: Well, I think about how practical everything you’re saying is, and I think about Job’s friends. And even though they were sort of blaming Job for the tragedies that he was going through, they were probably well‑intentioned guys. That’s the way so many of these things, I think, begin, is with well‑intentioned comments in the face of tragedy and horrible things that have happened in people’s lives. And so often people will say things like, “Well, you know, God needed another flower in his garden and that’s why this person died,” or we’ll say things to people, “I don’t know why God took them, but I’m sure God has his reasons.” And I want to stop ‑‑ and I constantly say in funerals ‑‑ I remind people what Paul says in 1st Corinthians 15, that death is an enemy. Now, we know, as Christians, that the sting of death has been removed for us because we’re forgiven, because we don’t have to be afraid of death, but that still doesn’t change the fact that it’s an enemy that God longs to destroy. This is an enemy that Satan has used in his arsenal and that God is going to destroy death, and we long for that day, but so often we take and we act like God is the killer, that God is the one who is using death. It’s not God that’s using death. God is on the side of life. God brings life into the world and God longs to raise his people from the dead and liberate them from the hold of death. And so I think, so often, we get the picture backwards because we’ve taken Satan and the demonic forces and even the personification of death out of the picture, and so we have no one else to blame but God.
KERRY: And we so missed it because ‑‑ I mean, the first memory verse probably everybody learns is the shortest verse in the Bible from John ‑‑ what is it, John 11, right? And, you know, it’s like we missed the point of that altogether, because when it says Jesus wept ‑‑ he has no reason to weep. In like five minutes he’s going to raise Lazarus from the dead. And all of those ‑‑ I mean, have you ever had a circumstance with somebody and they kind of thought it was going to be one way, disappointed, but you got a great surprise for them, right? I mean, it’s good. They’re about to ‑‑ in fact, it’s sweeter to see the joy when they’ve kind of been disappointed first. Well, imagine Jesus knew he’s about to raise Lazarus from the dead. All those tears ‑‑ he knows that. He’s about to do it. Why does he weep? Because he weeps that we have to ‑‑ you know, he’s raising Lazarus, but they’re going to go through it again, and everybody who lives in this world is going to go through it again. He wasn’t weeping for Lazarus. Yes, Mary, Martha somewhat, but not in that immediate because they’re about to be really happy. He weeps because we have to face that enemy, and God cares.
You know that old song, “Does Jesus care when I’ve said goodbye to the dearest on earth to me?” John 11 is just so powerful because he cares. He’s not the enemy. But yet, how must it hurt him the way Christians look at it? And it’s because, I believe, we’ve been influenced by ‑‑ people kind of think God is the chess master, that every single thing that happens, happens with his permission, his direct ‑‑ I mean, that can’t be so. It’s not a war, then. I mean, if Ukraine has to call and ask Russia’s permission for every single missile they send, that is not a war. And understand, that gets into deep theological wranglings. Well, maybe we shouldn’t run away from the deep. Maybe that’s what maturity is about, growing, wrestling with things, struggling with them. But I know that any conclusion that we come up with that makes it God’s fault and maligns his character is the wrong conclusion.
WES: There’s such a difference, I think, when you read the Psalms. There is sometimes frustration with God, even when you read Revelation and the martyrs are crying out, “How long?” But even in that, it is either celebrating the deliverance of God or anticipating the deliverance of God because the psalmist is saying, or the dead in Christ are saying, “How long?” because they’re looking to God for their deliverance, for their salvation. Rather than blaming God, they know that God is capable of bringing all of this pain and suffering to an end. The only question is, “Why are you waiting?” And I think that’s sometimes a really good question, but it’s not a good question if you think God is the one who caused the pain and suffering in the first place. It’s not God who caused it, but God who’s going to bring it to an end. It’s good and right to ask, “God, I don’t know what you’re doing, and why are you waiting and why don’t you fix this?” Of course, Peter gives us the answer, because he’s patient and he wants more people to come to salvation. But we have to know that God is the one who weeps with us. He hates death and disease and destruction infinitely more than we do. He weeps when we weep. He weeps even more than that because he can see what we can’t see. And so often we think that God is just stoically watching all of this happen and so disconnected from that, and that is so the opposite of the gospel. The gospel is that we have a God who suffers with us, who empathizes with us to the nth degree, who became human so that he could suffer with us and liberate us from the suffering.
KERRY: Well, and I think the other thing that will help people see spiritual warfare is when you move past religion into relationship because ‑‑ I mean, we do practice a religion, but, I mean, when you seek not just to follow God and do the right things, when you seek to be a friend to God, to be close to God, to ‑‑ like Paul says, I want to know Christ, not just know about him ‑‑ to know him, and then things ‑‑ boy, things open up for us because, you know, what’s interesting is Old Testament characters would pray things that we would not pray. I mean, they said things to God that are ‑‑ Jeremiah’s my favorite. I’ll never write a commentary because I’m not that smart, but if I ever did on Jeremiah, it would be entitled “The Moody Prophet,” because I’m telling you, the guy would have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder if it was today. I mean, he is up and down. “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,” right? But then he also writes, in Jeremiah, “You, O Lord, are like an unreliable stream that, when I go to drink, you leave me dry,” in essence. I mean, how could he say that to God? And God doesn’t rebuke him. Elijah just lays it out to God how he feels. God doesn’t rebuke him, because you know what? He’s our Father. And when my kids came ‑‑ even when they were mad at me, as long as they weren’t disrespectful, I care what they feel, right? I want to hear it. But we don’t see it that way. We don’t see it through those eyes of relationship, and I think it trickles down and affects everything else we see or don’t see.
WES: I think that’s a great way to sort of couch it, between religion and relationship, that there is a faith of religion that is just a matter of let me get all of the facts straight and let me figure out what all of the things are that I believe and just get all of those things straight in my mind, and then there’s a faith of relationship that says, “I trust you to do the right thing, to do the best thing, to do the good thing even when I don’t know what that is, and even when I don’t know when that is going to come to pass.” That’s what Hebrews is all about. I mean, there’s so much for all of us ‑‑ in every era of our life, in every era of human history and the history of God’s people, there has been so much ambiguity and just lack of knowledge of what’s gonna happen and why am I going through this and what does the future hold? But faith is seeing beyond what is seen and trusting in him and saying, “I don’t know what God is going to do or when he’s going to do it, but I know he’s going to do what is good and what is right, and I know that he’s going to keep his promises.” And with that, we can be comfortable, for lack of a better word, in the uncomfortable. We can be content with the pain, with the suffering, because we know, in the end, this is the way everything’s going to work out.
KERRY: Absolutely. I mean, just examine sometime ‑‑ and I know you have, but for your listeners, examine sometime suffering in the New Testament and how it’s viewed. “Consider it pure joy when you face trials and temptations of all sorts.” I’ve never seen anybody do that, ever, in 30‑plus years of preaching. I’ve never seen anybody walk the aisle happy and say, “I’m going through this really hard thing. I just want to thank the Lord.” Never. I mean, that’s not the only passage that talks about it. Philippians chapter 1, “For it’s been appointed to you not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for his sake.” I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and to share in his suffering. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake.” “Blessed are those, you know, when they revile and persecute you and speak all manner of evil against you falsely, but rejoice and be exceedingly glad.” I mean, in spiritual warfare, suffering is like a medal of honor. It matters. Why do you think he says “Be faithful unto death”? That doesn’t mean till you grow old and die. “Be faithful unto death and you’ll receive a crown of life.” “No greater love hath any man than this, that he’ll lay down his life for his friends.” “You are my friends if you do what I command you.”
All of that stuff is saying that how we see it is so very essential. And this stuff has affected so many things because you ‑‑ I mean, I assume that would be true for you, too. People don’t see suffering ‑‑ and I don’t see suffering that way yet, but I want to. I’m trying to. In fact, when ‑‑ I was just in a car accident this weekend. It was kind of scary, and I ‑‑ indeed I prayed to the Lord, thanked him that it wasn’t worse than it was and I wasn’t hurt and all that, but I want to express to him, also, thank you for trials and difficulty so that I can ‑‑ because, Lord, when things are hard, I can show you how much I love you and that you’re first to me, and that really is what life is all about. It’s choice. Him or ourselves. Him or the world.
WES: Yeah. Well, and I think that even those acts of rejoicing in faith when we encounter various trials, that, in and of itself, is an act of spiritual warfare, where we are pushing back, we’re fighting against what is seen and we’re saying there is more to this than what can be seen. There’s more than what can be felt. And we’re not denying the pain and that it’s actually bad, that these painful things are actually bad, but we are saying that ‑‑ by rejoicing in them, we’re saying God is bigger, God is greater, God can even redeem this situation. And it is an act of faith, an act of spiritual warfare to push back against those things. I think even about ‑‑ to kind of wrap this up and go back to where we started, that it’s even in loving our enemies, in loving the people who position themselves against us, the human beings, the flesh and blood, that when we love them, that, in and of itself, is engaging in spiritual warfare. When we love them, we’re heaping burning coals on their head.
So let me just ask this as we kind of wrap up, that I think there’s a difference ‑‑ and I want to see if you think there’s a difference ‑‑ between destroying arguments and being argumentative, because sometimes I think we read 2nd Corinthians 10 and we read, oh, yes, we’re supposed to destroy arguments, and we sort of pat ourselves on the back for, quote‑unquote, owning the other person or dunking on them or scoring points against them, and we’re just being argumentative rather than actually destroying the arguments, rather than winning them to Christ and helping them to be liberated from the enslavement that they’re suffering.
KERRY: Oh, yeah. Well, one of the things that’s kind of a great example of how we misunderstand this sometimes is our use of the term ‑‑ well, some of our use. I mean, I wouldn’t say everybody does this, but sometimes, in the church, people refer to “false teaching,” and you’ve probably been called a false teacher; I’ve been called a false teacher. I mean, it depends on where you are on any subject; there’s somebody to the right of you that’s going to think you’re a false teacher. But what I’ve found to be so interesting about that is that people make that application to folks outside the church. They’re not false teachers. That topic ‑‑ that title is reserved in scripture, but it’s not even reserved to people who teach things that are false. I mean, have you ever done that? I mean, I’ve changed through the years big time, right? Does that mean I was a false teacher? It can’t mean that, right? But there’s an interesting thing when you dive into every instance where you have a Diotrephes, or whatever, in scripture. There’s always one connecting concept, and it reads something like this, “For their God is their own belly.” It’s not talking about a person who is teaching something false mistakenly. It’s talking about a person who knows they’re teaching something false and are doing it for their own selfish ambition and gain, which is a very small group of people, right?
I mean, but yet we take and we feel like victors because we blast somebody into next week because they don’t see it the way we believe the scriptures teach, and that ‑‑ we don’t see that attitude ‑‑ Jesus was real hard on the Pharisees because they fit that description very well, but he was pretty soft with everybody else, including Romans, including Gentiles, including his boneheaded disciples. I mean, he was patient and loving. He got frustrated at times, but ‑‑ and this is the thing, is that Paul, the same one who said “The weapons of our warfare are not carnal,” he’s also the one that says, “I become all things to all men.” He said I will compromise everything except the gospel, except the truth. I’ll compromise my wants, my desires, my own personal preferences, all of that because ‑‑ you know, what about passages like, “If at all possible, live at peace with all men”? That’s what we’re called to be, but yet somehow we’ve gotten this idea that being at war means we have to be combative. It does. We need to be combative to the devil, but not to people, but yet so many brethren have the mindset that the right way to do it is to be combative to people. And are there rare cases where there is a false teacher? Sure. But by and large, most of the time, we just are ‑‑ I mean, I like to think about what would convince me if I was in that person’s shoes? What would reach me? Now, it’s gotta be ‑‑ you can’t water down the truth. It’s gotta be told. But you can tell it with love in your heart and with compassion on your voice and a tear in your eye, and that’s different than sometimes how people want to win the argument. So I don’t know if that’s what you were looking for, but that’s kinda how I see it.
WES: Couldn’t agree more, Brother, and I think that’s a great place to wrap up. Before we close, let me give you an opportunity to tell people where they can find out more about Sunset or the Tahoe Encampment or anything that you’d like to point people to.
KERRY: You bet. Well, first of all, on the Sunset front, our graduate school, we have two doctorate degrees and we have three different master’s degrees. It’s very, very affordable. You can go to Sunset.Bible and there’s a graduate school page. What we’re really excited about is we just started last year ‑‑ this is our second annual Sermon Symposium in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. It’s for anybody who wants to come. You can register at Sunset.Bible, and then, under “Events,” it’ll be right there, and that’s June the 6th through the 8th at Lewisville Church of Christ, and we’d love to see anybody who can come be there and be a part of it.
I also direct the Tahoe Family Encampment, as you mentioned. That’s been going since 1946. It used to be the Yosemite Family Encampment continuously except for one year, and everybody knows what year that was, so ‑‑ but we’ve been going at Lake Tahoe from about the year 2000, and our dates this year are June the 15th through the 21st. We have a web page and a Facebook page, Tahoe Family Encampment. You can find it very, very easily. So love to have y’all. Anybody who wants to be involved, the more the merrier.
And then I mentioned the novel that I wrote. It’s available on Amazon. It’s called Angel at War by Kerry Williams, and if anybody has an interest in that, maybe it’ll help to expand our minds, so if there’s something there you don’t like, let me know, because I’d be curious.
WES: Well, thank you, Brother. Thanks for this conversation and thanks for your work in the kingdom.
KERRY: God bless. Thank you so much for having me on. Appreciate it.
The Gospel of Sin Management with Joseph Lewis
May 15, 2024
“The gospel of sin management” is a phrase that was coined by Dallas Willard. For Joseph Lewis, that phrase perfectly encapsulates the way many people make being a Christian primarily about avoiding sin and following a set of rules. In this thought-provoking episode, Wes McAdams and Joseph Lewis expose the problems with reducing Christianity to mere moralism. They discuss how an obsessive focus on not sinning can paradoxically make us more likely to sin, as well as undermine the true meaning of the gospel.
Drawing from biblical passages like John 5 and Galatians 5, the discussion explores the core of what the gospel really is – not a rigid system of dos and don’ts, but the amazing news of God’s grace, mercy, and transformative work in our lives through Jesus Christ. The conversation illuminates how the gospel reorients our entire lives around Christ rather than reducing faith to mere behavior modification. It examines the importance of focusing on Jesus rather than dwelling on a checklist of sins to avoid.
The guest for this episode is Joseph Lewis, an evangelist at the Flower Mound Church of Christ. Joseph is known for his rich theological insights and his passion for helping believers develop an authentic, Christ-centered faith. With wisdom and personal examples, Joseph unpacks the life-giving power of the true gospel as opposed to the hollow, powerless “gospel of sin management.”
Welcome to the Radically Christian Bible Study podcast. I’m your host, Wes McAdams. Here we have one goal: Learn to love like Jesus. Today we’re going to talk about the false gospel of sin management. Why is the gospel not just merely a matter of managing our own sin? The gospel is not just a matter of don’t do this, don’t do this, stop this, stop that. The gospel is so much more than that. My guest today is Joseph Lewis, who is one of the evangelists at the Flower Mound Congregation. He preached a sermon recently on this topic, and I know that you’re going to really enjoy this very theologically rich conversation.
Before we get into that, I want to read from Titus chapter 2, starting in verse 11. The apostle Paul says, “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self‑controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.”
I hope that you enjoy this conversation and, as always, I hope that it helps all of us learn to love like Jesus.
WES: Joseph Lewis, welcome to the podcast, Brother.
JOSEPH: Hey, what’s going on, Wes?
WES: It is so good to finally have you on the podcast. I’m sorry it’s taken so long to have you on. I’m excited about our conversation.
JOSEPH: There is zero reason to apologize. I have always listened to your podcast as kind of like a thing that other people get to go on, you know? So when you texted me, you were like, hey, you should be on the podcast. I was like, no, I shouldn’t. So I’m excited to finally be able to talk to you and have it be recorded.
WES: Yeah, we always have such great conversations. We have lunch together once a month and get to have some great conversations. We’re with other preachers, but sometimes I ignore all of them because I enjoy the conversations you and I have so much.
JOSEPH: Sometimes I try to not talk to you until the end because of that, because I’m like, man, I gotta let him talk to other people. I always take up all your time, so…
WES: We get into some great theology, which is what I’m excited about talking about today. You recently had a sermon and it was entitled “The Gospel of Sin Management,” and it was a fantastic lesson. In fact, I asked you, what do you want to talk about? And then I started digging through some of your recent stuff and I was like, oh, this would be really good. And about the same time that I found that, you texted me and said, well, we could talk about this lesson, and I was already going down that rabbit trail. So I’m really excited to talk about this lesson that you did. You talked about this idea of sin management, or the gospel of sin management. Let’s first define that. What do you mean by that?
JOSEPH: Yeah, I mean, so it’s funny. I got the sentence ‑‑ or the phrase from a book called The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard. He didn’t go the direction that I went with it. I think he was more talking about kind of what that looks like in people’s lives in different ‑‑ kind of different aspects, but as soon as I heard that phrase, I was like, oh, my goodness, like, I know that gospel. I know that gospel really well. You know, it’s one of those things that I think is defined really well when you look at like sort of what people do: When they hear that gospel, how do they respond? The gospel of sin management has people say things like, well, being a Christian is about stopping sinning. And at the outset, like, I think most of us would agree with that, you know? But at the same time, that’s not really the gospel. You know, that’s the gospel of sin management.
I remember I was talking to some ‑‑ I’ve asked this question in a lot of different groups. There’s a Tuesday night Bible study my dad and I have started that’s ‑‑ I mean, God’s doing something there because it started with one guy at the gym, and then he started talking to another guy, and now we’re having 10 to 15 guys from the gym, between 18 and 24 years old, come over to my mom and dad’s house for a meal and a Bible study. I’ll send you a picture sometime because it’s ‑‑ we got some characters in there. It’s really, really beautiful. Anyway, we’re at this Bible study, and a lot of these kids don’t have any background in church or in religion at all and they just know the general idea of what it means to be a Christian or what it means to ‑‑ culturally, what it means to be a Christian. I asked them, I was like, hey, what does it mean to be a Christian? They were like, well, you gotta stop doing these things. I didn’t preload them. I didn’t give them anything ahead of that. They just said, well, it means you don’t drink, it means you don’t cuss, it means you don’t ‑‑ and they started throwing out all these sins.
And the gospel of sin management looks a lot like that when people think about it. It’s, you know, if I could just get this sin out of my life, I would be good. You know, I sinned really big, I need to go to church on Sunday, kind of thing. So the gospel of sin management is exactly what it sounds like. It’s the good news that you have to manage your own sin, which isn’t really good news at all.
WES: Yeah, for sure. So what first got you realizing that that was a problematic way to be a Christian? I mean, did you grow up with or have a period of your life where that is how you thought about being a Christian? Because I know that I did. I certainly had periods of my life where that’s what I thought it was. You know, you go to church, you sort of have your Sundays the way that they’re supposed to be, and Wednesday nights, as well, and then it’s about what you believe and what you do on Sundays and then what you don’t do the rest of the week, the things that you refrain from doing, that you stop doing. But then, over the years, I realized that’s not really the gospel. So what was it that kind of helped you to realize that that wasn’t the gospel?
JOSEPH: I’ve got a whole note in my phone. I don’t know if I’ll ever write a book. I don’t think I’ll ever be a guy who writes books or anything like that, but I’ve got a whole note in my phone so I don’t forget that journey because there were so many things along the way that really made me go maybe that’s not all there is to this. I mean, there’s always ‑‑ I think when you first learn some about, you know, Jesus and church and just the idea of, hey, I’m not gonna do these bad things anymore and I’m gonna start doing these good things is a really great place to start. There’s absolutely no hate or shame associated with that mindset because that is a part of this. But when that was all of it, I had always felt like, man, there’s more to this. There’s more to this. There’s gotta be more to this. And, of course, like anything, the more you read about Jesus, the more it messes with what you think you know.
And so, you know, there was always this idea that, especially as I was growing, that there’s more to being a Christian than just not sinning and just going to church. Of course there were a whole bunch of little things that kind of reinforced or pushed me to grow in that question and in that challenge, but when I heard that phrase, it really just gave language to something that I felt. You know, like I could tell and I knew, and, at this point in my life, I was sure there’s something bigger than this, than just not sinning, and I explained it in a couple different ways, and I think I kind of made legalism out to be one of my favorite sort of whipping boys to come at. Anytime someone would preach on something, I’d be like, ah, it’s a little legalistic. And I don’t know that that even encapsulated as much the root of the problem. It was more a product of ‑‑ or a symptom of the problem of this gospel of sin management.
So it really ‑‑ when I heard that phrase, it clicked so well because it’s something I had been chewing on and wrestling with for a long time, and I was like, man, that’s the problem. That’s the language for the problem, the real, like, underneath problem that so many Christians have.
WES: Yeah. Well, one of the things in your lesson was sort of this paradox. I don’t know that you described it that way, but it really is kind of a paradox, that when you focus on not sinning, then that becomes your obsession. That becomes what you’re thinking about. You’re thinking about sin. I thought about several different analogies or sort of comparisons for when I was growing up. When I was a kid, my parents, whenever we would get hurt, they would tell us, “Don’t think about purple elephants. Don’t think about purple elephants with pink polka dots.” And, of course, they were trying to distract us from our injury, whatever that was. And by saying “Don’t think about purple elephants,” that’s all we could think of. And of course we would laugh and we would really be thinking about a purple elephant with pink polka dots, and the more they would describe it, the more we obsessed over that.
And that really is the way it is with sin. When you say, “Don’t sin, don’t sin, don’t think about sinning, don’t talk about sinning,” then, of course, that’s what you’re thinking about. When I was a kid ‑‑ and I was horrible at sports ‑‑ and somebody would throw a ball to me, and while the ball is in the air, the only thing I can think of is “Don’t drop it, don’t drop it, don’t drop it,” and of course that’s exactly what I’d do because it’s what I’m focused on not doing, and so that’s what we become obsessed with. And you used this example of purity culture. Why don’t you talk a little bit about that and why that’s a good example of why it’s problematic to just focus on not sinning?
JOSEPH: Yeah. I mean, that’s really what it becomes. When the gospel of sin management produces, like we said, some of those phrases you might say in your head ‑‑ “If I could just quit this one sin, I’d be good,” or “I sinned big and I need to go to church now,” or “Being a Christian means stop sinning,” like the whole gospel, in that context, is about sin. Now it’s about the exact opposite thing that it was meant to be about. Being a Christian is not about Christ anymore; it’s about sin and not sinning. And purity culture is one of the ways that that definitely has kind of pervaded our ‑‑ or that mindset has pervaded our world.
You know, when purity culture started, most people will trace it back to the book ‑‑ the I Kissed Dating Goodbye book, and that was a really important book. It was ‑‑ I want to be as gracious as I can with this because I think the author of that book ‑‑ I can’t remember his name at the moment, but I think he wanted to ‑‑ he saw a problem in the world, where Christians and non‑Christians would date and date. Looked a lot like marriage except you just weren’t married. You know, like tax implications was the only difference, I guess, but it was a problem where people were sleeping together before they were married, they were moving in together before they were married, and it was causing a lot of issues ‑‑ I mean, a lot of issues. And so this book came out, and the guy was kind of saying, “Hey, we’re Christians, we’re not gonna date like that. We’re gonna have a higher standard because that’s what God calls us to.” Well, you know, the book kind of started with saying, hey, we are not ‑‑ it was essentially about premarital sex. “We are not going to have premarital sex,” right? So no sex. Well, the book and the way it was written and the way sort of the culture took to it is it bred more and more and more and more and more rules, to the point where you started having to think about sex all the time, in every aspect of your life. So “no sex” turned into “only sex all the time,” and it really showed itself in ways like, you know, women have to think about what they wear, and they’re taught, in this culture, you have to ask the question, “Will someone lust after me if I wear this clothing?” I’m not saying that shouldn’t be a question or it shouldn’t be a thought, but certainly that shouldn’t be the lens through which you look at your life, as it only turns men into monsters and women into sex objects. It’s exactly the opposite of the problem that it was trying to find a solution to in the first place, and it does the same ‑‑ it has similar impacts on them.
I think I told the story in the lesson, I had a buddy in college who tried to argue with me, and, I mean, he was in college, I was in college, so I felt like he did a fine job, but I look back on it and I laugh at these conversations. He tried to argue with me that the only reason anyone gets married is for sex. And I was like, well, I mean, companionship, relationship, trust, respect, you know, like, children, there’s so many reasons why you get married. And he goes, well, you can find all of those outside of marriage. And I laughed. I said, well, I mean, you can find the other, too, outside of marriage. And it was just like that culture had pervaded so much the mindset, that, suddenly, sex was no longer about relationship and imaging God by two becoming one and showing unity and showing love and faithfulness. It just all became about sex.
And so, paradoxically, like you said, this movement started in an effort to say no sex outside of marriage, outside of the right context, right? And it turned into everything is about sex. You have to think about it all the time. It’s on your mind all the time. Everyone struggles with it, everyone fights with it, and it’s the only thing we think about all the time. And, I mean, it had the exact opposite effect because you weren’t thinking about holiness, you weren’t thinking about godliness, you weren’t thinking about here are the beautiful parts of this or how we can do this in a way that glorifies God. Instead, it was just don’t do this thing, and it turned into only think about and do this thing in shame, you know?
WES: Yeah. And it really corrupts every aspect. It corrupts our view of God, it corrupts our view of ourselves, it corrupts our view of people of the opposite gender or the opposite sex, it corrupts our view of marriage, all of these things. When Jesus isn’t ‑‑ we’ll get to this later, but when Jesus isn’t at the center of our theology, if he’s not at the center of our life, when it really is about sin, then it distorts everything because the center is off balance, and then everything in our life is out of kilter.
You used John 5 as sort of the text around which the lesson revolved, this idea of the Sabbath and work. Let’s talk about that because I love that picture of how the Jewish view in the first century ‑‑ or at least the leadership’s view of Sabbath really was sort of very similar to the way we think of the gospel of sin management.
JOSEPH: I mean, it was exactly the same. Like that was one of the things that came to my mind immediately when I heard the phrase and I started thinking about how I would present this lesson. I was like, man, this is exactly what the Pharisees ‑‑ or in John 5, they’re just called “the Jews,” but, you know, it’s exactly what they did with the Sabbath. So if you look at John 5, you’ve got the story of the man who’s by the Pool of Bethesda for 38 years. You know, he’d been crippled for 38 years, and Jesus shows up and asks, “Hey, do you want to be healed?” Which is classic Jesus in the Gospel of John. He seems to always ask strange questions and say confusing things in the Gospel of John. And, you know, the other man in the story responds with, “I don’t have anyone to get me in the water. You know, I can’t get in there fast enough.” Of course there was that myth around the Pool of Bethesda that when the water was stirred, the first person to get into that water would have healing, and whether or not that was true is not really a question in John’s gospel; it’s just a part of the story, and it was a really important part. This man thought he’d find healing in water. A couple chapters later we find out Jesus is the living water. Where’d the man find healing? In water, which is just cool.
Anyway, so this man is laying there by this pool hoping to get into this water and be healed, and Jesus comes up and asks him if he wants to be healed. The man complains, and then Jesus says, “Rise, take up your bed, and walk.” He gives him three instructions: Rise, take up your bed, and walk. And if you read through it, there’s nothing wrong with getting up, there’s nothing wrong with walking, within certain parameters, for the Jews, but the specific command to take up your bed ‑‑ for Jesus to tell this man to take up your bed on the Sabbath, that was where the problem was gonna happen. So do you mind if I read it? Is that okay?
WES: No, please do. Yeah, please do.
JOSEPH: I mean, I’ve got the general arc of the story, but I always prefer to read it and have the language be the way John wrote it. So at the end of verse 8, Jesus gives him the three instructions: “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And then, once the man was healed, he took up his bed and he walked, right? So he checks all three boxes, all three of the things Jesus told him to do. And at the end of verse 9, “Now that day was the Sabbath. So the Jews” ‑‑ which my note says that that’s a shorthand for the leaders of the Jews. This would likely have been the Pharisees, the scribes, and that group that you typically read about interacting with Jesus. “So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, ‘It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.'” I always laugh here and think, wouldn’t “Hold on, how did you get healed” be a really good first question? Well, they’re completely unconcerned with how this guy got healed. Instead, they’re concerned with him breaking the Sabbath, which means working on the Sabbath.
So verse 11, the man answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.'” He kind of gives them a “Hey, the guy that miraculously gave me the ability to walk, I’m probably gonna listen to him because you can’t make me walk.” You can almost hear the jab at the leaders of the Jews. “I’ve been laying here for 38 years, and you guys haven’t done a thing about it, but this guy, I’m gonna take what he says to the bank. He said, ‘Get up and walk, take up your bed,’ I’m listening.” So verse 12, they asked him, “Hold on. Somebody healed you?” Like, again, that would be such a normal response, but the Pharisees are so blind to the fact that this man had a miracle performed, that they only respond with, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?” You notice they’re really concerned with that one part because that was the part that wasn’t lawful to do on the Sabbath. That was what they called work, and according to the Sabbath, you’re not allowed to work.
We’ll skip down and let’s go to verse 15. The man doesn’t know who healed him, then he runs into Jesus. And after he runs into Jesus, in verse 15, “The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them” ‑‑ and I think the language here is really important ‑‑ “My father is working until now, and I am working.” What was the rule on the Sabbath? Don’t work. So if Jesus just straight up said, “God is working and I’m working,” I mean, obviously, he’s equating himself with God, which is really significant, but he’s also kind of saying God broke the Sabbath, which causes a whole bunch of problems. And, typically, when you see Jesus saying something like this, something else is going on. There’s more that you need to understand. It’s not that God broke the Sabbath or that Jesus broke the Sabbath, but the people who he was talking to needed to learn something about the Sabbath, and that’s exactly what’s going on here. Because if you go back to Exodus chapter 20 and you read the original command about the Sabbath, it says, “Remember the Sabbath, to keep it holy.” You know, six days you’re gonna work; on the seventh, you’re gonna rest. Don’t do any work, you or anyone in your household, and then it gives the reason. “For in six days God created the heavens and the earth, the sea and the sky and all that is in them, and then, on the seventh, he rested.”
So the reasoning behind Sabbath points back to Genesis chapter 1, when God created. Okay. Well, if the reason that we’re meant to have a Sabbath ‑‑ or the Sabbath was in the law, at least, if the reason for that had to do with God and creation, then we need to understand God’s resting in creation in order to accurately do the Sabbath. That makes a lot of sense. So you go back and you read, and you say, God rested on the seventh day. Well, why in the world did God rest on the seventh day? You know, we teach little kids ‑‑ this cracked me up. I was talking to my sister, who teaches a lot of younger kids’ classes, and I have younger kids, so we were talking about this. And she said, “Yeah, we always have them take a nap, you know, like you’re tired.” I was like, well, I mean, surely the infinitely powerful creator of the entire universe wasn’t tired on day seven. Six days is enough for our God. He was wore out. Like that’s obviously not the problem. When you look at creation and you look at Genesis 1 and why did God rest, the answer is very clear. God is resting because he’s done creating. He finishes creating and then he steps back and he says, “It’s very good,” right? There’s a distinction. “It’s good,” “It’s good,” “It’s good,” and then after he creates humans, there’s that “very good,” and he’s done creating. He steps back and he delights in his creation. We read all over the Bible about how much God loves and delights in his creation. And so day seven, he steps back. He says, “I’m done creating. This is exactly how I want it. I’ve given you, Adam, Eve, everything. Go enjoy it, go live in it, go celebrate what I’ve done by creating this for you,” right?
I think the illustration I used in the lesson was ‑‑ I think it’s Michelangelo ‑‑ I don’t know, you know, Renaissance artists that well, but I think it’s Michelangelo, the sculptor. Is that right? And he ‑‑ you know, he starts with a giant ‑‑ whoever the sculptor was that, you know, did the sculpture of David, he starts with a giant hunk of marble and he just chisels away on it a little at a time, a little here, a little there. At some point, he has to stop and rest from his work because the sculpture is finished. He has to know when to say enough, and if he doesn’t, he’s gonna decimate his sculpture. At some point, his creation will start becoming decreation. He’ll start ruining what he’s made. And so that’s kind of the idea of God resting on the seventh day, is that God stopped creating because things were very good and he enjoyed them and he allowed humans to enjoy them and he gave us the Sabbath.
I mean, Jesus says, in Mark chapter 2, that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, and so that idea is like, hey, I’m giving you a gift of rest. So what’s the Sabbath really about? Well, the Sabbath is about being like God, doing what God did in Genesis 1, and what God did was rest from his work and enjoy his creation. Let’s take that concept of Sabbath and apply it back to John chapter 5. This man hasn’t walked for 38 years. Do you think it was a joy for him to stand up for the first time and roll up his bed? I mean, if I was him, I’d probably start running. I wouldn’t even think about it. I’d just be so excited. Of course this is ‑‑ what better way to celebrate the Sabbath than to use the things God has given you to celebrate and rejoice in this man essentially being made whole for the first time in nearly four decades?
And so Jesus, in John 5, is trying to show the Pharisees that they’re doing that same paradoxical flip that we talked about with purity culture and that the gospel of sin management brings. They were so concerned with work that they had not understood the true meaning of the Sabbath, and I think this is really important to remember. The reason the Pharisees were so concerned with work is because God said, “Don’t work. You should rest.” And they had a question, “Well, what is work?” Because they really, really wanted to take God’s commandment seriously. Like the Pharisees get such a bad rap, like we’re the Pharisees, like they really wanted to do what God said. They loved God’s word and they wanted to know what is work so we don’t get anywhere near that line. Well, then that idea started sort of breeding its own rules, and there are all kinds of ridiculous rules that the Pharisees had about what is and is not work on the Sabbath, and the Sabbath became all about not working, so much so that the Pharisees were like the Sabbath police. Their job on the Sabbath was to work at getting people to stop working. The whole rest, the whole celebration of God had been forgotten and, instead, it was all about don’t work. That’s exactly what the gospel of sin management does in our life. When it’s all about sin, we forget the things it was really meant to be about.
WES: Well, I love the way that you said their job on the Sabbath and they would work at getting people to not work, because it really did. They were violating the Sabbath by trying not to violate the Sabbath. They had turned not working into one of the hardest jobs in the world. They were working incredibly hard at not working and keeping other people from not working, and it reminds me of so many things that we do. I was thinking about Paul’s commandments to the church at Corinth in 1st and 2nd Corinthians about giving. His entire instructions revolve around the idea that God doesn’t want you to give out of compulsion. He wants you to give cheerfully. He wants you to give what you’ve decided and what you’ve promised to give. Just give that and do it cheerfully, but I’m not going to exact it from you. I’m not going to twist your arm and tell you this is how much you have to give and this is the way you have to do it. Just give what you’ve promised and what you’ve decided to give.
And then we have taken that, 2,000 years later, and we’ve turned all of those instructions about giving into a second law, and then we use that to compel people to give. I want to say stop. That’s exactly the opposite of what he was saying. And so we’re saying, well, you know, if you break down this phrase, you know, this means you need to give a percentage of your income, and we just break everything down and we turn it into the exact opposite of what he was trying to do. And I think all of this ‑‑ it’s such a good way to put it, the way that you framed this, as managing sin.
I was thinking about the fact that ‑‑ I don’t remember who I had this conversation with, so if whoever it was is listening, I apologize, but somebody was telling me about a friend of theirs, and they were saying, “This person is not a Christian, but, you know, they live a very moral life. They believe in a traditional sexual ethic. They do this, they don’t drink, they don’t smoke, they don’t do any of these things, and so they’re almost a Christian or they’re practically a Christian.” And I think about some of the leading voices that I see in the world today that are atheists and agnostics, and so many people, they listen to them as if they’re preachers, as if they’re teachers, as if they’re, quote‑unquote, practically Christians. And I want to say a moral person who denies Jesus is nowhere near being a Christian. That is not Christianity. Someone who is really struggling with sin but yet is devoted to Jesus ‑‑ I’m not saying that they don’t need to repent. Of course they need to repent ‑‑ that person is a Christian. And the person who is living a moral life but denies Jesus and believes that all that they have and all that they do is by their own power, they are nowhere near Christ. So let’s talk about that for a second. What’s the difference between, quote‑unquote, “the gospel of sin management” and “the gospel”? What is the gospel and why is that not “just stop sinning”?
JOSEPH: Well, I mean, that’s such a great part of this. I wish we had the conversation before the lesson because that’s so important. How many people say, hey, they’re a good person and they’re basically ‑‑ like they literally make being a Christian about your morality. Like if you manage your sin well, you’re a good Christian. If you can’t, you’re not. Where is Christ? Like, I’m not a “Moralitian.” You know, like it’s not about I’m following morality or moral leaders. This is all about following Christ.
It’s really important to notice that the gospel of sin management just isn’t the gospel. It’s just not. Like it can be preached in a way that sounds kind of like it, and it obviously has deceived many about what being a Christian is really about and what the gospel is all about, but the idea that, hey, here’s the good news, you have to manage your own sin ‑‑ it’s just not good news. In fact, we read about people who tried to manage their own sin for, you know, a couple thousand years on the pages of this book, and it doesn’t go well at all. Like that’s one of the driving forces for this Messiah, for the Jews, is we cannot manage our own sin. We cannot keep this law. We cannot stop breaking God’s law. We’re a broken people.
The Pharisees ‑‑ and I think this is interesting, too. They had this mindset that if I could ‑‑ if we, the Jews collectively, could keep God’s law perfectly, restoration would come, the Messiah would come, our kingdom would be given back, Rome would be overthrown. That adds some pretty serious weight to why they were such sticklers about the law. Like you get where they’re coming from, but like you go read Paul in Galatians, the point of the law ‑‑ or one of the points of the law was to show you you can’t do this. This isn’t the gospel. That’s why the old law wasn’t good news.
But the gospel ‑‑ I mean, of course you know the story of Jesus on the cross, and it’s even bigger than that because it’s a story about redemption and reconciliation. It’s about a God who created a good creation, loved them, gave them everything, and we tore it up and we chose ourselves over him. And then you’ve got a whole bunch of chapters and books about a God who is breaking down doors and pleading with his people and desperately trying to bring them back to him. Then, in Christ ‑‑ and this is where the real good news is. In Christ, you have this death, burial, resurrection, and appearing to many that Paul outlines in 1st Corinthians 15. Well, what that did is it finally made a way ‑‑ it carved a way back for humans to be in a right relationship with God, to be close to him again like we were when it was very good, and so you’ve got this good news that you get to be with God.
How much of that was about your sin? How much of that is about managing your sin? How much of that did you have to do? Legitimately, none of it, you know? This wasn’t something humans could do. This wasn’t something humans had to do. The idea of forgiveness of sins is a piece of a much bigger and much more complete teaching on what this good news is. You have a new king and a new kingdom, and this king loves you and wants you and wants to give to you.
One of the verses we read in Micah chapter 7 talks about how ‑‑ Micah is writing about God. I think it’s in verse 19. He says, “You do not stay angry for long because you delight in steadfast love.” That’s good news. That’s good news that that’s our King. He doesn’t stay angry long. He wants to and is predisposed to being steadfastly loving. Man, I mean, that’s the gospel. That’s the good news. And it doesn’t have anything to do with you taking care of your own sins or managing or your excellent morality.
WES: Well, I was thinking about ‑‑ I don’t know if you saw this study. I don’t know, it’s probably been 20 years ago now, but there was a guy who’s a sociologist. I think his name was Christian Smith, and did a study and he determined ‑‑ he was studying teenagers, and he said that, looking at teenagers across the board, some came from sort of a Christian background, others came from Islamic background, Buddhist background, Muslim, you know, whatever different religious backgrounds. But he said that the predominant worldview in America was moralistic therapeutic deism. He said ‑‑ and so he coined this phrase “moralistic therapeutic deism,” and as time has gone on, he said, well, it’s not just teenagers; it’s across the board, that this is the predominant worldview in the United States, is moralistic therapeutic deism. It’s this idea that be a good person, and the primary purpose of religion is sort of therapeutic, help you to feel better about yourself and help you to ease your guilty conscience or just be happy and live a happy life, and there is a God, but for the most part, he’s just kind of hands‑off unless you need him, in which case he’s sort of like a genie in a bottle and you make your wishes and he comes and he may intervene on your behalf.
And this is the way that we think about it, and so we have turned Christianity into moralism. And it’s not to say that we should be immoral. Of course that’s not what we’re saying. We’re not saying that it’s okay to be immoral. This is Paul’s point, I think, in Romans 6, that when you say that salvation is a gift that God gives and it’s by grace and not through works of the law, then of course there’s gonna be objectors who say, well, hold on a second. Are you saying that we can go on sinning so that grace may abound? And Paul says, of course not. That’s ridiculous. Why would you do that? The beauty is that when you begin to focus on God and you begin to focus on his goodness, you begin to worship him in spirit and in truth, the way that Jesus really means that phrase.
When you worship Jesus in spirit and in truth, then the Lord begins to transform us through the Spirit, through the promises, through his presence. He does the transformational work. And yes, of course you have to repent of your sins, but when you turn your life over to him and surrender to him, that’s when you actually begin to be transformed. Otherwise, all we’re doing ‑‑ the best we can do without the Lord is to swap one sin for another, and we swap sins of the flesh for maybe sins of the spirit, and we become proud, and we become arrogant, and we become bitter, we become angry, and we think, well, that’s better than what I was doing before, but it’s not better. In fact, C.S. Lewis would say, when we swap one sin for pride, we’ve chosen a lesser vice for a worse vice, that pride is the worst vice of all. And we make ourselves proud of “Look at what I’ve accomplished and I’m so good and I’m a better person than so‑and‑so is.”
JOSEPH: Yeah. I mean, so I heard that phrase. As you started talking about it, when you got to the “moralistic therapeutic deism,” I was like, oh, I’ve heard that. I think it was referencing the same book, but I think it was ‑‑ Lonnie Jones uses it. And I was like, man, that ‑‑ like the first time I heard that, I was like, yeah, that’s exactly what we do. Again, we should have had this conversation before the lesson, man, because that’s such an important part of this. Like we looked at ‑‑ the book is actually called Almost Christian, by the way, which is exactly the phrase you used just a little bit ago, that they’re almost a Christian. That’s exactly the concept, but yeah.
And the other part of that is like if anyone listens to this conversation or that lesson and they come away with it thinking, “Hey, you know, Joseph says you can do whatever you want. It’s not about sin; it’s only about grace, and that’s all there is to it,” you just haven’t read the rest of the New Testament. Like the vast majority of 1st Corinthians ‑‑ maybe not the vast majority, but at least half of 1st Corinthians is about Paul instructing a church on how to do things right. Like chapter 5, 6, 7 are all about sexual ethic. The question he’s answering is how does a Christian live like Christ in first‑century Corinth as it pertains to the Christian sexual ethic? And you have the man sleeping with his father’s wife, and that’s obviously a problem. Not even the pagans deal with that, he says. And then you’ve got the crowd who says, “Well, I can do whatever I want with my body because I’m free in Christ,” the idea of “I can sin and it doesn’t matter because I’m covered.” Paul says, well, I mean, don’t you know the implications of that? Of course that’s not how Christians ought to live. And then you have the other crowd, in chapter 7, who’s like, hey, we should probably never do this sex thing ever, which is purity culture. I mean, it was the same mindset where, hey, we stay all the way away from this because that’s what Christians ought to do.
Paul wrestles with morality. He wrestles with the Christians and instructs them on how to wrestle. I think that’s really more of what Paul does, is he instructs them on how to wrestle with what it means to be a Christian and how to live a moral life, not only in 1st Corinthians, but in much of his writing. But that’s never the point. That’s never the whole picture. That’s never what being a Christian is about for Paul. The thing that being a Christian is about for Paul, like number one over everything, is the gospel. It’s the good news about our God, about our Savior Jesus who came and did what he did on the cross and lived how he lived and taught what he taught, and striving to be like Christ and to be transformed into the image of God. That’s what we’re trying to do. The goal is transformation into a Christlike life, not avoidance of sin.
I gave sort of a version of this lesson ‑‑ we had a youth retreat on ‑‑ I guess it was last weekend, on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and our speaker talked on the narrow path, you know, from Matthew chapter 7, right? The narrow versus the broad, and he did a great job, really emphasized all the things that you’d expect at a youth retreat, and I kind of was thinking, you know, there’s another side of this. So he went home on Sunday because he had to be at church, and I usually do the lesson on Sunday, so I gave sort of a variation of this lesson, where I just said, hey, being on the narrow path is not about looking at all the things you can’t or don’t do. You know, that’s the gospel of sin management. Being on the narrow path is about keeping your eyes focused on God, focused on Christ, as opposed to looking around and seeing all the things you can’t do.
So, I mean, I think when you bring that element into it and people start kind of going off the rails with, well, you know, then it doesn’t matter what we do or ‑‑ like that, too, is an incomplete picture of the gospel. You’ve got to have the whole picture in order to understand what it means to really be a Christian. That’s why we got, you know, 66 books in this thing instead of just one short list of checkmarks and do’s and don’ts. It’s a picture. It’s a ‑‑ what’s it called, a picture, when you put it all together, all the little pieces ‑‑ it’s a mosaic of different elements of what it means to be a Christian and how to live that life. And it’s why we haven’t gotten it down to an exact formula or an exact science because it’s something that we have to wrestle with. It’s something that we have to grow into. It’s something where we’re being transformed. It’s not an instantaneous kind of thing.
So I think any attempt to focus too heavily on one part of the gospel and not have the rest of it is a perversion of what the gospel truly is, and that’s really what sin management is, is it’s a focus on only the morality, and when you do that, you pervert the gospel into being all about sin. And while that’s part of it, it’s a radically incomplete picture of what God has really done throughout history and what he did through his son at the cross.
WES: Yeah. Well, to go back to that idea of the narrow path, I always tell people ‑‑ especially when we’re talking about culture wars and we’re talking about politics and sort of the right and left, I always say that there’s a danger on both the right side and the left side of the path, and what we tend to do is we focus myopically on one side, and we think all of the dangers are over there. All the dangers are on the left, and we’ve got to stay away from the left, and the left is so dangerous, and we go off the right side of the path. Or we think all the danger is on the right, and we’re so myopically focused on that, and we go off the left side.
And so if our fear is that we’re gonna go off of one side or the other, then we are going to gravitate towards the opposite side. Whereas, to your point, we have to keep our eyes on Jesus, and when we keep our eyes on Jesus, we do recognize that there’s a danger on both sides and we do want to avoid those, but our goal ‑‑ our ultimate goal is not avoiding the pitfalls. Our ultimate goal is following Jesus, and if we follow Jesus, we don’t have to worry about the pitfalls. We don’t have to worry about going off in either ditch. All we have to do is worry about focusing on Jesus.
So with that in mind, Joseph, what do you think we can do, as leaders, and how can we encourage other church leaders, whether that’s elders or deacons or teachers ‑‑ I mean teachers from the pulpit, but maybe even teachers in Bible classes. Even our kids are sort of soaking in this moralistic message, thinking that Christianity is simply about avoiding these types of bad behaviors. How do we help to reorient the church around Jesus and around the grace and mercy of God rather than around moralism?
JOSEPH: Yeah. I mean, I wish I had like a perfect answer for that. You know, we’d have all of our problems solved. But I think it’s a long battle, fixing that problem. It’s a deep, deep‑rooted problem. You know, when I preached the lesson at Flower Mound, there were some people that were uncomfortable with it. It was too much about grace. I heard multiple people tell me, “I’ve never heard a lesson like that before,” you know? And I just thought, man, this is a real problem that is very pervasive in our culture, and in the church, specifically. So how do we fix that? I mean, I think, truthfully, the way you really solve that problem is not going to be in the masses. It’s going to be a much more individual, relational, example‑driven solution to the problem.
When you sit down and you’re able to have a conversation with somebody and you’re able to build a relationship with them and there’s trust and there’s an environment where vulnerability can grow, and they realize, “Oh, hold on. You don’t think I’m a terrible person because I’ve done these things?” I mean, that’s where this message really drives home, because you can tell someone until you’re blue in the face ‑‑ I mean, I heard it my whole life growing up. Listen, we’re all hypocrites, Christians all sin, but we’re forgiven by Jesus, and that’s so true and doesn’t feel real. It feels very distant from where I am, sitting in the pew, listening to this message. It feels very distant from where I am, sitting in the pew, with all these perfectly dressed people pretending like they don’t have those sins, you know?
And so I think this is the kind of thing that is going to be much more ‑‑ a much harder battle because it’s not something you can just tell people. It’s going to be something you have to show them. And, I mean, the answer is, Wes, we need to learn to love like Jesus, to quote a guy I know. Like we need to learn how to look like Christ in our relationships, in our interactions. We need to learn how to be gracious. We need to, in our own mind, have an appropriate view of the gospel and sin and not panic when we see someone committing sin. You know, we need to respond graciously and gently and maybe slowly. Maybe don’t respond at all for a minute if you’re struggling with how you’re going to respond to that.
I know, as a parent ‑‑ I mean, goodness, when you become a parent, you realize why God called himself a father because it really gives you such a unique perspective on what it’s like to try and get someone who doesn’t understand anything to learn how to be a functioning adult, right? And as a parent, I’ve noticed, like, if I just get onto my kids ‑‑ you know, let’s say I’m having a hard day and I just get onto them all the time for every little thing they do, they don’t really want to be that close to me, you know? Like I’ve had those days. I think every parent’s had those days, where, like, maybe I didn’t get good sleep or maybe I’ve got a lot of stress, maybe some guy asked me to be on a podcast and I’m all worried about it. You’ve got something going on that’s not their fault, but you’re sharp with them, and they don’t come climb up in your lap and nuzzle into your neck, you know?
But when they do things that are wrong and you’ve given them grace or you’ve sat down with them and talked to them, immediately after that ‑‑ I remember the other day I did this with my daughter, where she ‑‑ I don’t have to give you the whole story, but she had done something she wasn’t supposed to do but she knew she wasn’t supposed to do it. And I just sat down and talked to her. I was like, “Baby, what were you thinking?” And I just saw her melt. “I don’t know. I just was wanting to.” I said, “But you know it was wrong?” “I did.” And she immediately jumps into my arms. When we show grace and mercy and gentleness, when we show the fruit of the Spirit working in our life, I mean, that’s what changes people’s hearts. That’s what changes people’s minds. That’s what changes people’s perspective on Christ and perspective on what it means to be a Christian.
You can tell them, but this is, I think, one of those battles where maybe small Bible class teachers are going to have a better success rate as teachers because they’re going to be able to relate to and build those relationships and demonstrate what it means to be a Christian better than ‑‑ easier than you or I from up in front, in a pulpit. Jesus went one at a time, you know? He preached to the crowds and he taught them, but his work was with individuals. He so often forsook the crowd to sit down with one person, and I think that’s more where the answer to this problem lies, unfortunately. I wish it could just be one sermon. Everyone go preach my sermon and we’ll all quit having a problem with this, but, really, I think this is one of those things where we’re gonna have to roll up our sleeves, we’re gonna have to dig in, and we’re gonna have to counterintuitively respond to people struggling with sin in order to show them God’s grace and Christ’s love.
WES: Yeah. I was thinking about an old skit with Bob Newhart where he’s a counselor. I don’t know if you’ve seen this. So the lady comes in and she has this problem, and he says, “I can fix whatever it is.” And she explains her problem. She’s afraid of being buried alive, I think. And so she says ‑‑ she pictures this and it’s horrible and it’s bad. And he says, “Well, do you like having this problem?” And she says, “No, I don’t.” And he says, “Well, then stop it.” And that’s his solution, is just tell her to stop it. And I think that that’s exactly what we do with hurting people and struggling people. We say, “Well, just stop it. Stop. Stop doing that.” And the answer is, point them to Jesus. Point them to the grace and the mercy of Jesus. Point them to the work of the Holy Spirit in their life, because this is the only way.
Paul, he describes this struggle, this human struggle. I don’t think he’s just talking about his own struggle with sin, but he talks about what life is like just trying to obey the law, and it is futile. You’re never going to accomplish it. And the answer is ‑‑ what’s going to save me from this? The answer is Jesus. Jesus is, and the work of the Spirit in your life. And I think, whether that’s one‑on‑one or even in the pulpit or in the classroom, pointing people towards Jesus ‑‑ this is why I think that sermons have to be worship, that our gathering on Sunday has to be more than just getting together to say “Stop it. Hey, you know all the bad stuff you’ve been doing? Stop doing that stuff.” It can’t be that. We have to gather together for worship to reorient our lives collectively and individually around the person and the work of Jesus, his work at the cross and his ongoing work as our high priest, as our advocate and our mediator, and to point people to the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives.
And I think that when Sunday ‑‑ I have a cheesy little saying that I always say, that Sunday not only makes for a better week, it makes for a better life, that when we gather together and we reorient ourselves around Jesus, that whether someone says “stop it” or not, we know. We know we need to stop it. We know that needs to change and we’re looking to the Lord and surrendering ourselves to him, looking for his power and work for the transformation.
JOSEPH: Yeah. So I taught through Galatians a couple years ago now. It’s funny how that happens; it feels like I just did it. But a couple years ago we were teaching through Galatians, and I noticed, when you get to chapter 5 where we talk about the fruit of the Spirit, Paul’s obviously talking about slavery and freedom the whole time. And then, like, he contrasts the work of the Spirit ‑‑ or the fruit of the Spirit to the works of the flesh. And obviously his language that he chooses, like fruit versus works ‑‑ the whole book he’s loaded that word “works” with negative connotation, so that’s very clear. It’s also really cool because he ‑‑ well, I’m getting too much into it.
One of the things that’s really significant is the fruit of the Holy Spirit is the same thing as the works of the Holy Spirit. Like he could have used the same word, the fruit of the Holy Spirit and the fruit of the flesh, or the works of the Holy Spirit and the works of the flesh, but he contrasts them that way. And what’s really significant is, like if you’re the one working, is that spirit or flesh? It’s flesh, right? It’s not your working, you know? When you think about it, it’s the work of the Holy Spirit in your life. Like this isn’t ‑‑ I made this point in the class. I said, you can’t do the fruit of the Spirit, which is so funny because it’s all we teach out of the fruit of the Spirit. You need to be more loving, you need to be more patient, right? You can’t do the fruit of the Spirit. That’s the Spirit’s fruit. Your fruit is jealousy and strife and anger and drunkenness and ‑‑ like, that’s yours. What you do when you’re the one working, that’s what happens. When the Spirit’s working in your life, it produces those things, and that’s like, I mean, a really beautiful way of putting that, about worship ‑‑ the sermon being worship, because it is. It’s reorienting, it’s refocusing. So often we make that about refocusing to not do things, but it’s so much more than that. It’s a more complete picture of, like, this is who we love. This is who we’re doing this for. This is why I’m making my decisions. And if it’s not that, then it’s just ‑‑ it’s not worship. It’s maybe a fun speech.
WES: Yeah. Well, I think about what Jesus said. Jesus, when he was asked, what do we need to be doing to do the works that God requires? And he says, believe in the one that he has sent. That’s the work that we do. Align ourselves with Jesus, focus on Jesus, surrender to Jesus, trust in him, give him our loyalty and allegiance. And is there a sense in which that’s work? Absolutely. It’s very challenging, but it’s not a work that’s focused on don’t do this, don’t do this, don’t do this. It’s a work that’s focused on who is Jesus and what is he doing in our lives?
So, Joseph, thank you for this conversation. Thank you for your work in the kingdom, Brother. Thank you for pointing people to Jesus.
JOSEPH: Man, thank you for having me on, Wes. You know I love talking to you. Anytime we get a chance, it’s a blessing to me.
The God of the Old Testament with Marco Arroyo
May 08, 2024
Is there a dichotomy between the wrathful God of the Old Testament and the merciful God of the New Testament? In this episode, Wes McAdams and Marco Arroyo explore how our understanding of God’s nature can profoundly shape our own identities and relationships. The conversation also tackles the crucial issue of how to reconcile God’s love and grace with his judgment and wrath against sin.
Through a thoughtful and nuanced discussion, Wes and Marco unpack biblical concepts that are central to understanding God’s true nature. They explore the depths of God’s mercy, grace, and forgiveness, and how these attributes are not limited to the New Testament but permeate the entire biblical narrative. They also shed light on the importance of God’s wrath and judgment, not as contradictory to his love, but as a necessary expression of his holiness and justice. The conversation emphasizes the need to view God’s character and actions through the lens of his ultimate goodness and desire for restoration.
Marco Arroyo is the preacher for the Seagoville Church of Christ and the host of the “In Between Sundays” YouTube channel. With a passion for helping people see Jesus in every aspect of life, Marco brings a unique perspective to the discussion, drawing from his own journey of understanding and embracing the true nature of God. His experiences and insights offer a relatable and refreshing approach to wrestling with complex theological concepts.
Welcome to the Radically Christian Bible Study Podcast. I’m your host, Wes McAdams. Here we have one goal: Learn to love like Jesus. On today’s show, we’re going to talk about the mercy and the goodness of God. My guest today is Marco Arroyo. He’s the preacher for the Seagoville Church of Christ. He’s also the host of the “In Between Sundays” YouTube channel. I really encourage you to check out his videos. He’s doing a great work there.
I want to begin today by reading from 1 John 4, starting with verse 7. John says this: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.”
As always, I hope that this conversation is enjoyable and encouraging, but most of all, I hope that it helps all of us learn to love like Jesus.
WES: Marco Arroyo, welcome to the podcast, Brother.
MARCO: I’m really happy to be with you, man. Really am glad to be talking to you.
WES: Well, I am so happy to finally have you on the podcast. I’ve been watching a lot of your YouTube videos lately, and I really encourage people to go check out your YouTube channel because you’re doing such a great job and it’s such a unique channel, and you sort of highlight different things that are going on in the world and look at it through a Biblical, godly lens, and I think it’s really cool what you’re doing.
MARCO: Yeah, it’s really encouraging to hear that. That’s all I’m trying to do. You know, the name of the channel is “In Between Sundays,” and that’s literally the thought behind it. I just want people to be able to look at the things that are happening in our lives or in the world in between Sundays and to see Jesus in that. And, you know, I love the idea of ‑‑ we’re learning to love like Jesus in the Radically Christian Bible Study podcast, and it’s kind of a similar thought there, too: Just see Jesus in everything, and we really can in the Christian life, so I really appreciate you saying that.
WES: That’s awesome. Well, we had coffee not too long ago and we talked about a lot of different things. One of the things that we talked about is that I think we’re supposed to be changing as people. As followers of Jesus, we are supposed to be constantly growing and becoming different people and allowing the Spirit of God to transform us, and that probably means that our view of God, our theology is going to change over time. It’s going to evolve. It’s going to be hopefully better so we’re going to have a better understanding of who God is and his character and his nature now than we had before, so I would love to just start with that. How has your theology, your view of God, his character and his nature ‑‑ how has that changed over time?
MARCO: If I had to give you the short answer, I will say God has been getting better and better over the years. He’s been getting better and better. Now, just to preface it, a lot of the times when I talk about like what my growth process has been in my understanding of God and I start from the very beginning, there have been many people who I’ve been talking to where they kind of go, like, “New‑convert Marco was kind of a dummy,” and I agree with you; he was kind of a dummy. But for every reaction that I’ve had like that, there has also been a, “You know, the way that you used to view God” ‑‑ and there were problematic ways that I viewed God when I was a newer Christian ‑‑ “I used to view God that way, too, and I thought I was the only one,” and that always lifts my spirits so much, so I’m more than happy to, like, share my foolishness in this area, in large part because it’s such a testament to God’s goodness on me.
And so, before I became a Christian, it was, “God is good all the time,” and if I wanted to get real crazy with it, “All the time, God is good.” And, you know, it’s the basic stuff people say: God is love, John 3:16, things like that. But when I started to become a Christian, I was in the process of studying the Bible. I was studied with for like a year, and I was in high school at the time, in Los Angeles, California where I was raised, and that’s when I started to be confronted with the reality of my sin, and I hadn’t really taken that so seriously before.
And so when I became a Christian, I was very, very new in confronting the reality of my sin and who I was in relation to God. And so, then, my idea of God was closer to, God is good, but you better get it together fast; otherwise, God will be just as readily ‑‑ he will punish you as readily as he was to save you; and as quick as he was to save you, he will just as quickly destroy you. And it’s so funny because, not very long after that, I came into contact with “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” that, you know, 1700s sermon, Jonathan Edwards, and there’s a line in there towards the end. One of the quotes of it is, “And there is no other reason to be given why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning but that God’s hand has held you up.” And every day I was thinking, God is so good and merciful to me, but that was the idea that I had of how God viewed me. It’s like this loathsome creature is kind of what Jonathan Edwards talks about, and he so badly wants to punish you. He’s kind of waiting for you to, you know, commit sin and stuff like that.
And it took a while, and I was telling you that after a lot of study of the Old Testament, my understanding of God improved so very much. I remember, at one point, thinking, I don’t think I am making it to heaven most of the time, and I’m trying so hard to be more like Jesus every single day, and I would read Hebrews 11, and like the very next thing ‑‑ next best thing below Jesus are those people, Hebrews 11. And so I’m telling myself like, okay, well, I want to read about those people, then. And then I start to study into their lives, and those were some problematic people. They’re lying and plotting and scheming and deception, all these things. And I go, so how did these people make it? I mean, I’ve done some silly things, but like in 1 Samuel 21, David is like spitting on himself and pretending to be crazy, and that’s not even the worst of the stuff that he did. And so I realized their lives, their salvation ‑‑ they were not dependent on the level of goodness that they had attained to, they’d reached, but the goodness of the God who saved them despite them, despite who they were.
And so, before, it was, how does God feel about sin? He hates it, wants to punish it, and he will punish it. He’s against it. And so then I thought, well, I struggle and I sin. I do that often, so then that means God feels that way about me. And over time, my view eventually became, God gives mercy because he is good, and he wants to save me, not because I’m good, because he is good. It’s not contingent on my perfection. It’s actually despite my imperfection, God wants to save me. And, man, every time I think about the years that I spent not looking at God that way ‑‑ even now I fight back tears thinking about it because God is so incredibly good, and that’s why I say, in short, he’s just getting better and better as the days go by. He’s getting so much better every single day as I come to understand him more.
WES: Yeah. You know, it’s funny, as you were talking how much our theology affects our anthropology or even our personal identity and how we think about ourselves ‑‑ it’s so interesting. As you were talking, I remember having a conversation, when I first started preaching, and someone said ‑‑ it may have been me who said that when we think about ourselves in relation to God, it’s like we’re a flea. And then someone else said, no, no, no, it’s like we’re ‑‑ it’s like we’re the small toe of a flea. And someone else said, no, no, no, it’s like we’re the hangnail on the small toe of a flea. And we do ‑‑ we have been taught, I think, or we have somehow been trained to think that we are this, you said, loathsome creature, and I think the more we understand scripture, the more we understand the Good News story, it doesn’t paint humanity that way. It doesn’t even paint sinful humanity that way. It doesn’t paint us as being the hangnail on the small toe of a flea. It paints us as being the pinnacle of God’s creation. That yes, we’ve sinned and we’ve fallen short, but God loves us so much that he wants to redeem us and restore us to the place where he created us to be. He wants us to rule and reign with him. He wants to glorify us. He wants to exalt us, and Jesus is that plan. Otherwise, it doesn’t even make sense. The Good News, the gospel, doesn’t even make sense if we really are as horrible as we’ve been taught to think about ourselves. And so I think a right understanding of God does help us have a right understanding of ourselves, maybe.
MARCO: Yeah. The obvious verse with this is John 3:16, and the way I would read John 3:16 was, well, that love that God had for me is what brought me to my initial point of salvation, and now that I’m a Christian, it’s on me, and it’s completely on me, and so God is just waiting around the corner for me to fail so that he can punish me because that’s what he does, and that really did have an impact on me for a long time. You know, earlier on when I was a Christian, there was ‑‑ like almost instantly when I became a Christian, with all the sweetness, there was almost instant bitterness and worry because of that, and it’s so sad to think about that. I remember when I was baptized there were Christians who told me ‑‑ they go, like, “Enjoy this moment. Enjoy the purity that you feel in this moment.” And I don’t know how they meant that exactly, but the way I took it was, this is a fleeting thing and very soon I’m going to go back to my regular life, and my habits, my weaknesses, my shortcomings were not chained to the water ‑‑ inside the water of the baptistry, and so that really did present itself in a really ugly way.
I got deflated very quickly after I became a Christian. I didn’t, you know, leave God or anything, but I was deflated as soon as I started to be confronted with all these shortcomings. And I didn’t realize that John 3:16 is not just what brings me to salvation at one point, but it’s my entire relationship with God. Jesus did more than just make provisions to allow people to once ‑‑ to initially be saved. You know, you read Hebrews 2:18. He aids those who are tempted. Every single day, this is a ‑‑ as we say, a daily walk with Christ, and it’s all made possible because of the holy love that he gives to us. So, yeah, Jesus didn’t do what he did for fleas or hangnails on fleas.
WES: I’ve heard so many people say, over the years, that it would be better if someone drowned in the baptistry than that they get raised up and then live a life where they’re going to inevitably continue to sin in some way, that that’s the most forgiven ‑‑ I’ve heard people say things like that. “This is the most forgiven you’ll ever be,” or “the most cleansed you’ll ever be,” or “the purest you’ll ever be.” And I have preached from the pulpit multiple times that that’s nonsense, that I am as forgiven right now, as I sit here, as I was 20 years ago when I was baptized. I am just as forgiven now as I’ve ever been because of the ongoing forgiveness of Jesus, that he is, right now, my high priest. He is interceding for me, and his sacrifice is once for all, not only for all people, but for all of my sin.
And that changes the way ‑‑ in fact, that leads me to my next question, is, how does this idea of God ‑‑ as your understanding of God, your theology, as it has continued to grow, and your appreciation of the goodness and the mercy of God, how does that affect other areas of our life? I think so often we compartmentalize our life and we think about our theology just as being our “spiritual life,” quote‑unquote, and not recognizing that, actually, our theology and having good theology, it affects every area of our life. So how has that affected you and how have you seen good theology or bad theology affect every area of people’s lives?
MARCO: Well, I’ve definitely been on both sides of the bad and good theology. I’ve definitely been on both sides. I remember, in the week when I became a Christian, that sense of being deflated happened a couple times. I remember the first time I felt the need to avert my eyes. I felt so deflated, and I thought, there goes that purity that I had when I was baptized. There’s a version of that I first heard in Costa Rica when I was doing mission work one time. They were baptizing some people in waters that have been known to have either crocodiles or gators, whatever Costa Rica has. And they go, you know, if one of these guys gets eaten by these things, that’s the best time, you know? And I get the thought process of it, but it’s so wrong at the same time. I remember someone smashed the window of my car when I was a new Christian, the very first week. And, I mean, I had an idea of who it was, and when I tell you ‑‑ I wanted to go mafia on this guy. I remember I was so mad, and I restrained myself. I didn’t curse. I didn’t do anything that I needed to repent for, but even then I felt so deflated that, ugh, there goes that purity. Even the impulse for uncontrolled anger, I just ‑‑ there goes that, too.
And so the way that the bad theology in this area and our view of God would affect our lives is it just robs you of the comfort of being sure of your relationship with God. I can’t even tell you how many nights I spent going, I’m just really not sure. I know that I became a Christian at one point, but I’m just not sure today. God is good all the time, but he’s not going to be so good to me if I fall short of who he is, and I absolutely fall short of who he is. So all day long, I ‑‑ here’s what this bad theology did to me. I was repenting all day long, all day long, and not because I was actually sinning that much, but any single time I thought about myself, I just thought about my weaknesses, my shortcomings, and who I was in light of who God is, and I just repented all day long. I would repent when I heard a sermon and learned something new. I mean, I was constantly in this misery. To say that that’s bad theology is honestly an understatement. It robbed me of so much joy. It’ll rob you of peace. It’ll rob you of blessings that God has for you to walk in and to enjoy but you think that those aren’t for you because, well, you’re not completely like Jesus at this point of your life.
And so whenever I think about that, I just think praise be to God, because over time of learning and honest consideration of myself in light of God’s Word, the truth is just inevitable. My view of Christianity has gone from “It doesn’t get any better than this” to “You just have no idea how good God is. You have no idea how good he is, Marco.” And I can only imagine our Father looking at new‑Christian Marco and going, “You have no idea how good it’s going to be.” And these words are true, Wes: There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. Our God is so good, and the knowledge that you can ‑‑ you can know that there is no condemnation for you in Christ Jesus ‑‑ I can truly say every day I am happier. Every day I am more joyful. Every single day I’m more grateful. The more I learn about who God is, I learn how good he is, and every day gets better. It truly ‑‑ it’s not just a saying that I would say to a new Christian. Every day gets sweeter. It’s the best. Our God is so, so good.
WES: Yeah. Well, I think about how timid it makes us when we are constantly afraid that God hasn’t forgiven us or that we’ve, you know, messed up too much or something like that and how we become self‑absorbed and we don’t reach out. I was thinking that it’s amazing the life to which we are called in Christ, to be courageous and to lose our life, if necessary, to not have any fear of death, but how many Christians are terrified of death or the second coming of Jesus because they’re afraid, “Oh, you know, I’m not sure.” I’ve known so many older Christians who have walked with the Lord for decades and they get to the end of their life and they’re worried, “I haven’t done enough, I’ve messed up too much. Maybe I’m not really saved,” and so they’re terrified of the judgment of God when they ought to be able to live their life with such Godly abandon, where we’re saying, “I’m not afraid of dying. I’m not afraid.”
So whether you’re young or old, we ought to be able to go to a dangerous place or we ought to be able to put our life on the line without any fear because we know, “I’m going to be resurrected to eternal life. What can man do to me?” And we’re not afraid of death because we know that our God loves us and he’s going to raise us to life. But we become so afraid and fearful and timid and self‑absorbed when it’s all about, you know, “I’ve got to make sure that I don’t make this angry God even more angry with me,” and “I’ve got to make sure that I stay on his good side,” so that we don’t live our lives with this courageous, fearless abandon where we’re not afraid of the things that the world is afraid of.
MARCO: Can I comment on that being self‑absorbed for a second? Here’s one way it’ll hold you back if you have that wrong view of God. You will become self‑absorbed, and even though you know that that’s wrong, here’s what you’ll do, and you won’t realize that you’re being self‑absorbed. You will stop yourself from being a blessing to Christians who need you. You will say, “I’m unqualified. I got all these problems. I can’t give any counsel to this person. I can’t be of any encouragement to them. I don’t even know if I should be praying for them,” or something like that. But you’ll tell yourself that you’re unqualified or you’ll do this. You’ll go, “Before I can help all them, I’ve got to help myself. I’ve got problems of my own. I’ve got my own weaknesses to sort out. So before I can help this other Christian who’s maybe a newer Christian than I am and needs someone to kind of take them by the hand, that’s not going to be me. I’ve got to find one of the perfect Christians or almost‑perfect Christians to do that.”
So you’ll think that you’re prioritizing your relationship with God, but you’re not. You’re actually just being self‑absorbed because of this wrong idea about God, and it’s robbing you from fulfilling the second greatest commandment. So if your relationship with God is your priority, then the people around you are going to be your priority. But if you think that, you know, because you don’t have it all together, that your relationship with God is constantly in shambles, then why would you help anyone? Why would you have that impulse? So it’s a really dangerous thing to view God in this incorrect way. It’ll rob you from doing the second greatest thing we’re here to do.
WES: Yeah. Well, it’s so important that we embrace this idea that we are justified by faith in Christ. Yes, baptism is important. Yes, repentance is important. Yes, absolutely. But our loyalty, our allegiance to King Jesus is the basis on which we are saved, which means it’s not on the basis of my works. I have not done enough. I have not been good enough. I have sinned. I have fallen short. But my covenant relationship with God is based on what Jesus has done for me, and when we embrace that, then we can truly believe what Peter says, that we are a royal nation, a royal priesthood. We are a royal priesthood that ‑‑ to your point, I am a priest. I am a holy priest in the Lord. I can serve in the name of the Lord and do these good works in the name of the Lord by the power of the Holy Spirit, not because I’m perfect, not because I’ve attained some status or because I’ve done everything right, but because of who he is, because he’s gracious and merciful.
And it does ‑‑ it changes the way that we love people day in and day out and what we do and our courage and our willingness to do those things, because it’s not about us; it’s about them and it’s about the Lord and it’s about our opportunity to connect them to the Lord and to be a conduit for the blessings of God, and that all comes down to having right theology.
MARCO: Yeah, it is so incredibly important. You know, there’s a way that you can answer this correctly, but if you were to ask someone, like, “Why are you saved?” If the answer is all “I” and “me,” then you’re answering the wrong way. Maybe you can say, “Well, I have received, you know, forgiveness,” you can do it that way. Again, there’s a way to do it, I guess, but the reality is it should be 99.9%, if not 100%, “Because this is what God did. This is what God did through Christ for me.” And I ‑‑ again, I’m not, you know, preaching Calvinism or something like that, but I obviously have a responsibility to, you know, decide to be in a relationship with God, however you want to put that, you know, to have the faith ‑‑ grace through faith, absolutely. But who is responsible for the victory? Who is responsible for the joy? Who is responsible for that? It’s God. It’s totally God, and it’s not even close. It’s not even close.
Thankfully, God does not have perfection as a requirement. God goes, “No, I know you’re not perfect. That’s why Jesus came to the Earth. It’s because of that, so I can work with that both before you’re a Christian and while you are a Christian. I am powerful enough.” I wish there were a verse in the Bible that said, “My grace is sufficient for you; my strength is made perfect in your weakness.” There is! And what a beautiful idea! God says, “You’re weak, you’re imperfect, you have all these problems. I can do something with that. I can do amazing things with that!” I mean, what joy! Oh man, I feel so much excitement whenever I think about that idea. God can do something with me despite me! Despite me!
WES: Yeah, we don’t realize, I think, sometimes that our bad theology, our workspace theology, our legalistic theology, it robs God of glory and gratitude and thanksgiving, that it’s like if a parent or an uncle or a grandparent gave someone an inheritance of a million dollars or this huge estate, if the person who received that inheritance ‑‑ and of course they had to sign on the dotted line, they had to ‑‑ whatever it was that they had to do to receive the inheritance, if they said, “Well, why do you have this inheritance,” and they said, “Well, because I did all of the legal requirements to get my inheritance.” Like, no, that’s not why you have this inheritance. You have this inheritance because you have a gracious, a benevolent, a generous benefactor who gave this to you. That’s why you have it, because of their character, because of their nature, so that they get all the glory, so that they get all the credit. We can’t even take a minuscule amount of credit for receiving a gift that was given to us. Yes, of course we had to receive it. Yes, of course we had to put our faith in Jesus, but that’s just a matter of responding in faith to the offer that’s been made to us. And I think sometimes we don’t recognize that that’s what we’re doing. When we get all wrapped up in, “Well, I did this and I did this,” and, “Well, have I done all of these things,” and, “Well, I didn’t do this and I haven’t been perfect in that way,” we’re robbing God of his glory and the gratitude that’s due him.
MARCO: Yeah, but Wes, I used my very best pen to sign the thing, and I made sure my writing was super clear, the most beautiful cursive I’ve ever used in my life. Doesn’t that count for something? That’s what I sound like when I start to put the blame ‑‑ or not the blame, but the glory starts to come to me, or I start to put the pressure, everything on my shoulders. I go, well, I guess I better bring out my very best pen, or I guess I better make sure my words, my letters are super clear and legible. It just sounds so silly when you think about it, but, again, you’ve got to be thinking about what God has done, what he is doing, otherwise you’re going to fixate on what you see, and what you see is mainly what you’re doing. So I get why people come to that point and why they stay there. The clear solution is you’ve got to learn, you’ve got to fixate, you’ve got to focus more on who God is and what he has done, and you’ll understand what he does, even today.
WES: Yeah. Let’s kind of switch gears just a little bit. We’re talking about the mercy of God, the grace of God, the forgiveness and the pardon that God gives, but what about his wrath? What about his judgment? It’s undeniable that that’s part of the character and the nature of God. It’s hard to read. It’s interesting you said the Old Testament really helped you change your mind on the character and nature of God because so many people especially read the Old Testament and they say, “Well, what about his wrath? What about his anger? What about his judgment?” And, to me, I think that this is pivotal to good news. It’s part of the good news of who God is. But let’s talk about that for a second. What about his wrath and his judgment is pivotal to understand the character and the nature of God?
MARCO: Well, you know, if Marco from, let’s say, eight years ago would have been listening to our conversation, I would have been saying, when are they going to talk about wrath? When are they going to talk about punishment? I mean, you better talk about the other side, otherwise you must not believe in that, or something like that, and that’s very silly to think about that. But sometimes I would think like it’s a liberal ‑‑ past Marco would say that where Marco is today is at this liberal extreme that ignores God’s judgment and wrath, but that is so far from the truth. God’s judgment and wrath are the very basic and sobering reminder that God always has been, and God is still serious about sin. We ought to ‑‑ every single Christian ought to understand this, and it is a sobering thing. God is so serious about sin. You read passages like Psalm 5:4. God hates sin. God won’t dwell with sin. He doesn’t take pleasure in it. He doesn’t like it at all. And there are also ‑‑ we have to acknowledge this openly, too. There are countless people in scripture, and countless, to me, that have died because of their sin, that God brought about their death because of their sin.
You know, on the channel, I’m doing lots of apologetic work, and that’s something that comes up a lot from atheists that I talk to. They go, “What about all these people that God killed because they were bad?” And it’s so interesting when you think about that. They claim that God is this moral monster because of his wrath, but the reason is often because of their ‑‑ the reason why they think that is because they have this limited and subjective human morality, and God has to line up with their morality. The infinite mind of God has to align with atheist YouTube commenters’ morality. And I’ve seen, because of that, many Christians try to downplay the severity of God ‑‑ Romans 11:22, “the goodness and severity of God.” I’ve seen them try to downplay the severity of God to make him more palatable to people, and I’ve seen that, and I think, no, don’t do that. God’s judgment and his wrath, they’re crucial elements of understanding why he does what he does. You can’t downplay that and go, well ‑‑ and people try to do the Old Testament/New Testament thing, and let’s understand this right.
The God of heaven and Earth hates sin and he will punish sin, and when you downplay that part of God, you are indirectly, if not directly, leading people to be more comfortable with sin. I should have ‑‑ and I aspire to have this in my own life ‑‑ the same discomfort that Jesus had towards sin, and I know I’m not there, but I want to be more and more uncomfortable with sin. And so what I tell people ‑‑ when I downplay God’s wrath and his judgment, I’m doing something that is the opposite of the heart of God and how he feels about sin. So everything I see God do has to be seen with the partial thought that ‑‑ at least partially, if not majorly, that he is acting out of his hatred for sin. In fact, you could probably very easily make the case you can connect that to everything that he does; it’s out of his hatred for sin. Where people start to get this wrong is the way they ‑‑ I guess the best way to say it is, what does hatred for sin look like? A lot of the time we kind of apply that in one way. But does that kind of make sense, what I’m saying here?
WES: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, it does. And what’s so interesting, to kind of go back to the idea of the skeptic or the atheist who is angry at God for being angry, or angry at God for his wrath and looking at the God of the Bible and saying, “Well, that God can’t possibly exist, or if he does, he’s a moral monster” ‑‑ what’s so interesting is that the same skeptics will seem to ask ‑‑ when there is a school shooting or when there is some horrible thing that happens, they’ll ask, “Well, where was God? Why doesn’t God do something about the evil in the world?” And that’s so interesting, that when God does something about the evil in the world and punishes evil people, we say, “Oh, well, that’s a mean God and that’s wrong and he shouldn’t be like that,” and then when God doesn’t do something about the evil in the world and he allows evil to go, at least from our viewpoint, unchecked, then we say, “Well, that’s an apathetic God and that’s horrible and I can’t believe God would be that way.”
And what’s interesting is that scripture deals with this. It deals with all of this, where sometimes the psalmist, especially, will be saying, “God, where are you? Why don’t you show up? Why don’t you deal with this? Why do you allow evil people to continue doing what they do?” And the good news is that God will deal with all of the evil in the world. I think about the things that Jesus told his disciples to do, like turn the other cheek and go the extra mile and love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you. The only way we can do that and live out the instructions of Jesus is if we really believe that someday God will deal with all of the evil in the world, that God will punish the evildoer, that he will punish the wicked. Otherwise, we should just go take vengeance for ourselves. We should just go and punish all of the wicked people if they’re just gonna get away with it. But because we believe that God does take sin seriously and that he will set everything right, then we can turn the other cheek. We can pray for our enemies. We can love our enemies if we really, truly believe that God really takes sin seriously and that he is even more angry about it than we are.
MARCO: Yeah. To connect this to what we were saying earlier, the recognition of my inadequacy is actually one of the most liberating things in my life, and it’s caused me to have such a great trust in God who knows what he is doing. And when I realize that God knows what he is doing and I accept my inadequacy, life, in a certain sense, becomes so easy because all I’ve got to do is trust God. And, obviously, that takes me to difficult places, and there’s something to be said about that, but all I have to do is trust God, so that might lead to action in certain areas or just holding back, peace‑be‑still kind of things, trusting him when I think about maybe my non‑Christian family and how all that works ‑‑ all I have to do is trust that my God, Isaiah 55:8‑9, that he knows what is best. His ways are not just different than mine; they’re higher. His thoughts and his ways are higher than my thoughts and my ways. So it’s such a liberating thing to look at God as the one whose understanding is infinite, in Psalm 147. I can trust him, and that ‑‑ actually, knowing that I’m so inadequate and all I’ve got to do is trust God, that’s such a liberating thing, but I can see why that’s hard for people to do who are not thinking in spiritual but in carnal terms, because it’s hard to let go of your own sense of morality if you’re not really sold on God, if that makes sense.
WES: Yeah, yeah, for sure. And that is what it is to be a Christian or to be part of the family of God, is to, as you said, trust him, and that’s hard. And I think it’s good for us to acknowledge when that’s hard or when it seems like God is being harsh or when it seems like God is being apathetic, and scripture gives us permission to say, “Hey, God, this is how I’m feeling. I’m feeling like this is really harsh. And why can’t I do this thing that I want to do or why did this thing happen or why aren’t you doing anything and why don’t you fix these problems in the world?” And over and over and over again, the scriptures teach us to wait for the Lord, wait for the Lord, wait for the Lord. And we have to be convinced ‑‑ and I think that’s why the cross has to be at the center of our theology. The cross teaches us that God, one, takes sin seriously, for sure. But number two, that God is good and that he is gracious and merciful and he loves us. And if we’re convinced of the goodness of God, we’re convinced that he really will set everything right, then we can wait for the Lord and we can be patient and we can trust him, even if it doesn’t happen in our lifetime, that God will do all of the things he’s promised to do.
MARCO: Yeah, the statement “God is serious about sin,” it often gets translated into, “God can’t wait to punish you,” and that’s not the right translation. That’s not who God is. And it is an overreaction to that mindset that causes people to downplay the judgment and the wrath of God, in my experience, because they have this idea that God is serious about sin; that means he can’t wait to punish you. And that’s not ‑‑ the better Biblical position and approach, in my mind, is God is so serious about sin that he sent his own Son to save you from it, and after having been saved, he continues to aid you in your daily life in spite of your imperfections. So just trust him, knowing that you are inadequate. He doesn’t want to punish you ‑‑ 2 Peter 3:9, he’s not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. That’s what God wants. And so God being serious about sin does not directly translate to, he just can’t wait to punish you. No. In fact, if you look at how he acted in his seriousness towards sin, you see something very, very different than such a limited mindset like that.
WES: Yeah. Well, there’s a couple stories to kind of go with that theme that you’re bringing out there, and even to go back to the idea of God killing people in scripture, God putting people to death. You know, we’ve got Nadab and Abihu, we’ve got Uzzah. Nadab and Abihu were these priests who offered strange fire and God struck them dead. Uzzah was part of transporting the Ark on a cart, and the oxen stumbled and the Ark began to fall and he reached out and touched the Ark of the Covenant and he was struck dead. And so we have these stories, and for me, growing up, preachers, Bible class teachers, we read these stories a lot and these stories, for some people, they may be some obscure story in the Old Testament they’ve never even heard of before. They don’t know who Nadab and Abihu are. They don’t know who Uzzah was, and so they’re just obscure stories, but for me, where I grew up and how I grew up, for a lot of the churches I was in, these stories got emphasized a lot so that they became sort of central for my theology and I did think about God’s wrath that way, that I thought, well, God is just waiting for me to accidentally reach out and touch the Ark. He’s waiting for me to accidentally offer some strange fire and God is going to punish me. He’s waiting for me to step out of line. He’s like a police officer that’s set a speed trap and he’s just waiting for me to go over the speed limit even one mile an hour so that he can punish me.
So do you think that these stories ‑‑ obviously, they are stories of things that God did, but do you think they get emphasized in the wrong ways or emphasized to the exclusion of other stories or they become too central in our theology? How do you think we should think about stories like that?
MARCO: Yeah, if you take a lot of those stories ‑‑ I mentioned the God can’t wait to punish you, the overreaction to that that causes people to downplay his wrath. There’s another side to that, where there are those who see people downplaying God’s wrath, and so then they go to an extreme and they go, “We need to harp on Leviticus 10 constantly. We need to harp on the story of Uzzah constantly.” And, honestly, I found myself in that camp for a while, where I thought, because there’s so many people downplaying his wrath, I need to just hammer this constantly. And, again, it led to ‑‑ it contributed to an already limited mindset on God because that’s not who God is, to just reduce him to Leviticus 10, to reduce him to the story of Uzzah.
I was thinking about it in terms like this. You know, I have two daughters. Parents ‑‑ and even though my daughters are both young, they’re both baby toddlers, parents have to discipline their kids in some way, whatever that way is. And I remember this thought, as a kid, towards my parents: All you want to do is punish me. All you want to do is punish me. And, typically, that statement would come from a lack of perspective, but it also would come from this hyperfixation on myself when I didn’t get what I wanted. And so I would just straw‑man almost who my parents were and say, “All they want to do is punish me.” And I used to be so jealous of kids in school, growing up, whose parents did not punish them ever, whose parents had no rules, they got to do whatever they wanted, no limitations. I thought, those are the good parents. I mean, come on. If only my parents would talk to those parents once, they would know those are the good parents. And now I realize those were not the good parents, and I am not jealous of the kids who had those kinds of parents.
And when you connect this back to God, you gain a way better perspective in this way. If you were to line up all the instances of God’s severity in the Old Testament up against all the instances of him dealing out extraordinary amounts of goodness and mercy, it would blow you away because God has actually given us a perspective of how to understand who he is and what he does all throughout scripture. In Exodus 20, the giving of the Ten Commandments, there’s that famous line where he says, “I’m a jealous God visiting the iniquities,” but he also says, “but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love me and keep my commandments.” So the God who just said, “I’m a God of wrath, I punish, and I’ll punish for a long time,” he also says, “but I show mercy to thousands, to those who love me and keep my commandments.”
So if I can find, Biblically, just one person in the Bible who was clearly flawed but God showed them mercy, I can prove to you that you can be so flawed and still be one who loves God and keeps his commandments in his eyes, and that gives you incredible perspective. And that phrase in Exodus 20, it’s in Exodus 34, it’s all throughout the Old Testament, it’s in other places, as well ‑‑ it’s a really repeated passage in scripture, and it makes it clear to you that the overwhelming majority of the instances of God’s wrath and severity, they’re also evidence of his mercy, because in so many situations, the consequence could have and should have been way worse than what they got. And so a lot of times people just boil it down to what the punishment was, and they go, “Look how severe God is,” but let’s remember, let’s not get it mistaken here, God could have and was willing, at one point, to finish Israel and just start again with Moses. And the fact that you can read that and then go one chapter later and Israel still exists? That’s God’s mercy on every single part of the page. And so, a lot of the time, we kind of build this straw man or we’re way too reductionist about these acts of wrath. They’re actually incredible examples of mercy on the part of God and goodness on the part of God.
WES: Yeah. Yeah, I’m so glad that you brought up Exodus 34. I’m going to read this ‑‑ I’m going to read that whole passage, verses 6 and 7. It says, “The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and fourth generation.'”
It’s so interesting, when we read that passage, that both of those aspects, the judgment of God and the mercy of God ‑‑ both are obviously represented, but to say that they’re balanced would, I think, be the wrong way to put it because they’re not really balanced as if they’re a one‑to‑one equation. Like God has wrath and judgment, and he also has mercy and grace, and you’ve got to have both. And it’s true, you do have to have both, but not in equal measure, that he is far more gracious and merciful than he is punishing, that it’s a thousand to three or four. He is forgiving to thousands and he is wrathful, or he is judging and punishing three or four generations, and it’s not a one‑to‑one equation.
And I think you’re exactly right. I’m so glad that you said that, so often, the sort of emphasizing of Nadab and Abihu or the emphasizing of Uzzah and God’s wrath is an overreaction to the perceived liberalism or the perceived overemphasis of mercy and grace. And I hear preachers say things like that, “Well, that church over there, they just talk about love all the time,” or “They just talk about mercy all the time.” And, yeah, that very well may be the case, and we certainly don’t want to de‑emphasize the horrible nature of sin. We don’t want to ignore sin and use grace as a license for sin. Absolutely, that can and does happen, but we’ve got to be so careful that we’re not trying to put the judgment of God as a one‑to‑one comparison of his mercy and his grace, that he is far more ‑‑ I’m so glad that you put it that way, that if you put all of the passages in the Old Testament of God being gracious and merciful, they would far outweigh those times where he does have wrath and he does judge and he does punish, and those are both aspects that we need to talk about and emphasize, but not in the same kind of way.
MARCO: Yeah. Actually, I have a good example for the idea that it’s not one‑to‑one. If you read through Judges ‑‑ you know, I mentioned if you can find one flawed person who God showed mercy to, then I can prove that you can be flawed and still love God and be a keeper of his commandments in his eyes. In Judges, they’re in this vicious cycle of sin, consequences, crying out, God gives a judge, delivers them, time of peace, and then rinse and repeat, basically. And in Judges chapter 3, that whole cycle is happening, and then God gives deliverance in Othniel, and then he blesses them with rest for 40 years. After that time, they go back into sin, and then they’re under Moabite oppression, under Eglon, and then they cry out for God’s help. He sends Ehud. And after they experience deliverance under Ehud, how long do you think now God gives them deliverance for? Would it be less time? Does God say they need some probationary period? “Prove to me, give me a couple years of faithfulness, then I’ll do” ‑‑ God doubles the amount of rest from 40 to 80 years. So why would God do that? Were they just so exceptionally good this time, so good at being delivered this time or something like that? No. God is just that good and he wants to bless that much. Why double it? Maybe God is just so good that he is willing to double his blessings to help you see the joy of living for him, and hopefully, that will keep you from leaving him and experiencing sin, suffering, and wrath in the future. It’s nowhere near one‑to‑one. God literally doubles his blessings on people who deserve way, way less than any of that.
WES: Wow, that’s fantastic. Let me ask you this as we’re closing. It’s so funny that we’re having this conversation because I was just asked by somebody here recently who said if Jesus and God were together from the beginning, meaning God, the Father ‑‑ if Jesus and the Father were together from the beginning, why is the God of the Old Testament so different from the God of the New Testament? Obviously, that’s a question that people have been wrestling with and thinking through for a couple thousand years now. So how would you respond to that ‑‑ or how do you respond to that when you get questions like that, sort of pitting the, quote‑unquote, “God of the Old Testament” against the, quote‑unquote, “God of the New Testament”?
MARCO: Yeah, good cop/bad cop, something like that. You know, I have an answer for the question, but I also reject the premise of the question. It just depends what they mean by this sometimes. Sometimes people are saying, “Why does God handle things differently?” And I think that’s a different question than “Why is God so different?” You know, there’s something to be said about God treating them differently in application but not in terms of his character. And God’s promise was to bring the Messiah through Abraham’s seed, and Jesus isn’t coming into the world through the seed of Abraham if they get picked off in the wilderness by enemy nations, if they have large amounts of people dying from eating certain foods or animals that are more dangerous than others, if they’re playing fast and loose with their sexual relationships, they’re intermingling with other nations, if they’re getting each other fatally ill because they’re touching rotting corpses and then their hands are dirty and they handle other situations like that. But, also, if rebellion after rebellion, civil wars, essentially, in Israel are just allowed to happen whenever people feel like it, Messiah is not coming through Abraham’s seed. They’re not going to last very long. If the people are not going to be held accountable for the disrespect of God’s holiness, they’re not going to make it, either. To harken back to Nadab and Abihu, for example, that’s what God says: “By those who come near me, I must be regarded as holy. If you’re going to make it, you have to regard me as holy. Before all the people, I must be glorified.” So God was certainly more severe physically, you can say, in the Old Testament, in part, for those reasons. They needed to be alive. You can talk about that stuff.
But here’s where I reject the premise. Was God any more or less loving then? No. Was God more or less merciful back then? Was he more or less serious about sin? Was he more serious or less serious? Absolutely not. So sometimes we take one form of application and make the corresponding principle, like, exclusive to that kind of application, that form of discipline, you could say, when a principle can be applied many ways or a characteristic of God’s nature can be applied many ways. So, with God, we need to take the whole of what he did to more accurately understand his nature and the underlying reasons for the kind of application ‑‑ or the kind of treatment that he dealt out, because you’ve got to remember, again, God could have wiped them out, but he didn’t. So the application ‑‑ you can’t just look at, you know, instances of wrath and say that’s less love. No, no, no. All these things come together and you’ve got to get to know God to understand that part, his nature and the underlying reasons for the application of all of that. Does that kind of make sense?
WES: Yeah, I think that’s a perfect answer. I think that’s a great way to put it, that God hasn’t changed, but that he’s dealing with it in a new way, but his character ‑‑ and that’s, I think, the argument that the apostles made over and over again, that the cross and what God has done is perfectly in keeping with the scriptures. And when the apostles talk about the scriptures, they’re talking about the Old Testament scriptures. They didn’t see any contradiction. They saw, oh, of course, this is exactly the sort of thing that our God would do. Of course our God is gracious. Of course our God is merciful. And not only does he want to rescue Israel, because he’s been rescuing Israel for thousands of years, but surprise, surprise, he also wants to rescue the Gentiles. He wants to rescue the world. And we see that as we look through the, quote‑unquote, “Old Testament scriptures,” as well. We see, over and over again, God’s concern is for all humanity and that the seed of Abraham was going to
bless all of the nations, not just Israel. And, yeah, I so appreciate you helping us to see the grace and the mercy of God in both the Old and New Testaments.
MARCO: Yeah, I love that you said that, that the prophets and the apostles, they understood this about God. It’s us that try to stereotype God in the Old Testament and boil him down to something that ‑‑ he’s way more than that. He’s way more than the instances of judgment and wrath, for example. We have such a good God.
I think about Psalm 23, and one of the biggest reasons why it’s such a beloved and famous psalm is that beautiful, like, culmination in verse number 6, that “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” People love the feeling they get when they think about how good God is, and my Shepherd leads me in goodness and mercy. So we have to ‑‑ as such a crucial part of God’s nature, we have to look at everything that he does through that lens. That is who he is. God is love, and we’ve got to look at him in that way, the goodness and the mercy that I get. As someone that ‑‑ I identify with Israel so much, and God blesses me and he shows his goodness to me like he did to them, and what a good God. What a good God.
WES: Yeah. Amen. I think that’s a great place to stop. Marco, thank you for this conversation, but more importantly, thank you for the work you’re doing in the kingdom, Brother.
What Is a Sin and What Isn’t A Sin? with Jacob Rutledge
May 01, 2024
What is sin? Is this a sin? Is that a sin? Is it a sin if I do such-and-such?
In this thought-provoking episode of the Radically Christian Bible Study Podcast, Wes and his guest, Jacob Rutledge, tackle the complex and often contentious topic of sin. They delve into the fundamental questions that many Christians grapple with: What truly constitutes sin? How do we define it in a way that aligns with biblical teachings? Is sin merely a matter of missing the mark, or does it go deeper, reflecting a rebellion against God’s authority? These questions are not merely academic exercises; they have profound implications for how we understand our relationship with God and our pursuit of holiness.
Drawing from the biblical wisdom found in 1 John and other key passages, Wes and Jacob explore the multifaceted nature of sin. They discuss how sin is not just a violation of God’s law but a rupture in our relationship with the Creator, a failure to live up to the glorious potential for which we were created. The conversation also touches on the collective and societal dimensions of sin, recognizing that our actions can have far-reaching consequences beyond our individual selves. Throughout the discussion, the emphasis is on understanding sin not merely as a set of rules to be followed but as a matter of the heart, a reflection of our willingness to submit to God’s will and embrace the transformative work of the Holy Spirit.
Jacob Rutledge is the preaching minister at the Dripping Springs Church of Christ. With a deep passion for biblical teaching and a gift for engaging in thoughtful discussions, he brings a wealth of knowledge and insight to this podcast episode. Jacob’s commitment to exploring the nuances of sin and our relationship with God promises to shed light on this challenging topic.
What is and what isn’t a sin? That can be a tricky question. On the one hand, sin might be a lot more broad and all‑encompassing than we sometimes think. But on the other hand, we have to be very careful when we accuse our brothers and sisters of sin, especially when they’re striving to live for the Lord. Today, I’m visiting with my friend, Jacob Rutledge, the preaching minister from the Dripping Springs Church of Christ, about this incredibly important topic of sin.
But before we get to that conversation, I want to read from 1 John 3:4‑10. John says, “Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the work of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.”
I hope that you’re encouraged by this conversation, and I pray that it helps all of us learn to love like Jesus.
WES: Jacob Rutledge, welcome back to the podcast, Brother.
JACOB: Good to be here, Wes. Good to be back here with you.
WES: In fact, welcome back a second time for the same day, because we were recording and you were saying some amazing stuff and then the internet cut out on us, so I know that you’ll be able to hit all those notes again. But this conversation that I want to have today is so, I think, incredibly important, but it’s one that I think people are always asking: What is sin? Particularly, you could leave a blank there, “Is this sin?” “Is that sin?” “Is blank sin?” So many things that, again, we could go down different rabbit trails and say, well, is this thing a sin or is that thing a sin, or how about this behavior; is that a sin? Especially things that the Bible doesn’t necessarily give us real clear, explicit guidelines on, and some people are worried, am I sinning if I do this or am I sinning if I do that? And we could probably talk about some of those things as examples, but just, real general, and starting off at least, let’s be real broad and just ‑‑ what is sin? Like how should we define it? Or maybe even like what images should come to our mind when we think about what sin is?
JACOB: Yeah, I think that’s a good question, and, also, this idea of ‑‑ you know, the Hebrews writer says, in Hebrews 12, that sin clings so closely to us, so it’s a very personal thing to us, and so that’s why, when we either get called out on our own sin or we’re reflecting on our sin, trying to be better, it seems so deeply personal and difficult, right? And we can maybe get into that, why it’s so personal to us, but at its most basic level, John says, in 1 John 3:4, that sin is lawlessness. So, in essence, sin is an unwillingness to submit to the law, and specifically within the context of scripture and for Christians and for John, in that context is the divine law, and it brings back with us the picture and the imagery of Eden, right, with Adam and Eve in the fall. God had given a prohibition when it came to eating of the fruit, and they partook of that and they passed that barrier. They went against his will and his desire for their life, and, at its essence, there’s this kind of self‑determination. That’s the temptation from the serpent, you know, “You will know what’s right and wrong.” And, ultimately, in some ways, sin is about this self‑determining aspect of us that wants to be the one that says, “No, this is right and this is wrong,” rather than trusting in what God has said is right and what God has said is wrong.
There’s a multifaceted dimension to sin. I mean, we realize that sin isn’t just as basic as breaking God’s law. It’s more than that. I mean, we see that even within Eden itself. It’s about, you know, rupturing our relationship with God, barring entrance to eternal life, the generational consequences and relational consequences for Adam and Eve within their marriage and within their children. So there’s a whole dimension to sin, but at its most basic level, it’s kind of a rebellion of sorts, a resistance to submitting to a law which transcends me. And whenever I make myself the determining factor on how I’m going to live, apart from any transcendent law, there’s going to be immense consequences to that. And, you know, we see those consequences in our life, but, you know, we can’t go wrong when it comes to allowing scripture to define sin, and it says sin is lawlessness. And so, that’s what Jesus, of course, says to some on judgment day, unfortunately, is that they’ve done all of these wonderful works, but at the end of the day, he says, “Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness,” Matthew 7:21. And so even the good things that we do can be done outside of God’s will, especially when it comes to when we’re trying to use them for self‑justification. You can try and justify yourself outside of what God has prescribed, so…
WES: Yeah. Well, I love some of those terms that you’re using, “self‑determination,” “rebellion,” this “failure to submit,” and all of that ‑‑ I think “lawlessness,” that idea, it assumes ‑‑ it implies authority, that both as the creator and as the sovereign, the king, the ruler over humanity, God has a right to determine our steps, to tell us what is right and what is wrong, how to live, what to do, what not to do, and at the heart of sin is this idea that the created being, us, would look at our creator and say, “I don’t want to do what you want me to do. I want to determine my own steps. I want to go my own way.”
This actually brings me to sort of my first reason I’ve been wrestling with this, I think, is because so many times when we try to define sin, someone will say it means to miss the mark, and from what I’ve studied in Hebrew, that seems to be very much what it is; it’s a missing the mark. But I think that picture ‑‑ and I’ve heard, you know, preachers sort of describe that in detail, you know, you’re trying really hard to shoot an arrow at a small, little target. There’s this little‑bitty bull’s eye and you try really hard, and your arrow, you know, hits just left of the mark or just right of the mark, and so you’ve sinned. And I see that and I understand what people are saying, but I wonder if, at the heart of that, we have in mind a very small bull’s eye. And I think that whether or not that illustration or definition for sin ‑‑ whether or not that’s helpful is determined by how big do you think the bull’s eye is? And I think sometimes we think that God has this minuscule, little bull’s eye for us, and he sets it out there and says, “Here, hit this; live this way,” and then, as hard as we try, we miss the mark. But that doesn’t seem to square with the idea of sin as rebellion, or failure to submit, or lawlessness. There’s a difference between being lawless and trying really hard and just being a little bit off of something that’s very difficult to hit anyway. So maybe how do we reconcile those ideas, or what do you think about that?
JACOB: Yeah, I get what you’re saying there. And the other issue I might have with that imagery ‑‑ although, like you said, I think there’s maybe some credence to that. I don’t want to shame preachers who have used that imagery.
WES: Sure.
JACOB: But I do think that if we’re not careful in giving other metaphors to aid in complementing that metaphor, for example, it might make us think that one pet sin that we struggle with is the bull’s eye that we keep missing. And I was just talking to somebody about this yesterday, about how our view of sin is often ‑‑ when we’re viewing it personally, we often don’t necessarily think of ourselves as sinners as much as we do, “Well, I have a problem with this thing, this particular sin, and if I could just overcome this particular sin, then I would just be fine.” But, of course, the issue with that is that sin is far more expansive and far more influential on us than we even realize at times, and when we hyper‑focus on that one pet sin that we’re struggling with ‑‑ not to say that we shouldn’t be battling it ‑‑ but it can make us ‑‑ it creates a lack of self‑awareness of some of the other sins we’re probably struggling with and not spending as much time focusing on, and I think it can cause an immense amount of despair because if that’s the only sin you’re focusing on and you keep failing at it, you know, then you’re really going to fall into discouragement, whereas you might have actually been growing in sanctification in some other areas that you haven’t realized because you maybe haven’t been focused ‑‑ and I know they’re all tied together, that sin clings so closely. As we talked about earlier, it’s very personal to us.
But I do think that maybe the falling‑short imagery can help when we think of it in the context of what Paul says in Romans 3:23, where he says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” What do we mean by “the glory of God”? What do we mean by that? Well, that’s a really expansive view of human nature in and of itself. Mankind was meant to be the image of God, the imago Dei, right? So that, of course, was part of the deception of sin, was that the serpent said, “Well, you will be like God.” Of course, the great irony is they’re already like God, and they’re meant to be more like God as time continues and as Earth continues, and so ‑‑ but they fell short of their potential, essentially.
And so I think that if we view it from that perspective, what that makes us realize is like, from God’s perspective, sin is like a father looking at his son, his child, and knowing how much potential they have and what he has made them to be and what they could be, right? But he also sees what keeps us from getting there. And, you know, I was just reading Psalm 103 where he talks about, you know, that God is like a father who views his children with compassion and he knows our frame, you know, he knows that we are dust. And that doesn’t mean that God shrugs his shoulders at sin, but he sees the potential of humanity, and sin, to him, is a frustrating thing in the sense that it keeps humans from being who he made them to be, which is far greater than we often see ourselves.
And so maybe rather than only thinking of sin as missing the mark, maybe we should view sin more of ‑‑ this is something that is preventing me from being who I’m wanting to be and who God made me to be. And then, when you view it from that perspective, I think many Christians would think, well, I really do want to be that person and I’m really trying to be that person, and God, who’s a father, recognizes that struggle, you know, and he honors that struggle, and I think that glory aspect helps us maybe to complement that other image of missing the mark, if that makes sense.
WES: Yeah, yeah. No, I think that’s incredibly helpful. In fact, it reminds me of The Bible Project videos. I don’t know if you’ve seen these, but they had three Bible study ‑‑ word‑study videos on different words. They called it “Bad Words,” words relating to sin. One was “Sin,” one was “Iniquity,” and one was “Transgression.” And I thought they were really helpful at sort of fleshing those ideas out because we throw those words around as if they’re perfectly synonymous, but there’s some nuance and some difference there between “iniquity” and “transgression” and “sin.” And on the video on “sin,” they specifically said that sin is ‑‑ they talked about the missing‑the‑mark idea, but they also talked about the idea of failure, and I thought that was a really good way to kind of bridge those two ideas that you just talked about. It is a missing the mark, but it is a failure to miss the mark, and, particularly, it is a failure to live up to our created intention, what God created us to be. He created us to be his glory. He created us to be his images. He created us to rule and reign with him. He created us to be exalted creatures, and we’re sort of the pinnacle of the earthly creations, and we failed at that. And not only did Adam and Eve fail at that, but we have all continued to do likewise and fail in what we were supposed to be.
And so, to me, that helps to frame it in a little bit more healthy way. In some ways, it makes a lot of things sin, that when I fail to be what I’m created to be in any area of my life, then that is sin. When I fail to be the kind of husband that I should be in Christ ‑‑
JACOB: Right.
WES: ‑‑ then that is sin. But it’s not this sort of ‑‑ I think the way you were talking about it before is really helpful, that we have this tendency to focus on single, individual little behaviors and get this myopic view of sin on these little things, as if I fixed that one thing and I stopped doing that one behavior, then I would be all right, then I would be good. And it’s like, well, but then you would be dealing with pride, and that’s also a sin. So we struggle with that, I think, and just this overall picture of God intended us to be a certain thing, a certain way, a certain being, and then we failed at that mission. And then Jesus, through his teaching, through his example, through his sacrifice, and, I would say, predominantly through the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, has come to help us get that intention back on track to become what God created us to be so that we are no longer sinners and we are at least beginning to live up to our potential because of Jesus.
JACOB: Yeah. And even think about, for example, like the two different types of sins ‑‑ categories of sins. Like we generally turn to, like, sins of the flesh and sins of the spirit, right? So you have these sins of the spirit, like malice and bitterness and wrath and contempt and division and all of these things. Well, why are those sinful? You know, well, more often than not, when those ‑‑ for example, think of wrath. When James talks about wrath, he says the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. So in that context, for James, it’s not just about, oh, well, you know, you have a temper problem, but it is conveying something about God and his image that isn’t true, you know, and so you are preventing yourself from being what God intended you to be in that moment. And the same thing with malice. That’s why forgiveness is such a big virtue within Christianity, and malice and bitterness are such serious vices, because whenever I give in to that, I am seriously hampering the image of God within my life.
And going even to the sins of the flesh ‑‑ for example, you think of when Paul does his incredible discourse on sexual immorality in 1 Corinthians 6 and he talks about the body wasn’t made for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and that when you become a Christian, you become one spirit with the Lord, and if you give your body over to a prostitute, you’re giving the Lord’s body over to a prostitute. Well, what’s his whole point in there? It’s not just focusing on, well, sexual immorality is bad, so don’t do this, you know, or it’s ‑‑ because I think maybe if somebody asks a Christian, well, sexual morality is a sin, but why is it a sin, you know, that’s kind of hard to answer, you know, because it’s like, well, why is it a sin? It’s a natural act. Sexual intercourse is a natural thing. Well, why is that? Well, for one reason, it’s because the body wasn’t intended to be simply a sex instrument, and whenever you’re sleeping around like that, you are prohibiting the glory of God that he intended for your body.
And think about drunkenness ‑‑ the sin of drunkenness. Well, what’s the major problem with someone being drunk and ‑‑ being slovenly drunk, you know? I don’t know how else to describe it. Paul says ‑‑ in Ephesians 5:18, he says to guard against drunkenness for in that is debauchery, you know, because he says you attack ‑‑ you diminish, rather, the dignity of your humanity when you give yourself up to intemperance, and the image of God is then shrouded under this indignity that you have placed upon it.
And I don’t think that’s meant to make us feel like more guilty than maybe some are feeling that are listening to this podcast, but I do think it helps us to see this more expansive view of sin and help us to realize that, at its most basic level, yes, it’s lawlessness, but that lawlessness is based upon the fact that we’re made in the image of God and he has such high hopes for us and these grand desires for who he made us to be, and Satan doesn’t want that image to shine through. You know, Satan doesn’t want people to see the glory of God because if they see the glory of God, what’s going to happen? They’re going to be drawn to it, right? They’re going to want that. And so he’s got to do everything he can to hinder that from being seen in the world.
WES: Yeah. Well, I think that’s so helpful, and I think it goes back to that idea of self‑determination, that we struggle with this idea of sin ‑‑ we just struggle with the idea of sin, in general, because we ‑‑ especially today and especially in our culture, we tend to be so individualistic, so autonomous, so self‑determining. We say, “It’s my body; it’s my choice,” and we say that in lots of different areas. And we have this general thinking that says if I want to do something and I’m not hurting myself or someone else, as far as I can tell, or even if I am hurting myself, as long as I’m not hurting someone else, what difference does it make? So if it’s two consenting adults or if it’s me doing something, what difference does it make? Why should you care about it? Why should the church care about it? Why should God care about it? Doesn’t God want us to be happy and to
pursue our own happiness? And so much of that is embedded in our culture that we feel like as long as I’m following my heart, doing what I feel is satisfying or will be fulfilling to me, as long as I’m not impinging on someone else’s rights or as long as I’m not harming someone else, then shouldn’t it be okay?
But I think, going back to this idea of what were we created for, what were we created to do, even the idea of freedom ‑‑ we tend to think about “freedom from,” and Jesus actually gives us “freedom for.” It’s all about “for.” What were you created for? What were you given freedom for? It is so that you can be something that you will not be if you pursue your own desires in a way that is contrary to the will of God. And so it is ‑‑ it is part of us to be rebellious this way and to just pursue whatever it is that we think will bring us happiness.
But it’s interesting to me how so many times that even people outside of the context of religion or outside of the context of, quote‑unquote, “sin” are realizing that sort of that self‑indulgent pursuit is not ‑‑ it’s not helping them flourish as human beings. There’s a book ‑‑ I think it’s called Rethinking Sex by Christine Emba, and she is looking at sexuality in America, not from a religious standpoint, but from a secular standpoint, and saying ‑‑
JACOB: A psychological one.
WES: Right, absolutely. ‑‑ this idea of setting the bar at consent is not leading to human flourishing, and so just because two adults are consenting doesn’t mean that what they’re doing with and to one another is leading to them being what they were created to be, and so I think it’s so helpful to reframe sin in this way.
JACOB: Well, and along with that, like that idea of consent is ‑‑ because there’s this assumed reality that, you know ‑‑ and I know we’re not going to get too specific on certain things, but it’s just this assumed reality that that is the only thing that matters, whereas if I’m using someone for my own sexual pleasure without any desire to commit myself to them, without any desire to covenant myself to them ‑‑ which a sexual act is a covenant act because it gives oneself completely to the other and it requires the other person to give themselves completely to you. And so, in that, when you use someone for your own sexual pleasure, that is an indignity to them because they are more than just simply an object of sexual pleasure.
And it reminds me of the passage in 1 Thessalonians 4, which has always been so interesting to me, where Paul says, starting in verse 3, “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor.” Notice he’s talking about the body there ‑‑ not the spirit, the body. And, obviously, the spirit’s involved, but he’s talking about the vessel of the body. And then he says, verse 6, “that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things,” and so he views sexual immorality as a transgression against another human being, not just you. But even if they’re enjoying it, I am doing something against them, an injustice to them when I am committing a sexual act with them outside the context of a faithful, committed relationship within marriage. And so injustice could cover a whole host of sins.
And also with that, you know, talking about sin, we begin to think ‑‑ when we view sin from the perspective of, well, I have fallen short of the glory of God ‑‑ of course sin is ‑‑ you’re talking about the individualized aspect of it. Sin in the Bible is more than that. It’s not just “I have fallen short of the glory of God,” it’s “All have fallen short of the glory of God,” “We have fallen short of the glory of God.” And so then you begin thinking about the cultural dynamics of sin and social sins and, you know, these aspects of, okay, what part have I participated in these aspects of sin? What responsibility do I have in relationship to these sins? And even you begin to look at your past and your ancestors and, you know, like, there’s a ‑‑ my family has a history of sexual sin in the men in my family. Well, I mean, I’m a part of them, you know? I mean, I am not them on one hand. I’m my own individual. I’m held responsible for my own actions, but I also can’t act as if that doesn’t play a part in my own struggles, that doesn’t play a part in who I am. I think it would be naive of us just to say, well, just because I wasn’t individually participating in that doesn’t mean that I’m not in some way responsible for what’s going to happen moving forward.
And, you know, I don’t know how much we might want to get into that or not, but I’m just saying that whenever we begin to view sin as not individual, but as individual and communal, I think it helps us to see that this is a common struggle of humanity but it also makes me aware of when I look at my life and I realize that sin is something that is in my fallen nature and I realize ‑‑ it’s like what Paul talks about. I’m teaching through Romans, and when Paul says in Romans 7:18, “I have the desire to do what’s right but not the ability to carry it out,” man, I feel that, bro. Like, you know, I feel that. You know, you get up in the morning ‑‑ just as kind of a silly example, but it’s an example I use with the church. I’m like, you get up in the morning and you decide, I’m going to eat healthier today. I’m going to do better, and two hours later, you’re eating a 12‑pack of donuts, you know? You desire to do what’s right, but you struggle, right? You struggle to do it.
And whenever I look at my life and I think about how many times I have woken up on Monday morning and thought, I’m gonna do better today, and then when I go to bed at night, I think, I did a terrible job at being who I wanted to be today. I wasn’t the father I wanted to be. I wasn’t the husband I wanted to be. But I know, at the beginning of that day ‑‑ I know, in my heart of hearts, I know I wanted to be a better man, you know? And what I’m saying is, when I really had the humility to realize that in myself, that really should make me, number one, recognize the limitations of my own intentions, the limitations of my own strength; and, number two, it should make me immensely more compassionate towards other sinners because, you know, I might see them in the late afternoon and they’re being kind of a jerk, but that person might have woken up that day and thought, I’m not going to be a jerk today. I’m going to hold my tongue. I know that I’ve had a problem with my tongue, but I’m going to hold my tongue, you know? And I’m not saying that we’re not going to have frustrations and disagreements with people. I’m just saying that you might be seeing them at the end of a journey where they’ve been struggling for hours trying to be a better person. But Paul says, in our flesh, until the resurrection, we still have a fallenness that’s working against us, and that’s the shared human struggle. That’s why we’re called to have mercy and patience with each other. And I think that if you see someone who doesn’t have mercy and patience towards another sinner, then they’re probably living a pretty miserable life because that probably means they have a lot of, in my opinion, self‑hatred, as well.
WES: Yeah. And I think that illustrates, too, why we didn’t just need a new set of rules. It really bothers me the way that sometimes we talk about the New Testament, as if this is ‑‑ it’s just a second set of rules. You know, you had the Old Testament for the Jewish people and now you have the New Testament, which is just a new set of rules for the New Covenant people, and I think that’s completely the wrong way, on multiple levels, to think of it because we needed more. Not that that’s all that the Old Testament was, because it was so much more than that, as well. It wasn’t just a set of rules. It was a God who would walk with them, a God who wanted to dwell in their presence, and a God who was continually forgiving their sins through this sacrificial system that was set up.
And in the new covenant, God is walking with us. We need more than just a set of rules. This isn’t just here are the steps; follow these and you’ll save yourself. It is you need a God who will dwell in you, which is Paul’s answer in Romans 8, you know, to the conundrum that he lays out in chapter 7 ‑‑ it’s through the Spirit. And so we need the victory of Jesus and we need the Holy Spirit in order to even begin this process of stepping away from sin and becoming who God created us to be. So I think reframing sin as a failure to live out our created purpose and then understanding that the solution to sin is not just obedience. It is obedience, but as you said, there is something warped, twisted, broken in us and in humanity.
And I’m so glad you pointed out the collective nature of sin because, I mean, we could go down so many rabbit holes with that. You could look back at, you know, what was happening in the 1800s and 1700s with slavery. You could look at what was happening in the 1950s and ’60s with Jim Crow rules and laws. You could look at what’s happening now with human trafficking and slavery around the world. And if I knew how much these electronics on my desk contributed to the human slavery that’s happening around the world, what is my culpability in that? Am I sinning by using these devices that were only manufactured to support this system of consumerism and capitalism at all costs and the debasing of humans and the injustice that’s going on around the world? And you could say, well, Wes, you don’t have anything to do with that. But do I?
JACOB: Well, think about the porn industry, right? Think about the porn industry and its connection to sex trafficking. That’s a great example of how many people think, well, I’m not hurting anyone. Like, I’m just doing my own thing; leave me alone. And it’s like human trafficking would hardly exist if it wasn’t for the porn industry at this point. I mean, there would still be some, but it is so interconnected and interwoven to where it’s not just you committing a sin, a sexual sin, but you’re committing ‑‑ you are contributing to an entire culture of the abuse of women, of the abuse of minors, and that’s where the far‑reaching consequences of sin are.
You know, do you really think that Adam and Eve, when they partook of that fruit, that they were thinking, because of what I’m doing now, one of my sons will later kill another one of my sons? It’s really heartbreaking to me when I think about it because ‑‑ and this is why Jesus, on the cross, says, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they do,” you know. And when I look at that, I’m like, what do you mean they don’t know what they’re doing? They know exactly what they’re doing. They know they’re killing an innocent man. They know that you’ve done miracles. You know, they know that all ‑‑ they know all these things, right? Yet he says, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And what is Jesus saying there? They don’t realize the consequences of their actions. They really don’t.
And I wonder how often ‑‑ man, it’s just sad when, you know, maybe 20 years down the road we look back and think this is all due to that sin, you know? And God, as a Father and as our Creator, he’s like, I’m trying to ‑‑ you don’t see it right now. All you see me as is maybe like being oppressive and burdensome ‑‑ and that’s why I think John has to say, in 1 John 5, his commandments aren’t burdensome, right? Like because God’s saying, I’m not. I am trying to keep you from consequences that you can’t possibly comprehend. You cannot possibly know where this will lead, and it will absolutely break you if I let you keep going in this direction.
And then, of course, the saddest judgment of all is like what Romans 1 says, is where God just finally does let them do it, right? That’s terrifying, that God is finally just like, okay, you know, if you want to keep going in that direction, I’ve got to respect your ‑‑ God respects our freedom more than we do, and we give ourselves into slavery. Sorry, I feel like I jumped in on you there, but…
WES: No, no, I appreciate all of those great thoughts. Let’s kind of shift to 1 John and let’s talk about just some of those ideas that he lays forth, but one of the verses that just came to my mind that I hadn’t even really been planning on talking about, but I think it goes along with what we’re saying, John says, in 1 John 2, he says, “I write these things to you so that you don’t sin.” “I write these things to you, little children, so that you don’t sin. But if you do sin,” if we do sin, “we have an advocate with the Father.”
So let’s talk about that for a second. It seems to me that, throughout the book of 1 John especially, he lays out this picture of sin as in this is something that God’s people don’t do. Like if you belong ‑‑ in fact, reading some of those passages in isolation will make you feel incredibly guilty and you’ll think, whoa, if you sin, you don’t have eternal life. If you sin, if you make a practice of sinning, then you are not a child of God. But then he says things like that, that says, listen, stop making a practice of sin, but if you do sin ‑‑ and I think that the implication is unintentionally, as you’re trying not to sin ‑‑ you have an advocate. So we are continually forgiven. We have this advocate with the Father. We have this continual ‑‑ as we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have this washing of our sins.
So, I mean, let’s talk about that for a second. I don’t think that we will achieve this sort of moral perfection, but at the same time, I do think there is a way to live our lives where we can say “I am not a sinner. I am not making a practice of sin. I am living in holiness and righteousness,” but understanding that that doesn’t mean I am, individually or as a part of the collective I’m a part of ‑‑ that I am hitting on all cylinders and I’m hitting the mark every time, but it means that through the grace and mercy of God, through the work of the Holy Spirit, and through my intentional submission to the will of God, I am what I’m supposed to be by his grace. Does that make sense? Would you agree with that?
JACOB: Yeah, yeah, and I think that that ‑‑ like we never want to grow callous to our sin, right? We always want to have a tender receptivity to realizing the sin in our life. And I agree with you. I don’t think that ‑‑ I mean, that was an old, old heresy, this idea that you could kind of, you know, achieve perfection prior to the resurrection. But I think Paul’s whole point is, you know, this ‑‑ and he talks about this in Philippians 3, right, the striving towards maturity, and maybe that’s a good way to think of it, is a maturation of our spiritual growth, and that’s how the Bible talks a lot about it, as well, immaturity and maturity. We become more aware and, therefore, we become more culpable, more responsible, and we have to live accordingly. We can’t continue to act as if we’re new Christians who aren’t aware of these sins and aren’t aware of these deceptions. We have to respond to that. And then, at the end of the day, we do have to commit our spirit into the hands of God, right? I mean, that’s what Jesus does. He’s not ‑‑ of course he’s not a sinner, but I’m saying that in his obedience, in that moment of losing control, you know, he gives himself over to the Father, and I think that we give ourselves over to the grace of God.
But the grace of God doesn’t make us ‑‑ if the Spirit of God is working in you ‑‑ and I think this is John’s whole point in 1 John ‑‑ you’re going to take sin seriously, you know? If you see someone who is just kind of rolling their eyes at sin and not treating holiness seriously and not treating their spiritual walk seriously, then the Spirit of God is obviously not working in that person, not actively so, and so they should, hopefully, be rebuked and brought to a fuller understanding of that because we love them and care for them. But if I’m ‑‑ you know, and I’ve thought about this before, like it’s funny to me because I read something once that said the more holy a person becomes, the more mindful they are of their sin, which is interesting. It almost would seem the opposite, right? Like the more holy you are, you know, the less mindful you are of your sin. But as you mature and grow, you become more and more progressively aware of, okay, well, I need to work in this area; this is another area. And honestly, the incredible thing is it might not even be an area that you were even aware of previously that you needed to work on.
But I also think about, like, as a Christian, you know, why am I concerned about delighting God? Why am I concerned about submitting to God? Why am I concerned about ‑‑ I really do want to grow closer to God. I really do want to be a better man. I want to be a better Christian. You know, I wanted ‑‑ you know, there’s millions of people that wake up every day and they don’t care anything about that, you know? And so why do I care about that? Well, I can’t help but think that that’s because the Spirit of God’s working in me, you know? He’s wanting to produce that fruit in me, and he pushes me like a trainer, like a spiritual trainer, you know, even when I’m lazy and not wanting to get going. Now, I don’t think that he forces me to do that. I think it’s a participation, it’s a partnership where I have to submit to that. But at the end of the day, you know, I think the very ‑‑ I know this is going to sound odd, and you can feel free to disagree with me on this, but I think the very idea that you are concerned about your sin should be a comfort, if that makes any sense. I don’t know if that makes sense, but, to me, if you are concerned about your sin, God’s doing something there. Like he’s waking you up, you know? He’s opening your eyes. He’s pushing you. He’s prodding you. Something’s going on there, otherwise you really wouldn’t care that much, you know? You’d just live your life in the passion of sin like all the rest of Gentiles do.
But that kind of brings up that passage in 1 John 4 where he talks about that seed, you know, being placed into the child of God, and he says he does not keep on sinning because God protects him and the evil one doesn’t touch him. Well, you know, there’s a lot there that we probably don’t know all that he’s talking about, but at the end of the day, I think what he is saying is that you’re going to continue to see ‑‑ when the seed of the Word is truly implanted in somebody’s heart, you’re going to see a change and they’re going to keep going and God’s going to watch over them. He’s going to keep them. He’s going to protect them. Man, that’s an immense comfort to me. So I guess if we could maybe offer some comfort, like if you’re sitting here and you’re worried and you’re even listening to this podcast, you know, obviously, you’re concerned about something, otherwise you wouldn’t be listening to this podcast, and so maybe that can be an insight to you. You know, God loves you and he’s trying to wake you up. He’s obviously pricking your conscience and wanting you to follow him and continue in that. You know, keep fighting. You know, don’t give up the fight when it comes to sin. I think that’s the Hebrews writer’s point, but ‑‑ sorry, I feel like I’m rambling now, but…
WES: No, no, no. I think this is good stuff. And you mentioned 1 John 4. I also think about what he says there about ‑‑ that we obey not out of a sense of fear, because perfect love has cast out fear. Fear has to do with judgment, and for those of us that are born again by the water and the spirit, for those of us that belong to him, that are his children, that are walking in love and walking in the light, we don’t have to fear the judgment of God. And I think that goes back to what you said earlier about why should I care about my sin? Well, it’s because I want to do better. I want to please him, but it’s not because I’m afraid of his judgment anymore. I’ve grown beyond that. You know, now that I am in Christ ‑‑ and I think that this also plays into Paul’s idea of the core of the gospel, this justification by faith, that when we put our faith in Jesus ‑‑ and by faith, it’s so much more than just believing in him. It is this allegiance to him, this loyalty to him, this becoming his follower, his disciple, that when we are a loyal follower of Jesus, God counts that as righteousness. God counts even our imperfect loyalty to him as righteousness, the same as he did with Abraham. He counted Abraham’s faith as righteousness. And so here was a man who was imperfect, who failed at being human, but God considered him righteous based on his faith.
And Paul uses that idea to say, in Christ, everyone who puts their faith in Jesus and becomes his loyal disciple dies to their sinful self, is buried in baptism, raised to this new life. Yes, we will continue to be imperfect, but we are, in Christ, righteous, and that should be incredibly exciting to us. Not that we don’t care about making mistakes because, as you said, the more sanctified we are, the holier we are, the more we are concerned when we’re not living out and living up to the gospel standard. But there’s also a reassurance that whatever we do out of loyalty to King Jesus and in submission to his will, God looks at us and sees us. I don’t like when we say God sees Jesus when he looks at us. I think God sees us, but he sees a righteous us because of his grace and mercy and because of what Jesus did for us. So he looks at Jacob and sees righteous Jacob and righteous Wes, not because of our own ‑‑ not because of what we’ve done, but because of what Jesus has done, and this is the justification by faith and the righteousness that comes by faith, I believe, that is so integral to Paul’s argument that it’s not based on works of the law and it’s not even based on my own goodness, but on his, and that can give us an incredible assurance, that as we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of his son continues to cleanse us from all sin.
JACOB: Yeah. And I think that both of those elements of the fear of God and the love of God, they work in varying aspects depending upon where we are within our Christian walk, you know, because you have passages where Paul talks about perfecting holiness and the fear of God, you know, 2 Corinthians 7:2. And I think that the scripture reminds us of that because it’s so concerned ‑‑ I think the Hebrews writer is the one I keep thinking of ‑‑ with this kind of drifting, kind of casualness of taking ‑‑ and he’s like, again, if you don’t take this seriously, you’re going to fall back into it, and there’s consequences for that, right? And sometimes, you know, if we’ve drifted back into that, of not taking our soul seriously and not taking our salvation seriously, sometimes the only thing that wakes us up is the severity of God, you know, the Romans 11:22. So there’s that part of it.
I think it’s a ‑‑ the fear of God’s kind of a ‑‑ if I can put it this way, kind of a guardrail to be like, you know, there’s some dangerous stuff on this side. It’s a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. But as we ‑‑ going back to what you were saying, as we mature ‑‑ and that’s why I think he says “perfect” love, right? I think that’s how he puts it, “Perfect love casts out fear.” That doesn’t mean that our love of God is perfect. You know, God’s love of us is perfect, but our love of God, of course, is imperfect. But rather, as love is being perfected in us, I do ‑‑ you know, I think all of us who have been Christians for a while and have really striven for holiness, you do find yourself just adoring God and loving God, and, man, that’s a whole new area of sanctification. When you get into that area of, I genuinely don’t want to do this because I have just ‑‑ you know, I have felt so close to God lately, I don’t want to lose that feeling, you know? I know faith is more than feelings, but what I’m just saying is that you do have moments where that ‑‑ you know, God seems more perceptible, you know, tangible, you know? That’s what I think James means, personally, when he says, “Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.” God will allow his presence to become more real to you, more perceptive to you as you grow in holiness. That’s the reward of holiness, that the eyes of your heart are enlightened and you begin to see him throughout areas of your life, and it’s exciting.
And once you have a taste of that ‑‑ you know, like Peter says, if you’ve truly tasted and seen that the Lord is good, you know, 1 Peter 2:3, you don’t want sin to come in and mess with that, you know? It’s like whenever maybe you’ve had some struggles in your marriage, and then all of a sudden things are going really well with you and your wife ‑‑ I mean, you’re communicating well, your intimacy is good, you know, and then maybe one day you’re kind of tired and you’re tempted to go back into those old habits, but what keeps you from doing that isn’t, well, I’m afraid my wife’s going to leave me, but things are so good, I don’t want to do anything to mess that up and I’m going to sacrifice myself. I’m going to give myself up because yes, it’s going to cost me something to bite my tongue right now and not give in to that back‑and‑forth, but the reward is far greater. And so scripture uses marriage often as a way of helping us to see our covenant relationship with God, and sometimes when we’re talking about sin and obedience and sanctification, it’s helpful to look back to marriage, as well, I think.
WES: Yeah. And I think that’s such a helpful way to put it, because not only is it found throughout scripture, but we also understand that there are things that a person could do in their marriage that could absolutely end the marriage, but a mature relationship is not based on a fear that our spouse is going to leave us. It’s based on a fear ‑‑ if you want to use that word ‑‑ a fear of disappointment, a fear of harming the relationship, a fear of not being as close as you could be, a fear of it not being as great as it could be. So I think you’re exactly right, that mature faithfulness ‑‑ it maintains a right and mature fear of God, for sure, but not a fear of judgment. And so I’m not afraid that God is going to kick me out of his family. I’m not afraid that God is going to condemn me as long as I’m walking in trust and obedience and love for him and faithfulness to him.
I think when we start asking questions like, well, am I going to be lost if I do this? Am I going to hell if I do that? Well, man, that’s just not a healthy relationship any more than it would be with a marriage. If you said, well, will you divorce me if I do this? Well, if you won’t divorce me for doing this, then it’s not a big deal, it’s not a, quote‑unquote, “divorce issue” or, quote‑unquote, “salvation issue.” If it’s not a salvation issue, who cares? Well, wait. That’s not how we determine what is or isn’t good or righteous or healthy behavior just based on whether or not this is going to end the relationship.
JACOB: Yeah. And ironically ‑‑ and I know we’re coming up on our time boundary here, but ironically, Paul says that part of ‑‑ or John says that part of walking in the light is a willingness to confess and a willingness to be open with the fact that you are a sinner. That’s what always struck me whenever people were talking about walking in the light. And I’m like, yes, but he says in 1 John 1:8, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. So the very people who act as if they don’t sin, the very people who act as if they are above sin, that they’ve got it all together, they’re probably not walking in the light because John says that part of walking in the light is this transparency that recognizes sinfulness, and so this openness and this willingness to recognize my faults and to depend upon the grace of God. And it’s just one of those things where that is the greatest cost of sin, of course, is our relationship with God.
And, you know, if you’ve ever had sin come into a personal relationship, you know how much it can rupture and disfigure that relationship, and it takes work to draw closer sometimes, even though you’re still ‑‑ you know, you and your wife get in a huge fight. I know you and Hollie don’t ever get in fights, but, you know, you and your wife get in a fight and, you know, that’s ruptured the relationship for a while, but you’re still in covenant together, right? But it’s going to take some work to grow closer, you know, and of course that’s where repentance and change ‑‑ and so maybe if we think of it this way, you know, sin is a rebellion, but in order to overcome ‑‑ you were talking about it earlier, it’s not just about commands that help us to overcome sin, right? So if sin is a rebellion, what we really need is regeneration. And that’s what Paul says happens in Titus 3:5, this washing and renewal and regeneration of the Holy Spirit, and so we’re given a new nature in Christ. We’re new creatures by the power of the Spirit, and God’s working in us and with us and through us to bring about this sanctification to where we become more and more like him and we reach that glory once again, which will ultimately be culminated within the resurrection, the redemption of our bodies. You know I had to bring it back around to the resurrection.
WES: Yeah. Yeah, no doubt, Brother, no doubt. And I think ‑‑ until then, I think we’re given really clear guidelines about what is and what isn’t sin. I think ‑‑ you know, go read Galatians 5 on the works of the flesh versus the fruit of the Spirit. Paul says it’s pretty obvious what behaviors belong to the works of the flesh and what behaviors belong to the fruit of the Spirit, and so you can look at your decisions and look at your life and say, Is this loving? Is it joyful? Is it peaceful? Is it patient? Is it kind? And we say, well, you know, there’s some ambiguity there and there’s some openness there, like what Jacob thinks this might be the most loving thing to do and what Wes thinks this might be the most loving thing to do. Is there going to be some disagreement? Sure. That’s going to happen, and I think Paul talks about that in Romans 14, and he says, you know, Jacob, you’ve got to live and act by faith, and, Wes, you’ve got to live and act by faith, and he says whatever is not of faith, whatever is not borne out of your loyalty to King Jesus, then it’s sin. And it may be a sin for you and not necessarily for Jacob because Jacob is acting in faith. He’s walking in faith, but you’re doing this out of selfish motivation, Wes. You’re doing this for your own glory. You’re doing this for ‑‑ you know, to save face. You’re doing this to be self‑determining and, therefore, it’s not by faith, and if it’s not by faith, it’s sin. And so we’re given these, I think, broad categories at times to examine our behavior and to know, is this really the best thing to do, the right thing to do?
JACOB: Yeah. And faith in like Romans 14, 1 Corinthians 8, you know, that means something a little bit different than, like, saving faith. It really has to do with personal conscience in relationship to God, and conscience does play a part. Something can not technically be a sin but become a sin for the person who emboldens someone to do something they shouldn’t be doing and for the person who gives in to that and they feel guilty. Like he talks about, don’t abuse your conscience, you know? There might not be any scripture that says this is not sin, but it can become a sin for you. Why is that? Why is that? Because God has made you to be a discerning moral agent, and if you are going against your conscience, you’re going against one of the most fundamental laws that God has put into human society. And so, you know, I think that that’s important to just recognize.
I do think, in Romans 14, 1 Corinthians 8, some people go, well, if it’s not of faith, it’s sin, and therefore, if it’s not in the Word of God ‑‑ you know, but he’s not really talking about that. He’s talking about the conscience, right, in relationship to the Word of God, in relationship to Christ, in relationship to the Spirit. But how your conscience relates to ‑‑ there is some subjectivity in those things that aren’t as clear, aren’t as laid out, aren’t as specified. We’ve got to be patient with each other. The ultimate purpose that Paul says in those moments is ‑‑ the whole point of that argument is Romans 15:7, learn to welcome each other as Christ has welcomed you.
WES: Yeah, and that’s the beauty of it, that when you’re doing that, when we’re doing all the things we’re talking about, when you’re walking in humility, when you’re walking in faith, when you’re walking in the light, when you’re loving your neighbor, when you’re bearing one another’s burdens, Paul would say, if you bear one another’s burdens, you have fulfilled the law of Christ. And so that’s the beauty of it, that we know ‑‑ we know what behavior, for the most part, is good, just, righteous behavior, and so we can live life in a way that is obedient to God, but there is going to be matters of opinion. And you do have to listen to what you believe ‑‑ your conscience, what you believe is the most loyal, faithful thing to do in this situation, being faithful to Jesus and to the gospel to which you’ve been called, and be gracious with one another and understand that we won’t always see that eye to eye perfectly, but if we’re all striving toward this kind of a goal, then there’s going to be so much harmony and healthy flourishing as human beings within the church, and this is, I think, what it looks like to walk by the Spirit.
JACOB: Yes, and honoring those convictions. I think that’s something I’ve struggled with in the past, where even if someone feels like something maybe that I’m doing in my liberty is wrong, there’s a part of me that kind of feels kind of justified in condemning them and acting as if they’re ignorant and, you know, kind of putting them down and acting as if, well, they’re not as knowledgeable as me about this. You know, that’s the very thing Paul’s condemning in 1 Corinthians 8, right? I need to have enough respect for that person’s dignity to ‑‑ you know what? They’re just operating from their conscience and they might not feel comfortable doing that. They might not even feel comfortable being around me, you know, because they feel maybe that’s a violation, and I have to respect that. I have to honor that because, you know, they’re not answering to Jacob on judgment day; they’re answering to the Lord.
And so I think that we have to respect people’s convictions and love them even when it hurts, you know, even when it creates separation that we wish wasn’t there. And to the best of our ability, we’re telling them, listen, I’m just operating out of my principles and my convictions, but I also respect the fact that you might feel differently. And that mutual respect in those situations, I think, plants the seeds for further hope of unity in the future, and that’s a whole ‘nother subject, maybe, when sin begins to impact our fellowship and when it begins to impact our communion together. But that goes back to how the consequences of sin and how we view sin can be greater than we even anticipate, unfortunately.
WES: Yeah. There’s so many rabbit trails I want to go down with you because that ‑‑ I mean, it just brings up so many other things. I mean, even the 1 Corinthians idea, it was reminding me about ‑‑ earlier we were talking about the collective, societal, cultural impacts of sin and trying to live lives that are faithful to Jesus in the midst of those, and you think about how difficult it would have been in the first‑century world, particularly in a place like Corinth or a place like Rome, to live out your convictions, live out your allegiance to Jesus, live out your faith in the midst of a society where you can’t go to the, quote‑unquote, “grocery store,” the marketplace, and buy meat without the chance that maybe this was offered to an idol, and what about these coins that have the emperor’s image on them, and all of these questions. And Paul recognizes that you’re going to come to different conclusions about a lot of these kinds of things, the Jewish laws, and which holidays do we keep celebrating, or do we not celebrate any of those, and what if I go to this meal, and what if I eat that? And you’re going to have different conclusions about some of those things, and that continues to be true.
Your neighbor ‑‑ or your brother and sister, more particularly ‑‑ your brother and sister in Christ is going to be working a job that you’re thinking, how can you do that job if you’re a Jesus follower? Or how can you wear those clothes if you’re a Jesus follower? How can you do this if you’re a Jesus follower? And they’re looking at you saying, no, how can you do that if you’re a Jesus follower? And all of this makes it very difficult, but Paul, over and over again, comes back to these fundamental things about love and unity and respecting one another’s differences of opinion and welcoming one another and be gracious to one another, and then, all the while, all of us striving to live lives of holiness and righteousness.
JACOB: Yes. Yeah, amen.
WES: Well, Jacob, thank you for this conversation. This has been really rich. I think we could have done another two or three hours on this, but thank you.
JACOB: Well, hey, I appreciate the opportunity to come on. And I thought it was funny, I think, at one point, either the first recording or the second recording, you said, well, this is going to be a fun discussion. I was like, it’s always fun to talk about sin. But it’s always a pleasure.
WES: Well, thank you, Brother. I appreciate it. I hope you have a great day.
Every Christian should see themselves as a minister and their work as a ministry.
In today’s fast-paced world, it’s easy to compartmentalize our lives into separate spheres – work, church, family, and so on. However, this mindset can lead to a disconnect between our faith and our daily lives, especially in the workplace. Many Christians struggle with the question of how to live out their faith in a so-called “secular” environment. They wonder if their work has any spiritual significance or if it’s simply a means to an end. This episode of the Radically Christian Bible Study Podcast addresses these concerns and offers a fresh perspective on the role of work in the life of a believer.
Drawing from biblical examples such as Daniel and the teachings of the apostle Paul, this episode explores the concept of every Christian being a minister, regardless of their occupation or workplace setting. It delves into the idea that our work is not just a secular pursuit, but an opportunity for ministry and discipleship. The discussion emphasizes the importance of viewing our work as an extension of our walk with God, where we can glorify Him, demonstrate our trust in Him, and live out the mission of making disciples.
The guest for this episode is Rusty Tugman, a seasoned minister and leadership trainer. After 30 years in full-time ministry, 21 as the preacher of the Alameda Church of Christ in Norman, OK, Rusty became the Leadership Trainer & Workplace Coach for the Oklahoma Department of Human Services. He is also a trainer for Strata Leadership, a True Dads Educator, and the owner of Tugman Coaching & Consulting, LLC. With his unique perspective and experience, Rusty shares valuable insights on how to approach work as a Christian and how to be an effective witness in a secular environment. His journey serves as an inspiration for those seeking to integrate their faith and work in a meaningful way.
Welcome to the Radically Christian Bible Study podcast. I’m your host, Wes McAdams. Here, we have one goal: Learn to love like Jesus.
Who is a minister? Is it just the people who are financially supported by the church or is it every follower of Jesus? Today’s Bible study will reveal why every Christian should think of themselves as a minister and their workplace as a place of ministry. My guest today is my friend, Rusty Tugman. Here’s what Rusty has to say about his life and his work. He said, “After 30 years in full‑time ministry, 21 as the preacher for the Alameda Church of Christ in Norman, Oklahoma, I became the leadership trainer and workplace coach for the Oklahoma Department of Human Services. I’m also a trainer for Strata Leadership, a TRUE Dads educator, and the owner of Tugman Coaching & Consulting, LLC, and I still preach, but now as a guest preacher.” He says, “I’ve never left full‑time ministry, I just changed context.”
But before we get into my conversation with Rusty, I want to read from 1st Peter chapter 2, starting in verse 9. Peter says, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.”
I hope that you enjoy today’s conversation, and I pray that it helps all of us learn to love like Jesus.
WES: Rusty Tugman, welcome to the podcast, Brother.
RUSTY: Thanks, Wes, I’m honored to be on. Thanks for inviting me.
WES: Man, it’s good to have you. I’m really excited about having this conversation. You and I get to hang out at Camp Blue Haven every summer, and I’ve grown so much from your wisdom and from our friendship, and so I’m excited for other people to hear your thoughts today.
RUSTY: Well, I appreciate you saying that. Yeah, I’ve had so much fun hanging out with you at Blue Haven and it’s been good to just get to know you and develop our friendship.
WES: Likewise. So I want to talk about ministry, and I think when we hear that word “ministry,” we automatically think about people that are working for a church full‑time or part‑time, and we think about ministry in those terms. In fact, one time I remember I was preaching and I was talking about how your preacher may be a minister, but he’s not the minister, but we tend to attach that term, “the minister,” to a preacher or somebody that is in that sort of, quote‑unquote, “full‑time ministry,” but I think there’s a better way to think about that, and that’s what I want to talk about today, but maybe the best way to do that is you tell us about your story in ministry.
RUSTY: Yeah, absolutely. Well, and you’re exactly right. I mean, that’s how I’ve thought of it; that’s how a lot of us think of it, and so ‑‑ yeah. So recently, I’ve kind of had a transition in my life that’s made me rethink all of that. And so, you know, the pandemic changed a lot of things in our world, and it made us rethink a lot of things, including church, what it means to be the church, how we go about doing church, so to speak. And so I remember, during the pandemic, you know, I’m sitting there in my nice church office and I’m waiting for the world to come to me, and I’m thinking, they’re not coming to me anymore, but it also made me realize just, as a preacher, how I have allowed myself to just kind of be swallowed up in that church bubble where most of my interactions, you know, were with church members and Christians and all of those kinds of things, and so that really just started to kind of gnaw at me. And so I started praying and really discerning about just this idea that, man, I need to get out there. I need to go to where the world is and truly live out the Great Commission, perhaps in ways that I haven’t before. And so I started praying a lot about that, and, really, that process of prayer and discernment was about a year‑long process.
So as I’m going through that process, an opportunity came along to join the Learning and Employee Development team at the Oklahoma Department of Human Services. And so I have a background in leadership and, through the years, I’ve done a lot of leadership training with different groups and nonprofits and things like that, and it just seemed like a really great fit and a great answer to this prayer that I’ve been praying, and so after about 30 years of full‑time church work, I transitioned into a secular role, secular environment, but for the purpose of ministry. And so what I tell people is that, you know, I didn’t leave full‑time ministry; I just changed context, and so that’s kind of how I view it, and it’s been wonderful. I mean, I’m able to have conversations with people that I would never have crossed paths with. I’m able to have an audience with people that I would never have had an audience with before, and the ministry opportunities just have been amazing.
And so what I do there is I do leadership training and coaching for their supervisors, managers, and executives, and it’s an organization of about 6,200 employees, so a lot of people, and, in fact, I’m right now working on just developing an internal coaching program there. And so a lot of great opportunities, but it definitely just has shaken up my world, but it’s just really caused me to rethink our approach to work, to ministry. Like you said, who is a minister? What does that look like in the real world?
WES: Yeah. Well, I think about what Paul says in Ephesians 4. He’s talking about Jesus giving gifts to the church and, specifically, the gifts that he gives are apostles and evangelists, but he says, about shepherds and teachers, that their job is to equip the saints for the work of ministry, that every saint, every Christian should be a minister and that it’s the job of the church workers to equip the members, to equip the saints, the Christians, the disciples for that work of ministry. And, I mean, I think it would change the way that we think about so many things. I think it would change the concept we have of the church, like what is the church? We often pay lip service to the idea that we are the church, the people are the church, but we have this very institutionalized way of thinking about the church.
I remember one time I was on social media and someone was, you know, asking for help, needing help with something. I don’t know if it was financial or needing somebody to do something for them, and one of the members of our congregation commented and said, “You should ask the church and see if they can help.” And I thought, what a weird way to say that, because you are the church. What she meant was ask the people in leadership to see if the church collectively can help you, but she was removing herself from that equation, and that’s so often what we do. We think about the people that are financially supported, or the people that are in leadership roles, these are the ministers, these are the people that are running the ‑‑ you know, I don’t know how we even conceptualize it, but we take ourselves ‑‑ the members take themselves out of the equation and they think of the church as this business or this organization that they financially support, but it’s the business or organization that’s doing these things.
RUSTY: Yeah, that’s right. And that way of thinking, it also causes us to separate out our lives into church and work and that these are completely different things, and there’s a lot of danger in that, I think. And I think we miss a lot of opportunities that God is putting in our path to be the hands and feet of Jesus, to tell others about Jesus, to help disciple others and to make disciples because of that way of thinking.
WES: I don’t want to go down a rabbit trail with the money aspect of things, but I think it even goes into the way that we think about church funds. Like we often say this is God’s money, and I’m like, you know what? The money in your pocket is also God’s money. The money in your bank account is also God’s money. And yes, this is money that we put in the collection plate or that we give to the collective church. We’re sharing these funds and we’re doing something collectively with these, and so there is a place, I think, for people in, quote‑unquote, “church work.” I like the way you said that. There is a place for that, that all the members collectively share their funds to support this person’s work and their ministry, but we can’t ‑‑ the person in the pew can’t remove themselves from that process and start to think that, “Well, I gave my money, so now it’s his job. It’s their job to do these things.” They have to see that this is a cooperative work that we’re doing, not just in financially supporting something, but, like you said, every single day when we go to work, we’re on mission for God. We’re part of ‑‑ we are the church. You are the church, whether it’s Sunday or Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday, and whether you’re in the building or you’re out in the community.
RUSTY: Yeah, that’s absolutely right. And so when I was making this transition ‑‑ and by the way, I am so grateful that I’ve been able to be a full‑time minister and have decades of service in that way. And I still preach. You know, I guest preach and interim preaching and things like that, so I still get to scratch that itch a little bit, but I’m so grateful that I had that. But this has been so rejuvenating for me and has really helped me to see things in a lot bigger way. And so, for example, I think about ‑‑ because I had to think about ‑‑ just rethink work, okay, because I’m leaving all I’ve known. I mean, all I’ve ever worked at, up until this point, has been in church. I mean, even from a young age, I was doing internships and all of that, so nearly my whole working life has been in a church setting. And so now, transitioning out of that, I really had to rethink, okay, what is work? What is it about? How does this fit into what God has called me to do?
And so, in my study of that, I went to a couple of places, and this is just kind of getting to that divide that you’ve spoken of that we kind of sometimes think about, that kind of ‑‑ you know, church, well, that’s ministry; work over here is not. But that’s not supported by scripture. So I think about like Romans 12:1, you know, where Paul tells us to present our whole selves as living sacrifices, that this is really what worship is about. And in that context, you know, what he’s saying is that our proper response to our Creator is the shaping of our total lives by God’s gracious will, and so there’s no separation there. There’s no compartmentalization, that every area of our life is to be formed by and shaped by the grace of God. But then I think a clearer picture of that and how work fits into life is in the creation narrative. And, you know, I think a lot of people, we look at work and we think that it’s just kind of this necessary evil, you know? We kind of have this love/hate relationship with work. And I remember, as a kid growing up in rural Oklahoma, my dad making me get out and work on our land, and, especially during the hot summers, I could have sworn, at that time in my life, that work was from the devil. And that’s a lot of times how we see work, is that, well, it must be a product of the fall and the curse in that work was borne out of the brokenness of sin. But when you go back and look at the creation narrative, work is actually borne out of God’s blessing, not sin’s brokenness, because in Genesis 1 and 2, work is given before the fall, and so ‑‑ but, also, work, in that narrative, it’s given for human flourishing, that this is a good thing, and it’s good for us.
And so when I look at work through the creation narrative, through Romans 12:1 ‑‑ of course there’s other passages that we could cite and look at, but when I look at work through that lens, I want to embrace work as a gift from God that’s good for me ‑‑ it’s good for me to work; work is good for me ‑‑ but, also, I want to approach work as just an extension of my walk with God, and when I do that, now, work becomes something different. It actually becomes more exciting because if I put work in that perspective and look at it through that lens, well, now, work is a pathway for me to glorify and honor God. It’s an arena where I demonstrate my trust in God and my allegiance to God, but, also, it’s a mission field where I can live out the disciple‑making mission that we’ve been given. Well, now, work is not just this mundane thing that I have to do to pay the bills. It’s exciting, and there’s so many opportunities that come with work to be on mission for God.
And a great example of this is, several years ago, I got to be part of a small group of preachers who had a meeting with Shodankeh Johnson, who does a lot of work with the Renew Network, and he’s a disciple‑maker in Sierra Leone, leads a disciple‑making movement, but he’s been to America many, many times. And he was talking to us about just our proclivity, as Americans, to always introduce ourselves by what we do for a living, you know? Or we’ll even ask, you know, “What do you do for a living?” And then we respond by literally saying what we do for a living. He said if you were to come to Sierra Leone, if you were to ask the members of our congregation that question, “What do you do for a living,” he said nearly all of them would respond in the same way and they would respond by first saying, “I’m a disciple‑maker who…” So “I’m a disciple‑maker who drives a taxi.” “I’m a disciple‑maker who’s a doctor.” “I’m a disciple‑maker who works in a factory.” “I’m a disciple‑maker who’s a baker.” And, man, I just remember all of us preachers who were there, we were just blown away, and I thought, that’s it. That’s what I want to do. That’s how I want to approach work, because I think that’s how scripture approaches work.
WES: I remember hearing a lesson one time ‑‑ I was probably in high school ‑‑ very similar to the picture you just painted, and the preacher said something that shocked me, and he meant for it to be provocative. He said, “You can’t be a Christian and a doctor. You can’t be a Christian and a policeman. You can’t be a Christian and a garbage man.” And we’re like, why is he saying that? And then he said, “You have to be a Christian doctor, a Christian policeman, a Christian garbage collector, that your Christianity, your discipleship has to be part of that.” But I love that idea, what you just said, taking that even further, that it isn’t just that I’m being a disciple of Jesus while I am in this career or while I’m in the workplace, but that I’m actually being a disciple‑maker and that I’m actually trying to make disciples while I am doing the job that I’m doing.
So I love your thoughts around Daniel and how Daniel gives us a pattern and a picture for being on mission for God while we’re in the workplace. Talk to us about that a little bit.
RUSTY: Yeah. I love the story of Daniel, and Daniel has been obviously an inspiration, you know, for thousands and thousands of years to Christ followers. And so as I was making this transition from full‑time church ministry to now going to work in a completely different environment, different role, all of that, I really wanted to go into that in a purposeful way, and so I turned to Daniel just to kind of learn some lessons, because Daniel, he’s in a foreign land. Well, I was going into an environment that was very foreign to me. But Daniel did that in such a God‑honoring way, and that’s exactly what I wanted to do, and so I turned to Daniel for some lessons, and, man, I learned so much. And one of the first things that stood out to me when I just went back to his story and started reading it and studying it is that God will put us in secular environments and that’s okay because there’s a purpose for us being there. And sometimes I think, you know, we lament where we’re at, and when we do, we miss the purpose that God may have for us to be there. I’m sure Daniel did not want to be where he was. You know, none of the Israelites did, but God placed them there, but he also had a specific purpose for them, had a specific calling for them in that context, and a mission to fulfill. And Daniel is just a great example of just embracing that calling, embracing that mission, and embracing even where he was. And so his location did not change his allegiance to God, and even though he’s in a foreign kingdom and eventually serving a foreign king, his allegiance is always to God. Well, how did he do that? And that’s what I wanted to figure out.
And so when I looked at Daniel, several things stood out to me, and I think one is that Daniel, he was commendable. You know, at the very beginning of his story, he and a few others, they’re chosen and, you know, some versions actually use the word “commended” or “commendable” because of his abilities, but also because of his outstanding character. And so I think, you know, as Christians in the workplace, I want to be commendable, not in the sense of, you know, I want praise to be heaped on me. But being commendable in our abilities, but also in our character, it makes us stand out, but we’re standing out to bring glory to God. And so what that helped me to do is it helped me to realize that the greatest thing that I can bring into this workplace that I’m stepping into is not my degrees, but it’s my character. And I think that’s true for all of us, that a lot of us ‑‑ I mean, man, we bring so many ‑‑ you know, education, experience, and all of that, but don’t underestimate the power and the contribution of your character as a Christian in the workplace. And so that’s what Daniel brought, and so he was commendable.
I also think, too, just in Daniel’s story, is that he was competent. He was good at what he did. And you think of Daniel’s perspective, it seems to me that Daniel kind of had this mentality that he wanted to do excellent work in order to praise an excellent God. And I think, wow, that’s a great perspective for us to have, is we ought to want to be good at our jobs, be competent. And so one of the ways that I can live out my faith in a secular work environment is to be a good employee, you know, to be responsible, to be trustworthy, to be dependable. You know, I want to be that employee that my boss doesn’t have to worry about because, you know, he or she can trust me, and I want to do good work as an extension of my service to a good God. If you’re a boss, be a good boss and treat your employees well. Care about your employees, have compassion on them, have empathy for them. So be competent; be good at what you do. And I think sometimes we think that, well, you know, for us to say we’re good at this or that or whatever, that that feels a little selfish, and so we’re not boasting, but we’re saying, hey, I want to be good because this is an extension of my walk with God. You know, just like what Paul says in Colossians 3:17, you know, do everything in the name of Christ. So if I’m to take that literally, then I want to be good at my job. I want to do good work and make good contributions.
You know, I also see in the story of Daniel that, you know, he was convicted. I mean, we see that all throughout his story. And in a secular environment, you’re going to be tempted to compromise your values, your beliefs, your standards. Daniel was placed in so many different situations where he could have been tempted to compromise, but, also, when you look at Daniel’s story, Daniel had enemies, and so Daniel had people who were actively working against him because of his faith. Well, we may encounter that, as well, in a secular work environment. There may be people who actively work against us and try to sabotage us or undermine us because of our faith and our allegiance to Christ, but through all of that, Daniel stayed true to his convictions.
And then I also just think about, to me, Daniel teaches me to be Christ. And I know Daniel’s story comes before the incarnation of Christ, but I think about like in Matthew 25, you know, when Jesus is saying ‑‑ you know, talking about how when you give food, you give shelter, you visit me, that we’re doing it for him, and so, I think, be Christ by serving others. And Daniel, he served; he did it in the name of God for the glory of God. And what’s interesting is that several times in Daniel’s story Nebuchadnezzar confesses that Daniel’s God is the true God of gods and Lord of lords, and it’s because Daniel, through his character, through his competency, through the strength of his convictions, he made God known to Nebuchadnezzar and others, and they saw God because of Daniel. Well, that’s exactly why God has the Israelites in Babylon, is so that they can show God, and that’s what Daniel does. And so I just thought his story and the way he approaches work as a true mission, man, that was so inspiring to me, and it really helped me to craft the way that I want to approach work in a secular environment.
WES: Man, I love that, and I can see that pattern that you laid out. I see that pattern not only in Daniel’s life, but even in what Paul taught the first‑century church, the way that he taught them to live when he was talking to slave masters or to slaves and telling them how to live out their faith within the context of those relationships, or husbands and wives and children, and in all of those contexts, this is the way you live out your faith. And so much of it was because he knew, not only for their own sake, but for the sake of their influence, that they were going to be influencing other people, that people were going to draw conclusions about what sort of people are these Jesus followers, what sort of people are these based on the way that they live their lives.
And I was thinking about the fact that the world was turned upside down, not primarily by church workers, people that were supported by local congregations to preach messages on Sunday; the world was turned upside down by ordinary, everyday disciples, followers of Jesus living out their faith, being Christian bakers and Christian blacksmiths and Christian whatever ‑‑ Christian wives and Christian children and Christian fathers and living out their faith in all of these contexts, and it changed the world. It turned the world upside down by people living this out in everyday life.
RUSTY: That’s right, and people notice that. And so I’ll just give you a couple of examples. One of my favorite stories so far is that ‑‑ so there was a person that I’m working with in this secular job, in this secular environment, and he knew my background as a preacher, and so he felt compelled to tell me that he was an atheist, and it’s like, okay, you know. But anyways, we worked together, and worked together really well, and, you know, hit it off and had a good connection and all of that. So at one point he comes to me and he wants to know about forgiveness, and so he asked me about forgiveness. Well, you know, what I know of forgiveness is how scripture teaches forgiveness, so I begin to kind of teach a lesson, so to speak, you know, the Christian standard of forgiveness and how Christianity defines forgiveness, things like that. So we’re talking about forgiveness. So anyway, I’m just thinking, okay, he was just interested in this topic and we had a great conversation and all that. A couple of months go by. He reaches out to me and he says, “Hey, do you have time for a quick call?” And we use Microsoft Teams, so a video call, and “Do you have time for a quick Teams call?” I’m like, “Sure.” So anyway, I get on this call and he says, “Hey, I just wanted to share something with you,” and said, “It’s pretty exciting to me. I couldn’t wait to share it with you.” I said, “Okay, yeah, what’s going on?” And he said, “Well, I just wanted you to know that I was able to forgive my mother.” And he had had some issues and things, you know, through childhood and all, and I said, “Wow, that’s huge. Tell me about it.” And so he’s just telling me about the experience, and you could just see that this huge weight had been lifted off of him. And he said, “You know, I never would have been able to do that if it hadn’t been for our conversation about forgiveness.” And, I mean, I’m just, you know ‑‑ sorry, I’m getting teared up thinking about it because I’m sitting there thinking, well, we’re just having ‑‑ he’s just interested in the topic of forgiveness, and I had no clue that all this other stuff is happening in his background and in his life.
And so when he calls and says that, it was just one of those moments where you just go, okay, this is what I ‑‑ I’m where I need to be, and that’s not to pat myself on the back, but it’s just to say exactly what you said. The influence that we can have as Christ followers for the purpose of Christ is incredible if we will take the mission of Christ seriously, and instead of compartmentalizing our lives between church and work, but see that it’s all together, we have opportunities like this all the time. I have people at a state government agency ‑‑ maybe I shouldn’t be saying this on a podcast, I don’t know ‑‑ who call me and just ask me to pray for them. Well, I’m not advertising that or I don’t have some sign that says, hey, if you need prayer, call. It’s just they’re seeing Christ and they’re responding to that. And, again, that’s not highlighting myself, but it’s to say that God will put us in secular environments for this exact purpose, to show Christ. And when we lift up Christ, he does exactly what he promised he would do. He draws people to himself if we, his followers, will lift him up.
WES: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I was thinking ‑‑ I don’t know that we defined the word “minister” earlier, but, I mean, it just means to serve. To minister to people is to serve people, and if we see ‑‑ if every single one of us ‑‑ I am in full‑time church work and my work is a ministry, but so is your work a ministry, and so is the work of our sister who works at the front desk at the church building. Her work is a ministry, and so is the person who works at the government agency and the person who works at the school. Their work is a ministry and they’re serving people, not just to serve them ‑‑ anybody can serve ‑‑ but as you said, serving in the name of Jesus, and that service in the name of Jesus, it draws people to Jesus. I think, so often, when we think about our work, especially, quote‑unquote, “secular work,” and we divide it, we just are trying to get through it and we’re just trying to keep our head above water and just get through it and move on to things that are more important, whereas if we really adopted this way of thinking that you’re promoting, that I think scripture promotes, is seeing our work as a ministry to reach and influence other people. So what advice would you have for people that really want to reach their neighbors, they want to reach their co‑workers, but they’re not really sure how to go about that in the workplace?
RUSTY: Yeah. Well, and before I answer that, I just want to go back to something you mentioned, that ‑‑ you know, earlier you were talking about how sometimes we think of the minister as ‑‑ we kind of leave it all to one person, you know, and all that. But what you just described, if we’re truly doing that, think about the reach that we would have as the church, that if we’re not just putting this on the shoulders of one person or one specialized group of paid ministers, but instead, every Christ follower is seeing that they have a mission to live out in their different contexts, now think of all the people that we’re able to reach for the cause of Christ, because, you know, I mean, you’ll reach people that I’ll never have the opportunity to meet or talk to, you know? I’ll reach people that you’ll never have the opportunity to meet and talk to. But if we’re both doing that, now, all of a sudden, the kingdom is expanding, you know, and so I just think about just the possibilities of what you described, and, to me, that’s so exciting. And I think it’s exciting to be part of the cause of Christ and to see that I can be part of it in my work, that I don’t have to leave what I’ve known and go ‑‑ I can be part of the cause of Christ right where I’m at, and that is really exciting to me.
But to get to your question about just, you know, how do we reach people in our work environments ‑‑ so I think about, again, the story of Daniel. You know, that’s part of a larger story so you think of one of Daniel’s contemporaries, Jeremiah. Think about what God says to the Israelites in Jeremiah 29, where he says, you know, “I have a plan for you.” He’s put them in this secular environment, but he has a purpose for them, and so he tells them to work, to marry, to have children, to live their lives, but he also tells them to seek the welfare of the city where they’ve gone because they’ll benefit from that, too, and then he also tells them to pray for the welfare of the city where they’ve been placed. And so, if I take that and put it in my context, well, then it tells me a couple of things. It teaches me a few things about how I can reach people in my environment or be on mission in my secular workplace.
And so one is, I think, just accept the assignment. You know, I mean, in Jeremiah 29, God’s given the Israelites an assignment. Okay, you’re in this foreign place. You’re in this secular kingdom, but God has given them an assignment to live out while they’re there. So that’s the first thing, is I’ve got to accept the assignment that God has given me as a Christ follower. That assignment is true for us no matter where we are, no matter what we do for a living, and it really kind of goes to our identity, that being that disciple‑maker ‑‑ you know, that’s what I love about that story with Shodankeh Johnson, you know, “I’m a disciple‑maker who…” because what they’re doing is they’re identifying themselves first as a disciple‑maker, then, secondarily, I do this to make a living. Okay. So I accept the assignment, and so I’m going to be on mission for Christ.
So, again, just going from Jeremiah 29, well, if I put that in my context, then I want to be part of the team, and that’s what God tells the Israelites. Be part of the community. Don’t separate yourself off, make yourself this own little clique. He’s saying be part of the community, be part of the city. So I want to be part of the team; I want to be with the team, you know, I want to be alongside the team. And so be part of the team that you work with at work, but also be a blessing to the team. That’s what God was telling the Israelites to do. Be a source of blessing to the people that you’re around and in the city you live in. And so, you know, in work, okay, how can I be a blessing to the people I work with and to the team I’m on? And I think about that in terms of how do I add value? What value can I add to this team?
And then also pray for your team. So just as God told the Israelites to pray for the welfare of the city, I want to pray for my team. I want to pray for their welfare. And I do; I pray for my team by name, and I pray for the things that they have going on in their lives. But then, also, you know, we see God telling them to always be on God’s team. Okay, yeah, you’re part of this community, I want you to be part of this community, I want you to be a blessing to them, but remember that we’re always on God’s team.
And so I think if we can keep those lessons in mind, again, it helps us to approach work. So, for example, like being part of the team and things like that, well, you know, there’s some lifestyle choices that some of my teammates make that I would not approve of, you know, scripture doesn’t approve of those kinds of things, but I still want to be part of that team because I can’t have influence if I just separate myself from that person or those people. I want to be part of the team. I don’t want to adopt their standards or their lifestyles or their beliefs or their values, but I still want to be among them and be part of them so that I can be an influence in their lives. You know, that story I told about the forgiveness, well, that would ‑‑ you know, like I said, he described himself as an atheist. Well, I would never have had that opportunity to have some kind of influence if I had just said, “Oh, well, you’re an atheist, then forget it. I can’t be part of you.” You know, God says, hey, be part of the community. So I think it’s important for us to really understand that, but, again, we’re there for a purpose, so always be on mission for God.
WES: I love it. It’s such practical advice. I think we would be remiss if we didn’t end with maybe pointing out some of the dangers, the pitfalls, the obstacles that we face. The examples that you’ve used about Daniel and then Jeremiah, they’re written to and written about people in exile, people that are, in a sense, behind enemy lines, and we do need to recognize that we are in exile. That doesn’t mean, as you said, that we withdraw and we have nothing to do with the people and say, “Well, we’re Christians and we have to be separate.” That’s what the Pharisees did. They were separatists. They didn’t want to have anything to do with people that weren’t like them. So we do want to be on the team, but there are also some dangers when you’re living in exile, when you’re living as God’s people in a foreign land, so help us to see some of the dangers we might look out for.
RUSTY: Yeah. Yeah, and I’m glad you brought this up because you’re exactly right, and we have to be aware of that. And, you know, that’s one of the things that scripture even encourages us to do, is we need to be wise and discerning of our environment and people that are around us and things like that. There are some real dangers. You know, I think about like in Daniel’s story ‑‑ well, part of the danger that he had to face was that he had people actively working against him. That may very well be one of the dangers that some of us face as Christ followers, you know, and so we may face some different threats, even feeling like we’re kind of being ostracized at work because of our faith and our beliefs and things like that. So there are some real dangers that we have to be aware of, but I think one of the biggest dangers is idolatry. I mean, as we know in scripture, I mean, this is kind of the foundational sin running throughout the narrative of scripture. And you think about idolatry, it’s ‑‑ you know, in a simple term or simple way, it’s really putting something above God or looking to something or someone instead of God for meaning and fulfillment, for comfort, even, for strength, things like that. So it’s replacing God with something, and so that means that even good things can become idols. And so work is a good thing, but even work can become an idol because I can make work the source of my identity, the source of my fulfillment, the source of my meaning in life, and replace God with work, and so I think we have to be really concerned about the dangers of idolatry in the workplace.
And there’s several, but three that I have found and that I’ve kind of encountered in this transition of mine is ‑‑ I mean, I guess, four, because, like I mentioned, work itself can become an idol. But I think one workplace idol that we need to be really mindful of is the idol of success, and this is where we root our identity in our performance rather than in Christ or in God, and, man, that is so tempting, you know, because we want to be good at our jobs, we want to be recognized as being good, we want to be successful. I mean, you know, even when I was a full‑time preacher, I still had that draw. I want to be successful; I want to do good things and good work and things like that. The same is true in a secular environment, and so it’s really intoxicating, you know, to chase success, and so that can be a real danger because, now, if that’s where I’m getting my validation is in my achievements and recognitions and awards, well, now, you know, I am subtly ‑‑ sometimes not so subtly, but I am subtly getting off the Jesus path and I am getting off mission and now I become self‑serving rather than God‑serving. So I think success is one of those.
I think money, obviously, is a big‑time idol that we have to be careful about. But what’s interesting is ‑‑ and there’s all kinds of studies and research about this ‑‑ is that money is also one of those examples of idols always overpromise and under‑deliver, because there’s a ton of research that shows that money does not accomplish what we think it will accomplish in our lives, and yet money can be a big idol.
And I also think fitting in is a workplace danger that can become an idol, and, to me, the challenge there is, you know, am I trying to please people more than I’m trying to please Christ? What am I doing? What’s really at the heart of my ambition here? And the reason I think of those three things is because, in a secular workplace environment, those are kind of the metrics that you measure yourself by, is how successful are you in terms of titles, promotion, all of those things? How much money you make is kind of the symbol of your worth, and your value is how much money you make, and then just fitting in and networking and being known. Man, that’s how people in a secular work environment are measuring themselves.
And so I think we have to be careful at not falling, ourselves, into those traps, and, again, that can be really easy to do. And so I think about, just in terms of success, we’ve got to ‑‑ our standard of success has to be faithfulness. Am I being faithful? You know, I think about like Isaiah and Jeremiah. You know, they’re told to be these messengers for God, but if we were to measure their success by the standards we measure preachers today, they would be miserable failures, but they’re not failures because their measurement of success was they were faithful. They were faithful to the task that God gave them. And so that’s how I want to measure myself. Am I faithful to the task God has given me to carry out in this secular work environment? And if I can stay focused on that, it can help me to not fall prey to these dangers of these workplace idols.
WES: Yeah. Oh, that’s so helpful because I think that ‑‑ even as we were talking about the idea of being on mission for God and doing this for Jesus and being in the workplace for the Lord and for influence and being a positive impact and ministering to other people, I think sometimes we can fool ourselves into thinking that’s what we’re doing when we’re really stoking our own ego, when we’re really doing things for selfish, idolatrous reasons, and we’re telling ourselves, oh, no, no, this is for the Lord, and I want to be in the in‑group so that I can influence them, and I want a better position because the better position I have, the more people I’ll be able to influence and reach for the Lord. And we tell ourselves that we’re doing it for the Lord, but, in reality, there’s an ulterior motive, and that’s why I think that there’s so much value in quiet time, in study of scripture, in prayer, in being introspective, because we have to examine our own motives and ask ourselves ‑‑ I love the question you come back to, faithfulness. Am I being faithful? And if I am, then I am a success. And the freedom, the liberty, the joy of knowing that I may not be the highest‑paid employee here, I might not be the most well‑liked person here, I might not be the person with the most prestigious job or office, but I am being faithful to Jesus, and that’s what really matters.
RUSTY: Absolutely right. And like you said, that’s something that requires constant introspection and examination. And so one of the things that I do just as a simple idea is ‑‑ so I have written out for myself what I call a workday startup prayer and a workday shutdown prayer. And so, I’m kind of an organized guy, but what that helps me to do is ‑‑ so I begin my workday with this same prayer, but I’ve written some specific things in that prayer that I want to be mindful of because it’s helping me to start my workday remembering what my real purpose is, where my identity comes from, that I want to be an instrument of peace and an ambassador of Christ in this place. And then I end my workday ‑‑ kind of a way to just kind of turn my brain off from work, you know, is I end my workday with another prayer that, again, is helping me to just kind of evaluate, okay, was I faithful today? You know, was I a good ambassador of Christ today?
And so I think, just as followers of Christ in these secular environments facing these real dangers, we’ve got to put some things into the routines of our day that are helping us to stay on task, helping us to stay on mission and that incorporates some of that introspection and examination, because if I’m not doing that, it can be so easy for me to get sucked into measuring success in a worldly way and all of those kinds of things. So I think the point you made is really good, and I think we need to just adopt some disciplines and kind of rituals, so to speak, that help us to stay on task.
WES: I love that. I love the fact that you used the word “rituals,” that there are religious rituals that should be part of our, quote‑unquote, “secular work.” And, really, we keep using that term “secular” because we need sort of a handle to talk about it, but it really isn’t secular. For believers, it is religious work. The work that you’re doing now is just as religious, just as spiritual as the work you were doing before. It’s just as much ministry. In fact, Peter calls every believer part of the royal priesthood, that we are being priests, whether you’re a man, whether you’re a woman, whatever your job, whatever your role, even if you’re working at home. My wife is a stay‑at‑home mom and she is homeschooling our boys, but she is doing a priesthood work. She is doing ministry in our home. And if everybody thought of their workplace like that and thought of their workday that way, that I’m going into my realm of ministry where I am going to be a priest for the Lord and I’m going to bring the blessings of God to my co‑workers and to the customers and to the people I interact with, it would change the way that we do everything, and like you said, it would expand the work of ministry across every city and every state and every country throughout the world and would be what Jesus calls the kingdom to be, this leaven that is working through the lump of dough.
RUSTY: Yeah, absolutely. And you’re right; it changes how we think about our work. Now, all of a sudden, work is more exciting. And so here’s an interesting thought. So one of the things that’s happening in the workplace today, kind of across the board, is there’s real struggles with employee engagement. So a couple of years ago, kind of the buzzword was “quiet quitting,” things like that, and so employers are having a real challenge with retaining talented employees, things like that. Well, what’s interesting is one of the factors in that is that ‑‑ there’s a leadership group called McKinsey & Company, and they recently did a survey and found that 70% of the employees that they surveyed ‑‑ it was a large survey sample ‑‑ 70% say that work is their primary source of meaning and fulfillment in life. Okay, now think about this. One of the reasons for that is because here, within our country, we’ve seen kind of the role of the church or the influence of the church in culture has been in decline for some time. You know, we’re really shifting from kind of a religious culture to, now, very non‑religious, you know, in a lot of ways. So what that means is that fewer people are looking to God as a source of meaning, and so if you don’t have God, where does that come from? Well, work is kind of the only place that it can come from, but work cannot deliver what God is meant to deliver and what only God can deliver. And so I think there’s a lot of people that ‑‑ they’re frustrated by work because that’s the only place they’re looking for meaning and fulfillment, and they’re disappointed, you know, and disgruntled, and all of those kinds of things, and so they’re really frustrated with work and it’s because they’re looking to work to provide them with something that only their Creator can do.
So as followers of Jesus, we get this, but, again, we can be tempted to make work the source of our meaning and our fulfillment. We can be just as tempted to do that as others. But when we keep work in its proper perspective, like what we’ve been talking about, now work is energizing and I can also deal with the frustrations at work in a more positive and productive way because work is not the ultimate source of my meaning or even of my identity. And so I think if we can put work back in its scriptural perspective, I think not only will we be more satisfied, will be more energized at work, but also we’ll be able to see how the kingdom of God and the opportunities we have to be on mission for the kingdom of God are literally all around us and we can take more advantage of that.
WES: Yeah. Amen. Amen. What a great place to stop. Rusty, thank you for this conversation, and thank you for your work in the kingdom, Brother.
RUSTY: Well, thank you, Wes. I love the podcast. Love what you’re doing, so keep on going, Brother.
Reading and Understanding the Book of Revelation with Garrett Best
Apr 17, 2024
Do you struggle to understand the book of Revelation? This episode of the Radically Christian Bible Study Podcast addresses the common problems and misconceptions that people have when reading the book of Revelation. Many find it to be a confusing and scary book of the Bible. However, today’s guest, Garrett Best, explains that Revelation doesn’t have to be scary and that it is actually a highly relevant and encouraging book for Christians today.
The discussion delves into the importance of understanding the genre and context of Revelation in order to properly interpret its symbolism and message. Key biblical concepts explored include Revelation’s role as prophecy, its connection to the Old Testament, and its central themes of exclusive allegiance to God and faithful witness in the face of cultural pressure and conflict. The episode aims to equip listeners with a framework for reading Revelation that focuses on its original purpose and application.
Garrett Best is an associate professor and chair of the Department of Bible and Ministry at York University in Nebraska. He initially avoided studying the book of Revelation, but was eventually drawn to it and ended up writing his dissertation on the book. Best shares his journey of coming to appreciate and champion the relevance of Revelation for the church today, providing valuable insights for listeners seeking to better understand this crucial but often misunderstood biblical text.
Note: Some links may be affiliate links. Meaning, if you choose to buy something through these links, we receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Transcript (Credit: Beth Tabor)
The book of Revelation doesn’t have to be scary. My guest today will help you see how encouraging and relevant this book is for your life. My guest is Garrett Best, associate professor and chair of the Department of Bible and Ministry at York University in Nebraska. This is a deep and rich conversation about Revelation. I know you’re going to enjoy it.
But before we get to that, I want to read from Revelation 22 that says, “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.”
I hope that this conversation is encouraging to you and, as always, I hope it helps all of us learn to love like Jesus.
WES: Garrett Best, welcome to the podcast, Brother.
GARRETT: Thank you so much.
WES: Well, thanks for being here. I am incredibly excited about having you on the podcast for the first time, but also just talking about Revelation. This is one of those books that it either fascinates people or horrifies people, and maybe somewhere in between. Before we really even jump into it, why don’t you tell us how you got interested in a book like Revelation.
GARRETT: Yeah. So I, like any good Christian, spent my whole life avoiding it, which I feel like that’s what you’re supposed to do, right? And so I was ‑‑ I’m trying to think back. I mean, as I was growing up in church, if we talked about anything from Revelation, it was the seven letters to the seven churches from chapters 2 or 3, but any of the other stuff, we just didn’t know what to do with, and so I don’t remember ever having a class on it or having anything in church about the book of Revelation.
So I did a Bible major, an undergrad, and never took a class in Revelation; I went and did a Masters of Divinity at another institution and never took a class on Revelation, and so I managed to get all of these degrees and never read the book. And then I get to a PhD program where I intended to study the Gospels and maybe Acts, and there was a particular professor that I already knew I wanted to have on my dissertation committee, so I was kind of forced to take whatever was being offered. And so I go to register for classes one semester, and the only course that was ‑‑ New Testament course that was being offered was Revelation, and I thought, you have got to be kidding me. And this professor ‑‑ you would probably know the name, Craig Keener ‑‑ has written a commentary on the book of Revelation and is the most brilliant scholar, I think, out there ‑‑ or at least one of them. And so I was so nervous, and so I was thrown into the fire to have to, like, make up for a lifetime of avoiding Revelation in that class, and so I had to figure out something to write on. Like I had to ‑‑ we had to write a paper for the class, so I ended up choosing a topic. I wrote the paper, and when the professor came to hand the papers back to us, he said, “All of you did great. You did fine, got good grades, but there’s two of you that I wrote on your paper you’ve got to keep going with this.” And I get my paper back, and it says, “You’ve got to keep going with this,” and I said, you’ve got to be kidding me. Like I can’t get away from this book, you know?
And so that ended up leading to writing my dissertation on the book of Revelation, and now I have been converted and I’m a believer. I really do believe that this is the book that we need for, like, our cultural moment right now. And right after I took my exams, the pandemic hit, and we had people at our church, you know, saying wearing a mask is the mark of the beast and these sorts of things, and so it just became very real for me. And God works in mysterious ways, and I’ve just seen how leading me to Revelation was kind of one of those mysterious ways he’s worked in my life.
WES: Yeah. I love how it finally caught up to you but you’re glad that it did.
GARRETT: Absolutely.
WES: Let me ask this: What is it about Revelation that makes it so mysterious, seemingly inaccessible, that people want to avoid it and don’t want to dig into it? What is it about the particular type of literature or the way that it’s written that makes it difficult for Christians to read?
GARRETT: Sure. I have to tell you something that a good friend of mine, John Young, shared with me once. He said, “If anyone ever comes up to you at church and says that they really want to teach the book of Revelation, never let them teach the book of Revelation,” because, for some reason, this book really
gives us two kind of opposite responses. On the one hand, we just avoid it because we don’t know what to do with it; but on the other hand, I think another reason we stay away from it is it’s attracted a certain type of person to this book who comes in and actually thinks they know everything about it and has all these secrets that they’ll reveal to you about what’s going to happen in the upcoming election and what the conflict with Israel and Gaza means, you know, and how it’s related to the book of Revelation.
And so we see these, like, really polar opposite ‑‑ just extreme avoidance or just overwhelming interest ‑‑ and we kind of just ‑‑ it’s just easier not to talk about it. I think there’s a couple reasons for that. One is that when we talk about Revelation, we’re talking about a particular genre of literature, and, actually, the genre that we call it is ‑‑ we call it apocalypsis, or an apocalyptic work. And the name of that whole category of literature actually comes from Revelation 1:1, the apocalypsis of Jesus Christ, the revelation, the revealing of Jesus Christ.
And genre is so important for interpreting a work, anything. So right now my son and I are reading The Hobbit at night together, and if I start a work and it says, “Once upon a time,” I’m not going to leave that reading and go worry that there’s really, like, dragons out there. And it’s that phrase, “once upon a time,” that tells me I’m engaging in fiction here. If we watch a fiction movie in the same way that we do a documentary, then we’re going to be really lost and really confused and really scared, actually.
And so genre is so important when we’re interpreting something, and when it comes to Revelation, it’s actually a genre that we don’t encounter. We don’t see very many apocalyptic texts because, outside of the book of Revelation, at least in our Bibles, there’s only one other section, it’s the second half of Daniel, so Daniel 7‑12, that we would call apocalyptic. And then there are a few subsections, like Isaiah 24‑27 is called the little apocalypse, and you have Zechariah 12‑14 and Joel 3, so you have these minor sections here and there. But even in the book of Daniel, like if you were to ask your audience, they probably know quite a bit about the three young men in the furnace and Daniel in the lion’s den, but once we get to 7 through 12, that section’s like ‑‑ stay away from that; it’s a different kind of thing.
But what I like to tell people is about 200 years on either side of the book of Revelation, so from about 200 BC to 200 AD, we have about 37 apocalypses that have survived, so the Jews knew how to read this. They had apocalypses: First Enoch, Second Enoch, Second Baruch, Fourth Ezra, Apocalypse of Abraham. Christians loved apocalyptic texts, as well. In fact, one of the earliest literatures that Christians love that is not in the New Testament is The Shepherd of Hermas, which is an apocalyptic text. And so Christians and Jews, around the time of the writing of Revelation, knew how to read this genre, and we just don’t, and that is one of the reasons that we, I think, have a hard time with it, which is why we need nerdy people to come in and read those other apocalypses and see how they work and figure out kind of how this genre works so it will help us understand and interpret the book of Revelation. So that’s one reason I would say. And then, when you do that, what you see is that the other apocalypses, they communicate profound messages but they do it through things like symbolism, through images, through drawing on myths that are out there through the use of like symbolic numbers and things like that, and so I think the genre issue is a big issue for us.
A second reason that I think we really struggle with the book of Revelation is because, of every New Testament text, there are more allusions to the Old Testament in the book of Revelation than any other. It is ‑‑ I tell my students, if we took Revelation and rang it out, it would just drip with Old Testament text. And here’s the thing about it, there’s not a single quotation of the Old Testament. There’s no quotes. So whereas in the Gospel of Matthew, “This was done to fulfill,” you know, and then it has a quote, there’s none of those in Revelation. And so the numbers of the allusions actually varies pretty wildly, where you have some who would put the number around 300, and you have some that would place the number as high as 600. In 22 chapters, we have hundreds of allusions to the Old Testament, so you might even recognize some of these, but Balaam and Jezebel in the letters to the seven churches; Babylon is a major allusion in there; even Armageddon, you know, that gets a lot of press with Revelation. Well, Armageddon is Har Megiddo, which is an Old Testament city that shows up in references all over the Old Testament. And so, in the same way that you have Jezebel, you have a reference to an ancient city that’s mentioned all over the Old Testament, Megiddo.
Another instance would be, when we look in Revelation 4, you’ve got these four creatures that have a face like a lion, an ox, an eagle, and a man. Those creatures come straight out of Ezekiel 1. We get all bent out of shape about the number 666 and the mark of the beast and this idea of being marked on the forehead. Well, that concept of being marked on the forehead comes straight out of Ezekiel chapter 9, so it’s like everything in Revelation that we struggle with ‑‑ almost nothing in Revelation is new; it’s all from the Old Testament, and I just find that most Christians ‑‑ we don’t know our Old Testaments, and so one of the things that we struggle with is so much of this is dependent on the Old Testament, and we don’t know it.
And then the third reason would be, this is addressed to seven churches in Asia Minor in the first century, and that was a very different culture than our own. It was a very different world than our own that was dealing with certain circumstances that they would have known about. But we are kind of reading someone else’s mail, in a sense, and because we don’t know the world of the first century or we don’t understand first‑century Asia Minor, I think that causes us a little bit of difficulty in interpreting the book. So, yeah, that would just be some general things. This is a unique book in our Bible because it’s apocalyptic genre; it’s saturated in Old Testament images and we’re not as familiar with our Old Testament as maybe we wish we were or used to be, or whatever that might be the case; and then I think that it’s written to churches in first‑century Asia Minor, and we don’t know that world.
WES: Yeah, yeah. Great thoughts. If somebody was going to get over that hurdle of not wanting to approach this book and they were going to study it, maybe they’re doing their Bible reading throughout the year and they’re getting to Revelation at some point later on in this year or maybe they’re just wanting to study it, do a deep dive into Revelation, what would be some of the pitfalls that you’d want to warn people ahead of time, to say, “Hey, when you’re reading it, when you’re studying it, be careful of this, or look out for this, or here’s some common mistakes that people make when they’re reading it,” and help them to avoid some of that stuff?
GARRETT: Sure. I think the best way to answer that question is ‑‑ I just said that it’s really important to interpret the book by genre, and so I think that the biggest pitfalls that we fall into are not interpreting the book according to a genre. And so if I were answering that, I would say I think that we need to think about the genre of Revelation in order to interpret it well. And what’s interesting about the genre of Revelation is it’s kind of a mix a little bit. So, first, it is very clear that Revelation is a letter written to seven churches in Asia Minor. It begins with an epistolary pre‑script, and it kind of ends like a letter does. I mean, if we compare it to the letters of Paul, it begins with an address to the audience; it concludes with this kind of blessing. Then, of course, you have, in chapters 2 and 3, those seven oracles ‑‑ I call them oracles ‑‑ but oracles to the seven churches. So it’s very clearly this like contextualized message to those seven churches.
And so, with that in mind, then, I think the pitfall is not interpreting it as a message to those seven churches, and so I think because we don’t know what else to do with the book, we just have to do what we as Americans like to do, which is make it all about us because we just don’t know what else to do. And that’s kind of what our initial impulse is when we read scripture, is what does this mean for me? And so we ‑‑ that’s just ‑‑ and I think that’s kind of a pitfall.
And so I was just this week reading ‑‑ I just saw an article, and somehow I missed this, and I’m honestly not sad that I missed it, but it was in some newspaper in Arkansas and it was a preacher who had written this article about whether ‑‑ it was around an election season. It was whether President Obama was the Antichrist, and that was the title of the paper. Well, the paper actually had to publish and recant their title and issue an apology because the author got upset because he actually didn’t argue that Obama was the Antichrist; he argued whether Obama was the seventh king of Revelation 17, and so they were having this back‑and‑forth, you know. But I tell my students, I say, “If whatever your interpretation of the book is would not have made sense to someone sitting in Pergamum in the first century, it’s probably not right,” and I think that not just about Revelation, I think that about Paul’s letters, too. I think that about the Gospels. I think we have to first interpret them as messages to their original audiences before we can sort of ask what they mean for us. So that would be one pitfall, is not actually taking into account that this is written to those seven churches.
The second pitfall that I think that we make is the letters ‑‑ Revelation is not only a letter, it’s also a prophecy. So in chapter 1, verse 3; in chapter 22, verse 7, 10, 18, and 19, it refers to itself as “the words of the book of the prophecy.” It calls itself a book of prophecy. In chapter 10, verse 11, the author says his God‑given calling is to prophesy, and in chapter 22, verse 9, the author describes himself as kind of being in a circle of prophets in Asia Minor in the first century. And so it’s very clearly a prophetic book and so we have to interpret it, then, as a prophecy, and I think the pitfall is that we tend to equate prophecy with future‑telling, when I think prophecy is more accurately understood as forth‑telling. And so because John has so saturated this work and actually even structured ‑‑ I don’t know if people are aware of this, but the entire book of Revelation is structured after the book of Ezekiel. I don’t know if people knew this. The whole structure is like Ezekiel, and it makes sense that John would see himself like Ezekiel. So Ezekiel is a prophet who’s in exile. Well, where is John? Ezekiel starts off by saying, “I am on, you know, this ‑‑ by the River Kebar.” Well, John says, “I’m also by a body of water; I’m out here on this island.” You know, Ezekiel says, “I saw visions of heaven.” Well, John says, “I saw visions of heaven” to people who are in exile, who are living in Babylon. And so, I think John says, “I’m doing the same thing Ezekiel did.” Well, what did Ezekiel do? The prophets in the Old Testament are not simply telling the future. There is some future‑telling elements to what they do, but that’s not all that they did. Really, what they’re doing is they’re forth‑telling God’s truth to the powers that be. They’re delivering oracles to the powers that be. Sometimes those oracles are given towards God’s own people, Israel, but most of the time they’re actually against Babylon and Assyria and Egypt and Tyre and those other nations that are out there. They’re speaking truth to power.
And so, I think, as we read the book of Revelation, if we’re going to interpret it well, to understand that the book is meant to be prophecy and that it is not meant to just be like telling things that are going to happen way off in the future in Russia or Gaza, you know, in 2024, but it’s speaking truth to power in its own day, and in this case, the target seems to be Babylon. Well, Babylon is an interesting thing in the book of Revelation. It’s called “the great city.” It’s used multiple times. We have another interesting reference in 1 Peter 5:13, where it seems like, in another New Testament book, the city of Rome is kind of referred to as Babylon, so that seems to be a theme there. But we also have some other apocalypses, like Fourth Ezra and Second Baruch, that refer to Rome as Babylon, so this seems to be a thing that apocalyptists were used to doing, is drawing a connection between Rome and Babylon as the major world power. And it certainly makes sense, if this is written after 70, when just like Babylon did in 586, Rome has done in the destruction of Jerusalem in the temple in 70. I think there are just clear references in the book of Revelation that Babylon is Rome. So in chapter 17, verse 9, “she is seated on seven hills” ‑‑ well, this is a picture that everyone would have known of the Goddess Roma seated on the seven hills. This is literally printed on their coins. And what is the city set on seven hills? It’s Rome. So I think there’s just clear indications that Rome ‑‑ and so just like Ezekiel did in his day, John is speaking truth to power, and I think that we’ve missed something about the book when we don’t understand its prophetic spirit.
And then the third thing ‑‑ so letter, prophecy; third one is apocalypse. When we understand that it’s using symbols and imagery to teach, then we are interpreting it well. And what I find happens a lot of times is that it’s very clear that the book is using numbers in this symbolic way. You know, “seven” is completion and perfection, and “four” is an important number. And anytime you see “twelve,” it’s the people of God, like the twelve tribes or the twelve apostles. But then we get to the number 666 and we just lose our minds. We see that time seems to work in unusual ways, but then we get to the 1,000 years and we lose our minds. And so it’s sort of losing sight of how apocalyptic imagery and symbolism works. I think that’s one way that we end up doing this.
And I think John actually ‑‑ even if you’ve never read another apocalypse, John actually trains us in that first chapter on what he’s doing with this imagery. So, for example, he says, you know, he sees seven lampstands, and whenever we read that we just go, what is he talking about? What are the lampstands? He says, you know, in his right hand he has seven stars. And we just go, what is this? I don’t know what to do with this. Well, in verse 20 of chapter 1, he says, “I saw the seven stars in the right hand, and the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches and the seven lampstands are the churches.” He’s sort of giving you a clue, whenever you see this imagery, whatever the image is, whatever the symbol is, you need to be asking, what does this represent? What does this mean? What does it stand for?
And so I think when we forget to interpret it like a letter, when we forget to interpret it as prophecy, speaking truth to power, and when we forget that we’re supposed to be interpreting it according to the ways that you would interpret the symbolism of an apocalypse, I think we get lost. And I don’t know if you want to talk about this ‑‑ I’ll leave this up to you ‑‑ but, I mean, I think the main way that this is being kind of drawn into our culture right now is through these Left Behind readings, through, you know, Hal Lindsey and Late Great Planet Earth. I mean, when Kirk Cameron and when Nicolas Cage are starring in Left Behind movies, I think this is sort of dominating the kind of cultural perspective on what’s happening in the book, and, to me, all of those readings only happen if you are not interpreting it as a letter and a prophecy and the way that I think first‑century apocalypses should be interpreted.
WES: Yeah. Well, I think I think that there’s both those that read Revelation that way, sort of that premillennial dispensationalism and adopting that sort of Left Behind mentality and reading the newspaper in one hand and the book of Revelation in the other hand, but then I think that there are so many people, especially in our fellowship, who avoid Revelation because they have learned to interpret it and just say, well, you know, it is a ‑‑ you know, a “scary book,” quote‑unquote. We’ll get to that in a second, but they look at it and they say, “But it’s all ‑‑ it’s all done. Like that has nothing to do with us now.” And I think that maybe there’s an overreaction that direction, and we sort of lose the relevance for ‑‑ what relevance does it have for us now?
But let’s kind of talk about what was the relevance then? I think that so many people read Revelation and they just say, “That’s a terrifying book.” I always tell people, “If you’re scared when you finish reading Revelation, you probably didn’t read it correctly because it’s not supposed to be scary.” But what is the point? Like if you were a Christian in Asia Minor and you were part of one of these churches, especially one of the faithful churches that’s receiving this revelation, this revealing, this apocalypse, what were you supposed to get out of it? What was supposed to be the application of it in the first century?
GARRETT: Yeah. So I said earlier the only part I think I ever heard anybody talk about were those seven letters to the seven churches in chapters 2 and 3, and so most people who have at least attempted to read the book or have ever heard the church try to address this have at least heard those seven letters. And I think we could start there in talking about what it’s supposed to do because those seven letters actually play a really important role in the book of Revelation. So what those seven letters are doing is setting up the issues that the rest of the vision is addressing.
So in chapter 1, you get this incredible vision of the exalted Jesus that is drawing on the Old Testament, Daniel 7 and 10, and then that Jesus is delivering messages to these seven churches in Asia Minor. And because all the churches are in Asia Minor, they’re actually not that far up the road from one another, and we can imagine that the situations in these churches are actually kind of similar. And so what is going on in one church is likely also happening in some of the other churches, and so let’s pay attention to what’s going on on the ground in these seven churches. And if we read those seven oracles very clearly, I think we see at least three categories of distinct things that the rest of the book is trying to address.
So the first thing that we see in those seven letters is that there is conflict with outsiders. The church is experiencing conflict, and it comes from a couple of different directions. So in the church in Smyrna and Philadelphia, they’re being slandered, it looks like, by local synagogues, and at least in Smyrna, the synagogue is denouncing them to local government because then the Roman officials ‑‑ it says some of you are gonna be put into prison for 10 days. Well, the synagogue has no power to imprison people, so this is now the government getting involved in this. But the most extreme example is in chapter 2, verse 13. In the city of Pergamum, there’s a guy named Antipas that we don’t know anything about who was martyred, and so people are even losing their life. And so the conflict ranges from, like, slander to being put into prison to even being martyred. And so this is a huge thing that’s happening in the book of Revelation, is addressing this conflict that the people of God are feeling from those outside, and that’s even from other religious communities, like the synagogue, but also from Roman authorities. So that’s the first thing that’s going on.
The second thing that’s going on is there is a cultural pressure to assimilate. And what we see happening in these churches is that there are some named false teachers. So in Pergamum and Thyatira, we learn about Balaam and Jezebel. Now, again, those are two Old Testament names, so it’s not really their names. It’s just whatever you know about Jezebel and Balaam in the Old Testament, you need to bring that forward, you know, and apply to these two individuals. And who are Jezebel and Balaam in the Old Testament? They are people who are trying to lead the people of God astray and trying to harm the people of God. Well, we also have another individual named in chapter 2, verse 15, Nicolas, and there’s a group that follows him, the Nicolaitans, and in Ephesus, we read about a group of false teachers. So what’s going on with all of these? Well, John actually tells us in Revelation that they’re accused of two things. They’re teaching the Christians to assimilate to culture, and it mentions two things, sexual immorality and idolatry.
Now, one of the things we need to know about idolatry in the first‑century world, in Asia Minor in particular, is that when we hear “idolatry,” we think about worshiping the gods, and that is absolutely a part of idolatry. So Zeus and Artemis and all of these people, Apollo ‑‑ those absolutely are involved in idolatry. But one way that idolatry takes a unique shape in Asia Minor is that, outside of the city of Rome, Asia Minor is the seat of emperor worship, and that at almost any temple of a god or goddess, a deity, you would have found a local imperial cult to the emperor. Now, why is that? This goes all the way back to 29 BC, where the first imperial cult temple built outside of Rome is built in the city of Pergamum. Outside of Rome, it is the center of emperor worship. There’s another imperial cult temple built in 26 AD, and it’s built in the city of Smyrna, and there’s another one that’s built in 89 to 90 AD, and that’s built in the city of Ephesus. Do those sound familiar ‑‑ Pergamum, Smyrna, and Ephesus? Outside of Rome, this is where the worship of the emperor happens, and outside of those official imperial cult temples, any temple you would have gone to, to Artemis or any of the others, would have been also dedicated to an emperor. There would have at least have been a shrine there where you could worship the emperor, and so Christians seem to be lulled into that. They seem to be lulled towards worship of the emperor, idolatry. They seem to be lulled towards sexual immorality, and so Revelation is speaking into that.
And then the third thing that we see in these letters is these churches are growing complacent in their faith, and part of that is that cultural pull. So in Sardis, he says, “You have the appearance of being alive, but you’re really dead.” The one that most people are probably familiar with is Ephesus, “You have lost your first love.” In Laodicea, they’re actually saying, “I am rich; I have prospered; I am in need of nothing.” If there’s anything that lulls you into complacency, it’s wealth and ease, and he’s telling Laodicea, “It’s too good. Life is too good. You’re kind of losing your zeal and your faith.” So those three things, I would say, are what’s happening in the churches: conflict with outsiders, complacency in their faith, and a pressure to assimilate to culture, and the rest of the vision responds to that.
And so we have so much we could talk about, but I’ll just mention two. I’ll just mention two ways the rest of the vision responds to that. One is that right after you have those seven oracles to the seven churches and it lays out those three issues that are happening on the ground, what’s the next thing that comes in chapters 4 and 5? It’s the vision of John is invited to look into heaven and there he sees a throne and the one seated on the throne. That word “throne” is going to show up 47 times in the book. And so the first vision that you get is the vision of the throne and the one seated on the throne, and you have to look up to heaven to see it. And I think the effect of that is to say, how do you endure? How do you survive being thrown into prison for ten days? How do you survive being martyred like Antipas was? Well, you do it by looking to the real throne where the real authority lies. You know, how do you shake people loose who’ve grown complacent in their faith, who are, like, tempted on Friday night to go hang out down in Artemis’ temple? Well, you point them to the one throne that ought to have their heart and their attention, that ought to have their sole allegiance. And so one of the ways that this book does this is by calling them back to worship around the true throne and to keep their eyes on that throne, and as soon as you take your eyes off of that throne, where the one seated on the throne is, and the Lamb, then you’re going to get in all sorts of trouble.
And people don’t realize there’s actually a plot in Revelation. The plot starts in those letters, because in the city of Pergamum, chapter 2, verse 13, Pergamum is the place where Satan’s throne is. There’s a throne that Satan has set up and that throne shows back up in chapter 13. And one of the things we see in chapter 13 is that one of Satan’s most effective strategies in this world to get people to take their eyes off of the throne of the one seated on the throne and the Lamb is to place earthly kings on an earthly throne and to call attention from the people of earth to worship around that throne instead of the throne of the one who’s seated on it with the Lamb. And if that’s not a message for our day, you know? And so this is one of the ways that Revelation does this.
I mean, one of the reasons we love Revelation ‑‑ I would say this book has had more effect on our hymns than any other book in the New Testament, and in the book of Revelation there are 15 hymns. Why is there so much singing? Because the book is about orienting your worship around where it ought to be oriented, which is the throne of the one seated on it and the Lamb. And that’s a huge ‑‑ and so the book poses this question: What throne are you at? Are you worshipping before that throne, or are you worshipping before Satan’s throne with earthly kings on it? Are you living for Babylon, where Satan’s throne is set up, or are you living for the New Jerusalem, which is where God’s throne is? Which world are you living in? Ask that stark question. So one way that it addresses those things is this question of who you worship, where you worship.
The second way that I would mention ‑‑ there are so many things we could say, but the second I would say is it addresses this question by the theme of faithful witness. So the very first thing that’s said in the book is in chapter 1, verse 4 and 5. The very first thing said about Jesus is he’s the faithful witness, and then the next faithful witness we meet is in chapter 2, verse 13, Antipas. And how did he be a faithful witness? Well, he gave up his life. And then, in the very center of the book ‑‑ and by center, I mean, literally and figuratively, it is the very central chapter, chapter 11, and everything that has been before it is leading up to chapter 11 and everything that plays out after it is playing out chapter 11. It’s, I think, the central message of the book. We’ve been introduced to the scroll and the seven seals have been popped off, one by one. We’re like, what does this thing say? Well, chapter 11 is what it says, and what does it say? It’s a message about two witnesses. There’s that word again. And the witnesses ‑‑ the short version here ‑‑ have all kinds of characteristics of the people of God, and the biggest characteristic I’d point out is it says the two witnesses are two lampstands. There’s our word again that we just ‑‑ John told us in 1:20 what to do when we hear about lampstands. It’s the church.
I think the call in chapter 11 is for the people reading this book. It’s for us. It’s for Christians. What are we supposed to be? Just like Antipas, we’re supposed to be faithful witnesses in our world. Witnesses to what? Witnesses to exclusive allegiance to the one who’s seated on the throne and to the Lamb. And we fail in that calling when we take our eyes off of that throne and misplace our worship. And so the call of the book is, who are you worshiping? And wherever you are planted, whatever city you are in, you are supposed to be a faithful witness to the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb. And that’s sort of two ways I think that this book addresses those churches.
You know, there is a lot of judgment in the book. There’s also a lot of hope in the book, and I think the message to those Christians is, to those of you that are hurting, that are suffering because you’re not going to the temple on Friday night, to those of you that are, you know, not compromising your faith and worshiping the emperor, there is hope coming for you. But for those of you that are compromising, you have hitched your cart to the wrong horse. You are headed towards, you know, something that is not going to be enjoyable, and so I do think that’s kind of the function of a lot of that judgment and hope in the book.
WES: I’m so glad that you used the word “exclusive,” exclusive allegiance to Jesus. As you were talking, I kept thinking about both what was happening in the first century then, but also going back to Israel’s history, what led to their captivity in Babylon in the first place, and that was syncretism. They never got to the point, of course, where they exclusively worshiped foreign gods, but they always tried to have Yahweh plus these other gods. And I think one of the things that ‑‑ to make this a little bit more about our time, and now an application, you know, I think one of the things that we’ve tended to do is compartmentalize our lives so much that we don’t even realize when we’re being idolatrous, specifically when it comes to the area of politics, and we have this tendency to think, well, that has nothing to do with my religion; that has nothing to do with Jesus. And yet we give our allegiance, our devotion, our loyalty to a party, to a flag, to a person, to a politician, whatever, and not realizing the divided allegiance. You used the word “compromise,” how much we’re compromising our allegiance and loyalty.
So to kind of take this book and say what relevance does this have for us now ‑‑ it’s not the relevance, I don’t think, that so many want, to look at the newspaper and look at Revelation, but I think there is a way we can look at Revelation and look at the newspaper and say we have the tendency to fall into the same sinful traps. Even followers of Jesus, we have the tendency to fall into these same traps and give our loyalty to other gods or to ‑‑ I mean, it seems what you’re saying, that Caesar and the worship of Caesar, this imperial cult ‑‑ he doesn’t ever say that specifically, but he says “the throne of Satan,” and it is ‑‑ it’s a very stark contrast. And so help us to see the relevance for how do we take this and use this to help us navigate our current political or just cultural world?
GARRETT: Yeah. I will add that I think the imperial cult is so obviously there, particularly in chapter 13. Chapter 13 is a satire of the imperial cult. So you have the first beast, who comes from the sea; it has seven heads. Well, I wish John had said it here in 13, but he saves it to chapter 17, where he says the seven heads are seven kings. Well, who would that have been for people living in the Roman Empire, right? And then he says everyone, every nation, language, tribe, and tongue, falls down to worship the beast. Who can defeat the beast? And they fall before his throne and worship him. Well, how would they have understood that? Of course, you know, they understand that. And then the second beast comes along, and its whole job is to set up images and get the whole world to worship the first beast, who are the seven kings. What is that? That’s imperial cult.
We don’t have time to talk about this, but the number 666 is so clearly, I think, Nero Caesar. It’s sort of a reference to a particular king, and so receiving his mark is worshipping him. It’s bowing the knee to Caesar. It’s bowing the knee to these kings. It’s giving in to that imperial cult, so that is so very clearly here in this book. I tell my students ‑‑ I ask them, “Do you feel like the church is divided over politics?” And they say, “Absolutely.” And I say, “It’s almost as if ‑‑ what if we had a New Testament book that spoke directly to this,” you know? “Oh, yeah, we do.” We’ve just not read it or at least not understood it. And I believe that in the unveiling, in the revelation ‑‑ and I think that’s what Revelation is, is it pulls the curtain back and it shows us what’s really going on in the world, and what Revelation shows us, when the curtain is pulled back, is to say that one of Satan’s biggest strategies ‑‑ Satan ‑‑ if you follow chapter 13, it’s actually Satan’s throne, but he lets these other kings sit on it, and that is what it reveals to us. That is one of his biggest strategies in the world, is to use worldly thrones to distract us from our worship of the one seated around the throne.
I see this all the time in politics. I see Christians today sharing things, like ‑‑ you know, one of the ones that I saw sharing was, obviously, recently. In recent American politics, building walls has been an important topic and controversial topic, southern border wall. And there was a prominent pastor from Texas, actually, who was going on TV and saying, “There’s even gonna be a wall in heaven; Revelation says so, and so this justifies building a wall.” Well, I don’t want to get into the politics of that, but as someone who cares deeply about interpreting Revelation well, did this pastor read Revelation 21:24‑26 that says the gates of the wall will never be shut and people will come into it day and night? It’s like people are even misusing Revelation in some of these conversations, and it concerns me deeply because I care about interpreting Scripture well.
I think what Revelation is trying to do for us is to get the people of God to develop a kind of discernment so that we can see. It’s a go‑and‑do‑likewise strategy, so that in the same way that Revelation pulls this curtain back and shows its first‑century audience how to recognize what their gaze is being taken off of, you know, I think we’re supposed to see that same thing. And as I look around our church, you know, our culture, is there a more relevant text than a text that addresses complacency due to wealth, you know, assimilating to culture and, in particular, idolatry in the form of imperial cult worship, worshiping emperors and dealing with conflict with outsiders? That’s why I say I’ve been converted to believe that this is actually the most relevant text for our moment, and it’s trying to get us to cultivate those kinds of eyes of faith to see the world clearly, to develop this kind of discernment to see when this is happening, to see how the devil, Satan, uses imperial propaganda to lure people in, uses all of these visual and mythic and otherwise, you know, ways of drawing people in, to say, no, you can’t have your attention given from exclusive allegiance to the Lamb, and so we do that through our witness that our allegiance is only to the one seated on the throne and the Lamb.
And so I think ‑‑ around election time, I think we actually are compromising our witness. We’re not showing that sort of faithful witness that’s expressed. So how do we do that? Well, one is prophetic resistance. It’s a prophecy. It’s speaking truth to power, and whatever politician on whatever side of the aisle, we ought to be the first people speaking truth. And I don’t know where we got this idea that we cannot speak up on one side of the aisle or [that means] we support the other side of the aisle. No. Faithfulness requires prophetic resistance and witness. That’s what witness is, is we speak for truth when there’s idolatry and injustice, and I think that’s the vision that Revelation actually cares about.
I think the other thing that Revelation is trying to do is put us on mission. I know most people would not read this as a missional text, but just go through and circle every time that the book of Revelation mentions “the nations.” God cares what happens to the nations. And that passage I just referenced, you know, the tree of life shows up there again in Revelation 21 and 22, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. The people of God now ought to be participating in the healing of the nations. So I could go on and on, but it’s so good. But yes, I think this is absolutely a message for our time, and it would save us so much heartache in our election season if we would imbibe this message even more.
WES: Yeah, absolutely. Amen. Not to go too far down this rabbit hole, but when you brought up about the idea of misusing Revelation in order to sort of support one side of the aisle or the other, I was asked by somebody not too long ago about the mark of the beast and what is the mark of the beast, and do you think ‑‑ I won’t even mention what it is that he was referencing ‑‑ “And do you think this might be the mark of the beast?” And I said, ironically, over the last 2,000 years, there have been so many Christians who have actually adopted the mark of the beast in their efforts to try to avoid the mark of the beast. They are so afraid of whatever they think might be the mark of the beast that they end up giving their loyalty and their allegiance to a worldly power in order to protect them from the so‑called mark of the beast, and that’s the very opposite of what Revelation is calling us to do. It’s give your allegiance and your loyalty to the Lamb, and when you do that, you don’t have to worry about what the beast is doing, so you are not controlled by the beast. You are not in danger from the beast. And we are so afraid ‑‑ and that’s why I always tell people, if you read Revelation and you walk away from it fearful and more apt to give your loyalty to some politician or some political party, you’re reading it wrong. You ought to read this and be confident of our victory in Christ, I think.
GARRETT: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. That’s great, great advice.
WES: Well, Garrett, as we close, what resources would you recommend to people? If people want to dive deeper into the book of Revelation, where would you point them?
GARRETT: Sure. If someone were listening and they were, you know,
a minister or someone who really wanted to dig in or wanted a resource, I think Craig Koester’s Anchor Bible Commentaryon Revelation is the best commentary that’s written. It’s funny, I heard on a podcast the other day ‑‑ I was listening to David de Silva, who’s a wonderful scholar, and he’s writing his own commentary on Revelation, and he said, “Even after I finish my commentary on Revelation, Craig Koester’s commentary will still be better.” He said it is just the best one out there. But helpfully, for those who aren’t scholars or ministers needing to read something that thick, he has written a book called “Revelation and the End of All Things,” which is his distillation, in 200 pages, of his massive commentary. It’s now in its second edition, and, personally, I do not think there is something better out there on Revelation than Craig Koester’s “Revelation and the End of All Things.” It still might be a hair dense for some folks, so if you’re looking for another book, I would say Michael Gorman has a book called “Reading Revelation Responsibly,” and he just does such a good job on the practical application. And a lot of the things we’re discussing, if that was interesting to you, about politics and kind of applying this message today, I think Gorman’s book is maybe the best on that. So that’s kind of a smorgasbord there for you, three different books, kind of depending on where you are.
I’ll just mention one other interesting book lately. Dean Flemming has a book on Foretaste of the Future and reading Revelation as a missional text, and I think it’s really well done. It’s really interesting. For those who read the book with ‑‑ who leave with all this fear and trepidation and think that this is about, you know, just all the judgment and the blood and all that, read this text and you’ll, I think, leave with a very different view, that actually this is about God’s mission for the whole world, and I think it’s really powerful to see it in that light, as well.
WES: Fantastic. Well, Brother, thank you so much for this conversation, and thank you for the work you’re doing in the kingdom.
GARRETT: Thank you for having me. I always love nerding out about Revelation. Thank you.
God’s Mission for the Church with Steve Cloer
Apr 10, 2024
What is the mission of the church? This episode of the Radically Christian Bible Study Podcast tackles that crucial question. The discussion explores the common tendency for Christians to focus solely on replicating New Testament patterns of church life, while neglecting the larger theological framework of God’s mission. Wes McAdams and Steve Cloer delve into the biblical concept of God as a “missionary God” who sends his people to partner in redeeming a broken world, and how this should reshape the church’s identity and approach to ministry.
Missional theology can transform the way we view everything from Sunday morning worship to our daily lives and interactions. Wes and Steve encourage listeners to reconsider their understanding of the church’s role and calling, moving beyond mere religious obligations to embrace a holistic, kingdom-centered mission. The conversation also touches on practical challenges and opportunities that arise when the church seeks to engage its local community and context.
The guest, Steve Cloer, is an assistant professor of ministry at Harding School of Theology and the director of the Doctor of Ministry program. With extensive experience in urban congregational ministry, Steve brings a unique perspective on the importance of the church’s presence and witness in cities and neighborhoods. His insights challenge listeners to consider how they can more faithfully and effectively participate in God’s mission, wherever they may be.
Have you ever thought of God as a missionary? Have you ever thought of yourself as a missionary? Well, hopefully, you will after today’s podcast. Today I’m visiting with my friend, Steve Cloer, who’s an assistant professor of ministry at Harding School of Theology. Steve also directs the Doctor of Ministry program. He lives in Memphis, Tennessee, and in the fall of 2024, he’s going to begin leading a new initiative for Harding called the Center for Church and City Engagement.
Before we begin that Bible study and conversation, I want to read from 2 Corinthians 5, starting in verse 17. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”
I hope you enjoy this conversation and I hope it helps all of us learn to love like Jesus.
WES: Steve Cloer, welcome to the podcast, Brother.
STEVE: Thank you. It’s an honor to be with you.
WES: It’s been good to reconnect with you a little bit over the last couple months or so. You and I knew each other way back there before I had kids, I think, probably before you had kids. Did y’all have kids when we taught together?
STEVE: I think we didn’t have kids, either. Way back there, almost 20 years ago, maybe.
WES: Yeah, we taught Bible class at church camp together in New Mexico at Blue Haven. And do you guys still go to Blue Haven?
STEVE: We still do. We go out fifth session to Camp Blue Haven, and it’s a joy. It’s a highlight of our year for our family.
WES: Us, too. We go to the first session, so, yeah, it’s fantastic. Well, I’ve been an admirer of your work for a long time, Brother. You do such great work, and I’d love for you to just kind of give us an introduction to what you have been doing most recently and then what you’re going to be doing as things transition a little bit.
STEVE: Okay, sure. And thanks again, Wes, for inviting me on. So for 15 years I was the preacher at the Southside Church of Christ in Fort Worth, Texas, from 2006 to 2021. And Southside is a congregation located just south of downtown Fort Worth in the heart of the city, and we worked there and had a really good season of ministry. And then, in 2021, we transitioned to Memphis, Tennessee for me to work at Harding School of Theology, and so I’m an assistant professor of ministry here. I teach in the master’s programs. I teach courses in mission, leadership, and ministry, and then I also direct the Doctor of Ministry program.
And there’s significant change going on here at Harding as the School of Theology is being relocated to Searcy, Arkansas, and so my role is changing slightly because I’m going to be staying in Memphis, and so I’m going to keep directing the Doctor of Ministry program and continue to be on faculty and teach somewhat, but I’m also going to be directing a new center for Harding that’s called Harding University Center for Church and City Engagement. And so the goal of this center is to provide resources and experiences and training for church leaders, as well as Harding students, to help them engage the city for the mission of God, so I’m excited about the future with that.
WES: That’s fantastic. I’m excited about that, too. And as we go, you may mention some of the other stuff that you’ll be working on, you know, as this becomes a reality. But you used the word “mission,” and I’ve listened to a few lessons that you’ve taught and I’ve read some articles that you’ve written, and that tends to be something that you talk a lot about, missional theology being ‑‑ what is the phrase that you use?
STEVE: A missional catalyst.
WES: Okay. There you go. So that idea of the church and ministers being on mission is something that is incredibly important to you, and I was reading an article that you wrote. It’s called “The Missional Catalyst: Reimagining the Role of the Minister,” and here’s one of the quotes you said. I think that it will resonate with listeners. You said, “One of the deficiencies in the discussion of church leadership roles has been an absence of a theology of the mission of God. For restorationists, specifically those of us in churches of Christ, the focus has often been on the duplication of New Testament patterns. We determine what the early church did and then discern how to replicate in the present.”
And so, so much of our focus, when we talk about ecclesiology or we talk about what is the church ‑‑ we’ve focused on this idea of, well, let’s figure out how to do Sunday morning worship. Let’s figure out how the church should be organized, elders and ministers and these kinds of roles, but there hasn’t been a lot on missional theology. So what is the mission of God, and what does that look like when a church really understands and is on mission?
STEVE: Yeah, sure, I can talk about that. Yeah, I think, you know, one of our challenges has been, when we focus on ecclesiology and we focus on, as you mentioned, just, you know, the forms and the patterns, we forget the larger theological framework that the church is situated within, and that framework starts with God and just who God is and what does God care about. And when we talk about the mission of God, we’re talking about the purpose of God, the purposes of God. What is it that God wants to do in the world, and then how do we fit into that? And at the very heart of who God is is that he is a missionary God, that he is a God who sends. And all throughout Scripture we see God sending, and then ultimately sending himself in the person of Jesus Christ. And in the Gospel of John, for example, over 40 times Jesus refers to himself as the one whom the Father sent, so there’s an element there within the very Godhead itself of God being a sending God.
And so, if God is a missionary God, then at the core of who we are as his people is that we are to be a missionary people who are joining God in his mission for the world. And what is his mission? His mission, to put it succinctly, from my perspective, would be that he wants to redeem a broken world and he wants to make all things new, to restore all things both in heaven and on earth, to bring them together as one, and how we understand that mission is really tied to how we understand the gospel, and my understanding of the gospel is that the gospel is the good news that God is taking all the broken pieces of our world, putting them back together through Jesus Christ.
And a scripture that’s really shaped my thinking on this is Ephesians 1. I’ll just read this. Ephesians 1:10, where it says, regarding his plan ‑‑ it’s talking about God’s plan, regarding his “plan of the fullness of the times to bring all things together in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth.” And, to me, that’s the essence of the good news, is God is bringing everything together in Christ through the cross and the resurrection and then the enthronement of Christ, that all things are being brought back together. So then the mission of God is to bring that about, and so if God is a missionary God and his mission is to restore all things or to redeem a broken world, then, as a church, our identity must be found in that.
And so, in missional theology, like a key buzz phrase that’s often used is that it’s not that the church has a mission, but it’s that God’s mission has a church. And so you think about that, it’s a complete reframing. A lot of times when we think about mission, we think about action. We think about something that we’re doing, but, actually, mission is an attribute. It’s not an action; it’s an attribute of God. And so if this is at the very essence of who God is, to restore a broken world, then at the very essence of who we are as a church, as his people, is to restore a broken world, as well. And so we find a sense of identity within the mission of God that I think reshapes and reframes leadership roles. It reshapes and reframes just the way we think about church life. It just kind of reshapes everything.
The illustration I like to use about this is, you know, when you go to a Christian college, nobody can major in love. Like there’s nobody who’s majoring in love, although that would be a good way maybe to get a date or something, like, hey, I’m majoring in love or whatever. Nobody majors in love. We don’t have ‑‑ typically, we don’t have love deacons at our church or love ministries, and the reason why we don’t is because we would say, well, that’s what every person is supposed to do. Every Christian is ‑‑ that’s how they know that we are his disciples, if we love one another, and that’s because God is love. Well, I would argue it’s the same way with mission. It’s not just for certain specialists to do mission. It’s that we are all a missionary people because we are serving a missionary God, that they all go together and it’s the very identity and essence of who we are.
WES: Man, I love that. And as you were talking, it occurred to me how many sort of theological points we could talk about. Ecclesiology, for those that don’t know, just the study of the church, or eschatology, the study of, you know, where’s all of this heading, what is this all going towards, what’s the end ‑‑ so much of that seems so heady and theoretical, but it’s so incredibly practical. If we think that God’s intention for us is just to sit here, be good, do church well until we die, and then we get to be whisked off to this ethereal realm in the sky, and that’s the end goal, that’s going to change the way, in very practical terms, we live out our life. It’s gonna change whether or not we see ourselves as being people on mission. But if we see ourselves as being recruited into the family of God ‑‑ not just the family of God, but the kingdom of God, and that we are a part of a kingdom, and that kingdom has a purpose ‑‑ and I love the way you said that this is an attribute, an aspect of who God is in that he is a missional God. I’ve never really thought of it that way before, and you could go all the way back to the creation, I suppose. In God’s creation of human beings to rule and reign with him, that this has always been God’s intention, to partner with humanity to do this great thing, and then, of course, sin got us off track, so I love that idea of putting the world back together.
As you kind of framed it, you know, that there’s been a lack of understanding of mission ‑‑ I don’t want to get you in too much trouble, but I just finished listening to the lesson that you did at Prestoncrest a few weeks ago, and it was so good, and one of the things that you touched on was the things that we’re doing that actually undermine the mission in the community. You were specifically talking about how we reach people that are spiritual but not religious, or the religious “nones.” They’re sort of interested in spiritual things. They feel fine about their eternal destiny, but they just are not interested in church and these kinds of things, but the church is actually ‑‑ because we’re not being missional, I’m afraid sometimes we’re doing things that undermine some of the mission that we ought to be on. If you don’t mind expounding on some of those, what are some of the things that we might be unintentionally doing that’s actually getting in the way of being on a mission?
STEVE: Yeah, I mean, there are several things I can mention. One that immediately comes to my mind is sometimes we fail to recognize that God is at work in our world and in people’s lives to bring them to him. There’s a lot of talk these days about how we are functioning in an emerging secular paradigm, what some people refer to as the immanent frame, where we just don’t really see God active in our lives on a daily basis or in our societies, that we just kind of do everything on our own power and own ability and our own ingenuity, and sometimes that’s the way we think as Christians. We just kind of think, you know, God’s maybe at work in the church building when we’re there on Sundays, but then he’s not really at work the rest of our week, and I think that’s a big deficit. I think we need to have a spiritual perspective. God is a missionary God, and God is, right now, working in this world to convict people of sin, to open their hearts to him. He’s trying to put this broken world back together in Jesus. And so if we can have a heart that’s open to that and, like you said, willing to partner with God in that, we might be surprised at what we find.
And so, as an example, just like in church services on Sunday morning, sometimes we approach that very selfishly. “Okay, I’m going. I’m kind of doing my good work and going to worship the Lord.” Maybe we could take a step back and say, “Okay, who is the Lord bringing this morning, and are we ready to receive them?” Because it could be that there’s someone who is meekly coming into the auditorium because they felt a sense of calling or that God’s been working on their heart and they’ve made this effort. And what are they going to find when they get there? Are they going to find people who are more interested in, you know, what are they going to eat for lunch, or are they going to find people ready to invite them into a community? A lot of times people who are spiritual but not religious, people who would check “None” on a religious affiliation survey ‑‑ a lot of times they’ve been to church. It’s not that they haven’t ever been to a worship service; it’s just that when they go, they haven’t been well received a lot of times.
And so that’s just one example of having a spiritual expectation, that as we come together on Sundays, who is the Lord bringing us, and are we praying about that? Are we ready to receive that? And then ‑‑ and that’s just on Sundays. We could talk about Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, you know, when we’re at school or a school activity or when we’re getting our oil changed or when we’re going ‑‑ running an errand at the grocery store. You know, who is God putting in our path? Who is God working on? When we’re waiting at the airport, could we have spiritual conversations then? All of that ‑‑ I mean, that’s just one example. If we create this spiritual expectation to recognize God is at work in this world and he’s working in people’s lives because he’s a missionary God, can I have a heart that’s open and eyes to see what he sees and seek to join in with him in his mission?
WES: Yeah. I can’t tell you how many times I have had conversations with members of either this congregation where I preach now or congregations where I’ve been before and, specifically, it comes up a lot when a parent has a gay child and is afraid what might happen if they invite them to come to worship with them. The parent holds a traditional Christian sexual ethic, doesn’t believe that what their child is doing is right, but wants them to know Jesus, wants them to come to know Jesus, and they want them to experience their church family the same way they experience their church family. They want them to see this is a wonderful place and these people will love you and these people will not shun you, will not look down their nose at you, but they’re afraid. Will that happen? I don’t know how many times I’ve been asked that kind of question. Will I be judged? Will I be kicked out? Will I be whatever? And I want to say no, because that’s been my experience, that no, people are incredible. They’re welcoming. They’ll love you.
You mentioned a woman in your class. You were talking about a lady who cut your hair, and you said something along the lines of do we stop and think that somebody like that might be coming to our assembly and we might affect the next five or 10 years of her spiritual journey? And that question was a sobering one.
STEVE: Yeah, yeah, it is. It is. In that story that I told, I talked about her, that the way she described her religious journey is she said, “I felt a calling to go to church,” and we know where that calling came from. It came from God working in her heart. I mean, she didn’t understand that. She’s not able to articulate that, but she felt a calling to come to worship. And I believe it’s the same way with other people, and just in my experience of congregational ministry at Southside in Fort Worth, I mean, there were many occasions where people walked in our building and God brought them there. I mean, they just came, not knowing exactly what they were gonna find, and I’m always amazed at their courage to walk in the building.
But as we’re moving into what I would call an emerging secular paradigm, what’s going to be very important for the church is to create a sense of belonging in order for people to believe, and that’s a flip‑flop from the way maybe we’ve traditionally thought about it, is, okay, we try to convince someone to believe in Jesus. Okay. Then we will welcome them into the church. But in a secular paradigm, people are trying to figure things out. A lot of times people who are spiritual but not religious, who are “nones,” they’re just confused and they haven’t had a lot of time to figure things out because maybe they didn’t grow up in a Christian family. They really have no spiritual guidance that’s been given to them. They’re not getting it from the culture surrounding them, and so they’re just ‑‑ they hear stuff, hear bits and pieces, but they’re just kind of confused. It’s gonna take some time to kind of figure all that out, and so creating a space of belonging and say, “Hey, you’re welcome here. We’re all on the same journey together. Maybe I’m a little bit farther down the road than you are, but we’re all on the same journey together of trying to learn about Jesus and to follow him,” so creating that space of belonging, and then, in time, people will come to believe.
And I think that’s going to be an important shift for churches to make, but I think the way we can make that theologically is to recognize that this is God’s mission, and God’s Spirit is at work in the world to draw people to himself. And so it’s not my mission, it’s not your mission, it’s not even our church’s mission; it’s God’s mission. God’s trying to redeem a broken world, and so I’m just gonna try to be open. I’m gonna plant seeds, I’m gonna try to water them, and I’m gonna trust that God’s gonna bring the increase and I’m gonna have eyes that are open to see what God is doing.
WES: I don’t know how you feel about appropriating the word “missionary,” but I have a tendency to do that. I have a couple of sisters who were, quote‑unquote, “missionaries” in other countries, but I tell them all the time, you know, that’s how I think of myself, and I really think every Christian should think of themselves, as a missionary. And I think it changes the way that we think about politics; it changes the way we think about home. What is home? We can really embrace this idea of being an exile, of being a sojourner, a foreigner living in a foreign land, but also having a mission that I’m here by choice and I’m here on mission and I’m here because God sent me here. I’m not here simply because I just happened to be born in this place or because this is the best country in the world, but because God has sent me here to do his work, to do his mission. And I feel like if Christians across the board, whether they’re in paid ministry or not, would adopt that mentality ‑‑ whether they’re in their hometown or not, would adopt that mentality of being missionaries.
STEVE: I agree with you on several fronts. First and foremost, just the word ‑‑ the word “missionary” just means the one who is sent, or one who is sent, and if we’re a sent people, and if God’s a missionary God, then we are a missionary people. We are sent people, so just, theologically, it makes sense from my perspective. But I think, even in a practical standpoint, historically, when we’ve thought about missionaries, we’ve thought about someone who leaves a Western country, whether that’s America or some other country, and goes across the ocean, maybe to some other continent or to some other location to do church planting or evangelism or that kind of thing, and that’s typically the way we’ve thought about “missionary.”
Well, there’s more churches of Christ in Nigeria than there are in the United States right now. There’s getting ready to be more churches of Christ in Ghana than there are in America right now, and the global South quickly has become kind of the majority of the church, and so I think we need to reframe that and not think about missionaries as people coming from America to go somewhere else. I think the way you’re describing it is better and healthier. And, actually, what missiologists are moving towards is to think about mission as something that’s done from everywhere to everywhere. It’s not from West to non‑West countries. It’s from everywhere to everywhere. So still we’re going to send out people from America to other places, but other places are going to send people to America, and it’s from everywhere to everywhere. And so, in the same way, in every town that I’m in, I’m a missionary in that town because mission is from everywhere to everywhere, so I think that’s a helpful way of thinking about it.
And then maybe like a third piece to this would be a sense of calling. You know, what is the reason that I’m alive? Is the reason that I’m alive so that I can pursue life, liberty, and happiness? That’s what our American society tells us. But I think scripture calls us to something deeper and higher and wider and broader and gives us a sense of calling and vocation that is bound up in this grand mission, this redemptive mission of God. And I think every single one of us, every person, has to figure that out for themselves. What is my piece in this grand story of God? And it’s not simply just to earn as much money as I can earn and buy as much stuff as I can buy. It’s to participate in God’s mission in the world in some way, shape, form, or fashion. And some of that will be through being a paid minister ‑‑ and we need more of those ‑‑ but it’s going to be through other means, as well, and I think that’s the critical part. I can be a missionary wherever I am as I am participating in that sense of calling that comes from the mission of God in the world.
WES: Yeah. Well, specific to you and your calling in the world, it seems like so much of your personal ministry has been in cities. You were in Fort Worth for a long time and now in the Memphis area, and I suppose ‑‑ I don’t know. I’m guessing that you probably had the opportunity to leave Memphis and go to Searcy when the school moved there, but you’re choosing to stay in the Memphis area, I assume, and so I think that that city must mean a lot to you. So what is it about cities? What is it about that urban environment that you feel, theologically or philosophically, that that’s where you need to be?
STEVE: Yeah, that’s a good question. I think maybe two ways to answer that, one personally and then one theologically. So personally, I grew up in a small town, Searcy, Arkansas, you know, 10‑, 15,000 was the size of our town at the time, and a very good experience. Loved growing up there, very nurturing environment. Grew up within the Harding community. Was there, got married to my wife, Lindsay, right after we graduated from Harding University. We lived there one more year while she got her master’s. So the first 23 years of my life was in a small town, and then I moved to Memphis, Tennessee to get my Master’s of Divinity at Harding School of Theology. And so for three years I lived in Memphis, and it was just kind of like a wake‑up call in many ways as I saw racial tension that I had not experienced growing up. I saw the effects of poverty that I hadn’t really witnessed as much. I worked on a secular college campus at the University of Memphis, and I just was kind of shown a lot of the complexities within a city, a big city, a large city. I worshiped at the time at Highland Street Church of Christ, which Harold Shank was the preacher at that time, and they were very ‑‑ had a vision for the city, and that really influenced me, as well.
So then, from there, I moved to Fort Worth, and originally, I wanted to get outside of the, quote‑unquote, “Bible Belt,” but when I visited the urban core of Fort Worth, I realized this really isn’t the Bible Belt where I am in the center of the city, and that drew me there. And Southside was a church that had committed to staying in the urban neighborhood and wanting to reach out to the neighborhood, and so we launched into that and felt that sense of calling. We moved into the neighborhood of our church building about halfway through my ministry and just really got connected within the urban environment. Again, eyes opened to things through that, seeing the inequities that often are very stark in a city. Inequity is everywhere, but sometimes they’re very stark in a big city. Our kids went to the public school in elementary, and the public school they went to for a period of time was academically failing, and I just saw the lack of advocacy for that school in the whole public school system and how the school was kind of written off and things like that. And so I just saw a lot of dynamics that are present in a city that really spoke to me.
Well, I moved to Memphis, Tennessee. The neighborhood that I was in in Fort Worth had a poverty rate of maybe 18 to 19 percent, which is pretty high, especially for Fort Worth, but the whole city of Memphis has a poverty rate of 20 percent. The whole city does. And certain neighborhoods have a poverty rate of 30 percent, so one out of every three kids in Memphis are in poverty, so just a very high poverty element. And, you know, that starts to ‑‑ if we’re a people who are redeeming a broken world, if we’re called to join God in that, that pulls you there. So I think just that personal journey that I’ve been on has impacted me, and we came back to Memphis because I wanted to train leaders at Harding in an urban environment to go do some of the things that I was doing at Southside. That was my sense of call here, and I didn’t feel released from that call even when the school of theology was moving to Searcy and, thankfully, Harding has worked it out to where I can keep doing that, so that would be kind of a personal answer to that question.
I think a theological answer is God loves cities. The story of Scripture begins in a garden, but it ends in a city. And I think about the story of Jonah, and he goes to Nineveh. Why does he go to Nineveh? Because God loved Nineveh, a city that had all sorts of problems and issues, and God loved that city and he wanted that city to know him. Or think about the story of Jesus when he comes into Jerusalem and he cries over Jerusalem. I was talking with Harold Shank recently, and he was telling me how he thinks about that story when he goes to like a football game and he sees 50,000 people or 60‑ or 70,000 people all in one location. He thinks, well, what would Jesus do if he was here? And he thinks ‑‑ he said, I think Jesus would probably cry. He would weep over the people just like he wept over Jerusalem.
So, you know, God cares about cities. He cares about cities because he cares about people, and cities are dense locations where people are. And we live in an urban world. The majority of people live in cities, and that’s just going to continue, so I think God’s heart is always going to have a special place for cities and wanting the gospel to infiltrate every nook and cranny of that city, both personally and also socially and relationally and in every way possible.
WES: Yeah. Well, I can’t help but think that, when I hear your story, how it’s really easy for so many of us ‑‑ and I put myself in that category ‑‑ that I hear some of those things and I think, well, that sounds great, and I agree with that intellectually, but when my neighborhood starts getting more difficult for me to live in, for whatever reason, whether it’s because of crime or because of poverty or because just the socioeconomics of it are changing, whatever it might be, then it becomes really easy, especially people that can afford to do so, to abandon that neighborhood. You even mentioned about Southside, that they chose to stay, like it was a conscious decision to stay rooted in a neighborhood, and then you did the same personally; you’ve chosen to stay.
And I can’t help but think that, so often, that’s what it comes down to. And it’s a different mentality because, to your point earlier, so much of our American DNA is trained to seek whatever makes for health and prosperity, whatever makes me the most comfortable. I need to live where I’ll be the most comfortable. I need to live where I can have the greatest pursuit of my own happiness rather than the child of God or the citizen of the kingdom of God who says, “I love the people that God loves and I want to be with the people that God is trying to reach, and I’m going to be a part of that.” And that’s not to say ‑‑ obviously, everybody has to be somewhere, which means that they’re not going to be everywhere else. We can only be in one place at a time, but I just can’t help but admire you and appreciate you for having the faith ‑‑ and I mean that in a very different way than most people use “faith” ‑‑ the faith to live out what you believe, because I think that’s exactly what faith is. You don’t have this theoretical thing over here that says, “Hey, it would be great to reach these neighborhoods” or “I’m going to preach about how we need to reach these neighborhoods,” but that you are willing to live there and stay there even if it gets challenging and difficult.
STEVE: Well, thank you. I mean, I appreciate your encouragement and support. I do think you’re right, though, and let me just say, too, everybody has a different sense of calling, and some of us are called to move to Nepal. I have a sister who lives in Nepal. Some of us are called to live in Nepal; some of us are called to live in Memphis or Texas or some other state, and we all have different seasons of life where we can do certain things and other seasons maybe where we can’t do certain things, and so, you know, we all have to kind of sort all that out for ourselves.
Kind of my thought on that, and I have a little kind of principle in my life, and that is our big decisions affect our small decisions. And so we think about following Jesus. A lot of times we think about following Jesus in our small decisions. Okay, today I want to follow Jesus. I want to be kind to my neighbor. I’m going to, you know, read my Bible regularly. I’m going to pray for people that are hurting. I’m going to serve in this ministry. Today I’m going to try to daily follow Jesus, and that’s good, and that’s what we ought to do, but sometimes we forget that it’s the big decisions of our life that place us in certain contexts where those little decisions are actually lived out. And so those big decisions about where I’m going to live and what I’m going to do and what neighborhood am I going to reside in and what school are my kids going to go to ‑‑ those big decisions are going to shape a lot of those little daily decisions that we’ll have. And so instead of letting our financial security guide our big decisions or instead of letting, you know, what maybe a certain personal preference is guide our big decisions, let’s let the mission of God guide those big decisions and let’s see where we end up, ’cause it could be then our daily decisions are going to look much different than if we let something else guide those big decisions, and so I think that’s important.
I think that you’re right, that we can understand that intellectually and in our mind, but then it’s something different for our heart. The biggest inhibitor to a church participating in God’s mission is fear. That’s the biggest inhibitor. And so when a church becomes afraid or when a person becomes afraid, that immediately stops the effort in participating in God’s mission, and so we have to realize Satan’s going to use that. He’s going to try to instill within us fear and worry and anxiety, just like he did with the people of Israel when they were on the cusp of going to the land of Canaan, and they said, “We don’t want to do that anymore.” Why? Because they were afraid. They were fearful. They didn’t want to continue on in God’s mission for them because they were fearful. And so we all wrestle with that, and we have to remember this, that when we are led by the Spirit, the Spirit is always gonna lead us to places that we don’t wanna go when we don’t wanna go there, and that line I got from Evertt Huffard, and that’s true. I mean, Paul wanted to go to Bithynia and the Spirit led him to Macedonia. And I don’t think that’s where he wanted to go, but that’s where God wanted him to go.
And so we have to be prepared for that, that God may lead our church to a neighborhood, to a group of people, to a certain kind of ministry that makes us feel a little fearful and uncomfortable, but if the Lord is leading us here, we have to trust him and join him and participate with him and trust that God’s gonna bring good out of all of it.
WES: Yeah, for sure. Let’s talk a little bit about some of the challenges of, specifically, ministry in the city, and I think about things like poverty. I think about things like justice. I think about racial reconciliation and city transformation. Back to the mission of God, if God’s intention is to pick up and put together the broken pieces of this world, what role would you say the church has in that? I think that there’s sort of some extremes where, on the one hand, some people look at it and they think the church ought to be, maybe even first and foremost, political and that we’re out there always pushing a political agenda or certain policies that need to be implemented. On the other hand, I think some people look at it and they agree and they say, “It’s a mess, but I’m overwhelmed. I wouldn’t even know where to begin. Let’s just wait until the Lord comes back to sort it all out.” And then there are other Christians that are sort of in denial, and they say, “Well, you know, it is a mess,” maybe, or “Whatever mess exists only exists because people have made bad decisions, so they just need to stop being bad. We don’t have any responsibility to do anything about that. I wouldn’t help them if I could.” So there’s kind of all sorts of extremes. Where would you say the church ‑‑ if we’re really going to be a church on mission, how do we help make the city a better place?
STEVE: Wow, that’s a good question. There’s so many ways we could go with that, and I wish we had more time to talk about it. The first thing that I would say is we have to recognize that the gospel that we hold to is a holistic and comprehensive gospel. God wants to redeem every part of this world, and we see that in the ministry of Jesus. We can see that in other places in Scripture, as well, where, yes, God wants to forgive people of their sins, but he also wants to help the sick and he wants to feed the hungry and he wants to show mercy to those that are brokenhearted and do justice with those who are in a place of injustice, and so God’s mission is to redeem, reclaim, restore all of that, and I think the more unified around all of those pieces, the better. And so, thinking holistically, in a unity standpoint, Jesus didn’t just do one thing or the other; he was kind of participating in all of it, and, you know, “Your sins are forgiven,” and “Stand up and walk.” I mean, he says the same things at the same time. And so if a church could think that way, I think is maybe a healthy step forward, so kind of a holistic gospel.
There’s a book I read a couple years ago that talked about how wicked is very complex, and it’s true. There’s a complexity to wickedness, that it infiltrates in many different levels, and so if that’s what we see wickedness being, then the gospel should also be similarly complex, that can meet that complex wickedness, and so I think a holistic gospel does that. So that would be one piece.
I think a second piece to your question would be ‑‑ maybe a simple thing is we need to get to know our cities. We just need to get to know them, spend time understanding our cities or our neighborhoods and what the challenges are. I think about Acts 17, when Paul was in Athens. And what was the first thing that Paul does when he’s in Athens? Well, it says that he walked around and observed the idols of the city, and, in fact, he references that when he speaks to the Areopagus. He says, “I’ve observed that you’re a very religious people,” so, obviously, he has spent some time walking around and learning about Athens, and that’s built a burden on his heart. That’s why he begins to preach the gospel in Athens because he’s burdened that they’re trapped in all these idols. But then, also, it shows a connecting point. He sees, “Oh, you have this altar to an unknown God. That’s a connecting point by which I can share the good news with you.”
I think that model is something that could easily be followed. Let’s just get to know our cities. Let’s observe. Let’s talk to people. Let’s listen. Let’s learn what are the longings and the losses of our neighbors. As we do that, we’re gonna feel a burden. We’re gonna feel a burden for our city. While I’m here in Memphis, I want to develop a deep burden for Memphis. Like that’s something that I need to develop just like I felt when I was in Fort Worth, and that’s what we want every Christian or every church to feel, a burden for their neighborhood and their city.
And then the second part is, as we get to know our city, we’re gonna find entry points, and one local church can’t do everything, and a part of kind of our discernment as a congregation is, okay, where can we put our resources the best? So we can’t do everything, but there is something by which we can make an impact and we can join God in his mission in this place, and I refer to that as missional vocation. We can have a missional vocation. And if I’m just by myself and I don’t know what to do and, you know, maybe a simple place to start is just get to know your neighbors. You know, just get to know the people on your street, in your cul‑de‑sac, the people in your circle. Get to know them, listen to them, learn about them, and just see what God does with that and see if there’s some great opportunity that comes from that by which you can serve that city. And part of that ‑‑ again, that could mean finding ways to proclaim the gospel, teaching scripture, Bible studies, or it could mean doing acts of mercy and justice, or doing them all at the same time. It’s not a one or the other; it’s a package deal, in my perspective, and so finding ways to do that would be important.
WES: Yeah, that is so rich. I’m going to link in the show notes an article that you wrote about just the difference that it would make if Christians would just be good neighbors in their communities. And I thought about the parables that Jesus taught about the nature of the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God didn’t come like other kingdoms did. Every other kingdom arrived on the scene with swords and spears, and it arrived with might and power and political influence and turnover, but the kingdom of God ‑‑ Jesus describes it like a little bit of leaven that’s hidden in the dough. It’s like a seed that’s planted in the ground. It takes time. And if we go in there and plant these seeds and become these people, not just as a project, not just looking at our neighbors as if they’re some sort of project, but that they are our friends, that we love them, that we feel for them what Jesus felt for them. And to your point throughout this whole conversation, it’s theological, it’s incarnational. We are becoming for them what Jesus became for us with our own flesh, and sometimes that means with our own money, with our own life, with our own being, being there for our neighbors and being part of God working through the Spirit to bring change in these communities, and I just can’t help but think, even just that ‑‑ you used the word “send,” and I love that from a missional standpoint, but sometimes the sending is staying, and it’s staying in a neighborhood and just stay there and be the people of God in that neighborhood and be neighbors to your neighbors.
STEVE: Right. Yeah, I like to use the phrase “sent and sending,” and so we send people out. As a church, we should send people out. Yes, let’s keep doing that, but let’s also be sent here now. And so can we be a sent and sending church? I think about the church in Antioch. They were a sent and sending church. They were engaging their neighbors, you know, as the gospel spreads ethnically, but then sending Paul and Barnabas out, too. And so could we have both of those elements? I think it’s really important.
I appreciate you bringing up the incarnation. I think the incarnation shows us not only that God became man, but God entered a place and he had an address, he had a post office box. Jesus of Nazareth, he grew up in a village, he had neighbors, he had people around him, and we follow that pattern, and so we should be an incarnational people, a placed people, where we say, hey, this city, city of Dallas, city of Memphis, this neighborhood that I live in, this is my place. This is a place where I can try to contextualize the gospel here, embody the gospel here, be a witness for Jesus here. And I think if we can have that mentality, our churches will be vibrant and exciting places to be because we’ll see God working in us, through us, and around us, and it’ll be a place of expectation and joy because we know we’re joining God in this mission and God’s working through us.
WES: Yeah, amen. Steve, I mean this from the bottom of my heart; you make me want to be a better missionary. You inspire me, you convict me, and I so, so appreciate the work that you’re doing in the kingdom, Brother.
STEVE: Well, thank you, Wes. I appreciate you. Appreciate the work you’re doing for the Lord, as well. It’s an honor to spend this time with you.
Faith Comes from Hearing the Word of God with Willie B. Williams
Apr 03, 2024
"Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17, NKJV). In this episode of the Radically Christian Bible Study Podcast, Wes McAdams and Willie B. Williams delve into the profound concept of faith and its pivotal role in the Christian life. They address the common struggles many believers face, such as discouragement, cynicism, and a defeatist attitude, which can hinder their faith. The discussion explores how these mindsets can limit our understanding of God's promises and our ability to witness His mighty works. Additionally, they tackle the crucial issue of unity within the church and how a lack of faith can impede the body of Christ from experiencing the oneness for which Jesus prayed.
How to Share the Gospel without Being Weird with Matthew Morine
Mar 27, 2024
Are you struggling with how to share the gospel without coming across as weird, awkward, or pushy? Many Christians want to reach their neighbors with the gospel but don’t know the best approach – especially with successful or wealthy individuals. This episode tackles those tough evangelism questions and dilemmas head-on. If you’ve ever felt intimidated […]
Why is Baptism Important and Beautiful? with Marcus Stenson
Mar 20, 2024
What is baptism such a big deal in the New Testament? Many Christians understand that baptism is important, but they may struggle to articulate the deep meaning behind this sacred act. In this episode of the Radically Christian Bible Study Podcast, Wes McAdams and his guest Marcus Stenson dive deep into the topic of baptism, addressing questions and concerns that many believers have. Whether you're new to the concept of baptism or have been a Christian for years, this episode will provide valuable insights and clarification on this crucial aspect of the Christian faith.
Understanding the Satan, Demons, and Spiritual Warfare with Eric Ramseur
Mar 13, 2024
Spiritual warfare, what is it and how do we engage in it? The Bible has a lot to say about spiritual beings, both good and evil. However, many of us are very uncomfortable thinking about spiritual forces, especially demons and "the satan." This episode of the Radically Christian Bible Study Podcast aims to address these perplexing issues and provide biblical insight into this often-misunderstood aspect of the Christian faith.
The Exodus and The Gospel with Stuart Peck
Mar 06, 2024
In this episode, Stuart Peck and Wes McAdams discuss the Exodus account and its relationship to the Gospel. They discuss how understanding the historical and cultural context of the ancient Israelites can deepen our appreciation for scripture and make it even more relatable to our lives today. Biblical characters grappled with very real issues in their specific historical setting, which can mirror our own struggles if understood properly.
Who is Welcome at the Lord’s Table? with Boo Scott
Feb 28, 2024
In today's Bible study, Wes McAdams and Boo Scott discuss the Lord's table. They examine Jesus' table fellowship in the Gospel of Luke and its implications for the Lord's Supper today. They also discuss what it really means to "discern the body" and take communion in a worthy manner.
Do We Need Bible Scholars? with Jeremie Beller
Feb 21, 2024
Are Bible scholars and Bible experts necessary for Christians to understand Scripture? Some feel that the Bible is simple and does not require scholarly interpretation, while others find the Bible intimidating due to its ancient languages, historical context, and complex meanings. This episode explores whether "average" Christians today need Bible scholars or can simply read scripture for themselves.
How We Read the Bible in Churches of Christ with John Mark Hicks
Feb 14, 2024
How should we read and understand the Bible? Wes McAdams interviews John Mark Hicks about different ways churches of Christ have interpreted the Bible, either using a "blueprint" approach focused on patterns for the church or a more theological approach centered on God's story and identity.
Healthy Church Leadership with Bob Turner
Feb 07, 2024
Many churches today lack strong spiritual leadership. Without godly elders to shepherd and guide them, congregations often struggle in their efforts to grow disciples and spread the gospel. In this episode, Wes McAdams discusses how to develop healthy leaders with Bob Turner.
A Biblical Response to LGBTQ+ Claims with Rubel Shelly
Jan 31, 2024
Many Christians today feel confused and conflicted about how to respond to LGBTQ claims in a Christlike way. In this culture of shifting sexual norms, what should our posture be? Can we hold to biblical truth while also extending compassion? This timely episode tackles these critical questions head-on. Dr. Rubel Shelly, our guest, provides clarity from Scripture and history on God's design for gender, sexuality, and marriage. Listen as Dr. Shelly and Wes McAdams discuss how to navigate these culturally controversial topics with both conviction and Christlike care.
The Strength to Be Weak with Jim Martin
Dec 20, 2023
Many men struggle with fears of appearing weak or incompetent, which can inhibit personal growth, transparency in relationships, and willingness to ask for help. In this episode, Wes McAdams interviews Jim Martin to discuss cultural pressures and misconceptions around masculinity that feed these fears. They explore how scripture and the example of Jesus provide a different model of true strength through humility and vulnerability.
Studying Romans 8 with Mitch Wiggains
Dec 13, 2023
In this conversation, Mitch Wiggains and Wes McAdams discuss Mitch's preaching series on Romans 8. They explore topics such as the evidence of transformation in the life of a Christian, the assurance of salvation, the difference between justification, sanctification, and glorification, and the importance of understanding the love of God. They also delve into the concept of adoption and the unshakable inheritance that believers have in Christ.
How to Dress for Worship with Chris McCurley
Dec 06, 2023
How should Christians dress for worship? This episode tackles the controversial question of what we should wear to worship. It addresses common opinions and justifications used to say we must dress up, examining problems like adding traditions as requirements, showing favoritism to the well-dressed, and binding personal convictions on others. Issues like legalism, stewardship, and unity are explored as they relate to this topic.
Developing a Global Perspective with Dan Bouchelle
Nov 29, 2023
In this episode of the Radically Christian Bible Study Podcast, Wes McAdams interviews Dan Bouchelle, president of Mission Resource Network, about gaining a global perspective on Christianity. Dan draws on his decades of experience preaching and working with churches worldwide to discuss problems facing the American church such as declining attendance, fear-based politics, and ethnocentrism.
How Christians Use Technology with Jason Helton
Nov 15, 2023
In this episode, Wes McAdams and Jason Helton discuss the impacts of technology on our lives and spirituality. They address questions like how various technologies over the past century have shaped culture and individuals, how our constant connectivity online can isolate us, and how we as Christians should think about and engage with technology in a wise and discerning way.
Studying the Gospel of John with Dan Chambers
Nov 08, 2023
In this episode of the Radically Christian Bible Study Podcast, Wes McAdams interviews Dan Chambers about his current preaching series on the Gospel of John. They discuss some of the deeper theological themes and symbols that are found in John's account, including how Jesus' first miracle of turning water into wine foreshadows the coming Messianic banquet. The conversation focuses on how Jesus fulfills Old Testament prophecies and institutions like the temple, and how believing in Christ is the only way to find lasting satisfaction and quench our deepest spiritual thirst.
Studying Grace, Faith, and Works with Kris Emerson
Oct 11, 2023
Many Christians struggle to understand the relationship between God's grace, our faith, and living a life of good works. Do we earn salvation by our righteous deeds? Does God's grace mean we don't have to work at all? In this episode, Wes McAdams interviews Kris Emerson about this important topic. They discuss common pitfalls like pride, burnout, and discouragement that happen when we don't understand the grace of God.
What can adoption teach us about the Gospel? In this episode of the Radically Christian Bible Study podcast Kyle and Leah Beard join Wes McAdams to share their story of building their family through adoption. They share how their faith motivated their decision and what it has taught them about God.
Studying the Body, Soul, and Spirit with Chris McCurley
Sep 27, 2023
Have you ever wondered what the Bible really teaches about the body, soul, and spirit? In this episode of the Radically Christian Bible Study Podcast, Chris McCurley and Wes McAdams tackle common misconceptions about these ideas that many Christians assume are biblical but are actually influenced more by Greek philosophy.
Studying Church Leadership with Clifton F. Webb
Sep 20, 2023
What does the Bible say about church leadership? That's what Clifton F. Webb has been preaching about recently at the Wayne Road Church of Christ in Romulus, Michigan. Wes McAdams and Clifton Webb discuss this very important subject in today's Bible Study Podcast.
Studying the Book of Acts with Marcus Stenson
Sep 13, 2023
What is the book of Acts all about? In today's Bible study Wes visits with Marcus Stenson, Preaching Minister for the Leander Church of Christ. Marcus has been preaching through the book of Acts and has some amazing insights to share.
Studying the Gospel of Matthew with Boo Scott
Sep 06, 2023
The Gospel of Matthew is what Boo Scott has been studying, teaching, and preaching lately. On this episode of the Bible Study Podcast, Wes McAdams visits with Boo Scott, Lead Minister for the National Park Church in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Wes and Boo discuss the Gospel of Matthew.
Studying Discipleship with Billy McGuiggan
Aug 23, 2023
What is discipleship? Billy McGuiggan has been studying and preaching on discipleship this year at the Three Chopt Church of Christ in Richmond, VA. In today's Bible study, Billy and Wes McAdams discuss this topic of discipleship.
In today's Bible study we are studying prayer with Clint Glitner. Clint is one of the ministers at the Sioux Falls Church of Christ. Both new Christians and seasoned disciples struggle with prayer, but are often afraid to talk about this struggle. Few people are willing to say what the disciples of Jesus said, "Lord, teach us to pray" (Luke 11:1). Why do we struggle with prayer and how can we improve our prayer life?
Studying Idols and False Gods with Jordan Arnold
Aug 09, 2023
We are studying idols and false gods on today's episode of the Bible Study Podcast. Our special guest today is Jordan Arnold. Jordan and his wife, Natalie, were missionaries in the Slovak Republic for 7 years. They now live in Oklahoma, where he preaches for the Hooker Church of Christ.
Studying the Sermon on the Mount with Chris McCurley
Aug 02, 2023
The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) is the subject of today's episode of The Bible Study Podcast. Today's special guest is Chris McCurley, preaching minister for the Walnut Street Church of Christ in Dickson, Tennessee. This is the first episode in a new series in which Wes interviews preachers about what they have been studying and teaching lately.
The Key to Reaching Our LGBTQ+ Neighbors
Jul 19, 2023
How can Christians reach our LGBTQ+ neighbors? In today's Bible Study podcast, Wes McAdams visits with Guy Hammond, the Executive Director and Founder of Strength in Weakness Ministries.
Looking for True Love: A Class on Christian Sexual Ethics
Jul 12, 2023
Today's Bible study on Christian sexual ethics was originally taught as a Wednesday night Bible class at the church of Christ on McDermott Road. This was the final lesson in a series entitled, "True Love: The Truth About Sexuality in a World of Competing Ideas."
Encouragement for Struggling Christian Parents
Jul 04, 2023
Are you a struggling Christian parent? Do you know a struggling Christian parent? Is there a chance you will be a struggling Christian parent in the future? If so, this Bible study is for you.
What is faith? Have you ever wondered how the Bible defines it? Does it just mean believing something is true or is there more to it than that? In today's Bible study, Wes McAdams and Travis Pauley discuss four related questions from one of our listeners:
Should Christians Use Violence – Part Two
Jun 20, 2023
Should Christians use violence to defend themselves and others? This is part two of a two-part series on Christians and violence. If you have not listened to part one, we would encourage you to listen to that conversation as well. In part one, Wes McAdams, Luke Dockery, Brandon Britton, and Steven Cuffle all shared how […]
Should Christians Use Violence – Part One
Jun 14, 2023
Should Christians use violence to defend themselves and others? What does the Bible say? What did early Christians think about violence? In today's Bible study, Wes McAdams visits with Luke Dockery, Brandon Britton, and Steven Cuffle about this highly controversial topic.
Make the Church More Masculine? Is the Church too Feminine?
May 31, 2023
Make the church more masculine? It has been suggested that the church is too feminine and we should make it more masculine, especially if we want to reach young men.
If Anyone Will Not Work, Neither Shall He Eat
May 14, 2023
"If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat" (2 Thessalonians 3:10). These are words the apostle Paul wrote to the church in Thessalonica, but what do they mean in context and how do we apply them today?
Galatians 5:18 says, “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.” So, how are Christians led by the Spirit? In today’s episode, Wes McAdams and Chase Turner discuss that question.
“Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven,” these are the words Jesus to Peter and his apostles. Jesus also went on to say, “and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” What does it mean to bind or loose? Does it mean the apostles had the authority to create their own rules and regulations? What sort of authority was Jesus giving his followers and why?
What is heaven like? That is the question Kenny Embry and Wes McAdams discuss on today's episode. This episode originally aired on Kenny's podcast, "Balancing the Christian Life." He graciously allowed us to republish it for subscribers of the "Radically Christian Bible Study Podcast" to hear as well.
How to live as unashamed Christians. In this episode of the Radically Christian Bible Study podcast, Wes McAdams and Travis Pauley respond to an email from a teen listener who wrote, "I was wondering if you could talk about teenagers and being proud of being a Christian. I know a lot of teenagers these days hide the fact that they are Christian or lie and say they aren’t because they fear they’ll lose their friends or be made fun of. I know personally I struggle with this, because from time to time religion comes into the conversation and I know a lot of teenagers and some adults fear they’ll be judged based on their religious beliefs."
Issues We Deal with in the Church Today
Mar 27, 2023
Today's episode first aired on The Wise Disciple Podcast, hosted by Logan Judy. Wes McAdams and Logan Judy discuss biblical literacy, political partisanship, and how to navigate controversial issues in the culture. We appreciate receiving permission to publish this episode on our channel as well.
How to Ask Better Questions of the Bible
Mar 19, 2023
Asking good questions of the Bible is a more challenging task than many suppose. When we have a question about something, it seems pretty straightforward to simply ask, “What does the Bible say about this?” But if we are not careful, the answers we find might say more about our own assumptions than they do […]
Does God do evil? Today's Bible study revolves around two related questions from listeners. The first is, "How would I answer an unbelieving neighbor who asked, 'How does your God get all credit and none of the blame?'" And the second question is:
A better-safe-than-sorry theology is one that wants to do what is right and good. But, unfortunately, it also tends to portray God as being a God of technicalities, who punishes people for making honest procedural mistakes. Furthermore, these procedures are often not based on the explicit teaching of Scripture, but on certain assumptions that are […]
Was Jesus All-Knowing (During His Earthly Ministry)?
Feb 06, 2023
Was Jesus all-knowing? Or, to put it another way, was Jesus omniscient? That is the question Wes McAdams and Travis Pauley discuss in today's Bible study.
Will we have free will in heaven? Or, as one of our listeners worded it very well, "On the new earth after judgment will we still have free will? If so, would there ever be a danger of rebelling again?"
Give Thanks in All Circumstances – Practicing Gratitude
Jan 23, 2023
“Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). These are the words Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica. But what does it mean to give thanks in all circumstances? What about when we are hurting or suffering? Are we really supposed to give thanks in those circumstances? Is it naive, or cruel, to expect people to give thanks in these painful circumstances?
Common Misunderstandings About Evangelism
Jan 09, 2023
In today's Bible study, Wes McAdams visits with Jacob Hawk about evangelism. What is evangelism? What are some common misunderstandings about evangelism? What passages of Scripture should shape our thinking about evangelism?
What do we mean when we call something biblical? What does biblical mean? How can you tell whether or not a certain behavior is biblical? In this Bible study, Wes McAdams and Matt Mead discuss how certain “summary texts” can help us better define what is or isn’t biblical. Matt Mead is the Family Life […]
Christian Nationalism: What Is It and Is It a Problem?
Dec 11, 2022
In today's Bible study, Wes McAdams discusses Christian nationalism with special guest, Jacob Rutledge. What is Christian nationalism and is it a problem? Are Christianity and nationalism compatible or are they antithetical worldviews? What does the Bible teach us to help us navigate this issue? These are some of the questions we explore in today's Bible study.
How should Christians think about gender roles? Are they a consequence of the fall or are they part of the created order? In today's Bible study, Wes McAdams and Travis Pauley continue their discussion about gender roles.
How does gender relate to creation and the fall? Did sin enter the world through Adam or through Eve? These are some of the questions we are discussing in today's Bible study, which is the first in a two-part series. In this Bible study, Wes McAdams and Travis Pauley discuss passages from Genesis 1-3, Romans 5, and 1 Timothy 2.
How I Study the Bible with Logos Bible Software (Logos 10 Review)
Nov 14, 2022
How to study the Bible using Logos Bible Software. In today's Bible study, Wes McAdams demonstrates the power of Logos Bible Software. Our friends at Logos have upgraded us to Logos 10 and you will see many of the new features and how it might be able to benefit your Bible studies and lesson preparation. Logos is also offering some great deals for our audience. Visit https://RadicallyChristian.com/logos
What advice would you give to new Christians? Today's Bible study is a response to a question we received from one of our listeners, who wrote, "I am a new Christian, who recently gave her life to Christ, and I want to know what should I do next. What should I do next to honor Jesus and to let others know about my decision to follow Christ?"
Speak Where the Bible Speaks and Be Silent Where It is Silent
Oct 24, 2022
"Speak where the Bible speaks and be silent where the Bible is silent" is a well-known phrase within the Restoration Movement. In today's Bible study, Wes McAdams and Travis Pauley discuss whether or not this phrase is similar to Paul's instruction to not, "go beyond what is written" (1 Corinthians 4:6).
What Does Romans 8:20 Mean? Creation Subjected to Futility?
Oct 10, 2022
What does Romans 8:20 mean? In Romans 8:20-21, Paul says, "For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God." What does "creation" mean in this passage? What does it mean that creation was subjected to futility? And what does it mean that creation will be set free from its bondage?
What Does 1 Corinthians 5:5 Mean? Deliver This Man to Satan
Sep 18, 2022
What does 1 Corinthians 5:5 mean? In 1 Corinthians 5:5, Paul says, "You are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord." What is Paul telling the church in Corinth to do? What does the phrase, "Deliver to Satan" mean? And to what does "destruction of the flesh" refer?
What’s More Important, Reconciliation with God or People?
Sep 13, 2022
Today's Bible study revolves around a quote from one of Wes' recent sermons. He said, "The Gospel is as much about reconciling people with one another as it is reconciling people with God." Travis asks Wes to explain and expound upon this idea.
What Does Leviticus 15 Mean? Ritually Unclean
Sep 05, 2022
What does Leviticus 15 mean? This chapter of Leviticus deals specifically with "bodily discharges." Why is a bodily discharge unclean and why does it make people and objects unclean? What is uncleanness all about?
What is a cruciform hermeneutic? A hermeneutic is the lens through which we interpret and apply Scripture. And cruciform means something is shaped like the cross. So, what would it look like to let the cross of Jesus be the lens through which we interpret and apply Scripture? That is the question Wes McAdams and Travis Pauley discuss in this Bible study.
What Does Matthew 19:9 Mean? Marriage and Divorce
Jun 13, 2022
What does Matthew 19:9 mean? Jesus said, "Whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery" (Matthew 19:9). What does Jesus mean by these very startling words? This passage has been the source of much debate, confusion, and heartache. But Jesus spoke these words to bless people, not to curse them.
The Bible and Bioethics: IVF, Embryo Adoption, and More
May 30, 2022
How does the Bible shape our thinking about biology and ethics? Medical technology has alleviated much pain and suffering, but it has also created ethical questions and dilemmas for Christians. How should Christians navigate questions about life, biology, health, and science?
What Does Genesis 9:20-27 Mean? (The Sin of Ham & Curse of Canaan)
May 22, 2022
What does Genesis 9:20-27 mean? What was Ham's sin and why was his son, Canaan, cursed because of Ham's sin? The story begins in Genesis 9:20-22, which says, "Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard. He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside." Because of this sin, Ham's son, Canaan, is cursed by Noah. What is going on in this story?
What Does Hebrews 6:4-6? (Impossible to Restore)
May 15, 2022
What does Hebrews 6:4-6 mean? The passage says, "For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt." Does this mean it is impossible for people to be saved if they fall away from Christ? Were those who fall away ever saved? How should we understand and apply this warning?
What Does 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 Mean? (Women Keep Silent?)
May 08, 2022
heir husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church." Does Paul mean that women should not talk to others when the church gathers together? Is it not okay for women to sing in the church? What does this passage mean?
What Does 2 Corinthians 6:14 Mean? (Unequally Yoked)
Apr 18, 2022
What does 2 Corinthians 6:14 mean, "Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?" What is the context of 2 Corinthians 6:14? What did Paul mean when he wrote this to the Corinthian church? And how can Christians apply these words to our lives today?
What Does 1 Timothy 2:15 Mean? (Saved Through Childbearing)
Apr 11, 2022
What does 1 Timothy 2:15 mean when it says, "She will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control"? What does childbearing have to do with being saved?
Gender Issues (Hope for the Future of the Church)
Feb 28, 2022
What does it mean to be masculine? What does it mean to be feminine? Did God make men and women totally unique? Is gender just a social construct? Discussions about these matters can be filled with anger, fear, division, and frustration, but that doesn't have to be the case. We can have hope-filled conversations about gender.
Doctrinal Differences (Hope for the Future of the Church)
Feb 21, 2022
Can the church be unified when we disagree on certain aspects of our faith? What hope is there for the future of the church when there is so much disagreement?
Post-Christian Culture (Hope for the Future of the Church)
Feb 14, 2022
Is it accurate to think of American culture as “post-Christian” and how can the church thrive in a culture like this? This is part two of our series, “Hope for the Future of the Church.” About the Series: The pandemic, politics, and a rapidly changing culture have left a lot of Christians are feeling uncertain […]
Hope for the Future of the Church: Church Attendance
Feb 07, 2022
This is part one of our new series, "Hope for the Future of the Church." In this episode, we will discuss why we should be hopeful about the future of church attendance.
Eschatology: What Is It and Why Is It Important?
Jan 17, 2022
One of the most important words in theological conversations is "eschatology." But what does "eschatology" mean and why is it so important? Wes McAdams and Marcus Stenson define and discuss eschatology. Marcus is the High School Minister at the church of Christ on McDermott Road and a passionate evangelist.
In today’s Bible study, Wes McAdams visits with Clifton F. Webb about intellectual virtues and critical thinking skills. What does it mean to be a critical thinker and why is it important for students of Scripture? One example from Scripture is the Bereans of Acts 17:11, “Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; […]
What Does it Mean that the Bible is Inspired?
Jan 03, 2022
What are we actually claiming when we say the Bible is inspired? In today's Bible study, Wes McAdams visits with Steven Cuffle and Dr. Jared Saltz about some of the major theories and views about biblical inspiration. How should we define inspiration? What are some of the major differences between different theories of inspiration? What are the pros and cons of each theory? Can we have fellowship with one another if we have slightly different ideas about the inspiration of Scripture?
Appearing Before the Judgment Seat of Christ
Nov 29, 2021
What does it mean that we will all appear before the judgment seat of Christ? In today's Bible study, Wes and Travis discuss a question from a listener: "Growing up in the church I heard it said quite often we’d sit at the judgment seat. We will give an account for all our sins….almost like a line-by-line reading of everything we’ve done wrong. I’ve also heard many sermons saying that God has wiped away all our sins and remembers them no more (perhaps magnified with studies on grace that I was never exposed to as a child). So are sins forgotten or will we have to give an account!?!?"
What does it mean when the Bible says faith is counted as righteousness? In Romans 4, Paul discusses how Abraham’s “faith was counted to him as righteousness.” Abraham believed “God was able to do what he had promised” and because of that faith, God considered Abraham to righteous. More importantly, Paul goes on to say […]
Today's Bible study discussion was prompted by a listener named Isabella, who wrote in to ask about becoming a better Christian. Isabella feels she is too focused on worldly things and doesn't do enough for the Lord. She wants to overcome some of her struggles with sin. She fears she has been lazy and disobedient.
In whose name should we be baptized? Should we baptize people in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Or should we baptize people simply in the name of Jesus?
What the Bible Says About the Flesh and the Spirit
Nov 01, 2021
In today's Bible study, Wes and Travis discuss the flesh and the Spirit. The apostle Paul taught that there is sin dwelling in the "flesh" of every person. Because of the sin in our flesh, even when we want to do what is right, we lack "the ability to carry it out" (Romans 7:18). Every human being is trapped in a cycle of sin and death.
Does Christianity Grow in Times of Persecution (Part 2 of 2)
Oct 25, 2021
This discussion on persecution is part two of a two-part series. If you haven’t already done so, you may want to listen to the first episode in this series: “Is Political Privilege Harmful to Christianity?“ Last week we began considering the question, “Why is Christianity growing in some countries but declining in others?” In that […]
Is Political Privilege Harmful to Christianity? (Part One)
Oct 19, 2021
oday's Bible study. According to an article by Nilya Saiya, the answer is "political privilege." Saiya argues that it is not governmental persecution, but rather governmental support that is one of the biggest threats to the growth of Christianity in a country. Saiya reports, "As governmental support for Christianity increases, the number of Christians declines significantly."
Many congregations preface Communion with short Communion talks. This Communion talk typically consists of a Scripture reading and a few thoughts to help the church prepare emotionally and mentally for sharing the bread and the cup. Today's Bible study will hopefully be an encouragement to those who lead in this capacity.
The Best Marriage Advice in the Bible
Sep 13, 2021
What is the best marriage advice in the Bible? It may not be what you think. Hollee and Wes McAdams discuss why much of the marriage advice given today in books, seminars, and by well-meaning individuals often does not get to the heart of the issue.
Forgiven people forgive people. In today's Bible Study, Wes McAdams discusses forgiveness with Billy McGuiggan. For followers of Jesus, it is important that we both experience and extend forgiveness. Unfortunately, many of us tend to struggle with both of these aspects of forgiveness.
Today's Bible Study considers the question, what is an evangelist? This question comes from Jeff, who asks, "Over the past year or two, I’ve thought a lot about the role of the evangelist and what exactly Paul means to “do the work of the evangelist” (2 Tim 4:5). It’s interesting that the word form εὐαγγελιστής is only used 3x in the NT, yet we build a lot of our congregational ministry in the churches of Christ around that role/office.
Holding Ourselves to a Higher Standard
Aug 23, 2021
Every follower of Jesus should hold himself or herself to a higher standard than they hold anyone else. Today's Bible study was prompted by one of Travis' favorite quotes from "The Chosen" television series. In Season Two, Episode 1, Jesus says, “I ask a lot of those who follow me, but I ask little of those who do not.”
What is karma? What does the Bible say about karma? Should Christians believe in karma? These are some of the questions Wes McAdams and Travis Pauley discuss in today’s Bible study. This episode was prompted by a listener named Jonathan. Buddhism and Hinduism teach karma in connection with reincarnation. These religions believe your current life […]
What if someone is baptized for the wrong reason? What does the Bible say about the validity of a baptism that was for the wrong reason? Christians have debated these types of questions for centuries. People worry whether they knew enough, believed the right things, or did everything in the right way for their baptism […]
Wes McAdams interviews Michael Whitworth about his new book, The Son's Supremacy: A Guide to Hebrews. If you are interested in an encouraging and in-depth study of Hebrews, "The Son's Supremacy" is an excellent help. Whitworth is an incredibly talented, knowledgable, and engaging author. His book will help many better understand the book of Hebrews.
When Our Heart Condemns Us (1 John 3:20)
Jul 26, 2021
1 John 3:20 says, "...whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart"? What does John mean by this? That is the question Wes McAdams and Travis Pauley discuss in today's Bible study.
Is Stoicism Compatible with Christianity?
Jul 19, 2021
Is stoicism compatible with Christianity? In what ways does stoic philosophy agree with Christian thought? In what ways does stoic philosophy contradict Christian thought? These are some of the questions Wes McAdams and Travis Pauley discuss on today’s podcast. This discussion was prompted by one of our listeners, Ryan, who has noticed an increasing number […]
What is the “Perfect” in 1 Corinthians 13:10?
Jul 12, 2021
What is the “perfect” in 1 Corinthians 13:10? That is the question that Wes and Travis tackle in today’s Bible study. This question was raised by a listner, who wrote, “1 Corinthians 13:10 says, ‘but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.’ I’ve always heard (and my husband still firmly believes) ‘the perfect’ […]
Today’s question comes from Stephen Scaggs, who writes, “Paul often gives a theology to work. Will we work in the new creation? What does it mean ‘their work follows them’? In connection to the bodily resurrection, what does it mean when Paul says our work is ‘not in vain’? Should we love our work?” In […]
Today's Bible study discussion revolves around the question, "Was Jesus harsh with people?" This question was prompted by listener Randall Dickey. Should we perceive Jesus as a harsh person? Was he harsh, in general? Why did Jesus have moments, like the cleansing of the temple, when he was relatively harsh? Should we imitate Jesus' "harsh" behavior? These are some of the questions we tackle in today's Bible study and we hope this conversation is a blessing to you.
Should We Obey God Out of Love or Fear?
Jun 07, 2021
Should we obey God out of love or fear? This is what listener Neal Cook would like to know. Neal asked about the contrast between Ecclesiastes 12:13-14, which says: “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will […]
Coping with the Fall of Spiritual Leaders
May 30, 2021
How do we cope when spiritual leaders fall? Is it possible to keep them from falling? Can we ensure their fall doesn't bring us down with them? Is there a way to prevent such people from becoming leaders in the first place? These are very difficult questions, but they are questions with which the church must wrestle.
What is Sexual Immorality in the Bible?
May 24, 2021
Wes McAdams and Caleb Cochran discuss a question about sexual immorality, which was submitted by one of our listeners, “The bible references sexual immorality pretty often, but what does that mean exactly? I feel like that’s a vague term and would have a very difficult time explaining it to someone wanting to pursue Christ.” Special […]
Can Christians Be Unified When We Disagree?
May 17, 2021
Wes McAdams and Steven Cuffle discuss the issue of Christian unity. We all know that Christian unity is important, but why is it important and how can it be achieved? Christians have been arguing and fighting with one another for nearly 2,000 years. So, how can we be unified when we disagree on so many […]
Justice (Part Two): Biblical Justice Versus Secular Justice
May 10, 2021
Wes McAdams and Steven Cuffle continue their discussion on how the Bible defines justice. In this episode, biblical justice is compared to four other justice theories. How do secular thinkers define justice and how do those definitions compare with the Bible's definition of justice? Is it possible that we, as Christians, have adopted a secular view of justice more than a biblical view?
Justice (Part One): How the Bible Describes Justice
May 03, 2021
What does the Bible say about justice and how does the Bible’s definition of justice compare to modern theories about justice? This is the topic Wes McAdams and special guest, Steven Cuffle, will be discussing in this two-part conversation. In this first episode, Wes and Steven discuss the various aspects of justice in both the […]
How Should Christians Handle Fake News?
Apr 27, 2021
On this episode of the Radically Christian Bible Study Podcast, Wes McAdams and today's guest, Luke Dockery, discuss a question from a listener about the fake news phenomenon. How should Christians respond to the fake new phenomenon? How can Christians have more discernment about what is true and discretion about what to share? We hope you enjoy this conversation.
Jesus’ Parable of the Shrewd Manager (Luke 16:1-13)
Apr 19, 2021
Wes McAdams and today's guest, Luke Dockery, discuss the meaning of Jesus' parable of the shrewd, dishonest, or unjust manager from Luke 16:1-13. What does Jesus mean by commending a dishonest or shrewd man? What does Jesus mean when he says, "Make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth" (Luke 16:9)? Is Jesus being ironic or is Jesus teaching us how we should use money? Wes and Luke discuss both possibilities. Special thanks to John Shipley, one of our listeners, who submitted this question for discussion.
How Christians Respond to Cancel Culture
Mar 15, 2021
Wes McAdams and his wife, Hollee McAdams, discuss "cancel culture." It is often assumed that cancel culture is something new. But in reality, every culture has canceled people for violating certain core values. Wes and Hollee discuss questions like: What is cancel culture? Is it always wrong to cancel people? What should be the goal of correction and discipline? What does the Bible say about cancel culture?
Doing Justice and Being Justified by Faith
Mar 08, 2021
Our Bible study question today revolves around being justified by faith. Wes McAdams, Caleb Kirkwood, and Travis Pauley study through Romans 3 and discuss words like justice, righteousness, and justification. What does it mean to be justified by faith? What does God's justice look like? What does it look like for justified people to do justice? We hope you enjoy this conversation.
Washing of Regeneration and Renewal of the Holy Spirit
Mar 01, 2021
Today's discussion was prompted by a listener, who asked, "What does the phrase, 'washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit' mean?" This phrase comes from Titus 3:5 and is the text that Wes McAdams, Caleb Kirkwood, and Travis Pauley discuss in this episode.
The Future of Church Attendance – Bible Study Podcast
Feb 22, 2021
Wes McAdams visits with Travis Pauley and Caleb Kirkwood (who are both in their 20s) to consider their unique perspective on how worship attendance will fair in a post-covid world. Will young people return to worship after the threat of the pandemic has subsided? Will live streaming have negative long-term effects on the future of the church? These are some of the questions we discuss in this episode of the Bible study podcast.
Five Acts of Worship? – Bible Study Podcast
Feb 15, 2021
Wes McAdams, Travis Pauley, and Caleb Kirkwood discuss the idea that there are only five acts of worship and that all five must be practiced each time we gather.
What Does Jesus Say About Christian Leadership? – Bible Study Podcast
Feb 08, 2021
Wes McAdams, Travis Pauley, and Caleb Kirkwood discuss the idea of "servant leadership" and what Jesus really has to say about being a leader and becoming a leader. How is leadership different for servant's of God's kingdom?
What do people mean when they refer to a sinful nature? Do we have a sinful nature? If so, how do we overcome our sinful nature? The Lord said, "I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth" (Genesis 8:21). What did he mean by this? These are some of the questions Wes McAdams, Caleb Kirkwood, and Travis Pauley discuss and study in this episode of the Bible study podcast.
What is the Unforgivable Sin? A Discussion on the Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit
Jan 25, 2021
Is there a sin that is unforgivable? What did Jesus mean when he said, "Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come" (Matthew 12:32)? Wes, Travis, and Caleb Kirkwood discuss a question from a listener concerning, blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, the unforgivable sin.
Communion Thoughts: Discerning the Body
Jan 18, 2021
Concerning the Lord's Supper, or Communion, the Apostle Paul wrote, "For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself" (1 Corinthians 11:29). What does it mean to discern the body? Are we to think about the body of Christ on the cross or the body of Christ, the church? Is "Communion" about communing with the Lord or communing with each other? These are the questions we consider and study in today's Bible Study Podcast.
Wes McAdams and Travis Pauley discuss a listener's question concerning Romans 5:3-5, which says, "We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." They compare Romans 5:3-5 with a well-known saying, "Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny" (Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching).
Reading a whole book of the Bible in one sitting is easier, and more rewarding, than you might think. After all, if you received a letter from a friend, you would likely not read it one sentence at a time, but rather the entire letter all at once. The vast majority of New Testament books are letters, written to individuals and church families. They were intended to be read in one sitting. Travis and Wes discuss the power of reading books this way and also read through the book of Philippians from beginning to end.
What is the Kingdom of Heaven (Part 6): New and Old Treasures
Dec 28, 2020
In this sixth and final episode of our series, "What is the Kingdom of Heaven?" Wes and Travis discuss Jesus' words in Matthew 13:52, "Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.” What does Jesus mean by treasure that is new and treasure that is old? What is a scribe that that has been trained for the kingdom of heaven?
What is the Kingdom of Heaven (Part 5): The Parable of the Net
Dec 15, 2020
As Jesus continues to unfold hidden truths about the nature of heaven's kingdom, he describes the kingdom as a net that is spread across the whole world. What does this parable reveal about God's kingdom? What does this parable reveal about the way God deals with evil? How would this parable change our lives if we took its implications seriously? We hope you enjoy this Bible study discussion with Wes McAdams and Travis Pauley.
What is the Kingdom of Heaven (Part 4): Hidden Treasure and Valuable Pearl
Nov 16, 2020
As we continue our ongoing discussion about the nature of the kingdom of heaven, Wes McAdams and Travis Pauley discuss Jesus' parables about the hidden treasure and the pearl of great value (Matthew 13:44-46). What do these two parables teach us about the nature of the kingdom? What do these two parables teach us about how we are to receive the kingdom?
What is the Kingdom of Heaven (Part 3): Mustard Seed and Leaven
Nov 09, 2020
As Wes McAdams and Travis Pauley continue their series on, “What is the Kingdom of Heaven,” they discuss the parables of the mustard seed and the leaven (Matthew 13:31-33). What does it mean that the kingdom of heaven is like a tiny mustard seed that grows into a large tree? What does it mean that […]
What is the Kingdom of Heaven (Part 2): The Parable of Wheat and Tares
Nov 02, 2020
In the second episode of our series, "What is the Kingdom of Heaven?" Wes and Travis discuss Jesus' parable of the wheat and the tares (Matthew 13:24-30). Perhaps the most surprising feature of the kingdom of heaven is that it will overlap the kingdoms of the world for a period of time. Though the kingdom of heaven has come, we continue to deal with the seeds the evil one has sown in the world.
What is the Kingdom of Heaven: The Parable of the Soils
Oct 26, 2020
What is the kingdom of heaven? Over the next several episodes, Wes McAdams and Travis Pauley will discuss several parables from Matthew 13, which reveal the nature of the kingdom of heaven. On this episode, Wes and Travis discuss how we should think about parables, as well as the first parable in Matthew 13, “The […]
In this episode of the Bible Study Podcast, Wes and Travis continue their discussion on asking better Bible questions. What is an assumption? What assumptions do we make when we study the Bible? What can the Sadducees teach us about making assumptions when we study the Bible? How can we develop better assumptions?
On this episode of the Bible Study Podcast, Travis and Wes discuss how to ask better questions when we are reading and studying the Bible. How are we supposed to approach scripture as followers of Jesus? What's the difference between deductive and inductive Bible study? Does the Bible answer all of our questions?
Racism and the Early Church (Part Two)
Jun 15, 2020
In this week’s episode, Wes continues his conversation on racism in the early church with Andrew, the host of the popular “Post-Apostolic Church” YouTube channel. Racism, classism, and other forms of discrimination have plagued our world for centuries. Not only is the church wrestling with these issues today, Christians in the First, Second, and Third centuries dealt with them as well. We will allow some of the theologians and leaders from the early church to help us think through how we should treat one another as followers of Jesus. If you missed Part One of this conversation, you can find it here.
Racism and the Early Church (Part One)
Jun 08, 2020
Racism, classism, and other forms of discrimination have plagued our world for centuries. Not only is the church wrestling with these issues today, Christians in the First, Second, and Third centuries dealt with them as well. On this week’s episode, Wes discusses racism in the early church with Andrew, the host of the popular “Post-Apostolic Church” YouTube channel. Quotes from church leaders, living in the centuries following the apostles, can be incredibly helpful for those of us trying to live out the Gospel today.
Forgiveness and Reconciliation: What Does the Bible Say About Forgiveness?
May 04, 2020
On this episode of the Bible Study Podcast, Travis and Wes discuss a listener's question about the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation. Is there a difference? Wes walks through the parable of the Unforgiving Servant, which reminds us that when we have an opportunity to forgive, we are being given the chance to reenact the forgiveness Christ has given us.
Questions About Death: Where Do We Go and Is Cremation Wrong?
Apr 20, 2020
On this episode of the Bible Study Podcast, Travis and Wes discuss two questions from listeners that both revolve around the issue of death and resurrection. If our bodies will be raised and transformed, is it wrong for a Christian to be cremated? Also, between death and resurrection, where do our spirits reside? Though these are sensitive questions, we pray you find encouragement and hope from this study.
In today's Bible study, we continue to discuss our hope for "new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells" (2 Peter 3:13). If you haven't had a chance to listen to the first episode in this "New Heavens, New Earth" series or to last year's conversation with Joshua Pappas, you might want to listen to those conversations as well.
In today's Bible study, we explore the biblical phrase, "New heavens and new earth." It may surprise you to learn that the Bible never says Christians are waiting to go to heaven, but it does say we are "waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells" (2 Peter 3:13). This is the first part of a two-part series, so make sure you subscribe to the podcast, so you don't miss the second part of the "new heavens new earth" series.
In today's Bible study, we continue to discuss Jesus' favorite title for himself, "Son of Man." If you haven't had a chance to listen to the first episode in this series, make sure you go back and listen to that episode as well. Understanding Jesus' humanity and his role in our lives, as well as his role in the Universe, is of the utmost importance. We hope you are encouraged by this Bible study.
In today's Bible study, we talk about Jesus' favorite title for himself, "Son of Man." In the Bible, what does "Son of Man" mean and, specifically, what does it mean for Jesus to be the "Son of Man"? Most importantly, what relevance does Jesus' humanity have to our lives today? This is the first of a two-part series. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast, so you don't miss the second part of this series.
Role of Women: Can Women Serve Communion
Feb 24, 2020
Today’s Bible study question comes from a listener named Charles, who asks, “Wes, Is it right or wrong for women to serve the communion, as long as they are not leading prayer or reading scripture?” Wes and Travis discuss this issue. We hope this discussion is unifying, rather than divisive.
Elders and Marriage: The Husband of One Wife
Feb 17, 2020
In today’s Bible study, Wes and Travis discuss an email from a listener named Gayla, who wants to know about various applications of 1 Timothy 3:2. Does being the husband of one wife disqualify men who have been divorced? What about men who have been widowed? This discussion impacts many churches and we hope it is helpful.
Overeating and Gluttony: What Does the Bible Say About the Way We Eat?
Feb 10, 2020
In today’s Bible study, Wes and Travis discuss a listener’s question about obesity, gluttony, and overeating. What does the Bible say on this issue? Is overeating a spiritual issue? How might our relationship with God help us deal with this issue? We hope you find this study and discussion helpful.
Saved by Faith: At What Point Are We Saved?
Feb 03, 2020
Welcome back to the Radically Christian Bible Study podcast! In the first Bible study of 2020, Wes and Travis discuss a listener’s question about faith, baptism, and salvation. In part, the listener would like to know how to respond to those who believe a person is saved before baptism. Hope you find this conversation helpful and encouraging.
Travis and Wes want to thank you all for listening and participating in these Bible study conversations. This will be the last episode for 2019, but plans are already being made for more Bible studies in 2020. Stay tuned.
The Congregation: What is Your Responsibility to the Local Church?
Dec 16, 2019
In today’s Bible study Wes and Travis talk about each individual Christian’s obligation to the local church family. Should we try to be at every church service? Is it wrong to be out of town on the weekends, leaving our church family’s short-handed? What should leaders in small congregations do to encourage participation in church events and gatherings?
Head Coverings: How Does 1 Corinthians 11 Apply Today?
Dec 09, 2019
In today’s Bible study, Wes and Travis discuss Paul’s instructions about hair length and head coverings in 1 Corinthians 11? Should men not have long hair? Should women cover their head in church? Were these simply cultural issues that have no modern application, or are there lessons and principles from 1 Corinthians 11 that still apply today?
Religious Holidays: Do Christians Have Authority to Celebrate Holidays
Dec 01, 2019
In today's Bible study we answer a voicemail question from Rachel about celebrating religious holidays, like Christmas and Easter. Is there a biblical precedent for celebrating these man-made religious holidays? Should Christians be in favor, opposed, or indifferent to the celebrations? And perhaps, most importantly, how do we treat those with whom we disagree?
Bible in Context: Thoughts on Studying the Bible
Nov 18, 2019
In today’s Bible study we discuss what context means, why context is so important, and how to actually consider the context of a passage when studying the Bible. We also discuss the lens through which every passage of the Bible should be read. We hope you enjoy this Bible study.
Singing with the Church: Why I Believe in A cappella Singing
Nov 11, 2019
In today’s Bible study, we discuss what the New Testament says about singing and why many choose to sing a cappella in the worship assembly. But even more important than “how” we sing, we explore the biblical reasons for “why” we sing. We hope you enjoy this Bible study.
Justice and Mercy: How Christians responded to Botham Jean’s Murder
Nov 04, 2019
Today's Bible study revolves around the issues of justice, racial reconciliation, mercy, and forgiveness. These topics have been top of mind lately after the recent shooting of Botham Jean and the trial of former Dallas police officer, Amber Guyger.
Holy Spirit: How Does the Holy Spirit Speak to Us Today?
Oct 21, 2019
Today's Bible Study revolves around an excellent question that was posted in the Radically Christian Facebook community. The question was, "Does the Holy Spirit speak to believers? I am being told by our brethren that the Holy Spirit was only for the apostles and only until the Word was complete. I am having difficulty understanding this. Please help me as I continue to read the Word and prayerfully seek to understand."
The Gospel: What does “Gospel” mean in the Bible?
Oct 14, 2019
Today’s Bible study will dig deep on the word, “Gospel.” We talk about Gospel preaching, Gospel singers, the four Gospels, but what does this word “Gospel” actually mean? Is it about how to go to heaven when we die or is it something more? Let’s consider what the whole Bible, both New and Old Testament, has to say on the topic of the Gospel.
1 Peter 3:21: How Does Baptism Save Us?
Oct 07, 2019
Today’s Bible study will explore 1 Peter 3:21, where Peter writes, “Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” Before we discuss baptism, we need to know what “save” refers to in the […]
Spiritually Dead: Is “Spiritual Death” in the Bible?
Sep 30, 2019
Today’s Bible study will cover the topic of being “spiritually dead.” What do people mean when they say a person is spiritually dead? Is the idea of being spiritually dead actually found in the Bible? Is there a different way, a more biblical way, to understand passages like Ephesians 2:1, “dead in the trespasses and […]
Changes to the Podcast – CrossTalk S4E13
Sep 09, 2019
There are some big changes coming to the podcast! Instead of the CrossTalk format, in which we typically have an informal conversation about "life and faith," we will start having more in-depth Bible studies on topics and passages about which you're curious.
Music in the Old Testament – CrossTalk S4E12
Sep 02, 2019
On today's episode, I have an argument with myself about instrumental music in the Old Testament. A few years back, I wrote an article about the use of instrumental music in Old Testament worship, but reading that article today makes me cringe because I have changed a lot since then. Though I still believe it is best for churches to sing a cappella, many of my thoughts and arguments in that article were just wrong. So, on today's episode, I sat down with my old article and argued with myself.
Today's discussion about the Holy Spirit is a conversation I had with my friend Scott Elliott. Scott is doing a series of video interviews, called, "Five Questions." He asked me to be a guest on his series to discuss five questions on the Holy Spirit. He graciously allowed me to share the audio of that conversation with you.
Theories of Atonement – CrossTalk S4E10
Aug 19, 2019
What does it mean for Jesus to have died for our sins? In this episode, my friend Stephen Scaggs joins me to talk about various "theories" of atonement. In other words, various ways theologians have understood the mechanics of how the blood of Jesus covers the sins of Jesus' people.
Thoughts on Marriage – CrossTalk S4E9
Aug 12, 2019
I couldn't ask for a better wife than the one with whom God blessed me. My wife, Hollee McAdams, joins me on the CrossTalk Podcast to talk about marriage. We talk about our marriage specifically, but also marriage in general. Together Hollee and I responded to the following questions and topics, submitted by members of the Radically Christian Community...
Church of Christ News – CrossTalk S4E7
Jul 22, 2019
What are some of the encouraging things happening in churches of Christ throughout the world? Bobby Ross Jr., the Editor-in-Chief at The Christian Chronicle shares his thoughts about some of the things happening in churches of Christ across the nation and the world. If you're not familiar with The Christian Chronicle, it is an international newspaper that reports on new concerning churches of Christ.
Teaching Bible with Video – CrossTalk S4E6
Jul 15, 2019
If you're a Bible class teacher, a parent, or anyone who wants to share the truth of Scripture with others, have you ever considered how video might be a helpful tool for sharing the story of Scripture? This week I would like to invite you to listen to a conversation I had with two of my friends from Appian Media, Justin Dobbs and Stuart Peck. Appian Media also has a special giveaway exclusively for listeners to this podcast (available for a short time). Just visit AppianMedia.org/crosstalk.
Defending Your Faith – CrossTalk S4E5
Jul 08, 2019
This week's guest is Dean Meadows, the Executive Director of The Daily Apologist. Dean is incredibly passionate about helping young Christians defend their faith. It is important for every Christian to be able to defend what we believe, but it is especially important for young people who are facing a barrage of arguments from secular friends and professors.
Life as a Missionary – CrossTalk S4E4
Jul 01, 2019
This week's guest is Pamela Maxwell (my younger sister), who was a missionary in both France and Scotland. In this conversation, we visit about why she became a missionary, what she experienced on the mission field, some of the unique challenges she faced when she was a single woman working as a missionary, and more. I hope you are encouraged by this conversation.
New Heavens New Earth – CrossTalk S4E3
Jun 20, 2019
What will happen when Jesus returns? Will the earth, and all material things, cease to exist? That's what I grew up believing. However, I began to realize the Bible speaks of the meek inheriting the earth (Matthew 5:5) and the saved receiving "new heavens and a new earth" (2 Peter 3:13). I didn't know what to do with these passages: will there be a new earth to inherit or no earth to inherit?
Loving Muslim Neighbors – CrossTalk S4E2
Jun 13, 2019
I don't say this lightly, this will probably be the best thing you listen to all day. In this episode, Iraqi-born Wissam Al-Aethawi shares the story of how he converted from Islam to Christ. He now preaches the gospel to Muslims in Michigan and travels extensively helping Christians understand, love, and share the gospel with their Muslim neighbors.
Movies Christians Watch – CrossTalk S4E1
Jun 06, 2019
CrossTalk season 4 is finally here! I am so excited to release some of these great conversations I have, so you can be blessed by them as much as I have been! Today's conversation is one I recorded with my friend Scott Elliott, who preaches in La Grange, Texas. I've entitled this episode, "Movies Christians Watch."
Exploring Israel to Understand the Bible – CrossTalk S3E21
Feb 19, 2019
On today’s episode I had the opportunity to visit over the phone with two members of the Appian Media team. Appian Media is a non-profit organization for which I am incredibly thankful. They are Christians who create amazing documentary-style videos that help viewers experience various places in Israel, and the biblical accounts that happened there. […]
How Christians Talk About Abortion – CrossTalk S3E20
Jan 31, 2019
With the recent passing of a new abortion law in New York, my Facebook feed has been full of discussions about abortion. I’m always thankful when I see Christians stand up in defense of human life. However, I am often saddened by some of the angry and almost hateful ways I see Christians lashing out against pro-choice supporters and law-makers. So I posted a plea for Christians to voice the truth lovingly and reasonably.
What is Eternity Like? – CrossTalk S3E19
Jan 21, 2019
Today’s guest is Sam Dominguez, my former co-host. Today you’ll get a chance to hear Sam and I discuss the concept of eternity. What is eternity like? Can we wrap our minds around it? Should we even try to think of "eternity" as a really long time? Should we think of it as a time when "time" no longer exists. Is this even something the Bible discusses? What does the Bible mean when it says "eternal." Those are some of the questions we explore?
Reaching Out to People in Need – CrossTalk S3E18
Dec 03, 2018
Today I would like to invite you to listen to a conversation I had with my friend, Bill Adkins. Bill and his wife Linda have a wonderful story about how they chose to help a young single mom and her 4-year-old daughter. That was nearly 15 years ago and both mother and daughter are still an important part of their life. Not only is this story worth sharing in its own right, but it led to a great conversation about how Christians can think outside the box when reaching out to help people in our community. I hope this story encourages and inspires you as much as it did me.
Christians Dealing with Anxiety – CrossTalk S3E17
Nov 26, 2018
Today I would like to invite you to listen to a conversation I had with my friend, Caleb Cochran. This is a conversation about suffering with various types of anxiety. Caleb isn’t a psychiatrist or medical professional, he’s an evangelist for the church in Rockville, Maryland and he is personally suffered with anxiety, so he has a heart for ministering to others who suffer in this way. Whether or not you personally deal with anxiety, you likely know someone who does. So this is a relevant discussion for us all.
Teaching Children the Bible – CrossTalk S3E16
Nov 13, 2018
Today I would like to invite you to listen to a conversation I recently had with two of my friends and co-workers, Rosalyn Miller and Mikie Kindsfather. These wonderful Christian ladies work as the children’s education coordinators here at the church of Christ on McDermott Road. They have so many wonderful thoughts to share about the importance of children’s Bible classes, some practical thoughts on how to make Bible classes what they should be, and even what kids can gain from being in the worship assembly with adults. I hope you find this conversation helpful and encouraging.
Struggling with Same Sex Attraction – CrossTalk S3E15
Nov 06, 2018
Let me say before I introduce today’s conversation that the subject matter is for mature audiences only and may not be suitable for children. My guest today is my new friend, Clint. He and I began corresponding recently via email about how the church should minister to those who identify as LGBTQ. Because Clint also struggles with same sex attraction and because in the past he lived a gay lifestyle, he has a unique perspective. In this conversation, we discussed whether or not Christians should embrace an LGBTQ identity, his thoughts on how parents should respond if their children reveal they experience same sex attraction, and his encouragement to young Christians who are themselves dealing with this struggle. This is a sensitive subject with which every Christian needs to be familiar. I hope this conversation leads to other healthy conversations about this topic.
Church of Christ Social Network – CrossTalk S3E14
Oct 30, 2018
My guest today is my friend, Brandon Edwards, who just helped launch the first private social network for churches of Christ. It is called, "Aggos." Regardless of your religious background, I think you will find this conversation interesting. Brandon is a brilliant guy and he is constantly trying to find new ways to bring Christians together and reach the lost with the Good News. I hope you enjoy this conversation. Be sure to check out Aggos.com.
Christian Identity Crisis – CrossTalk S3E13
Oct 25, 2018
My guest today is my my very good friend, Michael Monday. In this conversation we discussed our identity as Christians and building real relationships with our church family. What does it mean to be part of the family of God and are we really enjoying the blessings of being part of that family? I think you will be challenged and encouraged by this discussion.
Making Room for Humor in the Church – CrossTalk S3E12
Oct 16, 2018
My guest today is my friend and co-worker, Barrett Bingham. He is a high school minister, a podcaster, and an occasional stand-up comedian. He co-hosts a podcast with another member at McDermott Road called, "Off the Rails." Barrett is a lot of fun and during this conversation, we talked about why we should make room for a sense of humor in the church. There are quite a few laughs along the way, but Barrett also has a lot of very insightful things to share about faith and emotion. I believe you will really be blessed by this conversation.
Women in the Church – CrossTalk S3E11
Oct 09, 2018
Wes and Dan Chambers recently had a phone conversation and discussed the role of women in the church and how various passages of Scripture are interpreted by people on both sides of the arguments. If you are interested or concerned about this issue, I think you will find this conversation helpful. Some of the passages discussed in this episode are 1 Timothy 2:9-15; 1 Corinthians 11:2-26; 1 Corinthians 14:26-40.
Redeeming the Human Body – CrossTalk S3E10
Oct 02, 2018
You might be surprised to know that the Bible does not teach that the body is just a vehicle for the spirit. Human beings are not, as some have suggested, "a spirit with a body." Listen as Wes and his friend Jacob Rutledge, who preaches for the Dripping Springs Church of Christ, discuss what the Bible actually teaches concerning the importance of the human body and how the body will be "redeemed" in the resurrection. The apostle Paul wrote that we wait eagerly, "for the redemption of our bodies" (Romans 8:23). We hope you find this conversation encouraging.
How Christians Should Use Social Media – CrossTalk S3E9
Sep 17, 2018
On this week’s episode, listen to a conversation Wes had with Jacob Rutledge, who preaches for the Dripping Springs Church of Christ in Dripping Springs, Texas. Jacob and Wes discuss their thoughts on how Christians should use social media. If you use social media like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram then I think this conversation will give you some things to think about. Social media certainly has positive uses and has a tremendous amount of potential, but it's also possible to do damage to the cause of Christ through social media.
How to Teach and Encourage New Christians – CrossTalk S3E8
Aug 28, 2018
On this week’s episode, listen to a conversation Wes had with Curtis Hartshorn, who preaches for the church of Christ in Checotah, Oklahoma and is the author of the book, “My First 52 Days.” This book is designed to help guide new Christians during the first few weeks after they are baptized. Curtis has a heart to share the gospel and to help new Christians mature in the faith. I know you will be encouraged by our conversation. And if you are interested in getting a copy of his book visit Yeoman Press or email Curtis directly. You can find his email address near the end of this episode.
What Teens Think About God and the Church – CrossTalk S3E7
Aug 21, 2018
In this episode, Wes visits with Matt Mead and Kyle Beard. Matt is the Family Life Minister and Kyle is the Middle School Minister here at the church of Christ on McDermott Road. The conversation we had was about teenagers and their theology. What do teenagers today think about God, the church, the Bible, and living the Christian life. Matt and Kyle, along with the rest of our youth family ministry team, do a tremendous job. I think you will gain a lot of insight from this conversation.
Raising Kids to Follow Jesus – CrossTalk S3E6
Aug 14, 2018
In this episode, I have a conversation about Christian parenting with one of the elders at McDermott Road, Tom Ward, and his son, Jake. We discuss how Tom dealt with conversations about God and science, how the church plays a huge role in shaping young people, and how sincerity is more important than perfection. I hope you find this conversation encouraging.
Experience Spiritual Transformation – CrossTalk S3E5
Aug 07, 2018
Summary: Listen to the conversation I had with my good friends, Reggie Hutchings and James Sumners (on the phone). These men share their thoughts with me on how the Lord has transformed their lives and how He is still in the process of transforming their lives. We discuss what sorts of things stand in the […]
Summary: In the conversation you’re about to hear, I visited with two new friends, Belinda Phillips and Lee Ann Kemp. These ladies have their own website and podcast. You can check it out at TheBibleandCoffee.com. In this conversation we talk about their mission to help other women understand and embrace the grace of God. I […]
Modern Slavery and the Mission of the Church – S3E3
Jul 16, 2018
According to International Justice Mission there are over 40,000,000 slaves globally. I want you to hear a conversation I had with my friend, Brandon Edwards. Brandon has lived in various countries around the world and has seen oppression and injustice up-close and personal. He has spent time with victims, perpetrators, and heroes who are actively working to stop human trafficking and slavery. I’ll warn you, this is a challenging conversation, but it’s an incredibly important one.
Summary: In this episode, issues are discussed like, why are there “white churches” and “black churches,” why do we struggle to discuss issues about race with our brothers and sisters in Christ, and what can we do to start seeing things from other people’s perspectives. Wes had this conversation with two of his friends, Haven […]
Married to the Preacher – CrossTalk S3E1
Jun 29, 2018
In this episode of the Radically Christian CrossTalk Podcast, Wes and his wife, Hollee, talk about being a ministry family. For the last thirteen years, since the day they were married, they have worked together in various ministry roles. Listen as they discuss some of the challenges and blessings of being married and raising kids while working in full-time ministry.
Having Spiritual Conversations (Recorded Live) – CrossTalk S2E26
Aug 24, 2016
This is the 50th episode of the CrossTalk Podcast and the final episode of our second season. The discussion on this episode revolves around why the goal of the CrossTalk Podcast is to inspire others to have spiritual conversations. This episode is unique because it was recorded while doing a Facebook Live broadcast, so you will hear Cameron McElyea reading some of the Facebook comments and questions so that Wes, Sam, and James could respond live. We hope you find this episode edifying.
In this episode we are joined by Charles Goodnight, who serves as a hospice chaplain and the leader of a grief support group at Baker Heights church of Christ. We discussed how to deal with grief, how being a Christian helps one deal with grief, and how Christians can help one another deal with grief. We hope you're edified by this discussion.
Why Christians Must Sacrifice to Help One Another – CrossTalk S2E24
Aug 09, 2016
In this episode of the CrossTalk podcast we discuss how far too many people approach the church as consumers, asking, "How will the church minister to my needs," rather than as a community member who asks, "How can I help minister to the needs of others?" We discussed how our evangelism methods sometimes tend to create Christians who have no idea that God requires us to do hard things and sacrifice for the good of others and the glory of God. We hope this discussion will be edifying to you.
Why Jews Have to Become Christians to be God’s People – CrossTalk S2E23
Aug 01, 2016
On today's episode we discuss why it was easier for the Jew to understand and accept the gospel and why the gospel went first to the Jews, but why the Jews had to become Christians in order for them to be God's covenant people. Many still do not understand that God's covenant with the Jews was fulfilled and in order to be one of God's covenant people, you must be submit to Jesus. Jewish heritage, like circumcision, does not make a person part of God's covenant people. Those are a few of the things we discuss on this episode. We hope you find this discussion edifying.
Living Obediently Without Being Under the Law – CrossTalk S2E22
Jul 25, 2016
What does it mean that we are under grace and not the Law? How can we live obediently if we are not under the Law? Should we still fear God, or does loving God cast out our fear of God? These are some of the issues we discussed on this week's episode.
Disagreeing About Baptism and Other Issues – CrossTalk S2E21
Jul 19, 2016
Wes was recently invited to join Presbyterian minister, Randy Booth on the Moody Radio program, "Up For Debate" to discuss the issue of infant baptism. So in this episode of the CrossTalk podcast, Wes, Sam, and James discussed some of the points of that debate. The discussion of debating baptism led to a more in-depth discussion about disagreements in general. How ought we to disagree with one another? What ought to be the goal of our disagreements? Those are some of things we covered in this discussion and we hope it proves edifying to you.
The Day of Judgment – CrossTalk S2E20
Jul 07, 2016
In this episode of the CrossTalk podcast, Wes, James, and Sam discuss the "Day of Judgment" or the "Day of the Lord." To what does this refer? How should we think about the coming judgment? We hope you find this discussion edifying.
More Concerned with Politics than the Kingdom of God – CrossTalk S2E19
Jun 21, 2016
In this episode of the CrossTalk podcast, Wes McAdams, Sam Dominguez, and James Sumners discuss the fact that we often struggle with being more concerned about earthly politics than about things pertaining to the eternal kingdom of God. Why is it that we often ascribe greater importance to earthly things than they are actually due? Why is it that we don't pay attention to the things of the kingdom as we should? These are some of the things discussed in this episode. We hope you find it edifying.
How to Have Unity in Spite of Our Differences – CrossTalk S2E18
Jun 06, 2016
In this episode, Wes, Sam, and James discuss how we should apply Romans 14. How can we, as Christians, have unity in spite of our differences? What does it mean to be the weaker brother or the stronger brother? What are "disputable matters" or "matters of opinion" that Paul was discussing in Romans 14. These are a few of the things discussed in this episode. We hope you find this discussion edifying.
How Busy Moms Make Time to Study the Bible – CrossTalk S2E17
May 23, 2016
This week the CrossTalk crew has the week off and our wives take to the microphones. Hollee McAdams, Tonya McElyea, Shayla Sumners, and Arly Dominguez talk about how they make time to study the Bible with their busy schedules. We hope you find this discussion edifying.
Why Christians Need to Have a Song in Their Heart – CrossTalk S2E16
May 16, 2016
In this episode of the CrossTalk podcast, Wes, Sam, and James discuss the topic of singing songs of praise to God. What is singing all about? What are some of the common pitfalls we should avoid? What does it mean to sing with your heart? These are some of the things discussed on this week's episode. We hope you find it edifying.
Building Friendships With Those Who Are Not Your Age – CrossTalk S2E15
May 09, 2016
In this episode of the CrossTalk podcast, we are joined by special guest co-hosts, Ron McElyea and Jason Hinkle. The discussion this week revolves around building friendships with those who are not your age. Why do older Christians and younger Christians struggle to build relationships with one another? How can we overcome these generational barriers in the church? Why is it important for us build these intergenerational friendships?
What Made the Bereans So Noble? – CrossTalk S2E14
Apr 25, 2016
In this episode of the CrossTalk podcast, Wes, Sam, and James discuss the question, "What made the Bereans so noble?" In Acts 17:11, we read, "Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so." We have often focused all of our attention on the Bereans' examining of the Scripture and have applied this passage in such a way that we often applaud those who are skeptical and close-minded toward teachers. However, in context, it seems there is much more to the Bereans' nobility than just their examining of the Scriptures.
A Discussion About Becoming an Elder – CrossTalk S2E13
Apr 18, 2016
In this episode of the CrossTalk podcast, Wes and two of the new elders at Baker Heights church of Christ, Zane Dennis and Wayne Newman, discuss "becoming an elder." These men have only been elders for a short time and in this podcast episode they discuss their thoughts about accepting the responsibility of serving as elders, what has surprised them so far, and how congregations can be intentional about preparing men to serve as elders.
Why the Church is Essential to the Christian Life – CrossTalk S2E12
Apr 12, 2016
In this episode of the CrossTalk podcast, Wes McAdams, James Sumners, and Sam Dominguez discuss the church. Do we really need the church? What if the church isn't being what the church should be? Does the church have anything do with our salvation? These are a few of the things discussed on this week's episode. We hope you find it edifying.
Are We More Like Judas Than We’d Like to Admit? – CrossTalk S2E11
Mar 28, 2016
Are we more like Judas than we would like to admit? That's the real question discussed on this week's episode of the CrossTalk podcast. Listen as Wes, Sam, and James discuss Jesus' betrayer, what motivated him, and how he got to the point where he could sell out the Son of God. Could we be capable - or even guilty - of sinning in a similar way? We hope this discussion is edifying.
Why Jonah is Not a Children’s Bible Story – CrossTalk S2E10
Mar 21, 2016
The story of Jonah and the big fish - or whale - is one of the most popular stories we teach to children, but it is so much more than just a children's Bible story. The story of Jonah teaches us so much about God's nature and character. It has powerful lessons to learn about racism and even evangelism. Yet we all too often water it down and miss the big points of this powerful biblical account. Listen as Wes and James continue the "Not a Children's Bible Story" series.
Why David & Goliath is Not a Children’s Bible Story – CrossTalk S2E9
Mar 14, 2016
In this episode of the CrossTalk podcast, Wes, Sam, and James discuss the biblical account of David and Goliath. What is the story really about? Why is it that we relegate it to the "children's corner" as merely a children's Bible story. Listen as the guys discuss this very familiar story in (perhaps) a whole new way.
Why Noah’s Ark is Not a Children’s Bible Story – CrossTalk S2E8
Mar 07, 2016
Join Wes, Sam, and James as they continue their series, "Not A Children's Bible Story," by talking about Noah and the Ark. Why is the account of Noah and the ark relegated to the "children's corner"? What can mature disciples of Christ learn from this story? It can teach us so much about God, judgement, grace, mercy, and so much more. We hope you are edified by this discussion.
Not a Children’s Bible Story: Zacchaeus – CrossTalk S2E7
Feb 29, 2016
In this episode of the CrossTalk podcast, Wes talks with his co-hosts, James Sumners, and Sam Dominguez about the story of Zacchaeus from Luke 19. What--beyond "Zacchaeus was a wee little man"--do we need to understand about this event? What does Zacchaeus teach us about following Jesus?
Not a Children’s Bible Story: The Prodigal Son – CrossTalk S2E6
Feb 22, 2016
In this episode of the CrossTalk podcast, Wes, Sam, and James continue their "not a children's Bible story" series by discussing the parable of the Prodigal son. What lesson was Jesus really teaching? How have we over-simplified for children? What points do we need to reconsider as it pertains to this parable? We hope this is an encouraging conversation.
Not a Children’s Bible Story: Good Samaritan – CrossTalk S2E5
Feb 09, 2016
In this episode of the CrossTalk podcast, we continue our "not a children's Bible story," in which we discuss Bible stories that we typically water down in order to teach to children. Unfortunately, in doing so we often miss the primary point of the passage of Scripture. In today's episode, Wes, Sam, and James discuss the parable typically referred to as "The Good Samaritan" and discover why it's not just a Children's Bible story.
Not a Children’s Bible Story: Jesus Heals 10 Lepers – CrossTalk S2E4
Feb 02, 2016
In this episode of the CrossTalk podcast, we begin a new series in which we discuss some passages of Scripture that we tend to think of as "Children's Bible Stories," but have far deeper meanings and applications than we often realize because we tend to only see them as they were presented to us as children. In this episode, Wes, Sam, and James discuss Jesus healing ten lepers and how their perspective on this passage of Scripture has changed now that they are adults.
Right and Wrong Ways to Listen to a Sermon – CrossTalk S2E3
Jan 25, 2016
In this episode of the CrossTalk podcast, Wes, Sam, and James discuss some right and wrong ways to listen to sermons and Bible classes. It is easy to develop some unhealthy habits in this area of our lives. What is your goal when you attend a Bible class or listen to a sermon? Do you listen in a way that is glorifying to God? We hope this discussion is edifying to you.
Do Our Lives Reflect What We Say We Believe? – CrossTalk S2E2
Jan 18, 2016
In this episode of the CrossTalk podcast, James, Wes, and Sam discuss the fact that we often quote Scripture and state theological truths, but our lives don't always reflect that we really believe those things. As Sam poses the hypothetical question at the beginning of the episode, "If that were true, wouldn't this part of your life be different?" We hope this spiritual discussion among friends helps encourage you to have these types of conversations with Christians in your life.
Do We Really Believe, ‘To Die is Gain’? – CrossTalk S2E1
Jan 11, 2016
We say we believe the truths of Scripture. Truths like, "To live is Christ and to die is gain," but do we really believe that? Do we live as if that statement is true? Or do we live like this world is far better and that it would be better to continue in this life indefinitely? Sam, James, and Wes consider this question in this episode of the CrossTalk Podcast. We hope you find this discussion edifying.
Episode #24 – How Does the Lord Discipline Us?
Dec 21, 2015
This discussion was sparked by a wonderful voicemail we received from one of our listeners. Here are some of the ideas and questions we discuss on this week's episode: How does God discipline us? Why does God discipline us? When we suffer, should we see that as God discipling us? When we suffer, should we take that to mean that God thinks we're strong enough to handle it. Does God send suffering on specific people? Is that what the Bible means when it talks about the discipline of the Lord?
Episode #23 – The Work Christians Should Be Doing
Dec 07, 2015
In this episode of the CrossTalk podcast, Sam, James, and Wes discuss questions like: What kind of work are Christians obligated to do? Should we do what we enjoy doing? Should we do what we are "gifted" or "talented" at doing? What does God expect of us? What is the right perspective to have about the work we do for the Lord?
Episode #22 – Humor in the Life of a Christian
Nov 30, 2015
In this episode, the guys discuss humor and the place it has in the life of a Christian. Why did God give us a sense of humor? Why is it that some people seem to only find humor in things that are sinful? Should Christians ever be silly? Does silliness have a place in the life of Christians? Give some thought to the things discussed in this episode.
Episode #21 – Why We Need to Get Serious About Our Sin
Nov 16, 2015
In this episode of the CrossTalk podcast, Sam Dominguez, James Sumners, and Wes McAdams discuss sin: why we sometimes fail to get rid of it completely and why we need to get serious about dealing with it. Often what we say is our "struggle" has become our "habit" or "practice." We often fail to realize the urgency of fully repenting of our sins. When we try to maintain one foot in Christ and one foot in the world, we miss out on so many wonderful blessings; including eternity in heaven. We hope this episode is edifying for all of our listeners.
Episode #20 – Trusting Our Church Leaders
Nov 09, 2015
In this episode of the CrossTalk podcast, Sam, Wes, and James discuss why we have a tendency to distrust our church leaders. Why is that we trust church leaders until it comes to issues of money or until we disagree with them? Why do we often question their motives when it comes to certain issues? Should we trust people automatically or do they have to earn our trust? These are a few of the things discussed in this week's episode of CrossTalk.
Episode #19 – Is it ever right to be proud?
Nov 02, 2015
In this episode of the CrossTalk podcast, Sam Dominguez, James Sumners, and Wes McAdams discuss "pride." Is it ever right to feel proud? What about the way we feel about our children, aren't we proud of them? What about when our children make a good choice and do the right thing, can we be proud of them? Why do we feel pride if it is always wrong? These are a few of the things discussed on this week's podcast.
Episode #18 – A Discussion About Christian Apologies and Forgiveness
Oct 26, 2015
In this episode of the CrossTalk podcast, Sam Dominguez, James Sumners, and Wes McAdams discuss why it feels so strange for someone to say, "I forgive you." Why does it sound so condescending, or like the person is blowing things out of proportion, when he or she says that they "forgive" the other person? Sam, James, and Wes have a spirited discussion about why apologizing is not the most important part of this process. We hope you are edified by this discussion.
Episode #17 – When Preachers and Teachers Do Poorly
Oct 19, 2015
In this episode of the CrossTalk podcast, Sam Dominguez and Wes McAdams discuss how they feel when they've done poorly teaching and preaching God's word. Why do we feel bad when we've preached and taught poorly? What can help us cope with these feelings while at the same time striving to preach and teach better? This discussion will helpful for anyone who teaches or preaches, but also all Christians.
Episode #16 – Parenting Young Children in the Church
Oct 12, 2015
In this episode of the CrossTalk podcast, James Sumners and Wes McAdams discuss parenting, especially as it pertains to young children. Often, parents of young children allow their young kids to keep them from attending worship services or other church events like weddings, funerals, gospel meetings, etc. How should parents deal with these types of situations?
Episode #15 – The Spiritual Benefit of Sorrow
Oct 05, 2015
In this episode of the CrossTalk podcast, Wes, Sam, and James discuss why we need to do a better job at appreciating the spiritual value and benefits of sorrow. Too often, we quickly try to sweep sorrow under the rug, when we should actually allow ourselves the time to be sad, to weep, and to mourn.
Episode #14 – Considering the Look and Feel of our Religion
Sep 21, 2015
In this episode of the CrossTalk podcast, Wes, Sam, and James consider our preoccupation with the "aesthetics" of Christian worship. Why do some of us have to have things look and feel a certain way in order to feel like we have worshiped? Why are we so concerned with the look and feel of our religion and our worship?
Episode #13 – Christianity and Ministry in the Age of Social Media
Sep 14, 2015
In this episode of the CrossTalk podcast, Wes, Sam, and James are joined by special guest Fred Dominguez, the preacher for the church of Christ in Pecos, Texas. They discuss some of the positive and negative aspects of being a Christian in the age of social media. What are some of the pitfalls of Facebook and Twitter, and what are some of the ways Christians can use these social networks for God's glory?
Episode #12 – Rethinking How We Do Children’s Bible Classes
Sep 07, 2015
In this episode of the CrossTalk podcast, Luke Bower and Wes McAdams discuss children's Bible classes. Are we thinking about Bible classes the right way? Is there a better way of doing Bible classes? Who should teach children in Bible classes, what should they focus on, and how should they teach? These are some of the things discussed in this week's show.
Episode #11 – Should We Be Loyal to a Particular Congregation?
Aug 31, 2015
In this episode of the CrossTalk podcast, Sam Dominguez, James Sumners, and Wes McAdams discuss the question, "Should we be loyal to a particular congregation?" When we have conflicts in the church, is it pleasing to God for us to move to another congregation? How can we keep from being "church-hoppers"?
Episode #10 – Do We Really Enjoy Obeying God?
Aug 24, 2015
In this episode of the CrossTalk podcast, Sam Dominguez, James Sumners, and Wes McAdams discuss obeying God. What motivates our obedience to God? Do we really enjoy obeying? Do we really want to obey? Our obedience should come from the "overflow." Is that what motivates your obedience?
Episode #9 – Christian Friendships Among Women
Aug 17, 2015
In this episode of the CrossTalk podcast, Shayla Sumners, Tonya McElyea, Arly Dominguez, and Hollee McAdams discuss some of the benefits and struggles they've experienced building and maintaining friendships with other Christian women.
Episode #8 – What is the Christian’s Obligation to the Poor?
Aug 10, 2015
In this episode of the CrossTalk podcast, Mike Bonner, Sam Dominguez, James Sumners, and Wes talk about the Christian's obligation to the poor and those in need in various ways. What is the Christian's obligation in regards to benevolence, generosity, charity, and giving? What does God expect? What should motivate our generosity? Are we really bringing glory to God by the way we share with those in need?
In this episode of the CrossTalk podcast Wes, Sam, and James discuss what it really means to put God first. How can you know if you're putting God first? Is it a matter of priorities? Is it a matter of balance? This discussion might surprise you.
Episode #6 – Silence of the Scriptures [Podcast]
Jul 27, 2015
Wes, Sam, and James discuss a recent voicemail that was left concerning "the silence of the Scriptures." When we believe God's word says nothing on a particular activity or behavior does it give us permission to precede as we wish or is silence prohibitive?
In this episode of CrossTalk, Wes McAdams and Ron McElyea, one of the elders at Baker Heights church of Christ, discuss what Christian repentance is all about. What does it mean to repent? Is repentance a one-time thing? Why do we struggle so much with repentance?
CrossTalk Episode 004 – Follow Me As I Follow Christ [Podcast]
Jul 13, 2015
In this episode Wes and Sam talk with Mike Bonner, the preacher for the Fifth and Grape congregation in Abilene about Paul's instructions to follow him as he followed Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1). How could Paul make such a bold statement. Should Christians today make the same statement? Can we really say to someone, "Follow me as I follow Christ"? Does that mean we think we're perfect?
In this episode Wes, Sam, and James discuss the Christian's conscience. What is our conscience? Do we all have one? How come some people have a guilty conscience about certain behaviors and other people don't? Should we really listen to our conscience?
In this episode Wes McAdams, Sam Dominguez, and James Sumners discuss a blog post by Fred Dominguez entitled, "A Ransacked Bible." What does it mean to "ransack" the Bible and why should more people be doing exactly that?
CrossTalk Episode 001 – Spiritual Jealousy [Podcast]
Jun 24, 2015
In this episode Wes McAdams, Sam Dominguez, and James Sumners discuss how they sometimes feel jealous of other Christians for reasons such as: Greater Bible knowledge, parenting success, teaching and preaching skills, etc.
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