Latest / Provoke & Inspire Podcast / Episode 496: Andrew Huberman and the Challenge of Vague Spirituality

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Episode 496: Andrew Huberman and the Challenge of Vague Spirituality · Provoke & Inspire Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I would say it's probably more natural for a human being that doesn't have a revelation of who Jesus is to kind of live in that more neutral space where it's like there must be something.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: But when that desire to know that something butts up against the infringement on moral or lifestyle autonomy, that's when the mind, subconsciously, or consciousness, says all right here, but no further.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: You're listening to the Provoke and Inspire podcast.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Provoke and Inspire podcast.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Learning how to follow Jesus in a post-Christian culture.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Today is a treat, and it's not just because it's the Christmas season full of jolly.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: It's because the full complement of regulars is together digitally, of course, but we're together and we're hugging both physically and digitally.
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think Luke would agree that whenever we see Chad, we want to give him a hug, don't we?
• 0:53
  Speaker 5: Luke yes even when he doesn't wear the right clothes.
• 0:56
  Speaker 5: Even when I don't get the memo to dress up fancy, I appreciate that about you guys, thank you.
• 1:01
  Speaker 4: I made a big effort yesterday.
• 1:02
  Speaker 4: I thought I'd score some points and I went out and got on your Christmas tree because she likes that kind of thing.
• 1:08
  Speaker 4: But she has spent all day today complaining that the kind of Christmas tree I bought is too spiky and it hurts her hands when she tries putting the decoration.
• 1:18
  Speaker 5: What kind of Christmas tree did you buy?
• 1:19
  Speaker 4: So bat fired Too spiky.
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: What do you mean?
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: Too spiky?
• 1:24
  Speaker 4: Apparently, there are different kinds and some have really sharp, thorny stuff on them and others are nice and soft and I got the wrong one.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Is it possible that you got her a cactus instead of a Christmas tree by accident?
• 1:38
  Speaker 4: I was very confused.
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: I appreciate it, but it's prickly and I'm like it's imported from Mexico.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: It's never green Gage are confused and I'm sure you are Provoked.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: And Inspire is an official Stiger international podcast.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Stiger is a worldwide mission organization that mobilizes followers of Jesus to reach young people who would not walk into a church.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: For more information on that you can go to stigerorg.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: That's S-T-E-I-G-E-R, o-r-g.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Well, the set list for today.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: We have David's random story.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: It's a brief and wacky exploration of the life and mind of David.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: We have Stiger Newsflash, which is an exciting look into what God is doing around the world through Stiger to reach people who would not walk into the church.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Then we have Punching Through the Awkward with Chad Johnson, which is a look into his Holy Spirit inspired risks.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: You're going to hear stories of how God is prompting him to tell people about Jesus, to love on them, to pray for them.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: It really makes it relatable and shows the ordinary, daily opportunities that we have to put our faith into practice.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Then the main topic of the day we're going to be asking the question how can you speak to someone that is spiritually open but unwilling to define it any further?
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: We're going to use a podcast conversation between Lex Friedman and Andrew Huberman.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: If you're not familiar, they're very famous, very influential in that space.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: One's a neuroscientist, one is a software engineer, but overall just both very smart dudes.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: They were having a discussion and during it, lex kind of asked him to open up about his newfound faith.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: There's this very, very interesting moment where you could tell Andrew was even I don't know if reluctant is the right word, but it was almost like it was so fresh for him.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: You could tell that he was like okay, we're going to go here.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: He shared about his belief in God, his commitment to prayer.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: While he did that, and while it was encouraging, there was also what I would say are some markers of modern spirituality, and that it was vague, it was highly private.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: We're going to have this discussion today about what do you do with people in your life who exhibit the open closed paradox?
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: What I mean by that is they seem open to spirituality but closed to any sort of defined spirituality, whether it be coming to Jesus or just even defining who God is and what he would ask from us.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: I know every person listening has someone in their life where that's exactly who they are.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: They're like, sure, spirituality fine, good for you, but they don't want to go any further than that.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: I'm going to pick the collective brains of those of us here and ask the question how do we bring someone to Jesus who seems to be in that spiritually open place but unwilling to define it further?
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Action packed show, let's get it going.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: We're going to start when I promised we'd start, and that's with David's random story.
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: So anyway, I've always been concerned about my health and I know Chad is concerned about his health.
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: What a bizarre concern.
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: I'm concerned about your health too, David.
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: I spent a lot of time in Germany.
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: I've had a lot of people that I know suddenly die.
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
• 4:41
  Speaker 5: It's like they're that's exactly what I thought you were going to say.
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: So then it's like oh, where's Billy?
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: Well, he's moved on.
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: Is this German people?
• 4:51
  Speaker 4: No, there's people.
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: in general, it's like oh okay, but no, I don't just go okay.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, I care, I really can tell you're just brimming with empathy right now.
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: But then I had this friend who's German.
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: All of a sudden he's like gone.
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: And apparently it's because they have this big movement in Germany, and I think Luke will know about this, ben for sure.
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: I don't know about Chad.
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: They have this whole thing that when men go to the toilet they're supposed to sit, they're not supposed to stand.
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: Have you seen that, chad?
• 5:22
  Speaker 5: I have seen that you have Really.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: I've practiced the way you know, Chad, you're not supposed to have seen this.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: You're only supposed to have done this.
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: And it does take practice.
• 5:31
  Speaker 4: That is true.
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: I know that, luke.
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: He's very obedient, so he would go in and go.
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: Oh, I have to sit, so he would sit, but apparently this guy was sitting in because of that he got some kind of infection and it took him out.
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: If you're listening to this, especially to our German audience, you know, michael, the rest of you guys, come on, be a man, stand, don't sit, and you'll live a lot longer and you'll be a lot more fruitful.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: All right, let's move on.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Stiger News Flash three, two, one.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: This is a Stiger News Flash.
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: One of the really cool things about being part of an international family and mission is that there's always stuff going on all around the world, and this last month's been so cool the guys here in Argentina with an NLM tour.
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: Right now we've just finished off a Stiger intensive in Colombia with people from all over South America.
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: It's just awesome.
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: And I got to go and visit our team in Kiev in Ukraine, which continues to just rock, to just do so many amazing things even in this crazy hard time with the war.
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: I mean to start with, when I arrived there, you know they're doing this amazing event.
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: They called it a hackathon and you'd usually think of like a digital, like IT, whatever thing with a hackathon.
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: But they did this thing where they gathered 500, like creative, dynamic young people, and they set them a challenge to come up with the most creative ideas of how to share the gospel, and so there's actually a weekend where they're creating stuff together and then presenting different ideas, and it's just amazing.
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: The night out one of the well, the first night I slept there was apparently the worst drone attack in Kiev since the beginning of the war, and so they have this intense night.
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: The next morning I wake up and I have messages from our guys in our team like going hey, is that?
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: Are you okay?
• 7:28
  Speaker 4: Don't worry, it'll be over soon.
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: I slept through the whole thing.
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: I had no idea it was going on.
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: So I woke up and I'm answering back and I'm like what are you guys talking about?
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: And they're like there's this drone attack.
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: You didn't hear it and I slept through.
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: They were really mad at me the next day because they were like we're always telling people about what's going on here and they don't know it, they don't experience it.
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: You come here and you're asleep when it's happening, so, but the next day they were just worshiping and just it was amazing to see how they've just their faith is, you know, it's just so amazing.
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: And they're continuing to serve Jesus and to do these creative things to share the gospel, even in that environment.
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: So it was really powerful.
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: They had this competition and the first prize was an escape room that really deeply like digs into existential questions and presents the gospel in a really cool way.
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: So there are so many cool things.
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: I was even thinking we should we should set it up in Krugus at the international center.
• 8:28
  Speaker 4: You know how we used to have a horror house in the international center when people would arrive, or we should do this escape room because it's like really cool inspiring ideas for sharing the gospel.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: It's sad to think that we're so deep into this conflict for so many months now and you hate that.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: It becomes normal even from a distance.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: But even for them, right, it becomes relatively normal.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: And I remember when you said that I looked that up and, like, the headline on the BBC was, you know, biggest drone attack in Kiev.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: You know, in months, and you're like man, that is no joke.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: And so we obviously need to keep praying for our teams in Kiev.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: And, like you said, we have amazing things happening all over the world.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: I could go on and on about what God did in Argentina, and the podcast that we're going to talk about today will cover some of that, and sure, I'm sure, david, you'll have some illustrations from that as well to share, so we can talk about Argentina a little bit more.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: But yeah, well, you must be a deep sleeper, luke, so take that for what it is.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Moving on Chad, you ready, here we go.
• 9:31
  Speaker 5: Well, last time that we were recording, I was in Nashville.
• 9:34
  Speaker 5: Now I'm in Chattanooga which is weird and kind of awesome all at the same time and I think I had told you guys about this idea of wanting to practice a kind of like closer presence to listening to the Holy Spirit and specifically asking God to give me insight for people.
• 9:52
  Speaker 5: And so the thought was you know how would I finish the statement?
• 9:57
  Speaker 5: I see you as the kind of person who and then invite the Holy Spirit to potentially speak through even me.
• 10:02
  Speaker 5: So, a few days after I had shared that with you all, I received a phone call from a friend of mine who is a manager not a Christian bands who are also not Christians, that are tied to the furnace fest world, and he called me and he said hey, man, I am really excited to talk to you because I know that you would understand something like this.
• 10:27
  Speaker 5: I am having ideas and thoughts that are really strange and really out of place for me, and I'm thinking that God wants to do something with my life.
• 10:40
  Speaker 5: I mean, it was crazy, like literally, this is what he tells me, and I was like whoa, no way, dude, that's amazing.
• 10:47
  Speaker 5: I was like really.
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: And I said, well, you know what does that look like.
• 10:51
  Speaker 5: And he went on to describe a couple of situations that had happened in his life that he felt were very obvious signs of God moving and wanting to speak to him.
• 11:04
  Speaker 5: And I just said, hey, man, can I practice this thing with you and then just spend a little time praying for you?
• 11:14
  Speaker 5: And he was like, oh wow, I have no idea what that's like, but sure so I just did that.
• 11:19
  Speaker 5: You know the whole thing.
• 11:20
  Speaker 5: Like you know my friend's name, I see you as the kind of person who and I just started rambling off, and I mean, it's clearly and really only up to him to discern whether that was from God, but it was all kinds of amazing reminders of how much the Father, heart of God, desires the return of wayward sons and daughters and desire and closeness.
• 11:48
  Speaker 5: And so, anyway, I just I shared this with him, this little like what I would call prophetic moment, and then, you know, he said something like how do I grow with God?
• 11:57
  Speaker 5: Or like, if I want to like, keep this going, because I feel like it's just so positive and so so encouraging.
• 12:03
  Speaker 5: And I said, well, I'm going to challenge you to take what you're experiencing a step further and I want to challenge you to not just pray to a God or to a entity, but I want to challenge you to pray specifically to Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: That's cool.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're right, it is a really perfect segue.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: As I said in the opener, the inspiration for our main conversation today came from a podcast interview I was listening to between Lex Friedman and Andrew Huberman.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: And, as I already said, andrew Huberman is a podcaster.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: He's a neuroscientist, 48 year old Stanford professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology so pretty smart dude.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: And, again, as I said, lex Friedman kind of opens the door for him to talk about his newfound belief in God and he essentially says look, I study the brain and there's just no way that there's not something bigger than us, right?
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: And he explains how his own struggles led him to believe he needs humility and he needs someone to help him.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: Again, he talked about the whole design argument essentially, which is this world is so complex, the brain is so complex, I've got to believe there's something behind that.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: And so he's talking about God and, of course, as a fan of his and as a follower of Jesus, I'm like going yes, this is amazing.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Go, andrew, like you're on the right path.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: But then he has this moment it's kind of like the screeching of the brakes during the conversation where he's like but you know, god is whoever you want him to be whatever you want him to be he, she, they, whatever and I never want to push this on anyone, I think it's purely and strictly private.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: And that's kind of where the conversation ends and they talk a little bit about prayer and how that's helped and everything, and you know, I just kind of found myself torn right On one level.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: I wanted to celebrate the obvious, honest journey that he's on and the belief that hopefully this journey will continue him down the path towards Jesus, but then also kind of feel like, oh man, here's another champion of this modern brand of spirituality that is all about the belief in some sort of nebulous how higher power, without the willingness to define it any further.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: Look, what do you make of this?
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: Have you encountered this?
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: What do you make of this?
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: Let's, let's open up the discussion.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Am I just making this up as a thing in culture, or is this something that truly is out there and we need to deal with?
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: It has become, I guess, the cultural norm, where people have come to a point where majority are saying you know, I'm not an atheist.
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: Maybe there's a God out there, but nobody can really define what God is like or who God is, and there's this sense of you're not supposed to talk or tell people about it because it will seem like you're pushing religion on people, which is, I think, how Andrew put it, that you don't want to push religion on people, and so it's kind of this combination of like relativism that's strong in the culture and this spiritual openness, and it is a very common response that we find.
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: I think a lot of people listening to this will find that when they try talking to their friends at school or at work or university or wherever, people are responding in this way where they're saying, oh, that's nice that you believe in that, I believe in something too, and it'll kind of they'll often not want to dig deeper into that and kind of want to put it off and say, yeah, it's cool.
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: But yeah, I'd say, on one hand, it's a great opportunity, but it is a challenge and we need to know how to open that conversation up, how to say, hey, well, I really do think it's worthwhile talking about this.
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: I want to hear what do you really believe, david?
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: what got us to this point?
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Because I feel like you're already starting to see this kind of mindset a long time ago I mean, this isn't a new thing.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: So in your mind, has this been something you've been dealing with all along, or is this something unique to the cultural moment we're living?
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: in.
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: Well, I know, actually it's not unique.
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: If you go all the way back to the Jesus movement in the 70s, there was a whole thing about the journey.
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: If you're on the journey, if you're seeking, you can find that vision of spirituality as you define it.
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: And then when the God started to move in powerful ways, when people would actually tell the whole message, when they stopped being sensitive to the culture they were relevant to the culture but not sensitive to the culture.
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: And I think that we've gotten to this place because I think in the big C church we've thrown the baby out with the bathwater.
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: Either we just give Ted talks about how you can make, you know, be good with your finances or raise your kids so they don't do drugs or that kind of thing a kind of a nice cultural Christianity.
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: That doesn't really ask anything of ourselves but it just makes us more successful in the world.
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: We always have the caricature of the guy on the street who's saying everyone's going to go to hell and if they don't repent, you're going to go to hell.
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: And so then we go.
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: Well, we don't want to be like that guy, and so the way we react to that is we don't tell the truth.
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: In the church, we have our own relativistic view of things too, and I think that one of the things that we saw in Argentina I was encouraged by some people there in Argentina because my job at the end of the shows was to explain the gospel that we had shown on stage.
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: You know, we do a very clear depiction of the death and resurrection of Jesus on the stage, and then they're saying so many people feel this darkness inside of them, so many people feel guilty for the things that they have done, and they don't have a way to deal with it.
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: That's why they're so anxious, that's why there's so much suicide.
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: Tell them there's an answer to the darkness, and so I would talk about that.
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: I thought, yeah, I need to make sure that I'm doing that.
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: So I talked about the evil inside of my own heart and how Jesus is the only remedy to that, that we can be forgiven for the bad things that we have done.
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: And we saw people responding like crazy to that message, and so I don't know if I'm off topic here, but I think that's what.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, again, I think the prevalence of this in culture to me actually makes a ton of sense, right, because I think you'll see historically moments where atheism or sort of hardcore materialism becomes popular.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: I think you saw that post 9-11, because a lot of people saw what they thought was, you know, the Well, not just what they thought the evil of religion, the evil of what religion can do.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: And there was this intellectual movement that rose up to sort of mock and castigate Christianity and Islam and all religion as sort of nefarious human inventions that oppress and destroy and are evil.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: But I think it's really unlivable in the end of the day, right, pure materialism is so unlivable ultimately, if you think that I'm just an accident, there's no purpose to my life, everything is a social construct, I just burn up and eat death, that nothing I do really ultimately matters.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: I would say it's probably more natural for a human being that doesn't truly have a revelation of who Jesus is to kind of live in that more neutral space where it's like there must be something.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: But when that desire to know that something butts up against the sort of infringement on moral or lifestyle autonomy, that's when the kind of the mind subconsciously or consciously says all right here, but no further.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: Right, like, I want to go to the edge of the boundary where I can have that spiritual transcendence and I don't have to buy the nihilism of pure materialism.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: But as soon as it gets to that border where it starts to infringe on what I want to do and who I want to be, it's to there and no further.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: So culturally, I think it actually makes a lot of sense.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: And so I don't know, I think we should dig into Chad.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: I thought it was really interesting how you challenged that friend of yours to kind of go further.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Is that just what we're missing?
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: Is that sort of a recognition of why people are in that position makes a lot of sense, and then it's just the ability to challenge people to consider who Jesus is.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Again back to the original premise of this podcast episode.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: How do we take people from that vague spirituality to a specific understanding of who Jesus is?
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: I think that's a really important takeaway, like practical one.
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: I was thinking that when I was listening to the interview you sent us, ben, with Andrew sharing, I was just thinking, despite the challenges of some of the mindset behind it that we've pointed out already, how do we get there?
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: That's a huge opportunity.
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: Here's somebody who wants to talk, and I think one of the things about where culture's at today is because of the whole idea of oh, you shouldn't push it on other people, you shouldn't talk about it.
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: It's people never actually have the chance to talk a lot about it.
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: I thought it was really interesting in the interview at one point Andrew, thanks for being asked.
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: He's like thank you for asking me about that, and I think that is how people tend to feel.
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: When they get to have a good conversation about spiritual things, about who God is and about faith, they're thankful because they don't usually get that opportunity.
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: So I'd say that's a really important first step.
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: When you're having a conversation like that with somebody, you notice that they're searching, God is revealing himself to them.
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: They've got a certain part of the way.
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: The first thing I want to do is I want to draw that out.
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: I want to ask questions and say tell me more, explain to me how you see God or how did you come to this?
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: How did you get to where you're at?
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: Because even in just sharing, people start discovering more because they just don't have the chance to talk about it and the moment they start talking, they start discovering more.
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: Oh, you know, maybe that's true or maybe there's more to this and it opens them up.
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: And then I think, once you've listened, you then have an opportunity to share how you see it, and people are very respectful of that.
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: They're like oh, thank you for listening to me.
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: I'd like to hear what you think about all of this.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: I overwhelmingly have experienced that people are hungry for those spiritual conversations.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, I've mentioned this before, but we'd have these focus groups with university students here in my city and they wouldn't want to leave when it was over.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: It's like they so craved these kinds of relationships and these kinds of connections and conversations, even if they didn't realize it.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: Commenting a little bit on what you said, david, you mentioned the idea of what the church is doing or not doing to address this problem and while I don't disagree on some levels that there are certainly churches that are not well, I would say there's a huge lack of preaching in general.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: But I think the problem is the church is just teaching the Bible.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: The good churches are, they're trying to teach the Bible.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: They already start with the assumption that God is real, that all of the things we believe about Judeo-Christianity are true, and then they're trying to teach things that would help us to live faithfully and obey Jesus, to cultivate spiritual disciplines and to understand what he wants from us, etc.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: Etc.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: Where I think we're not as good is in that middle space.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: It's like we have this very primitive understanding of evangelism, which is the guy on the side of the street or these tracks or these kind of rote for spiritual laws, and then we invest a lot of time and energy how to teach the Bible and how to obey God, but it's those subtle, bold but relevant, as you said, approaches for how to draw out someone from that spiritual ambiguity to something more clear that I think that's the biggest area of lack is how do we ask good questions or how do we even navigate someone saying to us well, yeah, that's cool for you, but I'm really not into anything specific, I'm just into spirituality in general.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: When we were in Argentina, I was talking to a guy it was the last show of the tour and it had been an amazing tour thousands of people, great conversations, and I was super tired.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: The show for me is very draining and my translator was always in a good way, kind of always on me right there at the side of the stage, like let's go, let's go, and I was always like could you just give me some space?
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: Accountability partner.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: Really without.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: Probably she doesn't even really realize it, but she was that for me without even realizing it.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: But I tried to have a couple of conversations and it was.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: They weren't that great, they weren't going anywhere and in my head I was like I'm out, sweet tours over, I've had plenty of good conversations, all my boxes are checked.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: I'm out and as I'm leaving I catch this guy in the corner of my eye, cool looking dude, and he's kind of standing there not talking to anyone but not leaving.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: You know that vibe where it's.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: I could tell the dude wants to talk.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: No one has come and talked to him yet and I'm like all right, god, one more conversation, one more.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: So I go up to the dude.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: Let's call him Matt.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: I'm also with you on that chat.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: I try not to use names just to maintain the.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: I don't know, it's just a vulnerable thing when someone shares that way.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: But so the guy's name is Matt, let's call him Matt.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: And he's you know, I'm like what do you think of the show?
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: And he's like man, I do theater, like I put on performances and I love your show.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: And he's like it's not just the show but the fact that you're trying to help people through your show.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: And so I'm like, oh man, this is going to be a good conversation.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: So I said well, what'd you think about our message?
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: And he said well, you know, I'm spiritually open, you know, but I think everyone kind of believes the same thing, and it's not really one thing, it's all things.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: And I said you know, let me ask you a question.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: I said don't you believe that what we long for most, that what every person wants, is deep friendship, deep connection?
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: And he said, yeah, yeah, I really believe that.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: And I said isn't that especially true when life gets really hard, like when you're going through something or you're suffering in some way, or you're, you know, just experiencing hardship, suffering?
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: And he said, yeah.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: I said, man, in those times, you're going to want to know this thing, You're going to want to have a relationship with the creator.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: It's not going to be enough to have a concept or an idea or a religion.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: I said you're going to want to be able to fall into the arms of the one who made you.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: You're going to want someone who knows you, who loves you, who you can know like a friend.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: I said this is who Jesus is and I explained how he came to the earth, how he is with people, how he cared, how he knows us.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: And I said do you want this?
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: And he said I can feel what you're saying.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: That's what he said to me.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: He said I can feel what you're saying.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: I said let's pray right now that Jesus would come into your life and that you could know him like a friend, the way I do.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: I said yeah, and so I pray with this guy, matt, right there last show, last conversation, and we pray together that he would meet Jesus like a friend.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: And I'm not saying that it was my perfect approach or my perfect technique, but I do think that I read or heard Tim Keller talk about that exact idea that some sort of spiritual entity or concept is not going to hold your hand when you're suffering, that you need the real thing, you need a relationship.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: And I learned that, I absorbed that and I applied that in this conversation and I think it was a crucial part of opening his eyes and his heart for the Holy Spirit then to reveal himself and for him to be willing to surrender his life.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: So I think it's that learning and that skill and that practice that I think we could really I could use more of.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: We could all use more of, I think.
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: But I also think, ben, it's about how it says in 1 Corinthians 420, the kingdom of God is not talked, but power, absolutely, of course.
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: And we saw over and over again people would say when I saw your show, which is the gospel, they started to shake, they didn't know why.
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: They would say things like I felt this power.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: They'd say my skin started to tingle, I talked to a guy who said my whole life I've hated myself.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: When I saw this show it was the first time I think I've ever experienced love, and that was just watching the show.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: Right, right.
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: Or a guy came and he said I came here, I just heard there's this foreign band, so I just came to check it out, and now I'm leaving here a different person the person that's leaving is not the person that came and this is supernatural stuff and I think we need to share the whole gospel with people.
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: Now, I don't think it's about we need to see how open people are, how far they're ready to go, but I think we need to be careful not to just tell half the story, because a big part of what people are feeling today which I said in the beginning is they're feeling the darkness, they're feeling the brokenness, they're broken inside.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: But, david, I think you've done this for so long and you've had so many of these kinds of conversations, I don't think you maybe even realize the skill that you've accumulated in expressing the gospel to someone in a way that makes sense, and I'm not.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: It's a weird interchange, right?
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: The mysterious nature of how God works and our methods, and clearly it's not about perfect wording and blah, blah, blah, blah and all that.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: But don't you think, guys, that there is a skill in knowing how to ask good questions and communicate things in a way that really resonates with the kind of person that believes in this sort of spiritual ambiguity with a lack of definition?
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, totally.
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: But I think what David is talking about and what he's always done and I've observed it over many years is just, instead of repeating certain words that we use in church to explain stuff, or even biblical words that just aren't used nowadays, but with a biblical language, and he's always thought it through again, like okay, how would I say that today?
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: And it's a simple practice or exercise to do that helps you get out of that box and go.
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: Let me try.
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: You're just thinking about the person you're talking to, like how, how can I say it in a way they'll understand?
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: I mean, even just now, when you're telling this, explaining the show and how you communicate the message, you said something that refreshed for me again, like which was how you explain sin.
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: You know, and that's that's such an important, specific thing we need to explain about the Gospel, and the only reason why it makes sense to think about Jesus is is is that nothing else resolves my sin.
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: That's what makes him different to everything else.
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: You know it's.
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: Jesus isn't just giving me a good life or peace and well-being, he's forgiving me of my sins.
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: Nothing else can do that.
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: And you and you put it.
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: You know you talked about.
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: There's a darkness inside of me and a guilt that I don't know what to do with, and and how do I solve that?
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: You know, just trying to put it in words like that that people can relate to is the key here, and maybe, maybe one of the big points you guys are making in all of this is that in these conversations that are more and more common today, it's our job to get specific.
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: People won't start there, but they'll get there.
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: And even though there's that darkness that I'm aware of and that God loves me that's what makes God's love so incredible is that I don't have to hide from him.
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: I don't have to.
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: He sees everything you know, and he still loves me.
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: That's the cross, that's what's so amazing.
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: But if we don't find a way to talk about sin and I don't, I you know like I try to put it in language that people understand what I mean, so they don't just get this religious connotation in their head.
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: But I don't think.
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: I don't think we can.
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: If we're not telling people about the darkness inside and that Jesus is the remedy, I think we're just going to give them a kind of Christianity.
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: That's not the.
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: I came here one way.
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: I'm leaving here a different way.
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: I think that's what we need.
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: It's like the guy who was on tour with us.
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: He came to the first show.
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: God totally rocked him.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: He came to every show, brought his friends.
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: They came to Jesus.
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: He got baptized in the bathtub of one of the places, the community house in Buenos Aires.
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: His whole life completely revolutionized.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: Again, there's going to be resistance, there's going to be backlash, there's going to be people who reject us, just like they rejected Jesus.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: But even the concept of sin.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: You hear Andrew Huberman talk about it.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: He's talking about how I couldn't deal with some of these things in my life.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: I couldn't seem to fix it, I couldn't seem to change it.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: I think people are more aware of their imperfections and their need for help.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: Then we might think I think people are aware they know they're not perfect.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: If I say, when I'm talking to someone after the show and I say you know, no matter what, you know the pills and governments and creams and policies, and we can't seem to fix the world and I can't seem to fix myself, we need help.
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: I don't have anyone go whoa, whoa, whoa.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the world's messed up, but I'm perfect.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: Almost everyone goes yeah, you're right, I do things to hurt myself, I do things to hurt other people and no matter what I do, I can't seem to fix it.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: So it's about learning how to speak to that boldly, but with love and sensitivity, and then let the Holy Spirit do the rest.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: And, like you said, it's not a formula.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: But again and I know we got it.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: We're going to wrap this conversation up, don't you worry people, but in that key conversation that I had, it was him saying I feel what you're saying is true.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: That is the part I have absolutely no control over, because he could have just as easily said huh, interesting, I'm going to go over here now.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: Right, and it was that the Holy Spirit decided to work through my words and reveal to him that what I was saying was more than words, but true, and that's, I think, why he was willing to make that decision and receive Jesus.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: So there's always the Holy Spirit needing to work through us, but there's a skill.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: You see that throughout the Bible and Paul, jesus and others, and I think that's what we're all trying to say and that's it.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes.
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: And we could need to maybe continue this conversation on our next podcast.
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: But I have to go, and so do you All right.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: Well, that's it.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: A little bit of an abrupt ending.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: Hope you enjoyed this podcast.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: Leave us your comments.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: Leave us your thoughts.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: Have you had conversations like this?
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: Are there people in your life who have that sort of open closed paradox that we're talking about?
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: We'd love to hear from you.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: We will dig into this more if need be.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: Otherwise, leave us a rating and review on this content, because that helps spread the word.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: And have a Merry Christmas Everyone you know.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: Try to be nice.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: That's it Got to go, peace.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to the Provoke and Inspire podcast.
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: If you enjoy this content, consider leaving us a rating and a review on iTunes.
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: Got questions for the guys?
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: Send them to provokeandinspireatsteigerorg.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.