Contact Amy (Follow on IG, X, FB)
Ever wonder how the kingdom of God is subtly yet profoundly impacting our world? Does the collision of theology and politics leave you grappling with questions? Join me this week as I converse with Eric Nevins, founder of the Christian Podcasts Association and his own podcast, Halfway There, as we traverse the journey of spiritual growth, discipleship, and the kingdom of God.
Eric, a spiritual seeker from his early years, leads us through his life's journey, sharing his experiences in college, seminary, and beyond. We delve into the power dynamics of Jesus' interactions, the subtle omnipresence of the Kingdom of God and its contrast to earthly power structures. We also discuss the potential for discord in the convergence of theology and politics and how we can strive for unity in our Christian walk. Eric shares his insights on wielding our online platforms as tools for the Kingdom, reflecting the teachings of Jesus.
As we wrap up our enlightening discussion, we journey back in time to the early church's example of caring for the vulnerable and promoting respect and unity. We share thoughts on the critical role of the Church in advancing the Kingdom of God and encouraging love and acceptance of those different from us. In these trying times, let's take Eric's reflections as a gentle reminder to love and respect people, even in their differences, as this is what truly advances the Kingdom of God. Join us on this journey as we learn, grow, and inspire each other in our walk with Christ.
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SEEN KNOWN HEARD LOVED VALUED
Contact Amy (Follow on IG, X, FB)
Ever wonder how the kingdom of God is subtly yet profoundly impacting our world? Does the collision of theology and politics leave you grappling with questions? Join me this week as I converse with Eric Nevins, founder of the Christian Podcasts Association and his own podcast, Halfway There, as we traverse the journey of spiritual growth, discipleship, and the kingdom of God.
Eric, a spiritual seeker from his early years, leads us through his life's journey, sharing his experiences in college, seminary, and beyond. We delve into the power dynamics of Jesus' interactions, the subtle omnipresence of the Kingdom of God and its contrast to earthly power structures. We also discuss the potential for discord in the convergence of theology and politics and how we can strive for unity in our Christian walk. Eric shares his insights on wielding our online platforms as tools for the Kingdom, reflecting the teachings of Jesus.
As we wrap up our enlightening discussion, we journey back in time to the early church's example of caring for the vulnerable and promoting respect and unity. We share thoughts on the critical role of the Church in advancing the Kingdom of God and encouraging love and acceptance of those different from us. In these trying times, let's take Eric's reflections as a gentle reminder to love and respect people, even in their differences, as this is what truly advances the Kingdom of God. Join us on this journey as we learn, grow, and inspire each other in our walk with Christ.
You ARE:
SEEN KNOWN HEARD LOVED VALUED
Hey everybody and welcome back to Wednesdays with Watson. It is the summer of 2023 and we are taking this summer in season five as a little mini-season to walk through some of my guest favorite Psalms. Today I'm so excited to bring to you Eric Nevins, who is the founder of Christian Podcasts Association and his own podcast, halfway there is one of the most popular in its genre. I am excited to bring Eric here today and we are going to have this rich conversation about his favorite Psalm. So hang out here with us. Before you do that, if you are not subscribed to the podcast, help it grow. Just hit that button at the very top right there in the show notes that says subscribe to the podcast. You're doing that. Even if you don't listen to every episode, helps the podcast grow and pops it up in all the algorithms. So, without further ado, let's drop into this conversation with my friend, eric Nevins. Eric, welcome to the Wednesdays with Watson podcast. This has been a long time coming, yeah.
Speaker 3:I'm excited. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:I've been waiting for a subject that I was going to be on that I felt like that you could talk about. I am so grateful. So, for those of you who don't know, eric Nevins is the founder of Christian Podcasts Association and I am not. This is not hyperbole when I tell you that without Christian Podcasts Association, that the Wednesdays with Watson podcast would not exist, and so, eric, I would just like to publicly thank you for this labor of love that you do for all of us. There are many of us that jump on meetings, sometimes on Tuesdays, and it turns into a group therapy session to help us not give up behind the microphone. So thank you so much for what you do with CPA.
Speaker 3:Well, you're really kind. I appreciate that a lot. It, you know, was something I just kind of did on a whim, honestly, to bring Christian podcasters together and then with an eye that maybe someday it would become something like it is, and so encouraging podcasters, bringing them together and particularly with a kingdom of God focus, I think, is what I'm really after, what I really love to do. So I'm glad that it's been helpful for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not just me, but many people and, of course, have made really good friends. So you talked about bringing people together, which I think it's interesting, because as I was thinking and praying about the episode and CPA, I was thinking it's exactly what Eric does as he brings people together. But I, on purpose, have kind of not asked about some of the things that drove you to where. Where you are in terms, and what I mean by that is like I love how you think in terms of the kingdom of God, it's. You border a little bit on that scandalous, making us, making us think into those those. I'm in grad school, so all these words are coming to my brain, but these, these higher, this, these higher order of thinking, is what Eric Nevins does. Was there a time in your life when something drove you? You went to grad school and got like an MDiv or something, didn't you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, okay, so I have a master's degree from Denver Seminary, which is how we ended up out in Colorado, but even that getting to that point was kind of this long journey. But yeah, so the part that kind of applies to the kingdom of God sort of thinking, which is really sort of not a lot of Christians know it or know what that kind of means, but it's sort of maybe, listen to different people use it different ways. Jesus talks about the kingdom of God. He comes to announce the kingdom of God. Right, king of God is near. It's not this thing that is far off for future, it is at hand, it is right now. He brings it and then he sends his disciples out to bring it to the rest of the world. Right, that's. And so that's where you know, 2000 years later, you and I come in bringing the kingdom of God, which is not at all like the power structures or the or the things that happen in the ways that we're used to things working in the world.
Speaker 3:Okay, all that, how? How did I get to a place where that was a thing that I really cared, cared about and loved? Well, I had this question growing up, grew up in a small church, big, big. My family wasn't very big but we had lots of extended family and we're all Christians grew up in the small evangelical church and I had this question. My question was how do you grow in Christ? Like I would read these things in the Gospels and acts and and read about the things Paul would do and Peter would do and and go. This doesn't seem the same as what we do right this isn't.
Speaker 3:This isn't really. I don't see people changing, I don't see people growing and I want to. I want that like I want to see. So how do you do that? I'm starting to see now that part of my personal interest, I guess, in maturity, spiritual maturity, is just because I knew that I needed. It's right, like I needed to grow up in a lot of ways, and so some of that pursuit, I think, was me seeking something that I maybe didn't otherwise see modeled, and so I was trying to trying to pursue that also. That's an interesting, maybe psychological thing. I don't know whatever you want to talk about that, but the but. So that drove me to really start to pursue some things.
Speaker 3:As a kid, our answer for everything was read the Bible and pray right, like that's and those things are good, like I, absolutely. So I went to college and I got a degree, a biblical studies degree, in so that I could learn how to study the Bible and I find myself using that all the time. And then I went to seminary where I say I learned to pray, and that was a little bit of a journey because I started at a very academic seminary where it was very heady long, long papers, you know things that you had to academically think about which is valuable. I kind of done a lot of that, and so I was not just didn't find that very life giving. Also, there was a bunch of stuff happening in our lives at the time, so it took a break, turned out to be, I always say, three years, two kids and one dark night of the soul. And then but God wouldn't let me go I tried to do a bunch of other things, to thinking well, okay, maybe I'll just do this, and I just couldn't shake the idea of I really wanted to finish my MDiv, so how could I do that?
Speaker 3:Eventually I ended up there's a little more to the story, but we ended up going out to Denver Seminary because they had a mentoring program as part of their MDiv. So I had to meet every week for like two and a half years with a pastoral mentor, or every month or so, a pastoral mentor, a lay mentor, and then, throughout the semester a couple of times, a spiritual. Well, we had a group and then we also had somebody who kind of oversaw our program and so you'd meet with her a couple of times and she's amazing. She is still friends with her and she's been on my podcast a couple of times, which is really great. So that's anyway. That's kind of how I got to a place where, like, the kingdom of God was a thing. So in the middle of all that study, I had to do a paper. I'm giving you the long way.
Speaker 1:No, I want this. No, this is, I want this.
Speaker 3:I had to do a paper, like my senior year in college and I was. It was a health class and I don't, I was not interested in this. Anyway, whatever, man, I just want to graduate, I want to get out of here. They took us to like a hospital and pulled out like a cow heart or something and I was like I just come on, man, do we have to do that? So we had this paper and I where we had to study a physiological thing or something, and so I, what I decided to do, was study spiritual disciplines, what it and what does that affect on on the body, Because I'm starting to get into spiritual formation and things like that.
Speaker 3:Well, through this I discovered Dallas Willard, because I started. He has a book called the spirit of the disciplines, right, which is all about his kind of way of understanding what they actually do versus telling you what to do, which is what a lot of spiritual discipline books are. His is like here's the philosophy of spiritual disciplines. So I went in. That really opened me up and started to be down. I'd been pursuing kind of discipleship and what does that mean, and this sent me on a little bit of a different trajectory right, he has, he had a he had a appendix in there that had been an article in Christianity today called is discipleship for super Christians only, wow.
Speaker 3:Isn't that fascinating, his argument is no right Is that you can't be a Jesus follower without being a disciple.
Speaker 3:That's just part of it. So I think that's, that's part of the kingdom of God. Like you are, if you're following Jesus, you are a disciple of him, and and then learning to do that, how you learn to do that is just part of the journey. So that reading that book was really foundational for me. And then, you know, we had that kind of season that was really really tough.
Speaker 3:I wanted to study more. That was why I wanted to go to Denver Seminary, because they had some of this kind of like really interesting coincidence, coincidence in quotes, right. Right, we were during my break, we were in a Bible study. My wife had a spiritual director who took us through a book called Satisfy your Soul by Bruce Demerist. When I start looking at Denver Seminary, I realized that Bruce Demerist taught at Denver Seminary, right, so I was like, oh okay. So then when we came to visit the seminary we met with him and it was like 15 minutes or something. He was an interesting dude, great, great guy. He had been a. He was a deep thinker, philosopher, theologian, scripture kind of guy, wrote about the atonement and things like really deep.
Speaker 3:You know big, long tomes on the atonement things like that, and he had this amazing transformation experience that sent him into spiritual direction and spiritual formation and some of these other practices that he had not known before. He had been all head and brought in some of his heart and the rest of his being fascinating. So I got to study with that guy and was in his spiritual formation group and took many classes from him. So I can look back at that and go, oh God was really setting that up as a thing.
Speaker 1:Well you literally drip that out of everything that you do. Like the kingdom of God is so important to Eric Nevins and he is doing all the things to him and a lot, a lot of people are. But but If you were to ask me, if somebody were to ask me, hey, tell me about Eric Nevins with CPA I would tell you he cares about a couple things. He loves Jesus deeply, he wants to advance the kingdom of God and he really cares about podcasters. You have your own podcast called Halfway there, and I will link that. That podcast is several years old and very well received in its genre.
Speaker 1:But I knew when you sent me the song that you wanted to read and that you wanted to cover. I thought I know where that's coming from, because this is a man that desperately, desperately is I have a friend that used the phrase as she was describing somebody else jealous for the souls of Jesus. So or jealous, jealous for that we get souls for Jesus, in other words. So everything that we're doing is in advancement of the kingdom of God, right, and I had another friend just recently and I'm still chewing on this and you'll chew on it too, I'm sure but she said, about the kingdom of God. We already have it, but not yet. So already, but not yet. Which is so? I mean, we could do a whole podcast on that ourselves Absolutely, but in terms of advancing the kingdom of God, like we're called to do as disciples, as you mentioned, if you have asked Jesus into your heart and he is your personal Lord and Savior, you are a disciple.
Speaker 1:It is your responsibility to go out into the world and preach the gospel, whether you have an MDiv behind your name, whether you're staying behind a pulpit or a microphone, it is your job as a Christian to do that. There is something right now, eric, that is really hurting that cause, and so when you sent me Psalm 133, I thought, huh, let's have this conversation. So before we begin to talk about Psalm 133, would you mind reading it for us?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you bet. Okay. So this is sort of titled or like there's like a heading on it. It says a song of a sense of David. So we could talk about what those were, but that's just important to know, all right. So here's the, here's the Psalm. How good and pleasant it is when God's people live in unity, or together, live together in unity. It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down the beard, running down on Aaron's beard, down on the collar of his robe. You can just picture that. It is as if the dew of Herman were falling on Mount Zion, for there the Lord bestows his blessing, even life, forevermore.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:That's it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know when you gave it to me and I was like it's three verses. But oh my word, how do we get past that first one without talking about anything? How good and pleasant it is, for and I'm a, you know, I memorized most of my scripture in King James Version, or I have some. I mix them all together, the CBS, I'm not sure how you were, what were you were reading but how delightfully good when brothers live together in harmony. So let's talk about that first. Clearly we are not doing that in this country as Christians. Let's forget everybody else. Tell me. I just would love to know your thoughts on how the disciple and we just talked about and we just defined a disciple, so the everyday Joe who loves Jesus as accepted and as hard as his Lord and Savior, how can we do better?
Speaker 3:How much time you got? Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:I don't like to go into it. Yeah, what? Pops in your mind first.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, so I guess the first thing I wanna I think that is important because when you talk about some of the divisions that are happening, a lot of that's political at this point, right. So we just called that out and I have a little bit of a story about that. So in CPA, for instance, which is our Christian Podcasters Association, our Facebook group, people have commented on this. One thing I don't allow in there is political commentary, or political discussions or theological discussions, and there's a reason for that. I spent a lot of my 20s arguing theology and politics because that was just what I did and I love politics. I love presidential elections. I don't know why I'm reading like a biography of every US president. I just think it's fascinating. But in there we don't do it, because I want the unity, like I want us to focus on the things that we are.
Speaker 1:That we have in common. That we have in common.
Speaker 3:Yeah, which essentially is Jesus in the gospel, even if we understand some parts of that differently. Right, there are definitely differences, even in some of those foundational pieces, but for the most part, we're all unified in that. That came about because I didn't know. I mean, I didn't always do that. So my first four days into online content was blog writing, back when blog writing was cool.
Speaker 1:Right, I remember when.
Speaker 3:I graduated seminary, I started a blog called revnevcom, which is what my coworkers. I spent my whole seminary.
Speaker 1:So that's for revnevins, nice play.
Speaker 3:Which I wasn't even ordained. So I felt a little awkward about that. But that's what my colleagues called me at work and when I worked at the bank, because they knew I was going to seminary, they knew that's what I wanted to do. And so they were like that's what they call me. So I was like, oh, that's kind of a cool name for a website. So I started writing about politics and I'd write politics and I'd write things. I quickly found that I had very little to say that was unique or different or insightful. Right, I just was trying to. I was repeating a lot of things, that's okay.
Speaker 3:It was important in my growth to realize I could start a website, I could do some things, so I look back at that as really good. It also helped me do some writing, which I think was really, really valuable. But I found like, even as I would write about certain things, my coworkers would read it and then they'd be like in our upset with me and things like that, and that wasn't ideal right.
Speaker 3:That wasn't probably the best, but during that, while I was doing that, I found out that you could get books for free from publishers If you when you're a podcaster. Love it, which you could do as a podcaster. This was for bloggers back then, but yeah, and which is great. One of my favorite things about podcasting and one of the books I got was by Oz Guinness, called A Free People's Suicide. Not only if you know who Oz Guinness is, but he is a.
Speaker 3:He's Irish, he's a philosopher and he studied with Francis Schaefer at La Brea Like he's just. His pedigree is amazing he's written many, many books. His work has definitely shaped large portions of my life. In the book he talks about a whole bunch of stuff. It's like I said, it's kind of philosophical, but at one point he talks about how character is so important. Right Doesn't matter in our society what the constitution says or what the laws say. If no one's willing to enforce the law or hold each other accountable to the law, it only matters. The character matters in order to make that happen. And so I started to ask myself the question like how do we shape character? How is character shaped? Well, the answer to that is for millennia through stories people are influenced by stories.
Speaker 3:Maybe it used to be a tribe around a campfire every night telling the stories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob or of their ancestors or whatever their things were. That's how these things were passed down and you told those stories because they shaped your character. This is why, even like preaching or whatever, hear those stories because it shapes who we become. It tells us what God values or what our tribe values. So that changed me from trying, because I was not very good at telling people what to do or think right.
Speaker 3:So as a terrible preacher did not enjoy. But it changed me to go okay, maybe I could tell stories instead, and that's how partly how halfway there came about where I could do that. But the other consequence of that realization was I just kind of stopped having those conversations. Right, I decided there's the kingdom of God and, for lack of a better word, the kingdom of the United States. Are two separate things.
Speaker 1:Amen, thank God.
Speaker 3:I would right, even though right, because I would like for our laws to more closely reflect the kingdom of God. There are times where I think the interests of the federal government are opposite right.
Speaker 3:And their interests in terms of not in a I don't even mean in like a wicked way where I would go, oh no, they don't care about morality. I mean there are things where it's in the interest of the state to allow something and regulate it. That we might think is immoral, right, we might not like it, but the state has an interest in making sure it's safe, right. There's other kinds of things and that conflicts with the kingdom of God and that. So that expectation of expecting the United States to be exactly like the kingdom of God was kind of broken. In that moment was like, oh okay, that's different, those two are. Those are two different things for me. So that was one of the outworkings of that is that, like in CPA, we don't talk about theology, we don't talk about politics, because I don't think it's the same right.
Speaker 3:I don't think that's really Agreed. We make different conclusions and that's okay, and I think that yeah, and I think that you bring up a good point.
Speaker 1:So because we could, like you said, how, how, how much time do you have of as to why we're divided? Right, I'm a member of a southern Baptist church and that's been really interesting over the last couple years. But I want to stick with what you just hit on, because I think that that if listeners would just pause and Think about what you're putting on your social media, think about what you're sharing, think about what you comment on, because these two things that Eric just mentioned theology and politics will Divide us because even among the Christian faith, not everybody believes the same. There are some hills that we all will die on, like the divinity of christ and and salvation through his blood, and the, an errant word of the scripture and I there's like five more that I could could mention, but we what I love about that verse is how delightfully good when brothers live together. You're said unity, I believe mine says harmony. So we should be as disciples of Christ and I'm wondering if you agree with this comment. Our lives should be and we should be seeking the things that we do agree on. We should be talking about those things on social media in particular, since that's the thing we're talking about, and that's where most people get brave behind a keyboard and just start saying things that divide people.
Speaker 1:And here's what really bothers me, eric. If we're not careful about doing that, and this is, people think that this is our Jesus, that this divided, broken Christian. And an air quote. When I say that because maybe all people aren't Christians, but when we, as the body of Christ, are fighting Over whatever and we've had plenty of Whatever's to do over the last three years, I mean covet about took all churches out, you know, because everybody disagreed about how that should be handled, and so I find it interesting that that the psalmist, uh David, continues to say when we live together in harmony, it is like this, and what they describe as this beautiful picture of this oil Dripping down Aaron's beard onto his robe, which I'm sure has so much more implication than I understand, but what I do know about oil In the bible is that it was very, very expensive, and so what we can, what we can ascertain, then, is that God and David, through writing this song, put the highest value on us living together in harmony. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're absolutely right, oil was was used, and then this is kind of describing the ceremonial yeah, please do so when Aaron was was Anointed as the high priest, right, this is the picture that it's invoking and calling out, because that's where in the culture, this was what what it would have been like. And he's saying this is a really priestly role, right to bring to be peace bringers. Um, and then, yeah, even the same thing with, like, mountain Zion, recalling that I like there's a lot of imagery that there that's kind of stacked with meaning For somebody who's who's reading this from a Jewish context, right.
Speaker 1:Right, and I think the nail we want to hit on the head is that this is how important us living in harmony is, and we've talked about one practical way that we could do that is, basically, you know, it's not going to kill you to keep scrolling on facebook or twitter and not comment on something, right? I? I have this habit of going and looking on my social media because we all can go there, right, we all can see something that just fires us up for every and look, there's some worthy things to be divided on between the Christian and a non-Christian. The first one that comes to my mind is being pro-life or pro-choice, right, of course, when we squander on facebook and somebody is again, you know, against our Opposite of what we believe, they just it's a burning fire in them to tell them why that other person is wrong instead of just Staying.
Speaker 1:Stay in neutral, and I would encourage everybody to do this. I was encouraged to do this by my counselor is go on your facebook page, your personal facebook page, and scroll it. And if you were to die today, what does your social media say about you? Does it say that you love Jesus? Does it say that you're a disciple of Christ. Does it say you're a kingdom of answer, or does it say you are part of the division?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's tough it's tough, right, because we all have that opinion. So. So a practical way is to basically be quiet unless somebody asks. When we get discipleship opportunities, it's not the most important thing to talk to them about pro life or pro choice or LBG, tq plus. That's not what we're going to sit down and talk to a person if we get an opportunity about.
Speaker 3:Okay, I'm going to comment on that first.
Speaker 1:Yeah, please do.
Speaker 3:Yes, I agree with you. What I think is really interesting about those kinds of issues is the way in which some people who are claiming the name of Christ and maybe they're believers, I don't know represent their views online and the ways that they end up attacking others. They're not trying to live in peace or harmony, they are attacking. They're on the offensive all the time, which, really, honestly, is just a rhetorical device, right? Oh, the war on life or the war or whatever all those things using that is just a way to get people riled up and make it morally acceptable to be against other people, right? So that's such a great question. Are you part of the divisionary part of the peace bringing right? The kingdom of God is it does bring peace right.
Speaker 2:It does bring harmony.
Speaker 3:And so you know, live as best you can. I was looking at this other verse in Hebrews 12.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, 14, make every effort to live in peace with everyone, right, and to be holy, and so I think we can look at some of the some people who have been sort of captured by political currents. I guess I'll say there's some unholiness in the ways that they're treating people and that bothers me, right. That does terrible injustice to the cause, because would I probably agree on multiple things, yeah, but the way you're treating members of the LGBTQ plus community, man, I can't be on board with that, because those people are also loved by God, right? So our school had a shooting at a couple years in 2019. And one of the shooters was a transgender student, and I thought at the time I shared this on a podcast with a friend like, who could be more my enemy than a school? A transgender student who shoots up my kid's school, right? I mean, in America, I don't think there's anybody, politically, life experience, wise, who could be more opposite and more different.
Speaker 1:Have you.
Speaker 3:Anyway, would have any any more right to be angry at right. And yet I felt like God was saying and I love this person too, yeah, right, and so how do we have that sort of perspective on the people that we maybe politically disagree with? And there are people who are called to engage in those arguments and do it in places of power. That's, that's fine, but it's not most of us right.
Speaker 3:And so watching and checking our outrage so that we can love other people is really important. Love is the key Like love is the pinnacle of the spiritual journey. That is what God is like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, love, like Jesus did right, and so he. He went to the people, and so so I. I think we have these conversations with each other, and even with non-believers, but we need to represent Jesus, who went and sought out the broken. Sought out what would probably you know, I am immediately to my brain is the woman at the. Well, if there were an LBGTQ plus community and Bible days, jesus would have been with them, right? So I think that, yes, the way people represent the biblical standpoint, I think we need to ask ourselves am I called to tell the masses on social media what the Bible says?
Speaker 1:Is that, is that my responsibility? Or am I called to do what that Hebrews passage says Make every effort to live peaceably among all men. And then I'd love how the writer of Hebrews, who we don't actually know who it is, says and be holy. And that word holy means set apart. So Christian out there who might be part of the dividing part and not part of the, the engaging into the kingdom of God, I think that's an important point to ask yourself am I set apart from everybody else on social media, all the other noise that's talking about this, this, this topic, whatever it is, and and you know I'd like that we've landed on on on the LGBTQ plus community because I it breaks my heart to see how those people are treated by Christians.
Speaker 3:I know I was at a large meeting of religious broadcasters earlier this year and not too far from you, and they the governor of Florida was there and when he was going through the some of the things that they've passed, the crowd just roared, like roared, and I was so broken-hearted over that like I literally had to leave the the meeting and I just sat outside. I called my wife and I was like I can't, I don't know if I can do this, like I don't know if I can stay here. I ended up meeting a bunch of great people and I, the Lord, showed me every just all over the place I would meet one or two people who I think were very kingdom driven and very less about politics. But it was hard, it was really hard and it was and it was exactly that. It was like really, and I was like y'all are just cheering like you've won some kind of battle, but Right.
Speaker 1:You've disenfranchised a whole group of people.
Speaker 3:Those who live by the sword die by the sword, right? So if you want to invoke power in order to get your way, it's not going to work right? Because guess what, someday someone else is going to have the power and they're going to get their way. We saw this with the, with the gay marriage thing. Right it was. It was five people on the Supreme Court who made a ruling, overturned laws in 30 states and California passed it twice. That is what happens when you fight with power.
Speaker 3:But the kingdom of God is not like that Right. The kingdom of God, jesus says at one point, is like yeast. Right, well, what does yeast do? It works in a dough and it works around. It's silent. You don't ever see it, you don't really know it's there. You can put your dough aside in a nice one place, right Well, it's rising and come back and you can see the effects of it. But you can't see it at the time. It just kind of works its way through subtly. It's subtle until all of a sudden it's not Right. That's what the kingdom of God is like.
Speaker 3:I reflected a lot. It's one more thing at that meeting about Jesus views of power. And he, he, at one point pilot says to him during his trial don't you know that I have the power to you know of your life, like of over life and death over you? Right? Because Jesus is answering him and he's like why would you disrespect me like that? And Jesus answered to him was look, you wouldn't have any power if it wasn't given to you from above, right? That's how the kingdom of God thinks about power, and it just seems to me to be very, very different from the way that some in America are handling it right now, certainly on the Christian side. So all that like this is kind of getting into politics. But the point is, if we take this view, this Christlike view of power, of politics, of people, I don't think we can engage quite that way.
Speaker 3:Right, and so we have a chance to care and love for people. When you have a chance to influence or have a deep conversation, I say go for it Right. And be open and caring with other people as much as you can as well. Right.
Speaker 1:That's a really good point is that love is kind of the lunchpin, right, and so I I I'd live in Florida, so that is my governor, and so I hear a lot of that stuff, right, but we, we don't hear here and this is just a great point as to why we don't hang our hat on on politics, especially as Christians, because it is not going to advance the kingdom of God, because in Florida it's a completely different story, right, we, we're hearing a completely different narrative, and so what we don't and what we need to remember as we are walking through life as disciples of Christ to not divide, right, and so let's pick, let's, let's stay out of all of those arenas where there's division.
Speaker 1:If the Lord has so put somebody in your life that you are to witness to and you are to do life with and you are to do all of those things, they are likely going to come to know him because you just do life with them, not because you talked to them about some book that they don't even believe is true and that their lifestyle doesn't match this book. They don't even believe that the Bible is the authority, but they need love.
Speaker 1:Yeah they need love, Right you know.
Speaker 3:I was at okay, there's a great go ahead.
Speaker 1:Well, I was just gonna say, you know, I had an opportunity I was at, when I worked at the hospital, a young man who is in that community and he was saying that a church came around this was at Christmas time and brought them food and he said and it was so good. He said I don't believe in their God, but I love their food. And all I said to him is I said well, I do believe in their God. And how awesome that they brought food into your neighborhood. He said yeah, it was really cool. That's the hands and feet of Jesus. He knew I was a Christian. I wanted him to know.
Speaker 1:Hey, here is a Christian who is not judging you based on the content of the way you live your life, because that, right now, is none of my business. What is my business as a disciple of Christ is to show you who Jesus is, and I think that is the takeaway from this passage. Is we have to be about advancing the kingdom of God every day when we get up, and is that disenfranchising people that you don't agree with? Even though we know the Bible, you can't ignore Romans one, even if you take it, take out the little bit, the Leviticus passage out you can't ignore Romans one, but we can't throw that at somebody that just believes this is a book.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:You know, you got to do life with them, you got to love them.
Speaker 3:Your story? Yes, absolutely, your story Illustrates exactly what I was going to say. So there's a great book by Rodney Stark he was a sociologist actually called the Rise of Christianity and in that book he talks about the kind of first 300 years of Christianity. You know we might disagree on a few of his interpretive points and some of the maybe his numbers. He doesn't believe what's reported in scripture is the same. So there's there's some nuance there.
Speaker 3:But what he describes as the reasons for why Christianity grew from a little group of people in Palestine to taking over the entire Roman Empire is fascinating. And it's all these little things like you just described, and I think that's where the power is. That's the thing with with the kingdom of God. Power it's not in the halls of power, it's in the people, because it's in the Holy Spirit. Right, so they would do things.
Speaker 3:He describes all these stuff so like when there were plagues. Interesting, they would be the people who would care for the sick the most, right. It would be so like Rome would suffer a plague, everybody, all the elites and all the people. They're out of town, they're leaving because they don't want to catch it. The Christians would stay and care for the sick, often in a great peril to their own selves. Right, they would also catch it and die. The way they treated women was exponentially different than the patriarchal system of Rome, where women could be just discarded. Baby girls could be literally discarded and put out to dive exposure, and they would take those babies in and they would give women a place in, even in leadership, right, and I think you can.
Speaker 3:You can see that throughout the New Testament. So there were things like that that the early church was really, really good at doing. I think we can learn a lot from if we would just listen to church history. This is why I think one of the essential things that all Christians should do it's not enough to just know your Bible yes, old Testament, new Testament. You need to learn some theology and you need to learn some church history. There's so much richness in the past. There's also division, right, but if you learn about that division and why it happened.
Speaker 3:I think what we're seeing today is actually a more of a unification.
Speaker 2:So there were centuries of division.
Speaker 3:America kind of makes that possible with freedom of religion, where theological disputes would make breaks, and the Reformation, of course, did the same thing. I think we're starting to see a time when what is more important is do I believe all the things that the Roman Catholic would believe? No we've got some significant differences, but can I fellowship with them as a person of faith of Jesus? Yeah, I absolutely can. That does not bother me.
Speaker 1:I want everyone to think of it like this, like if you had the cure for cancer, like you just dropped in your brain one day and you had the cure for cancer. You would go out and you would tell everybody you would not create division on. You know, there's no division and something such good news as a cure for cancer? Well, there is no division. It is scandalous. It is crazy sometimes when you think about Christians like what we believe that Jesus raised from the dead and then went back to heaven and the kingdom of God we're going to have and all the things. It sounds a little bit crazy, but there's no division in it, right? Jesus came to bring life so that we may have it more abundantly. And so, as we close out the podcast, I think that Eric and I's heart both just landed at the same spot today, which is what God does.
Speaker 1:This entire series, the Psalm series, is unscripted. Guests have no idea what questions I'm going to ask. I just know what their Psalm is and we're doing it. And we landed, guys today on the importance of being holy and advancing the kingdom of God, and what does that? And so I want you to ask yourself today, before I give the mic to Eric for final words. I want you to ask yourself today are you part of advancing the kingdom of God or are you impeding it by not representing it like it should be? And do you love people who are different than you? Are you willing to do life with some of those people without throwing the Bible in their face? Because Psalm 133, 1, how delightfully good it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.
Speaker 1:And I sent Eric a song by Rust Haff and Avalon called we Will Stand. And the chorus of that song says You're my brother, you're my sister, so take me by the hand. Together, we will work until he comes. No foe can defeat us when we're walking side by side. Together, we will work until he comes. And, guys, we need people coming to know the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. What behavior does that? What do you think about that, eric? I always give the mic to my guest. Last parting words for our listeners.
Speaker 3:I love it. Well, first of all, let me say thank you for having me. It's been a really fun conversation and I would say, I guess, to our friends listening, I want to give you a resource. So the way that this song came to me is I mentioned as a Psalm of ascent was. I did a study with a group through a book by Eugene Peterson called A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, and this I would recommend to anybody. If you maybe haven't studied a lot of Psalms, you don't really know or haven't spent a lot of time in it, this book will help you go through and just think deeply and reflect on each one of these. Here's the thing, here's the really interesting thing about this book. The title A Long Obedience in the Same Direction is taken from a quote from Nietzsche. So Eugene Peterson, America's pastor he's very right versus quoting from Nietzsche, who said God was dead.
Speaker 1:Interesting right.
Speaker 3:Interesting way that he sort of approached that. You can read it and find out why and find out what the quote that he pulls that from. I think you'll find it very valuable. But that would take you through kind of all those things and if maybe you need a good reflective study, highly recommend it.
Speaker 1:And we'll put that link in the show notes with Eric's affiliate link, if he has one for Amazon for that book. Well, thank you for being here today. I think that we could have we really could have done this for hours, but my heart is broken for the way that some of us and where none of us are perfect treat people who are different from us or who we believe their lifestyles are different, and I'm just sad when I think about it and I look at the value that God puts on it. I always tell people it's the last party where it's my guess, and I always have something else to say, but God puts such value on us dwelling together in unity that he compared it to expensive oil or dew on Mount Zion, and so that is just something for us all to think about. Are you part of the problem or are you part of the unification that will get people to heaven? What will God say to you one day when you're on? Oh, that person on Facebook that you argued with. Good job, they're not here, you know. And so I could go on and on. But the Kingdom of God is at hand, people, and we need to act like that every single day, and so, until such time, we need to live wholly separated and helping others do the same.
Speaker 1:We will be back here in two weeks. This summer, in Psalms, has turned out to be Christian podcasters, essentially, and so in two weeks, I will bring Amber Cullum to the microphone and then bringing up the rear will be James Early from the Bible Speaks to you podcast, and so you guys are going to want to make sure that you have followed or subscribed to the podcast, and then, if you need to reach me, you can also hit that contact Amy button in the show notes. I will put Eric's contact information there as well, because, as I always on the podcast, if you do not know Jesus as your savior and you want to know more, you could reach out to either one of us and we will be more than happy to tell you. That is essentially why I do this, and so, as I close the podcast, I'm going to do it the same way I do every time. You remember today, listener, that you are seeing, you are knowing, you are heard, you are loved and you are so, so valued.
Speaker 2:See you guys in two weeks, and when my hope is fading and when worries do assail me, I will remember how you. You never fail me. You have pulled me out from the depths. You have Save me from certain death. You have Show yourself faithful to me Over and over Jesus. So let my life glorify you. Teach me to walk beside you. I want to be more like you, so let my life be one. More by you, more by you, more by you.