Latest / How to Faith a Life Podcast with Faith Womack / This Pastor's Book Changed the Way I Read the Bible- Interviewing Andrew Wilson

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This Pastor's Book Changed the Way I Read the Bible- Interviewing Andrew Wilson · How to Faith a Life Podcast with Faith Womack

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: If you're listening to the How to Faith a Life podcast, where we wrestle with questions on how to live a life of faith, from everything from books to Bible studies, even Bible study tips.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: This is your place to wrestle with the hard questions and dive deep into what scripture really says for the Christian walk.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure you've subscribed to this podcast and your favorite podcast streaming services.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Review this podcast so other people can find it and share with other believers who want to ask the hard questions.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now, with all that said, let's begin.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Hi friends, and welcome back to the How to Faith a Life podcast.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Today we have a really special guest.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: I think you guys are probably squealing with me.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: We have been graced by the wonderful presence of Mr.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Andrew Wilson.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't know who he is, where have you been?
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Andrew is a teaching pastor at King's Church London.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: He has three kids and has degrees in history and theology from Cambridge and King's College London.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: He's a columnist for Christianity Today and has written several award-winning books.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Most recently, God of All Things, which you guys know I'm obsessed with.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: It is probably like the number one book I've recommended within the last year.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: I read it and instantly became obsessed with it.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think you guys can still see all the I dog ear my pages.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Andrew, I hope that doesn't um gross you.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: I saw your little video on it and I just thought it was really special.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, good.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I know I don't know.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: My book, my videos are very all over the place, and I'm kind of embarrassed, but I really I ate this up and I've reread portions of it over and over and over again, like the chapter on trees and things like that.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: I just love it.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Will you tell us a little bit more about your heart behind God of all things?
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I learned to I learned to preach um in kids' work um about 15, 20 years ago, and was taught every week we would have to preach to the children using three, we had three objects that we have we have every week have to do three object lessons.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: Take a thing, like a you know, here's a mug, and this is what it shows about God, and here's a book, and here's a pencil, and whatever it was.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: And we had to demonstrate the gospel using objects.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: I've always had that sort of, I was always trained to try and do that.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: But as I grew up, I I I kind of got hopefully a bit more, I don't know, mature or wise or certainly older.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: I started thinking this isn't just a way of making plain biblical truths using illustrations, it's also a way of explaining the world with reference to the Bible rather than just the Bible by referring to the world.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: And that what people often, particularly in our, you know, that you and I are having conversation now, three, five thousand miles apart, I don't know, through a screen, it's mediated, we're not physically present, we've never physically met.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: And actually, we lead this very disembodied life in which we don't really live in and surrounded by the material world, and so we're at risk of divorcing our experience of things from our experience of God and becoming a bit Gnostic if we're not careful, and and just having a very an entirely spiritual or tech mediated encounter with each other and with God.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that the way you when you read Jesus' teaching, he's continually saying, hey, you know, we imagine him going, consider the lilies, as if he's sort of pondering a mystery rather than consider the lilies, like they're right here.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: You're sitting outside on the hillside, look at the look, there's the birds.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that sense that we are meant to be in a world and appreciating the world for what it reveals to us about God, rather than only doing what I had been doing, which is to use the world as a way of explaining a biblical truth that might be about something else.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I think effectively both they both interpret each other, that the world and the word are intended to illuminate one another.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: And this book is an attempt to do that in a devotional way that hopefully makes people happier in God.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the that's the hope.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: It makes me think of it's I don't want to, I don't know if you would call this a spin-off, but it makes me think of the children's book, The Boys.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: That is a spin-off.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: That is absolutely a spin-off because that's grew up with a chapter on bread.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: I thought, I think we might be.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so that's a great example, yeah.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll read it to my boys because I have two of them.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it's so funny.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: The little things, like I think it would go over their head, but they actually get it.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: They make those connections.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, so he's from the house of bread, but he's, you know, and the metaphors and everything.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like amazing to me that a three or five-year-old can get it.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: But as adults, it goes right over our heads.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you're right.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: It makes me think about the incarnation too, like the power of God becoming man.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: We get so used to it, but there's like so much significance there.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then he holds the same bread that we fuel our bodies with, that he wasn't dependent, you know, like it's it's actually amazing.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I I just you've done such a good job at such an important time in our lives.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because this came out right around COVID, right?
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like in the middle of it.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that was that was just in fact, the I had to rewrite the chapter on viruses for obvious reasons.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I was always planning to do one.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, again, I think I was finalizing it in the first lockdown for us, and I I felt the same.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I thought, wow, this is the right sort of time for for hopefully for people to do this because so much of what we knew of the physical world was being very boxed in, or at least maybe not in Texas, certainly was in Britain.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: You just weren't hardly allowed to go outside.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: So it was very helpful at the timing, I think.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: I know you're gonna think that I'm just saying this to flatter you, but it genuinely changed my life and just connected so many dots for me as a biblical student.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I would have professors do a lecture on certain things and it'd be like, whoa, that's so cool, trees.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: But you just connected so many more dots for me and reignited that fire for the word of God and to see those connections.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I know for so many people in my audience, they are probably shouting at their phones right now, going, He did that for me.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, he did that for me.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're watching this right now and you haven't already ordered this, well, I I genuinely like I love your book.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like I really do.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Please, guys, go order it and blow it up on Amazon.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully that benefits you somehow in getting another book deal.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Speaking of, do you have other book ideas or maybe a follow-up to this in the world?
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, so you're so the follow-up, I suppose that that you're right, the kids book um was in some ways like that.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I've um the most recent book of the book I've written, it's literally just come out, has nothing to do with this.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: And actually, as it happened, this is not product placement, it just happens to be on my desk because I was looking up a source.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but this is a book about 1776 and the origins of the post-Christian West.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: So this is not at all God of all things, a very different kind of project.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I I've often I've often had my writer, I've written, I think, 14 books, but they've about half of them have been like the one you're the God of all things, they've been quite hopefully accessible devotional theology about God, the gospel, the Bible, that that sort of thing.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then the other half have been either more more intellectually stretching or they've been more apologetic in that you know, defending Christianity.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: So, um yeah, so but I I I I love it.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: I think for me, the main offshoot actually now of God of all things is as a book is in preaching, because I'm preaching all the time, and I just find that that it's really working on the book has really helped me in just communicating because you're continuing.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: I was preaching at a youth event a few weeks ago in our in the UK and trying to preach, how do you think, how do you preach the gospel to 4,000 teenagers sitting on the floor?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then you go, actually, I'll I'll do one on, I think I did one on yeast, one on wheat, and all and one on bread.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I had had a sort of the journey of oh that's right, started with a seed and then went yeast and then went bread.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: So effectively doing God of all things in miniature there.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so I find that often happens with preaching, but no, my my current book project is a very different sort of thing.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think that reflects your pastoral heart though, because you can speak on so many different aspects of the human life.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Our, you know, our minds and our hearts reflect on things like this, but then also history.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: What was it again?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you summarized it really well.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, post-Christian in the West.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: The post- the origins of the post-Christian West.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's called Remaking the World.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I you're right.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: I I think I find that as that the pastor is confronted by you don't get to choose your issues.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: You can't really be a complete specialist as a pastor because you're the the people you're trying to serve don't have specialist questions.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: They they might say, Hey, well, tell me about God today, but they sometimes go, I'm just in this situation at work and I don't understand or where does this come from.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: So you're right.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: I think pastors, whether they write books about them is another matter, but I think pastors have to be quite generalist in the sense that we have to engage with a very wide range of questions and issues as we're trying to help people grow in faith in a culture like ours.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not that's encouraging to hear.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Now, are there other illustrations that didn't make the cut of your book that you would have included in God of all things, or you look back and you're like, I wish I would have said this?
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I thought there are there were, and I now know that the next question would obviously be, what were they?
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I I think initially, I do this is such a nerdy thing to do.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: I think I did a spreadsheet and I made a spreadsheet of about 60 or 70 ideas with the Bible passage down another, which is such a dweeb thing to do.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: But I think I did it because I I just I didn't know which ones were gonna stick.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: And initially, God of all things was gonna have 40 chapters, and then by the time I got to that stage in the project, I realized I think actually that they're slightly longer than I initially planned, which means I think I could do 30.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: And but uh funny enough, just this morning we were I'm in my church staff office building at the moment, and we had our time of corporate worship this morning, and I was thinking as we were singing one of the songs, just I I thought about God of all things.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: I thought, lions, that's a really obvious chapter that I could have done and didn't do.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: So this is like three years after releasing the book.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: I was thinking that would be a good one.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: I remember really hoping to do one on penguins, um, because obviously penguins are not mentioned in the Bible, but I just think penguins are the most beautiful image of the Emperor Penguin in Antarctica, the image of saying, I am gonna hang on in there knowing that one day the light will break, but it hasn't yet, and I'm gonna do everything I can in these huge hut.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: Have you ever seen the Emperor Penguins in the Antarctica?
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: There's 70 mile an hour gales, terrifying freezing and dark for six months of the year, and they all huddle up together and they have their little egg, and then the males all guard one another and keep each other warm, and then the light breaks, and they go, Oh, and then the the wives come back and they take the eggs and everyone hatches.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I kind of think it's such a model of Christian perseverance that there are, you know, these light and momentary afflictions are achieving for us a weight of glory beyond comparison.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I've often thought that idea that we are like Emperor Penguins going, in this world, I'm hanging in there, knowing the light will break, but I'm not sure when it will.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: And in the meantime, I've just got to look out for brothers and sisters to protect me and to protect them, knowing that one day it will be better.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, that's uh that's an example of a chapter that didn't make it, but I I could have, I think.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: I can tell you, I did not expect you to say Emperor Penguins.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: How good?
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's so funny.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: I love it though.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's such a good metaphor.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, that would be a great chapter.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's really cool.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: Now, yeah, there's some other biblical ones, but I I think that's uh yeah, penguins is probably the one the one that got away.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and lions would have been cool too.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, Emperor Penguins.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna steal that from you.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Andrew Wilson told me in his podcast.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: That'll make me sound so cool.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, what's one thing you wish all Christians knew, whether or not that you learned it from your book, but that something that you unpacked in your book that you wish all Christians knew when they're approaching the Bible?
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it helps them understand God better or the word of God better.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's a really good question.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um this is I think there's probably there's obviously doctrinal things I wish people knew, but I imagine you mean more like a sort of a a method or a way of coming to the Bible, a way of reading that helps.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I was because otherwise, I mean obviously I wish all Christians knew the how much God loves them.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: I wish all Christians knew the grace of God, I wish all Christians knew the joy that comes from the Holy Spirit.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I but I I imagine you mean less sort of doctrinal convictions and more sort of things that you've picked learnt or something.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: I I think ways of reading the Bible that I was told a long time back, like you when you read the Bible, you want to read it quickly and you want to read it slowly, um, and that the risk of meeting reading it medium speed is actually something that doesn't help us.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: That what we meant generally the speed at which we read most books is not suitable to reading the Bible.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: And if you do, you read too much to remember it and to really meditate on it, but you also read too little to grasp the whole flow of how it all fits together.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: So if you read a if if I think about, I don't know, we'll read a read a book on Kindle at night or something, and just the speed I would read, you know, it goes learning reading speed at the bottom when you start a new book.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I think if we do that with the Bible, often we don't we don't read enough to grasp the whole book, but we also read too much to let it really get a particular phrase or insight into our soul.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I tend to like reading the Bible very slowly and very quickly in another at a different setting.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: So sometimes just go read an entire biblical book from beginning to end.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: Don't worry that you don't remember much of what's happened.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: Try and keep your eye on the story, keep it moving.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's a really important thing to do.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: So you just get through the whole, particularly the the narrative books.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um but also you want to read it really slowly and you want to go, I'm only gonna read a handful of verses today.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: But the idea, you know, the Bible, I'm not a I'm I know this will be heresy to a lot of people, but I've never been a Bible in one year person, because to me that the amount of Bible seems almost the middle ground between really getting into it and reading enough of it to keep momentum going.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's just me personally, but it works for many, I know.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so that to me is a helpful thing because then you are I so I use my devotions, I use commentaries a lot, which people think is really weird.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: They're like they're academic preacher books, but I really find them help me draw out the just gring out all the juice from scripture.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um but then I also want to keep moving through the story, and so I think I wish a lot of Christians knew that you can that the all the story of the Bible can be told by only reading about a fifth to a quarter of it.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: That if you read all of Genesis and then the front 19 chapters of Exodus, maybe 20, but then you can skip really to the beginning of Joshua, and then you can read a few chapters, you know, 15, 18 chapters of Judges, and then one and two Samuel and one and two kings, you pretty much got the story of the whole Bible until the Gospels.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: But people don't know that, so they kind of just read every book as if it's similarly weighted.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I so I think there's some ways of actually reading scripture that can help us, you can go at higher speed through the narrative, and then just spend a lot longer in a psalm or a bit of Romans or a bit of Isaiah or whatever it might be.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: So that would be an example that comes to mind of something I'd I'd love more people to find the joy of doing.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, I love that.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think there's any illustrations or metaphors from God of all things that you wish more Christians saw or that they read over?
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, you're like, this is casting them so much.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I I do.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's in some sense, of course, every chapter is an attempt to do that.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think some of the chapters that I find most I that I I've had most people say to me, Oh, that I'd never I hadn't seen that, and that's a really interesting one.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: The one on pigs, um, which is probably might be my favorite.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: Pigs and honey are my two favourites, I think.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um and but I think sometimes some of them that's a little bit cheeky almost on the pigs one, but I think the chapter on stones as well, the idea that you really do, if you once you see it and you read the old testament, you think, oh my goodness, there's a lot of stones, and what stones represent, whether it be sealing something and almost burying it, or whether it means making a covenant or what, and then then obviously through to the stone that wasn't there at the resurrection.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that it it just helps people in bits of the Bible where they're like, I don't know what to do with this text.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: Why do they keep circumcising everybody and making a pile of stones?
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: It just feels so alien to modern Brits or Americans.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: But once you see some of the significance of those symbols and what they come to mean in other parts of scripture, the whole book can come to life.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: And you go, Oh, it's a is this is another one of those stone stories or whatever.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I I think that would be a good example of a biblical theological connection that people often don't.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, just the other day I was preaching at a conference and I was I was probably again, it was God of all things.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: I was talking about really cows, and just the way that Israel, I was preaching on the golden calf, and the way that Israel become like the golden calf by worshiping an idol, that we become like idols when we worship them, and you know, they become stiff-necked and hard-hearted, literally like a golden cow, and then they just sit on the ground and sit and rise and eat and drink and play, and they become like cows, and in some ways it's just a way of doing biblical theology.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: You go, yeah, you become like the idol you worship, and I was just preaching on that last week.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I I think it probably comes up in lots of areas, but the thing I really love about it is that when it helps you connect different bits of scripture, usually to illuminate the boring or difficult bits in light of the more interesting and captivating bit.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: Totally, totally, totally.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, why do you think the Lord used in all of his sovereignty metaphors that span from Genesis to Revelation?
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you think he uses story even?
• 17:00
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• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's get back to the conversation.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you think the Lord used in all of his sovereignty metaphors that span from Genesis to Revelation?
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you think he uses story even?
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think we are the anomalies here as Western people because we think and write and communicate in bullet points and abstract lists and concepts and steps and principles.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: I often think of this guy who was at a conference in Switzerland and went up to the guy who's a friend of mine who's just like, oh, I've been here.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: Great Western teaching.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: He's an African guy, great Western teaching for these last five days.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: But honestly, after five days of listening to Westerners, I am fed up with Englishmen and their lists.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: Every every message seems to be a step of three points, principles, steps.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: What is it with you guys on your list?
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: Because of course the rest of the world go, stories are just the bat.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's surely what you're gonna do.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: If you're gonna talk to a group of people, you're gonna tell a lot of stories.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a very Western thing to not do that.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I think God does it because He's speaking the universal language of human beings, which is you think in terms of pictures and stories and images, and because that's what the real world is.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it's only in some ways in a particular slice of Western, really very Western Protestant thinking that you tend to go, no, in order for this to be a valid sermon, it has to have three points, which now I preach three-point sermons as much as the next guide, but that isn't how most of the world communicates in most fields of life.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's I think God communicates through stories because we do, and and or or perhaps better, we communicate in stories ultimately because God does, and he's the great storyteller and has made us that way.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I I think it's the very native mode of communication for almost all humans.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's just that often in the West we we forget that with our you know our way of analyzing everything.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think there's something deep within us that connects to this idea of we are part of a story, and we long for that, right?
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: And we long to be those, being redeemed by God for his glory, you know.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: But I think sometimes a lot of people will kind of say, Oh, Faith, you're reading too much into that when you see that metaphor being carried this way.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: Did you ever get that feedback when you published God of all things?
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: I gave I got it from myself.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because I sometimes I wonder that.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm thinking, how is this a stretch?
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: And there are moments where I think you have to have some degree of you know um self-awareness to go, the trees one, there's no way that's not intentional.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like that is the whole, but clearly it is.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: The pig's one, some of that's intentional, some of it's not, and then some like the one I said about penguins, is not even in the Bible.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's probably a couple, I think, in the book, which are not biblical images at all.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: They're me trying to use a modern image to help illustrate a point.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: So, yes, I do think that some of them are more of a stretch than others, but I think the more the more I've when I first started teaching hermeneutics about 15 years ago, I would actually tell people, I would warn against over-interpreting, and now I actually would warn the other way.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: I think the more I've read scripture, the more I thought, I think more of this is meant than I had ever dreamt when I was, you know, 28 and was teaching hermeneutics.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: I was grammatical, historical, if that that terminology means something to your listeners, but you know, you teach it that way, it's a seminary way of doing it.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the more I've read the Bible, the more I've thought, yeah, I and and the more I've read the church fathers and medieval interpreters, I think the the the spirit at work in the church has often seen more going on in the text than the very analytical Western model has is usually granted.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so, although I think I'd be prepared to concede, sometimes I'm sure I might have overstepped a mark in a place, or I've seen something that others would say, Ah, no, I think you're over you that's just Wilson going off on one.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like I'd almost rather have that problem than the problem of underinterpreting it.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I've moved on that in the last 15 years, I think.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and I think the title reflects that Crisis before all things, and in him all things.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you're reflecting on the fact that, yeah, ultimately everything is being redeemed for his glory.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so, though I think again, it comes back to Western culture, we're pessimistic on that kind of stuff when it comes to spirituality.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: We're afraid of reading too much into stuff.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: We do know ultimately, even bread that we're just eating as a snack does play a role in this redemptive story that God is unfolding.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: I often, like in my courses and stuff, I'll teach them CFRC, creation, fall, redemption, consummation.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I love how these metaphors are like little stopping points that we can see all throughout the story of redemption.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the salt, the honey, the pigs, even, you know, dare I say, even Emperor Penguins, if you want to really go far.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because all things, all things.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I think we forget that.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: We want to put God in a box and put our spirituality in a box and say, yeah, well, it affects everything but my porn addiction.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: It affects everything but my alcoholism.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: It affects everything but the way I hang out with my friends, or the everything but the way I dress.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: And oh, all things are being redeemed.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: The full like it our relationship with God affects the fullness of our life.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you'd represent that well through this book.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, good, thank you.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I absolutely agree.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's uh it's a way of looking at the Bible, but I hope it's also becomes a way of looking at the world and the integration of God's good purposes in creation and in redemption.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: On that note, when we were talking before we started this recording, you mentioned your kids and the book you wrote on parenting kids with special needs.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: Would that be the way that you would call it?
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think that played a role in the way that you view God of all things and wrote God of all things in the pastoral hint?
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: It must have somewhere.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's a very good question, and it's not one I've thought about.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: But I think it must have.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: Certainly the penguins point I just made, as silly as it is, is that was actually born out of that experience.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I think we wrote a bit about penguins even in that book, because because I think you're you're looking around and going, that's what it feels like sometimes to be a I mean our kids are my my older son is doing great now, and but uh there was a time when he was four, five, six, and Anna was two, three, four.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: It was really hard.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I did feel like an Emperor penguin, and I probably saw David Attenborough's Planet Earth or something like that, and saw it and went, that's what it's like.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: It just feels like it's dark and freezing, and all I've got is actually the protection of other Christians gathering around me and helping, and I'm just holding on, and the light breaks eventually, and and you know, by the grace of God, our our life is much easier now.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: So, probably, yes, it has, in the sense that there are, as you said before, metaphors in the created order that help you make sense of what you're experiencing, just as of course there are psalms in scripture that make sense of it.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: But I think it's bringing those two together is probably something that happened to me in part through experiencing.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: I I I haven't lived a particularly difficult, challenging life.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: I just that was our experience of that, but I've been very blessed in so many ways.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: But I think in hardship in particular, you do find yourself looking for almost anything that helps make sense of it.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: And the psalms function that way, and Job or other bits, but actually sometimes there are things in creation where you go, wow, this is we're not the only creature that really has to hang on for dear life in order to raise our kids.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I know as I say, in my case, the Emperor Penguin was just because they're just they're just a very funny animal as well.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like so there's humour in there as well, it's very dark, but they just watching an Emperor Penguin walk is difficult not to laugh.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think it brings a levity to it.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: We go, actually, there are animals that I would much less like to be when it comes to how much they have to put on the line to raise their kids.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I found in a way, yeah, that was a very reassuring and enlightening thought.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so, yeah, I I hadn't thought about that, but I expect that was a part of how I got there, yeah.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: And will you remind us for anyone who's listening the title of the book that you wrote?
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's called The Life We Never Expected.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's The Life We Never Expected, and that talks on your relationship with your kids and parenting.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was really a book about I funnily enough, although we wrote it about our experience, we've had to so many people I think have found it was more a book actually about what you how you find joy again when the life that you wanted to lead and thought you would lead gets suddenly co-opted and turned into something completely different.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: And that's for some people that was an experience of bereavement or singleness or divorce or that they weren't expecting, or some it might be their kids or it might be health, or and that so we kind of thought it was it would be lots of parents with kids with disabilities would go, Oh, thank you for your book.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: When actually what's happened is it's more about what we found you'd actually written at the end was people saying this helped us with our unexpected circumstances which we felt were not what we'd asked for and not what we hoped we would have, but we have now come to see how God does it work in and through them.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I say all that, obviously, I love my kids to bits, and it I and they, as I say, have come on a huge journey, but I do think I think it's sometimes it can be helpful to acknowledge that the circumstances you're in are not the ones that if you'd had a male order life that you would have picked off the menu, and um, and that's true for many of us in all sorts of ways.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: Following Jesus, it's gonna look that way.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now I ask everybody this, so this will be our last question.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: But what is your favorite commentary or commentary series to use?
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: I know you mentioned them earlier.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mention a lot, like I like the Nycot, um, the Knack, but everyone's always asked me good beginner commentaries or just my favorite go-tos on certain books of the Bible.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: Could you share with us?
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because I know people are gonna now go read what you're reading.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: I love that you said the Nycot because I'm actually right there.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: You can't see it because it's not on my desk, but is John Oswald's commentary on Isaiah, which is at the moment that's what I'm doing in my devotions, and it's absolutely magnificent.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think the best single volume commentary I've read on any biblical book is actually Peter Lightheart's commentary on One and Two Kings, I just found blew me away.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: It was in the Brazos series.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: I but I tend to go go for commentaries by writer rather than by series, because most of my favourite series is have got some volumes that I just didn't think were any good, and sometimes the best commentaries I've read are in series that by and large are not great, but there's one absolute diamond in there.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think in New Testament books, I mean I I I've done obviously gone deep dive into 1 Corinthians, that was my PhD, and I I there were some of the big commentaries on Romans or the Gospels.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I think, yeah, the Oswald on Isaiah is absolutely magnificent.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm reading it at the moment, but several of I think Peter Lighthardt's work, probably more than anyone else, with the God of all things thing in mind, he has probably shaped the way I actually read books of the Bible probably more than anyone else in the last 10 years, I would say.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: Because he's written on Revelation, Samuel, like big, big books, but has helped me see a lot of the connections that would come through in this book.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I probably have to say his book on one and two kings would be my favorite.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: Man, okay, I'm gonna go order it right now.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's really helpful.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: I like how you mentioned that because oftentimes when I'm recommending commentaries, I'm also thinking, well, you know, this one isn't that great, or I really like just this author.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: And that's important to note that sometimes the whole volume set as a whole may not be recommended, but it's a certain volume of it or books.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: And and they there's nothing I always feel for the editors of these things because they commission the thing, and then eight years later the commentary comes back and they're like, Well, what do you want me to do?
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: I've already commissioned all these others.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: You you can't always, you know, in control of it.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I but yeah, I I find sometimes there are certain writers who just they they don't just tell you about this book, they teach you how to read scripture as a whole.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, and Peter has been one of those for me.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now I do want to honor your time, but can I ask you one more question?
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: Of course.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: If you I mean, speaking to mostly women here, um middle-aged, studying their Bibles, wanting to study deeper, is there any books or commentaries that come to mind that you wish more mothers and wives read to better understand their Bible?
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, this is all what are all the books you really like that you would like to recommend to people.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I at the end of each year I do a list of all of what I thought were the best books in the year.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: I know lots of people do this.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and I some of them are obviously just specifically about the Bible, and some of them are about you know history and other than life and other things.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um I would say probably most years I read a book that probably every year, I would read at least one book where I'd think, oh man, if everyone could read this in their Christian faith, this would really help them.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um I mean I think the the Christian book that I often this isn't a commentary association, but I I I wish more people read Augustine's Confessions.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of people would learn a lot about God if they certainly books one to nine or one to ten of Augustine's Confessions are so great.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um when it comes to biblical commentaries, I think a number of the ones I've mentioned are the kinds of things I would go to.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: I particularly on the on the Gospels, I think are really good commentaries.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: Dale Brunner's two-volume commentary on Matthew is just so delightful.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's just a sort of you disappear into Matthew for my for months.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like just this is going to be my my big thing.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, David Ford's recent commentary on John.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: Again, John's he just starts John's gospel as a gospel of abundance, and then just in the first paragraph goes, This is Jesus in this gospel.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: He makes far too much bread, far too much wine, far too many fish, far too much spirit, far too much water.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: And he just goes on and on and on.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: And by the end of it, you're like, How have I not seen that?
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's what John's gospel basically is.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: Or um, and so there's uh there's a every probably every year I would read at least one commentary like that.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: This year I think it'll be Oswald, where I'm on his eye, where I'm like, I just think that's amazing.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: But um, so yeah, rather than there being one, I'd probably say there's one a year, but that's probably cheating and not in the spirit of your question.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's helpful because I think sometimes I I will get the answer.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: I really wish more moms read this, or I really wish more women read that.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes that's almost like discouraging because then we're identifying ourselves just as mothers and wives, and you're like, no, read all the things I've read and I've preached to them.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: So this is partly, so this is partly, you know, our mutual friend Jen Wilkin, who I think, I mean, she's really helped me each, and my wife is the same, where she's just like, I think the idea of of treating women's studies as if they are somehow well, the the the peril is basically thinking this is somehow less rigorous than what people who would read this and who are gonna be pastors or whatever read.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: And Rachel has always said to me, she just reads the same stuff I do.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: She she says she probably takes longer, she's got she's juggling more things in the day.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: She's not a full-time pastor, so she can't, but she would say, What have you done?
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: And occasionally I would read a book and I go, That you're just not gonna have the time to do that, so ignore that one.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: But she's generally saying, What are you reading on your devotions and would it help me?
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: And if you know, because she's you know, in terms of intellectually, she's we're we're completely the same, so it's more like what would be edifying and what have you got time for?
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm probably quite motivated to not to go for spender-specific books, and some in fact, conversely, I found Jen's book, Women of the Word, which I read for me incredibly helpful.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, why does it say women in the title?
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: I've said this to her, like I that really helped me.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: You just think this is how you study the Bible.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not I wouldn't tend to divide them up.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure there are some books that are particularly relevant to the sexes, but most good biblical books I've read are great for both.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you so much for coming today on the How to Feed the Life podcast.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: I know you really benefited a lot of the listeners, and I'm sure they're on fire to go check out your other books.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: Everything is on Amazon, right?
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think so, yeah.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then they can also check you out at King's Church London and the resources there.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: If I know we have Brits that listen in.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Christianity Today.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, where else can we find you on the inner webs?
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: I on the inner webs.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I'm on Twitter at AJW Theology, and I quite often pop up at yeah, Christianity Today, the Gospel Coalition, occasionally other places.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm doing a lot of stuff at the moment is connected with the new book, but my church is King's Church London, and we obviously are that's where my regular preaching is.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um but yeah, it's been great to talk to you, Faith.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: I've just really enjoyed it.