Latest / Red Couch Theology / Wrestling With Resurrection, Scripture, and Free Will

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Wrestling With Resurrection, Scripture, and Free Will · Red Couch Theology

0:00
Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Red Couch
0:01
Theology Podcast. This week we have several
0:04
questions that were submitted through our Alpha course, and
0:07
then one that actually starts to touch a little bit.
0:10
On this last week's Sunday sermon.
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We're going to talk about Lazarus and what was going on
0:15
with his soul of her spirit while he was dead.
0:17
And was his resurrection the same kind of resurrection as
0:20
Jesus? We also talked about textual
0:23
criticism a little bit and how we can trust the scriptural
0:26
account of Jesus. And then finally, we closed with
0:29
a detailed conversation about free will and predestination and
0:34
Calvinism, Arminianism and all of that sort of stuff.
0:38
So if any of that sparks your curiosity, let's dive in.
0:43
Hello. We were trying to prepare for
0:45
this episode contrary to most weeks, and then you guys just
0:49
showed up and we had to start talking to you.
0:52
Welcome to the Right Couch Theology podcast.
0:54
I got here 10 minutes early for no reason.
0:58
I know. And then we had this like
0:59
impulse. We should probably talk about
1:01
what we're going to talk about. And now we're.
1:03
Too late. Yeah.
1:05
Well, good luck to us. All right, so this week on our
1:09
episode, I'm trying to, like, give us an intro so that people
1:11
can know whether it's worth sticking around.
1:13
Wait. Give.
1:14
Us an intro when you record an intro.
1:17
Well, that's for those who listen.
1:19
OK, but we don't add those intros to the.
1:22
YouTube, which turns. Out more of you listen on
1:25
YouTube than on the podcast services.
1:28
There we go. People like to see us.
1:30
You were always right. It was always about the folks in
1:33
the the the room. You know what I found about this
1:36
episode? I'm not giving you the intro.
1:39
You're distracting me. I found that people who first
1:43
come to South love the podcast, and I think like they get to
1:47
know us a little bit. They're like, oh, it's so nice
1:49
to kind of have the your personalities.
1:51
And then six months later, they're like, we know them now.
1:54
Now the show's useless to us. We know them now.
1:58
It was an overrated. Experience like, yes, the, the,
2:02
the content's not that great, but it's sort of endearing to
2:06
get to know some of your pastors for about 6 months and then
2:10
they're like, I'm done with it, Yeah.
2:11
That's that's why we keep doing it.
2:13
Just that's a. It's a hook.
2:15
Yeah. So if you disagree with that and
2:17
you're still listening and you've been listening for years,
2:19
you can contradict us and tell us that we're still valuable
2:23
because we need that. Did I tell you about the the
2:25
church I was connected to when I was in Michigan?
2:30
I was friends with the youth pastor, and they been paying for
2:33
a radio show for like 10 years. They'd had it when the lead
2:39
pastor who'd left was there, and it was pretty successful.
2:42
And they kept doing it and he had to produce every week.
2:45
It was this monster effort. And they finally decided to do a
2:49
survey to see like, who's listening.
2:52
And so they sent out all these things, like electronically by
2:56
mail. They didn't get a single
2:59
response. They'd be putting all this money
3:01
in it and they were devastated. So thank goodness that's not us
3:06
at least, even if people turn off as soon as they get to know.
3:09
Yeah, we know there's at least seven of you a week.
3:14
Well, my mom and dad are two. And your mom and dad?
3:17
3:00 and 4:00 So like we serve at least a good three people in
3:22
the congregation per week. And what we've always said from
3:25
the very get go of this, of this podcast is Alex and I would have
3:30
these conversations with or without you.
3:32
Yeah, because we like talking about the Bible.
3:34
There we go, you guys have the definition of low hanging.
3:37
Oh gosh, what have we done to this intro?
3:42
All right, so this week on the episode, we're talking about
3:44
some alpha topics. We talked about an alpha, the
3:47
person of Jesus. We don't need to talk about the
3:51
sermon because that was yesterday's episode with Diego,
3:53
which was great. I encourage you.
3:56
This might be a tip for some of you who've kind of gotten over
3:59
the the arch shenanigans at the beginning of the episode.
4:02
Fast forward to 20 minutes in. It gets really good after, after
4:06
we find our way. It takes about 20 minutes to
4:08
find our way. But this week we're talking
4:10
about the person of Jesus again. Last week's episode we talked
4:14
about Jesus as well, but we're we're also going to address a
4:17
little bit of textual criticism because it was one of the proofs
4:22
they gave for the, the person of Jesus and the credibility of
4:25
those that textual evidence. And I thought it would be
4:28
helpful for us to give some of our perspectives on textual
4:31
criticism, which we've done semi recently on the show.
4:36
A question that is sort of related to the sermon, but also
4:39
just resurrection oriented, but it came out of an Alpha class
4:43
member who says where was Lazarus's spirit or soul for
4:48
four days? And then we got another question
4:51
from the podcast about, let's see, free will.
4:58
Where does the idea of free will stand in all of this?
5:00
If God already knows the one he has chosen to give the right to
5:05
stand on give right standing and his glory to, then like where's
5:10
free will and all that stuff? So predestined free will related
5:13
to salvation and stuff. So there's a larger question
5:15
there, but those are some of the topics we will cover.
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Today, I love it. Let's let's cover those topics.
5:21
Ready. See if we agree.
5:23
Ready set textual criticism. Textual criticism.
5:28
So here is the context. Last week, last week's alpha
5:33
class was very introductory. What do you think about faith in
5:38
general, this sort of thing. And they, they left a lot of the
5:42
evidences out for the person of Jesus, which we then covered in
5:45
our episode. But then this week's episode,
5:47
they got into a lot of the details of like, why do we think
5:51
the historical Jesus is real, which we talked about last week?
5:55
Why is there some evidence for the resurrection?
5:57
They covered that this week. So one of the evidences they
6:02
gave was textual criticism as a as the science of like
6:06
validating the document evidence that we have for the historical
6:10
Jesus. But I think the thing I wanted
6:13
to focus on on this episode is some of the uniquenesses between
6:17
Old Testament textual criticism, New Text Testament textual
6:21
criticism 'cause that was 1 aspect of the conversation.
6:25
They didn't address in alpha that textual criticism looks
6:28
very different based upon those two different manuscript bodies.
6:33
So could you give us some insight why?
6:36
Why is the Bible itself useful as some evidence for Jesus?
6:42
Well, so, so here's what I would maybe start with is this.
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We are Westerners, even though you were born in Africa, like we
6:53
carry a lot of Western thinking around how things should work
6:58
and, and a lot of assumptions around how things like
7:01
manuscripts, something like the Bible must operate for it to be
7:08
good or right or inspired or authoritative or even the the
7:13
buzzword, which is an errand, you know.
7:16
And so one of the hard things I think for Westerners is for most
7:21
people across history, those rules don't necessarily apply.
7:27
So we come with this sense of like, well, if it says this
7:31
person wrote this book, it has to have been that person,
7:35
otherwise they're lying, right? Yeah.
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Now, for most of history, that's not been true.
7:40
People use pseudonyms all the time.
7:42
People wrote in people's names. Like if we see a book that says,
7:46
well, this was really written in a certain period of time, but it
7:50
was actually written in another period of time using stories
7:53
from a different period of time, we're like, well, they're making
7:55
that up. That's a lion.
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And most people say no, no, they they're telling a story slant.
8:01
It's like the Emily Dickinson quote there.
8:04
They're taking a different context to speak into the
8:08
current context in this really clever way that kind of pokes
8:13
without saying it directly at a person in authority that it
8:16
might be dangerous to. Versus saying Chronicles China
8:20
has that vibe to it, yeah. So, so as soon as you get into
8:24
Scripture, one of the things I've seen people struggle with
8:26
in terms of textual criticism and that, that that's a, we're
8:30
using that. So can we let's quick define it.
8:32
We they sort of defined it in the show What?
8:34
Was the definition in the show. Well, it they called it a
8:37
science of validating the they're helping validate
8:42
historical documents. Sure.
8:44
OK, now, now I think that's that's probably.
8:47
And they gave, they, they gave a bunch of different examples of
8:50
different historic writers and how long a gap from their
8:55
original writing was to, to when we have our evidence and then
8:58
how many manuscripts we have that of that writer, OK, Tacitus
9:02
and these different folks. And there's like, it was like a
9:05
1300 year gap, 1000 year gap and 700 year gap and 800 year gap.
9:10
And then the Bible was like 30 to, to 100 year gap.
9:14
And then all these was like 6 manuscripts 17.
9:17
OK, so maybe. We're not 20.
9:19
And then and then and then 5000 for the Scriptures, that's
9:26
really all they got into as far as textual criticism.
9:30
You are starting to get into higher criticism maybe?
9:33
Well, So what I would say, at least the definition I grew up
9:38
around for textual criticism, is how the text comes together
9:43
like. So it's the broad scope of like
9:47
that more. Canonization.
9:49
We would use or. No, no, no.
9:51
How an author, how how a book, Let's start with the book, how a
9:56
book is shaped through different pieces that come together.
10:01
And it's especially used in the Gospels to say like, well, we
10:06
have these 4 biographies of Jesus life.
10:09
And then we have this tradition that one was written by Matthew,
10:12
1 was written by Mark, one was written by Luke. 1.
10:15
Was written by John. Well, two of those guys want
10:18
eyewitnesses. So their sources come from
10:21
somewhere. Yeah.
10:23
So that's like textual criticism then becomes source criticism.
10:26
What's the source that they used to be able to make a an
10:29
observation there. And then you've got the bit
10:31
where those authors take their sources and then they add some
10:35
filling. They say something like Jesus
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then did this, or Jesus was thinking this, or the disciples
10:41
were thinking that. Well, what's that?
10:43
Then that becomes editorial criticism and then that's like
10:47
all lumped together. So if we're talking simply about
10:51
dating of manuscripts, like textual criticism is part of
10:55
that, but but it's just a small. Part of textual criticism, yeah.
10:59
So there's like a whole world of nerddom.
11:03
Absolutely. Analyze ancient texts to try and
11:09
figure out history. Yeah.
11:12
And whether this was historical or wasn't what was going on in
11:16
that history. And so but that that, and that's
11:20
a science that that's applied across all ancient texts, not
11:24
just scriptural ones, Except for the fact that it's a if you're,
11:30
if you stumble into the nerd land of textual criticism, the
11:34
Bible's a fun playground because of the sheer quantity of
11:38
manuscript evidence. But it's also a sensitive
11:41
playground because of our assumptions of how manuscripts
11:46
should be written. So we really struggle with the
11:49
idea that someone could have used, again, to go back to that
11:52
idea, someone could have used someone else's name to write a
11:55
manuscript. We're like, no, no, no, that's
11:57
not right. And most of history hasn't been
12:00
super worried about that at all. But that's more of a tension
12:04
that a a textual critic that a non textual critic would have.
12:11
Most textual critics be like, yeah, no problem.
12:13
Oh yeah, 'cause they just know how ancient texts works.
12:15
Like they've studied that field enough absolutely to know that
12:18
like, so the scholars in this space are like, yeah, that's
12:21
fine. It's a it's a slightly more lay
12:24
level or less scholarly level where we're.
12:27
Like in the Judea Christian like stream of like.
12:30
Well, the first five books of the Bible were written by Moses.
12:34
Yeah. And, you know, that could easily
12:36
be accurate. But there's a part towards the
12:39
end of one of those books where it talks about how Moses was the
12:42
meekest man that ever lived, and this is what happened to him
12:45
when he died. Now, Moses probably didn't write
12:48
that part. Yeah.
12:49
That part was probably added by someone who wasn't Moses because
12:52
it's really hard to write about yourself after you're dead.
12:55
Yeah. And so So that that process,
12:58
when we look at it, it doesn't make sense to assume that Moses
13:03
wrote every word in five books. Yeah.
13:06
And and and so already our like simplified version of it starts
13:10
to break down just a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm sorry that
13:13
that that's all this broad level.
13:15
So what do you want to narrow texture criticism down to for
13:20
this conversation? I think, OK, so for this
13:23
conversation, maybe I wanted to fill in some of the gaps that
13:28
they didn't address. So they, they talked about the,
13:30
the, the body of manuscript evidence and their goal, I think
13:36
in the episode yesterday in Alpha was to communicate that we
13:42
have exceptional based upon the science of textual criticism, we
13:47
have exceptional historical evidence that Jesus existed,
13:52
that his followers believed Jesus rose from the dead, and
13:59
that Jesus himself believed he was a higher figure than just an
14:06
average teacher. And maybe that's why it's useful
14:08
to start with this idea that, you know, you touched on this,
14:12
why New Testament texts are different to Old Testament.
14:16
Texts exactly they so the other component of the another
14:18
evidence they brought was the fulfillment of Old Testament
14:21
prophecy. But they didn't, they didn't
14:24
talk about textual criticism a little higher level of like, OK,
14:29
there's a difference between Old Testament and New Testament and
14:32
how the number of manuscripts we have, it's really easy for a
14:36
Christian to say like 5000. Well, that's not true of the Old
14:39
Testament. In actual fact, the dating for
14:42
the earliest New Testament manuscripts and Old Testament
14:47
manuscripts within just a few years of each other.
14:50
Yeah. So like, I think the, if I
14:52
remember rightly, the earliest Isaiah manuscript that we have a
14:56
snippet, just a snippet. It's like 70 AD or something
15:00
like that. I think it was in the, the, the
15:02
caves in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Qumran caves.
15:06
I think they found some like some snippets of Isaiah because
15:10
Jewish people didn't really care about old manuscript.
15:16
So they would have a manuscript that started to get worn out,
15:21
and someone would write a new version of it, and then they'd
15:25
take the old one and Chuck it out.
15:27
Yeah, like, this thing's no good anymore.
15:29
They'd use it for something else, whether it was to light
15:31
fires, line houses, whatever. They they did a lot more
15:37
copying, but not preserving they.
15:38
Didn't really care about preserving, whereas the
15:41
Christian community has been much more interested in preserve
15:45
preserving from an early point. Yeah.
15:47
And part of the and part of the way they made sure that they had
15:51
accuracy was some of the copying tradition for the Old Testament
15:55
was much more of a sacred task because you wanted to preserve
15:59
it. So the, the level of, of care
16:03
that went into copying Old Testament text was very high.
16:07
Used to be a religious leader would would do it.
16:13
It would be double, triple, quadruple check.
16:15
Because if you're about to burn the old copy, you better make
16:17
sure you've got this. Right.
16:19
And then this is also really helpful, I think, for people to
16:21
understand the Jewish view of texts because it was so sacred,
16:25
was much more like the Catholic churches was before the
16:29
Reformation. It's like we're going to limit
16:32
the number of copies that are around, oh, you're a synagogue,
16:34
You're allowed a copy of the text.
16:36
Maybe a really rich person has scrolls that they're able to
16:39
have access to. Libraries.
16:41
Had access, but it certainly wasn't a thing that an everyday
16:44
person. Yeah.
16:45
So there's a lot fewer. A lot fewer, whereas the
16:48
Christians kind of reverse that trend.
16:50
They're like, oh, you know who's going to want a copy of this?
16:52
Text everyone in this. Church down the road, like let's
16:55
send them a copy. We're going to keep a copy.
16:57
We'll like make sure. You have half, half literate
17:00
people copying it for themselves, sending it to a
17:03
friend. So that's why the New Testament,
17:05
we have so many more manuscript evidence for the New Testament
17:09
than we do of the old. But they're lower quality
17:13
because they're just everybody in their mom is getting a copy
17:16
and copy it down. Texts that we've got from
17:20
history that are slightly different because they'd copy
17:23
it. Oh, that's probably good enough.
17:25
Like, oh, there's a slight, it gets to the heart of it.
17:26
It can be fine. Gets to the heart of it, gives
17:28
the message. Whereas in Judaism, in Islam it
17:32
was like, no, there's, there's a, there's an especially in
17:34
Islam, there's an official version.
17:36
Yep. Like if there's a discrepancy,
17:39
pick one, throw the worst one out.
17:42
We just keep one. This is like the refined
17:45
version. One of the interesting facts
17:47
about Christianity is how the text is important.
17:52
It's holy to a degree, but not in comparison to the God behind
17:57
the text. Nothing can compare to him and
18:00
so that the text, it's almost held in check by the fact that
18:04
it's not worshipped. It's not as important as maybe
18:08
some of us have made it in history.
18:10
It's valuable, it's inspired, it's all those things is
18:12
designed by God for us to read, but it's not God.
18:17
Yeah, it's a means to accessing God.
18:20
It's a means to an end. And it's another reason why I
18:23
like in In one sense, Christians hold the scriptures as so sacred
18:28
because it's a means to God. And both the Jewish tradition
18:33
and the Christian tradition see this this book as really,
18:37
really, really, really, really important.
18:39
But that's that's but the. Content in the book itself is
18:42
very casual. They they tell stuff about their
18:48
own tradition that's like defaming to its own tradition.
18:51
They keep it in there. They're like, it's like, and if
18:54
you're trying to make a really a religion that's like got all its
18:58
IS dotted and it's T's crossed, this is not how you do it.
19:02
Well, a really great example that I won't have time to cover
19:06
in the sermon is the passage I have today where we find out
19:11
that Judas was a thief all along and that Jesus picked him as a
19:17
disciple and put him in charge of the money.
19:20
Now you don't make that up, especially if you're going to
19:23
claim that the the one year old following is omniscient.
19:28
Like it really looks like a bad choice.
19:30
Yeah, yeah, if you're trying. To.
19:32
Make sure that Jesus looks clean and proper and never makes a
19:36
mistake. A presidential campaign person,
19:40
a campaign manager, would never allow that in a text.
19:45
But the texts are surprisingly honest.
19:47
And this is this is also a fascinating difference when you
19:50
think of those three like biggest religions worldwide.
19:56
For Jewish people, the memorization of the text was
19:59
sacred. You know, you memorized it.
20:02
And that's still true for lots of Jewish people across history.
20:08
In Islam, the memorization of the Koran is sacred to the
20:13
point. And this is, this is so
20:16
different from Christianity to the point that when I was
20:18
growing up in in England, I would have Muslim friends that
20:22
could quote you the Koran. In Arabic, but could not tell
20:27
you what it meant in English. They didn't speak Arabic, they'd
20:31
memorized Arabic and that was the sacred task.
20:36
Didn't have to understand it, just had to know it.
20:39
Now you imagine trying to pull that to a Christian context,
20:43
being able to spiel off like quote after quote after quote,
20:47
but not process it, not live it. That's the opposite of
20:51
everything that we ever talk about.
20:53
Memorization's fine, but only if you put memorization into
20:57
practice. Memorization that's not put into
20:59
practice to Christians has always been knowing that's,
21:03
that's almost the worst thing you could do, knowing the
21:06
Scriptures and not living them. So that's just some of the
21:08
different ways that we approach the text, because it's a means
21:14
to experience God, not the end in itself.
21:18
Yeah, interesting. All right, so the just just by
21:24
way of summary, it's this this whole science and stuff.
21:27
If you're curious about that and you want to understand a little
21:30
bit more, there's going to be another episode coming up where
21:34
we talk about scripture itself and its nature and, and, and,
21:38
and during Alpha so. And, and, and you can go as deep
21:41
as you want in this, right? I mean, there's whole books
21:44
written on word play in Greek manuscripts like you can you can
21:50
buy books just on the in jokes that writers in Greek used where
21:55
they'd use a word that sounded like this word or rhymed with
21:58
this word and everyone would go, yeah, yeah, that just don't pass
22:03
on. Yeah, this.
22:05
The Scriptures are the most scrutinized body of literature
22:10
in human history, and it's not even close.
22:13
Like generation upon generation produces scholars that give
22:18
their entire lives to nerding out about all these little tiny
22:22
tiny, tiny tiny tiny details. So fascinating stuff, at least
22:27
for nerds like us. But if you have more questions,
22:30
there will be more opportunity to talk about scripture in the.
22:32
Later, I'm trying to remember, do you remember what?
22:35
And this is always like a little frightening for people because
22:38
it requires a lot of trust. It's one of the reasons I think
22:41
of my job and your job when we preach as Bing translators.
22:51
NT Wright said something years ago that was fascinating.
22:54
He said trying to read the New Testament without understanding
22:59
Greek was like, and then he pulls this metaphor out that's
23:02
just brilliant. And I've completely forgotten
23:04
it. But he's like, it's like seeing
23:07
a picture but only getting like one tiny bit of it and trying to
23:12
understand the whole thing. He's like, there's a gift to
23:15
being able to know the original languages because so much of
23:20
what we know is is locked in that language and so hard to
23:23
bring into English. Yeah, yeah.
23:25
Almost everything, every translation loses a little piece
23:29
of the meaning. Yeah.
23:32
It's a part of what we're trying to do on on Sunday mornings and
23:36
on on Thursdays. Is, is trying to bring some of
23:39
that to life, Say, oh, he's like he's moving back of the curtain
23:43
and like, this is the heartbeat of it.
23:46
Yeah, that's that's the gift of preaching.
23:48
Yeah, yeah. In a community.
23:52
All right. Well, that brings us to our
23:54
second question, which is a little bit about some some stuff
24:00
from Alpha and from this last Sunday, which is where was
24:04
Lazarus's soul or spirit while he was in the tomb?
24:09
And yeah, like how how's that whole dynamic work?
24:14
So this partially was spurred on by we talked about resurrection
24:18
yesterday in Alpha, but it also was that happens to be last
24:21
Sunday's text that Diego preached on.
24:23
So why? I think an interesting question
24:25
that nudges us into this is, is what happens to Lazarus the same
24:32
as what happens to Jesus? Interesting.
24:39
I mean yes and no. Because so I would argue
24:43
primarily no, like, you know, so, so and, and the reason I
24:47
would say this because, because you're right, yes and no is the
24:49
best answer. But I think like, I think we
24:52
assume it's the same thing because they're both
24:54
resurrection stories or we call them both resurrection stories.
24:58
But Lazarus is, is a resuscitation story, OK.
25:03
And and the writers are really clear that Jesus story isn't a
25:08
resuscitation story, it's a resurrection story.
25:11
So, so the difference being this Lazarus dies and as far as we're
25:16
told, comes back in exactly the same way as he existed before.
25:23
Like he walks out the tomb, he looks like he looked before, he
25:27
acts like he looked before. He's capable of doing the same
25:31
things he did before. And Jesus is resurrected, has
25:35
what we're told later is a new resurrection body, which is not
25:39
like that Lazarus will one day have when he died again.
25:44
And he's raised as a follower of Jesus.
25:47
He's now able to walk through walls.
25:49
His appearance changes in different moments and people
25:52
can't recognize him. There's something that happens
25:55
with Jesus. And and of course, just like
25:58
we're promised one day, Jesus is raised never to die again.
26:02
Yeah. Actually, he's now incapable of
26:05
dying and and so somewhere the different things going on, like
26:09
you can't take the Lazarus story and say it's exactly like the
26:13
Jesus story in in actual fact, it seems like what John is
26:17
trying to do is he's trying to give us like a, a little bit of
26:21
a inferior mirror image. So one, Jesus does the most
26:26
impossible thing from a Jewish perspective to raise someone
26:29
dead 4 days, no chance. Like the spirit has gone on
26:32
somewhere and you know, and so, so that's like one piece of it.
26:36
This this can't be done. But two, the pattern that
26:41
happens is the same as when Jesus is raised in the Lazarus
26:45
is raised, people see it, they stop telling people about it.
26:49
Those people stop believing in it.
26:52
Those people tell others and the story then starts to spread in a
26:57
similar way. So the story of Jesus
27:00
resurrection will spread. Yeah, it's it's a like a witness
27:05
conversion story in in a similar way.
27:07
So, so I think that's one of the like the interesting things that
27:10
gets it like, well, where does he go?
27:12
Yeah, Yeah. So you you referenced a couple
27:16
of things in passing there, like the in part of maybe, and we're
27:23
hypothesizing based upon some evidence around the way the Jews
27:27
thought about the spirit. But part of the reason why maybe
27:32
Jesus let him stay in the in the tomb for four days is that they
27:36
had this tradition that the spirit would kind of hover over
27:39
the body for three days and then exit.
27:41
So Jesus waits four days to make sure that I sucked that thing
27:44
all the way. Back from wherever it was.
27:47
Back into the body. And so it's like it's a little
27:49
extra of an ezrection. It's kind of a little nod to
27:54
this tradition in the Jewish, Jewish world, so.
27:57
So much that's fun about this story because you know, you've
28:02
got this irony that Jesus waited till Lazarus was dead to come
28:07
and raise him or rather than rather than come and heal him.
28:11
That puts Jesus life in greater danger and ironically, Lazarus
28:15
life in greater danger. So he's more in danger after
28:18
being raised than he was before he was raised.
28:21
So his new life actually puts him in greater risk of death.
28:25
And you add to that the irony that the Pharisees think he
28:29
might be concerned about this. Yeah, just been raised from the
28:33
dead. And they're like, oh, we're
28:33
going to kill him. And he's like, OK.
28:36
Like you, you do realize I hang out with a guy that raises
28:40
people from the dead. So bring it.
28:42
Yeah. You know, like I Yeah, it's kind
28:45
of funny. Yeah.
28:45
So in your passage, they talk about they start plotting to
28:48
kill a guy that was just raised from the dead.
28:51
It's like. And he's supposed to be super
28:54
concerned. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
28:55
So. So like.
28:56
All of this deliciously ironic. He's like I am living the bonus
29:00
life my friend. You.
29:02
Can throw throw what you have at.
29:04
Me and my passage actually starts with them sitting at a
29:07
meal together. And I always wonder, what's that
29:09
meal like? You just got this sitting next
29:12
to a guy that just raised you from the dead and you're like.
29:15
OK, here I am. Or, or like, OK, so based upon
29:19
this question, where was he during that time frame?
29:21
Like so if he's like in the presence of God, is he like
29:24
super bummed that he's been raised and this is interesting.
29:27
So like the Abraham's bosom concept or like, yeah, all of
29:32
these things, like what's going on with his soul?
29:35
What's most of Jewish history? They don't really have much
29:39
sense of an afterlife. It's a curiosity, like most of
29:43
the time they talk about things like and he rested with his
29:46
father's and that's something that happens to someone who's
29:49
lived a good and righteous life. And if he doesn't like, they
29:52
don't really mention that piece. But there's not really any
29:55
concrete ideas about what happens afterwards until we
30:03
suddenly get to stories like Enoch, who wasn't because he
30:08
walked with because God took him, took him.
30:10
Where stories like Elijah going up in a fiery chariot and not
30:15
experiencing death, but going somewhere.
30:18
And then writers like David who start throwing in ideas like,
30:23
and I shall dwell in the House of the Lord forever and ever our
30:26
man, where can I go from your presence?
30:29
Like if I go down into the ground, you know, I'll still be
30:32
with you. And so suddenly these, these
30:35
really far thinking authors start saying things like that
30:41
that give people this sense of like.
30:44
And then you get to the 1st century where Jesus is where
30:49
almost every Jewish person has started to develop some idea of
30:53
a resurrection and afterlife, something yet to come.
30:58
It started to become more present.
31:00
And then I almost out of nowhere, Jesus throws out this
31:04
language. At least out of nowhere to us,
31:06
Jesus throws out this parable of two characters, one who ends up
31:11
in a place called Hades and one who ends up in a place called
31:15
Abraham's bosom, which is to us a really weird place to be
31:21
called something like hell yeah, Yeah.
31:24
And And that's kind of where he pauses, right?
31:26
Yeah. So what's going on?
31:29
With Abraham's bosom. Yeah.
31:33
All right. The the intellectually honest
31:36
answer is we don't know. Yeah, I think that you can make
31:41
some reasonable and this would be a long extended conversation
31:45
that we don't have time for. But I'll just get to the
31:47
punchline. I think that there's some some
31:51
biblically informed evidence that you kind of have multiple
31:57
stages of how how the dead existed.
32:05
So that Abraham's bosom maybe was like this sort of almost
32:11
sleep state. They sort of use that a language
32:15
and this might be related to Old Testament or Old Covenant versus
32:19
new covenant stuff that there's like this resting state holding
32:24
for future resurrection, which is still an option because of
32:28
Christ, even for those who died before.
32:31
And that's. What Abraham, the poor guy in
32:33
the story? And that's what Abraham's bosom.
32:36
Is what about where he goes? Is he able to have this future
32:40
state? They're the same place.
32:42
OK. They're both in Abraham or
32:44
they're not. They're both in a this holding
32:47
tank, but it's it's a divided holding tank.
32:50
OK, SO11's and one's bad, one's good.
32:53
Yeah, so you so there's some like.
32:54
That sounds a lot like. There's some hypothetical
32:57
there's some hypothetical theology and that existed pre
33:01
cross. Yeah.
33:04
You know, we're getting into nerd land that.
33:06
Most people don't care about. So now the challenge is Jesus
33:09
shares this story in a parable, yes.
33:12
So like. Which he's not intending to do
33:14
super heavy theological work in beyond the main point of the
33:18
parable. And the function is parables are
33:20
just made-up stories, right? So like, there's not a real
33:24
farm. I mean, there are real farmers.
33:26
There's not one that's that casual with the seed that it's
33:29
gone every single place it could possibly go.
33:31
Yeah. And I guess the, the theological
33:33
point of all of this is that interestingly that what we
33:38
classically think of as heaven and hell, like heaven being this
33:47
like disembodied somewhere place, maybe that would be on
33:54
par to what like an Old Testament person would think of
33:57
as like Abraham's bosom or this holding place.
34:02
Those Abraham's bosom in heaven might be a little bit more on
34:05
par with each other because they're temporary actually, you
34:10
know, like NT Wright says, heaven's great, but it's not the
34:13
end of the world, right? And so actually the final
34:17
ultimate destination of, of human beings who are resurrected
34:22
in in Christ is a new heavens and new earth in glorified
34:28
bodies like Christ's resurrected body.
34:31
So, so it does it when it's all said and done, all of all of
34:35
humanity who who are resurrected in Christ are there.
34:40
We don't know. It's a lot of hypothetical
34:42
theology prior to that situation, but the main point
34:47
being what we naturally think of as heaven is actually a
34:50
temporary place. Sure.
34:52
It's to be absent with the body is to be present with the Lord,
34:55
whatever that means. It's a mystery kind of state of
34:58
being. Maybe you're sleeping, maybe
35:01
you're in the presence that's. Actually, state theology is a
35:06
real thing, totally. You just everyone's resurrected
35:09
together. You just sleep.
35:11
All this stuff so. You got a long.
35:13
We don't know any of that piece. We don't.
35:16
But we do have much more concrete biblical evidence that
35:19
there is going to be a new heavens and new earth when we
35:22
are embodied human beings again walking around and existing in
35:28
the Presence. Of but even there we've got some
35:30
sense of like we've been reading a book that's in the apocalyptic
35:34
genre for the whole time. And so when it says there's
35:38
literally a city lowering down from heaven now, does that mean
35:43
it's physically lowering and observable?
35:45
Or does that simply mean the dwelling place of God will be
35:49
with man? Like so?
35:51
So all of those things live in those like spaces of
35:54
uncertainty. The primary message of Scripture
35:59
is Eden restored. Yeah.
36:01
In the beginning God dwelt with man, and in the end God will
36:07
dwell with man. Yes, you know, and I think that
36:10
they're so you may be listening to me like I who cares about
36:15
this entire conversation? Well, some nerd theologians
36:18
care, and some and. And someone who asked a
36:20
question. And someone who asked the
36:22
question and, and so the what's the point of all of this?
36:28
Is that part of the reason deep, nuanced theology even comes up
36:36
is that you have followers of Jesus scrutinizing A scriptural
36:40
text, noticing little things, and asking relevant questions of
36:45
that text? This is how really detailed
36:49
theology starts to come to be. And because some nerds need PhDs
36:52
as well. Yes, that's true.
36:54
So like this, the text doesn't answer all these questions, but
37:01
it invites rumination and meditation and contemplation.
37:08
And it's in that process of asking questions, the text that
37:14
often times the spirit of a God awakens something in US.
37:18
It also produce a bunch of PhDs on very nuanced topics that half
37:22
the population of the world. Friend of mine wrote his PhD on
37:25
Hagar in the New Testament. I mean, it's like one line.
37:30
Yeah. So it's like, yeah, there's
37:32
there's a reach in PhDs for like, like what?
37:35
What's this area that I can explore?
37:36
How can I do? That.
37:37
Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right.
37:39
So the biggest question for us today is the long or the longest
37:43
question is Romans 829 through 30.
37:48
Here's the main question is where does the idea of free will
37:51
stand in this in in primarily is Romans 8.
37:55
Section 20. 9 through 30 yes let me finish the whole question,
37:59
then we'll go back and read it. If God already knows the one he
38:03
has chosen to give right standing and his glory to are
38:07
the Are there people that are just doomed to spend eternity in
38:11
hell because they weren't chosen by God from the beginning and
38:15
now there's no way for them to have an eternal relationship
38:18
with God? Or is it more likely that God
38:22
chose only a select number of people, or even possibly
38:26
everyone, but people have to use their free will to choose to say
38:30
yes to Jesus and answer the call and receive God's gift of
38:34
salvation? All right, so Romans, do you
38:38
want to read it since I've got to pull it up?
38:40
From 8:28. 829 is where they said I'm going to read 8. 28
38:44
Because I think you've got to read 828 to understand.
38:48
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those
38:52
who love him. I think that's probably a
38:55
terrible translation and that's probably better read something
38:59
like. And we know that in all that God
39:02
works all things for good in those who love him who have been
39:07
called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew, he also
39:11
predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, that he
39:14
might be the first born among many brothers and sisters.
39:17
And those he predestined, he also called.
39:21
Those he called he also justified.
39:23
Those he justified he also glorified.
39:27
I'm actually going to come back to this passage this week.
39:29
So that's going to be a fun connection.
39:32
But yeah, there's there it is. There you have it.
39:36
So did God. Is God ultimately the one that
39:40
decides? And.
39:41
Therefore, there's a whole bunch of people who are walking
39:43
around. They don't even have a chance of
39:47
having a relationship with God. And in which case, why are we
39:50
ever talking about any of this stuff?
39:53
Why would we ever encourage anyone to consider faith in
39:56
Jesus? Or is it that God choose a
40:00
selected number of people, or even possibly everyone, but
40:03
people have to use their free will to choose to say yes?
40:07
You're a good nine point Calvinist, right?
40:09
Or have you added some more since then?
40:11
1011 point Calvinist, Yeah. I'm like just adding points all
40:14
over the place. So you can defend that, right?
40:19
He's being cheeky. I'm no longer a nine point
40:21
Calvinist. I'm a -9 point Calvinist.
40:24
So. How the turns have tables?
40:26
Yeah, indeed. Yes, yes, yes.
40:27
So, so generally in history there's been like, and and this
40:32
is hundreds of, of years old. So if only we could solve it
40:36
today, well, we'd be rich because then we'd write a book
40:39
on it and everyone would be like, man, look at these guys.
40:41
They finally solved the conundrum the people have been
40:45
arguing back and forth about for a long time.
40:47
So so just generally the school of thought known as Armenian
40:54
coming from Jacob Arminius back 17th century, 16th century has
41:03
nudged towards free will. A.
41:12
What's the term I'm looking for? A.
41:14
Salvation that you can lose. OK.
41:18
And a few other different premises that we'll leave to one
41:21
side for one day. And that theology has generally
41:24
impacted the Wesleyan Church, the Pentecostal Church through
41:30
the Wesleyan Church and and a bunch of other denominations.
41:33
On the other side, the the Calvinism theory that that has
41:39
the name of John Calvin, but a bunch of it comes from other
41:43
people as well as generally navigated the opposite side of
41:47
the the coin, which is the if you are saved, you're saved
41:50
forever and you are also like part of a select group that God
41:56
chose not now again, we could go back and forth into like
42:01
predestination, double predestination, all of those
42:04
different things that may not be particularly.
42:06
Helpful. I think maybe one way, since
42:08
this is centered around the topic of free will, one way
42:11
maybe we can approach it is to focus on specifically the nature
42:17
of of free will within those two traditions.
42:20
So we have libertarian free will and complementarian free will.
42:24
And so and your libertarian free will is your Armenian camp, and
42:31
complementarian free will is in the Calvinist camp.
42:35
And both parties believe in free will.
42:38
Yeah, they just choose to describe free will in one way or
42:43
another. And so I'll give you both
42:44
options. We can show our cards in a
42:47
moment. But I, I don't think that
42:49
there's, I don't think you can say that a Calvinist doesn't
42:52
believe in a free will. They just believe in
42:54
complimentary and free will. So here's what I mean by that.
42:57
So a theologians call complimentary and free will this
43:03
it's free will. You are free to choose anything
43:08
that doesn't contradict your nature or impulses which
43:13
everything you are forced to choose things that are aligned
43:18
with your nature. So an example would be are like
43:21
you have free, you are so free and yet you are not allowed to
43:25
be a bird. Why?
43:26
It's contrary to your nature. And so the way that free will
43:32
works in a Calvinist camp is I I cannot help but choose God.
43:41
If he reveals himself to me in a certain way, it's still a free
43:45
choice. But because of an exposure to
43:50
him emotionally or through the Spirit or an interaction or some
43:53
sort of, he reveals himself to you in such a way that he knows
44:00
you well enough that if he pulls this right string, you will
44:06
freely choose him without a doubt.
44:09
That's a so it's still a free choice.
44:12
Well, it would be for a Calvinist.
44:14
For a Calvinist, it's not free because he's already chosen who
44:17
he's going to do that to. Yes, so, but it's still, it's
44:20
still free will in the compliment complementarian camp
44:24
just as much as like a you know, you know, you know your creation
44:30
super duper well. And you, you can orchestrate the
44:32
scenarios where this body of people freely choose God and
44:36
this body of people don't. And then to an Armenian or
44:41
someone who is more of a libertarian free will camp,
44:43
they're like, yeah, but that's, that's semantics people.
44:47
It's still God's choice, not ours.
44:50
And and the and the Calvinist says, no, it's still ours.
44:53
That's why God's not culpable. Thus the debate.
44:57
Libertarian free will means it has to be utterly free, with or
45:01
without the coercion of God's knowledge or his pre knowledge
45:05
of our propensities and so on and so forth.
45:08
But there's the context. So let's let's show our cards.
45:13
Yeah. And, and, and, and I, I come
45:15
from a firmly Armenian camp. So I'm, I'm pretty comfortable
45:19
with my sense that what the Calvinist side would call free
45:23
will is not really free will. Yeah, on any kind of
45:26
philosophical level, It's it is, it feels like a semantic
45:30
argument. There's.
45:32
Oh, by the way, there is a third one which is Mullen ISM and
45:35
that's tries its best to sit right between these two camps
45:39
and say that God chooses simultaneously with humans in
45:44
any given moment. Multiple worlds are involved
45:48
with that. It's a philosophical mental
45:50
ascent, but. That might be a rabbit, yeah.
45:53
That's we'll throw out there. There are some other options,
45:55
but yeah, carry on. So sorry, I really don't know
46:00
where to go after that. I'm like, they asked a really
46:04
big question, so they're getting a very.
46:07
So here's what I tend to think is the cause of a bunch of the
46:11
struggle around free will, which wasn't a particularly Jewish
46:14
question. So.
46:17
So we tend to and, and, and by the time of Calvin, this is
46:23
starting to develop. It develops even further later.
46:28
By the time of Arminius, the, the, the idea of individualism
46:33
starts to become very important. Yeah.
46:36
Like which really asks the question, am I chosen?
46:41
It really focuses on the the me of the question.
46:45
Now, a lot of the scriptures that 'cause this debate,
46:50
including the Roman Scripture, are not particularly written on
46:55
an individual level. There's a corporate you that
46:59
they're addressed to. So we tend to imagine because of
47:01
how we read the Bible, one person sat in the room asking
47:06
the you question, are you chosen?
47:10
Whereas in almost every circumstance, the letters that
47:14
Paul writes are to a your group of people, someone stands up and
47:22
reads them to the church. And so just feel for a second
47:25
how the equation changes where someone gets up and says to
47:29
South Fellowship S fellowship you are chosen.
47:33
What doesn't tend to happen when you make those kind of
47:36
announcements is that individual starts questioning, am I chosen
47:42
in amongst the group of people? You know the the scriptures
47:46
would use at different points and poor uses this language, The
47:49
remnant, the group of people that stayed as a chosen group of
47:54
people. That language comes out of the
47:56
group of people that survived the Babylonian exile, the
48:00
remnant that come back to Jerusalem.
48:02
Now that remnant aren't asking questions.
48:05
Am I individually a part of a remnant?
48:08
Well, you are because you're there.
48:10
And so I think we nudge the language too individualistic
48:14
when we start asking questions about whether we're chosen.
48:18
I think the overall emphasis is that the church is chosen, those
48:22
that have chosen to become part of that worldwide Church of
48:25
Jesus, of, you know, followers. Now, having said all that, and
48:30
this is my favorite John Piper quote of all time.
48:33
The number of times I quote John Piper is is miniscule, but one
48:39
of my favorite things that he ever said was this look across
48:44
scripture. The scriptures that you come
48:46
across that seem to emphasize that God has chosen people seem
48:51
again, I have some questions about some of them.
48:53
And then there's other scriptures that say very clearly
48:56
things like whoever will make up like God so loved the world that
49:02
he gave his own son. All of these that seem to seem
49:07
to suggest that anyone who wants to be part of this thing can
49:09
choose to be part of it. Yeah.
49:12
And he kind of ends with, do you think my tiny brain, my human
49:17
level brain can understand how the God of the universe sees
49:20
those things when there's both ideas that are present?
49:24
Yeah. It has to be a little bit of a
49:26
mystery because God is a little bit of a mystery.
49:29
Yeah. And so I think as I've got
49:32
older, I've started being more comfortable surrendering to the
49:36
mystery and surrendering to the fact that, you know, God showed
49:41
his love for me when I was an enemy, when I was still a
49:44
Sinner. Yeah.
49:45
And yet his love for me was just as much as it was for any person
49:49
who'd ever lived. That's a pretty good invite.
49:53
Yeah. So I think, yeah, both both Alex
49:57
and I would tend to, to land in the more libertarian free will
50:00
camp. And I think that my journey was
50:06
like, we, we said it jokingly, but my journey was much more
50:10
Calvinist. For the majority of my early
50:13
biblical education season, I, I always grew up in a tradition
50:18
that hated Calvinists. And yet I became 1 and was
50:21
strong and was like very, very adamant about that.
50:25
But I've come to to as I've spent more time with Scripture,
50:31
I think that what you'll find is there there are some like
50:35
personality tendencies that gravitate towards 1 tradition or
50:40
other another and some hermeneutics.
50:43
The word hermeneutics means like how do we interpret scripture?
50:48
Certain hermeneutics or their approach, their philosophy of
50:52
around what is scripture, how should it be interpreted that
50:58
you're kind of wedged into one camp or another based upon what
51:03
you believe about the nature of the text and how it should be
51:07
approached. And so by way of summary, and
51:11
this is not going to get to a satisfactory answer for whoever
51:14
asked this question fully is I think that a libertarian free
51:20
will model does a better job of accounting for the narrative arc
51:26
of the scriptural account and maybe the bulk of like the bulk
51:31
of the scriptural account. And it's and what it's trying to
51:35
accomplish and does a worse job dealing with a handful of
51:40
individual passages. Like it really wrestles to deal
51:44
with things like Romans or Ephesians, several verses in
51:48
there. And then the the Calvinist
51:53
tradition tends to do a much better job accounting for very
51:58
individual verses in the primarily in the New Testament.
52:04
And it just, it's elegant, like in accounting for all of the
52:09
components of these body of verses and then says, yeah, like
52:14
the narrative arc, I know it feels very much like we have
52:16
free will. They're just wrong.
52:18
Yeah, yeah. Whole swaths of narrative
52:21
structure in the Old Testament that everyone is bopping along
52:26
thinking they have a free. They're just wrong.
52:28
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so they kind of ignore that
52:30
larger body of genre and because they have this really elegant
52:35
solution to the free will issue of these very, very articulate.
52:40
And this is one of the things we looked at when we looked at the
52:44
female eldership question. Yeah, yeah.
52:47
That if you focus all of your understanding of Scripture on
52:56
one specific component that we might call just exegesis, we
53:00
take one scripture and we just go nuts on that.
53:04
Wherever you start is usually where you end up as well.
53:09
You know, if you start with a passage that says in one
53:14
particular context, from my perspective at least, women
53:18
should not be in authority and read that starkly in English as
53:22
it is, that's probably where you're going to end up.
53:26
Now, if you start with another passage which says, you know, it
53:32
has poor thanking every female leader that he's worked with
53:35
over the last however long, that's probably going to be
53:38
where you end up. And that's why how you read
53:42
scripture is never determined by just taking one scripture after
53:45
another and trying to understand just that out of context.
53:52
The narrative arc matters. The trajectory of scripture
53:56
matters. And that's why this moment that
53:59
we're actually adding John is so important where the Pharisees
54:03
make this comment where they say the whole world was gone after
54:07
him. Now, they don't mean that as a
54:09
compliment, but they're starting to surprisingly reveal how big
54:14
the mission is. It's not a Jewish mission.
54:17
It's not a Mediterranean mission.
54:20
It's a whole world mission that's designed to invite every
54:25
single person that will ever live.
54:29
And that that that's the the beauty of how I see that the
54:33
story move in John through the teaching of Jesus.
54:37
All right, so just to sum up this, this section of
54:42
conversation and connect it back to Alpha, like the scriptures,
54:53
you run into this kind of thing. So if you're exploring
54:56
Christianity, you're exploring faith things and you and you're
55:00
like, you know what? I just struggle with this kind
55:04
of issue because there seems to be contradictions within the
55:09
scriptural account. OK, You guys gave evidence.
55:12
Yeah. There's a big body of
55:13
manuscripts. Your textual criticism.
55:15
Great, great, great there. So Jesus was historical.
55:17
His his followers thought that he rose again.
55:21
And yet this, this book itself is full of these weird debates
55:26
that not even Christians can figure out.
55:29
So why would I ever enter a tradition that is constantly
55:33
nipping at each other theologically and they can't
55:36
even come to a conclusion on a podcast episode that just sounds
55:41
like it's fully coherent? Why is this book this way?
55:47
And why is this Christian traditions so fractured around
55:51
theological nuances? And like, that's what I'd sign
55:54
up for if I was going to become a Christian.
55:56
Like, can you, can you speak to that for just a moment?
56:00
Well, well, I think one of the hard things for us to accept
56:04
about scriptures, even with our ideas of inspiration and and
56:07
what you know, I'm very comfortable with that term
56:09
inspiration to broadly describe Scripture.
56:13
I prefer the one it actually uses, which is God breathed that
56:17
somewhere he breathed on the writings of humans and these
56:21
things came alive in a different way.
56:24
But we are people like this is the Frederick Beekner quote,
56:28
right? We are people standing in a room
56:31
looking down at the street, and there's these group of, you
56:35
know, 40 odd riders across 66 books pointing up in the sky
56:41
trying to describe something that they've seen.
56:43
And they're excited, and they're speaking excitedly because of
56:48
that excitement. And we're trying to get a sense
56:51
of what they're talking about. And actually, the invite is for
56:56
us to step out of the room onto the street and look for
57:01
ourselves. Yeah.
57:02
But all they can do is invite us in the best words they have to
57:07
describe the impossible. And even they have just seen a
57:11
fraction of it. You know, one of the most
57:14
important passages for understanding God is that when
57:20
Moses asks to see him in all his glory, God says to him, as you
57:25
are, you cannot see me in life. Like to see me as I really am
57:29
would destroy you as a human. Yeah, it's like beyond you.
57:34
It's like plugging in charger that outputs so much wattage
57:39
that it would just fry the circuit.
57:41
The circuit bar would just explode.
57:43
Yeah. And and so that's why Paul will
57:47
later say we see through a glass darkly one day.
57:51
We'll see face to face. We're not in that one day yet.
57:54
And so it's a mystery because it has to be a mystery.
57:58
Yeah. You can't have You can't
58:01
describe the mysterious without using mysterious language.
58:05
Yeah, and I think we've talked about this, a bunch of this on
58:08
this show, but part of the reason why there is so much
58:14
debate in Christianity around theological nerdy nuances is the
58:21
fact that the scriptures themselves are written in
58:25
genres. Like if it if God wanted to
58:28
remove all this, it would have been much more like an
58:30
encyclopedia or a dictionary. But he gives us narrative and
58:35
poetry and didactic and apocalyptic genres and
58:41
metaphorical all these different things because God's less
58:45
interested in US solving these theological debates as he is in
58:49
transforming humanity from so this.
58:51
Is why This is why and this leads perfectly to what I would
58:54
say is this. One of the biggest steps to
58:59
transformation as someone who's trying to follow Jesus is
59:02
reading Scripture. That's just been historically
59:04
true. Like and now we have data on it,
59:06
like, and it's actually very specific to people that read
59:09
like most days of the week. If you read read Scripture like
59:12
3-4, five days a week, that's when it starts to really do its
59:16
work. Yeah.
59:17
Now as you read, you're going to have things that jump up and you
59:21
and like, what in the world is this going on about?
59:24
Yeah. And when you have like one of
59:26
those what questions, write it down, put it in a book and move
59:30
on. Don't feel like you have to
59:32
solve it all. Don't feel like you have to get
59:34
to the bottom of it. You can if you want, but just
59:37
just leave it if you don't know what to do with it.
59:41
But when you get one of those like who are you questions?
59:45
When God starts to push on like this is what I'm calling you to.
59:49
Those are the questions to pause on.
59:52
Those are the questions that lead to transformation.
59:54
Very few people are transfer transformed by the what
59:57
questions, the how did this happen questions, the when
1:00:01
questions, but The Who questions who is God?
1:00:04
Who are you? Those are the questions that
1:00:06
seem to transform people. And so just read it.
1:00:09
Read it, you know, as as as someone once said, read it with
1:00:12
a glass of wine, read it with chocolate.
1:00:14
Read it, you know, in whatever way you're able to come across
1:00:19
it, but just put time aside to read it because it's God
1:00:24
breathed, because it does what it's supposed to do.
1:00:27
It transforms the people that read.
1:00:29
Yeah, and we would probably write a different book if we
1:00:32
were given a choice because we have priorities that are
1:00:37
different than God's. God's priority is to train for
1:00:39
transformation and encounter. And he decided that some of
1:00:44
this, these weird, difficult to interpret things worth the kinds
1:00:48
of literature that was going to wiggle its way into souls and
1:00:53
then disrupt human systems of brokenness and transform
1:00:58
humanity from the inside out. So there you go.
1:01:01
We solved free will ish. Not even close.
1:01:05
All right, I hope, hopefully that was helpful to you.
1:01:07
If you have more questions, please submit them at the Red
1:01:09
Couch theology.com and we'd be more than glad to try and
1:01:14
meander around the question. And if we can, thanks for tuning
1:01:19
in and we will catch you all next time.
1:01:23
And I got to find the to button broadcast.
1:01:29
Goodbye. Bye.