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.
They emphasize the importance of consistently feeding one’s faith through the study of God’s Word and meditating on his promises. They highlight the necessity of believing in God’s ability to overcome any obstacle, whether it’s physical, emotional, or spiritual. The discussion also underscores the relationship between faith and love, emphasizing that true faith leads to a deeper love for God and a greater capacity to bear all things.
The guest for this episode is Willie B. Williams, III, the evangelist for the North Colony Church of Christ. As a passionate and enthusiastic proclaimer of the gospel, Willie brings a wealth of wisdom and experience to the conversation. His journey began with a humble church plant in his living room, and through unwavering faith, he has witnessed God’s mighty works unfold. Willie’s testimony serves as an inspiration, reminding listeners that faith can move mountains and that God’s promises are accessible to those who believe.
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. How do you live a life of faith? That’s what we’re going to talk about in today’s Bible study. And just to give you a heads up, one of my favorite parts of the conversation is near the end when we talk about the relationship between faith and unity in the church. My guest today is Willie B. Williams, III. He is the evangelist for the North Colony Church of Christ. He is a good friend and a passionate, enthusiastic proclaimer of the gospel.
I want to start today by reading Hebrews 11:1‑6. It says,
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks. By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God. And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”
I hope that today’s Bible study is an encouragement to you, and, as always, I hope that it helps all of us learn to love like Jesus.
WES: Willie B. Williams, III, welcome to the podcast, Brother.
WILLIE: Wes, it is wonderful to be here.
WES: It is wonderful to have you. This is long overdue. I’m so glad to have you, Brother.
WILLIE: Yeah, that’s my fault, but God gives grace. It’s a blessing.
WES: No, no, I’m just glad it finally worked out, so thank you so much for being on the podcast. You and I have all kinds of great conversations. I’m excited for other people to get to listen in on the wisdom that I get to sit at your feet and hear all the time.
WILLIE: You know, it’s mutual, so… We both like to eat the bread.
WES: I love it. I love it. Well, when we texted back and forth about what we should talk about, you brought up the idea of faith, and I was so glad that you did because this is something that ‑‑ obviously, this is something that every Christian ought to be thinking about all the time, but it’s one that we’re particularly thinking about at McDermott Road this year, where our theme is ‑‑ we phrased it as “Loving Loyalty,” but I’m trying to help people to understand that faith really is about loyalty; it’s about allegiance; it’s about commitment. So I was so happy that you brought up the idea of faith, so let’s talk about faith. Particularly, what passages or what ideas have you been thinking about, meditating on that have moved you recently?
WILLIE: I think one of the things ‑‑ I think there’s a quote ‑‑ or there’s a saying about finding God, right? And so this man went to the deepest of the sea, he went to the highest mountain, he searched throughout all the world looking for God, and what he failed to realize is that God was in the flower. And the thought behind the writing was that God is in the simple things, and because you’re looking for the deep things, you end up passing up God when, actually, he was right there waving at you in the wind. He’s in the song of the birds. He’s in the wind of the trees. He’s literally right before us, but we’re looking for something so deep, and so sometimes we’re so familiar with scriptures that we fail to realize how awesome he is in that text.
So there’s a scripture we quote all the time. A lot of people know it. Romans 10:17, right? “So faith comes by hearing.” There can be no relationship ‑‑ matter of fact, before you can have a relationship with anyone, there has to be some remnant of faith. And so faith comes by hearing, which lets me know that my faith has to be fed. It’s an organism; it has to be fed. And so I started to meditate on one of the things that causes many Christians, including ourselves, as ministers, is we sometimes struggle because we’re good at feeding. We’re not good at receiving, or we don’t feed our own faith. And so, you know, as ministers, sometimes you will have so many Bible classes, so many lessons, you have so many people asking you for advice or they want to know what your thoughts are. They want you to speak into every subject. They want you to speak on marriage. They want you to speak on demons and the afterlife and what happens when you have anxiety, and you’re constantly trying to feed because you care about the people, not realizing you give more than you receive. You have to feed your faith, and faith comes by hearing.
In Hebrews 11:6, he says, well, “Without faith it’s impossible to please him, for he that comes to God” ‑‑ God is basically saying, I won’t let you get close to me unless I see that you have faith. And sometimes I feel, even sometimes within the body of Christ, that our faith is getting low, and I can point that scripture to certain people and they’ll be like, yeah, I know that scripture, which means they’re not hearing it because we believe we already know it, but we don’t go back and meditate and really build our faith. Then you start looking at all of the other scriptures about what faith does. And so here’s an indictment on our individual walk, and here’s an indictment as the church, as a whole, are collected. If we say we’re going to do something great for God, you’ll hear laughter and sniggling and jokes because we preach faith, but very few people have seen a mighty move of it. We talk about how God created everything, and we cry over bills. We talk about how God ‑‑ he put molecules and atoms in flesh. He thought of that. He thought that maybe one day I will cut my skin, and he thought about the mechanisms of the body, how it can heal itself without outside interference. I can break my leg and ‑‑ which I did when I was in college. I broke my leg, and the doctor said we can do surgery. And I asked the doctor a question. I said, “Can it heal itself?” And the doctor said, “Hmm.” It was almost like, well, yes, it can. I said, “Well, let’s give God a shot.” I literally said that when I was in college. I said, “Well, let’s give God a shot.” He said, “Okay, we’ll just put a cast on,” and I’ve been fine ever since. I run, whatever. My bone completely broke, you know, in half.
But, you know, faith has to be fed, and if faith is not fed ‑‑ so Romans 10:17, it is such a simple scripture. It is a scripture that is repeated constantly, but “faith comes by hearing,” which lets me know that faith can grow. Even though me and you may worship together, we don’t have the same level of faith, and if we look at what faith can do, there may be some things that are accessible to me because I hear and I’m constantly hearing; you may have just heard. And so sometimes there are some people who walk away and say, “The word didn’t do anything for me,” and then there’s another person that has a completely different testimony and they enjoy the word. They say, “Oh, God’s word is so powerful.” It really depends on how ‑‑ you know, there’s an i‑n‑g at the end. Faith comes by hearing. You never stop. And so that ‑‑ when we were talking, that resonated with me because everything we do has to be done on faith.
WES: Yeah. Man, that’s so rich. I love how you’re framing it as a relationship with God, that faith is this relational type of commitment to God, and about this hearing. So many passages and ideas were going through my head as you were saying that. I was thinking about how the pivotal scripture in the law, the one Jesus went to when he said what’s the most important commandment in the law. Of course, he said the second was like it, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” but the first was “Hear, oh, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one,” and in Hebrew, that first word “hear” is “Shema.” In my family, we say this with our kids every night. We try to say it every night. We start with that idea, “Hear, oh, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one,” and that Shema idea of hearing is something that is active. It’s not just hearing as in “I heard a noise outside.” It’s listen. Listen to what is being said. Listen to who your God is. Your God, Israel, is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and your soul and your mind and your strength.
And you’re so right that we can hear, in a sense, the preaching, we can hear the scriptures, we can hear the promises, but sometimes we’re not really listening to them. And two people can be sitting in the same room and, in a sense, they can hear the same things, but one is listening and the other one isn’t, and we’re not internalizing not only the things we’re told to do ‑‑ and I think sometimes we have reduced faith to rules we’re supposed to follow or a way we’re supposed to live, and that’s certainly a part of faith ‑‑ or part of the response of faith, maybe I should say, but faith starts with who is God.
And I love that you said, you know, all the things that God has done, both in the scriptures, the things that he has revealed to us by special revelation, but then there’s this general revelation, how God has revealed himself in the created world. The way that he heals the body ‑‑ the body is created to heal itself. The way that God reveals himself in the flower. And you’re so right that sometimes we look at the things that we’re going through and we say, “Well, yeah, I know God brought down Goliath, and I know God parted the Red Sea, and I know God delivered the Israelites, and I know God created this and God created that, but this problem that I have right now, it’s too big for God.” And we wouldn’t say it that way, but that’s essentially the way we’re living our lives.
WILLIE: And if we look at faith ‑‑ you had mentioned something, the greatest commandment. The greatest commandment in the world ‑‑ the greatest commandment in the world ‑‑ cannot be accomplished without faith. You cannot love God with all your heart, soul, and mind because faith allows you to begin the relationship. I’m so glad that you brought up that scripture because ‑‑ and we’re wrestling with this concept that faith comes before love. If faith has to come before love, I cannot love you with all of me unless there’s first trust, because I’ll never jump. I can love you intellectually. I can love your gifts. I can love you in categories, but to fulfill that commandment, you have to jump off the ledge. You have to love God with everything. Most of us, we love people on reserve, so I’ll give you this love, but you won’t have access; I’ll hold back. And if you say, “Hey, I thought you loved me” ‑‑ I do. “But why did you keep that secret?” Because I don’t love you completely.
The greatest commandment in the world is loving God completely, but before there can be love ‑‑ if you think about any relationship, even if we just look outside of spirituality, if I’m going to love somebody ‑‑ right? If I’m gonna love you for who you are ‑‑ and I’m not just talking about agape love because I don’t need to know your name to have agape love to you, right? I love you through Him. But let’s just say, in a human perspective, I wanted to really just love you wholly. That means your past, your present, your future, your gifts, your ups, your downs, whatever the case may be. The first thing is, I have to listen. I have to start asking you questions. I have to get to know you, and the only way that my trust and my faith can be built is that I have to be quiet and you have to share. If you refuse to share, then we’ll never have that level of intimacy, and God wants to have intimacy with us.
And the reason why we don’t shout about how great the church is and the great moves of God, like on the level that I believe we should, is because, somewhere along the line, we’ve stopped hearing the wonderful words of God. “Oh, he’s wonderful. Did you know he did this? And did you know he did that?” Not just in the Old Testament, but “Do you know what he’s doing in my life? And do you know I shouldn’t even be here? I should have died. The doctor said” ‑‑ “Hey, do you know ‑‑ I thought my family was over; he restored.” “Do you know my child came back to the church?” “Do you know my mother got baptized?” Like our testimony ‑‑ I know we don’t have testimony portions anymore, but I think the purpose of the testimonies was to remind people God not only did it for David, God not only did it for Peter, God not only was patient with Thomas, God was patient with me and he did it for me. And when your faith is built up, your relationship changes. So you don’t talk to your wife on Monday and say, “All right, I’ll see you next month.” In order to have a healthy relationship with your wife, your husband, your children, it is deposits. It is consistent deposits that you have to make, and I think that’s ‑‑ when it comes with reading and studying God’s word, it is deposits that we have.
WES: As you were talking, I was thinking about Psalm 1, and this is a great introduction to the Psalms. It’s also a great introduction to the Scriptures and to the life of faith. The psalm says, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He’s like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked or not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away.”
So there’s that idea that if we want to have this fruitful, healthy life, we are like a ‑‑ we have to meditate on the law day and night, and the more we soak it in, the more we drink it up, the more we devour it, the more we meditate on it and chew on it, we’re like a tree that doesn’t ‑‑ it doesn’t have seasons. There’s no like, well, it’s fall now so there’s no fruit on this tree. This tree is bearing fruit year‑round because it’s always drinking in that living water. And you’re so right; if we want to have that kind of life, we just have to constantly be listening to and meditating on the promises of God.
WILLIE: It’s literally like the body. Many people are sick and they start to realize I’m going to the doctor because of the food that I eat, right? So there are certain things that are put in our food. There are certain toxins in our meat, and so people are realizing they are consuming so many calories per day. This is why their body is having these reactions; you know, their vision, their eyesight, their blood pressure. And so one of the first things, when somebody gets sick, is they say, “You gotta change your diet. You gotta change what enters in.” Somebody says, “My computer’s not working right. It’s starting to slow down.” They say, “Hey, listen, you got too many files. You got things that are lagging on ‑‑ it’s not able to run like it should because of the stuff that it’s being fed. You’re gonna have to clear your hard drive. You’re gonna have to remove some weight.”
So you can imagine, when people wake up in the morning, the first thing they grab is their phone. They spend an hour on social media. I was telling some members, I said, hey, an hour of preaching can never compete with three hours of Netflix, two hours of Instagram, three hours of TikTok, and an hour on Facebook. Like, you know, we may have Bible class and you may preach your heart out doing Bible class and lay out all of the points. It’s only intellectual. It is the meditative part. So I can read the chapter. I tell some people sometimes ‑‑ they say, “Hey, what are some suggestions that you have in studying the Bible?” I say, “Don’t read for completion. Read to swim. Read to wallow in it.” They say, “Well, what does that look like?” And I have a scripture that I wanted to read. We were talking about just living in that abundance, living in that victory of God. One of the scriptures that I enjoy is Mark 9. In Mark 9:23, “Jesus said unto him, ‘If you can believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.'” What if, for the rest of the day, I read no other verses and I just ‑‑ I went swimming in that one verse? Jesus says if you would believe, things will now become possible to you.
One of the issues that we have ‑‑ we don’t have a resource problem in the church. We don’t have a communication problem. We may have, you know, on a small level. I think one of the biggest problems that we have in achieving great things for God is that we got discouraged along the way. So the reason why you quit school or the reason why you quit on your family, the reason why you walked away from your children, the reason why you quit on church, the reason why you quit on God, the reason why you quit your job are you just literally ‑‑ you know, there are some shows ‑‑ they call it The 600‑Pound Life ‑‑ and at the beginning of that show, everybody has a story that they told where they became ‑‑ it was a point where things were maybe okay, but it was at a point where they gave up. I believe one of the biggest tools of Satan that he has consistently used, especially to ministers, “I want to discourage you. I want to discourage you. I want you to feel so bad that you walk away, that you let go. I want you to quit on the ministry. I don’t care what your degree is; you know they’re never gonna listen to you. You know you’re gonna always be fighting. You know this church is never gonna grow. You know sin will always be here. You know you’re not appreciated. You know stuff keeps happening. Hey, what’s the point? It’s always gonna be like this. Hey, you know this is all a facade. You know nobody’s life is really being changed. You know there’s been sin the whole time. You know you’ve been getting up preaching every Sunday; you know they’ve been sinning the whole time. You know you really wasn’t effective.” And those messages get in our head and we start feeling unworthy. We start feeling like God can’t use us. We start retreating. And, you know, the apostle Paul says we need to come boldly to the throne. We were supposed to come up, but then what happens is we got discouraged and we started to retreat.
And so imagine if we fed our spirit. Imagine ‑‑ for those who will be listening, imagine you waking up every morning, and you don’t miss a day and you read Mark 9:23, and Jesus said, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him that believes.” The person that doesn’t believe, it won’t be possible. There will be doors that are closed. You will face some difficulties. But the Bible says for the one that does believe ‑‑ because if you can believe, you can endure the conflict. If you can believe, things can turn around. If you can believe ‑‑ you may think nobody ‑‑ none of your family members are coming to Christ. You’ve been trying for years, but if you keep believing ‑‑ the thing is, you just can’t quit. Faith doesn’t allow you to quit because love ‑‑ faith will bring you to love, and then love bears all things. If you don’t have faith, you will never get to love, and God is love, but in order to please God, you must have faith. So if you have faith, you can begin your relationship with love, and once you have a relationship with love, love can bear all things. It will endure all things. Love can get you to the end. But if you don’t have enough faith, you’ll never get to love, and if you can never get to love, you can never get to God because that’s who God is. And if you can’t get to God, we’re most miserable. We’ll never make it.
So I love the idea of ‑‑ I think sometimes if we are in a state where you’re feeling stuck, you gotta go back to those first principles, and I believe one of those first principles is where is my faith right now? Where is my faith? You know, how do I see God? Am I limiting God? And the reason why I shortened my prayer last night is because, actually, my faith was getting low. The reason why, after I finished my sermon, I ran to the car is because my faith is getting low. And the reason why I’m avoiding people and I keep saying I’m tired is maybe because my faith is getting low and I just don’t feel like I have ‑‑ I need to go replenish. I need to go find an assembly and sit with God and refuel my tank. Because all things are possible if you believe. Everything is possible.
WES: Well, to go back to what you were saying earlier about our tendency to scroll on social media, our tendency maybe to binge‑watch a TV show or to maybe even get on cable news and watch cable news nonstop ‑‑ I was thinking about the way that you’re framing those ideas of faith and encouragement, this boldness, this confidence in God and what God can do on one side, and on the other side, you keep using the word “discouragement,” and I can’t help but think about something that’s common, and we just read it in Psalm 1. But in Psalm 1 he says that this blessed man is the one who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, and we’re pretty good about watching out for those. As Christians, we watch out for the wicked, we watch out for sinners. But the next one says, “nor sits in the seat of scoffers,” and that’s the one I think that we are ‑‑ we’re just oblivious to the impact and the influence of scoffers in our life, and social media is filled with scoffers, cable news is filled with scoffers, our own mind and heart is filled with scoffing. It’s cynicism. It’s this ‑‑ I was trying to think of how to make the sound, but this idea that ‑‑ “Come on. Come on, you know better than that.” It takes an idealistic view, a hopeful view, a confident view, a faithful view, and it says, “You know better than that. It’ll never work out. God will never do that.” And we surround ourselves by scoffers who discourage us, and we’re listening to them 90% of the day or 90% of the week, and maybe 10% we’re trying to make up for that with a little bit of scripture or a little bit of preaching, and you’re right; there’s a deficit of promises of God and the word of God in our life. There’s a deficit of listening to God and, instead, we’re listening to the scoffers.
WILLIE: What we call being realistic is really a shot at faith. And so some people hide under the umbrella that “I’m just being realistic,” and I don’t want to be realistic; I want to be faithful, because you can be realistic and then God will let you reside on that level, right? But if you’re willing to raise your faith, if you’re willing to feed your faith, what is not possible for you can be possible for me.
But I like what you said, that sitting in the seat and exposing ourselves to ‑‑ you know, it’s amazing. You can be surrounded around people who say that they believe in God, but nobody speaks the wonderful works of God. I know you’ve probably experienced it as well as I have. Have you ever stood up in front of a church or a congregation and you’re about to get ready to preach, but you pause for a second because everybody looks sad? And you try to kind of look around as like, is everybody okay? You almost have to look, like, where’s the sadness coming from? And you realize they’re carrying the world into worship. And have you ever noticed, like sometimes halfway through worship, people start waking up? Like people ‑‑ you know, you have to kind of get it off. And what they don’t realize, just even in the role of ministers, our job is to feed people’s faith. It’s to take the word of God and feed their spirit and feed their soul. We’ve just got to make sure that we don’t neglect ourselves after feeding ‑‑ you know, feeding everybody.
But we also know, with the weight and the burden, that if you don’t have a steady regimen on your own, our preaching is not enough. You’re not necessarily ‑‑ you know, we may record something and that may be a blessing, but they’ve got to have their own regimen. They’ve got to have their own system of ‑‑ you have to feed your faith. You have to feed your faith, and the altitude in which you fly and the intimacy in which you have with God, and the resources of God are not available at certain levels of faith.
I have this ‑‑ as we were talking, I had this imagery I want to show. And so I can ‑‑ God has given me this much capacity [illustrating]. He’s given me this much capacity, but I was so busy this week because I was running errands and I was taking care of business and I was helping people, I didn’t feed my faith. So I only have ‑‑ even though I have a lot more room for faith ‑‑
WES: For those that can’t see Willie, he’s got ‑‑ for those that are listening and not watching, he’s got a water bottle that’s 90% empty, or only 10% full, depending on how you want to phrase that.
WILLIE: And so with this little water, I’m over here trying to obey God, and I may have another storm in my life that’s coming, and the next storm requires at least a half. I don’t even have enough faith for my next storm, and I’m a Christian. I don’t have enough faith to deal with the next attack because I’ve been consuming my faith. And I think what a lot of people don’t realize about faith is that you use faith every day, which means it has to be replenished. So I think if we can start looking at faith like we look at our gas tank ‑‑ I need enough gas to make it from A to B. And if I make it to B, I’m gonna come back home, which means, at the end of the day, I’ve used up so much gas. We automatically know, in the next day or two, I’m gonna need to find a gas station.
If we look at our faith the same way, you have to feed your faith every day because you use it every day. Now, if you decide not to read your Bible on Monday, you probably won’t notice it. And if you don’t read it on Tuesday, you’ll probably, you know, start to slip. By Thursday or Friday, you’ll start to be a little bit more carnal. It’ll be harder to control your thoughts. Certain emotions will get out of hand. Little things that you were able to just kind of move off your shoulder, all of a sudden, it’s harder to deal with, and then you won’t know what’s going on. You’ll say that you’re being stressed or, you know, somebody asks you, “Hey, how are you doing?” And you say, “Well, I’m just kind of ‑‑ you know, I’m okay,” but, really, you’re not okay. Your tank is getting low. It’s time for an oil change and you don’t realize it because you’ve gone 3,000 miles and you need to pull over, but you won’t, you know, or you’re resistant for some reason.
WES: I’m glad you’re bringing up all of these struggles. And like you said, when people come to worship and they gather in the assembly, sometimes you can see it all over their face that they’ve been dealing with all kinds of things through the week and they’re struggling to see the realities that God is bringing to them through the gospel. And I think that’s the way that the Hebrew writer frames faith, is that faith is this ability to see the unseen, to see things ‑‑ to see the world to come, to see the age to come, to see the kingdom of God even while it’s still invisible to our physical eyes, to our mortal eyes.
And so faith is this ability to see what is really real. Death is real, sin is real, injustice is real, debt is real, financial struggle is real, but the promises of God are more real. They are more true. And so, like you said, our job as preachers, as evangelists, as those bringing the gospel, we’re trying to help people to see the things that are more real than the things they can see with their eyes, more true than the things they can put their hands on and so that they can get through those things that are hard, those things that they’re struggling with. And like you said, the best we can do sometimes is whet their appetite for those things, but we have to constantly be feeding ourselves with the gospel. We have to be listening to the gospel, hearing the promises of God so that we can set our minds on ‑‑ as Paul says in Colossians 3 and 4, set our minds on things above, not the things on the earth, because these things ‑‑ they are real, and I don’t want to diminish those things. I don’t want to make it seem like the struggles that people deal with aren’t real. Of course they are. But the promises of God are more real. They’re more solid, they’re more lasting. These things are just temporary and they’re gonna fade away, but if we’re not feeding ourselves on the truth of the gospel, then we’ll be overwhelmed and distracted by and discouraged by the struggles that we’re dealing with.
WILLIE: I think when you said those things are real ‑‑ those things are real, but when he says if you would just believe ‑‑ I can see something that’s real, but I can see the power of God that is also real. So whatever I’m facing, right, if it’s within God’s reach ‑‑ there’s no sickness, there’s no trouble, there’s nothing that Christians, or the body of Christ, that we’re facing today that God can’t blow our mind. We have settled back on trying. Our prayers have shifted from “God, do a mighty work” to “Lord, help us to make it through this week.” This week? “Lord, you know, we’re just kind of holding on.” Holding on? He told us we had the victory, and the victory is in him.
We have to get around enough believers because ‑‑ there’s a book ‑‑ when I first started ministry ‑‑ I’m gonna tell you that when I first started ministry, I was so excited. You know our story. It started in my living room, and I didn’t know how it was gonna grow or whatever. This is my first church plant. And we raised up enough money to get out of my home and we got into a rented building, and we did the demolition because we couldn’t afford contractors. So we did the demolition, sledgehammers, we did the painting. And then the little money that we had set aside, they were able to come in and put the roof ‑‑ the ceiling in and put some walls up. We were so excited. And so there was a preacher ‑‑ he’s passed away now, but there was a preacher that I had invited to come ‑‑ after we finished opening, to come do a gospel meeting, and I think, after the second night, I said, “Hey, I kind of just want to get some feedback.” He said, “Well, let’s go across the street,” and across the street was like a McDonald’s. He said, “Well, let’s just go across the street. We’ll talk.” So we just walked across the street, and I’m sitting in the booth and he’s just sitting there, and I’m sharing the vision. I’m saying, “Hey, I think we can really do some ‑‑ and this is the vision for this place.” And he’s just kind of looking at me, and I’m thinking like, hey, I just came from the living room. We came from a living room; now we’re in a building. Like, we’re a real church now. We got chairs. You know, listen, we got chairs. We ain’t sitting on my couch no more. Like we got chairs. I’m excited.
And he looks at me, after I shared the vision, and he said, “Is that it?” I said, “Yeah, that’s kind of it.” I said, “But it took a lot of work.” He said, “Please don’t get me wrong.” He said, “It took a lot of work for you to do ‑‑ for y’all to get here, and I commend you for that.” And then he said something I never forgot, and I pray that people who are listening, they hear this, too. He said, “But God is much bigger than how you’re talking.” He said, “There’s nothing wrong.” He says, “Y’all can accomplish everything that you just laid out.” He said, “But what I want to encourage you is, God is bigger than that. He can do greater work than this.” He told me to get a book. It’s called To Dream Again. I forget the author’s name, but it’s called To Dream Again, and it details a preacher or a church who got discouraged or whatever, and the church was just existing. They were just kind of puttering along, and they basically got to a point where they needed to dream again.
I think some of us, we’ve stopped dreaming. We feel like we’re too old. We feel like we have made too many mistakes. We feel like too much stuff has happened. Some of us, we feel like our window has closed on us and we’re just trying to wait for Jesus to return. And we’re not realizing, if the Lord woke you up today, there is an assignment that he wants you to accomplish. If you still have breath in your lungs, there is still a mighty work that God can still do through you. And some of us, we have ‑‑ I don’t know if you’ve ever heard some Christians say, “Well, we’re gonna let the young people do that now. I’m retired.” And I had to tell them, you don’t retire from Christianity. You may shift your role; you may make an adjustment, but you don’t retire. You don’t give God a good 30 years and say, “All right. Okay, Lord, I’m ready for you to come get me.” No, no, no. If he wakes you up the next day, there’s still something that he wants you to accomplish, and it can be a mighty, wonderful, beautiful work in the Lord.
But to dream again, I had to take that vision and ball it up and throw it away. And he was right; God was bigger. You know, I look back on that now. That was over 10 years ago, and he was right. God was so much bigger than I could have imagined. Matter of fact, to just do that would have been limiting God. There’s a scripture ‑‑ there’s another scripture that comes to my mind, which is Mark 11. Mark 11:22 and 24. “Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Have faith in God.'” Have faith in God. Verse 24 says, “Therefore I say unto you, what things soever you desire, when you pray, believe that you will receive them and you shall have them.”
What if, in the body of Christ today, we said, hey, it’s time for a revolution. We believe that before the year is out, we can bring a thousand souls to Christ collectively. Hey, we believe that we can get this gospel ‑‑ they are spewing ungodliness through the radio waves and through the television, and you see everything of filth under the sun that’s coming through the tube. Hey, what if we could start a revolution and get this gospel out to all four corners of the world? What if we can transform our city? And as they said, these men have turned the world upside down. [Acts 17:6] They entered into the city and they said we will never be the same because of a few individuals who really believed in God and they really saw the potential of God. They spoke it because they believed it, and when God saw that they believed, he gave them those things that they asked for.
Jesus said it like this in Luke 18:8, “Shall I find faith? I wonder, when I come back, is anybody gonna believe? Shall I find faith on earth?” And I think we’re worshiping God ‑‑ we’re worshiping discouraged. We’re worshiping God, but we’re worshiping him with limitations and restrictions, and we need to believe again. As Christians, we need to believe again. We need to dream again. For everybody who’s listening, hey, go back to the word of God and dream a bigger dream for your family. Dream a bigger dream for your children. Dream a bigger dream for your health. You don’t have to stay sick. You don’t have to stay on those pills. God is a healer. God is a way‑maker. You don’t always ‑‑ you don’t have to be in that financial debt. God can deliver you from that. That can be paid off. Hey, listen, you don’t have to fight with those addictions or those temptations. Do you know that God can deliver you from temptation? There are some people who sit in our congregations week in and week out, thinking, “I’m always gonna have to struggle with this sin.” No. God can deliver us from darkness, but we gotta believe again. We don’t have to remix Christianity to incorporate our weaknesses. “I love God, but I’m gonna have to deal with this. I love God, but I don’t think he’s gonna deliver me from this sadness.”
I want to let people know, if you believe in God, you don’t have to live in depression. And I know there are some cognitive and medical things that are going on, and I’m not here to speak on any of those things, and you may have things that may have been prescribed, but don’t stop praying. Don’t stop praying. Don’t let a doctor, don’t let a friend, don’t let anybody come to you and tell you that your marriage can’t be restored, your health can’t be restored. Don’t let anybody tell you ‑‑ matter of fact, there are too many testimonies from individuals who literally heard messages that it was over, and then things got turned around. God is a way‑maker.
WES: See, this is what I think is so powerful about believing the promises of the gospel, is that we hold in both hands sort of the current age, the realization of sin and death and disease and heartbreak and all of those sort of negative things, but we also hold, in the other hand, this hope ‑‑ not this wishful thinking, but hope, as in confident expectation that we know that all of those things will be healed. All of those things will be taken care of. We don’t know when. They could be in this moment, they could be today, they could be when Jesus comes again, but all of those things are gonna be taken care of. It’s not a matter of if; it’s a matter of when. And we’re not gonna stop praying for them to happen right now. We’re not gonna stop praying for them and believing that God can do them right now. I think you’re so right that we ‑‑ so many Christians have adopted sort of this defeatist attitude and this cynicism about the current realities, and those things have become more real to them, bigger to them than the realities of the gospel.
One of those things that you and I have talked about recently is the unity of the church. The divisions that exist and the reason that they exist is real, and we’re all aware of those things. We’re aware of the divisions that exist because of differences of opinion, but also because of ethnicity, because of a history of racism, because of whatever has caused the divisions that exist, but we can’t adopt a defeatist, cynical attitude that says, “Well, that’s always the way it’s gonna be. We’re never going to be unified. We’ll never get together.”
WILLIE: I would say stop; don’t even feed that to me. Yeah, don’t even feed that to me.
WES: Right. And we’ve got to believe what you’re saying, that Jesus wants his church to be one. He prayed for his church to be one. The Spirit can make us one, so we’ve got to live into that. Our scoffing and skepticism and defeatism is standing in the way of the work of the Holy Spirit.
WILLIE: What if we all started repeating ‑‑ because there are words of faith. There are wonderful words of faith, and you have to repeat that daily. You have to speak the words of faith. What if we started saying, “I love the church of Christ”? When was the last time we heard that? People don’t talk like that. It’s kind of like a ‑‑ we should ‑‑ “Hey, I love the church of Christ and I love what the church of Christ is doing, and God is doing a mighty work through the body of Christ today. Hey, thousands of souls are about to be saved.” I want to let you know, just even where we are, there’s a mighty movement that is happening right now, and I want to let you know people are getting excited about coming together. People are excited about the unity that is in the church. Don’t let anybody tell you that the church is forever broken or we are so divided that we can’t do something. That’s a lie because we’ve just seen evidence, not once, not just twice, but we are seeing it on small levels and on grand levels, that, hey, we were putting limits on God. God could have always done this. We had to believe that this is possible and we have to make sure that we don’t entertain messages. You don’t put oil and water in the same ‑‑ it doesn’t mix. So when negative speech starts being spewed, we have to mark it, identify it, and say we don’t talk like that in this place. This is a place of faith. So the things that’s going on in the body of Christ today, really ‑‑ all of these obstacles of unity that we’ve been trying to achieve for years, it’s really going to come down to a group of individuals who believe that, actually, it can happen.
Now, if I’m in the room and I don’t really think it can happen, I may go along, but I’m slowing the train down, because I’ve realized, through my studies, that God moves by faith, not by evidence. Thomas wanted evidence, but Jesus told him, yeah, you believe because you saw. You believe because you touched, but blessed ‑‑ the blessing is in the faith, not in the evidence. So there are some people who say, well, I’ll believe it when I see it. God doesn’t move that way. God moves by those groups who say, “Hey, I believe God is moving and I’m going to quiet the noise so that I can hear.”
When we was talking in the beginning about how faith comes by hearing, how many of us are really hearing what God is saying in this season? How many of us are really in tune for what he desires for us to do? Look, as men ‑‑ for the men, for their families, how many husbands or head of households are hearing the voice of God? How many of our women, who are doing great things in the body of Christ ‑‑ how many of them are really ‑‑ instead of just completing projects and activities, what if we all, as brothers and sisters, as men and women, as the children of God ‑‑ how many of us are really hearing and building up our faith for the next great move of God, which I believe is in this season?
But I also realize this. Just because Joshua was ready to go over ‑‑ God looked and seen that he didn’t have enough believers to go over with Joshua, so you know what he did? He preserved Joshua and he built up a new generation of believers, and when that new generation grew and became strong enough, then God said, “It’s time. Now it’s time to go over and take what I’ve been promising you.” Here’s the sad thing. God’s promises have been available for us. They’ve been available. God is a wonderful father and he wants to bless his children. He doesn’t withhold his gifts and he doesn’t take pleasure in seeing us lacking. The church is the light of the world. The church is the body of Christ. We are the light of the world. God’s not trying to hide that light. He wants that light to shine bright, but he moves on faith.
WES: And so much of it is just believing that that’s true, that the church is one. The Lord our God, he is one, the church is one, the church is the light of the world, the church is the salt of the earth. If we believe that that’s true, we don’t have to make it true. Jesus has already made it true. The Holy Spirit has already made it true. We just have to live into it. We have to believe that it’s true.
WILLIE: Say that again. I love that.
WES: Yeah. We don’t have to make this true. This isn’t by works. It’s not by our own efforts. We simply believe that the promises of God are already true and we live into them and we live them out even when it seems ridiculous, even when it looks like people are looking at us, thinking, “What in the world are you people thinking? You’re foolish; you don’t understand what you’re doing.” That’s what faith has always looked like to the scoffer. That’s what it’s always looked like to the unbeliever. It always looks like we’ve lost our minds, but we simply believe that the promises of God have been true, are true, and will forever be true.
WILLIE: Look at what you just said. Me and you are already unified by the gospel of Jesus.
WES: That’s right. That’s right. Amen.
WILLIE: We don’t have to do anything this evening. This conversation is not for us to get together. That’s what the world is trying to do. But if you’ve obeyed the gospel, we’re already unified. The problem is we have not recognized what has already been given to us, which is unity. Scripture tells us we need to fight to preserve it, but it has already been given to us. So then our conversation is not what can we do to come together, because we’re already together in Christ. Then our question is, how do we want God to use us? Lord, I want to remove everything in my heart ‑‑ Lord, I want to remove everything in my spirit that’s hindering you from using us. So we’re only coming together to pray, to empty ourselves so that the Lord can be filled in us to do his wonderful ‑‑ and he says, “and greater works will they do.” He said, “You think I’ve done something? Greater works that they will do to those who will believe.” We have to be ‑‑ are we really believers? And when a person is really a believer, then it’s literally ‑‑ when the church believes, it is like a man that sets himself on fire. The world will watch and come to see him burn. When somebody’s on fire, you can’t help but look and stare. You don’t even want to stare, but you can’t help but look and stare and say, “What is that fire?”
I had a gentleman one time posted a lesson or sermon. He said, “Hey, I appreciate the passion.” It’s more than just passion; it’s faith. Passion dwindles. I can get excited about God, and then I get some bad news. Somebody may pass away. My faith doesn’t disappear because of tragedy. Actually, tragedy intensifies it. If I go through trouble ‑‑ you see stars at night. If I’m going through a dark season in my life, you’re gonna see the stars because stars shine brighter in the night. So I tell people, I say, hey, I believe in God not just because of what I read. Everybody has a testimony. I have a testimony. I have seen some dark moments. It was God that brought me through. Now, if he can bring me through that, you can’t tell me about nothing else. If I have seen the darkness and if I have seen evil, and God delivered me when I was at a place where I thought I had no more hope and he gave me hope, he set me back on my feet, he put me in places that I don’t deserve to be in ‑‑ I have no business representing him, and he allowed me ‑‑ as the apostle Paul said, I was the chief of sinners. I shouldn’t even be doing this. And for God to have enough grace and mercy to extend to me, how ‑‑ if God gave me that much grace, how am I not gonna be forgiving to somebody, show grace and mercy to somebody? How will I withhold the goodness of God? Why won’t I speak it on every corner? If he brought me out of that lion’s den ‑‑ anybody who’s ever been in a place where you thought it was over and God let you see another day, you should come out of that lion’s den saying, “For the rest of my life, I’m going to tell people about Jesus Christ. I’m going to tell people about the wonderful works of God. I want to tell people about how he makes a way in deserts and how he brings rain in a drought, how God can make a bridge over troubled waters, how God can remove the storm and allow you to see the sun again.”
There are so many people who lived in depression for so long, and God came through and let them see the sun. Some people thought they were never gonna laugh again. Some people thought they were never gonna feel joy again, and now they’re sitting in a season of their lives and they’re laughing and they’re giggling, saying, “I never thought I would have these emotions.” I mean, God is so awesome, and he’s doing his work through the church. And I love what you just said. We’re not working to be unified; we are unified. We just need to identify the voices of Satan that’s trying to convince us that the hurdle is too high. The hurdle is not too high. Literally, whatever we want to accomplish in the body of Christ, if we submit to the will of God, that thing is already done.
That’s what faith ‑‑ that’s how faith talks. Faith has a language. That thing is already done. Souls will already be saved. I’m excited. Matter of fact, I’m excited even now. There’s a study I’m supposed to have. Somebody’s gonna get saved this week. Like God is moving and we got to talk like that. We got to talk like that more. That’s why I love conversations like this because it makes me want to even get back to work, and iron does sharpen iron. We’ve got to have irons in the room.
WES: Amen. Well, Brother, thank you for this conversation. You have lit me on fire. You have encouraged me, and, Brother, I thank you for your faith. I thank you for the work you’re doing in the kingdom.
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 talking about Jesus, you’ll want to hear the insights shared here.
The discussion delves into biblical principles around respect, humility, relationship-building, and embodying the incarnational love of Christ. It examines Jesus’ own interactions with tax collectors, the wealthy, and the marginalized – highlighting how he met people with authenticity, not condemnation. You’ll learn a practical framework for having spiritual conversations that open doors rather than putting people off. Powerful examples illustrate how vulnerability and sharing your personal story can be an effective bridge to the gospel.
The guest for this episode is Matthew Morine, a minister who has a gift for relatable, non-cringeworthy evangelism. Matthew preaches for the Castle Rock Church of Christ in an affluent area of Colorado. Despite living among plenty of wealth and success, he has found remarkable inroads for sharing Christ. His tested insights come from real-life experiences in his 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. How do you share the gospel without being weird, awkward, or icky? That’s what I’m going to talk to my guest, Matthew Morine, about today. Matthew preaches for the Castle Rock Church of Christ in Castle Rock, Colorado. He loves chess, mountain climbing, hockey, and reading, and he is fantastic at sharing the good news about Jesus.
But before we get to the conversation, I want to read from Romans 10, starting in verse 8. Paul writes, “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, ‘Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.’ For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’ How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they’re sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news.'”
I hope this conversation is a blessing and an encouragement to you, and I pray it helps all of us learn to love like Jesus.
WES: Matthew Morine, welcome to the podcast, Brother.
MATTHEW: Thank you, Wes. I’m glad to be here.
WES: Excited to have you, Brother. We just got back ‑‑ or you just got home. I just drove across town to the evangelism seminar that they had at Prestoncrest a couple weekends ago, and I sat in your class on evangelism, and I told you offline, and I may say it more than once in this recording, but your class on evangelism was probably the best class, the best message on evangelism that I’ve ever heard, and I can’t even begin to tell you how much I appreciate the thoughts that you shared.
MATTHEW: Thank you, Wes. That’s very kind. I’ll take any positive feedback.
WES: Well, one of the things that you talked about ‑‑ and it was the first time I’d really ever heard somebody sort of frame it this way ‑‑ was that we have this tendency to be really good at sharing the gospel with people that are ‑‑ you may have said at our socioeconomic level, but especially those that are below our socioeconomic level, but we sort of have a hard time, or may just don’t do it at all, share the gospel with people that are above our socioeconomic level, with people that we consider to be rich or people that we consider to be successful. Maybe, first, why is that, and then, you know, what can we do about that?
MATTHEW: Maybe we just have this assumption that, you know, Jesus said it’s so hard for the rich to make it into heaven, so we just think, oh, you know, rich people don’t care, and I think that’s just us kind of bringing our preconceived ideas to it, because if you look at the reality of it ‑‑ and we’re two preachers in this podcast right now, and I would say, very much, I consider myself rich. Like I ‑‑ when Jesus was talking about the rich people, he was talking about me, and I still love Jesus. I came to the Lord. And so I think, as culture has changed, our definition of rich is just anybody who we think makes more money than us.
One of my dear mentors said he lived with a very wealthy family in Nashville, and he was a foster child, and he said that this family ‑‑ and these are ‑‑ if I was to say the name, everybody in Nashville would know this name. That’s how well off they were. He said the rich people had a TV in their house…until they got a TV. The rich people had two cars…until they got two cars. And so our idea of rich keeps going higher and higher, but we’re not talking about reaching Bill Gates. We’re talking about reaching Bill, our neighbor, who lives in a very nice house right next to our very nice house. And we kind of ‑‑ because of our kind of church dynamics, a lot of our ministries through the years have been benevolence‑based, where we have food pantries, we have clothing drives. Wes, I almost feel guilty to say this, but I’m not driving to any church in this town for food or a used jacket. I’m just not. And in Castle Rock, we are the fifth wealthiest county in the nation. If our strategy for connecting with our community was benevolence, we’d have nobody.
WES: So how do we go about addressing this, and maybe even what Biblical framework do we have? What Biblical ideas? You even brought one out in the class that you taught. What Biblical framework do we have for sort of looking at our neighbors ‑‑ our wealthy neighbors, our successful neighbors ‑‑ and sharing the gospel with them?
MATTHEW: So I had this realization ‑‑ so, you know, I do my class on the woman at the well, and I noticed that everywhere I went, when we talk about evangelism, we always talk about the woman at the well. And I asked myself, why is that? And I realized it’s because we feel comfortable reaching lower on the social hierarchy, and we all have that construct in our mind. And I thought, we all can go to the woman at the well. You know, maybe she doesn’t have the best reputation in town, she’s not well off, and we’re willing to speak to people that we consider to be ‑‑ you know, I hate to say it, but somehow lower in the social hierarchy.
So I sat there and I thought ‑‑ in my mind, I said, you know, I’m a poor preacher in Castle Rock. If that’s the case, everybody’s going to try to evangelize me. So I thought most of the people I talk to are ‑‑ they’re all high executives, they’re all well off, they all live in nicer houses, so I better get over this or I can’t talk to anybody. And I thought, who has ever heard a lesson on reaching Cornelius? And then I thought about it, and I was like, I’m going to think about this. I just had this [demonstrating mind being blown], you know, with my bald head, like that’s why the hair’s off. And so I just realized it, and I thought, I’m going to study Cornelius and how do we reach Cornelius? Roman Centurion, very influential, very powerful, and he’s well off enough to be giving alms to the community, so how do we reach him?
And I came up with a couple principles. One was role reversal. You’re not going to go to Cornelius and say, “Cornelius, do you need food?” He’s going to be like, “No.” In fact, he may be insulted, so that’s not going to work. You’re going to go to him and you’re going to put yourself in the position of weakness. You are going to be the one in need. And a lot of our Christian people ‑‑ you know, as they say in the South, bless their hearts ‑‑ they’re doing good things. Christian people love people. Like, we have amazing churches and they want to do good, but our wealthy people, our socially affluent people, don’t need good. If they need something, they’ll just buy it, so you have to come and ask them for something and you’ve got to partner with them.
So think about this, Wes. If churches want to reach our communities, what can you do in the community that all people can get on board with? In my community, I’m a tennis coach and I can reach ‑‑ I can connect with non‑Christians who are of the social status middle class, upper middle class, ultra rich, doesn’t matter, and say, “Can you help me develop character in my tennis program and can you help fund my tennis work?” Well, fortunately, rich people play tennis, and they say, “Yeah, I’d love to do that. I want to make a difference in this community. I want to help young people.” But a lot of our ministries in the community have been very kind of Christian‑centric. That means, well, it’s all about just trying to reach them for Jesus, but the way to partner with them is to do good works in the community that all people can get on board with. We don’t usually do that, but that’s kind of your gateway to getting your affluent neighbors into kind of your circle of doing good. So that’s one approach, so place yourself in the weak position. Ask. Say, “You know, I really need some help with this.” They’ll show up to speak to your kids. They’ll give like a good talk about their background, and all of a sudden, now you’ve got reasons to connect and build that relationship over a good work, and I think that’s very successful.
Another thing that ‑‑ if you look at Cornelius, when Peter shows up, what does Cornelius do to Peter?
WES: They say that they’re there to listen and learn.
MATTHEW: Yeah, but Cornelius bows down. Like he bows down, and Peter’s like, “Cornelius, get up, man.” I think sometimes people in our communities have more respect for people of God than the people of God have respect for people in the community, and I think the people in our communities have more respect for ministers than sometimes the people in our own congregations. And when we, in our churches, kind of make, like, off‑putting remarks about ministers ‑‑ I’m starting to see a change, because in the community and with the affluent, they say, you know, “In my world, people do a lot of stuff for money. I respect you because you’re doing stuff for a bigger purpose.” They’re so surrounded by materialism and wealth that they’re saying, “I respect the people who got out of this treadmill and are doing something that is not financially rewarding to them.” They’re very complimentary. And so when you partner with them, they’re like, “Hey, I just want to do good.”
One of my friends, how I got involved in tennis ‑‑ he’s a non‑Christian. Total non‑Christian, doesn’t come to my church, doesn’t go to any church, not interested. He comes to me, and he says, “Can you help build character on our tennis team?” He still saw the values of God as helpful for helping young men and young girls be better citizens, better husbands, better wives, better employees. And so great respect for what I do even though he doesn’t believe in the Lord that I serve.
WES: Wow. When you were saying all this today, and in your lesson a couple weeks ago, my mind went to a couple of different places. One is that I think it’s kind of similar to one of the ministries that we have here at McDermott Road. We also live in a very affluent neighborhood. And I want to be clear. What I hear you saying is that ‑‑ I don’t think that we’re saying that you shouldn’t be reaching out to poor people, you shouldn’t be helping the poor in your community, but that we could ‑‑ we shouldn’t exclusively focus on just helping and reaching those that are poor and struggling financially. But one of the ways that we’ve done, I think similar to what you’re describing, is that we have a trailer here at the church parking lot. It’s actually manned every day of the week by an organization that they collect used goods. It’s kind of like a secondhand‑store trailer. So they collect donations from the wealthy people in our community, things like furniture, things like clothing, all of these used items, and then those used items are sold at their secondhand store, and the church receives the financial compensation for that, and then we take that money and use that to buy fruits and vegetables for people that live in a different neighborhood that are struggling to eat. And so we’re actually partnering with the wealthy in our community to reach the struggling, the hungry in another community.
And one of the things that ‑‑ as you were talking, it made me think about Philippians 2, so many principles in scripture about considering others more significant than yourselves. It is this showing respect, this mutual respect. And like you said, there’s actually sometimes a great deal of respect that unbelievers have, non‑church people, non‑Christian people have for religious people, even for ministers, but that mutual respect needs to go both ways, and that we need to show that respect and show that deference to other people. I love the idea of putting ourselves in a weaker position and approaching them and saying, “Hey, we need your help and we could really benefit from your help in this area or another.”
Do you think that we tend to be ‑‑ I know, speaking personally, I think another aspect of this is sort of an intimidation factor that people that have wealth and that have money or, you know, that we would deem to be successful in their career, or whatever area it might be, even just physical beauty ‑‑ I think sometimes there is an intimidation factor, that we have a hard time talking to them about the gospel because we’re just intimidated by them. We feel inferior to them. Do you think that plays an aspect in our hesitancy to reach our neighbors that are a little bit above us in the socioeconomic ladder?
MATTHEW: Oh, yeah. I think everybody has that basic ‑‑ maybe you get it from high school. You know, somehow the cool kids, you were scared to talk to, and I think we all have that. I think it’s very natural for us. And I love what you guys are doing at the congregation, too. It’s like, in our Christian minds, we’re thinking, you know, the people who have, you know, are going to give, and then we’re going to reach the people in the community and try to share the gospel with those who need the handouts. But the people who are bringing the stuff, they’re your mission field, as well. We don’t even ponder that thought. You know, rich people are lost, as well, but it’s almost like we assume they’re not interested. And maybe it’s ‑‑ I don’t know if it’s a lack of self‑esteem. I think maybe we just ‑‑ we don’t like the rejection, but that’s why I like to highlight that Cornelius was respectful. The people we talk to who are very successful in their careers or financially or whatever ‑‑ however you measure that, they are kind people. You know, we have almost turned this kind of demonization of wealth in our society, that they’re looking down on somebody. I don’t find that. I think they’re looking for purpose just as much as we are. They’re looking for kind of a bigger meaning as our society has moved away from Christian values, but the value of contributing to this world is human, and when we tap into that, they are receptive to it. If they’re not, they may not have that good heart. We’re looking for the good heart, but I think we almost self‑select. We have said no for them before they had a chance to even respond.
WES: Maybe part of it is our approach and the approach that we even assume that we have to take. I think ‑‑ I was always told, and I probably always approached evangelism in the mindset that you have to make people feel bad before you can make them feel better. You have to convict them of their sin first. Like that needs to be your out‑of‑the‑gate approach. You need to let them know and convince them that they’re sinners and that they’re bad people and that they need to be saved, and that’s how you need to go about it. And I think that we feel ‑‑ I think because we maybe are already looking down on poor people, we assume that we have a right to sort of put them in their place and tell them that they’re sinners, but we have a hard time doing the same thing to people that we feel like are above us. And so we’re intimidated by them and we don’t want to approach Bill Gates and tell him he’s a sinner because we’re intimidated by Bill Gates, but we’re not intimidated, because we’re actually looking down our nose at our poor neighbor, and we don’t mind telling them that they’re sinners because we don’t care what they think of us. And maybe that aspect of our evangelism ‑‑ maybe that’s backwards anyway.
So you shared a great story ‑‑ I don’t know if you want to share that today or not, but your story about the bus and your approach sort of in the beginning when you first learned the gospel and how you addressed people and tried to share the gospel with them. Why is that not the best approach, to just try to tell people that they’re sinners right out of the gate?
MATTHEW: Well, maybe I ‑‑ I didn’t grow up in the church, but somehow I drank the water of shame, because you’re right; I tell the story ‑‑ I go back home from being baptized. I’m going to school every day, and I get on the same bus to head to the campus to go to school, and there’s these two girls that I would see every single day, every morning. And this one day, one of them was telling the other one about how she cheated on her boyfriend, and I overheard this. So I was like, yes, this is my opportunity, because I don’t have to convince her that she’s a sinner; she confessed to it. So I leaned in and I said, “Do you know that fornication is a sin?” And they looked at me ‑‑ and I don’t think Christian people know that non‑Christians don’t
know what that word means. So I defined the word and then I gave them a good talking to. You know, I let them have it. I preached the gospel to them, telling them about how they shouldn’t be sleeping with their boyfriends, and they certainly shouldn’t be cheating on their boyfriends and sleeping with somebody else. Well, the next ‑‑ that afternoon, the friend, not the fornicator, got on the bus. So I thought, okay, the fornicator has a hard heart, but the friend, she’s going to respond to the gospel. She came and sat right in front of me and she chewed me out. “You judgmental” ‑‑ she had a few choice words for me. And, you know, they never spoke to me and you could just tell they hated me.
And so, in our society, it’s almost like we had this preconception that we needed to shame people into the gospel. Once you give a person ‑‑ that you are prejudging them, judging them, and they feel an ounce of shame, that you’re shaming them, they’re out. They are done. And so I know our church members, Wes, don’t believe in that approach. You know, if you were to ask them, they’re like, “I would never do that,” but it’s almost like the water we have drunk, that we got to convince them that they’re sinners first, and I don’t think that’s the approach. I know that’s not going to work. I want to partner with people and affirm that they are somebody who wants to do good, that wants to do good, and then you influence them by saying, “I want to do good, as well. My motivation is to do good because of Jesus Christ.” At the essence, it opens up this space ‑‑ “What’s your motivation?” ‑‑ and it gets them thinking through it, and then, all of a sudden, they’re kind of more willing. They want to explore, “Hmm, you want to do good; I want to do good. We can partner on this together.” But then, when they start to kind of think through it, they’re like, “There’s more to this than me just doing good. I need to have a bigger purpose.” Because I do think people have that spiritual intuition that they connect with, and that opens continued doors. I think that’s the approach ‑‑ like that’s the wagon I want to be bringing into town. I’m not bringing the wagon of shame.
WES: When you think about most of the harsh ‑‑ there is a time for harsh admonishment, but most of the harsh admonishment that we find in scripture is not for the world; it’s for religious people. Jesus had all of his harsh criticisms for the Pharisees, for the Sadducees, for the people that knew better, and it was the tax collectors, the so‑called sinners, that ‑‑ people were shocked. Jesus is eating with them, which, to your idea and to your point about partnering with, that was seen as partnering with, as being in fellowship with, and people were just absolutely flabbergasted that this rabbi would be partnering with, having fellowship with, eating meals with these people that they had nothing to do with, and then he harshly criticized the religious people. Now, that’s not to say that Jesus didn’t take sin seriously. He did, but he understood that in order to reach these people, you have to love them and you have to show them respect and that you see the image of God in them.
And I think, so often, we haven’t approached that way, and I think you’re right that so many of our church members, they know that’s not the right approach, but they’ve never been shown another model of evangelism and so they just don’t evangelize. They don’t share the Good News with their neighbors, with their family because they don’t know any other way to do it. They think, “If I’m going to do it, this is how I have to do it. I have to tell them off first,” and they’re not willing to do that, so they say, “Well, I feel guilty about it, but I guess I’m just not good at that. I can’t do that. I’m not going to go down that path.”
MATTHEW: Well, think about ‑‑ this is so Biblical. Like this is the methodology of Jesus. Matthew, tax collector. Is Matthew a poor guy? He is not. You know, if you know one thing about tax collectors, they are taking a little off the top. He is a wealthy man. Okay? As soon as Matthew is called, he chooses to follow Jesus. Jesus doesn’t pull Matthew from his people. Jesus goes to the party that Matthew hosts, and you know, if you’ve been to some of these, you know, well‑off parties, it’s a nice party, like we’re eating some good food. That’s Matthew, and Jesus connects to his group of friends. Pharisees are like, “I can’t believe he’s doing that.” No, he’s partnering with him.
Zacchaeus. Sees Zacchaeus. What does Zacchaeus do? He’s like, “I’m coming to your house today, Zacchaeus.” Okay. Zacchaeus is like, “This is fantastic. This guy’s going to show up to my house.” And what does Zacchaeus do? “I’m going to give back fourfold of everything I’ve taken.” Who was Zacchaeus? A very wealthy man. And what does Jesus do? He allows Zacchaeus to use his resources to do good for those and to bring more people in. But in both cases ‑‑ we almost never talk about the wealth in the Bible ‑‑ these people were very receptive, very receptive to Jesus. And then when they bend, Jesus is like, “Yeah, let’s use this to continue to build the kingdom and spread the word.” Don’t you love that model?
WES: Yeah. And you’re so right; that doesn’t get talked about very often. And when Jesus does approach these men ‑‑ you know, I think about ‑‑ I was thinking about that scene of Zacchaeus even before you said that, that here he approaches the tree where Zacchaeus has climbed up in that tree. He doesn’t point his finger and wag his finger at him. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Do you know how many people you’ve taken advantage of? You’ve robbed so many people. You ought to be ashamed. You’re a horrible person.” He says, “I want to go eat with you,” and that dignity and respect and love that he showed Zacchaeus, it transformed him. It changed him. It drew him into relationship rather than pushing him away.
And I think sometimes we ‑‑ those that do practice this harsh version of evangelism, I think they ‑‑ sometimes we have a tendency to wear the rejection as a badge of honor, that, “Well, I told them the truth and they didn’t want to hear it, and I did what I was supposed to do,” and we’re pushing people away rather than helping bring them closer to Jesus.
MATTHEW: Well, Wes, it’s because we ‑‑ okay. You know, church members are fantastic people. They love Jesus. They want to share Jesus. But sometimes they go launching in too quickly and they don’t know when it’s time to then take it to the next level. So I always do like ‑‑ it’s kind of like the three levels of interaction, and you have like the first one: Fake. You meet somebody, you get to know them, and it’s just kind of a fake relationship. “How are you doing today?” “Oh, I’m doing great. How are you doing?” “I’m doing great, too.” You know, everybody’s doing great because that’s our society. If I launch into a conversation about your faith, your beliefs, or share my faith, they’re like, “This is icky. This is like ‑‑ I don’t want to be here right now. This is too much. It’s like we’re talking politics. I don’t want to talk about politics.” So you launching in is ‑‑ you’re going to get a written, automatic no.
So then you wait and then you move to Facts, and that’s kind of on the relationship. You talk about weather, you talk about sports, you talk about your kids, you talk about what’s going on at school, you know, community, just stuff that everybody feels comfortable talking about. And then you think, “Well, should I launch in?” No, no, no. You are waiting until you can express emotion to them, and they have an emotion expressed to you.
So if you say, “I got so angry last night when my son came home. He came home late, and I yelled at him. I shouldn’t have been yelling at him, but I was so mad. I told him ‑‑ and I was frustrated with him,” and then you listen to their response. If they say, “Yep, that can happen,” don’t ‑‑ they’re not ready. They’re not ready for that level of interaction with you. But if they say, “You thought you were mad? Let me tell you what I did. I wouldn’t call it anger. I would say it was like pouring Red Bull and Monster on anger because I launched into my boy and I was super mad!” Now you know the relationship can be evangelized. So don’t come jumping in there too quick. Like, slow your roll and say a Feeling. Test it out and see if they give you back a feeling. If you do, that’s when you know you can share your faith.
Now I’m going to say why. Okay? And everybody’s going to be like that’s the weirdest words I’ve ever said, but it’s because of the Kantian Noumenal/Phenomenal divide. So Wes, in the first century, all knowledge was in one bucket. One bucket. So if I said, you know, “Seuss is great,” everybody would be like, “Okay, that sounds great to me. You know, like that’s fine.” And then if I said to the same guy, “Seuss is great, and 1 plus 1 equals 2,” they’d be like, “You have spoken knowledge,” but that’s not in American society. So Immanuel Kant realized, after the Enlightenment, our society separated knowledge into the noumenal and into the area of the phenomenal. Noumenal is values, ethics, is there love? The phenomenal is the measurements. You know, the sky is blue; water boils at 100 degrees Celsius. So when you switch over into kind of the realm of God, people can feel awkward with it, but if you test it out by sharing a feeling, that’s what you’re doing. Now you know you can kind of take it to the next level with your faith.
WES: This was incredibly helpful. This was probably my favorite part of your class, was this idea of a Fake and then Facts and then Feelings and testing out the relationship to see if you’re at that point where you can share feelings with that person. That was so helpful because it articulated what I think every single one of us have experienced, that either we’ve been the icky, weird person and we have shared our faith and people have treated us like we’re icky and weird, or, more likely than not, we know people like that and we just don’t know why ‑‑ like there’s a level at which we admire them and we think, I wish I could do that. I wish I could get on the elevator and say, excuse me, sir, can I tell you about Jesus? You know, we wish we could do that, but we’re like, ah, I just can’t do that. It seems so weird. It seems so strange. We think it’s noble, to some degree, but at the same time, we realize that it’s just socially awkward, and it’s unsuccessful and people don’t respond well to it. You’re very seldom going to enter into a long‑term friendship, much less teach that person the Good News about Jesus, just through this brief interaction. You are so much better off waiting until you have built some level of rapport.
And I think, putting it that way, where you’re at the point where you can share feelings with one another, it gives us a really practical litmus test to know am I at a point where I can share about Jesus and it won’t feel like I’m being emotionally manipulative; it won’t feel like I’m being strange or weird or just socially awkward? And I think that’s incredibly helpful, Matthew. Thank you.
MATTHEW: Yeah, I think people like it because we feel like we have very little control in evangelism, and in this way, you kind of ‑‑ when do you have that conversation? When do you start to share your faith? And I wait till Feelings. And it’s just ‑‑ they may not be saying “Where’s water,” but they’re going to be open to it. And so one of the ways I do it is the AIM approach ‑‑ the AIM approach. So I’m Authentic, I try to create Interest, and I talk about the difference that Christ has Made in my life, so that’s my entryway. And so once they express a feeling, I’ll say ‑‑ I’ll try to share something like ‑‑ if it’s a young father, I’ll be like, “Man, I’m really struggling with trying to be a dad. I do not have this dad thing down,” and I’ll kind of just open with that. You know, “Do you ever feel like you just can’t do dadding?” And then the person may kind of be like listening, and they’ll be like ‑‑ if they’ll say, like, “I just feel inadequate,” now I know ‑‑ I’ll say, “But you know what I’ve found? My faith has really helped me with that. It seems like I just ‑‑ I don’t know what it is, but Jesus has made me a better dad. Like I don’t know if that seems odd to you, but it’s really been impactful for me, and I’ve learned like even how to love my kids and express it, and, really, it all goes back to my faith.” Like I remember in my family ‑‑ my family never said I love you. I didn’t hug my dad. But I remember being at the airport, and I was like, I’m going to lean in, and I remember hugging my dad, and my dad’s like super awkward, and I’m like, “Dad, I love you,” and my dad’s like, “I love you, too,” and that was the first time my family said to one another “I love you.” You know why that happened? Because of Jesus Christ.
Now, I’ll share that little story if I think it will connect with them. I’ll go with my AIM approach: Authentic, create Interest, try to connect it to a need that they have, and then I’ll end it with a Made‑the‑difference story. All of a sudden, I have planted a seed in a way that they don’t feel judged. You know, like, hey, that’s just something I’m sharing. But if they’re dealing with that, too, they may sit back and think, hmm. They may go home and, all of a sudden, they may ‑‑ they’re not going to call me up and say, “I’m coming to church,” but I remember when I was a non‑Christian, I was given a Bible, and I remember being at work and I got into some fight or something. I was just struggling. I remember opening up the Bible and reading it. I don’t even know what I was searching for, but I was searching for God, and it opened up that opportunity. They will do that, and then that starts planting that seed, and you’re going to start seeing them asking you little questions every now and then about your faith, and I think that’s how we do it. That’s how we bridge that, and that’s not icky. In fact, the person is like, “Man, I appreciate him sharing that with me.”
WES: Yeah. I love ‑‑ sort of tying all of it together, I love the idea of sharing your story and doing so from a position of vulnerability, where you’re not just sharing a feeling; particularly, you’re sharing a struggle, and I love that you pointed out that it has to be authentic, that that sort of idea of authenticity ‑‑ it kind of has become a buzzword and could probably be used in ways that probably aren’t healthy and aren’t really authentic, but there’s a lot of truth to that, that we can’t be fake. And I think so many of our evangelistic efforts, they come across ‑‑ they at least are perceived as being fake. They seem manipulative. They seem like you’re trying to sell somebody a used car ‑‑ nothing against used‑car salesmen ‑‑ but it seems like you’re trying to twist people’s arm. But when you’re just genuinely, authentically sharing your own struggle with somebody ‑‑ and even going back to the idea of asking for help, not just help like, “Hey, could you help us to reach the poor?” But “Do you have any advice for me? Like I’ve got a 15‑year‑old son, and, man, I’m really ‑‑ I’m struggling to be a dad, and I would ‑‑ I know you’ve got kids. Any advice you have?” You know, and if they say, “Man, I don’t really have any advice. I’m struggling, too,” you know, then that builds this type of relationship where it doesn’t seem strange or manipulative. It’s real. It’s genuine. It’s respectful. It’s loving.
MATTHEW: Yeah. And there’s camaraderie with that. It’s like, “I’ll tell you what; let’s just try to keep doing this together.” Everybody can get on that page. You know, Christians and non‑Christians, we’re all just trying to figure out this life, and I think once you kind of show that respect, it’s like, “Hey, I’ll take any good insights you’ve got,” and all of a sudden, they’re like, “Hey, I’ll take anything, too.” Two strugglers are always friends. You have never seen somebody who has started freezing, won’t huddle up. And if there’s one fire, strangers freezing no longer are strangers. I will get close to anybody around a fire that gives me advice. Now think about that, that analogy about Jesus Christ. If Jesus is the answer, and we believe that, there’s always room around that fire for mutual strugglers seeking help.
WES: Yeah. And I love that this is not just pointing people to Jesus; it’s actually embodying ‑‑ I keep coming back to Philippians 2 ‑‑ it’s embodying the cruciform life. It’s embodying the incarnation because this is what Jesus did. Jesus didn’t look down from his throne, didn’t look down from the glory of heaven and say, “Hey, y’all need to shape up down there.” He lowered himself. He considered others as more significant than himself. He washed their dirty, nasty feet. He served them. He suffered with them. He empathized with them. And if we’re going to reach people, we don’t need to just tell them a message. We need to embody that message. And I love the way that you’re framing this because it’s exactly what that’s doing. It is loving our lost neighbors the way Jesus loved us, and this is the way Jesus brought us into his family, and that’s what’s going to reach the lost.
MATTHEW: Wes, I’m going to illustrate our method of evangelism. Okay? So my grandmother would make homemade bread. Oh, my grandmother had fantastic homemade bread. She’d make it. I’d live with her, I’d do the chores, I’d look after the cows, and on the way into that house, I could smell the homemade bread. Okay? Now, if I was to write down, you know, on a piece of paper the recipe for the homemade bread ‑‑ I wrote down, you know, flour, yeast, you know, sugar, salt, and I had that, and then I took it and I waved it at you ‑‑ okay. Are you getting hungry yet, Wes? No. You think I’m foolish. You’re not enticed by the recipe; you’re enticed by the bread.
We have taken the plan of salvation and we have waved it at people and said, “Here’s the recipe. Here’s the recipe. Don’t you want to be a Christian?” And people are like, “I don’t care.” But when you give them the bread of life, when we’re incarnational, when we are like ‑‑ I love how you’re really fleshing out Philippians 2 ‑‑ we’re in there and they smell the fragrance of Jesus on us, they smell the bread on us, they want the bread. We’ve been flapping the recipe, but we haven’t been flapping Christ.
WES: Amen. Well, Matthew, thank you so much. I could talk about this all day. I appreciate you not only having this conversation with me and teaching this class, but thank you for living this out. Thank you for sharing Jesus the way that you do and for helping us to better share Jesus with our neighbors.
MATTHEW: Thank you, Wes. I was looking forward to this, to be on the podcast of Wes McAdams. I told my wife ‑‑ I literally showed up, and I said, I gotta be on this podcast. I said, it’s a big deal. It’s a big deal.
WES: Well, it’s a big deal for me to spend time with you, Matthew. Thank you. Thank you for your work you’re doing in the kingdom, Brother.
Why is Baptism Important and Beautiful? with Marcus Stenson
Mar 20, 2024
Why 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.
Through an examination of various biblical passages, Wes and Marcus explore the rich symbolism and spiritual significance of baptism. They discuss how baptism represents dying to our old sinful selves and being raised to new life in Christ, echoing the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus himself. The episode also delves into the relationship between baptism and the Holy Spirit, shedding light on how the Spirit works in connection with baptism. Additionally, the conversation touches on the communal aspect of baptism, highlighting how it relates to being welcomed into the family of God and the body of Christ.
Marcus Stenson is the preaching minister at the Leander Church of Christ, located just north of Austin, Texas. He is a co-founder of Christians for Kenya, a non-profit organization dedicated to equipping Kenyans to spread the gospel through education and humanitarian aid. Marcus is also a member of the team at Be1Make1, an organization that empowers people to fulfill their disciple-making purpose. With his deep knowledge of Scripture and passion for the kingdom of God, Marcus brings valuable insights and perspectives to this discussion on the importance and beauty of baptism.
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 baptism. Why is baptism important? Why is it significant? Why is it beautiful? I’m going to talk to Marcus Stenson, who is currently the preaching minister at the Leander Church of Christ, just north of Austin, Texas. He’s a co‑founder of Christians for Kenya, a kingdom‑facing nonprofit 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 so appreciate Marcus and the things that he has to share. I know that you’re going to be encouraged, as well.
I want to start by reading Romans 6, starting in verse 1. Paul says, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”
I hope that you enjoy this conversation, and I hope that it helps all of us learn to love like Jesus.
WES: Marcus Stenson, welcome back to the podcast, Brother.
MARCUS: Hey, man, thank you so much for having me. It’s always a great time.
WES: We have spent far too long already having a pre‑podcast conversation, and it’s been so rich, so I’m excited now to hit the record button so everybody can join in on our talk.
MARCUS: Absolutely. Maybe you can cut that as some bonus content for subscribers in the future, put together a little package for them. You never know. Something special.
WES: No doubt. Well, it’s good to have you back, Brother. I’m excited to have this conversation. Let’s start with the question that I received from one of our listeners, and then we’ll kind of see where the conversation goes from there. So somebody wrote in and said, “I’m new to listening to the podcast. I’m really enjoying it. Do you have anything on the topic of Holy Spirit baptism? I’ve been in discussions with others about baptism, and they say most of the baptism references after the book of Acts are referring to Spirit baptism and not water baptism. Could you lead me in the right direction to better understand and teach others? Thank you.”
So let’s kind of broadly discuss that idea, specifically, about water baptism. I think that there are multiple, you know, bad directions that people can go when they talk about the theology behind water baptism, but, you know, why is it a big deal? Is it a big deal? Do we make too big a deal of it? Do we not make a big enough deal of it? What are some of your preliminary thoughts on that?
MARCUS: Oh, man, I agree. There are a lot of wild roads you can go down when it comes down to the topic of baptism, but ‑‑ I don’t know if this will surprise you; I actually think we probably don’t make enough of it. I think, in so many instances, especially in our context, and probably, I assume, for most of the listeners to this podcast, the question has always just come down to “Is it necessary?” We spend a lot of time defending that, and we spend a lot of time proving that and demonstrating that from scripture, but the practice of baptism, even back for the Jews, leading up to the New Testament and then in the New Testament period, is incredibly rich. There’s a lot there. And then it’s so deep and rich with meaning and symbolism for us that, I think, unfortunately, sometimes we leave a lot of that by the wayside in the discussions of its necessity. So it’s absolutely important maybe, in some ways, on a level greater than we realize, so I’m excited to kind of step into some of those spaces in this conversation and hear what you think, too.
WES: Yeah, amen. I think that’s a great way to put it. I think that we have focused in, almost myopically, on the idea that baptism is necessary ‑‑ this is necessary for salvation ‑‑ and we have disconnected that from the beauty and the richness of this ceremony, however you want to frame what it is, and we’ve really ‑‑ I think that we have really made a mistake in making this all about, you know, works and ‑‑ you know, is this salvation by works, and we’ve sort of fallen into the trap that I feel like the evangelical direction has laid for us on baptism, because so many on sort of the broad evangelical side would say it’s not necessary for salvation, and I think they’re pushing back against the Catholic idea that baptism disconnected from personal faith ‑‑ so let me kind of frame it this way. I think that, for the longest time, you had the Roman Catholic Church that was practicing infant baptism and connecting this ritual of water baptism, and we could define that, you know, the sprinkling, but they were practicing water baptism as a sacrament that was the church bestowing salvation on these families, on these children.
And then the reformers came along and the Protestant movement came along and said, no, no, no, salvation is about personal faith in Jesus, and it’s really not about you going through this ceremony that you didn’t have anything ‑‑ you didn’t decide this, you didn’t participate in this; this was something the church was doing to you or for you, but not something that you’re participating in. And they pushed back against that and made it about, they would say, faith alone, that salvation is by grace through faith. And I think where I would come in, and I would say, well, you’re both right. You know, I do believe scripture teaches that it is a sacrament. This is the church giving salvation, through Jesus, to the world. This is the church baptizing people into Christ, so it is sacramental in a sense, and we do believe something is actually happening when a person is baptized.
But the Protestant reformation was also right, that it is also about personal faith in Jesus, and it is about people deciding to put their faith in Jesus, and we are saved by grace. It’s a gift, through faith, through putting your trust, giving your allegiance, pledging your loyalty to King Jesus, but all of that comes together in baptism. And I think that the Catholics are so quick to say the Protestants are wrong, and the Protestants are so quick to say the Catholics are wrong, and I kind of want to come along, not necessarily in the middle, but to transcend that argument and say, well, you’re both right, and yes, it is sacramental in that something is actually transpiring in the act of baptism, but it’s also about salvation by faith.
MARCUS: I love that idea. Let’s come along and say “yes, and” and let’s not clip off some of the meaning that is actually built into this practice and into this ritual or this sacrament, whatever you would like to call it. Just to echo some of what you’re saying, one of the interesting things that I’ve found in that argument that has taken place for so long is many of the Protestant reform traditions retain infant baptism, and yet it would seem to conflict with their claim of faith alone and this is totally divorced from anything to do with salvation, yet they have this impulse to baptize infants in case something happens before they can make that profession of faith. And so there’s a little bit of cognitive dissonance built into that practice there.
I would say that one of the best ways for me to understand some of the fullness of what baptism represents is going back and looking at the parallels and the allusions between the circumcision given to Abraham and the Israelites, and how it’s described like circumcision in the New Testament in the book of Colossians and elsewhere, and that signifies that we have something much deeper going on than just the church doing something to somebody or just this single individual act, so I like where you’re going with that.
WES: Yeah, yeah. Let’s talk about that idea of water. How do we know that it’s water that ‑‑ you know, for instance, Colossians 2 that you’ve already brought up; Galatians 3, Paul says we’re all one in Christ; everybody who’s been baptized into Christ, we’re all part of Abraham’s family. How do we know that when these passages are talking about baptism as being this moment that you are clothed with Christ or you are in Christ, or, Romans 6, you’re buried with Christ ‑‑ how do we know that we’re talking about water baptism as opposed to what some would claim that, no, no, no, this is Holy Spirit baptism, this is something that God is doing to you, not something that you’re doing, sort of an outward work, as they might put it. So how do we know that it’s water, and why water? Why is that significant, you think?
MARCUS: There are a number of practical examples throughout the entire New Testament of this being clearly demonstrated as water baptism that is taking place. Now, there are those iconic passages where there is the presence of the Holy Spirit coming on somebody. The day of Pentecost, of course, is famous for that reason. Then, of course, you also have the conversion of Cornelius and his household, but in those instances, they are more outliers or exceptions to the rule. In both cases, the Holy Spirit manifested in a way to signify that God was doing something miraculous in that moment, and it was communicating something specific. I think it would be a mistake to take that understanding and apply it broadly across the other incidents of baptism in which there are other factors and variables in play, very clearly in the text, that show us that, hey, this is the Ethiopian eunuch going down to the water to be put physically in it. Or even, at the end of that Acts passage on the day of Pentecost, these are 3,000 people that are going down into the water to be baptized in response to what they’ve seen of the Holy Spirit appearing with the apostles. So I would be very wary to disregard all of the other factors in play in these passages that show us that we’re very really, practically, talking about someone going down into the water and reenacting the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.
WES: Yeah. And I think that it’s important to recognize ‑‑ and you’ve already kind of pointed this out ‑‑ that “baptize,” that’s an English word. It’s a transliteration of a Greek word, but the word that’s being used, this Greek word of baptizo, it was a very common word. It was not a religious word. There were religious usages of the word, but baptizo was not a ‑‑ it was not specifically a religious word. So when they thought of baptizing something or someone, they weren’t necessarily thinking about a religious ceremony. It depended on the context.
You could talk about ‑‑ Josephus even talks about whole ships being baptized. He talks about people being drowned; they were baptized. I think a good equivalent ‑‑ and maybe it would be helpful if we used English words that actually mean what we’re trying to talk about. “Plunge” is a great word. We tend to use the word “immerse,” but “plunge” is a great word. I think sometimes when we think about “immerse,” we get worried about, well, what if there was a strand of hair that was sticking up from the water? Or what if there was a toe that poked up from the water? That’s not the point. The point is, something is being plunged, dipped down into something, but the implication is always water. Like, that’s what the word implies. When we say the word “plunge,” we automatically think of water.
Now, we can use the word “plunge” metaphorically. We could talk about somebody getting married and say, you know, “Did you take the plunge?” You know, “He took the plunge.” But it’s a metaphor and we understand that, and the context has to bear that out. But if you just hear the word “plunge,” you automatically think, oh, we’re putting something, almost by force, into water. And the same is true with the Greek word baptizo, that the automatic assumption with the word “baptize” is putting something into water. Now, John the baptizer used the word metaphorically to say that Jesus is going to baptize you in the Holy Spirit, meaning Jesus is going to plunge you into the Holy Spirit or he’s going to pour out the Holy Spirit on you; you’re going to be washed in the Holy Spirit; you’re going to be overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit; you’re going to be immersed in the Holy Spirit. But it was obvious, because he attached the phrase “with the Holy Spirit,” that it was a metaphor and he was using it metaphorically. But if we just see the word “baptized” by itself, it can’t be that. We can’t make the assumption that it’s a metaphor. We have to assume that it’s water because that’s the most natural use of the word.
MARCUS: And it’s the most common use of the word throughout the entire New Testament, as well. You bring up John. John is literally standing in the Jordan, putting people down in the water, plunging them, dipping them, immersing them, however you want to render it, when he makes this statement and when he draws this metaphor. So I think that’s very well ‑‑ very well said there.
WES: And when you ‑‑ in some of the passages that come into question ‑‑ I think about Acts 22:16. Paul is retelling his conversion story and he says that Ananias said to him, “Why do you wait? Arise and be baptized, wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord.” So it’s obvious that baptism always is tied to this idea of forgiveness of sins, the washing away of sins, the salvation of the person. It’s always tied together with that idea. And when someone is told to do it, be baptized, of course that’s a passive ‑‑ it’s a passive commandment. It’s not something you do. You don’t arise and baptize; you arise and submit to baptism. You allow someone else to baptize you ‑‑ and I think there’s an important part of the picture there ‑‑ but you can’t do that if he’s talking about Holy Spirit baptism. You can’t arise and make the Holy Spirit baptize you. Like that’s not how it works. Like when the Holy Spirit is poured out on people, that’s something that Jesus does. That’s not something that you have any control over. When that happened to Cornelius’ household or when it happened at Pentecost, that wasn’t something that they were commanded to do. And so Paul couldn’t be commanded, “Get baptized with the Holy Spirit.” He could only be commanded to be baptized in water, and so that has to be the assumption that we make when we see baptism in Paul’s letters, is that he’s talking about water baptism.
MARCUS: That’s such a good point. There’s no sense in which I could stand up and “I’m going to pour the Holy Spirit out on myself now.” It’s not really a decision that I get to make. It is a gift that is promised to me, but it is tied in conjunction with that other baptism, that water baptism, so yeah.
WES: So what do you think ‑‑ if you were just going to explain baptism to somebody, if somebody just said, Marcus, what is this thing? You Christians, I see you in your assembly, like you’ll get up in the middle of the night and you’ll go up to a church building or you’ll go to a swimming pool or you’ll go to a lake and you plunge somebody in water. Like what does that have to do with salvation? Why would God care about that? Why would you care about that? Why is this important? If you were just going to explain this to somebody that had no concept of baptism, how would you sort of frame it in a way that brings out the beauty of it?
MARCUS: This is where, I think, if we spend some time ‑‑ or if we spent more time, maybe I should say, there’s so many levels where I think beauty is a really good word for it. Somebody who is familiar with the Old Testament and the children of Israel and the sign of circumcision that they had, I would have the conversation with them that our baptism, as Christians, is like circumcision in that it’s a reminder of God’s supernatural intervention and his providence.
Also, baptism is the point at which a person is granted access or admittance into the community of God’s people and thereby gets access to the oracles of God or the promises of God, as well. Baptism is signifying in that it’s a sign of a covenant that we’re entering into, just as that circumcision was for the children of Israel. One of the things about that covenant that was a change from covenants at the time, where there was usually a token or a trinket between a suzerain and a vassal which you had to produce in order to show that this covenant was in effect and you were under protection of the suzerain ‑‑ God gave circumcision as a covenant that could not be lost. It stays with you forever, so to speak.
But just like that, in the New Testament, we have our baptism written of as a circumcision of the heart, and there’s not much more intimate that you can get than physical circumcision of the body, but if there is a way, that would be the circumcision of your heart. Baptism’s effectual in that it changes everything that we do. We don’t just carry it with us. We now see life through what it represents, and so it is an image of us stepping into or being put into the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and then walking in newness of life on the other side, just as he did. So that’s one of the ways that I might explain it, especially that last bit there, I think, is the most important thing for someone to understand about what we’re doing with baptism.
WES: Yeah. Let me read the passage that you’ve referred to a couple of times in Colossians 2, because I read it just a little bit differently than you do, and so I’m curious to hear ‑‑ let me kind of lay out the way I read it, and I think maybe ‑‑ you can correct me if I’m wrong in the way I’m reading it, or we may find kind of a happy medium between us.
So Paul says, in Colossians 2, starting in verse 8: “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.”
It’s beautiful stuff. I love it. And in true Paul fashion, it is quite the run‑on sentence. And there’s so many different ideas, and so how to parse it is really interesting, but it seems to me that what Paul is saying is that these are the things that happen in Christ, that in Christ, in him, we are filled. This is verse 10: “You have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands.”
So the way I read that is that this is something that Jesus does to the people who are in him, and so where I would kind of separate it out is to say that baptism isn’t exactly our circumcision, but it is the act by which, the ceremony by which, the moment at which we enter into a covenant relationship with Jesus, and by being in him, by being so associated with him, that we actually dwell in him, that he circumcises us, he cuts away the flesh.
And I think that the way that the New Testament tends to talk about that symbol, that sign, that token, as you talked about, is that the Holy Spirit is that token, that sign, that symbol. And so I would put it ‑‑ I tend to put it as the Holy Spirit is the equivalent of circumcision, that the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives is our token. The beauty of that is that it is this unseen token. It is this invisible token that is only seen through the fruit that the Spirit is living in our life: love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness. That’s the evidence that we are covenant children of God, that we really belong to him, and that that comes about by being in Christ.
Now, when that happens is in baptism, and that’s what Paul says, that, in baptism ‑‑ “having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him,” so in baptism you were raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead. So I might just kind of nuance that just a little bit to say the Holy Spirit is our token, but that that Holy Spirit is given to us at the point of baptism. So, to me, the equivalent is so much like the crossing of the Red Sea. Paul puts it that way in 1 Corinthians 10, that the Israelites were baptized into Moses, and so, in our baptism, we cross through the Red Sea, and just like the children of Israel were circumcised to show that these delivered people are my covenant people, we are circumcised with a spiritual circumcision in the giving of the Holy Spirit, and we begin to show the signs of our covenant relationship with him as we walk in the Spirit. What are your thoughts on that? I hate to kind of throw that at you.
MARCUS: No, no. Actually, I’m not sure there’s much clarification that I would want to add to that. I’m thankful for the nuance that you’re bringing in there, and I’m actually really glad that you go somewhere like the Exodus account and crossing the Red Sea, too. I think one of the most interesting things about the rite of baptism is how often we find types of it in the Old Testament that point forward to what our ultimate state is going to be and how God’s going to work that out. I don’t disagree with the way that you break down that passage at all. I see more of a type in circumcision to the process of being baptized and receiving the Holy Spirit, and so I think you’re actually right on the money with the way that you deconstructed that and discussed it in a little bit more nuance there, so I appreciate that perspective.
WES: Well, but, I mean, I think that that’s really ‑‑ I think bringing out that idea of circumcision ‑‑ I mean, what if we thought of it that way? What if we taught it that way, that when you are baptized, you are submitting to Jesus to circumcise your heart? Not necessarily that the baptism is your circumcision, but that that is the ceremony that’s happening spiritually when you go through this process, to say, in this process, God is cutting away the flesh. He’s giving you a brand‑new heart, a heart that isn’t hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, and when you’re raised up, you are now bearing the marks of a covenant child of God. And, I mean, to me, that’s just a totally different way of saying things than saying, okay, this is one of the steps that you have to do in order to get saved. It’s just so much different because what we’re doing is we’re saying this is a work of God. This is a work of God to which we are submitting when we put ourselves under the authority of Jesus and pledge our loyalty to him.
MARCUS: Amen. And very much so that community aspect that you point to, I think, is lost sometimes. It is the moment where we get brought into the special people of God, and that was a big deal for the ancient Israelite. It should be a big deal for us, too. That meant everything for them. They were the people who possessed the promises. They were the people who had the truth amidst all of the peoples and different societies around them, and so their token, if you will, with something that identified them in that community, and the presence of the Holy Spirit does the same thing for us. I love the way that you put that, submitting to allow Jesus to circumcise your heart and you arise bearing the marks of a child of God. That one needs to go on a t‑shirt somewhere, Wes. That’s a good one.
WES: It sounded better when you said it, though. But I love that you bring out the community aspect of it, and this is where I think it’s really important to sort of think through the implications of salvation is brought about through a people. Jesus, yes, but that the church becomes the body of Christ and that the church becomes the pillar, the buttress of truth, that we get to be the ‑‑ I don’t want to say arbiters; that’s probably not the right word, but a royal priesthood, and we get to be the ones through whom Jesus brings these blessings to the world.
I’ve often heard people ask questions ‑‑ and, again, it comes about because of our individualistic nature, our obsession with, you know, what steps do I need to take to get saved, and these hypothetical situations, like what if I’m in the desert and there’s nobody else around, and there’s an oasis of water and I read my Bible and I say ‑‑ or I’m on an island and nobody else is around, I read my Bible, I figure out that I need to be saved, and I figure out that I need to be baptized, and then I baptize myself. Could I baptize myself? And I just think that the New Testament never talks about baptizing yourself because there is an assumption that you are being taught by someone, you’re being discipled by someone, you are being brought into the family of God through the receiving of the word, which, again, is another reason I don’t think that an infant can be baptized because it implies you are being taught about what Jesus is offering, what discipleship will cost you, and you’re being taught by someone else who is making this logical, this verbal invitation to you about who it is that you are being invited to follow, and that that person, or someone associated with them, is baptizing you into Christ. You don’t baptize yourself. Again, we’re not told to baptize for the forgiveness of sins; we’re told to be baptized, to submit to it, to surrender to someone else doing this to us.
MARCUS: I think that’s a really important point to make out. I would say, to those theoreticals, a wise person once told me, never base your theology off of theoreticals. And you can get into a world of pain if you do that because that will be an endless endeavor and you will never come to the end of it. There will always be another “what if,” but there are a lot of things that can be known under normal circumstances, and that’s, I think, where we ought to base our practice from.
I love the idea of talking a little bit about the new birth in this because it is the process of becoming a newborn again. That’s how Jesus talks about it, right? That’s how Jesus refers to entering the kingdom. It’s how Paul talks about it when he’s writing to Titus, as well. So this concept of being born again, or that restoration of all things, necessitates that this is a person who has already lived and already understood. It makes it very hard to make the argument for someone who has literally just been born to be able to be born again immediately right after. And maybe that’s something you want to jump into a little bit here for a few minutes, but I think that what Jesus is talking about in that new birth is a really important aspect of our baptism, as well, so…
WES: Yeah. No, that’s a great point, and I think it brings out how important eschatology is ‑‑ kind of a throwback to one of our previous podcast conversations ‑‑ but how important eschatology is, in that what Jesus wants to do with the whole world by remaking the whole creation, he begins to do in us. That’s what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5, that if you’re in Christ, you are a new creation. You are this little piece of new creation walking around, and, in yourself, you have a past, you have a broken past, a sinful past, a distorted past, a warped past, a perverted past. We all do. And then Jesus remakes us through the power of the Holy Spirit, and when we submit to baptism, we undergo this death to who we were and this rebirth into who we are and will be for all time. And what Jesus is doing in the individual convert, transformed person, he wants to do to all creation, and I think that’s such an important ‑‑ that’s why eschatology is so important to understand on a cosmic scale. That’s what God wants to do, but he’s begun that cosmic work in every single individual.
MARCUS: I love that. This might be a strange thing to think of, but I think about the frequently discussed passage when it comes to baptism. We’re always talking about 1 Peter 3, and it’s because Peter’s talking about baptism as an anti‑type when he’s talking about how the world was saved through Noah. I want to think about it from a different point of view, given what you just discussed, and that’s that there’s this really cool thing that God is doing at the end of the flood where it parallels perfectly with the days of original creation. And so there’s a
recreation happening as the rain ends and light enters the ark again and then, of course, culminates with animals leaving the ark and being back on land again, and then Noah being on earth again. You’ve got all six days replayed there in Genesis. God’s doing a recreation.
So when Peter talks about us being saved in that same way, and then we read Paul writing about becoming a new creation, it’s really a way of saying that our baptism is this deep, rich, personal enacting of the reality of God’s redemptive power in his creation and making us a new thing, like he will restore all things in that day. So I love that you bring up the eschatological viewpoint there, too. I think it’s all over the place in the New Testament. It’s beautiful.
WES: And that’s a really ‑‑ I’m glad you went to 1 Peter 3. In context, there’s so much that ‑‑ that’s such a difficult passage, and I hate that we just kind of use it as a bullet in our gun because it really is a very difficult passage about what does he mean about Jesus going to and proclaiming to the spirits in prison. What is that all about? But in context, Peter is saying ‑‑ this is verse 13. He says, “Who is there to harm you if you’re zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks a reason for the hope that’s within you.”
I mean, he’s talking about ‑‑ he says in verse 17, “It’s better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil. For Christ also suffered once for sins.” So he’s talking about this sort of suffering in the present moment, and I think you’re exactly right; this deconstruction of the world through the flood and this reconstruction of the world in the world to come ‑‑ for Noah, that’s the world we live in now. It’s Earth 2.0. And so we have already ‑‑ Peter is saying we have already begun to enter into the world to come through baptism,
that baptism is saving us. In this context, I don’t know that he’s saying saving us from our sins, like forgiveness. That’s certainly a part of baptism, and it is in Acts 2, it is in Acts 22 ‑‑ it’s all over the place. But in this context, he seems to be saying that baptism is saving us from this world of suffering and death and that it’s bringing us into this new world in which we’re already beginning to experience. And so, I think sometimes when we just pull it out of context and say, see, baptism saves you ‑‑ it’s true, and it does on multiple levels, but I think, in this context, he probably means something more like baptism is saving us from the world that we’re suffering in right now.
MARCUS: Yeah. I think you’ll find support for that idea if you look at the verbiage that’s used by Jesus when he’s talking to Nicodemus, by Jesus when he’s talking to his disciples in Matthew 19, as well, and the same word that Paul uses in Titus 3 is that word palingenesia, which is a Greek word that is talking about the cyclical ‑‑ what they believed was the cyclical nature of the Earth and things would get destroyed and recreated. So when Jesus says to Nicodemus, “You have to be born again,” he uses that word, so he’s referencing this concept of a total teardown and a total recreation, right? A total redemption. But the difference with Jesus’ use of that word was that this one’s final. You guys are right; there is a palingenesia, but there’s only one, and it’s when I come, and it’s in the new heavens and new earth. But you, when you become a Christian, when you receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, baptism being a part of this process, you get to live out part of the future kingdom right now. It’s personal in your life. And that word you used, “arbiters,” a few minutes ago, we proclaim that. Baptism is a proclamation of that, and our lives ought to be a proclamation of that, as well, as we go along.
WES: Yeah. Well, and I love that you pointed out about that rebirth that Jesus says to Nicodemus, and he says it’s by the water and the Spirit. And I think that’s ‑‑ back to our original question of is it the water or the Spirit, it’s like yes, it’s both.
MARCUS: It’s “yes, and.”
WES: It is. It’s “yes, and.” And so I think, in a way, the Catholic is right, and the Protestant that believes that baptism is this moment of entering into the covenant and being forgiven, those that claim that, it’s like, yes, it is sacramental in that sense. The evangelical says, no, no, no, it has to be about personal faith in Jesus. It’s like, yes, you’re also right. The person who says it’s about the Holy Spirit and about being baptized in the Holy Spirit, it’s like you’re also right. And the one who says it’s about water, it’s like, yes, you’re also right.
And I want to kind of stand in the apex of all of that and bring all of those ideas together and say, you all are hitting on different elements of this reality, and they’re all there and they’re all valid, but I think when we try to invalidate what everybody else is saying, that’s when we go ‑‑ we get wrong and we want to pit one passage against another. It is yes, this is a work of God through the Spirit that is mediated by the church. It is a moment of actually passing out of death and into life. It is about faith in Jesus. When you’re baptized, you are being saved by grace through faith. You’re being born again. You’re experiencing this regeneration of yourself just like the cosmic world will experience. And so it’s all of those things, and I think, so often, we just ‑‑ we get myopically focused on one thing to the exclusion of others.
MARCUS: And it’s really a shame how much more rich and full and meaningful ‑‑ and this is not to detract from the meaning of anyone’s baptism or anyone’s experience or understanding, but if we were able and willing to hold space for all of these different facets of this beautiful thing, this act of God that he does in each one of us individually, and at the same time, within our community of believers together, within our family, I just wonder if a lot of these conversations and arguments, and, unfortunately, a lot of the division that exists over it would disappear into something that’s much more meaningful and much more beautiful. I don’t think you have to cut off your nose to spite your face. I don’t think you have to invalidate some of these other aspects of what baptism is and what it means and what it accomplishes, so I really appreciate how well you tied that together. I really do.
WES: Well, I think that phrase you used, cut off your nose to spite your face ‑‑ I think that that’s so true when it comes to this conversation, that when we take what scripture says about baptism and we twist it to use it in a militant way against other people, we’re really hurting ourselves. We’re trying to tell somebody else they’re wrong, but so often we end up hurting ourselves and we get worried about our own baptism. We get worried about our own salvation. We get fearful. We emphasize the wrong things. I did a series not too long ago on baptism and focused on the fact that most of the passages in the New Testament, in the epistles, of course are written to Christians about their own baptism in this very practical admonition to live out their baptism, that baptism is very practical, and it should be something that we were intentional about committing ourselves to Jesus when we were baptized, something we remember ‑‑ so I think that does nullify the idea of infant baptism ‑‑ but it should be something we remember, pledging ourselves to Jesus, because Paul and the Hebrew writer, they keep drawing on “This is what you committed yourself to. Do you remember when God did this for you? Do you remember that you are the recipient of these blessings because you experienced this?”
Let me just ask you, like what practical difference do you think it would make in people’s lives if they really understood the biblical teaching on baptism?
MARCUS: Good question. I’ll say this. I think building off of what you just suggested a few seconds ago is a great place to start with this. I don’t hate the militant aspect of baptism. I do hate that we get militant with each other about baptism and we use different verses to fire bullets at each other, like you mentioned before. I think one thing that has changed for me is I do see our baptism as an act of spiritual warfare.
WES: That’s right.
MARCUS: I look at all of the passages in the Old Testament that point towards our baptism that are tied to our baptism later. We talked about crossing the Red Sea. The entire Exodus campaign was about God establishing his superiority over the gods of Egypt and then even turning them to look at a mountain named after Baal who they were about to go into his territory in Canaan. He’s the god of the sea and the storm god, and then God says, hey, look at his high place and then march through the dry ground so that you know that I was the God of where you were and I am the God of where you’re going.
And then there’s all this language in the New Testament, as well. And some of the passages that we’ve already hit always end talking about Jesus being at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him, or him triumphing over authorities that he put to an open shame. And so, in that view, I have this rich, deep understanding of an act of God and what he’s doing for me. But this view of baptism especially comes out in 1 Peter 3 as a pledge or an appeal. Every single time someone is baptized, it’s a rehearsal and reminder to darkness that they have been defeated, and it is a public declaration of whose side of the war a person is on, and it’s another shot fired at the spiritual host of wickedness in which Paul says we’re at war against. This way, I think, like we can accurately position baptism as an act of spiritual warfare. And when I remember that, that my life, if I’m living out the baptism, as you said, is a declaration of the victory of Jesus, it changes the whole dynamic and paradigm that I see it through. So I hope that makes sense to you, but that’s something I get very fired up about, actually.
WES: Amen. Great stuff, and I’m so glad that you framed it that way. And I think that’s Paul’s point in Romans 5 and 6, that, before Christ, we were slaves. And he kind of puts it in terms like sin and death is this pharaoh, this ruler over us, and as you were talking ‑‑ you have such a beautiful way of expressing these thoughts ‑‑ I was thinking of the way that, like, the Bible Project videos express these thoughts in visual form, you have a poetic way of speaking, and so I could picture what you’re saying as you’re saying that.
But I would encourage people to picture what a life without Jesus is like, that it very much is a soul that is wrapped in darkness. Like you can almost picture these demonic forces that are holding and binding a person. You can’t see it, and the person may walk around like they’re happy and carefree, but at some level, they know it. They know that their soul is in bondage to demonic forces and powers and authorities in the unseen realm, and that when that person is baptized into Christ, that life ‑‑ that life that is entangled and enmeshed in demonic forces dies and is crucified with Christ and they are buried with Jesus and then they’re raised up. And the person who comes up out of that ‑‑ as we often say, that watery grave of baptism, that person who is raised up is now emanating with light and has already, in a sense, been glorified with Jesus and is sealed with and circumcised by the Holy Spirit of God, and now they’re walking as a warrior of light and they have this helmet of salvation and this breastplate of righteousness and they can go to war against the forces of evil and darkness.
And you’re right, baptism is ‑‑ I’m so glad you framed it that way, as an act of spiritual warfare, and we are declaring war against the forces that used to bind us and hold us. And that’s why Paul says, in Romans 6, “Can we go on sinning? Should we go on sinning so that grace may abound?” What a ridiculous claim that anybody would say, well, if you say you’re saved by grace ‑‑ you people who say you’re saved by grace and not by works of the law, you know, you’re just encouraging people to go on sinning, Paul’s like, no, you were in bondage to these forces. How could you keep living in that? You died to that. This is ‑‑ you’re a brand‑new person, and that’s what happens at baptism.
MARCUS: Oh, absolutely. I’ve heard it said this way before. I was thinking about this as you were talking about a soul and a life that’s just entangled and enmeshed and then set free. Essentially, our entire lives, up to our point of baptism and that declaration, are ‑‑ you know, we’re told that our lives are defined and our value is defined by what we do, but at that moment, the script flips and it changes. We know, at that point, that our value and our lives are defined by what God has done for us and what Jesus has done for us. And so it is a real reversal and upheaval and overturning of the entire way that we look at life, and that is probably the best understanding of why Paul speaks the way he does when he says we’re not going to keep living like this. There’s no reason to. I’m not confined by this anymore; I’m not defined by this anymore, so yeah, it’s a good one.
WES: Yeah. Amen. What a great place to stop. Marcus, I miss you. I love you. I so appreciate this conversation, but more importantly, the work you’re doing in the kingdom.
MARCUS: Thank you so much, man. It’s an honor every time I get to spend some time with you, and, hopefully, I’ll get to see you soon, Brother.
WES: Thanks, Brother.
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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.
Eric Ramsur and Wes McAdams the biblical narrative, starting from the creation account in Genesis, and explore the concept of the divine council, where God interacts with other spiritual beings called “Elohim.” The conversation also examines the rebellion of some of these beings against God’s authority and their subsequent influence on humanity and the nations. Furthermore, the episode sheds light on the role of Satan, the accuser, and the reality of demonic forces as presented in both the Old and New Testaments. Practical guidance is offered on how we can engage in spiritual warfare by aligning ourselves with the Holy Spirit.
The guest for this episode is Eric Ramseur. He and his wife, Brianna, have four children. They reside in Virginia Beach and love working with the church for its growth and mending relationships in their community. Eric’s deep understanding of Scripture and his passion for exploring the often-overlooked aspects of the biblical narrative make him an excellent guide through this complex and fascinating topic.
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. On today’s episode, we’re going to talk about spiritual warfare. What is it, who are we fighting against, and how is it that we go about engaging in spiritual warfare? My guest today is Eric Ramseur. He and his wife and four children live in Virginia Beach. They love working with the church for its growth and mending relationships in their community. I know that you are going to be incredibly blessed by the things that Eric has to share. He is a brilliant theologian and a wonderful disciple of Jesus, and I know that you’re all going to be blessed by his thoughts.
I want to start today by reading Ephesians 6, starting in verse 10. Paul says, “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For 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. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one.”
I hope that you enjoy this conversation today and, as always, I hope that it helps all of us learn to love like Jesus.
WES: Eric Ramseur, welcome to the podcast, Brother.
ERIC: Thanks for having me. Glad to be here.
WES: I am so excited to have this conversation. We were talking before we hit record, and we could have just, I think, kept on talking. This is a subject that I’m incredibly fascinated by, I have a growing appreciation for, but I feel like my mind is constantly being bent by some of these factors. In fact, we started this conversation via message because I wrote an article on idolatry, and that kind of ‑‑ I used the phrase “false gods” and you wrote to me. We kind of went back and forth on some of that, and I said, hey, let’s get on the podcast and talk about it. So let’s kind of paint a picture for people about the story of the Bible and the worldview that we should have when we think about not only scripture, but when we think about life and the world.
ERIC: Yeah, sure. So I think we have to start at the beginning. I think most stories work out better that way. So what I want to do is paint a picture of what God’s intention was for creation and then bring it forward to where we are and then, ultimately, where it’s going. So God’s original intention, from Genesis 1, was to work with a partner. And so, in the first chapter of Genesis, we have the creation story, and you’ll see that creation story mirrored in other places and told in different ways. One thing that I think people should really look into is Psalm 104 and how the creation narrative is kind of flipped on its head and it turns more into an anti‑Babylonian story.
But we start in Genesis 1 and we have the creation, and we find that we have the creation of the light first, but then we’re going to have the creation of the stars and the moon and the sun, but they’re called the great light and the lesser light, and so those lights are to rule in the skies. And so whenever we see that ruling language, that’s kingship language, and that’s going to also follow on to the creation of mankind, and so male and female, we are to rule, but we’re all delegates of Yahweh, of God the Creator. We don’t have rule of ourselves; we’re delegated rule. And we ‑‑ most of us know the story of what happens in Genesis 3 with what we call “the fall,” but there, there’s a spiritual and a human rebellion that take place, and we find that there’s an exile. And the story of the Bible turns out to be that God is trying to bring us back from exile to what Isaiah and what Peter are going to call the new heavens and the new earth.
And so we have another rebellion in Genesis 6, and we’ll probably get more into this, where the sons of God see that the daughters of men are beautiful, or they see that the daughters of men are good, and they take them for themselves, and from there, chaos ensues. God says I’m wiping everything clean, and there’s another exile that ends up taking place, but it’s an actual death. And so we have Noah, whose name literally means “comfort,” or “rest,” and God wants someone to bring rest to not just the land ‑‑ it’s the reason Noah is named Noah, according to his father, and God wants someone who can finally bring rest.
And so we find this narrative throughout the Old Testament of David, Solomon, even Daniel ‑‑ these are all people who are supposed to bring rest to the land, but there are these players in the background, and we’re going to see them every once in a while. We’re going to refer to them as maybe those things that are unseen. We’ll call them sons of God, things like that. And so you have these players in the background, both on God’s side and the side of who we’re going to call “the Satan” or just some kind of spiritual evil. And so this story, of course, progresses, and the people of Israel go after these other gods, these other sons of God who were delegated authority all the way back in Genesis 1, but they’re also going to be given authority in the Tower of Babel story, and we can look more into that.
And so the story of the Bible is bringing us back from exile, but also God reclaiming what he had let go, and I know that’s a strange thought for people, so hang on ‑‑ we’ll get to it ‑‑ but that’s ultimately what Jesus is about whenever you get to the Great Commission. He says go into all the nations. Why do we need to go into all the nations? Because we’re going to make disciples. And then Paul’s going to pick up on that and talk about the principalities and the powers and how the Gentiles are under them. And the message of the gospel, the good news, is to bring those people back into the fold of God. When Jesus says, I have sheep that aren’t of this fold, that’s who he’s talking about, but they’re under powers that have to be taken out of the way, and we do that through spiritual warfare, which we can talk about more.
WES: Yeah. Oh, you laid it out so beautifully. And I think where I was struggling until fairly recently was the idea ‑‑ not necessarily the story or even how we play into the story, because as anybody who’s listened to this podcast for very long knows, I don’t subscribe to this God’s going to destroy everything physical and whisk us away to some spiritual, ethereal realm, and
God doesn’t care about this physical planet and all of his creation. I very much have always believed ‑‑ or not always, but for a very long time have believed in the redemption of creation and that we were created to rule and reign with God over creation and all of these things. But what I have dismissed or ignored in the storyline is the forces of evil that have been aligned with the Satán. And you pronounced it that way, so maybe give people an idea of what is the Satan, and why add the word “the” in front of it and, you know, who is this character and how does he play into the story?
ERIC: Yeah. So this is one of those things that I wish I had learned all the way back in preaching school, but it’s a wonderful discovery along the way, and it just deepens your understanding of the forces that are against you but also the forces that are for you, per Elisha. So the Satan ‑‑ the reason I say “the Satan” is because I think only one time in the New Testament are you going to find the word “Satan” without the definite article. And so what happens in the Hebrew language, also the Greek language, is that you never find a personal name with a definite article, so I wouldn’t be referred to as “the Eric” or “the Chuck.” You would just call me “Eric” or “Chuck.” And so the question is, why does this word, “Satan,” have to have a definite article? And, really, the answer is plain. It’s because he is an accuser, and so that’s the role that this spiritual being, who John is later going to tell us it’s the dragon, it’s the serpent that was in the garden ‑‑ that’s the accuser. And we later find this accuser, the Satan, actually performing this role in the book of Job, in Job chapter 1, where we have this divine council there, the sons of God coming up to Yahweh, and the Satan also comes and accuses Job, and from there, you get the story of Job.
WES: Yeah. So let’s ‑‑ you’ve mentioned this phrase “the sons of God” several times, and this is where it may get a little controversial for people, and this is one of the ones that I’ve really struggled with. You have this sort of bizarre story in Genesis, and you’ve already kind of alluded to it, that the sons of God have children with the daughters of men and there’s the Nephilim and, you know, what is this all about? I have tended towards interpretations over the years, although obviously I’m getting away from that ‑‑ but I’ve tended towards interpretations over the years that define “sons of God” as just, well, these were the spiritual descendants of Seth as opposed to the descendants of Cain, and these were the good men having children with, intermarrying with the bad women, and that’s what the story is about. But there is a very longstanding tradition that there’s a whole lot more going on here, and what we’re talking about is spiritual beings and not human beings.
ERIC: That’s right. Whenever you get into books like First Enoch ‑‑ I’m not claiming that First Enoch is inspired, but I do believe that it’s important. Jude seems to think that it’s important. Paul regularly references it. Jesus quotes from the book of Enoch, as well as the book of Hebrews. And so I’m not claiming that it’s authoritative or inspired, but it seems to pick up on something that Peter’s going to say, “You know, you’re right about that.” And then we get 2nd Peter 3, where Peter alludes to both the book of Enoch, but also Isaiah, with the destruction of the elements. I know that it’s often taught ‑‑ and there may be some recordings of me in the past where I’ve taught ‑‑ that it was the elements of this earth are going to be burned up. But Enoch and Isaiah seem to be saying that, per Isaiah 34, it’s actually those hosts of heaven who had rebelled against God who are going to be destroyed.
And Enoch talks about, you know, there’s this pit of fire that’s been prepared for Azazel. We also get Azazel back in Leviticus 16, and that’s a real interesting story. And so this pit’s been prepared where he’s going to burn and be ultimately destroyed, as well as all of the angels who rebelled with him and taught men all things like metallurgy and music and things of that nature. And so Peter picks up on that and uses that to talk about the rebellion in Genesis in 2nd Peter 3, and John does the same thing with the Satan, putting him in the Azazel seat.
WES: So when we hear this phrase “the sons of God,” we’re supposed to picture ‑‑ I think that most people would say angels, although that’s probably not the best word. So how should we think of the sons of God?
ERIC: So whenever we say you are ‑‑ let’s just take Jesus with the Jews in John 8. That’s an easy one for us to wrap our minds around, and then we can apply it back to sons of God, where they say that “We’re children of Abraham,” and Jesus looks at them and tells them to examine their works. And he tells them, “No, you aren’t a son of Abraham. If you were a son of Abraham, you would do the things that Abraham did, but instead, you are a son of the devil because of your works.” And so the sons of God ‑‑ it’s not that God procreated with women, as the sons of God do in Genesis 6, but it’s that they are of a like nature with God. They are also called Elohim, and “Elohim” is just the Hebrew word for god, but it’s also a plural word for god, or gods. And so whenever we see the words “Son of God” in the New Testament, it’s mostly referring to Jesus as the Son of God in the sense that he’s the one who was given kingship, per Psalm 2:6‑7 and other places, but “the sons of God,” it’s that they are of a like nature with God.
There are also spiritual beings, and kind of an interesting side note ‑‑ and we can go there if you want ‑‑ in Exodus 24, where Moses is giving the law ultimately to the children of Israel and they say, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do and we will be obedient,” and then he writes them down and they say, “All that Yahweh has said we will do, and we’ll be obedient” ‑‑ after that, Moses, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and 70 of the elders, they go up onto this mountain, and it says that they saw Elohim of Israel, and we know that’s God, that’s Yahweh. But then it says that they saw Elohim. But you just told me that before. Why are you telling me again that they saw Elohim? And the answer actually lies in Deuteronomy 33:1 and 3, but particularly, in the Septuagint, it lays out that it wasn’t just Yahweh up there on the mountain; there were also myriads of angels. And so whenever they see Elohim, or the sons of Elohim, they’re actually eating and dining with Yahweh and angels, which is how covenants in the ancient Near East took place. The people would agree to a covenant, and then it wouldn’t be just normal people, it would be the king who would go up on a mountain and eat with the god and his divine council in order to ratify the covenant, and then the people would get one of the tablets with the law on it and then the god would keep one. And it’s interesting that both tablets end up in the Ark of the Covenant because God wants to have that free‑flowing relationship with mankind.
So we shouldn’t be afraid when we see the words “sons of God.” God isn’t doing something underhanded. It’s just that the sons of God are of a like nature. So that’s a long way of answering your question.
WES: No, I think that’s really helpful. So kind of to sum up where we are, I think, so what you’re saying is that, in the creation, that there is the world that we can see, there’s the earth, but there’s also the heavenly realm, the unseen realm, as Michael Heiser puts it in his book. And in the unseen realm, in the heavenly places, there are Elohim, plural. There is the chief Elohim, the Elohim, the Lord of Lords, the God of Gods, and so Yahweh is the Elohim who is unlike any other Elohim. He is in a category of his own. But scripture doesn’t dismiss the idea that there are other Elohim, and I think that that’s what is really kind of shocking for a lot of people, because sometimes people, I think, use or think Elohim is specific to Yahweh rather than this general word similar to our English word “god.” We could talk about “the God,” and for Christians, we worship only one God, but we also acknowledge that other peoples worship gods, lower g, but it’s different because our word “God” is singular, whereas this word Elohim is ‑‑ in its natural state, it is plural. And I think what is interesting is you have to pay attention to the context ‑‑ the translators, rather, have to pay attention to the context in interpreting is this the Elohim, singular, or is this Elohim, plural? And sometimes there’s disagreement.
I was thinking about a passage, Deuteronomy 32:17. It says, “They sacrificed to demons that were no gods,” that were no Elohim. Now, that’s how the ESV translates it. It translates it “that were no gods, to gods they had never known.” So the ESV is kind of self‑contradictory because you stop and say, well, wait a second. “They sacrificed to demons that were no gods, to gods that they had never known.” Well, wait a second. Are they Elohim or are they not Elohim? Well, the other translations probably do a better job with it. NIV, New American Standard say, “They sacrificed to demons who were not God, to gods they had never known, to new gods that had come recently whom your fathers had never dreaded.”
So the Bible affirms that there are other gods, that there are other Elohim. Not to say that they are ‑‑ that they are God in the same way that Yahweh is God, but there are other spiritual beings in the unseen realm, and our worship and devotion belongs exclusively to Yahweh, just as Israel’s was supposed to belong exclusively to Yahweh, but that there are other Elohim in the heavenly realms. Kind of walk us through that. Maybe expand on that or clarify anything I’ve gotten wrong.
ERIC: Okay. Well, I think you got all that right, but I think the thing to remember here is, one, that even passages that say ‑‑ and I know people listening are thinking, well, doesn’t it also say that Yahweh is God and there is no other? And yes, absolutely. Whenever we look at phrases like that ‑‑ and we also have phrases that say Yahweh is the God of gods ‑‑ what happens is, especially when I was in preaching school, we would just kind of wave that away and say, well, what they mean is idols, and idols aren’t really a thing, there aren’t really other gods. But ask yourself the question: Would I say that God is the God of nothing? Absolutely not. And so there has to be some kind of way to rectify those two things that seem opposing.
And so phrases like “there is no other,” that’s also what Babylon says about itself as far as being the city above all cities in Isaiah 47. And Yahweh is actually saying this is what they say about themselves, and they’re not just placing themselves as the city of all cities, but they’re also placing themselves in the place of Yahweh. And so what we see there isn’t necessarily that God is saying “I am the only Elohim,” but it’s that “I am above all other Elohim,” and that’s the claim from chapter 1 of Genesis to the very end of the Bible, when we get to Revelation.
I find Deuteronomy 32 very interesting because it’s kind of the summation of Moses’ life, but it’s also a song. It’s him writing poetically about something that has already happened in the past and is going to be the narrative of the book of Joshua, where, in Deuteronomy 32:8‑9, if we back up a couple of verses ‑‑ and we’ll probably get more into this ‑‑ it actually lays out that Yahweh gave possession of the nations to these sons of God, these other Elohim, so that they would rule, but there was a way that he wanted them to rule that they didn’t. They didn’t rule with mercy and with good judgment. And so it lays out that Yahweh’s portion ‑‑ or out of all of the nations, out of all of the 70 nations that were named in Genesis 10, Yahweh’s portion is Israel. And so, if you want, we can dive more into that.
WES: Yeah, yeah. I think, just to kind of clarify just a little bit and to kind of go back to what you said, the way that you read it in preaching school ‑‑ and it tends to be the way that I’ve always read it ‑‑ is I’ve read it, you might say, as accommodative language, where the authors, whether it be in the Psalms, or whether it be here in Deuteronomy, that they were just accommodating the idea of these, quote‑unquote, so‑called gods, and that they weren’t actually affirming that these gods existed.
There’s actually a scholar, John H. Walton ‑‑ I tend to really appreciate Walton’s work and I really appreciate his perspective on things, but he and his son did a book on demons and on these other Elohim and just spiritual beings in general, and he and Heiser kind of went back and forth on these different perspectives. And, at first ‑‑ I kind of went down a rabbit hole, and, at first, I really thought, yes, Walton, he’s saying what I’ve always said, is that these gods don’t exist. These other spiritual beings don’t exist, that God is really the only spiritual being, other than these lesser beings of angels and, you know, whatever. But he almost went so far as to deny the demonic forces, and I think that that’s where I was like, okay, well, I can’t hang with you anymore, and I really ‑‑ I’m starting to see things more from Heiser’s perspective, that there really is something going on, that when these nations, or Israel themselves, are sacrificing to these other Elohim, they’re sacrificing to ‑‑ Deuteronomy says to demons, and Paul agrees in 1 Corinthians. He says in chapter 10 that they are sacrificing to demons. There are actual spiritual beings. Satan is an actual spiritual being. These other angels, demonic forces, these other Elohim are actual spiritual beings, and we have to be really careful that we don’t so demystify the world and the story of scripture that we deny the existence of spiritual forces and powers and rulers in the unseen realm.
ERIC: That’s right. One of the things that I like to do ‑‑ it’s kind of a social experiment within the church ‑‑ is talk to preachers and see, “How many times have you preached on the armor of God?” And everyone will say “Yes.” And I say, “Well, what is it and why do you need it?” Like, “Well, uh, I don’t know.” But whenever you look back in Isaiah, at Isaiah 59, it’s God’s armor, and it’s not God’s armor to go to battle with just Babylon, physical people in Babylon; it was about a spiritual battle that was going to take place between himself and the other Elohim. And so back in chapter 58 the people needed to take up fasting and Sabbath again, and God says I’m going to be the rear guard for you as you exit Babylon. And then chapter 59, he says, there’s no one to go to war for you and so I’m going to do it myself. I’m going to put on the helmet; I’m going to put on the chest plate. And from there, there’s really no question that God saw a real battle in the spiritual realm that was going to affect what goes on on the earth.
And then Paul picks up on that, and he says, you know, you families, husbands and wives, you need to love each other and respect each other and be subject to each other. You need to be singing and making melody in your hearts, and you need to be filling yourselves with the Holy Spirit so that you can take up this armor. Fathers, don’t provoke your children to anger. Children, you need to make sure that you obey your parents. Masters and slaves, all of that, that’s not just so that we can have good lives. It’s because there is a spiritual battle that’s going to take place, and he says the battle isn’t with anyone who looks like you. It’s not flesh and blood. It’s a spiritual battle.
WES: Yeah. Let’s come back to that in just a second. Let’s kind of flesh out just a little bit about this idea of the spiritual rebellion, that there was or is a divine council. Even that phrase we could kind of work on if we wanted to, but that God is in the midst of this divine council. I like the way that Heiser specifies God doesn’t need a council, you know, but God also doesn’t need human beings. He doesn’t need us, but he chose to partner with us and work with us just as he chose, apparently, to work with a divine council and often he asks their opinion. He asked for them to weigh in on how he goes about things. He allows them to participate. But, apparently, there was a rebellion in this divine council. There was a rebellion with these Elohim that rebelled against the rule and reign of God. So kind of walk through maybe the rebellion and the dividing of the nations amongst these other Elohim.
ERIC: Okay. So, again, let’s go back to Genesis 1. Yahweh says that there needs to be a light in creation, and he divides the day and the night. But then he says, you know, there needs to be something to rule the day and the night. And so, from there, we see the stars and the great light and the lesser light. And what these stars end up being is a representation. He says let them be for a sign, signs of festivals and of seasons. Whenever we see the word “season,” sometimes we think of spring, summer, fall, winter, but seasons are actually having to do with the seven festivals that Israel is going to celebrate, and so these lights in the sky, essentially astrology ‑‑ I know that’s kind of a sore topic, especially within the churches of Christ ‑‑ but for Israel, it was how they made their living. It’s how they knew when the seasons were going to change. It’s how they knew when to harvest, when to stop, and things of that nature, when to celebrate, and so that’s what these stars are going to do.
But Jeremiah, as well as Moses, are going to say the stars are not just signs for those things, but the nations are going to look at the stars as something to fear, as something to worship, but Israel, you don’t do that. And we find this in Deuteronomy 4, verses 15 through ‑‑ I think it’s 15 through 17, where Moses says don’t look up there, don’t look under the sea, don’t look at any of the animals, don’t pay attention to the stars because there’s something there that you all want to worship, but Yahweh is your God. Those other things in the sky, those are for the other nations. And so we find this rebellion, not just on ‑‑ I like to call them pages ‑‑ page 6 and Deuteronomy ‑‑ or, sorry, Genesis 6, with the sons of God. As Peter is going to say, they left their proper abode. They saw that ‑‑ well, let me not speculate. There’s something that they saw that they wanted that God wasn’t giving them, and so it’s this abundance‑versus‑scarcity theme that happens throughout the Bible. It’s not just a human problem; it’s also a divine problem, and so they take on responsibility that wasn’t given to them. They take the place that man had to reproduce and to fill the land, and they take it upon themselves.
And then we find, in Genesis 11, another rebellion. This is the third rebellion, where ‑‑ there are different theories on this, whether or not the tower of Babel was being built so that gods could come down, so that man could go up, so that man could ascend back to this garden‑like existence ‑‑ because at the top of mountains were gardens; that’s where the gods lived. But there’s also a theory that this mountain, or this tower, was supposed to be more of a watchtower because that’s the word that’s used. It’s a tower for watchers, which is interestingly another name for the sons of God that we’re going to find in the book of Daniel, as well as in Enoch and other second‑temple literature.
But all of these rebellions ‑‑ we have human rebellion and then we have spiritual rebellion, and then, at one point, in Genesis 11, there’s a co‑rebellion where it seems like man wants to go up and the sons of God want to come down. And so Yahweh says, let us go and see what’s going on. And the whole “let us” thing, that’s another conversation. Is it the Trinity talking to itself or is it Yahweh talking to his divine council? I’m not necessarily decided on that one, so I don’t want to go too far into that. But all of these rebellions point to mankind disavowing our own place in creation, where God wanted to rule, with us, the things on the earth and in the skies and under the water. And the divine council, or at least the sons of God, those who are ‑‑ we might call them angels today, but we can talk more about that language ‑‑ they saw that there was something God was holding back from them, and they wanted to take it for themselves, and Yahweh punishes them.
WES: Yeah. Well, then even when you get to the New Testament ‑‑ I’m preaching a series right now on the kingdom of God, and it’s really occurred to me here recently how, again, we have sort of taken the rulers and powers and authorities of evil out of the story of the Bible, out of the story of the gospel. But if you just read the gospel accounts, just sit down and read the gospel accounts, you will see how, over and over again, it begins with Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness. He goes head to head with the Satan. And then, throughout the entire gospel account, he is casting out demons. He is healing people who are said to be in bondage to the devil, in bondage to the Satan. And so over and over again, what he’s doing is going to war against Satan’s kingdom in order to reclaim territory for Yahweh so that Yahweh can rule and reign. This is kingdom language. It’s ruling and reigning language. And then he gives that authority to his disciples to step on the scorpions, to crush the head of the serpent, to go and to cast out demons, and he gives that authority to them. And then we see that even carrying on ‑‑ you mentioned Ephesians 6 earlier ‑‑ in Paul’s language, that we are now ‑‑ and it’s amazing when you go back to Isaiah, as you pointed out, that God allows us to wear his armor and to also participate with him in wrestling against the authorities and the powers and the principalities of darkness, that we’re not going to war against human beings, but we very much are in a spiritual battle with demonic forces.
I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on how do we engage in spiritual warfare, and sort of, maybe, what are the extremes that we want to avoid? Because I do think that there are sort of the extremes of, on the one hand, just some pretty bizarre ideas about how you engage in spiritual warfare, and then, on the other hand, just a total dismissal that there is any spiritual warfare in which to engage.
ERIC: Yeah. So something ‑‑ or a book that I would recommend is the Celebration of Discipline. Let me see. I have it on my shelf.
I can’t reach it, but it’s the Celebration of Discipline by ‑‑ I can’t remember his first name. His last name is Foster. But if we’re going to fight a spiritual war, we have to be in tune with the spiritual disciplines. And my family, every single week, we gather around the table for Sabbath. And it’s not a ‑‑ it’s not about following law. I want to make that clear. I don’t believe that we’re receiving any kind of grace through keeping something that we see as law, as Torah. It was a gift given to Israel where they got to commune not just with each other, but also spend that time with God reflecting upon the Exodus, but also the creation and the new creation to come.
And so, as a formative sort of thing, my family, we engage in this Sabbath where we reflect upon our previous week, those times where we fell victim, where we gave ourselves up as prey. And then we talk about the things that we want to do in the next week and how each of us is going to be a part of that spiritual warfare for the others. And that was a journey with kids, let me tell you. They didn’t necessarily see the value of it until we actually got into a rhythm of it.
So, you know, not just Sabbath, but also prayer, silence and solitude. That’s a huge one, where it’s just you and God having a conversation, and you may not hear him audibly, but as you go throughout your week, after talking to God, and you find those moments where you’re confronted with the thing that you were fearing in your prayer, you know that God was there and that God’s with you in that moment. And so, you know, reading scripture, reading scripture communally, that’s huge. I love sermons, I love classes, but I would replace it all in a heartbeat to listen to scripture and to read scripture with my brothers and sisters. No sermonizing on top of it; just listen. We’re listening for not just context, but also the content that’s going to walk us throughout our Christian journey together.
The communal aspect of the church ‑‑ I believe we could do better, where we’ve become so individualized. We take Paul’s words, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,” and we say, oh, that’s just me. But we forget Philippians 4, where he’s talking about these two women that the whole church has to help get right. It’s not an individual endeavor; it’s a communal experience. And so I really believe that if we were all dedicated to those spiritual disciplines, if we had ‑‑ I’ll say the dreaded two words ‑‑ small groups that were dedicated to walking daily with each other, searching the scriptures together, praying, breaking bread together ‑‑ I think that’s a very biblical concept, where we can extinguish the fiery darts of the Satan.
WES: Eric, man, this can’t be the last time I have you on the podcast because this has just been so rich, and I can’t even begin to tell you how much I appreciate your thoughts. I remember I was speaking to some college students recently and I was talking about some of the same stuff that you were just saying about spiritual warfare and alignment with the Holy Spirit, that we have to ‑‑ yes, the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in us when we become Christians, but over and over again, the apostles tell people to walk by the Spirit, to keep in step with the Spirit. There is this language that you have to be intentional about aligning yourself with him, and you have to be intentional about engaging in this warfare so that you don’t give Satan a foothold, so that you don’t give him space, so that he doesn’t tempt you.
But the things that we actually do to engage in spiritual warfare, as I went through the list of Ephesians 6, I kind of
jokingly said, well, Wes, it sounds like what you’re saying is, you know, go to church, read your Bible, say your prayers. Really? And it’s like, yes, really, the things that we’ve been doing for 2,000 years. It’s not any of this sort of wacky stuff that you might think of when you think of spiritual warfare. It is these disciplines, it is this rule of life where we are walking with Jesus. And I think, so often, even the spiritual armor that we see in Ephesians 6 ‑‑ when I was a kid, in Bible class there was often a poster on the wall that would have, you know, somebody in armor, and I think, so often, we focus on the metaphor rather than what Paul was saying. We focus on the helmet and the breastplate and the shield and the sword and the belt, and it’s like, wait, but what he’s talking about is the word of God and prayer and salvation and the gospel and righteousness. These are the things that protect you from the evil one, and it’s the gift that God gave you. And when you have this spiritual armor, you don’t have to fear evil. You can resist the devil and he will flee from you. You don’t have to be afraid of him. And I think if we read Ephesians 6 and we walk away from it afraid of the evil one, we’re reading it wrong or we’re just not practicing it, because if we’re walking by the Spirit and we’re practicing these things, then we don’t have to be afraid.
ERIC: That’s right. My mind often goes to Hebrews 10 as far as what the gathering actually does and what we’re supposed to be doing in our gatherings, whether it’s Sunday or Monday morning, getting together for coffee with a brother or sister who’s struggling, or maybe they’re at the highest place they’ve ever been spiritually and I’m not. It’s about stirring one another up to love and good works and encouraging one another all the more as we see the day drawing near. And when we read through Hebrews ‑‑ Hebrews is kind of my preaching hobby horse so I have to be careful, but back in chapters 3 and 4 he’s talking about this ultimate Sabbath that’s going to come this day. He says today, as long as it’s still called today, we need to be convicted. We need to be watching out for each other. Don’t fall into the same temptation that Israel did in the wilderness. And that’s also kind of along the lines of this spiritual warfare that Israel fell prey to. He says, but there is a day coming, a day of rest, that you all need to be prepared for, and that’s what our coming together is about. It’s about this future day. It’s not just about, you know, punching the clock. “Well, I’ve led this many sermons this year; therefore I’m good.” Or “I made it through my sermon series,” or “My kids sat perfectly, like little angels.” It’s about what we do in that moment to prepare us for the eternal rest, and that begins with week after week. Sometimes it’s a drudge, but once we get into a rhythm with each other, it’s a blessing.
WES: Yeah, amen. I think that’s a great place to stop because you have stirred me up. You have encouraged me, Brother. Thank you for this conversation. I hope that people find it encouraging. What resources, maybe Michael Heiser or others, would you recommend? If people want to study this more, where would you encourage people to turn?
ERIC: I would go to UnseenRealm.com, as well as pick up Michael Heiser’s book. I’m not being paid to say this. Unfortunately, Michael Heiser passed away almost a year ago today. So pick up his book, The Unseen Realm. That’s more of his scholarly take. It more aligns with his dissertation. He also has more accessible books called Angels; he has a book called Demons, and a book called Supernatural. I have some of his other books here. One’s called The Bible Unfiltered. It’s really accessible. It’s three pages about one topic, and he’s really just asking us ‑‑ and this is something that I think we could do really well, is let the Bible be what the Bible is. Don’t try to color it with our modern interpretation, with our interpretations of science today, or even our understandings of science, because that’s not what the Bible was trying to convey. And then one last one, it is a dissertation. It’s called The Divine Council in Canaanite and Early Hebrew Literature. It’s by E.T. Mullen. This is his dissertation, so it’s difficult, but if you want to see how Israel’s divine council ‑‑ how that idea is also found in Canaanite cultures and Ugaritic cultures, Assyrian cultures, it’s a fantastic book.
WES: Awesome. I’ll link to all of that in the show notes so that people can access it. And I would say, too, that the Bible Project has some very simple videos that are really helpful explainers that, even for kids, could help them to understand exactly what we’re up against, I want to say, but also, at the same time, the power that is with us. Jesus has overcome the world, and so we have nothing to fear, but we do need to know what Jesus has done, what he is doing, and what he will do.
ERIC: Yeah, absolutely. Those Bible Project videos were very helpful for our youth group. They have a podcast series that’s just called God ‑‑ if you download the Bible Project app and find their series called God.
But also, if you don’t mind, I want to encourage people to really dig into their Bibles, not just for quirkiness, but this has real‑life, everyday consequences because we’re talking about your spiritual life, which isn’t separated from your work life, it’s not separated from your family life. Paul is very clear in Ephesians 5 and 6, that it’s your whole life, and if our whole life is spiritual warfare, we need to be looking in scripture for examples of how Jesus dealt with spiritual warfare, how Daniel dealt with spiritual warfare, with the princes coming to him ‑‑ the princes over the nations. That ought to cause us a little bit of pause whenever we are talking about the world powers and how all of that works. God is over all, so our everyday life matters. Every decision we make is spiritual warfare.
WES: Yeah, amen. And in addition to dig into your Bible, don’t skip over the parts that seem weird or the parts that you don’t understand or that don’t line up with where you currently are or what you currently understand. I think we have such a tendency to do that, to say, well, that seems strange or I don’t know that I understand that, or that doesn’t fit with the paradigm that I already have, and so we just dismiss it, and we’re leaving a lot on the table. A lot that we don’t understand, we do that.
ERIC: That’s right. Heiser said, “If it’s weird, it’s important,” and that has guided me through my Bible study.
WES: I love it. Well, Eric, thank you so much again, Brother. Thank you for this conversation and for all you’re doing in the kingdom, Brother.
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.
As Stuart and Wes discuss the Exodus, they reflect on the ways it is used as an archetype throughout the New Testament to illustrate the gospel message. The hosts dive into how the Exodus foreshadows Jesus’ deliverance of God’s people from bondage to sin, the wilderness testing period, and ultimately being led into the promised land. They examine how New Testament writers frequently drew parallels between Jesus and Moses, as well as Jesus and the nation of Israel itself, to show Jesus as the fulfillment of the Exodus story.
The guest for this episode is Stuart Peck is the co-founder and CEO of Appian Media. He leads a team of creatives who make videos, podcasts and printed study material about the Bible. Their latest documentary “Out of Egypt” digs into the world of ancient Egypt and the culture that surrounded the Israelites as they were slaves in Egypt. The documentary follows a possible route out of Egypt to the border of Israel. Through their journey they explore the concept of the Exodus story being our story today.
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 story of the Exodus, how God brought the people of Israel out of Egyptian slavery and brought them to the Promised Land so that he could dwell with his people. We’re going to talk about how the Exodus story points forward to Jesus and how it teaches us what the gospel is all about and our place in the story of God and his people.
I’m going to be talking with Stuart Peck, who is the co‑founder and CEO of Appian Media. He leads a team of creatives who make videos, podcasts, and printed study material about the Bible. Their latest documentary, “Out of Egypt,” digs into the world of ancient Egypt and the culture that surrounded the Israelites as they were slaves in Egypt. The documentary follows a possible route out of Egypt to the border of Israel. Through their journey, they explore the concept of the Exodus story being our story today.
I know that you will be blessed and encouraged by this conversation, but before we get there, I want to read Deuteronomy 18:15. This is Moses speaking to the people of Israel, and this promise points forward to Jesus. Here’s what Moses said. He said, “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers. It is to him you shall listen.” I hope that you enjoy this conversation, and I hope it helps all of us learn to love like Jesus.
WES: Stuart Peck, welcome to the podcast, Brother.
STUART: I am so glad to be here. Thanks, Wes.
WES: Man, it’s great to have you. I’m excited about everything that Appian Media does. You guys came out to our house several years ago and interviewed my son because my family has really enjoyed the ministry that you guys have, the work that you guys put out for a long time, but I want to hear about this new project that you have going on. Tell us about what’s new.
STUART: Yeah. I would love to see your sons now. I’m sure they are a lot taller.
WES: Yeah, my oldest is taller than I am now, so…
STUART: Oh, my goodness. Yeah, so this has been about a two‑year process, but we actually created a documentary called “Out of Egypt,” and it basically looks at the biblical account of the Exodus, and it’s kind of an exciting piece because it’s new for Appian Media. And I’m not sure if your listeners are familiar with Appian Media, but we have typically made documentaries going to the Bible lands and looking at the places where these events occurred. And while you can do that with the Exodus, there isn’t a lot ‑‑ or any material evidence of the Exodus when you go to Egypt or when you go to the Sinai Peninsula, so that kind of made it an exciting adventure. But we follow one of the possible routes that the Israelites took out of Egypt through the Sinai Peninsula to one of the locations that is believed to be Mount Sinai and then up into Jordan, and then we ended at Mount Nebo, looking into the land of Israel.
So it was an exciting journey, and we hit our own roadblocks along the way. It’s trivial compared to what the Israelites had to endure when they were in the wilderness, but it really helped open our eyes, and we hope it helps open the eyes of our viewers to the fact that, you know, we all have our own Exodus story, and that’s a powerful motif that we see in scripture and, I think, one that we just ‑‑ we can’t overlook when we talk about the Bible. The Exodus is such a huge, pivotal moment in this nation’s history, and it’s a pivotal moment in our history, too.
WES: Yeah, for sure. So I want to come back to some of that, but let’s just kind of ‑‑ real generally speaking, it’s not just maybe about the Exodus project that you’re doing now, but even with all the things that Appian Media has done over the years, why do these kinds of projects and how do they help us to understand scripture better? I think one of the goals of this podcast is that we be better students of scripture, and I know that that is one of your goals, as well. So how does history and culture and location and all of the things that go into what you’re communicating to people ‑‑ how does that help form us and shape us into better Bible students?
STUART: Yeah, that is such a great question, and it all points back to scripture. And, you know, I can talk about my personal journey over the time that I’ve been working with Appian Media is ‑‑ you know, I read the Bible the way I think a lot of Western Christians read the Bible. We read the words and we see the stories and we, in our heads, make mental pictures of what that looks like. And while that’s fine, you know, sometimes those mental pictures can be inaccurate, especially being separated by an ocean and, you know, 2,000, 3,000‑years‑plus difference in different cultures and all of these things. And so it’s helpful, I think, to get to these places and show people these things so that way, they can hopefully have a more accurate mental picture.
And we hear all the time from people ‑‑ for all of our content, whether it’s our series on the life of Jesus or the united kingdom ‑‑ that they never pictured it that way or it’s changed the way they see ‑‑ you know, fill in the blank, and, to me, that’s exciting to see because what it is is it’s helping people get a more intimate knowledge of their Bible. And you flip through the Bible and, on any page, you get these little windows into the world that surrounded these people and these cultures, and, to me, that’s where I like to go. I like to go down those rabbit trails and explore these different places and these different cultures. And what it does is it helps us get a more well‑rounded picture of who these people are, whether it’s the first‑century Christians who are living under the Roman government, or whether it’s the ancient Israelites who are living in a land full of deities ‑‑ you know, the Egyptian deities.
I think ‑‑ having this picture that helps show us the surroundings of the Bible, I think, helps us ‑‑ it helps make it more relatable to us, and for a long time, what I was noticing is that people, you know ‑‑ and, specifically, I was looking at high school students when Craig and I first started Appian Media. We were seeing that people were disconnected from the scripture. They weren’t studying it for themselves, and they were kind of looking at it as like, why does this even matter to me? Like this is so removed from my life and my culture. And we want them to see that, no, no, no, these people are very much like you and they have the same struggles. They have the same things that you are enduring. It’s just that we’re told their story, and it’s ‑‑ I don’t know, it’s quite fascinating. And so I think ‑‑ you know, to answer your question, I think that having these videos and creating these images for people to see the Bible in this way helps build a more intimate relationship with their Bible, or that’s what we hope anyway.
WES: You know, it’s interesting, as you were talking, it made me realize that there’s almost a paradox here in that I think that sometimes, when it comes to scripture, we’ve had this tendency to just read it devotionally and jump so quickly to application without interpreting it in light of the culture and the time and the history that was going on when it was written, what did this mean to the original audience, and then, and only then, trying to apply it to our lives. And so we’ve almost tended to read the Bible, at times, as sort of being this cultureless document, as if it just dropped down out of heaven from God and landed in our lap and here it is.
But ironically, reading it that way actually makes it less relatable to us because nobody is cultureless. Nobody is languageless. Everyone is deeply enculturated. We live in a culture. And even though the biblical characters, the people in scripture, they lived in a different culture than ours ‑‑ they spoke a different language, they had different things going on ‑‑ it does become relatable when you understand that they had very real problems. They had very real questions. And even though their problems and questions may be different than ours, like us, they also had problems and they also had questions and there were things going on in their place and in their time.
And I think, so often, when we don’t appreciate that, we don’t understand scripture, and then it becomes less relatable. And it really ‑‑ we can get into it when we understand that this is a real nation. You used that word earlier. This is a real nation, a real ethnic group that God chose. Now, if we were writing the Bible, we might choose a different way, but God chose to work through a very specific people at a specific time and to walk alongside them in this very real story.
STUART: Yeah. I like to tell people the Bible was not written to us. It was written for us, but it was not written to us. And context ‑‑ I mean, that is so key in any passage in the Bible, is what is the context of that passage. And, you know, one of the most dangerous things I think we can do as Christians today is pluck a verse out of context and use it and in some ways weaponize it because we think that this applies to me in my current cultural context. Well, the Bible was not written in our current cultural context, and so we have to make sure that when we do look at the Bible ‑‑ I mean, I hold it up as this is a historic document, and we hold this document to be true and inspired. But there’s other documents out there that even were written around the same time and they were written by different nations or different cultures, and the Bible, in some ways, falls into a category of that historical document. And I think if we can look at it that way and then look at those people and see how we are similar to them, it can really help us relate to them, as you said.
WES: Yeah. In a lot of ways, it’s much like the incarnation in that Jesus is fully divine ‑‑ he is 100% God ‑‑ but he is also fully human ‑‑ he is 100% human, he is 100% man. And the Bible is both a divinely inspired collection of writings and it is a human‑written collection of writings, and sometimes we don’t appreciate both aspects of that. Some people don’t appreciate the divinely inspired aspect of it, and some people don’t appreciate the human aspect of it, that these are people that were speaking a language and having a conversation with their contemporaries that would have been understood by their contemporaries. They had a specific agenda of what they were trying to accomplish, the questions they were trying to answer. And the more we can understand that time and place, the better we can apply it to our time and place and understand, okay, if that was true for them, and this is what God was doing with them and for them and, you know, through them, then what does that mean for us in our place and our time?
STUART: Yeah. You know, we were talking before the podcast that, you know, those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and it’s kind of that way in the sense that, like, we should be looking at the Bible and looking at the historical validity of it and the stories and go, okay, I need to learn from this group of people or this nation, or whatever the case is, and so that way, I don’t make those same mistakes, because there’s nothing new. Like we’re not in a new time. And I think that a lot of people think, oh, this is the worst time it’s ever been. No, no. If you look at history, if you look at the Bible, there is a lot of times where things were really bad, and we need to be able to glean from that, but also realizing that this is a historical document, so yeah.
WES: Yeah. Well, to that point, I think it’s interesting how the Exodus specifically is used as an archetype, and throughout the New Testament they draw on this picture of what happened, what God did in the Exodus in liberating the people of Israel out of slavery and bringing them to the Promised Land, and there’s so many pictures in the New Testament that are drawn from and using language and images that are drawn from this story of Israel. In fact, even ongoing generations, of course, of Israel celebrated, and continue to celebrate, the Passover. So this story of the Exodus is incredibly pivotal, not only for the people of Israel, for the Jewish people, but for us as Christians and in understanding our story in light of that story.
So how would you say that this project that you guys are doing, or the Exodus story itself, can help us understand the gospel better?
STUART: Well, so the Exodus story ‑‑ it’s such a beautiful story, and, you know, I think ‑‑ I’m also currently teaching a class on the law of Moses, which, you know, when you really dig into the law of Moses, you see Jesus throughout the law, and it’s amazing. And so I think, in the documentary, we really work to bring out these points of God delivering his people from slavery and into ‑‑ where did they go? They went into the wilderness and they had their testing in the wilderness before they were actually led to the Promised Land, and how for us today, you know, we ‑‑ all of us, at times in our life, are enslaved to sin and we have to be delivered from that, and only God can do the delivering from that. And that doesn’t mean we’re going to be on easy street. It doesn’t mean that all is going to be well. We’re going to have to go through our wilderness testing. And then, you know, if we make it through, we’ll see that Jesus is there to lead us into the Promised Land. And so I think those themes, they resonate in the documentary and in the story of the Exodus.
And then, we don’t get into it quite as much in the documentary, but I think, you know, we’re talking about making some other ancillary videos to kind of go along with it, but the discussion of the law and the giving of the law at Mount Sinai, it is very, very detailed and very, very intricate in that ‑‑ you know, everything from how the tabernacle is to be constructed, to the sacrifices, to the feast days, all of that. But when you dig into it, it all points toward a Messiah, and this theme that comes out is God’s desire to dwell with his people, and that is such a powerful thing that I think we all need to hear today, is that God isn’t distant. He’s not up in the sky looking down on us. He wants to be here with us. He wants to dwell among us. And that’s what the tabernacle was for. That’s what Jesus did when he came to Earth, was he wanted to dwell amongst the people. And
that is a powerful, powerful message for people who are feeling alone and lost in a world that is just seeming to get more and more dark.
WES: Yeah, yeah. No doubt. Beautifully said. I think often about the way that Matthew wrote his gospel account and how it seems like that’s exactly what he’s doing, is drawing these parallels not only between Jesus and Moses, but even Jesus and Israel, and how Jesus is born in a very similar situation as Moses was born, in that the children ‑‑ in order to try to kill Jesus, the children in Bethlehem were killed, much like the baby boys were killed in Egypt. And it’s interesting that Jesus flees to Egypt. He and his family flee to Egypt rather than fleeing from Egypt. But they flee to Egypt, and then he comes out of Egypt, and just like Israel is brought out of Egypt ‑‑ in fact, that line that God called his son out of Egypt refers to Israel, and it’s almost as if Jesus is the embodiment of Israel and he’s brought out of that. And the next thing that we see is he crosses through the water, he’s baptized, and then he goes out into the wilderness and he’s tested there for 40 periods of time. It’s almost shocking that I missed that for so many years of my life, not realizing, oh, this is almost, beat by beat, a picture of the Exodus.
STUART: Yeah, it is. And I’m the same way as you. Like, you know, I grew up in Bible class and we learned the stories. We learned the parting of the Red Sea and, you know, the Ten Commandments and all of those things, but I didn’t learn as much the connections between Jesus and these stories in the Old Testament. And I think that’s really important as we’re training our kids, as we’re studying the Bible, is to make sure that we see these shadows of the Messiah everywhere we look in the Old Testament and see how they point forward. And, to me, that’s the inspiration in scripture, is the fact that over, you know, thousands of years in different parts of the known world at that time, people were writing pieces of the Bible that all connected. And it’s not like they got together on a Zoom call and said, “Hey, what are you writing over here? Okay. Well, I’m going to write this part over here. Let’s get it together and let’s make sure” ‑‑ and it’s just absolutely amazing to see all that. And I think it helps ‑‑ when you do see that, it helps you appreciate the Bible that much more.
WES: I’m going to throw this at you, Stuart. I didn’t put this in my notes to you, but as I was preparing, I thought about something that my youngest son asked me maybe a few months ago. It’s interesting, when your kids ask you questions, you think automatically, okay, this is what I would have always said, or this is what I was taught growing up, and then you realize, I don’t know that I believe that anymore. But he asked me ‑‑ he was studying about the Exodus, and he asked, “Why were pharaoh’s magicians able to do what they did? Why were they able to turn, you know, staffs into snakes? Why were they able to turn water into blood? And why is it that they did these things? Were they just doing, you know, sort of magic tricks?”
And I remember back to the explanations I got to that question, because it seems like a natural question for kids, but for some reason, adults just kind of get to the point where they’re like, “I don’t know; that’s just what it says.” And I just kind of was dismissive of it, that it was just a trick ‑‑ you know, it was just some sort of a trick, and maybe that’s the case, but I think now that it’s an indication that there were very real powers ‑‑ I would say demonic powers behind Egypt, and that these forces that they were worshiping as gods ‑‑ that there is something there. There is a demonic power and force there, but God ‑‑ but Yahweh is more powerful and that God demonstrates his authority and power over these forces of evil. And, again, I think this picture pointing forward to the gospel in the New Testament and the liberation that we experience by the blood of Jesus liberating us from very real forces of darkness and evil is part of the story that’s always been part of the story. I’m curious to hear your thoughts on that, if you have any. Again, I apologize. I’m just throwing that at you.
STUART: No, it’s a great question, and it’s one that I’ve read before, too, and been like, okay, wow, that’s interesting. And I think, similarly, I’ve probably either heard or tried to find ways in my head to normalize it or to kind of write it off and be like, eh, it wasn’t real. But you’re right. I think that there’s a whole spiritual world out there that we see little bits and pieces of. You go into the book of Daniel or even like ‑‑ you know, I love the story ‑‑ was it in II Kings with Elisha and his servant, and they ‑‑ all of a sudden, his eyes are opened and he sees the army. I mean, like there’s so ‑‑ there’s a whole spiritual world out there that is operating without us being able to see it. And, you know, who knows if that was part of the power that Pharaoh’s magicians had. I mean, you know that there were some dark magics or some dark works happening because you go even into the period of the united kingdom, and that was ‑‑ it was the ‑‑ what is it, the magicians or the conjurers, they were kind of outlawed. And so it’s like there was a whole group of people that was able to do things, whether it was, you know, have a conversation with somebody who had died or ‑‑ you know, that was not even allowed to be part of the culture in Israel. And so that kind of points to, okay, there’s something maybe even slightly sinister here that is kind of beneath the surface.
But yeah, I don’t have an answer for that specific question, but I think that it’s a valid one. And to your point, I think that Pharaoh seeing his magicians be able to do some of the things that he thought that God was able to do, it maybe even bolstered himself even more and said, “Oh, look at me. I really am a god because I can do the same things that your God can do.” But, of course, we know the story, that very quickly God’s power went way beyond what the magicians could do, and even the magicians themselves said, “Hey, I’m out. I can’t.” And so that right there is a telling story of just the power of God above anything that may be in the world that we think is ‑‑ oh, you know, that’s real power. No. God’s way more powerful.
WES: Yeah, no doubt. And I think it’s telling that, plague by plague, God shows his superiority over these other false gods or other gods or demonic powers, however you want to frame that ‑‑ that God shows his power over these things. And that even when you think about the way that Moses ‑‑ that God, but through his chosen instrument of Moses, the way that he confronts these powers of evil and darkness and the way that he demonstrates his superiority is so similar to the way Jesus does, that he doesn’t attack Egypt with chariots, with human armies, that it’s not the way that you would think.
I mean, when you think about the story of the Exodus, here you have this nation of slaves, and there’s a shepherd who comes into the world’s most powerful empire and tells the world’s most powerful king to let God’s people go, and that he’s approaching this battle with nothing but a staff ‑‑ a shepherd staff in his hand and that God uses this lowly shepherd to liberate his people and defeat the world’s largest empire and army ‑‑ it is exactly what we have in Jesus, times infinity, that we ‑‑ as Paul says in Ephesians 6, we’re not wrestling against flesh and blood and that we don’t approach things with these carnal weapons, but we have faith, we have the word of God, we have prayer, and that through these things, and through our lowly shepherd who gave his life for us, our Passover lamb, the forces of evil and darkness cannot stand against God.
STUART: Amen to that. Yeah. And we live in a culture now where nations ‑‑ they flex their muscles by the weapons they do have and the ability that they do have, and so it becomes easy for us to really start to feel secure in our own place and time and our own nation, or whatever the case might be, and forget that God is in ultimate control. And we look around and we see the powers of darkness just kind of closing in, and we go, what’s happening here? Like, where is God in this whole situation? And it’s helpful to know, you know, he’s still here. He’s still here. We may not be able to physically see him, but he is still here. He’s still working. He still has a plan, and we can go back to scripture and look at what God’s plan is, and that’s a really important thing.
You know, it’s funny because, like, when you put it that way, like you just stated, you can see why Moses was a little bit hesitant at the burning bush, to go, are you sure about this? Like, you know, you do realize who Pharaoh is, don’t you? Because he sees what we all see, and that is the world’s most powerful nation and the world’s most powerful person in Pharaoh at that time. And God is wanting me to go in there and say, hey, let your workforce go? I mean, you know, all of a sudden, it sounds a little bit more daunting than for us who can read the whole story, so…
WES: Yeah. But to that point that we keep coming back to, that the New Testament writers continue to draw on these stories to bolster their faith ‑‑ you think about chapters like Hebrews 11 that draw from this and from other stories ‑‑ but to remind them that God delivers his people by faith, that when God’s people trust him, they’re loyal to him, they give their allegiance to Yahweh, that they have nothing to be afraid of, that all we have to do is trust him. You know, you have Moses, you have Noah, you have the people marching around the city of Jericho, that God will deliver his people. You just have to continue to trust him and to follow his lead.
But to that point, I kind of want to shift gears just a little bit in that the stories of the Exodus that the New Testament writers draw from aren’t always the positive ones, that you have the wandering in the wilderness of the people of Israel, and that whole generation, not only do they ‑‑ you know, they receive the law at Sinai and then they go and spy out the land, and then, of course, they say, “Okay, this nation is too big. These people are too big.” Ironic because they just were delivered from much bigger people, much, much more daunting powers, but they’re afraid of the Canaanites, and because of that, they wander in the wilderness for 40 years. And the New Testament writers continually draw on that story of the wilderness wandering to remind people that just because God has saved you and delivered you doesn’t mean that you can’t fall and ultimately be destroyed just as that generation was, and it’s a warning against apostasy, against falling away once they’ve been delivered. I wonder, is that something that y’all explore, the period of wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, or is it primarily about the Exodus itself?
STUART: No, we definitely do explore the wilderness, and it was quite stark. You know, we couldn’t go stand in the spot and say this is where they camped; this is where the tabernacle was. But you can go into the wilderness, especially in the Sinai Peninsula, and you can see how starkly different it is from the lush green of the Nile Delta and the Nile River. And so all of these passages where the Israelites are talking about, “Why did you bring us out here to die? We had plenty of food in Egypt,” it’s because they’re literally standing in a desert where they have nothing. No food, no water, nothing. And so they are ‑‑ their hand is forced. They have to rely on God’s provision, and that was really, really evident, and it became a beautiful thing.
As we sit back today and we reflect on the fact that we want so badly to rely on what we know, we want so badly to go back to what is comfortable for us, but when God calls us out of slavery, we have to rely on him and we have to rely on his provision to get us through. And it’s a ‑‑ we all have our wilderness wanderings, and I think that that’s something that maybe us as Christians, especially in some place like the United States of America, need to really kind of sit and meditate on because we live very comfortably here. And while that’s not a bad thing, we need to really think about where are we putting our reliance? Are we really putting our reliance on God and his provision, or are we putting our reliance on Egypt and its provision for us? And when we really look introspectively at ourselves, hopefully that elicits change in our lives and really helps us to focus on, “I need God. I need God when I’m wandering in those wildernesses.”
WES: Yeah, amen. Well, I think it really illustrates that sort of ‑‑ what scholars call the “already and not yet” aspects of the kingdom in that Israel was already delivered. They were already saved. They were already liberated. They were already rescued from slavery, but they were not yet in the Promised Land, and so they had that period of living in the wilderness, and it’s a period of waiting and a period of testing, a period where they had to practice perseverance and endurance and faith and trust in the Lord. And there were some ‑‑ there was always a remnant of people who were trusting in the Lord, but that period of being in the wilderness ‑‑ and I can’t help but imagine that, for y’all, being in that wilderness makes that so much more real, and I can’t wait to watch the documentary so that we can see what that’s like, to be in the wilderness as a reflection on where many times we are spending our life and in being in this wilderness and a reminder to follow Jesus, who was faithful in the wilderness, rather than be like the generation who grumbled and complained and didn’t trust the Lord.
STUART: I know, and it’s so true. And as you mentioned earlier, it’s like Jesus ‑‑ he went through the water and immediately went into the wilderness and he was presented with a lot of the same temptations that the Israelites were, and, honestly, that we are today, and that is, look out for myself, look out for me, make sure I’ve got what I need, which is, you know, my bare necessities, but also power and control. And every time, Jesus says, uh‑uh, I’m not relying on those things; I’m relying on God. And that’s exactly what the Israelites didn’t say, and it’s also sometimes exactly what we don’t say, but it’s what we should be really focused on.
WES: Yeah, no doubt. I love how Jesus, in that account of the temptations, how he quotes from Deuteronomy. All three of the temptations, he responds with quotations from Deuteronomy, which, for those that are listening that may not know, Deuteronomy is this reminder of the law, “the second law” it literally means. And so the new generation that’s about to leave the wilderness and go into the Promised Land are reminded this is what it means to be faithful to Yahweh. This is what it looks like to keep covenant. And so they’re being told, hey, if you don’t want to end up like your fathers who died in the wilderness, here’s what you have to do. Here’s how you have to live. And Jesus is proving that he is the faithful son of God. He is the faithful Israel, and quoting “This is the way that I’m going to live. I’m going to live faithful to the covenant with Yahweh,” not only to save us, but as an example to us, as well.
STUART: Yeah, absolutely.
WES: So let’s kind of tie back into the theme of this podcast, which is to love like Jesus. We’re trying to learn to love like Jesus. So how do you think that the story of the Exodus, and even this documentary, can help us to better love like Jesus?
STUART: I think that, with the story of the Exodus, we can see that Jesus ‑‑ he is our perfect lamb, and that was such a big part of when they went into the wilderness and when they were presented with the law, was this idea of a sacrificial system that was created and this idea of atonement for sins, and that was all brand‑new to these Israelites.
They come out of a land where that was ‑‑ I mean, they still had sacrifices, but they were to these deities of Egypt, and so now they’re learning that sacrifice is different. Sacrifice in the ancient world, a lot of times it was you sacrificed to appease the god or the gods, and “I hope that I do enough in order to make the god give me something.” That’s very opposite to the way sacrifices are in Israelite culture and Jewish culture. It’s about God gifting us this opportunity to become ‑‑ to be with him, and so we see that through the Day of Atonement. In Leviticus we see that, all the way up to Jesus. And he gave his son, he gave us this gift, he gave us the sacrifice, so that way, he could be with us. And it’s just a ‑‑ it just shows the love. And, like, I would much rather worship and serve a God that is like that than a God who’s like, “Just keep giving to me, just keep giving to me, and I might ‑‑ I might have something for you.”
WES: Wow. Yeah, so well said. Stuart, why don’t you tell us a little bit more about where we can find out more about “Out of Egypt” and everything that Appian Media has done and is doing?
STUART: Okay, yeah. So AppianMedia.org is our website, and if you go there, we have all of the content that we’ve produced, all the documentaries available on our website, and there’s a lot of stuff out there. And so we’ve got a lot of people who are using ‑‑ whether it’s “Following the Messiah,” which is on the life of Jesus; we have a series on the united kingdom of Israel. We did a series ‑‑ or we did an episode on ‑‑ “Trial and Triumph” is what it’s called, but it’s on the seven churches in Revelation. But “Out of Egypt” is going to release March 16th and be available after that. And, yeah, I mean, AppianMedia.org is really the place to go.
WES: Awesome, awesome. Well, thanks for the work that you’re doing and thanks for this conversation, Brother. This has been rich.
STUART: Thank you. I appreciate it, Wes. Thank you.
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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.
Wes and Boo take a deep dive into several key biblical texts, including Luke 14, Acts 2, and 1 Corinthians 11. They challenge some common assumptions and argue for a more evangelistic view of communion. This conversation might give you a whole new perspective on the Lord’s Table.
Boo Scott is the lead minister at the National Park Church of Christ in Hot Springs, Arkansas. He shares fascinating insights from his studies on the topic of table fellowship and the Lord’s Supper. Listen as Boo’s passion for God’s word comes through in this Christ-centered and Scripture-filled discussion.
WES: 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 communion and table fellowship. What does the Gospel of Luke, the Book of Acts, 1st Corinthians ‑‑ what do they have to teach us about what it means to be in fellowship with people, what it means to share the table and share a meal with one another and with Jesus?
Our guest today is Boo Scott, the lead minister at the National Park Church of Christ in Hot Springs, Arkansas. I know you’re really going to enjoy this conversation. It is so rich and filled with wonderful thoughts that Boo has to share with us. It’s sort of an informal conversation. Typically, we have a list of questions and an outline, but this time, Boo and I just sat down and talked about Jesus and the table and fellowship and communion and what all of those things do to shape us and form us into people who are loving our neighbors and our brothers and sisters and loving the Lord.
I want to start with 1st Corinthians 11, starting in verse 33. Paul says, “So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another ‑‑ if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home ‑‑ so that when you come together it will not be for judgment.” Let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about all of these things in light of how do we learn to love like Jesus.
Boo Scott, welcome back to the podcast, Brother.
BOO: Thanks, Wes. Thanks for having me, Bud.
WES: I’m excited about this conversation. I was saying, before we recorded, this is probably the first time that I’ve ever had a guest where we don’t have an outline, we don’t have a set of questions. We’re just gonna talk about the Bible, and I’m assuming this is gonna go well because I know you and I know that we love to talk theology and love to talk scripture, and if it goes well ‑‑ you’re kind of the guinea pig here. If this goes well, we may do more episodes with different guys like this, because I think this is really what we need to ‑‑ not only give for people to listen to, but I think model, as well, where people can just get together and talk about scripture, both what it says, but then also how it applies and shapes and forms our lives.
So when I reached out to you and said, you know, what are you studying, what do you want to talk about, you talked about the table and the Lord’s Supper and communion, and so I’ve been
sort of thinking about that a little bit, as well, but I’m curious to hear your thoughts. Before we hit record, we said, well, maybe we’ll start in the gospel account of Luke. Before I kind of throw it over to you and see where your thoughts are, I found a quote from Markus Barth, and it says, “In approximately one‑fifth of the sentences in Luke’s gospel and in Acts, meals play a conspicuous role,” so the idea that the table and reclining at table with people and eating meals together ‑‑ that that was very much a part of Jesus’ ministry, especially as Luke records it in the gospel account of Luke and in Acts.
So what thoughts do you have on that, and how should that shape our thinking?
BOO: Yeah. It’s something that we’re teaching through currently. It’s something that I’ve taught before on the Lord’s Supper, the table ministry of Jesus, and it’s fascinating to me. When you start connecting all the dots and when you really start to expand our vision of what the table should be, what the function of the table is and what that looks like ‑‑ if you expand that outside of Acts 20:7, I mean, you really get a broad picture of
what this kingdom table looks like. And it’s really ‑‑ I mean, in the big picture of things, it’s a picture of the table that Jesus is pulling us to at the Messianic banquet in the age to come, when we are fully married to our groom, and so you get glimpses of this throughout the gospels, especially the Gospel of Luke.
And it’s fascinating to me, when you look at the life of Jesus,
I mean, who do you see him eating with? Well, you see him eating with all sorts of people: prostitutes, tax collectors, sinners, as they claim. But not just that; you see him going to the homes of Pharisees, as well, and you see him sitting with the religious elite. You see him hosting ‑‑ or going to parties, wedding banquets, and all these different kinds of feasts. You see him celebrating the Jewish festivals with his disciples. You see him sitting on the side of a mountain and feeding 5,000‑plus people, and, in that moment, he’s handing the bread and the fish to his disciples to hand out.
And so there’s so many different lessons I think we can take from all the different tables that we see, and even if they’re not at a table, the different meals that we see throughout the Gospel of Luke, and a lot of those lessons are that the table is evangelical. The table is the table of God, the kingdom of God, and if we’re gonna bring heaven to earth and imitate Jesus as his disciples, then I fully believe that our table needs to imitate his table. It needs to be a table where sinners are welcome. They are welcome to come through these doors. They are welcome to fellowship with us. They are welcome to eat with us. It’s a table where we reconcile with one another. It’s a table where we make things right, you know, and where we are told to serve.
And so Jesus ‑‑ I think he initially, with his followers, especially his close crew, like he shows them how to serve. He gets down, he washes their feet. They have this debate about, you know, who’s gonna sit at your right hand, who’s gonna sit at your left, and he tells them, you know, the greatest in the kingdom of heaven is a servant. And he even has these parables about, like, don’t seek the high seats at the table. Don’t seek the prominent seats at the table, like seek the lowly seats at the table. He’s imitating for them this posture, this kingdom posture, but then, not only that, at the feeding of the 5,000, you see him put them into action. Like now you go and serve the meal. Now you go and be servants. And so not only is Jesus host of the table, he’s the server at the table, and it’s the same picture in the kingdom.
And so, I mean, when you examine all the different table narratives in ‑‑ especially in the Gospel of Luke, Luke highlights this more than any other gospel writer, but what you see is an inclusive table. You see a table that does not have divisions. You see a table that is what the kingdom of God will be like in its finality, in its completion. And so why should we not be striving for that same table now? If we truly want to bring heaven to earth, I think table and a meal is where you truly can ‑‑ you can build these relationships and you get a taste of heaven in the midst of this age.
WES: Yeah, let’s talk about ‑‑ because you’ve highlighted this, and I think every single one of the table stories in the Gospel of Luke ‑‑ and if somebody isn’t familiar with these, I mean, they can just get on Bible Gateway and look for the word “table” and then look at all of the occurrences in the Gospel of Luke, and then going on to the book of Acts, but notice how many times Jesus not only is sitting at table with people ‑‑ literally, he’s reclining at table with various people ‑‑ but then also the times that he uses table as a metaphor. He uses banquet as a metaphor.
So that idea of eating together, as you’re saying, what he’s doing, literally, at the table is a foretaste and a glimpse of the kingdom, the messianic banquet in the age to come, and that he is beginning to introduce that and live that out right now. But it’s interesting how social dynamics are really a part of eating and how that was especially the case in the ancient world, it seems like, in the first century, not only who you ate with but your literal seat at the table, where you sat in relation to the most important person or in relation to the host, on the right or the left, and then around the table. It was very important where you sat, and people were angling for better seats.
But I can’t help but think ‑‑ I don’t want to jump too quickly to application, necessarily, but I can’t help but think how we’re still that way, and we still think about who we get to eat with and where we sit at tables, both as a metaphor in our social imagination, but also in reality. I think about middle school and high school, and when I was a kid, we had the popular table and we thought about our social dynamics in those ways. And the lunch room was a place where you could very literally see the pecking order of where everyone ranked at the school. Getting invited to sit at a table was a big deal, and having to sit at a table that you felt was socially lower was, in a sense, humiliating.
BOO: It’s a terrifying place. It’s a terrifying place, isn’t it? So it’s not even about ‑‑ it is about seat placement, but it’s also about what order you eat in in Jesus’ culture. So, you know ‑‑ and we’ll get into that in 1st Corinthians, but I think that’s why they call Jesus out, and they’re like, who is this that even eats with these prostitutes and sinners? Like who? Who does that? You’re a rabbi. You are like a master of the text. Why in the world are you eating with them? And Jesus continually says, you guys just don’t get it. You don’t understand the kingdom of God.
WES: And the fact that ‑‑ you used the word “inclusive,” and I think that’s exactly right, that everyone is welcome at the table of Jesus, but it’s also upside down, and I think that that’s an interesting dynamic, that yes, everyone is welcome, but there’s also that sense of the first being last and the last being first, and the people in the world who would have the naturally better seats kind of get de‑centered or de‑emphasized at the table of Jesus so that it’s actually pretty uncomfortable to be a rich, powerful person at the table of Jesus. They tend to be ‑‑ even when Jesus goes to the Pharisees’ homes, and so he’s eating with religious leaders, he’s eating with influential people, but then the people that get emphasized, both in what he says and what he does ‑‑ he receives the woman who washes his feet at the table, and so she becomes the center of attention at a table where you would think that the religious leader, the influential person would be the center of attention.
And so, if we apply that same thinking, then yes, in our churches, in our fellowship, both in our public assembly, but also just in life, just living as Christian people, then yes, everyone is welcome in our circle. Everyone is ‑‑ we’re an inclusive group. But it also needs to reflect, I think, that upside down view of the kingdom, where if you’re rich and powerful, you may be a little uncomfortable here, and if you’re poor and you’re marginalized out there in the world, we may go the extra mile in making you feel special and welcomed. That tends to be the way Jesus seems to operate.
BOO: Absolutely. It’s a humble table, and if you don’t have humility sitting at this table, then you’re gonna get called out. And he ‑‑ I mean, even as he highlights these women who see themselves as lower, he’s elevating them because that’s what God does; he humbles the proud, and so that’s what he does at this table. He humbles these Pharisees and calls them out on various occasions.
And I think that it’s true ‑‑ it applies to us today, as well, as we gather around the table, if we have that mentality of, man, I’ve got it all figured out. This is my table. This is my church. You know, this is my crew. I dictate who comes in and who is welcome ‑‑ Jesus shatters that narrative. I mean, he completely says, like, no, no, no, no, that’s not the Lord’s table. That’s a different table.
You know, the beautiful ‑‑ I think where it all comes to culmination is when he establishes the Lord’s Supper at Passover and sort of, in that upper‑room moment, shares with his disciples so this is what this has all been leading to. This is what this is really about, and so that’s going to shape the way that that meal and the breaking of bread flows into Acts and flows throughout all of the New Testament churches, and it’s a ‑‑ he’s showing the fulfillment of it and then pointing to the further fulfillment of it in his kingdom, and it’s a beautiful moment, for sure.
WES: Yeah. Before we get to the 1st Corinthians text, I just kind of want to read from Luke 14 because I think what he’s saying is both symbolic or pointing forward to, but also I wonder what it would look like if we literally practiced these kinds of things. Luke 14, he says, in verse 7, “He told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, When you’re invited by someone to a wedding feast, don’t sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, Give your place to this person, and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you’re invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, Friend, move up higher. Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
It’s exactly what you were just saying, that that’s the way the kingdom works. The people that have humbled themselves, or have been humbled by life, they get exalted in the kingdom; and the people that exalt themselves, or are exalted by life, get humbled. It makes me wonder ‑‑ even things like the way that we dress in worship, dressing up ‑‑ and we even use that language of “up” and “down.” We talk about dressing up for worship. Even that idea has a way of embarrassing and shaming people. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told by people, I can’t go to church ’cause I don’t have anything to wear. I mean, that still happens, even though that’s sort of changing in our culture now, but we have shamed the poor. And interestingly enough, after the industrial revolution, when it became in vogue to wear fancy clothes to worship, this was the pushback that preachers ‑‑ like Alexander Campbell, even, pushed back against this idea of dressing up because it exalted the rich and shamed the poor, and that’s exactly the opposite of what we ought to do in our gatherings.
What we ought to be doing is making the poor feel even more welcome and even more comfortable, and the rich feel a little bit out of place because their niceties, their fancy things mean nothing here. James talks about this, and he uses this sort of table language and the social dynamics and talks about seating, and when somebody comes in with rich clothes on, don’t give them the place of honor, but I wonder how much we still have that mentality even in our culture today. If somebody famous comes in ‑‑ it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re wearing a three‑piece suit. It may be somebody that comes in, you know, wearing the latest fashion, whatever that may be, and we pay special attention to somebody who seems to, quote, be somebody. And somebody who seems poor or average or common, we de‑emphasize them, and that’s playing to the flesh rather than to the Spirit and not living out this kingdom dynamic that Jesus is introducing with the way that he does table.
BOO: Yeah, I love that. And even last night, Wes, as we met together here, there’s been a homeless lady hanging outside of our building for three days in a row. Well, we’ve been helping her and whatnot, and so she was back last night and a few of the members invited her in and we had pizza, because we had a meeting about Lads to Leaders and all that stuff, and she sat down and ate pizza with all of us and with the kids and whatnot. And some of the members came out and helped her and chatted with her, and on the way home, I was talking to my kids about the homeless lady that has been here, and I was like, hey, did y’all see her there eating with us tonight? And my daughter was like, no, I didn’t even recognize her, you know, because my daughter doesn’t ‑‑ a child’s mind doesn’t distinguish between who’s in and who’s out. She just noticed another lady in our midst, eating, and I loved that.
And I think we need to adopt that mindset more of like ‑‑ this pushback of like, well, you’re in and you’re out. Everybody’s in at the table of Jesus. And I fully believe ‑‑ and I know this is controversial and a lot of people don’t believe this, but I fully believe that everybody is invited to sit at the Lord’s table and to partake of the Lord’s Supper. Now, we take of it in ‑‑ for different reasons, obviously. If you’re in Christ, you’re taking it for a different reason and with a different mentality than somebody who is just being introduced to Christ, but they still share that meal. They’re still invited to that meal. If I’m gonna imitate Jesus and everything that he has done throughout his life, then I’m going to not make this table exclusive. It’s not a, “We’re in. Sorry, you’ve got to do certain things before you can eat at this table.”
And so we’ve made it exclusive when I don’t think Jesus ever intended it to be exclusive, and part of the problem ‑‑ part of the reason from that ‑‑ and this has come from centuries and centuries of change, is because it shifted from a meal to what we have now, which is a quick, convenient, efficient bread and cup. But we can talk more about that.
WES: Well, and I think that that’s a great segue, and it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. So this is just kind of a soapbox for me here recently, and it’s sort of the institutionalization of the church. And when I say that, I mean we just tend to think, and have for, you know, 2,000 years almost ‑‑ we very quickly institutionalize the church so that we think of the church as an organization, you know, almost like a company. You know, we think of it as an entity that is separate from us. We kind of give lip service sometimes to “We are the church,” “We, the people, are the church,” but we just don’t think of it that way. I often compare it to when we say things like, well, the church ought to do this or the church does that, and we’re speaking about the church as if it’s this separate group from me, and we wouldn’t do that if we spoke in familial language.
So I never say “The McAdams family” ought to do X, Y, and Z. I say “we,” “We ought to do this.” “This is something that we are doing.” I don’t think ‑‑ I don’t think about or talk about, speak about my family as if it is this separate entity that is different from and distinguished from me as an individual or the collection of the individuals that make up that family, and we lose that when we just think about the church in those sorts of terms. And I guess some of that’s natural, but even the Lord’s Supper has become this institutional thing rather than this organic coming together of believers, coming together of friends and family around a table and sharing this meal that has a deeper meaning and a deeper fellowship and this thing that should be a meal. It should be organic. It should be beautiful and wonderful. Instead, it has become this institutionalized type of ceremony and ritual that, I think, it just doesn’t even ‑‑ doesn’t even sound like what is going on at the Last Supper. It doesn’t even sound like what is supposed to be going on in Corinth, what is supposed to be going on in the book of Acts when they’re ‑‑ when they’re just breaking bread together. They’re being family. That’s what family does; family eats together. And this should be this multi‑ethnic, multilingual, diverse family coming together around Jesus and celebrating who we are and what we have.
BOO: Right. And, I mean, Jesus institutes this supper in the context of Passover, which is a full meal with movements through different ingredients, different items on the table. It’s an experience of smells and tastes and questions and Psalms being recited, and, at a Passover meal, I mean, the whole family’s included. There’s questions asked by children. They’re wanting to know, so the table is even a teaching moment, but they’re not excluded. It’s not, hey, you go sit over there in the corner. You eat at the kids table while the adults, those who are in Christ, talk about Him. No, it’s an all‑inclusive table, the Passover table is, and this is the context within which Jesus instituted it, and I have no doubt that it was a full‑out movement and a meal, and they’re recalling the Passover and Jesus is pointing to himself as the sacrificial lamb, and “This is my body which is broken for you. This is my blood that is poured out for you,” and it’s not just for you; it’s for everyone. It’s for the world.
It kind of seems a little silly, and I’m guilty of it, for sure, and it’s taken me a while and a lot of study to get to this mindset ‑‑ but it seems silly that we would invite sinners into our assembly and then be like, well, for a moment, you can’t share the Lord with us. The Lord is ours, but you don’t ‑‑ you can’t partake in the Lord. That is just for us. I think everything that Jesus did shows us exactly the opposite. I definitely think we have to allow the table ministry of Jesus to inform his table because it’s his table, after all. It’s not ours to make the rules on. It’s his table to inform, and he showed us how to do that.
WES: Yeah. Well, and that actually kind of highlights, in my mind, one of the final table scenes in the gospel account of Luke, and that’s the table at Emmaus, that he’s traveled with these disciples that don’t recognize him, and then they sit down together, and Luke really ‑‑ I think the way that he tells the story and he says that their eyes were opened in the breaking of the bread ‑‑ I think that he’s sort of foreshadowing and saying that this is what will continue to happen, that in this gathering together and breaking bread, we are and will continue to break bread with Jesus, and our eyes will be open to who he is in this breaking of the bread.
So to your earlier point, it is, and it should be, an evangelistic type of a situation. I’ve never really thought about it that way, that in practicing open communion ‑‑ and that’s what we tend to say that we do, is we practice open communion; we’ve at least given lip service to the idea that this is open ‑‑ we’re not going to stop anybody from taking this, that in the breaking of bread together, that people’s eyes are open to who Jesus is because we believe that he is present in the breaking of this bread.
BOO: Yeah, I love that. I couldn’t agree more. And the road to Emmaus, that story is such a beautiful example for us that shows, like, Christ is revealed in the breaking of the bread. Why should we limit anybody from seeing Christ and seeing his body and break bread together? It’s an absolutely fascinating story, and it’s one that should play into our table today, and I think it definitely shows us that everyone is welcome at this table.
And so it also points to the fact ‑‑ and I believe that the Lord’s Supper is an effective right. Like it’s a sacrament. It’s a sacred moment through which God acts, just like baptism is. People often debate, like, baptism is your work so you’re claiming you’re saved by your work. No, God acts through that which he gave us. He instituted it and he acts through that. Like God saves you through water. And we’re told that time and time again, but ‑‑ and I view the Lord’s Supper in a similar fashion of God acts through this memorial, through this symbolism. And not only is it me being reminded of the covenant that I have with him as I sat at the table with him, it’s a moment of ‑‑ a person who doesn’t know him, it’s a moment that he can be revealed to them, and so we both sit at the same table, but we both have different experiences at the table.
WES: I think that the pushback ‑‑ I’m sure that there’s people listening right now, saying, I can’t believe what I’m hearing Boo say, but I think the pushback that somebody might give is 1st Corinthians ‑‑ and we were gonna go there anyway, but I think that that sort of highlights the way that we’ve tended to read that text, and we’ve tended to sort of, I think, want to protect people from judgment because we think, well, if you don’t take it right, if you’re not in the right state of mind and if you’re not in the right state and relationship with God, then you’re gonna come under judgment, so you’re bringing judgment upon yourself by taking it in an unworthy state.
Now, let’s talk about that. Like what is Paul talking about? What’s the context? And why does that not mean that somebody who, you know, isn’t in a covenant relationship with God, like if they take it, then they’re gonna be punished by God or something?
BOO: Yeah. So, I mean, in the context of 1st Corinthians, like he’s writing to this church that ‑‑ he tells them, like, I’m so thankful for all of you, and then he’s just gonna lambaste them right after that. It’s like ‑‑ he’s harsh on them. He’s like, guys, you’re doing things that even the Gentiles are kind of like, that’s crazy; we don’t even do that. There’s so much sexual immorality, paganism. They’re in this culture that ‑‑ they are imitating their Roman‑Greco culture in a lot of ways, these Christians are, and Paul is trying to remind them you don’t live by the flesh anymore; you live by the Spirit. But he even tells them, like, but you’re living like people of flesh. You’re ‑‑ I can’t address you as spiritual people. You’re babes in Christ. You’re drinking milk when you should be chewing meat by now, guys. Like get it together.
And one of the aspects that he wants to address is the table, and he kind of starts that language in chapter 10, and he recalls ‑‑ he brings them back to their ancestors and talks about the Israelites going through the wilderness, and he says, you drink from the same spiritual drink and the same spiritual food that they took, and that drink is Christ, and talks about how the Israelites, they complained. You know, they grumbled and they sought after all these idols, and his whole point in that is you can’t be divided. You can’t serve God and money. You can’t serve God and another idol. And he says a lot of them were destroyed by the destroyer because of the ways that they were divided. They would sit at the Lord’s table in one moment, and the next thing you know, they’re worshipping a golden calf, and a lot of them were taken out because of that in various moments.
And so he’s pulling that ‑‑ he’s reminding them of that, and he’s pulling it into their modern day. And by the time you get to chapter 11, he’s gonna specifically speak to the table, but he’s letting them know, like, you can’t sit at the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Like you can’t sit at two tables. And how often do we do that? I mean, we sit at the table of the Lord on Sunday, and then we go out and we indulge in whatever
our lust of the flesh is, our pride of life, whatever it is throughout the week, and then we come back and we feel guilty and we sit at the Lord’s table again. It’s the same idea here. It’s the same teaching of, guys, this is your life now. You are dead to yourself and you are alive in Christ. Like let the Spirit fuel you.
And so it’s not even ‑‑ the letter to the Corinthians is not even ‑‑ it is a condemnation, but it’s a reminder of their identity, more so, because Paul says, you know, as such were some of you. You were idolaters, you were homosexuals, you were all these different things, drunkards ‑‑ like as such were some of you, but you were made new in Christ. Like it’s a reminder of their identity, and it’s a reminder to us, like this table is Christ’s table. It’s not yours to do with it whatever you wanna do. This is Christ’s table. And then he’s going to get to the specifics in chapter 11, and, you know, we can talk about those, but that’s kind of the context of leading into chapter 11.
WES: Yeah. Well, I think that that’s so important, that idea of participation and oneness in chapter 10, that when you participate ‑‑ specifically, in that context, he seems to be talking about the table of ‑‑ the idolatrous table, that when you go out in the week and you are sharing this fellowship with the idolatry, then you are becoming one with them, the same as in Israel. They became one through the common meal, and I think that we have to recognize that. Like you said, with whom are we becoming one throughout the week?
And then, also, on the positive side, the oneness of the table. I like to think about the fact that he says because there is one bread, we are one body, and Paul is writing from somewhere else. I mean, he’s not talking about one loaf of bread, but I think sometimes, again, we get into, you know, the weeds with some of this, but when you take the bread on Sunday in Hot Springs, and I take the bread in Dallas, we’re eating the same bread. We are eating of the same loaf, and because we eat the same loaf, because we eat the same bread, we are one body, and what the table ought to be doing is drawing us together.
Unfortunately, to your point, we give our loyalties, we give our allegiance to so many other tables throughout the week and we are divided, whereas we ought to have this exclusive loyalty and allegiance to King Jesus and to his people, and that this table fellowship ought to be shaping our oneness. And then, to your point, in 1st Corinthians 11, then we really get into the specifics of some of the divisions that exist and even the way that they ‑‑ so they’re ‑‑ throughout the week, apparently, they’re eating at other tables, becoming one with idols and demons, and then on Sunday, when they come together in the assembly, then they’re divided in that assembly and they’re not even being one there. So they’re divided in that their loyalty is divided throughout the week, but then, when they come together, their fellowship is divided, and specifically even mentions the rich and poor in 1st Corinthians 11.
BOO: Yeah. And it’s ‑‑ you know, the table is not just about us. It’s not just about us sitting at other tables throughout the week and worshiping idols and the various ways that we worship idols. The table is also about portraying the gospel and portraying the kingdom mission. It’s a reminder of that mission that we have in the kingdom. It’s a picture of the kingdom, as we’ve already talked about. And I think that’s what Paul is going to hit hard here is like, guys, the way you’re eating this, the ways that you’re performing this meal is subverting the gospel. It’s not a picture of the gospel because the gospel is inclusive. God is calling all people to himself.
And so, you know, when he talks about and says these things of take it in a “worthy manner,” well, we’ve taken that and changed that over the years, and we think of that, and I’ve been taught, a “worthy manner” means that I’ve got to have my mind right. Like I have to think about Jesus’ death, you know, and oh, no, did I not think about his death enough? Like, did I not take it in a worthy manner? Or, you know, are my kids being too loud? I’ve got to keep them quiet. Or, you know, I sinned a lot this week; I feel shameful sitting at this table, like I’m not partaking it in a worthy manner, like I don’t deserve this.
And so we’ve made the worthy manner all about our cognitive mindset because, one, the table has become isolated. The table has become all about me and my thoughts. We call it communion, and yet we don’t ‑‑ we have no communion with one another within the building. We sit silently, quiet, and it’s all about sorrow and it’s all about the cross, when Jesus is pulling us to the resurrection. “I’m here, guys. I’m not dead.” We still act as if Christ is dead, and it’s this beautiful moment of “I’m sitting at this table with you. Why are you not excited about this? Why are you beating yourself up over and over and over? If anything, like you should be at the table if you’ve sinned, if you’ve sat at the table of idols. If anything, like you should be here and you’re reminded that my body is broken for you and my blood is shed for you.”
The unworthy manner in 1st Corinthians 11 is that they’re divided. That’s the unworthy manner. You’re divided. You’ve got the rich eating first and the poor eating last, and that’s the culture which Corinth is in. In the Roman culture, the rich ate first and the poor were lucky if they got anything. And that’s why he’s saying some of you, you’re getting full before you ever ‑‑ before it’s ever even time to eat. A lot of you are getting drunk, and then a lot of the poor, there’s nothing even left for them to eat. So you have made this table exclusive, and it doesn’t look anything like the gospel; it looks like you. It looks like your culture, your world, your idols, and he tells them, like, that’s not the Lord’s table; that’s your table.
But then he brings them back and he reminds them ‑‑ and he quotes Jesus in the upper room, where Jesus says, “This is my body broken for you. This is my blood shed for you.” This is his table. When it doesn’t look like him, when it doesn’t look like his kingdom, that’s why some of you are getting weak and ill and even some of you have died. Like you’re struggling because you have missed the point of the table. And so I think, like, we’ve misunderstood that and it’s been taught in really damaging ways to make us feel guilty or make us feel like I have to feel enough guilt and get in my head and think about the Lord’s death enough, and I just picture Jesus sitting there in front of us, like, “Look up, my child, like I’m here. I saved you. Why are you so sorrowful?” Like, it’s a beautiful weekly reminder of I’m in his kingdom and so are you, and so are you, and so are you, and I want to commune with you, and I want to commune with you in Dallas as we remember together that Jesus is Lord. That’s the unworthy manner, is when we push people out of the table. It has nothing to do with our mindset.
WES: Yeah. Well, and he uses the phrase “discerning the body,” that if you eat and drink without discerning the body ‑‑ and I’d love to hear your thoughts on this, but my take is that he means both the body of Jesus that was nailed to the cross and the body of Christ that is made up of all of the Christians, that in chapter 10, and then especially in chapter 12, his emphasis on the body isn’t just the body that was crucified; it is the body that we make up, that we are a part of, and when we take this supper, yes, we are discerning or thinking about the body of Christ that was crucified, but as much as that, and specifically to his context, we are thinking about the body as in my brothers and sisters that are gathered with me and those across the globe that are suffering persecution or are in other contexts and other cultures, that this is my global family and we are all taking of one bread and one cup together and we are the body of Christ. And I think what he’s saying is if you don’t discern that, that fellowship, that oneness, and you’re divided and it’s reflected in the way that you’re doing this, then it’s not the Lord’s Supper and you are eating and drinking condemnation on yourself.
BOO: Right, absolutely. We forget that these letters are communal. They would have been read to the entire community. They didn’t have copies of them. They can’t pull it up on their phone and study it themselves. We read the Bible in a very individualistic way, when they’re always communal. And, again, we’ve done some damage there in that way, but I agree with you, like discern the body. He just mentioned the body of Christ, but also, like you said, in chapter 12, he’s really gonna be like you’re all a part of this body. Like he’s gonna play into this. And so it’s definitely look around you, discern the body. Everybody is a part of this body. The rich, the poor, male, female, Gentile, Jew. Like discern them. This is you communing together. This is you considering them more valuable than yourself, as Paul would say in Philippians. Like this is you taking a position of humility and servitude to uplift your brother and sister as you imitate Christ at this table, as he lifts you up and redeems you and reminds you of the covenant that you have with him and as he is revealed to the people at the table that may not know him. The table is powerful. It is so powerful, and we’ve unfortunately neglected it and we’ve unfortunately reduced it down to a convenient fast‑food, drive‑through moment where we sit inside our own heads, and we have lost a lot of power from the table. I fully believe that.
And the beauty of the letter that we’re talking about is it’s kind of a chiasm that all pulls to chapter 13, even though Paul didn’t give it chapters and verses. Like here’s the solution to all of this, and it’s love, and this is what love looks like. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not self‑seeking. Love doesn’t say you go first and they go last. Love discerns the body. Love looks around. It’s like, how can I help you as I imitate Christ? Like how can I serve you? Let me invite you into the body of Christ as you experience Christ at his table. And it’s a powerful thing that I truly think that we need to reclaim in a lot of ways.
WES: And I think that one of the things ‑‑ it’s just amazing how our language often betrays the way that we think about this. One of the things that I’ve heard my whole life when people are doing the focus before ‑‑ the thoughts and the comments before the communion, what we tend to say is, you know, push out of your mind all of the distractions, everything that’s happened this week, push all of those things out of your mind and focus on Jesus. And I appreciate that to a certain extent, but I think that one of the things that tends to happen when we do that is we’re not thinking about our brothers and sisters, which I think is exactly what he’s encouraging us to do.
So one of the things I ‑‑ one time I encouraged people to do this and it became a very controversial thing, so I won’t go down the long list of specifics that I mentioned in a post I did one time. But actually, when you come to the table, it’s not a bad thing to think, okay, this is what my other brothers and sisters have been dealing with this week, and things that you know specifically about individuals or things you know about whole groups of people, or things you know about your brothers and sisters in other parts of the world ‑‑ to bring that to the table and to empathize with them, to bear their burdens, to think about what they’re going through, to be one with them is precisely what the table is all about. But when we intentionally push those things out of our mind and say I don’t want to be distracted ‑‑ well, Paul isn’t giving instructions to distracted people; he’s giving instructions to divided people. And whatever we can do to discern the body, the church, I think it actually enhances what we’re doing, that Jesus has made us one, and their celebrations become my celebrations, their sorrows become my sorrows, their burdens become my burdens. And the table is where we live that out in a very practical way, or at least it should be, but it’s also one where we can contemplate those realities as we share this meal even with the people that we can’t see with our eyes.
BOO: I love that. Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. And I think one of the things that hurts that is the way that we practice the table. It doesn’t afford us those opportunities to talk to our brothers and sisters or to make those reconciliations or to serve them in some way. And I do think we have those opportunities outside of the moments we break bread together, and, yes, I think our koinonia is all‑inclusive. It’s not just a table moment that we should be imitating Christ, obviously. But the table itself ‑‑ you know, we’ve kind of separated it and we make it its own thing over here when, in reality, it should be the thing. It should be the focus. What does this table look like and how can I imitate the kingdom when we assemble?
And so we’ve kind of made it a checklist item to where I have to take the Lord’s Supper, and all of this comes from 1st Corinthians 11, or I’m gonna have judgment on myself. This is why we started serving communion on Sunday nights and you’ve got four or five people taking it and the rest of the congregation has already taken it. Well, that’s not communion. That’s you taking a checklist item. And so it has become another step on the stair‑step diagrams that we build, and it’s lost its intent. It’s lost its original intent to where I can support you in this moment, I can be reminded of my love for you in this moment, and I can imitate Christ. And it’s unfortunate, but I think we need to reclaim it.
Our assembly in our modern‑day contemporary meetings have been focused around the pulpit, and the preaching is the highlighted point of worship, and that just wasn’t always so. Yeah, I mean, yeah, they preached. Yeah, they ‑‑ you know, they got into the Word and the Word informed the table, but it was all pulling them to the table. And so one thing I’ve started to do, Wes, is, like, we moved communion to after the sermon, and I always try ‑‑ right now we’re doing a marriage series so it’s kind of difficult, but I always try and get the sermon to pull us to the table, to point us to the table in that moment where we’re going to break bread together because it’s not just when we sit at the table that I should be thinking about you and my relationship with you; it’s the entire time that we’re together. And if Christ has forgiven me, then I need to forgive you. You know, it’s ‑‑ all of the words of Jesus, the entire Bible all just comes together when you think about it in this relational way. Love God with all that you have and love your brother and your sister. Love your neighbor as yourself. And Paul says you can sum up the whole law with one word: Love your neighbor as yourself. So that’s what the table should look like, as well.
WES: Yeah. Well, Boo, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate these thoughts. I think that’s a lot to ‑‑ I can’t resist saying that’s a lot to chew on, but I think this is really good.
BOO: We could talk about a lot more.
WES: No doubt, no doubt. Well, thanks for all you do, Brother. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you and the work that you’re doing in the kingdom.
BOO: Same, Wes. I love you, Bud. Thankful for you.
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.
The conversation examines what the Bible is, looking at it as a collection of books written in particular historical contexts. It discusses how to discern reliable and formative biblical scholarship, considering the scholar’s life, motivations, and willingness to challenge tradition. The biblical concepts of taking scripture seriously, reading it in context, and interpreting it in community are emphasized. The ultimate goal of biblical study is growing in love for Jesus.
The guest for this episode is Dr. Jeremie Beller, Dean of the College of Bible at Oklahoma Christian University. Dr. Beller has studied biblical languages and literature extensively. However, his focus is not on technical precision but on teaching scripture for spiritual formation and community application. His desire is for Christians to read the Bible holistically, let it shape them into Christ’s image, and apply it in life-giving ways.
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)
WES: Welcome to the Radically Christian Bible Study Podcast. I’m your host, Wes McAdams. Here we have one goal: Learn to love like Jesus. There are some Christians who feel like Bible scholarship or Bible training at an academic level is completely unnecessary, that Bible experts ‑‑ or so‑called Bible experts ‑‑ are unnecessary and are usually leading people astray. They feel like scripture is so simple that anybody ought to be able to just pick it up and read it, understand it, and obey it. And on the other hand, there are a lot of Christians who feel like the Bible is too complicated to understand, that they couldn’t possibly understand the meaning and the purpose of scripture because they’re not a Bible expert or a Bible scholar. Should we trust biblical scholarship? Should we distrust biblical scholarship? Or is there somewhere in between where we ought to land?
Today I’m going to visit with our guest, Dr. Jeremie Beller, who is the Dean of the College of Bible at Oklahoma Christian University, a wonderful follower of Jesus, and I know that you will enjoy and appreciate the things that he has to share with us and to teach us about studying scripture. I want to start today by reading 2 Timothy 3:14‑17. It says, “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” I believe that today’s conversation is going to help all of us learn to love like Jesus.
Jeremie Beller, welcome to the podcast, Brother.
JEREMIE: Thanks! It’s great to be here, Wes.
WES: It’s great to have you, Brother. I’m excited to have this conversation. I think that this is going to be helpful for a lot of people, especially given your position, your role, and your experience, but before we really dive into this idea of biblical scholarship and being a Bible expert and whether or not you need to be one, it might be helpful just to define “the Bible.” It’s interesting how that is a term that ‑‑ we just kind of assume that we’re all on the same page when we use that idea or use that term of “the Bible,” but how would you define what the Bible is and what we mean when we talk about “the Bible”?
JEREMIE: Well, that’s a loaded question. It’s a great question because it’s really something of a modern development, in a sense. You know, when you read through scripture, it’s more the language of “Scripture.” “Bible,” as a collection of books that’s been recognized as authoritative, well, that comes apart later after the first century, but there were writings recognized as divine from the hand of God. But when you step back and you look at the entire collection, I often think the Bible is ‑‑ it’s a collection of writings. It’s directed by God’s Spirit, but it’s written to tell us about God and God’s expectation of creation and how God interacts with creation through history and where this is going, and so it spans a lot of time, giving us glimpses into how has God operated at this moment, under these circumstances, through these people. And so scripture is kind of a story, and some people get nervous when you use the word “story,” Wes, because they think that implies “not true.” That’s not at all what it implies. It is the narrative of history and where God fits into this.
And so, you know, as I’m teaching the Gospel of Matthew this morning, and even in my Sunday sermon last Sunday, yes, it records historical events, and I believe fully in the historicity of this book, but it’s not just a history book, and we can’t read it as a history book. This is the story of God, that God is inviting us to be part of, watching him work in creation, telling us how we play a role in that creation. So there’s a really long, complicated answer for you, but I think it’s a broad picture of God’s story.
WES: No, no, I think that’s a great way to put it. It’s very similar to the way I tend to describe it. I always say that the Bible is a library, and I like how you emphasize that, too, a collection of books. The way I say it is it’s a library of prophetic books about God and his covenant people, that it ‑‑ we do believe, and you said, his Spirit carried along these authors, so we do believe that it’s from God in a sense, but I love that you emphasize the connection to a certain people at a certain time, certain circumstances. I mean, it is interesting, and it might not be what people might think God would do if he was going to tell people ‑‑ reveal to people who he is and his will for creation and for the world and the redemption of all things. You might not think that he would give his story in the context of a specific group of people, particularly the descendants of Abraham, but he did. Whether or not we would do it the same way if we were God, it doesn’t matter. This is the way we believe that God has revealed himself to us, is through this specific group of people, the descendants of Abraham, and, specifically, one particular descendant of Abraham, being Jesus the Christ. And so that makes the Bible very unique because it is connected to a particular ethnic group; it’s connected to particular cultures, as that ethnic group changed over time; and languages, particularly Hebrew and Greek and a little bit of Aramaic thrown in there, as well. So that makes it a very sort of unique collection of books. It’s not that God has communicated directly to Jeremie or directly to Wes and spoken to us in English in a 21st century culture. This book, or this collection of books, is rooted in a very particular period of history, and so that means that interpreting it or understanding it takes on some interesting nuances.
Now, I think that there are people on sort of two ends of the spectrum. On one end of the spectrum are people that sort of deny that you need to know anything about the history or the culture or the languages, that they say, “Well, listen, the Bible says what it says. All you need to do is read it and obey it. That’s all you gotta do, and it doesn’t need any interpretation.” I’ve heard that my whole life, “The Bible doesn’t need any interpretation. I don’t interpret the Bible; I just read it.” And then, on the other extreme, I think that there are people that ‑‑ they’re intimidated by it because they realize, oh, it is a little more complicated than that. It’s challenging, and so they just kind of push away from it because they’re overwhelmed by it. Talk to us about those extremes, and how do we correct some of those misconceptions without reinforcing the other misconception?
JEREMIE: Yeah. Boy, that’s the world I’ve grown up in and that’s the world kind of I swim in right now, is where is that balance between an appreciation for scholarship, but also for the understanding that most Christians in the first century world had zero educational background. In fact, most Christians in the first century world could not read, which is an interesting perspective on how scripture operates and what it’s about entirely. But the Bible can be a very intimidating book because you open it up, it’s a different language, different culture, different assumptions, and so that makes a lot of people say, “That’s a foreign language. I don’t understand that.”
Scripture can be kind of intimidating, also, in how it’s arranged. You know, sometimes you can pick it up and, you know, you read the story of Ruth or Esther. It’s a great read. It’s a novel, almost. But then you get back in the book of Leviticus, and what in the world are we dealing with here? Then you jump over to Daniel and Revelation, and that doesn’t read like a novel, and so it is very intimidating.
One other thing that I think makes it difficult for us to read scripture ‑‑ and this one hits a little too close to home sometimes ‑‑ is that in the way we’ve preached it and sometimes taught it, we’ve given people the impression that this hand of God just dropped this book out of heaven and said, “Someday I’m coming back and there’s going to be a final exam, and you need to understand everything written in it.” And so we carry this weight of intimidation that says, “If I get this wrong, I’m toast,” and so that’s why we have such strong debates over, you know, what is the images in Daniel, or what does Revelation mean, or what about the head covering in 1 Corinthians? And we’re not reading it as a conversation of understanding God and his people; we’re reading it because everything depends on me getting this right, and because of that, you’ve got those two extremes. People are really intimidated by it.
However, that question, in and of itself, as you well know, is kind of simplistic. “All I have to do is read the Bible and do what it says.” Well, how are you going to read the Bible? You’re going to read it through a translation. And I remember in grad school and getting my degree, I thought, I want to learn Hebrew and I want to learn Greek so that I can do this on my own and not have to use commentators. Every translation of the Bible is, in a sense, a commentary. They’re wrestling with what word do I use? Why do I use that? Do I consistently use that? How has this word been used all around? So we have to kind of tip our hat to scholarship in the very handing down of scripture.
Now, I believe in the providential power of God and his Spirit being at work in the authorship, but also in the preservation, and, to a certain part, the community of translation along the way. But as we read our Bibles and we interact with the text, one of the ‑‑ it’s fresh on my mind, again, because I’m teaching Matthew, is, you know, when the RSV translates “virgin” in Isaiah 7 as “young lady,” well, they’re not just pulling that out of nowhere. They’re wrestling with a scholarship that says, “How can we be consistent here?” And people came along and said, “Well, they’ve denied the virgin birth.” No, because the RSV uses “virgin” in Matthew chapter 1, and there are reasons for this. But what you see in that is scholarship is wrestling that, and so even our translations are a dependency on scholarship. However, there is an appreciation for what scholarship does to help us understand what is the world of scripture, what questions were they asking, what assumptions were they making, and how were they hearing these texts and things for the very first time, and so that’s where I think scholarship informs us.
But, Wes, I think we have to back up because, again, when someone says the Bible is simple and anyone can understand it, I have to kind of pause and I have to offer a slight adjustment. I think Jesus is simple and anyone can understand the story of Jesus, and what scripture is doing is pointing us to Jesus. And, now, we get lost in the intricacies of language and genres and contextualization, but at the end of the day, those uneducated fishermen of the first century knew Jesus, and scripture came along to show us how the communities are interpreting Jesus and applying Jesus in their settings. And so that’s where I think we have to be careful with that balance, that “I don’t need scholarship because the Bible is written very easily.” Well, scholars themselves disagree, so it’s not an easy practice, so are we pointing to Jesus or are we wrestling something else?
WES: Yeah. Oh, I think that’s so incredibly helpful. In fact, I just got done having lunch with a mutual friend of ours, Jim Martin, and we were talking about this subject, and he pointed out, similar to what you’re saying here, that there are issues that Paul says are of first importance. Even Jesus, when he looks back at the law, he says that there are weightier matters of the law, so there are things in scripture that are more important than others. That’s not to say that any of it is unimportant, but there are matters that are more important than others. And Paul, as an expert in his day of the law, could look at the law and say that the purpose of it was to be a tutor, a servant that brought the people to faith in Jesus, and that faith in Jesus is the goal.
I really like Matthew Bates’ language around faith being loyalty or allegiance to Jesus, and that’s the thing, is that we are saved because we have pledged our allegiance to Jesus because we are living loyally to Jesus, not because we have it all figured out, because no one does. And I think that’s ‑‑ it really is sort of a ‑‑ on the one hand, I hate that anyone is overwhelmed or intimidated by scripture, but on the other hand, this idea that someone thinks that they’ve got it all figured out really is ‑‑ it is a mark of arrogance and pride that really needs to change, that we really need to humble ourselves, because, as you and I know, the more you study scripture, the more you realize, oh, I don’t know nearly as much as I thought I did. When I was 18 years old and I was first going into ministry, I thought, I’ve got this thing figured out; this is really easy. And the more I study scripture, the more I realize, oh, I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of the meaning and the depth of this collection of ancient writings.
JEREMIE: And, you know, you reminded me ‑‑ this exact thing, when Jesus says there are weightier matters of the law, he was talking to the scholars. And one of the stories I absolutely love in the Gospel of John is Nicodemus, because ‑‑ and I’ve preached on this; some people may have heard it. It’s really interesting to me that John 3:16 lands between two notable stories. “Whoever believes in me will not perish.” Just above that text, Jesus has just talked to Nicodemus. He is a scholar of scholars. He is an insider, and yet when Jesus tells this scholar about “You must be born again,” he misses it. Nicodemus could explain so much of the law, rabbinic tradition, all of this stuff, but he missed Jesus.
On the other side of the “Whoever believes in me” is the Samaritan woman, and the way John tells the story, they are literally opposites. Nicodemus is a Jewish insider; she’s a Samaritan outcast. He’s a man; she’s a woman. We know his name; we don’t know her name. Nicodemus comes at night; she comes in broad daylight. Nicodemus comes with certainty: “We know you’re a man of God.” She comes with questions. And yet, at the end of that interaction, she understands Jesus, and Nicodemus, the scholar, is scratching his head. And I think that is such a reminder to us in scholarship that says, yes, our work is important, but don’t miss Jesus because scripture is written to point us to Jesus.
WES: Yeah. And I think that’s John’s whole point in John 1, in the prologue, is that this Word, this prophetic Word that has come through the prophets, that has been with God and is God. This prophetic Word has become flesh, and that when you see Jesus, you see the Word. When you put your faith in Jesus, you are an expert in scripture, even if you’re just a child who says, “Listen, I’m a sinner. I’m broken. I’m hungry. I don’t have the answers, and I’ve messed up, and I’ve done all of these things wrong, but I know Jesus is the answer,” then you have come to the most important conclusion about scripture that anyone could.
And on the other hand, there are a lot of so‑called experts that still, to this day, just like those you mentioned in scripture, that they know far more about the Greek and the Hebrew and the Aramaic and the history and the culture than I ever will, but
they don’t have faith in Jesus, and they really know nothing. Their knowledge, their learning really profits them nothing if it doesn’t result in faith in Christ.
JEREMIE: Yeah, absolutely. One of the smartest men I ever took a class with is an agnostic. This was not at one of our Christian colleges, it was at University of Oklahoma. Brilliant scholar, did some brilliant research in non‑canonical gospels, but he had left faith. He didn’t believe in Jesus. Now, he and I could have some conversations, and, of course, he knew things I’ll never know and haven’t committed my life to, but he missed Jesus, and we have to be careful. I am committed to scripture, and I am committed to the inspiration of scripture, and I am committed to the authority of scripture, but at the end of the day, scripture is pointing us to Jesus, and if we don’t get to Jesus at the end of it, then we’ve misread the book.
WES: Yeah, yeah. So let’s talk about ‑‑ you pointed out one sort of example of how scholars are wrestling with the text. I could think of so many other examples, and you could, as well, of ways that Bible translations have even changed over the years. And every now and then I’ll see a post on Facebook that will be berating a certain translation, saying, “Hey, they took these verses out of the Bible,” and I want to say, “Oh, they didn’t actually take those verses out of the Bible. There’s manuscript differences.” But, man, when you get into all of those areas, there is ‑‑ I will say this. Let me kind of play devil’s advocate for a second, that some people will say, well, listen, all of these so‑called experts and these academics, sometimes they are ‑‑ it feels like they’re sort of playing fast and loose with the text, and they’re saying, “Well, if you understood the history, if you understood the culture, then you would know that it doesn’t really say what it seems to say, and I know it looks like it says this, but it really says this other thing.” And so how are those of us who are not experts supposed to believe or disbelieve what’s being said to us?
And so I understand that there is a lot of skepticism about scholarship or academia because it seems to be that they take what we’ve always known to be true, and they say, “Well, you know, it doesn’t really mean what it seems to mean,” or, “It doesn’t mean what it used to say, and so there’s a new way of looking at it now.” And so there is that sort of pushback to say, “Well, listen, if it worked for me before, then I’m just gonna stick with what I’ve always known.” So what do we do with some of those experts? How do we know whether or not to believe what they’re saying?
JEREMIE: Yeah, and that is ‑‑ that’s one of the frustrations with scholarship. I sometimes jokingly say to students that scholarship is the art of taking the simple and making it overly complex, and I do think we have to have kind of a natural concern, be it scholar or anyone, that says what you’re reading with your own eyes doesn’t mean what it looks like it means. I think our default setting should be “What does it look like it’s saying?”
With that said, scholarship, I think, should be a practice of humility, to say, okay, there are some things I don’t understand, and what is brought to the table? Scholarship ‑‑ I think one of the strengths is it makes us kick the tires of our assumptions, so yes, scholarship can be wrong, and is often wrong, and, as I mentioned earlier, scholars disagree among themselves. It’s not as if it’s some ‑‑ everybody agrees on this. But there is a sense in which, when you see a lot of scholars from different areas and different backgrounds beginning to coalesce around some things ‑‑ that doesn’t make it right by nature, but it does say, “What do they know?” And “Maybe I should look into this.” The problem is when people immediately default to scholars. “Well, that must be true because a scholar said it.” And it’s also a problem to say, “Well, I’m not gonna believe it because scholarship says that,” kind of this anti‑intellectualism. But I do think where scholarship is important is to say, are we asking the right questions? Are our assumptions built on reasonable understandings? Because even non‑scholars have biases, and even non‑scholars kind of read with kind of this bias towards affirming what I already believe, and it helps to interact with someone every now and then that says, “Are you sure about that?” And so scholarship will push you at times.
So how do you know what scholars to believe? How do you know ‑‑ you have to appreciate the work that they’re doing, but at the end of the day, my first thought is, well, if it doesn’t mean exactly what it appears it means, it’s going to take some overwhelming evidence to convince me otherwise, and sometimes that evidence shows up and sometimes it doesn’t.
WES: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think those are really great points. I think that it’s really difficult ‑‑ as you said, on the one hand, you’ve got scholars that are ‑‑ I mean, let’s just be honest, that ‑‑ especially around issues ‑‑ we had Rubel Shelly on the podcast not too long ago to talk about his new book, Male and Female, and he is pushing back against the affirming ‑‑ as he puts it, the revisionist scholars who are saying, “Well, the Bible doesn’t mean what it says or doesn’t mean what it seems to say about same‑sex relationships,” that as long as it’s a loving, monogamous relationship, it doesn’t matter who it’s with. And he’s coming back and saying, “No, no, no. The traditional ‑‑ the position that Christians have held for 2,000 years is the one that Paul and Jesus were stating.”
So when we hear scholars that say something, on the one hand, there is a good sort of saying, “Hey, I’m suspicious of that. I’m not sure that what you’re saying is true,” and it’s good to kind of hold your ground. But on the other hand, as you said, there is also the temptation ‑‑ for instance, if somebody is struggling with same‑sex relationships or same‑sex attraction, when a scholar comes along that says, “Hey, maybe we misread this,” they’re very quick to sort of jump on board with that. Or any of us, when we sort of want something to be true, we tend to take that scholarship and believe it and say, “Hey, this kind of affirms what I believe.” But on the other hand, when there is something that a scholar comes out and says that, “Hey, the traditional position or the majority position may not be right,” they may actually have a really good case to make and they may need to move ‑‑ I think about things that I’ve learned over the last 20 years from biblical scholars, and it makes so much more sense of the text as a whole. It’s given me a new lens through which to read things, and it’s made sense of not just one passage, but of so many passages.
How do we know when to let go of our firmly held belief and when to not, because, on the one hand, I really respect those who ‑‑ they’re holding their ground and they’re not being swayed by sort of new ideas that are coming down the pike, but on the other hand, there’s a stubbornness and an unwillingness to learn sometimes for all of us when there really is good information, but we’re saying that’s not what I’ve always believed, so, therefore, I’m not going to accept it. How do we balance those?
JEREMIE: Yeah, there is a sense of intellectual honesty that you’re looking for. So when you see ‑‑ I think Brother Shelly’s book is a great example of that, because in our current culture, the LGBTQ reading of scripture is one of those cases that says, “Well, I know it looks that way and it sounds that way, but we’ve been misreading that.” Anytime a reading goes against 2,000 years of history, 4,000 years of history, that ought to be flag number one. That doesn’t mean we couldn’t have been wrong, but that’s one of the challenges that I say a lot of smarter people, for years, who’ve read this a different way, so that’s kind of a cautionary flag.
The other one is, what is the motivation for saying this? Now, we have motivations for rejecting things because, “Well, I don’t deal with those issues and I disagree with that,” so we have to check our motivations, too. But that is a question you have to kind of put in the mix. But there is this sense of ‑‑ are they taking scripture seriously? Are they taking all scripture seriously? I was watching an exchange between two people, and they said, “Well, I know that’s what Jesus said, but he was just kind of using the language of the day” and quickly moved on. Well, no, if that’s true, it upends everything you just built your system on. You can’t just dismiss things like that. I think we have to be very interested in, do these people’s lives ‑‑ the scholars, whoever we’re interacting with, do their lives reflect the spirit of what God is calling us to, to begin with?
I’ve read a lot of scholars who just ‑‑ they hate Christianity, they hate the church, they have an axe to grind, and so, you know, as Paul ‑‑ because the church in Galatia was asking this question, “Who do we believe? Do we believe the people over here?” And Paul says, “Well, here, let me give you a metric. Whose life is reflecting the fruit of the Spirit?” And so I’ve watched people who were very strongly driven, sometimes people with whose conclusion I agreed, but, boy, they don’t match that category of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness. Their scholarship’s not reflecting that, and so that says we need to kind of put a hold on this.
And I’m also interested in who are people willing to say things that cost? Will they take a position because they firmly believe this no matter what it’s gonna cost them? You know, you think of the apostle Paul. Saul becomes a Christian. That move between “No, my Jewish Bible doesn’t say Jesus is Messiah,” to “Everything in my Jewish Bible says Jesus is Messiah,” there was a cost at that that Paul was willing to accept no matter what conclusion it came to.
I remember ‑‑ one of the scholars I really appreciate reading his work, Ben Witherington ‑‑ Ben does a lot of literary historical readings of scripture, and I appreciate his work, but the first time I interacted with Ben, he was at a conference teaching Revelation, and I thought, well, this will be an interesting study in Revelation. And he opened up ‑‑ Ben’s from, I think, a Methodist tradition, a Wesleyan tradition, and his read on Revelation upended the traditional rapture theology and premillennial theology, and I thought, you know, given the context of where Witherington comes from, that’s kind of a big cost for him to say, “I don’t read my Bible the way everybody else does,” and some people may have rejected that outright, but he was willing to say what he firmly believed.
And so those are all just kind of things you have to weigh when you’re thinking of scholarship and someone who comes up and says, “Hey, I’ve come to this conclusion and your Bible doesn’t really mean what it says” ‑‑ well, okay, I can be wrong, and I’m often wrong, but what’s our end goal and what’s the process by which we’re walking through this?
WES: Yeah. Oh, I think that’s so helpful, Jeremie. I think that ‑‑ when you were talking, it made me think of ‑‑ I tend to encourage people to read scripture through a cruciform lens, but I think that what you’re saying is that we should even look at scholarship through a cruciform lens. I think part of it is looking at their life, and that’s what Jesus encourages us to do, what Paul encourages us to do, what John encourages us to do, that if somebody is making claims about God, ask, “Can you see the fruit of the Spirit in their life? Does their life reflect the love of Jesus? Are they living a cruciform life? Are they putting to death the things that scripture says are the works of the flesh?” And if they’re not, if they are living into the works of the flesh, and if they are encouraging others to walk in the flesh, it doesn’t matter how much you want that to be true; it’s not. If they’re arrogant, if they’re toxic, if they’re berating others, or if they’re encouraging things that scripture explicitly says are immoral, then this is not the work of Christ. This doesn’t reflect that.
And I think, also, as you said, to examine our own motives, look at the log in our eye. I like to look at anything that I’m hearing and say, is this encouraging me to live a cruciform life? Is this encouraging me to put to death the things of the flesh and live into the Spirit? I think one of my biggest frustrations is when someone responds to preaching or teaching with “I don’t agree with that,” because, in a sense, all good preaching and teaching, when I first heard it, I didn’t agree with it, either, and that’s the whole point. My life is not in agreement with this, but if it’s true, it doesn’t matter if I agree with it or not. It matters whether or not it’s in agreement with the gospel, if it’s in agreement with Christ, and so the good teaching and even the good scholarship is going to hurt when we hear it. It’s going to say, oh, well, that doesn’t line up with what I’ve always thought or what I’ve always been doing in my life, and if I accepted that to be true, would my life look more like the life of Jesus or less like the life of Jesus?
And I think that those kinds of questions, both in reflecting on the fruit that you see in the teacher’s life, but also what kind of fruit would this produce in my own life, what do I think of that ‑‑ and I think that that’s a good test for things like the LGBTQ interpretation of scripture. Does the acceptance of these new teachings ‑‑ does this lead us to a life that is more putting to death the things of the flesh and living into the Spirit or less? And I think the answer is pretty obvious.
JEREMIE: Yeah. Yeah, and it’s a holistic approach to scripture rather than kind of a whack‑a‑mole on what this text or that text means. Again, the Bible is a comprehensive story of God’s expectation for his people. And so, you know, in these conversations, sometimes you’ll say, “Well, this text seems to be suggesting,” and someone says, “Yeah, but this text,” as if this text over here means I don’t have to respect this text, when, really, they’re in conversation with each other and it’s not an either/or; it’s how do these both tell the story of God and call us to faithfulness and to this cruciformity? You know, this ‑‑ if this teaching is true, am I going to be more like Jesus and his expectation or not? And how is it going to cause me to treat other people if I draw this conclusion?
WES: And I love how you used the phrase “seriously,” to take all of scripture “seriously.” All too often I hear people say that they read the Bible literally, and I think what they tend to mean is seriously. My kids do that, too. They say, “I’m literally starving to death.” It’s like, no, you’re not literally starving to death; you are figuratively starving to death. But so much of scripture is not literal. It’s not meant to be read literally. You don’t read poetry literally because it’s poetry. You don’t read apocalyptic literature literally, but you do have to take it seriously. And I think that, so often, people will dismiss certain passages by saying, “Well, that’s just figurative,” or “Jesus was using hyperbole.” Okay, that’s good that you recognize that. I mean, that’s a really important step in understanding and applying scripture, but it means something. If I tell somebody it’s raining cats and dogs out there, I don’t mean for them to take it literally, but I do expect for them to take it seriously. If they say, “Well, Wes was just speaking figuratively. That was just a metaphor,” and then they walk out without an umbrella, well, they didn’t take my words seriously.
And so I think, so often, we say, well, is this literal or figurative, and then we think, if it’s figurative, or if it’s a special type of literature or a special genre, that that means we don’t have to take it seriously, and I think that that’s the wrong conclusion. In fact, I think sometimes figurative language is used because literal language doesn’t go far enough. If I say my heart is broken, that’s not a literal phrase, but it means more than if I said “I’m sad.” “I’m sad” is the more literal way to say it, but it doesn’t capture the nuance. It doesn’t capture the expanse of what I’m trying to communicate.
JEREMIE: Yeah. Figurative language does not dismiss meaning. Figurative language says this has to hit you emotionally and imaginatively in a way that just the literal reading doesn’t. So, you know, all of those things ‑‑ “My heart is breaking.” No, it’s not. It’s still beating. Your blood is still flowing, but I need you to understand the pain and the hurt behind this, and so I think that’s a great way of explaining that. You know, Revelation paints all these dramatic pictures that are symbolic. It’s using that symbolism to help focus our emotion and imagination on the literal truth that Jesus is Lord and all things are under his power and God sits enthroned and nothing can threaten that. Well, I can say that, but that language helps you envision that and feel that in a different way.
WES: Yeah, definitely. Well, Jeremie, let me move on to this last question and say it’s obvious that you believe in biblical scholarship, with the nuance that we want to be careful and have a proper amount of caution about that, and you’re not only being a biblical scholar yourself, but you’re helping to train those that are going into the academic pursuits of biblical knowledge and scholarship, but that isn’t everybody’s life, right? I mean, there’s a lot of Christians that are listening to this podcast that ‑‑ they don’t have the time or the resources or the ability or the interest in becoming a biblical expert, in taking courses at a college level, but we all could be better students of scripture, and I think we should. Even though we say that the important thing is that we get Jesus, we still want to learn and grow and to know him better and to know the Word better. So what can the average Christian do to sort of take their Bible study to the next level? What might be some of your encouragement?
JEREMIE: Well, the first one is obvious and very simple, and that is read your Bible. And when I say read your Bible, I mean read it holistically. So when we read the Gospels, read them the way Matthew wrote Matthew and Mark wrote Mark. Sometimes ‑‑ and we preachers are kind of guilty of this. We’ll take a verse from Matthew, and to help you understand that verse, we’ll take you to Luke or John or Galatians, and there’s beauty in that, but there’s also this flaw. Matthew didn’t use those texts. In fact, most people who read the Gospel of Matthew for the first time did not know those texts existed. And so, yes, we are blessed to have the collection of scripture, but try as best you can to ask the question, “Why does Matthew tell this story the way Matthew tells this story?” One person once said one of the worst things to happen to our Bibles is versification, that when we broke them into verses, we began memorizing sections of scripture or just snippets. We’ve tweeted scripture in our mind rather than asking, what is the full context of scripture? And so there are ‑‑ I know a lot of people who can quote a lot of scripture, but they do not know what that scripture is saying, and so one of the first things you can do to be a better Bible student is to just read that text of scripture.
Someone met me the other day. They had a big stack of index cards and they had individual verses written on them, and he said he’s working to memorize the New Testament, which is a very noble goal. The problem is he’s memorizing this text here and this text here. And I said scripture is a story and the context is telling that story, so if you want to become a better Bible scholar, wrestle the text and ask that question and know context. Context isn’t just the few verses before and the few verses after it. It’s the whole of that book, the whole of that story.
One of my favorite examples of this is in Matthew 18. You know, Jesus says if your brother sins against you, you go to them. Then you take two or three witnesses, and then you take it before the church. And if you take it before the church and the church doesn’t hear, treat them as tax collectors and sinners. Well, you ask a crowd of people what does it mean to treat someone as a tax collector and sinner, “Well, you have nothing to do with them. You ostracize them.” Well, if you’ve been reading Matthew’s story, how does Matthew tell us Jesus treated tax collectors and sinners? Matthew himself is a tax collector who Jesus reached out to and sat at a table with, and if you just read that verse in isolated context, you would think you’re done with that person, and Jesus is saying, no, you’re not. Yes, they are outside the community, but you do not give up on that person. And as it turns out, when you read the context, it’s interesting, in Matthew 18, that that story is preceded with Matthew’s telling of if a man has a hundred sheep and loses one, he goes after them, and that’s what you do in this situation. You go to them. Go back a second time. They still won’t hear, you go back. They still won’t hear the church, you don’t ‑‑ you keep seeking that sheep. It’s also fascinating, when you read the context, the very next story is Peter saying, well, then how many times do I have to forgive him? And all of this is working in context to tell a singular story, to tell a narrative of what does grace look like in broken relationships.
Now, all of that stuff I just said is not grounded in some first century deep scholarship, although it does inform this text in some ways, you know, the witnesses and what was it like to be a shepherd and all that stuff, and that informs that. But that basic understanding of that text boils down to look at how Matthew is telling his story. Read the text and reread the context. And then, when you look at it on the big picture of Matthew, Matthew’s telling a gospel to people who have been outside the community. He’s a tax collector himself. His genealogy is about women who were sexually outcast to some degree, and wise men, non‑Jewish people, show up to announce the arrival of ‑‑ Matthew has an eye towards people who’ve been on the outside, and in this story, in this context, that kind of grows.
So that was a long explanation of the first idea, which is just read your Bible and read the story in the gospel as it is written, and read, you know, Acts as the story it’s telling. And when you borrow from other texts, that’s fine, but just remember there are a lot of people, for hundreds of years, who never had a full collection of the Bible. Christians ‑‑ you know, when it says that they searched the scriptures daily there in Acts 17, they’re not all sitting in their living rooms thumbing through a concordance and looking. They didn’t have it. Most people couldn’t read. Most people could never have afforded a collection of books, let alone scripture. They were doing this in community. So how is the story of Jesus being told in this setting to these people at this moment? And we’ve got to become better readers of scripture, and, as preachers, we’ve got to do a better job of not just pulling this text to prove a point that I want to make, but asking, what is the whole of this text doing?
The other thing I would suggest is read scripture not just for information, but for formation. Again, it’s that question of what is this telling me about God? What is this telling me about my relationship to God? What is this telling me about what God is doing in the world then, and then what is it calling me to do in the world now? The nuts and bolts of scripture are fascinating, and scholarship helps us see that. But, again, at the end of the day, it’s forming us, not just informing us.
And interact with scholars. There are some people writing stuff that is more accessible that’s not written to kind of confuse or snowball you, but just to say, you know, there is some deeper stuff at work here, but here is how this is applying to the text and the meaning of the text so you don’t get lost in the technicalities, but you still glean from the beauty that is the scholarship that helps inform what’s going on.
WES: Yeah. And, you know, you mentioned this in ‑‑ sort of in passing when you were talking about reading, that they read it in community, and I think that that, too ‑‑ and even, as you said, as we consult scholars, we really are reading scripture in community. Even if it’s not community ‑‑ the best community is face‑to‑face community, but I think listening to podcasts and reading books and even going back and reading old books and old scholars and listening to history ‑‑ as you said, I think we would guard ourselves against misinterpreting scripture if we were well acquainted with how has the church universal, throughout time, globally and historically ‑‑ how have they read this scripture? And that doesn’t mean that they were always right, but it does mean that we have to listen to one another.
And I think, to push back against the person who says, “Well, I just read the Bible myself, I interpret it for myself, I read it for myself,” then you are listening to someone. The person you’re listening to is you, and you are not, I am not, none of us are the final word on this, but that’s what we’re claiming when we say “I don’t listen to anyone except myself and my own interpretation.” Again, that tends to be very arrogant. It’s humble to read the Bible in community, within a church community, for sure, but also within the wider community of people who have been reading and trying to understand and follow Jesus for 2,000 years now.
JEREMIE: Yeah, yeah. And that really is, Wes, the practice of the church. It was the Jewish practice after ‑‑ in exile, when synagogues developed, synagogue is a place that we come in and, in community, read Torah, we read scripture, and we reflect together on what is God doing here. I love reading scripture with someone who has studied and reflected on a part of it that I haven’t, to learn from them. And I love having exchanges with people who can say, well, have you ever thought of this before? And I think, if we really believe that the church is important, as I do and you do and most people watching this do, then we believe that there is something God does in community that is necessary.
And so I said this earlier, you know, it was hundreds of years before people carried a leather‑bound copy of 66 books. How were they faithful to God before that? How did they ‑‑ some of them only had Matthew, some of them only had Romans, and yet I still believe the presence of God was among those people. How did they do that? Well, they trusted in the overall story that God is telling in scripture, which was our salvation is in Jesus and not some final exam that’s going to be here at the end of the day. But this is expressed ‑‑ what does it mean to be a Christian in Rome and in Galatia? What does the story of Jesus look like told to a Jewish community? And what does that look like in our community? That’s the aim of scripture, not to get us ready for some oral exam on the day of judgment.
WES: Yeah, amen. Well, Jeremie, thank you for this conversation, but more than that, thank you for your work in the kingdom. Thank you for being a biblical scholar and being curious and always learning more and more about scripture, but also teaching that to others and helping people to follow Jesus.
JEREMIE: Well, thank you, Wes, and thanks for your great ministry.
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.
They discuss key biblical concepts like reading whole books for context rather than proof-texting, seeing Scripture as intended to form Christlike character more than provide ecclesiological details, and grounding unity in the core gospel story. Concepts of a “blueprint hermeneutic” versus a “theological hermeneutic” are explained as ways churches have viewed biblical authority. McAdams and Hicks also touch on church history, the risks and benefits of both hermeneutical approaches, and the importance of Christ-centered unity.
John Mark Hicks has taught full-time in higher education among Churches of Christ since 1982 and recently retired from his position as Professor of Theology at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee. He has taught in 40 states and 22 countries around the world. He has authored, co-authored, edited, or contributed to 47 books as well as contributing to both academic and popular journals. His experience gives a helpful perspective on both the historical and hermeneutical questions addressed in this episode.
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)
WES: 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 churches of Christ, the history of churches of Christ and the future of churches of Christ, particularly how we read the Bible, how we read and understand and apply scripture to our lives, to the way that we do church, to the way that we try to love like Jesus.
Our guest today is John Mark Hicks, who has taught full‑time in higher education among churches of Christ since 1982 and recently retired from his position as professor of theology at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee. He’s taught in 40 states and 22 countries around the world. He has authored, co‑authored, edited, or contributed to 47 books, as well as contributing to both academic and popular journals. He is married to Jennifer and shares five living children and six grandchildren with her. I know that you’re going to appreciate the things that John Mark Hicks has to share with us and his perspective on how we read scripture and maybe how we can read scripture better.
I want to begin today by reading Philippians 2:1‑8, because I think this captures how we ought to read scripture. Paul says, “So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”
Like this passage, I hope that this entire conversation will help all of us learn to love like Jesus. John Mark Hicks, welcome to the podcast, Brother.
JOHN MARK: Wow, it’s great to be here. Glad to have this opportunity. Thank you.
WES: Well, I sure appreciate it. I appreciate the work that you do, and I appreciate you making time for this conversation. I’ve been thinking a lot about this recently. I suspect that most of the audience of this podcast is probably associated with churches of Christ, or has been associated with churches of Christ at one point, or at least familiar with churches of Christ, but that may not be the case for a lot of people. But you have a unique understanding of our history within churches of Christ, so for those who may or may not be aware of the history of churches of Christ, what are we? Where did we come from? What is the Restoration Movement that we’re a part of? I would love a short history lesson for both those inside and outside of our fellowship.
JOHN MARK: Well, in general terms, we come out of the Great Awakening period of the 1810s, 1820s, 1830s, and our particular interest, in terms of origination, was ‑‑ we were ‑‑ our leaders at that moment were put up ‑‑ put off, I should say, by the divisions among Christians, and so they were interested in both uniting Christians and purifying Christianity. So both of those things were going on, and the way in which they thought that would be best done would be to restore the ancient order of the New Testament, to restore the church, you might say, to bring it back to its pure status, and then that point was to try to unite Christians. That was the goal, to unite Christians through restoring the ancient order for the sake of evangelizing the world. Those three things are part of the matrix: unity, restoration of the ancient order, and evangelism, or mission, revival.
And so that group originated in the 1810s, 1820s, led by Barton W. Stone, Alexander and Thomas Campbell. They united ‑‑ those two groups united in 1832, and we became kind of one movement at that point, a movement that then divided in different ways over the next century, but the emphasis of churches of Christ, in particular, was, most of all, on the restoration aspect. We didn’t neglect the other two. We were still concerned about unity. We were still concerned about evangelism and mission, but restoration became kind of the major motif, the concern for the purity of the church, the concern for following the Bible and doing what the Bible says and being the church of the New Testament. And so that history, which emerges particularly as churches of Christ in the 1880s, 1890s, and into the 20th century, is what most people would know when they saw a sign on the side of a building, “churches of Christ” or “church of Christ.”
It would be that group, the conservative group, the group that wanted to conserve in the sense of preserving the ancient order of the New Testament and to continue to practice that in a faithful way. Still concerned about unity, still concerned about evangelism, but that’s what you’re going to find in most churches of Christ when you walk through their door. You’re going to find them wanting to be the church of the New Testament and to be called Christians and not by any other name, not known by any other denomination, but to just be Christians, and that’s kind of the simple version of our origin.
WES: Yeah. It’s interesting to me how seldom people ‑‑ or at least, in my experience, when I was growing up, especially ‑‑ always within churches of Christ, but sometimes there was maybe a denial that those were our roots. You know, It was almost like we wanted to assume we just kind of sprang from nothing and that there was no history, or even just an ignorance of ‑‑ a lack of knowledge of that history, where we came from.
I still remember the first time I read Thomas Campbell’s 13 propositions ‑‑ Declaration and Address, I think, is what that was a part of. But those 13 propositions, to this day, I mean, they resonate with me, I mean, deeply, primarily because, as you pointed out, his desire for unity, to say, hey, listen, these other things may or may not be wrong, but regardless of whether they’re right or wrong, we want to find the commonality. We want to find the very explicit things in scripture and unite around those things. And if you have other opinions, that’s fine; you can keep having those other opinions, but we’re not going to bring that into the fellowship of, or the communion of, the saints so that it doesn’t divide us. And I thought, wow, if we could really get back to and tap into that ‑‑ because even though that was our origin, to your point, we’ve sort of emphasized parts of that movement or that mentality, that vision, over other aspects of it.
JOHN MARK: Yes, and it’s a difficult balance. It’s not very simple to balance those things, and we do have a tendency, as human beings, to emphasize one over the other, or, in particular situations, to emphasize one over the other. But I think that original goal that was a part of the Declaration and Address in 1809, those 13 propositions ‑‑ I resonate with those still, as well. I might nuance them differently here or there, but, in general, yes, I want to be a follower of Jesus. And Jesus is the one who is the center of scripture, and I want to follow Jesus and I want to unite with all followers of Jesus, and I want to be a person who makes disciples of those who are not followers of Jesus. Those emphases are still good and still important for any community of believers.
WES: Yeah, amen. You wrote a book, and this is maybe the first time that you and I really interacted, was right after you wrote your book Searching for the Pattern, and I even wrote an endorsement of that book. I would love for us to talk a little bit about just the ideas in that book. You talk about a blueprint hermeneutic versus a theological hermeneutic, and really highlight how, within churches of Christ, that blueprint hermeneutic has really been the way that we have read scripture. So kind of walk us through what is that and what have been the results of that hermeneutic within churches of Christ.
JOHN MARK: Wow, we don’t have enough time for all that, but we’ll give it a try. I think it goes to your point about knowing history, knowing our origins. Just like with any family, it’s important to know your family of origin because that shapes you. It raises particular questions for you. It forms you in certain ways that you’re not even aware. Well, when we go back to the origins of the restoration, what we see is a practice or a particular way of reading the Bible that we did not originate. It was a way of reading the Bible that came from the reformed tradition, or from Calvin and Zwingli, and even the Anabaptist movement, and it’s a tradition that says when we read the Bible, we search for the marks of the church. We search for the blueprint that will tell us what makes a true church and what makes a false church, and that that true church/false church is found in a blueprint that is embedded in the document itself. It’s not there explicitly. I mean, we don’t have a list of five acts of worship or even a list of five steps of salvation, but we believe because this is the word of God, and the word of God is to regulate us. It’s called the regulative principle. It goes back to the 16th century reformation.
So Scripture regulates us, and it regulates us in a specific way so that we search the Bible to find the specificity, the specifics, the particular acts that form the blueprint, so it’s not there in Scripture but we believe it’s embedded in Scripture. And so Campbell, for example, in talking about restoring the church, used the phrase “restoring the ancient order,” and the ancient order is in the New Testament; it’s just not in the New Testament in one place. It’s scattered throughout the New Testament, so you have to search the whole New Testament and decide what belongs to the ancient order and what doesn’t. Is it required or is it not? Is it expedient? So we have to make all these decisions about what the order means, what it contains.
And so, when we’re searching for a pattern like that, and the pattern is not explicit on ‑‑ you know, listed in the text as a pattern, we have to construct the pattern. We construct the blueprint out of the text as we try to make sense of what was that ancient order, and, therefore, how do we become the true church or how do we become an authentic church that is faithful to the order described in the New Testament? And so the blueprint approach is to read the Bible, discern the elements that are required, then construct a pattern or construct a blueprint that we might then reproduce in order to be the New Testament Church.
I hope that’s a fair representation of it. That’s what I grew up believing. It’s what I grew up teaching. It’s been a part of our heritage in churches of Christ for over a hundred years, and some particular methods of doing that, like command, example, inference ‑‑ necessary inference, which goes back to at least the 1860s and the ’70s to be stated in exactly that form.
WES: Yeah. Well, and I think what’s so interesting. As you pointed out, there’s so many assumptions that are involved in that ‑‑ sort of that way of reading scripture, and, first of all, is that we’re assuming that that’s the intention of the biblical authors. We’re assuming that that’s what they were trying to do, that’s what Luke was intending to do when he wrote the book of Acts; he was intending to describe the perfect, ideal church and that this is how everyone needs to do church from now on. I think it also assumes that the primary purpose of the New Testament is to teach us how to do church, and by that, we mean what to do in the Sunday assembly, what the governance of the local congregation should be, and there’s very little application of that way of thinking to the rest of life. The other days ‑‑ six days of the week, there’s very little application of that.
For instance, we don’t assume that there must be a command, example, and necessary inference on whether or not we should watch television or whether or not we should drive a car or whether or not we should ‑‑ we don’t assume that there’s a pattern, to that extent, for how we do everyday life. We assume that the primary purpose of the New Testament is to teach us what to do on Sundays and how to govern the church, and, really, that’s a pretty big leap, and I would ‑‑ now, looking back at it, I would question, is that really the intention of the biblical authors, is to primarily focus on what we do? Now, that’s not to say that what we do on Sunday or the governance of the church isn’t important or that we shouldn’t draw those conclusions from Scripture, but we are making some really big assumptions. And I think that bigger assumption, that God sort of has this code ‑‑ you used the word “embedded” in the text, that it isn’t on the surface, it isn’t explicit, that you’re just supposed to put together the code, you’re supposed to put together these puzzle pieces and figure out for yourself what that means and assuming that we’re all going to come to the same conclusions about that.
JOHN MARK: Yeah. And some people actually use the analogy of a puzzle, putting a puzzle together to construct a blueprint. Or some use the analogy of constructing a building, that we take the rocks and the concrete from the data from the New Testament and we build this building, and then we reproduce that building in order to be the New Testament church.
Interesting enough, Alexander Campbell talked about the restoration of the ancient order, and he wanted to do that because he thought that would facilitate unity. It would facilitate a way of everybody coming together on common ground as we all recognize this ancient order that we’ve discovered in the Bible. But Campbell did not think that was a test of fellowship; he thought it was just a means to unity. He didn’t regard it as a definition of the true church versus the false church because there were larger questions that we held in common: following Jesus, affirming the atonement of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, God is the creator of the world, the Holy Spirit is the gift of God to lead the church. All that was held in common among different believers and different denominations, but Campbell was disturbed by the denominational disunity, and he wanted to bring unity by articulating, you know, a restoration of the ancient order.
And as you said, the ancient order gets then narrowed down to a kind of ecclesiology, more specifically, the practice of ecclesiology, or, more specifically, the assembly, depending on how big or wide your blueprint pattern is. But, yeah, then it kind of leaves us ‑‑ was that really what Luke was doing when he wrote Acts? Is that the thing that he was most interested in, is leaving some breadcrumbs that we can construct a pattern? Or was he articulating the pattern by the way the church lived out its life, by what it preached about Jesus, by how it reached out to Gentiles and Samaritans, that it was more missional in character than it was, “Well, let me tell you how to do church on Sunday morning”? I mean, that’s not exactly a major theme in Luke/Acts, particularly.
WES: Yeah. So you suggest, in the book, an alternative way to read scripture, an alternative lens, a hermeneutic by which we can understand what is it that God wants for us, what is it that God is communicating to us through scripture. So describe this alternative hermeneutic that you propose and what that might do for us to read scripture better.
JOHN MARK: Yeah. When you’re searching for a pattern ‑‑ I think we ought to search for a pattern. The question is, what sort of pattern does Scripture give us? How is it that Scripture offers a pattern? What is the explicit pattern Scripture offers us? It isn’t a list of five things to do on Sunday. It’s rather the explicit pattern of what God is doing in Christ by the power of the Spirit. Is the pattern a written blueprint that we discover from the text, or is the pattern the unfolding of the work of God and the identity of God and the activity of God in the story of Scripture? So it’s more of a ‑‑ you could contrast it as kind of a narrative approach over against the kind of blueprint approach, or a theological approach in the sense that the pattern that we’re looking for is the pattern of God’s own identity, the pattern of Christ’s own activity, the pattern of the Spirit’s own gifting and working in the church, and that’s what we want to conform to. That’s the obedience we want to render. We want to become like God. We want to be like Jesus. We want to be empowered by the Spirit and bear the fruit of the Spirit in our lives.
And so a theological hermeneutic is going to pay attention to ‑‑ when you’re reading a text, you want to know, well, who is God in this text? What’s the identity of God? What’s God doing? How is God trying to form us? What is God wanting to make us into? What are we supposed to become because of what God is doing in this text? And I think that both refocusing our sense of obedience in line with a pattern of God’s activity is more in line with what scripture actually does than it is, okay, go read this text and discern what’s in it that is essential and what is expedient, and what is binding and what’s not binding, and what are the necessary inferences from this text in order that we might construct a blueprint that is not actually explicitly there.
But the pattern of God’s work is explicitly there, and that’s what we see Paul doing. For example ‑‑ let me give me you an example of this. It’s in the book, but just in case your listeners are not interested in reading, that’s fine. You know, 1 Corinthians 16:1‑2, some read that as this is a command for all churches everywhere to have a communal collection of money for the treasury, and if you don’t have that on Sunday morning, you’re not a true church. I mean, that’s how I grew up. That’s what I actually taught at times. And so you read 1 Corinthians 16:1‑2 as this blueprint. This is the blueprint for what it means to give on Sunday. You’ve probably heard said ‑‑ I’ve said ‑‑ “God commanded us to give every first day of the week.” Well, I don’t think that’s what that text is about, but that’s the way a blueprint search might take it, draw from that blueprint pattern, but I don’t think Paul intends it that way. It’s more of an arrangement for the collection of funds on his third missionary journey. It’s not about a church treasury. It’s not about even necessarily a Sunday morning assembly, though it could be ‑‑ not necessarily, though.
Instead, when Paul wants to encourage a church to be generous and to share in this collection that he’s taking up on the third missionary journey, he uses theological arguments. He says we want to be like Israel in the wilderness where God said take the manna, but no one needs too much and no one needs too little. We want to be like the blessed person in Psalm 112 who scatters their gifts to the poor. We want to be a community of grace, that God has graced us so we’re going to grace others with our monetary resources so that they may grace God, give thanks to God. And, more importantly than everything, this is going to be a test of “Do you really believe this story?” Do you believe this story? Do you believe this reality that God, that Christ, though he was rich, became poor so that we who are poor might become rich? Do you believe that? If you believe that, and grace is the dynamic operating in your heart, you don’t need a rule. What you need is that theology to form your heart in such a way that you become a generous person because God has already been generous to you.
It’s sort of like a blueprint approach tends to ‑‑ doesn’t have to, but tends to go to rulemaking, and there’s nothing wrong with rules. Rules are good things. I’m not against rules. But Paul doesn’t address this generosity question with rules. He doesn’t say, “I told you every first day of the week.” Over, settled. He says, “I’m not going to command you, but I want to test the integrity of your heart. Do you really believe this?” You know, if God gave me a rule that said, “Don’t spend more than 30% on your housing,” I could follow that. I could check that off. “Give 20% to the poor.” I can check that off. Give me a rule; I can check it off. But when Paul says, “I want to test the integrity of your heart,” whew. That means I’ve got to wrestle. I’ve got to wrestle with how I spend my money. I’ve got to wrestle with whether I share my money and how much I share my money. It’s not just some kind of simple equation that I just figure out in my head. It’s rather wrestling with the heart, how generous of a person am I going to be? How can I be more generous? How can I be more like God? How can I be more like Christ? How can I be more like a community where somebody doesn’t have too much and no one has too little?
That’s the struggle of faith and that’s the maturing of faith. Keeping rules keeps us superficial. It keeps us at a level of, oh, yeah, I did that; oh, yeah, I did that. Doesn’t have to stay there, of course. I know a lot of people who live by rules but have deep faith. But I think what Paul is pushing us to is to say, “Do you know who you are? Do you know who God is? Do you know what God has done for you? Now become that. Become that,” and that takes a lot of wrestling, struggle, growth, maturity.
And that’s kind of the difference, in some ways, between the blueprint and the theological hermeneutic.
Now, I would want to say this, also, Wes, that those two are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
WES: That’s right.
JOHN MARK: Not necessarily. Now, the blueprint can get us off mark and it can create patterns where there are none, and that would be a problem. And the theological dimension ‑‑ I think, in our history, we’ve had that theological dimension working in the background, sometimes in the foreground. I can think of James A. Harding, for example, in his series on giving or his series on the Holy Spirit, where he’s doing this kind of theological thing. He’s not calling it that. But we do it in our songs. “Tell Me the Story of Jesus,” that’s a theological hermeneutic. Tell me the story of Jesus because I want to be like him. “Oh, To Be Like Thee,” right? Or “One Day” ‑‑ you know, the song “One Day,” that’s telling the story.
We’ve done that in a lot of different ways, but we have tended, at least as I see it in my own history ‑‑ in my own personal story, we tended to focus on the pattern or the blueprint that we created out of the text and set it up there as the prime ‑‑ I don’t know if I want to say the primary thing, but it is a major thing, or at least it was the major guideline for the difference between a true church and a false church, or to put it in the “Why am I a member of the Church of Christ,” right? That list is primary in that question, and that’s unfortunate, but I do think that our history has held both of them, so the theological hermeneutic is really not a new hermeneutic. It’s really a re‑emphasis on an older hermeneutic that we can find some unity in, we can find some shared common convictions in that theological story, the story we sing about when we worship. That’s the story we sing about. At other times, we’re fighting about different things. We’re fighting about all those blueprint issues when, in fact, we sing those songs together, we are enjoying the community and the commonality of a shared faith that’s based on a theological hermeneutic. Does that make any sense?
WES: Yeah. Yeah, I think that makes perfect sense, and I wish sometimes we would live out the theology that we sing sometimes. And I’ve often wondered, if I preached the same things that we just sang ‑‑ would we believe it when somebody preached it as much as we acted like we believed it when we sang it?
But, you know, something that, over the years, has become one of my soap boxes is reading whole books of the Bible, especially the New Testament, in one sitting rather than just sort of piecemeal grabbing verses and taking them out of context. We’ve paid a lot of lip service over the years ‑‑ again, at least, in my experience, we’ve paid a lot of lip service to context, but, typically, what we mean is the verse before it and the verse after it, or if we disagree with somebody else’s interpretation, we say, well, they took it out of context. But we very seldom just sat down and read from the beginning of the letter to the end of the letter. And I’ve done this with various congregations over the years where I’ve just stood up and read Philippians to them, and, every time, I have had people come up to me and say, “I have heard some of those verses my whole life, but I never heard them like that before,” and I think what they mean is they did not ‑‑ they weren’t following ‑‑ and, of course, it’s impossible to follow the author’s train of thought unless you read it that way, unless you read it from the beginning to the end.
And so it isn’t necessarily that what people are drawing out of an isolated verse means the opposite. It isn’t that it means the opposite of what they think it means. I think that it’s that the emphasis is just different because they don’t know the author’s emphasis. They don’t know what point was he trying to make. When the Hebrew writer says, in chapter 10 and verse 25, that we shouldn’t forsake the assembling together of ourselves, what argument is he making? What is he imploring people to do? And so often, if we would read whole books, I think, exactly what you’ve pointed out, we would come to the conclusion ‑‑ the conclusion we would come to is that the authors are almost unanimously trying to get us to live out what Jesus has done in the incarnation and crucifixion, what he has done in coming to
serve rather than to be served and to give his life for the sake of others.
That’s what Philippians 2 ‑‑ so many of ‑‑ not only these passages that we all know, but we don’t realize that even some of those verses that we’ve used as sort of a club over the years or as ammunition against other people to say, “You’re not doing it right,” that the context is “Be like Jesus, love like Jesus, self‑sacrifice like Jesus.” This is what it looks like to be a disciple of his. This is what God’s people are supposed to be doing, is living out that grace and mercy and love the way Jesus did in becoming human and dying for your sake and, to your point, even as far as giving.
And we ‑‑ again, it’s not that it’s wrong or bad for us to take up a collection on the first day of the week. That’s good. It’s apparently what Christians have done for a very long time. But what’s at the heart of that? And we end up ‑‑ I’m afraid, sometimes in our application of this blueprint hermeneutic, we end up violating some of the explicit commands that the author is making. Paul’s whole point was, “I don’t want you to give out of compulsion. I want you to give cheerfully. I don’t want to twist your arm.” But we take these same passages and take them out of context and use them to compel people to give, to twist their arm. It’s like that’s exactly what Paul was trying not to do. He was trying to change their character by pointing them to the cross. And so, I’m afraid sometimes, in our effort to restore the ancient order, in our effort to follow that blueprint, we’re actually missing the forest for the trees. We’re actually missing the cross because we’re focused on getting all the rules right.
JOHN MARK: Oh, you said a lot there, and wonderful. I would amen what you said. I particularly like the idea of reading whole books at a time as a way of getting us out of a blueprint mentality, because the blueprint mentality searches for proof texts. Pick up a piece of data over here, a piece of data over here, and in some ways you can do that if you pay attention to context, but what reading a whole book at a time does is ‑‑ it forces you to say, what is this author doing? What is the argument of the text? What is the flow of the text? What is the theology of this author, and what is he trying to form this community into and form them to become? And we pay attention to that instead of reading that text, trying to find the nugget that fits into the pattern or out of which we can then construct the pattern, so it takes us away from proof texting and moves us more into a kind of ‑‑ well, I think a narrative hermeneutic or a hermeneutic that recognizes the whole and follows the path of the argument.
As you said, we can take the blueprint ‑‑ and I agree with you that there’s nothing wrong ‑‑ in fact, I think it’s a good practice to have a communal act of giving. I think that’s a spiritual discipline that forms us communally. I’m all for it. I’m not against it. I just don’t think it’s a blueprint requirement. What it is is an expediency that arises out of the way we value generosity as we respond ‑‑ even as we respond to the Lord’s Supper, as we respond to the gift of God in Christ. We respond with a gift of our own, and we say “Thank you, God” by sharing out of our resources. So there’s nothing wrong with it, but, unfortunately, when we made it a part of a blueprint and made it a part of what it means to be a true church, and if you don’t do it, you’re a false church ‑‑ if you give digitally on Monday instead of giving on Sunday ‑‑ I mean, people are feeling guilty about giving on Monday. I don’t know if you’ve experienced that, but they feel guilty about giving on Monday because they’re supposed to give on Sunday, and that’s the rule. Well, it’s not the rule. Giving on Monday is an expression of the heart of God, and we ought to value that.
I do like the idea of communal giving, though, because I think it is a statement that we are a community, we are a people who believe in generosity, and we are willing to do that in a public way, and so I don’t want to see that go away at all. But we need to root it in the right thing, not in the blueprint, but root it in the act of God in Christ, who became poor for our sake so that we might become rich.
WES: Amen. I’m sure that there is someone listening right now that is saying, okay, I like the sound of what you’re saying. That sounds good. It sounds biblical. It sounds reasonable. It sounds theological, but I’m afraid this might remove all the guardrails. I think you even mentioned that idea of regulation. And I had never grown up hearing about the regulative principle until I realized, oh, wait, the reformers, as you said, were doing some of the same things that we were doing and saying, okay, well, if it doesn’t give us permission to do these things, then we don’t do anything that we don’t have permission to do. And so I think a lot of people’s comfort with the blueprint hermeneutic revolves around this fear that if we take away this way of reading scripture, then it will lead to sort of lawlessness and everybody just kind of does whatever they want to because it’s really ‑‑ and I would agree that sometimes I hear people making a theological argument or a narrative argument that is like, ah, I don’t know that that’s really within the bounds of where we ought to be going. It seems maybe easier to justify doing whatever it is that we want to do and say, well, this really, you know, is framed by, or justified by, or we have the authority to do this because of who God is.
And so how does a theological hermeneutic limit us and put the boundaries where there should be some boundaries so that we aren’t doing what is right in our own eyes?
JOHN MARK: I agree with you. We need boundaries, and there are boundaries, so we don’t want to do what is right in our own eyes. That would be the time of the judges, right? That would not be a good thing, if you look at what happened during the time of the judges. So I appreciate the concern because I think it’s a legitimate question. It’s a legitimate concern because I do want to affirm boundaries.
Now, on the one hand, sometimes we do that in a blueprint way, as well. We read some text in order to confirm our blueprint, in order to ‑‑ we take a text out of its context, like the argument against instruments out of Amos, you know, to make it sound like our blueprint rather than what it is in its context. So it can be done with a blueprint, as well, especially in the process of proof texting, taking a text out of its context. But there is a real danger on the theological side, too, because we might emphasize things in the narrative that we want to emphasize and forget other things that are in the narrative, right? We’re not taking full account of the narrative.
But let me be more precise. One of the boundaries, I would say, is anything that subverts the gospel. If it subverts the gospel, it’s wrong. Now, you have to back up and say, well, what is the gospel? Well, take, for example, 1 Corinthians 11. In 1 Corinthians 11, they were eating the Lord’s Supper in a way ‑‑ in a form that divided the body rather than uniting it, divided along socioeconomic lines, free and slave lines. So when we see that, we say, well, that is a wrong way to do the Lord’s Supper. Now, why would I say it’s the wrong way? Well, because the way it is done subverts the whole point of the gospel to reconcile people and for them to eat at the same table, to have one bread and one cup in that sense of unity, and so anything that divides the table is going to be a subversion. It divides the table because it subverts the gospel because the gospel wants us to be united, so that would be one sort of thing.
I would want to say let’s read the scripture, understand what the theology of God at work in the world and the identity of God and what the gospel is, and what the gospel’s purpose is and how it unites us and how it reconciles us. Anything that runs contrary to that, anything that subverts that is out of bounds, so I think there are boundaries that we operate in.
There’s boundaries about the gospel in terms of the one who was rich became poor. There’s an incarnation; God became flesh. That’s a boundary. If you don’t affirm that Jesus Christ came in the flesh, you’re not among us. You’re not in the community. So there are some things that are part of the story, part of the narrative work of God that affirm who God is. I’m not going to say God’s an adulterer. I’m not going to say God’s a liar because that’s about the identity of God.
So it’s those sorts of things that have to be boundaries, and the problem, it seems to me, is we have some fear ‑‑ and I understand this fear because I’ve processed this fear myself when I started thinking about these sorts of things. “Oh, no, am I going to end up defending instrumental music? Am I going to end up doing this or that?” And so, out of fear ‑‑ I had to pursue that fear, I had to work through that fear, but I understand how fear can be a negative emotion that says, “I don’t want to consider that because I already believe this. Since I already believe X, and I know X is true because of the blueprint model, if I can’t defend X with theological hermeneutic, then theological hermeneutic can’t be the right one because I already know this one’s right. I already know the X is right.” And I think that’s the major rub with a lot of people, and I knew that in myself, as I processed this, that I could feel that tension in myself, because I love my heritage. I love my people. I love the people of churches of Christ. I grew up among them. I have served them, I’ve worshiped with them all my life, and I will continue to do so, and I don’t want to deconstruct churches of Christ.
What I want to do is help churches of Christ and others to think more within the story and to think about the identity of God, and sometimes that will critique some of the conclusions that we have from the blueprint, and we’ve always already been critiquing conclusions from the blueprint. Just think about how many differences of opinion we have about the blueprint, right? I mean, what do we do with the treasury? Can we have parachurch organizations? Can we have Sunday schools? Can we have more than one cup? Can we have Bible classes? So we’ve already had a whole series of divisions and disagreements about the blueprint, so it shouldn’t surprise us that we’re going to have some when we start thinking about a theological hermeneutic, as well.
At the same time, that blueprint, because it is so geared toward finding the right blueprint and finding the exact order so that we know we’re right and we know we are the true church ‑‑ because it has that kind of agenda, it seems to me it can be disruptive and it can create divisions where we really should not have any divisions.
WES: Yeah. One of the divisions that came to my mind while you were talking ‑‑ and I appreciate so much you saying that anything that subverts the gospel is wrong. It reminded me of what Paul is discussing in Galatians and what happened at the church at Antioch, and that is that Peter came up and eventually ended up withdrawing from his Gentile brothers and sisters. And it reminds me of the fact that churches of Christ are predominantly in the south, and during the ’50s and ’60s they were growing like crazy, more and more congregations popping up and following this blueprint model, but so many were segregated by ethnicity and race and were following the culture and following the Jim Crow laws on segregation. And it just reminds me that ‑‑ again, missing the forest for the trees, they were adamant about this particular blueprint and this particular way of doing church, but yet were subverting the gospel, were actually doing things that Paul explicitly addressed over and over and over again about not segregating based on ethnicity, not putting up a wall in between people; in fact, tearing down the walls that existed in his culture.
And then here we were patting ourselves on the back for being the true New Testament church, meanwhile building walls of segregation and maintaining walls of segregation and violating the actual boundaries that existed. We’re worried about, well, those people are violating the boundaries of scripture. It’s like, no, whether that’s true or not, your segregation policies are violating the explicit boundaries of scripture and you are subverting the gospel. To go back to 1 Corinthians 11, if you are taking communion in a way that causes division, then it’s not even ‑‑ Paul says it’s not even the Lord’s Supper that you’re eating.
And so I can’t help but think back to our history within churches of Christ, when we were creating division because we thought that we had found this code, this blueprint in the scriptures, and we were actually violating the things that were right there on the explicit level of Scripture telling us not to do, and we’re going right over those guardrails and just totally forsaking what Scripture was telling us to do.
JOHN MARK: Yeah, I appreciate that point. And you go back to Galatians, I mean, Paul says it’s about the truth of the gospel, right? That was what was at issue with Peter, the truth of the gospel. And so I appreciate you bringing up race. I think, clearly, we’re a flawed people when it came to that, and that’s why I have an appendix on race in the book itself to illustrate how a theological hermeneutic can address that question.
We’re all flawed. You know, we’re a flawed church. We’re flawed people in flawed churches. And while we may, on the one hand, say, hey, I got this blueprint item that we’re right on and the Baptists are wrong, or whatever, right? That doesn’t mean we’re perfect, and it doesn’t mean, necessarily, we’re the true church, either, because if we’re flawed in ways that subvert the gospel, it doesn’t matter if you got it right on the blueprint or not. If you’re subverting the gospel, that becomes the main question.
WES: That’s right, yeah. And there are so many ‑‑ the more I’ve learned to read scripture this way, the more I’ve realized that there are explicit guardrails. There are explicit things that say these are the limiting things. I think we have to pay closer attention to what we might call the virtue and vice lists that Paul gives us so often in the epistles. They tell us exactly what is out of bounds, and so much ‑‑ yes, I agree there are right ways and probably wrong ways to, quote‑unquote, “do church,” but so much of it is about character, that if we think that we have restored New Testament Christianity and yet we’re greedy or we’re covetous or we’re idolaters, these are the things that are violating the clear boundaries of scripture. We kind of go looking for the secret guardrails, the implicit guardrails, when the explicit guardrails are right there staring us in the face, and so often we ignore those things and say, “Well, everybody’s greedy or everybody’s this, but yet we’re the true church because we do X, Y, and Z.” And it’s like, okay, maybe X, Y, and Z is right and you need to keep doing that, but let’s pay very close attention to these very explicit guardrails and limitations on what is Christian behavior and what is not.
JOHN MARK: Exactly. I think that’s so right. It’s finding the center of our faith in who God is and what God has done and the pattern that we find in the life of Jesus, in the person of Jesus, who is the image of God, and we are called to conform to that image. That is the generating trajectory of all of Scripture, is to become the image of God and to live out our lives as embodied imagers of God, which includes ethics. It includes rituals, too. It includes practices, practices like ‑‑ Israel had practices. Jesus had practices. Jesus went to church every Sunday. Okay, not every Sunday. He went to synagogue every Sabbath, right? So when I have students ask me, “Why do you go to church every Sunday,” you know, they don’t ‑‑ you know, it’s not the thing for them. I say, “Well, Jesus did. Are you a disciple of Jesus? If you’re a disciple of Jesus, you’re going to gather with the community on a regular basis.” If you’re a disciple of Jesus, you’re going to be baptized. You’re going to follow Jesus into the water. If you’re a disciple of Jesus, you’re going to go to the tables of the marginalized and the poor, and you’re also going to go to the tables of the Pharisees because you want to live out the embodied life of God in the presence of all people in order to draw all people to God.
And so, finding the pattern, not in stringing together some proof texts, but finding the pattern in the trajectory and flow of the activity of God and Jesus by the Spirit ‑‑ that, to me, is what theological interpretation is about.
WES: Yeah, absolutely. And I so appreciate that emphasis of the formative nature of the rituals, the formative nature of the assembly. I mean, that’s why, personally, I love the idea of participatory worship over what, I think, the modern idea of more performance‑driven worship, because I think that the participatory worship ‑‑ I love the fact that we sing acapella because it’s not about a performance. It’s about us coming together, mutually edifying one another through these praises so that, through this act, this weekly discipline of gathering together and singing together, it is formative so that, over time, we are looking and loving more and more like Jesus.
And so that’s why I think that a lot of the things that we do that are deeply rooted in Scripture, they’re practices that have been going on for 2,000 years, we need to keep doing those things, not because we’re checking things off of a list, but because they are effective at forming us into the people of God, sometimes whether we know it or not, and just participating in these things is deeply formative.
John Mark, I know we’re running out of time and we definitely don’t have time to say, “How do we solve all of the divisions within churches of Christ?” But let me just ask this. We don’t all agree. I used to believe that if we just all read the Bible, and we all read it wanting to do the will of God, we’d all come out with the same conclusions, but, obviously, that’s not the case. And you and I probably ‑‑ we could make a list of things we don’t both agree on, but we have unity. So how do we have a fellowship of people who sometimes deeply disagree on how we do things or deeply disagree on what passages mean, but still continue to maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace? What does that look like? What advice would you have for us?
JOHN MARK: I suppose I would like to say that, at the bottom, at the primary level here, is that story of God that we confess, that God created the world and that God chose Israel and that God became human, and God, on the cross, died for us and was raised and ascended and poured out the Spirit upon us to form us into his own image, to form us into the sort of people who would be missional and bear light in the darkness and be the salt of the earth, that the story of the gospel ‑‑ and here I want to use “gospel” not as a synonym for the New Testament, but “gospel” as that story that the New Testament bears witness to, that is, the story of God and Christ by the Spirit ‑‑ that’s our unity. That’s where we find commonality. That’s what we confess. We both confess Jesus as Lord. We both confess that God created the world. We both confess that Jesus was raised from the dead. We both confess that God became human, and we both confess that the goal of God is to form us into the image of God and that we are to become like God in generosity and kindness, and in righteousness and justice, as well. That’s our common ground.
Think about what we sing about, to come back to where we started in some way. We sing a story, and that’s what unites us. We can have disagreements about what does that particular text mean, and how does the church do that, and what does that look like when the church does that. We could have disagreements about that. But I tell you what, we could probably sing, “Tell Me the Old, Old Story” together and share that in common. That may be too broad for some people. It may be too wide for some people, but I think, as we read the Bible as you suggested, you know, one book at a time, what’s going to arise out of that is not, okay, here are the three things that make a true church and distinguish us from the Baptists. What’s going to arise out of that is a sense of the story of Jesus, sent by God, who poured out the Holy Spirit upon us. That’s what’s going to emerge, and this is the kind of community we are supposed to become, and that’s where we can find unity. It’s a kind of Christological unity rather than an ecclesiological unity.
Now, don’t hear me wrong on that one. I’m not saying church versus Christ. I do not believe that at all. What I mean by ecclesiological is the debate about the blueprint and the kind of ecclesiological perfectionism that has burdened many of us. “We got to get this right. We got to get this perfect so that we make sure we go to heaven.” That kind of perfectionism subverts the gospel itself because it says, “I gotta get all this right or God won’t save me.” Well, then, if you got it right, God doesn’t need to save you, right? I mean, we are all flawed, our blueprints are flawed, our righteousness is flawed, and what unites us and what saves us is the gospel, the gospel of Jesus Christ. That’s kind of where I would want to find the unity.
WES: Yeah, amen. I can’t think of a better place to end than that. I think that’s exactly what our focus has to be in our personal walk with him, is his grace and his mercy and his sacrifice, but that’s what ‑‑ that’s what unifies us in Christ.
So, John Mark Hicks, thank you so much for your work. Thank you so much for this conversation, Brother. I can’t tell you how rich this has been. Thank you.
JOHN MARK: Well, thank you, Wes. I appreciate your work, and I appreciate the way you model civil discussions and healthy discussions, so thank you for that. I appreciate what you’re doing, as well.
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...
Talking to an Atheist – CrossTalk S4E8
Jul 29, 2019
Today's conversation is different than other conversations on this podcast. I typically have conversations on the show with Christians "about life and faith,"but today's conversation is with my friend Brad Willett, who is not a Christian. In fact, Brad does not believe in God at all. He and I have been talking via email and social media for a couple of years and though we have a very different worldview and disagree with one another on fundamental questions, I am thankful to know him.
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.