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The Genius of Jesus || Peter J. Williams || SLP491 · The Speak Life Podcast

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and thank you for downloading the Speak Life Podcast, episode 491.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Thomas Thorogood, media producer at Speak Life, and in this episode you will hear a conversation that Glenn had with Peter J.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Williams from Tyndale House, Cambridge, and his new book, The Surprising Genius of Jesus, What the Gospels Reveal About the Greatest Teacher.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: So this conversation focuses in particular on the parable of the prodigal son and the storytelling genius that we see displayed in that story.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Such a short story, it takes minutes to read, and yet every word counts.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna enjoy this.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: Peter, why don't you uh introduce yourself to us?
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so my name's uh Peter Williams, Peter J.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: Williams, Dr.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Peter J.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: Williams, if you prefer.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and I'm principal of Tyndall House in Cambridge, which is a Bible research center, looking to do high-level Bible research and uh equip ordinary people to understand and have confidence in the Bible.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: Fantastic.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: And you've just written uh a great book called The Surprising Genius of Jesus.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I want you to uh tell us a little bit about why it surprises anybody that Jesus could be called a genius.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: Whether you're inside the church or outside the church, different people are surprised for different reasons for calling uh Jesus a genius.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_02: Why are they surprised?
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think often people think maybe Jesus was a smart peasant, simple carpenter, and so smart as in quick-witted, but they don't really think of him as uh an intellect.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: Or if you're a Christian, you think, well, he's God, he knows everything.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but then you don't expect his words to contain things that you can analyze as signs of remarkable intellectual intelligence as well as emotional intelligence.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's what we've got.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: We've got within Jesus' words, uh signs of cleverness which uh rank higher than any of the people we might call genius today.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_02: And that's sort of your working definition of genius that he's uh a a cleverness that is surprising, that is uh uh above average and well, mu way above average.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh at a sort of global leading uh level where you would say someone should go in down in history, a bit like Einstein or Leonardo da Vinci have gone down in history as people of remarkable cleverness.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um Jesus surpasses that.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: The genius of geniuses, okay.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: And um one of the ways that you're going to try and um talk about the genius of Jesus, I guess you you could have chosen lots of different routes, but you've you've chosen to talk about his storytelling, and in particular to talk about Luke chapter 15 as a a a grand example of that genius.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: Why did you choose storytelling?
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_02: Why did you choose Luke 15?
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I I'd come across his storytelling because I've been teaching interactively in different settings internationally, his story of the two sons, sometimes called the story of the prodigal son from Luke 15.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: I found that works really well uh with a group to introduce people uh to that.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so I thought I had some things to share about that.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's also his longest story, it's only three minutes long, but in that three minutes he packs in an incredible amount uh and really off the chart in terms of uh the the things that are in there.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: Should we have a look at Luke 15 together?
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I'd love you to sort of draw out some of the some of the genius of the storytelling.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: We'll take it in stages as the story kind of starts on a high and goes down to a low, and then there's a uh there's a denouement at the end.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um so it's in Luke chapter 15, Jesus is telling three different parables about things that are lost.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: Uh first of all, there's a lost coin, uh sorry, a lost sheep.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_02: Uh one out of a hundred sheep gets lost, and the and the shepherd goes and finds it, and then there's a lost coin, one out of ten coins gets lost, and a woman finds it.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: And then we have uh the parable of the two sons, starting in Luke 15, verse eleven.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Jesus continued, There was a man who had two sons.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: The younger one said to his father, Father, give me my share of the estate.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_02: So he divided his property between them.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country, and there squandered his wealth in wild living.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country who f who sent him to his fields to feed pigs.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_02: He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_02: So, what speaks to you here about the genius of Jesus?
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there's so much.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: I want to start with the audience.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: Luke says you've got an audience made up of two groups of two.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so on the one hand, there's tax collectors and sinners, tax collectors collecting money for the Romans, not interested in the Bible, sinners interested in sin, not the Bible, and then on the other hand, Pharisees studying the Bible so they can avoid sin, and uh scribes who spend their time copying out the Bible by hand.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: So you've got it, in a sense, a mixed ability group.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: Some people know the Bible, some people don't.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus tells a story that will work if you don't know any of the Bible and will work in deeper ways also if you do.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: So when he says a man had two sons, if you know the Bible, that can trigger thoughts of Adam, who had two sons initially, uh, and how the older son uh associated with the field is envious of the younger brother who looks after uh livestock and that results in murder by the conflict.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: Cain and Abel.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: It can remind you of Abraham, who is like the father in this story, ultimate father figure, first person in the Bible who runs.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: He's an old man when he runs, like the father in this story.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: First word out of his mouth when he runs in Genesis 18 is the word quick, like the father in this story.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: He had two sons initially, and he's the only other father who gave away his inheritance while he's still alive.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: So there's lots of similarities there.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: But mostly it reminds you of Isaac, who's the man in the Old Testament who's most famous for having two and only two sons, and of course, the younger one, Jacob, chicks chicks the older one, Esau, out of his inheritance.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: Older brother's therefore angry, younger brother has to go into a far country, feed animals.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: He comes back, and stunningly, in the Old Testament, when you're expecting Esau to be really angry, he actually runs, embraces, and kisses his brother, who's cheated him out of everything, just like the father in this story.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a sort of point there that if bad old Esau can forgive his brother who tricked him out of everything, this older brother has no reason for anger.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: And that's just really in the first few words.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: Then you see that uh he divides his property between them.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: People often miss that, that the father uh is a fair father and makes sure the older brother does very well, and probably does far better than the younger son out of uh this deal.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: Then the younger son goes into a far country, and we're going to see that he um the words near and far are used in strategic ways in this story, so that the younger son's distance is the opposite from his emotional distance.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: And we've seen that already with the use of the word father.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: Very first word from the younger son's mouth is father.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: All three times in this story, he addresses his father, once in his mind, twice out loud.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: His first word is father, and shows that proximity.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: Later in the story, when the older brother addresses his father, he doesn't use that word.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: He just says, Look, all these years I've been slaving for you.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: He's really angry.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: So older brother is close but emotionally far away.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: Younger brother is um uh uh far away physically, most of the story, and yet emotionally closer.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Jesus doesn't spend waste time telling you how he wastes the money, uh, because that's not an interesting bit of the story.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: And then we find that he's brought really low, uh, and that's great if you're a Pharisee.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: You're thinking this story is going really well because he's getting what he deserves.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: He has to feed pigs, that feeds uh that that that uh gives you a sense that he's getting his comeuppance.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: They're uh unclean animals, it's a low job.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: And all of that is while he's working for a citizen uh in this far country.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that rubs in that he's not a citizen.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: He's working in the guy's fields, telling you even the use of that plural uh just rubs in the guy's wealth.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um and you can see what a terrible situation he's in.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so this is all just brilliantly told.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: Every word counts.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: This is the low point.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, I I I guess we have the story clock nowadays, which is often based on sort of Jung, who is picked up by Joseph Campbell and talking about the hero's journey.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_02: And we we've all learnt now that sort of you know, stories take this shape, but Jesus absolutely plums the depths here.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: We are now we've we've gone from the father's house to the pigsty, and here's a bit of a turning point in verse 17.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: Uh when the younger son came to his senses, or came to himself, he said, How many of my father's hired servants have food to spare?
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: And here I am starving to death.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: I will set out and go back to my father and say to him, Father, I've sinned against heaven and against you, I am no longer worthy to be called your son.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_02: Make me like one of your hired servants.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_02: So he got up and went to his father.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: So what what are we thinking about in these verses?
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's interesting again that he's using this word father.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's interesting that um he does this turning point in the story by going to a soliloquy where the person addresses himself.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: So you're actually shown right inside his mind, and you're given the impression of a very generous father who overpays his um daily servants, gives them more than the minimum wage, they've got stuff uh left over.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you're given the whole speech that he prepares later in the story, he's only going to get to deliver part of that because the father's going to interrupt him.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: So that's all um uh brilliantly uh done.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: And we also see that he's prepared to work for his father.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um as far as the older brother's going to be concerned later in the story, uh, he's going to be a freeloader living off uh the older brother's largesse.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: He's rather upset by that.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: But we actually know that this guy is going to more than pay for himself uh when he comes back.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: So all of this is is brilliantly done.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: So there he is.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_02: We can imagine him kind of practicing his sorry spiel on his way back home to the homestead.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: But uh halfway through verse 20, while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: He ran to him, threw his arms around him, and kissed him.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: The son said to him, Father, I've sinned against heaven and against you, I am no longer worthy to be called your son.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: But the father said to his servants, Quick, bring the best robe and put it on him.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet, bring the fattened calf and kill it.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_02: Let's have a feast and celebrate.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_02: For this son of mine was dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_02: So they began to celebrate.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: What are we thinking about here?
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: Well, again, that there's so much uh there.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: You're expecting, uh, if you've not heard this story before, um, that the father should be angry, he should be upset, um, and yet we see he's filled with compassion.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um The Father spots him afar off, no one else sees him.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: So without telling us that the father's constantly scanning the horizon, uh Jesus implies that, which again is very clever part of storytelling, not to feel you need to make everything explicit.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: When it says he runs, embraced, and kissed him, again, there's only one text in the entire Old Testament when that happens, and that is actually when Esau, who had been cheated out of his entire inheritance, ran embraced and kissed uh his younger brother Jacob in Genesis 33, verse 4.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: So a scribe would know that.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: It was actually part of their scribal training to know uh that particular verse.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then we see the younger son addresses him as father, so full of respect.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: And the father never says a word to the younger son.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, in this whole story, he doesn't need to say any words.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, his first words are to the servants who are implied to be there without it needing to say that they're there.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: Very first word is quick.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: So you get this change of pace, uh, this rush going on after you've had many years that the son has been away.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh now there's no time to waste.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: That first word, quick, is of course the very first word from Abraham's mouth in Genesis 18, verse 6, after he's run.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: He then says, quick, go and get the fatted calf.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's what happens also in Genesis 18, where Abraham shows himself to be the first host in the Bible and does a really good uh job of that.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: He asks for a ring and a robe.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: That happens in Genesis 41, where Pharaoh um bringing Joseph out of prison suddenly gives him a ring and a robe.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: Then the father says, This my son was dead and alive again, lost and found.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the only other son in the Bible who was dead and alive again in the father's eyes is Joseph himself.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: That happened at the time of great famine, as at this time.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: All of those things come together.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: So this is this story reminds you of um Adam, of Abraham, of Isaac, Jacob and Esau and Joseph, um, just on those things, as well as many other echoes.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: So Jesus is pulling together all of Genesis's greatest hits within this story and making lots of points uh through that.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: And then you get how this my son was dead and alive again.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's going to be uh echoed again at the end of the story when he says to the older brother who's denying relationship with his younger brother, this your brother was dead and is alive again, was lost and is found.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: So these two sort of choruses at two points in the story uh rub in the relationship.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to claim relationship with a father, you have to acknowledge your brother.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: What do you make of the there is another allusion with um father, I've sinned against heaven and against you.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_02: Am I am I right in saying that that is actually what Pharaoh said to Moses when he wanted the plagues to stop?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_02: I've sinned before God and before you.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: Please stop the plagues.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_02: And yet that's that kind of repentance lasted a matter of hours in in Pharaoh's case.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: Is there is there any sense in which um the the younger son, you know, his his repentance, I'm sure, to some degree is heartfelt, but is there is there any sense as well in which you know he just wants to be a servant?
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_02: He just wants to get back with his dad, and so he'll say what he wants to say.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: So in the book of Exodus, Moses is the good guy, Pharaoh's the bad guy.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um and here we have the younger brother, when the phrase is used for his inher uh his repentance, it's just like Pharaoh, uh, who didn't have sincere repentance.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: Then when the older brother comes, he hears music and dancing, gets angry, and there's a calf there, that reminds you of Moses, the lawgiver, coming down the mountain when there's the golden calf.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're like the older brothers just like Moses and the younger brothers just like Pharaoh, so you're expecting um Pharaoh uh should be the bad guy and Moses should be the good guy.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: But of course, it's all been turned on its head in this story uh because the older brothers are thinking of themselves as good, but actually they break the law.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: And uh this fits very well with a sequence of three stories, because the story of the lost sheep parallels a rabbinic story about where Moses goes and finds the lost uh sheep.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: The story of the lost coin parallels a rabbinic story where losing a coin is like losing the law.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so what you're finding is this theme about Moses and the law running through all three of these stories and really upsetting the categories that uh scribes and Pharisees might have had.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it's a it's a brilliant touch.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: And it's a brilliant story as well, in its own right, um, because there would be a way of making allusions to all these Old Testament texts and losing the sense of story.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but this this is a uh a beautiful story that has has made millions of people weep down through the years.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um I remember preaching on this at a little chapel service in uh an old people's home in Eastbourne.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_02: It's not only old people's homes in Eastbourne, but that is what Eastbourne is kind of known for.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I kind of went in there to to hold a communion service and just a little seven-minute homily on Luke chapter 17, uh Luke chapter 15.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_02: And for some reason, um uh a 19-year-old German girl was there.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: She was visiting her grandfather, but she was clearly far from home, and she just sort of popped in at the back.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I just sort of read through the story.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't have much time to do anything more than that, and just sort of said, however, far from home you are, whatever you've done, whoever you are, join the joy.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_02: There's a place for you at this table.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_02: And she was just in floods of tears.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, just just hearing the simplest of stories, and and it's there's not just a genius in knowing the Old Testament so well, there's a genius in knowing people so well that a story can connect with a German girl two thousand years later.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's I mean, the emotional intelligence in this story is is huge, and the the simplicity of it.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: So often when people are making literary references, uh it can be a bit clunky, it can feel artificial, and here the story works if you don't spot any of that.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: It also works if you spot lots of it.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and that's really clever.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, really.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_02: What struck me about that that time when I preached that week on Luke 15, I also preached on Luke 15 the same week uh at a a lunchtime concert, and so in in our church, all souls eastbourne, we would host these sort of lunchtime concerts in which people would come and sing light operetta and Gilbert and Sullivan and things, and the curate would get up and and give a lovely blessed word um in the interval.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was doing the God slot, and I I just opened with um with my text being Luke chapter 15, I said, Who's easier to get into heaven, a good person or a bad person?
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously a bad person.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_02: And if you want proof of that, here's the most famous story Jesus ever told.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: In the beginning there was a goody and a baddie son.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and at the end of the story, uh, the the baddie son is in the is in the feast that represents heaven.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_02: And the goody son is shut outside with weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_02: And and of course, how how is this sort of being received by the great and the good of Eastbourne in their Twin Set and Pearls Come to Hear Light Operetta?
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it got to the stage where halfway through my my little talk, uh a woman in the audience actually heckled me.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_02: And she said to her neighbor in a very loud voice, it echoed around the church.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_02: She said, I suppose we should all just become bad then.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um it sort of it stops the talk.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_02: And uh and then I said to her, Well, I guess the the lesson of this story is you don't have to become bad, do you?
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um because we haven't talked about the second son.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um we often we often get to this stage in the parable of the prodigal son.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_02: We even name it the parable of the prodigal son, and we finish with the the the younger son being embraced by the father, and we forget um all this meaty stuff from verse twenty-five.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_02: So let's have a look at verse twenty five and I'll I'll get your comments on it, Peter.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: Verse twenty five.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: Meanwhile, the older son was in the field.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_02: When he came near the house he heard music and dancing.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_02: So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_02: Your brother has come, he replied, and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: The older brother became angry and refused to go in.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_02: So his father went out and pleaded with him.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_02: But he answered his father, Look, all these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders, yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_02: But when this son of yours, who has squandered your property with prostitutes, comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_02: My fa my son, the father said, You are always with me, and everything I have is yours, but we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_02: He was lost and is found.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_02: Dynamite.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_02: Take us through the dynamite.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so um the older brothers in the field.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: Again, Jesus is a good storyteller.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't need to tell you what he's doing in the field, but it strongly implies he's working, he's working late, he's working when other people are at the party.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: It then has him draw near.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's a powerful thing because he's got physical proximity.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: You we've already had far off, far country, older uh a father seeing a far off.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: He's physically close, he hears the music and dancing.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: We've already talked about that a bit like uh Moses.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um he calls one of the servants, then the servants in verse 27 gives an absolute deadpan, factual answer about your brother's come back, that's why there is a feast on.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: There isn't any sign of emotion in this, either positively or negatively, it's just fact.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's brilliant to bring into relief the older brother's emotional reaction, his anger, and the father's dead and alive again emotional answer.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: So, again, the emotional intelligence of the storyteller in knowing how to portray different um engagement here.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: The older brother then is angry.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: That's what the father should have been at all the waste of his money.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he refuses to go in, so it's like he's not going into a party, then he's immediately going to complain about.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: How he's not allowed a party.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: He misses out the word father.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: Look, all these years I've been slaving for you.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, no, you've been working on your own farm because it was given to you right at the beginning.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: You should have been eternally grateful to your younger brother for asking Dad the difficult question and you getting an advance on your inheritance.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: So you've done really well.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: Slaving for you.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: Now you've been building up your own farm.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I never transgressed your command.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: That sounds like plausible at a sort of uh superficial level.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: He's seeing dad as mean and operating by commands.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you never gave me a young goat.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, he gave you the entire farm.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that I could celebrate with my friends.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: What is this?
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: A vegetarian farm where you don't get any goat and you're not allowed your friends around.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: Hang on, it's your own farm.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: So all of that's completely implausible.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a use of the word celebrate.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the shepherd celebrated this chapter, the woman celebrated, the older, the father's celebrating.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's all about celebration, but he's wanting a celebration with young goats, which is less good than calf, and his friends, but crucially, having meat with his dad doesn't count.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: He actually wants his dad a he wants to have a celebration away from his dad.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: So that's all implied in there.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: Then he says, but when this son of yours, so he's disowning Brotherhood, um, who's devoured your livelihood with prostitutes, hang on, you're just in from the field, you haven't even spoken to him.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: How do you know his biggest expense?
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: He's not been sending you postcards from the brothel, has he?
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: He devoured your livelihood.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, most of the father's uh work is still there, the farm's still there.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you killed the fat and calf for him, as if he can eat an entire 400 portions of meat himself.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that's just there.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: Then the father responds, child, calm, you're always with me, which is absolutely correct.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: There's that sort of proximity uh there.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: Everything that's mine is yours.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: Factually, legally correct, he's given everything to the younger, to the older son.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: But we had to celebrate.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: And this is the necessity of celebration, moral necessity of celebration, because this your brother, so affirming the relationship, was uh lost and is found, is dead, uh dead and alive again lost and found.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so there you have um an open invitation.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: The story doesn't tell you how the older brother responds, it's got a missing ending.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, because it could be saying, Well, you could come in and celebrate, or he stays out and loses out.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't tell you uh what uh happens, but the war warm-up stories of the um sheep lost going away and the coin lost at home, and then we have a story of a younger son lost going away, then implies by the principles of Sudoku that uh the way we should fill in the story is if this older brother uh comes in, there will be celebration, there will be joy.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, perfect balance between the stories initially, Lost Sheep, Lost Coin, where uh someone goes and seeks, and then these this final story where the uh brother returns, uh the younger brother returns, and the older brother's invited in.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: Perfect balance between God seeking and actually a challenge to us to respond.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I think all of that is is there in this story.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_02: In such an economy of words and yeah, telling an emotional story that that shocks the the you know the pensioners of Eastbourne 2,000 years later as much as much as it would.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: It translates anywhere.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: Hi folks, it's Thomas Thoroughgood here, media producer at Speak Life.
• 25:49
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• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's part of my job to think of how we can include you more in the work of Speak Life and bring you behind the scenes, if you will.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so we have a very exciting thing called the Speak Life Discord server.
• 26:05
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• 26:10
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• 26:16
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• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, back to the podcast.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: And do you think, I mean, it is a bit of a cliffhanger ending, um, but it's very deliberate that at the end of the story, um, who who knows what happens next minute, next day, but as the story, as the curtain falls on this story, the younger son is in the feast, which throughout Luke's gospel is heaven, and the older son is outside the feast with weeping and wailing and the angry gnashing of teeth, which is every way Jesus describes hell in the gospels.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_02: Is it meant to come home with that kind of power?
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so something's got to change uh in the older brother.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: He is currently angry, it doesn't say his anger subsides, so he has to get over his anger and he has to accept his brother.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: That is crucial.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: If he's still gonna say, This son of yours, there cannot be celebration.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it's the same principle, by the way, in the next chapter, which is the story of the temporarily rich man and Lazarus, where um if uh the the uh man who was rich for a while doesn't accept Lazarus as his brother, he can't have Abraham as his father.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, that's again the message that's coming through, really clear.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: And therefore, if you're a Pharisee and a scribe and you think that sinners and tax collectors can't come to God, sorry, that's where you get disinherited.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that's that's where the relationship with the father is broken.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_02: And as Luke's gospel continues, if if the older brother sort of represents the scribes and Pharisees and the younger brother represents the sort of the sinners and the and the tax collectors, really, I mean, one one way the story might go is that the older brother picks up the shovel and bashes his old man to death, mightn't it?
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_02: Because you know what who who is it who ends up killing Jesus?
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the man who eats with sinners and and uh who welcomes sinners and eats with them.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: They it's it's the moralists who and who end up handing him over to Caesar.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: So it it's a a very deep challenge, and again you get that at the end of Luke 16, uh, where they're not going to believe unless uh even if someone rises from the dead, obviously uh Jesus did rise from the dead, and people are challenged in Luke 16 that need to respond to the scriptures rather than waiting for a miracle.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_02: And on the point of of who the characters are representing, I I often teach quite straightforwardly that if Jesus is in Luke chapter uh fifteen verses one and two, if he is the man who welcomes tax collectors and sinners and and eats with them, while the Pharisees and scribes grumble, he then tells a story in which you you have that younger brother type being welcomed and and and a man eats with them while the Pharisee type grumbles, that just very straightforwardly Jesus.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_02: I I I teach, you know, the father is basically representing Jesus quite quite straightforwardly as as the man who welcomes sinners and eats with them.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_02: But I often I I often don't don't get a lot of agreement on that.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_02: What do you what do you think?
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that equative uh uh approach to parables where we say this is that, have biblical justification because in Matthew chapter 13 uh Jesus goes through one of his parables and says this equals that, this equals that.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um on the other hand, I don't want to exhaust the parable.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it um it has so many layers, so many echoes.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: So um obviously God is described as a father uh in uh scripture, and there is something about uh this figure who reminds you of God the Father's fatherhood.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: You might then say, well, you know, where is the son in the parable?
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: But you also see that this um father runs and welcomes, and uh there is something, uh Isaiah 9, where Christ is called uh uh the everlasting father, and uh we have uh evidence from Hebrews um uh 2 uh uh about um him having uh children.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: So uh as in it's perfectly possible for um someone to be both a son and a father.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: I am in that category.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: Many other people um are are in that category.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um so so that can also work, and of course, he's the one who who um, like the shepherd in the first story, uh, goes and uh seeks uh the lost.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that there's um room for that, but there's another side, and that is Esau runs, embraces, and kisses Jacob.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's what the father does.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so it is it raises the question: shouldn't the brother, the older brother, be the one running, embracing, and embracing his younger brother?
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he he's he's actually landed his entire inheritance early.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's pretty good.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: So he should be thinking, little bro, if ever you need any help, I'm there for you.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: He should be running, embracing, kissing.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so there is an invitation for us to be like the father, ourselves.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so if we've uh exclusively identified the father as God, we might well miss out on the challenge for us to act like that character.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's where seeing um this as deeply evocative, it's able to do um lots of things, uh that can uh that can really work.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so when we're looking at the work of Christ, uh we could say in a funny way, uh Christ is the one who moves and embraces, um Christ is the one who went into a far country, uh which was uncomfortable for him, and Christ is the one who never disobeyed his father's commands.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so there are um bits of all three characters uh which would align with him uh and his work.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um that may make us rather uncomfortable because uh it would be simple to sort of just download and say this character equals that.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I think we've seen Jesus do this elsewhere with the story of the good Samaritan, where we can make uh Christ align to some extent with the Samaritan, reaching across the boundaries, being the neighbor.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we can see Christ align uh with the innocent victim.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I don't have a problem with that sort of approach, and I think that gets round some of the things that say people like B.B.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: Warfield, a great guy, but um uh he he has a bit of a rant uh uh against people using this parable as a presentation of the gospel because he says, Well, look what is missing.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I think again, you can um if you put it in a wider framework, uh you you can see a lot there.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_02: And isn't it just a marker of the genius of Jesus that we're like having this conversation across the centuries and in enriching our own you know understanding of the gospel as we as we bring these different facets um to bear?
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_02: Before we uh move on from um this particular parable, just love you to reflect on has it also been your experience as it has been my experience?
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure I'm sure you've taught on this among Christians um uh many times, um the perhaps unsurprising affinity people feel with the older brother.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_02: And very often when I when I sort of preach on it, sort of people say, Oh, but you know, the poor the poor guy, he never got even a you know a a young goat to celebrate with his kids.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_02: And and just the the number of times I've sort of preached on this, maybe it's just an Eastbourne thing, but the number of times I preach on this and and people I I think it it is a very strong challenge to sort of a latent Phariseaism that might be might be in in all of us.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_02: Is is that your experience?
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_02: And if so, how do you minister into that context?
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yes, absolutely.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, it's a matter of perspective.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: So let's imagine um take the side of the older brother for a moment.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: He really should have his nose put out because he's been working late in the field that day, and no one actually thought of sending him an invite to the party.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: So other people knew.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, no messenger was sent.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: So, hey, that's really bad.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: But then back up a minute.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: This guy got given everything up front, and an older brother, at least in Israel, inherits double what anyone else inherits.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: And in most farming cultures, uh, you don't split up the farm into smaller sections, you actually give the older brother everything.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: He's actually been given every goat the farm possesses.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: He can't complain you never gave me a young goat unless there are lots of goats on the farm.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: So he actually owns every goat.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh, you know, my heart bleeds for him not getting an invite to the party.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: Hang on, just get some perspective.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: So, and this is a very powerful thing, because a lot of us who have huge privilege, myself included, we can find little things to whinge about, the little inconvenience.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then just get perspective on what you have.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think that's also part of it because these the Pharisees and scribes do have things to whinge about.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they're under the Romans.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: Having said that, uh, they're generally doing quite well.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they're not oppressed, they they might want to identify as oppressed, but that they really aren't.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: They are living pretty comfortable uh lives, um pretty safe lives, and so on.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I think again, it's a matter of perspective uh that someone can see themselves like that older brother having a hard time when really they're doing incredibly well.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, the speech that Jesus puts into the mouth of the father is just the ideal pastoral care for that person, isn't it?
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_02: Child, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours, but we had to celebrate and be glad because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again, he was lost and he's found.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's just perfect.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_02: Without a wasted word, economy of expression, concision, straight to the heart.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_02: Genius.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_02: Genius.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_02: So Yeah, absolutely.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_02: So so somebody says, All right, it's very, very clever.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_02: So what, Peter?
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um, where where does where does that get you?
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_01: If it's clever and it comes from Jesus, that that means Jesus is a person of note uh and uh you at the very minimum uh every human should be taking notice of things he says.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I would challenge anyone who hasn't been studying the things that Jesus says uh to go and do that.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I think there's no one better to learn from.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: And that's just as a very uh for starters.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um but I would say there's something off the charts in that there's no one who can tell stories like this.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: Now, yes, it's true that Dickens and Tolkien and others uh like to tell long stories, uh, but I don't know anyone who can tell a short story uh like this that packs quite as much in um and works at so many levels.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so therefore, uh Jesus is supreme, and it's not just that he tells a story, he actually his life itself makes a story.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_01: So just from historical documentation, we can say, isn't it remarkable that this great storyteller also dies at a time uh when uh he's at the capital of of um of this remarkable people group, the Jews, when they're celebrating their greatest deliverance, namely uh the Passover coming out of Egypt, and also uh that he um is reported to rise again uh after being dead.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's all remarkable, uh rather like in this story that he told where the son uh comes back uh from the dead as far as his father's concerned.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not just that he does that, it's that that is a bookend, uh his own story, to a story that begins at the beginning of the Bible, which clearly wasn't written by Christians.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_01: Go down to any synagogue, uh, find their first book of the Bible, Genesis, same as in any Christian Bible.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and uh the first uh story uh involving uh uh humans, basically, you get is this story of um taking fruit of the tree and death coming into the world, and then that's a sort of beginning of a story, it needs an end, and you don't get one anywhere in the old testament, but in the new testament, as Jesus comes along, you get this amazing story of him dying on a tree, across his a tree, it's not plain the wood made all smooth, and um and coming back to life and giving life through that.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: What an amazing bookend to what began in Genesis.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh the things about Jesus' life that are factually attested actually make a story being acted out over a vast period of time.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's incredible.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so to have a storyteller whose own life makes a story, again, that's just another remarkable thing about Jesus, of which there are very many.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_02: And you want people to go further with this.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_02: You you don't want people to simply say cool story, bro.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um you you want people to to take him seriously as as more than a storyteller, and and you you kind of mention the facts, and if people are interested in in the facts, what would you say to somebody who who says um to the degree that there is a great storyteller out there, I guess somebody had to be the greatest.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_02: Let's call it Jesus.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_02: Fine.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_02: But all this stuff about him being the Son of God and rising from the dead, um, who can who can believe that he he rises from the dead?
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_02: And um you've got you've got a great line in in your book where you you talk about Jesus' resurrection forms a part of the pattern and it's not an anomaly.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I guess maybe that goes back to some of the storytelling stuff.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus' resurrection forms part of a pattern, not an anomaly.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_01: There's a certain thing where someone tells you there's a UFO or there's a haunted house, where you feel what you're being presented with is something paranormal, something weird, uh, something that spoils the pattern of regularity that we see uh in life.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_01: And uh it can be a temptation to think that the Christian claim that Jesus rose from the dead is that sort of claim.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and Christians are saying, no, it's not that at all.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, we're saying when you look at everything about Jesus, there are many of these things that form a pattern.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_01: So um, we don't believe in miracles that do not form part of a signal pattern.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_01: So Christians are uh sorry, humans are very good at spotting signals, meaningful communications.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so the Christians claim that in the Bible, where you have miracles, they're not weird things, pixies, fairies, just you know, messing around with your normality.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_01: They're actually a set of things forming a signal pattern pointing to Jesus.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and so you don't judge them by the sort of probabilistic uh framework of saying, well, we've got naturalism where no miracles occur, and then I'm being asked to believe in an anomaly relative to that baseline naturalism.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_01: Rather, we're asking people to open their eyes to consider an entire new pattern, an entire new framework in which Jesus is the organizing principle of knowledge, he is the one who makes sense of the universe, and that's a very different sort of claim.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I think sometimes it can be tempting to look at is there a was there a resurrection of Jesus against a comparison with just sort of uh naturalism and materialism.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not telling people to do that.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm saying look at everything about Jesus and how it forms uh this pattern.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_01: So uh it's it's the miracles, it's the um stories, it's the uh amazing memes and sayings he has, it's the genealogy he has, it's the people group he comes from, it's the time that he dies, it's the missing body, uh, it's the resurrection appearances, it's the transformed lives of people saying they've seen him risen from the dead, it's the message that makes sense of the world, uh, it's the uh morality he stood for, all of those things together um that make meaning of life in a way that nothing else does.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_02: And that that brings me in mind of of two.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: Different scriptures.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_02: One is that in John's Gospel, whenever he mentions miracles, he actually calls them signs.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um that what is going on is not just a parlor trick and not just an anomaly, um, not just a freak occurrence, but something that points to the identity of Jesus, which is why the miracles of Jesus are not him rearranging the stars in the sky or making mountaintops blow their you know top and become volcanoes or something.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_02: It it is you know feeding the hungry and raising the dead and healing the sick.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um what's it pointing to?
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's pointing to the pattern of the Son of God coming to set the world to rights.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then the other scripture it brings to mind is is in 1 Corinthians 15, uh where where twice it's it talks about according to the scriptures.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_02: So he you know he died for our sins according to the scriptures, he was raised according to the scriptures, and and so again, even that supreme miracle is not just pointing to the fact that absurd stuff happens and and maybe naturalism isn't true, but it it it vindicates the story of life from the dead and you were lost and now you are found, you know.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_02: So tell us what you hope for this book for for both Christians and and for those who are looking in from the outside.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean I've written it so that uh I hope anyone who's not a Christian can engage with it and see lots of things there.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I also expect that uh numerous Christians may read it.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_01: For a Christian, I hope it shows them new depth in a story and in stories that they would feel familiar with that would encourage them to look even deeper.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I'd love them to uh just go away with a sense of awe at the person of Jesus.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_01: But I think exactly the same uh for anyone who's not a Christian, that they should go away with a sense of awe at the person of Jesus, and that it's really worth taking note of everything he says.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I love that.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, as as an evangelist, um, I'm always inspired by the evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_02: And and when I think, you know, what should I be doing as an evangelist?
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_02: Well, what what do they what do the original evangelists do?
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_02: They they portray the the genius of Jesus, the glory of Jesus, the attractiveness of Jesus in scriptural terms.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_02: And uh isn't that what we should all be doing?
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_02: What whatever part we we play in the in the witness of the church, it's it's just lifting up the person of Jesus, especially from the gospels and saying, uh Take a look.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_02: Take a look at him.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_02: So tell me, uh Peter, what's what's new at Tyndale House?
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_02: What are you getting excited about?
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, um, we are looking to um demolish our library and build a new one.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_01: We're looking for I'm still working on planning permission for that, but uh hopefully it would be an expansion of about three times the size because we are running out of space for books.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_01: So trying to run Britain's best library of the Bible and have people around the world uh come and study there, we are yeah, quite short of space.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_01: So uh that's an exciting thing we hope to happen in 2024, but we're not gonna twiddle our thumbs and just wait for a building to turn up.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_01: So uh we are actually uh trying to make sure we increase our communications, uh, our free magazine, the Inc.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_01: magazine, uh going out to places, and uh yeah, teams of speakers as well going out uh to places.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_01: So people should contact us if they want to um have activities in their area.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_02: Fantastic.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_02: How can they get in touch with you?
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I'm sure inquiries at tindelhouse.com will get through to the right person.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_02: Tyndalehouse.com.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_02: That'll be a great uh website for people to check out.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Peter, I hope this book uh goes far and wide and uh really opens eyes to the to the genius of Jesus.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_02: But uh thank you so much for joining us today.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.