Literally or Seriously?

[00:00:02] Speaker A: From Westside Church in Bend, Oregon. This is behind the message in this podcast. We take you behind what we teach here at Westside. I'm Ben Fleming. [00:00:17] Speaker B: And I'm Evan Earwicker. [00:00:19] Speaker A: I missed the music cue for the first time ever. [00:00:21] Speaker B: For the very first time, you. You were just into it. [00:00:24] Speaker A: That means we've done it enough now. It's good. We're in a good rhythm. To where I lose my focus. That doesn't make any sense. [00:00:32] Speaker B: I don't know. So you're a competitor. You're a very competitive person. Do you use music when you're competing? Is that, like, a big piece of your ritual? [00:00:42] Speaker A: Yeah, I like music, but I've fallen into, like, a very specific. There's, like, 80s. Rock is almost always where I exist. There's Metallica and there's Guns n roses, there's AC DC I guess all these aren't specifically 80s, but it has that kind of similar feel. Those are stadium anthem rock and roll I don't love. I like rap, hip hop kind of stuff. It doesn't work for me in the arena kind of experience. I'm not sure why. I think it's. Cause all the rhythms kind of feel the same. I need cymbals, guitars. I need, like, distortion in my competitive music. [00:01:19] Speaker B: Okay. Speaking of rock anthems, Sandman competed in the Kentucky Derby. [00:01:26] Speaker A: Yeah. Was that your pick? [00:01:27] Speaker B: Did you pick Sandman? No, no. [00:01:28] Speaker A: For the office pool, I picked. [00:01:30] Speaker B: Who did I pick? [00:01:31] Speaker A: Cole Battle. Oh, great name. [00:01:34] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, I liked the name. And you encouraged. So tell us what you did with the staff. You encouraged us to pick based on the names. [00:01:40] Speaker A: Yeah, I said, we're gonna have a competition, put out the names at random so they weren't based on their winning odds and was like, why don't you just pick them by name? It'll be more fun. So that way it's like part personality test, part Kentucky Derby experience. So I picked Luxor Cafe. It just sounded so indulgent. Did not do well. Did not do well. [00:02:03] Speaker B: I couldn't see my horse ever in the race the whole time because it's only two minutes long or something. The whole time. I'm looking to try to find where my horse was. [00:02:13] Speaker A: Have you watched the Kentucky Derby before? [00:02:15] Speaker B: No. This is the first time. Cause. Yeah. [00:02:17] Speaker A: So when did you tune in? How much before the race? [00:02:20] Speaker B: So you messaged the whole staff, and you said, it's minutes away. And I know that made me think, oh, no, I'm gonna miss it. So I immediately tuned in, and then it was another 40 minutes or something. [00:02:30] Speaker A: So I was watching the coverage. I had watched the hour before. I said minutes away. And it really made me feel like they were minutes away because I've seen this before. I know that they're like, hey, we have two minutes of content. How do we sell this thing and make money over the course of hours with two. A two minute race? [00:02:47] Speaker B: Sure. Yeah. [00:02:48] Speaker A: So there's other races, but those races had completed. They were showing the jockeys, they were interviewing, they were walking the horses. And I was like minutes away. And it like 45 minutes away. I felt bad about it. I thought I did the right thing. [00:02:59] Speaker B: And after all that tedious buildup to the race, once they walk the horses into the stalls, it just all of a sudden starts. [00:03:06] Speaker A: It's immediate. Right. [00:03:08] Speaker B: There's no big, like, here we go, three, two. It's just as soon as that last horse gets in the stall, then the gates open and they're gone. [00:03:15] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't think they like keeping them in there much. I don't know why. I'm not a horse person. [00:03:20] Speaker B: They're gonna say, I'm not a horse. [00:03:23] Speaker A: I'm not a horse, you know. Me, myself personally, I haven't been in those gates, but it seem claustrophobic to me. Yeah, I'm surprised by that. Every year where the race just starts. Yeah. It's not set the gun fires or whatever. It's like, boom. The gates open because that one last horse just got in and the race started. [00:03:43] Speaker B: Yeah. After they, you know, they interviewed the owner of the horse, of course. Horse, of course. And it's. It's funny to me. Cause the owner, I mean, they're the money piece. Right. But you would think that this owner personally overcame great odds to be the winner of the Kentucky Derby. But they're just. They spent some money. But maybe this is true with all teams, you know, and the wealthy owners. [00:04:09] Speaker A: It's really the trainer. Right. That's number one. Even the jockey seems a little bit. Are there famous jockeys? Like, they seem to be pretty replaceable. They need a certain height and weight. And then you get to sit on the horse and kind of potentially guide the thing a little bit. [00:04:24] Speaker B: But it's the horse that's training this kicking in. Right. It's not exactly. It's not really the jockey. [00:04:28] Speaker A: They're not driving. Right. Is it can't be the same as driving. I guess they're similar. Have you watched any of the F1 documentary on Netflix? [00:04:35] Speaker B: No, I haven't, I haven't. [00:04:37] Speaker A: They're great. Yeah, I. I Watched the first season was like, this is amazing. I'm gonna start watching F1. I watched one F1 race, and I was like, this is boring and awful. I'm gonna wait for the documentary to come out. But it's a similar thing. Like, even the drivers. There's a guy named Lewis Hamilton who won with Mercedes for all these years, and then Max Verstappen came in with Red Bull and is kind of virtually undefeated over the last couple years. And Lewis Hamilton is a great driver. One of the greatest drivers in the world of all time is like, yeah, my car sucks this year. So there you go. I think that's it. And it's been a few years in a row. And Mercedes, this is part of the gig, I guess. Mercedes is like, yeah, our car's bad. So what are you gonna do? So I guess there's even similarities in that the driver is driving, but even then he's finished in 10th all of a sudden, and he's just like, that's just bad car. [00:05:27] Speaker B: That's just what it is. But when it's a single lap on a horse versus how many laps is the 500? It goes on forever. [00:05:35] Speaker A: I mean, just. [00:05:36] Speaker B: You have so much more time, I would think, for strategy and pacing and, you know, pit stop. I don't know. [00:05:44] Speaker A: So it is the training we've arrived at. The trainer of the horse is the most valuable, oddly enough. [00:05:49] Speaker B: And I know this is nascar, but I was just looking up Dale Earnhardt when he died at 49 just about 30 minutes ago, I was doing a deep dive on the Earnhardt family. I don't know why, but there was that. [00:06:03] Speaker A: Do you remember when he died? [00:06:04] Speaker B: Do you remember that happening? No. It was 2002 at the Daytona 500. And fourth lap, a car hit him, and then he hit the wall. [00:06:13] Speaker A: Remember? [00:06:14] Speaker B: Did you watch this? [00:06:14] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, Yeah. I remember the day it happened. And this is terrible. The older I get, but I remember thinking, well, you know, he was pretty old. [00:06:23] Speaker B: 49. [00:06:24] Speaker A: 49 years old. How awful is that? [00:06:26] Speaker B: My goodness. My grandpa on my mom's side died at 47. And at the time, my grandma said, this is selling my grandma a little bit, but she's like, well, at least he lived a good, long life. [00:06:41] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:06:42] Speaker B: She's the same age. Like, at that time, she was like, yeah, no, we. We had a good life. And. And now it's. It's fine that it's over, you know. [00:06:51] Speaker A: Really excited for life rates to hit the show. Notes after this. It's going to be great. [00:06:56] Speaker B: I'll be on the show. [00:06:56] Speaker A: Notes. Oh, Evan, you preached this last weekend. One of the best messages I've ever heard. It was really great. [00:07:04] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:07:04] Speaker A: I'm not just saying that. [00:07:05] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:07:06] Speaker A: It was outstanding. You described it as Faith 101 or Christian Faith 101, we should say. But what you did in talking about grace, we talked about this between services. I had never heard it quite so bluntly juxtaposed to. Basically, if you want to be a Christian, we've got two options. We could be a grace people, grace first, grace in the middle and grace last. Or we can be a self righteous people. Those are the two choices. I don't think I'd heard it quite like that. Super compelling. Why frame it that way? [00:07:40] Speaker B: Yeah. I set up the message this way of people, I think, look at different churches and even denominations or versions of Christianity based on how lenient they are on the rules, and this becomes kind of our thing of like, oh, well, that church is very strict, but this church is. They're pretty relaxed on. And whether we acknowledge that consciously or subconsciously it's there, you kind of know. Right. And even the thought of like, how strict is my church on the rules, quote unquote, or morality or how literally do they take the instructions in the Bible? Often what that's rooted in is a sense of performance. Like, how much did they need me to perform to be on the inside of that community and by virtue of that, be on God's good side. And we're in Ephesians, in Ephesians chapter two, Paul is just like, stop it. Stop trying to perform. Because you're never going to get there. You're never going to get there. And so if that's true and if that is the heart of the Christian faith, leaning into grace isn't like a huh. Well, that's my style of Christianity, to lean into grace. And your style might be to lean into the rules. If you want biblical Christianity that follows Jesus, you either have to choose grace or you have to pursue it on your own. And as I said yesterday, what self righteousness will do, it'll just take you far away in the opposite direction from Jesus. So I hope what I presented was this is the only way that we are actually Christian, is to embrace a grace first, grace last. [00:09:23] Speaker A: Yeah. And you described it certainly as the only way that we're going to choose to exist in this community on the west side where we have, you and I have specifically authority and not just culture building, but this is the way that we believe that Jesus is leading the greater church and that'll be reflective in us and that's meaningful. I hope that maybe shook some people up potentially, that trend toward the self righteous thing. I think we all have some of that right. But I do imagine even in Paul's day, as he's writing this letter, that it's easy to think Paul's preaching grace and suddenly everybody's relieved, but Paul's preaching grace and then that would mess with the authority structure of things, of where power comes from in faith communities. And it would also potentially take away just the security blanket for people that are like, no, my whole life is built on being really, really, really good at these rules that we've set up. And you can't just like take that from me. I need this now. It's my security blanket. Might be gross and dirty and nasty, but doggone it, it's mine. And I've held it this long and I want to keep holding it. Yeah. [00:10:25] Speaker B: And quite literally, Paul says your righteousness is like filthy rags. It is. It's the tattered clothes of our own religion and a tale as old as time. Religion wants us to feel like we've earned this and we did this and because we've done it and we've put the work in and we've become devout, then we can look down our noses at those who are on the outside of that who have not done the work. And I think back to the parable of the vineyard that Jesus tells where he's like, yeah, and the master of the vineyard found some people and they only worked an hour and they got the full payment and it probably drove everybody crazy. And that's the kingdom of God. And we call it all sorts of things, you know, that are seemingly. That's unjust, that's not right. And that isn't God's standard. And actually it is. It's Jesus being extravagant in his grace. And if you don't like that, you're really not going to like Jesus because this is the whole enchilada, if you will. You know, this is the whole game of how we get to God. It's not a game, but this is the whole way is through relying on his finished work. And if I feel like I can do that better because I've put in more time being a good person, that I've missed the point that it's actually Jesus work that comes to me. [00:11:44] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think that self righteousness tends to sneak back in because of our own arrogance and narcissism and, and we want credit for the work that we've done in a lot of those cases. But on the other side of being the receiver of grace, I think sometimes we trend toward understanding that self righteousness as well because of the vulnerability of grace that happens. I can't remember if it was Tim Keller NT Wright. I've been reading a ton of both of them because I think they do such a great job understanding Ephesians. So we've been going through a lot of that and I just like those guys in general, but I can't remember which one of them it was. But they described the receiving of grace and how Paul is talking about in Ephesians chapters one and two, he's saying it's like a private in the army receiving a general's accolades and clothing and then suddenly turning around and then everyone's saluting him and the vulnerability that that would create and like, oh, what on earth are you guys doing? Why are you receiving me as a general? And how did I even get this put on me? There is this initial feeling of I think I've robbed the bank. And now the bank people are applauding me. How does this work? Why? And so I think even the receiver of grace can be like, no, this still doesn't feel right. Actually, I'd like to go back into the shackles of my own self righteousness and earning my way there because it does seem to make more sense sometimes. And it's too vulnerable to be filled with grace. [00:13:13] Speaker B: Yeah, I like that angle of the vulnerability of grace as a receiver of it. And in that place where you feel like you've got something you didn't earn, self righteousness comes up again because it makes us want to say, okay, well, I guess I got to prove it now that I do deserve this, or I can hang in these waters that I've been placed in that I didn't earn. And the imposter syndrome crops up. So like, okay, well, I guess I gotta be devout and moral and good and prove myself. And again, we need the grace of God to sustain us in his grace. We were brought here and now we're not going to survive receiving this grace unless he continues to be with us. And so it actually sets us up if we really are receiving what Christ did on the cross for us. It sets us up for a lifetime of needing him to sustain us in this place because we don't deserve it here. It feels like we're out over our skis and we're in this space that, that we didn't do. And so we need his grace to sustain us there. And he's our guide through this kind of into the wild concept of grace, which is amazing. But the thing that always comes up is like, yeah, but grace does a lot. I know, but don't get too carried away because then people will go crazy. And what do you respond? Because I know that always comes up when we talk about grace. It's like, but what about holiness and what about God's right way and his judgment and all this stuff comes up. How do you think about that? [00:14:40] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I mean, I try to challenge people and myself just with their own, like, what are you actually asking? And if our conversation comes back around to, well, don't get all willy nilly with grace. I want to understand where that person's lines are. Because usually it's a really tight fence around the things that they've overcome that are now quote unquote, in their past or things that they don't have issues with or have ever, you know, struggled with or whatever you might say. And the fence line is kind of around the safety of what they already do really well or they've overcome. And then everything else is left on the outside. Think, oh, well, yeah, grace, you're right, grace does go to the fence line, and the fence line is really far out. But my gosh, everything beyond that, that's far too scary to be able to deal with. And which leads us in a little bit of what we're going to talk about this next week of like, the messiness and the inefficiency of, of the unity that we find in grace. Because we don't always understand the lines. I would say we rarely understand the lines. And certainly Jesus's love doesn't really have those boundaries at all. So how do we reconcile the two things? And really, I hope when I talk to people individually about this that it becomes a lot less about. Pastor Ben, can you give me the exact standard of living for each individual that surrounds me and that walks into west side Church? And a lot more about, are you even asking the right questions of how God interacts not just with you, but with others and us in community? So that's my response. It usually turns into a longer, more like some kind of a spiritual therapy type session kind of a thing. But that's, I think, really what we're asking. We need to discover if we're even asking the right questions once grace is in the picture. [00:16:18] Speaker B: Yeah. And if we believe in a grace that's small enough to really get our conceptual intellect around. Okay. That's a pretty small thing, you know, the love and mercy and the grace of God. If we believe it really is more than we can imagine, which I hope it is, then we have to understand that we're going to not understand it fully and we're going to get it wrong. Sometimes I'd rather err on the side of believing it's bigger than I know than erring on the side of thinking it's small, because that's always where people screw up is when they underestimate the power of grace. I've rarely seen people spiral in their lives and their faith because they had too generous of a view of God's grace. And for us religious folks, that sounds scary. Don't think too big about what God's grace does because what will that do to your behavior? But on the flip side, if you're thinking about it in your own life, it's an expansive view of grace that's going to drive you more and more, I think, into the presence of Jesus, not away from it. [00:17:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's right. And ultimately that's where we want to end up. And if that's the vessel that gets us there, when we don't always understand where all the lines are drawn or if they should be drawn at all, then I think that's the place that we want to end up. I think otherwise heaven's going to be a very difficult and confusing place for us with who is there around us, that we find ourselves in community with, believing in our self righteousness, that we knew who was in and out. And I am confident that we will have no idea come the time. But I get it, I empathize. By the way, I don't want to say all this in self righteousness because we're two chapters away from Paul levying a list of rules. [00:18:13] Speaker B: Right, right. [00:18:15] Speaker A: So the Christians should be confused, in my opinion, especially upon your first or second or third reading of a few Ephesians, to say, no, it's all grace. And then there's this list of rules and what to do with that is difficult. [00:18:29] Speaker B: Sure. And we read those lists and I don't know that it's Paul saying, because you've been saved by grace, now you got to try harder because you're failing. I think it's Paul's invitation to say, those who've been saved by grace, this is how it looks. And so if you find yourself miles away from what this looks like, to live from a place of grace, you actually need to go back to the cross and Sit under that and fully embody this work of grace. I don't think it's just try harder, do better, modify your behavior. I think it gets so connected to the life of Christ that now you are raised up into that your life matches his, you know, and people see you and they see him. And this is not something we do perfectly. Right. But that's where I love walking the church yesterday into Romans a bit, because in the letter to Romans in 5 and 8, he does such a good job of saying, like, while you're still sinners and far from God, that's when he stepped in. And then by eight, he's saying, and by the way, nothing, not even death itself, is going to keep you from his love. And so just. It's like a cocoon of the grace of God. And that should motivate us to do good works. Right? That should be the two Ephesians 2, 10, and 11. Right? We're created to do good works, not to sin and find ourselves in darkness and hurting people. [00:20:01] Speaker A: Of course. [00:20:02] Speaker B: Right. It should create something in us. [00:20:04] Speaker A: Yeah. And Romans 5, 8 reminds me of the Beatitudes all the way through Matthew 11, where Jesus creates this ridiculous standard in the middle of a place that already feels like they're in. A ridiculous standard of if you even hate your brother, it's the same as murdering. And everything is just brought up. The volume is ratcheted up on every law and Jesus makes it harder. And then finally all the way to 11. And I consider that one big fat section because of this. He says, come to me if you're weary and heavy laden, or the message if you're exhausted and you burn out on religion, and I'll give you rest. I think it all is part of the same teaching. It's this one long teaching of, yes, it's impossible. And then you need grace, and that's where you find rest. And it's only in the knowing of how far, how far we fall short that we do find the rest that Jesus has. [00:20:57] Speaker B: Yeah, it's the disciples saying, who then can be saved? Jesus? This is hard. [00:21:02] Speaker A: What is the deal? [00:21:03] Speaker B: And if we never. If we never take time to realize how high the standard is, we will come to the conclusion that we got this, I'm a good person. I don't do everything perfect, but I'm good enough. And then we get before God and it's like, no, that wasn't good enough. We need something stronger. We need something stronger. And grace is the answer to that. And for every verse about grace, people will Be able to find a verse about holiness and behavior and how we should act. And that's all true, too. But I don't think righteous living is in competition with a covenant of grace. I think grace is the starting point and everything else is true. But if we reduce grace to this kind of optional side thing, all the behavior just becomes dead religion. Right. And we don't get a ton of grumpy emails these days. But I could see after a message on grace yesterday how that thought is in people's minds. But what about this? And what about this text? And what about Jesus teaching on this? And I would say, yeah, it's all true, but the starting point and the ending point is going to be grace. And if we're going to err, we're going to err on the side of being too gracious. Because I think. I think, honestly, Jesus was too gracious to me. [00:22:19] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that's the point. [00:22:21] Speaker B: That's the point. I think. I think I don't deserve any of this. And I think. I think it's just pure kindness. And there's no. There's no. Like, it's pure kindness. And then, you know, I showed him that I was worthy of it, and so he let me keep it. [00:22:36] Speaker A: Right? Yeah. It's alone. [00:22:39] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay, here's some forgiveness. [00:22:40] Speaker A: But you got to pay it back. [00:22:42] Speaker B: If you screw up again. You're going to prove to me you didn't deserve it, right? No, we know I didn't deserve it. [00:22:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:22:47] Speaker B: So. [00:22:48] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's. It's important to keep in mind Paul's goal in all of this, too. He's an apostle, he's a preacher, he's a teacher, he's a scholar. He's also a pastor in this. And he's trying to help a group of people that he says in Ephesians 2. He's trying to create this powerful unity between two different groups where circumcised versus uncircumcised and Jewish and non Jewish or gentile and slave and free, and all these things he's trying to help these people just exist together. So that's where a lot of these different sections, sometimes, at least to me, and I don't know, it feels to you, they feel like different efforts. Like, almost like he moved into a different subject in school and like everyone picked up their books, walked out, grabbed the other books and walked and sat down. All part of the educational experience, but different approaches. And this first chapter is this really huge umbrella, massive perspective view. And then he jumps into something a little bit smaller, and that's the grace that all of us receive. It's still kind of under that umbrella. And then by the end of Ephesians, it seems like he's teaching a very specific group of people, very specific things for their specific time and context. And I think. And you can give your take on this, it's tempting to wrap all those things up into the exact same kind of teaching intention from Paul, where it doesn't necessarily seem like that's the case. Right? [00:24:10] Speaker B: Yeah. I think at the end of chapter three, he kind of pivots from theology to, you know, what it means in practical, especially relational, engagement. You know, what does it look like in our culture? What does it look like in our society? What does it look like in our homes if this theology is true? And I do think also, like, you know, they don't have endless ability to send this stuff out. You know, it's not just a. It's not a weekly newsletter that Paul's gonna send to this Ephesian church. Like, this is his shot to paint the picture of what following Jesus is from the ground level. And then also to. Let's talk about social order within your gathering. Let's talk about Jews and Gentiles. Let's talk about circumcision. So it's very dense, you know, but look at the time. Like, they gotta find some parchment, get a scribe, write it down, get it out of the jail to a runner who's going to run all the way, you know, from Rome to Ephesus. How long is. How far is that Italy to. [00:25:07] Speaker A: Oh, I can't. [00:25:08] Speaker B: Even Turkey, you know, you got to get that there. [00:25:10] Speaker A: I felt like the drive from Aydin in Turkey to Ephesus was plenty long, you know, I think I kind of almost took a nap, actually. [00:25:17] Speaker B: And you weren't on foot. [00:25:18] Speaker A: I was not. I was in a vehicle driven by your brother. I didn't know it. [00:25:21] Speaker B: After the drive, I had. I visited them. My brother and his family lived in Uganda for 12 years. We were there with them at the very end of their time. Living there helped them move out of their house, and we both flew out of the country within a day or so. And before we left, they wanted to take us to. It's called Queen Elizabeth national park, which fans of the Crown Episode one, where she finds out that her father has died and she's now the queen. Okay, that happened in Queen Elizabeth Parker. Yeah. Well, named for her visit that time, but historically happened then. And the first episode is her in Queen Elizabeth National Park. So that's the background anyway. But it's on the. A long way around the country from Entebbe across there, and the roads are terrible. And so I. Brent was like, okay, and we'll share the driving. And we started driving like, we're not going to share the driving. And so I made him drive. It was like a full day drive on the worst roads you can imagine. We get to the park, do a day of safari, which is more tiring than you would think. Very exhausting. [00:26:31] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:26:31] Speaker B: And then we get up the next morning. I can't do it, man. I can't drive on these roads. Made him drive all the way back. [00:26:37] Speaker A: So within a period of three days. [00:26:38] Speaker B: He was driving for, like, you know, 23 hours. [00:26:40] Speaker A: And if I know your brother, that was a stick shift. [00:26:43] Speaker B: I don't remember. Yeah, it was a. It was a van, and there's a lot of us in it. And it was long. Yeah. [00:26:47] Speaker A: We flew into Turkey and I was like, okay, rental car. He was like, yeah, getting a stick. He's like, do you want to drive? I was like, I can, but I don't want to do that. Unfamiliar country with different customs, and he drove the whole time. Stick the whole time. I hadn't been in a stick shift vehicle for that long in a very, very long time. [00:27:05] Speaker B: Makes me think you guys have watched the Amazing Race. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm always shocked that people who don't learn to drive a stick shift, they know for months that they're going to be on the Amazing Race. You learn how to drive a stick, it's going to come up. And the ones that don't, I just. I don't understand. What are they doing? What are they doing for their prep? [00:27:23] Speaker A: The amount of anxiety I would have over making sure my stick shift driving was on point and then not mixing up the fuels. If I'm going on one of those shows is crazy that that still happens. It blows my mind. [00:27:35] Speaker B: Or on a Survivor, you know, if you didn't. I never. I never tried to build a fire. What. What. What show did you think you were going on? Oh, I. I can't swim. I never. I've never been in the water before. Come on. What are you doing? [00:27:48] Speaker A: My favorite one is like an episode of the Bachelor where one of the contestants is just shocked by that the main guy is kissing another girl or vice versa, you know? [00:27:57] Speaker B: Have you ever watched this show's been. [00:27:59] Speaker A: On for a while. Like, this is definitely not a surprise. Bit like, they do this. [00:28:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Fire making. [00:28:05] Speaker A: Is I can't make fire. I prep for the show, and I've been on it for 35 days. I have no idea. [00:28:11] Speaker B: Didn't think you'd come up. [00:28:12] Speaker A: I don't know why that's. [00:28:15] Speaker B: Funny. [00:28:16] Speaker A: Yeah, but so you consider, like. I don't know. I think sometimes the. The context. We talk about context of Scripture all the time. And by the way, it's again, to have empathy for everyone who's kind of on the journey of understanding scripture at a greater depth. There's scholars and institutions and debates and fights over context of scripture to this day. [00:28:36] Speaker B: We sure, it's hard journey. [00:28:38] Speaker A: Right. But it does seem like Paul and I, this is what gives me a ton of respect for him as a pastor, is really, he's got people on his mind and unity on his mind. And he's saying we have to proceed somehow. And I know that it is God's intention for us to be together. And so here's some ways, and maybe I can settle some debates so that we can move on and move into something better from here on out. It's a little bit like, you know, I coach Little League. Me and the other coach talk before the game, and we go over these ground rules, and a lot of them are not pro baseball things. You know, it's this is. We do this this way because of safety, and we do this this way so that we're not out here for four hours and we do this this way. And if you just flew in from a different era or a different, you know, a professional team or something, you would go, huh, well, we do this differently. And I think about this a lot differently and be like, well, yeah, the people that you're coaching in, the context is a little bit different. And I just think it's important to consider all of those things. The context of what Paul is doing is beautiful and wonderful, and it can be different, especially in some of these sections of scripture where he seems to pivot off of the greater Christian things that are eternal and into something different. [00:29:53] Speaker B: Sure. And like anyone who's ever led any kind of organization, you're not always going after the same thing all the time. Right. So, for example, we're going to get to the passages about mutual submission, and he's going to talk to slaves and slave owners in a way that seems like he's fine with the setup and he's not calling for abolition. And. And yet in Galatians, he's going to say, in Christ, there is no slave or free. We're all in Christ. And So it's like, well, why don't you bring that kind of prophetic imagination about what could be that you have in Galatians? Why don't you bring it into this moment in Ephesians? And I think the reality is we're not always going after the same things or pushing for the same things in every instance. Sometimes we're making a different point. And I don't want to say like, and that's why slavery was fine. No, it's not fine. But to expect Paul to not go into some issues that ignore other issues is unrealistic. I think that sometimes as leaders, you're saying, okay, we're going to focus on this issue right now. And for Paul with the Ephesians, honestly, what he's doing, I think is he's looking at the status quo as it is and saying, within these structures. And he's not blowing up the structures right now. Within these structures. Here's how I want you to behave as people who are under this prince of peace, Jesus. This is how you're going to act, and it's going to be subversive and it's going to say something about the character of God that is separate from a conversation about how right or wrong slavery is or the status of women within the household in ancient Rome. So I think we have to have a curiosity and a willingness to kind of wade into these waters rather than making the really bad mistake of being like, well, see, Paul thinks women should be subjugated to men and that slaves. Yeah. And that slaves are cool. Like, okay, I'm out. I'm out. If that's. If that's how we come up. So we have to come to it with curiosity and be able to read it in a way that understands what Paul is and isn't doing. Right. [00:32:00] Speaker A: Yeah. And while I think that challenges then, while holding the grandeur of grace as this doesn't necessarily need to be pieced out or contexted out. This is an eternal truth based on what Jesus taught. And then the sacrifice of Jesus, death and resurrection. The grace bit is the eternal thing that translates across every single context and every single age and time. Yeah. While some of the other things took some work and you do almost. You see Paul in some areas of Scripture just be really. You can almost feel him saying, okay, and we're going to start here. And it's kind of a bummer that we're going to start here, but this is where we're at and we're going to create some unity and we're going to experience this grace. And then we're going to go from here as part of our journey together because. Yeah. Especially slavery. Yeah. Galatians, it makes it confusing because there's neither slave or free. And then in Philemon, he appeals to Philemon on behalf of Onesimus and says, no, this is your slave, but everything that you're allowed to do, you should not do 100%. And actually we're going to integrate him from. Into the church. [00:33:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:33:05] Speaker A: And he's just going to be like you. You guys are going to be equals. And it's like, whoa, Paul, he seems. [00:33:09] Speaker B: Like he's all over the map. Yeah. And it's helpful to me. Even the distinction we just talked about between the theology and the practical pastoral application that he pivots to. And end of chapter three, we have to understand that Paul the theologian, whenever it's poetry and these lofty prayers, that's the theologian in Paul writing that. Right. And then there's Pastor Paul, who's coming in and saying, okay, here's some issues that you're going to have to deal with. And. And here's what I want to happen here and here. Those are two different tones that we should understand and appreciate for what they are. That we want to see how Paul as a pastor is leading in difficult situations and cultural realities. Then we also want him to step away from all that, engage this prophetic, poetic vision of the greatness of God and the wonder of the cross. And we want to hear that too. But understand what he's doing in both of these arenas, otherwise we'll get real confused. Right. [00:34:09] Speaker A: But it's all a high view of scripture. Right. Maybe the listeners heard this term before. There's low view of scripture. I think this is all very high, incredibly high regard way of looking at scripture. I think where preachers like you and me have the tendency to mess this up is we want to go all the way through the book of Ephesians. We start with one and two and we treat it in a certain way. And we say this is the great grand, perfect vision of God. And then by chapter five, we're compelled to be like. And the same. Same for this part. It's really not the same. Exactly. And I don't know that we should treat it the same. We can understand it and through the context, we can have an incredibly high view of it and see how Paul and through. How God through Paul is working in this. But it is, it's. Yeah, it's to be understood a bit differently. [00:35:00] Speaker B: Right. And even as you say, That I know it sounds like we're saying. [00:35:02] Speaker A: I know we're going to cherry pick. [00:35:04] Speaker B: Parts of the scripture that we think is good and then leave behind the ones that are bad. We're not saying that. We're saying, when Paul says in chapter two that when Christ was raised from the dead, you were brought to life with him and now you're seated in heavenly places, we're going to hold that in regard in a different way than when we get to chapter five and it says, slaves, obey your masters with fear and trembling. We are not going to put those on the same shelf and say, for all time, we are made alive by the grace, grace and mercy of Jesus. And also slaves should fear their masters. They don't both deserve to be put on a plaque and hung in our homes. So that's what we're saying is there's timeless theology and then there's pastoral moments that we're speaking to a specific cultural context that have to be sifted through and handled in a different way than something that we would put on our wall. [00:35:56] Speaker A: And we can receive in Ephesians 5 from the holiness of a moment of a pastor trying to create unity so that all might receive grace in this specific time, you can receive from that. That is admirable and beautiful and actually a really wonderful example for maybe some decisions that we need to make in our current culture and context. Right. That in a hundred years from now would look like compromise, but in a moment, it's beauty and it is grace, and it is the gospel moving forward. Yeah, it's just. And again, I understand how the temptation is there of, like, oh, you're so bold in chapters one and two, but you're a chicken in chapter five, and that's not it. To hold the highest form of Scripture. I believe if you brought Paul in right now, back to the future style to spend time with us and we were like, well, slavery's gone. He'd be like, oh, thank God. Oh, my gosh. I want it to go out and do this, but I made these decisions in the time, and I think that God used them and whatever, but he would be ecstatic that no human owned another one. Right. And he'd be thankful for the movement socially. [00:37:08] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And this is the work, I think, of taking the Bible seriously. And I want to be very clear, like, we hold a high view of Scripture. And I think oftentimes the lowest view of scripture we can have is just to blindly hold it up and say, the old adage of the Bible says, I believe it, that settles it. That's a really, really rudimentary coloring with crayons approach to what is the inspired word of God. And if we're serious about it, and I'm not saying that we're the experts or we're the scholars, we're not. But I know, personally, I refuse to have this, you know, just throw the Bible at the problem. Throw the Bible at the, you know, it's my big fat Greek wedding with the Windex. Like, the Bible's got everything you need. And that's so good. We throw these cliche ways that we kind of, you know, toss scripture at problems. And it's like, no, there's a higher way to view the Bible. And it's when we try to understand who was Paul, what was he writing to, what were the realities then and what would he say to us today? That's a so much more serious way to treat your Bible. [00:38:21] Speaker A: Yeah. And based on the teachings of Jesus, when we understand that so many things in our current context today are not explicitly mentioned in Scripture, often people will come to me with one issue or another. That's really just a part of the culture work conversation. So what about this, you know, what God says about this issue? And I go, I mean, I don't see that in any Old Testament, New Testament, that thing doesn't exist, or it didn't exist, or it wasn't a question for these people. But how my heart is positioned in the middle of this debate or this conversation or figuring out a system and how to care for people or how to walk forward as a society, my heart position is in there. And so I want to return to that as often as possible. Than believing that the Holy Spirit will lead us in the right direction with the issue, then whatever decision that we make, the heart of Jesus exists in it. And I think that's the best we can do. And actually a really beautiful thing that we can do. [00:39:19] Speaker B: And it'll frustrate us. It just does. The way of Jesus is frustrating because like it is when the gospel is dropped into these Jewish and Gentile communities, there are warring ideals about, you know, should we, should we hold to the past or should we move into the future? And it frustrates both. And I think this has always been the case that a really true to Jesus kind of gospel will pull back progressives and it will push forward conservatives. And I'm not talking about just politics, but ideologically, how should we live in society? It's not going to fit the box of one ideological party. You know, there's going to be ways where it's going to push everybody. And if you're not comfortable with that, you're going to get really bent out of shape. As we try to contextualize Paul, and I hope we as leaders don't shy away from making our preferred groups unhappy, because I think that's what the gospel does. I think it rubs us all in a way that we have to continually assess, like where, where have I gone off the way of Jesus and where am I being pulled back to it? It's not always comfortable. [00:40:34] Speaker A: Yeah. And Paul's a great example because I've seen both sides, quote, unquote. If you have the conservative and progressive ideologies out there, I think I've seen both sides use his teachings as fuel for their particular argument. [00:40:48] Speaker B: Right. [00:40:48] Speaker A: So there must be something there. There must be nuance. And even just the fact that at the time of writing these letters, Paul would have been considered extravagantly progressive compared to the culture around him. The inclusivity of all kinds of races and people into this institution that he's now calling the church, it's insane and unthought of and ridiculous to so many people. At the time, it would have been terribly progressive. Now you can use a lot of his works to create a conservative argument. [00:41:18] Speaker B: Or he goes to Athens and he's like, actually, there's just one, one God. [00:41:23] Speaker A: Great point. [00:41:24] Speaker B: Mars Hill. So he is walking in these worlds, the Greek world that is wildly out there. And he's saying, actually there's been some things that have been true from the beginning. Let me tell you about those. [00:41:36] Speaker A: Yeah, the Greeks are like, oh, we got past that one God thing a long time. [00:41:42] Speaker B: And a lot of their practices, Paul would say, no, those have to become under. They have to come under the way of Jesus. And that felt very regressive, I'm sure, to the Greek audience. So they don't fit in nice boxes. Jesus and Paul are not going to fit in your nice box. That your preferred outlet tries to amplify. [00:42:06] Speaker A: That high view of scripture requires a humility and a nuance as you approach it. I think that's where the Holy Spirit holiness of scripture comes in, is not in the, oh my gosh, there's scripture and here's all these words and I'm so scared and I gotta do it exactly right. I think the holiness comes in and approaching it and going, God is speaking through this text. And God spoke to people that wrote this text. And me feeling like I can pick up the sword and the stone and begin to Swing it around and wield it immediately is ridiculous. And arrogance, especially with such a great cloud of witnesses, so to speak, around us that are still wrestling all the way to the end of their lives and their experiences this way. The humility with which we approach scripture is just as important as the scripture itself. Otherwise, it gets so distorted and taken out of context and ruined. [00:42:57] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. We gotta be careful we don't start to think of ourselves, like, ahead of Paul because he's constantly saying, you know, this is all a mystery to me, and I'm the chief of sinners and I'm. I don't. He expressed. We talked about this last week. He expresses that kind of imposter syndrome himself. So God forbid we ever come to the place where we've got this. We've got this in the bag. [00:43:19] Speaker A: That's a good point. I love how Paul goes like, and a man shall leave his father mother, and so shall a woman, and two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery to me, and I don't understand it. [00:43:31] Speaker B: Which is the only correct answer for someone who's been single his whole life. Exactly. [00:43:37] Speaker A: You just made a whole argument Paul that sounded like you knew, and now you. I'm confused. [00:43:42] Speaker B: It's hard for me. [00:43:43] Speaker A: It's a. Paul is a mystery to me. [00:43:44] Speaker B: Yeah, it is. Anyway. All right. Good stuff. You'll be preaching. Yeah. [00:43:50] Speaker A: That was fast. [00:43:51] Speaker B: We've been going 45 minutes already. I know. [00:43:54] Speaker A: Okay? [00:43:54] Speaker B: I know. So you're preaching this weekend. But then we have Boaster and Brady coming back to Westside. She was honor search decades and she's back 18th. I hope so. We'll figure it out. [00:44:05] Speaker A: Yeah, but beau. [00:44:07] Speaker B: Pastor of B4 Church in Beaverton, Oregon, and she's going to be back with us on the 18th. [00:44:13] Speaker A: She'll set us right. I know. [00:44:14] Speaker B: She always does.