The Speak Life Podcast, sharing Jesus in everyday life.
SPEAKER_00Well, hello and welcome to the live cast. It's great that you can come and join us today, although I say us, uh, but as you look around, uh you'll realize I'm here by myself. You know, you may have seen me sitting here in this seat and you thought, wow, Glenn, you're looking a lot younger, a lot more handsome all of a sudden. But no, don't be fooled. It is just me, uh, Paul. I'm here all alone uh because Glenn is actually can't be with us today. And actually, Glenn isn't gonna be with us for a few weeks uh because not a bad thing, it's because Glenn is having a very well-earned sabbatical. And so he's gonna be gone uh through most of the summer months. Uh, but it would be great though if you're the praying sort, and I hope you are, uh, if you could pray for him whilst he's on this sabbatical, um, it'd be great to pray that he can get some rest. I know lots of people who go on sabbatical and then um actually fill their time with so many things that uh by the time they come back they're exhausted, even more so than when they started. So do pray that he would really get some time to step back a little bit. Do pray for time with family. I think he's got some time uh going away on holiday, but he's also going to be at home a bit more. Um so do pray that he'd have a great time with them, they'd have a good time all together. And of course, I guess as kind of captain of the ship here at Speat Life, um, I'm sure having an opportunity to step back from that a little bit will give him an opportunity to think um about direction and where things are going. So um do pray that he'd have some time to do that, and so when he's back, we'll be raring to go with kind of lots of new things uh as well. Um I'm sure though, even though he's he's not going to be kind of here um on a regular basis, I'm sure you'll still see him all over um Facebook. I'm sure you'll see him commenting on some of the threads because I know he won't be able to keep away, and if you're watching Glenn, I know you won't be able to keep away. Um hopefully some of you will have seen our thorny question that came out last night. Well, first of all, hello, hello to a few people. It's good to have Christopher Dempsey and Biddy. Uh hello, good to see you there. Uh, regulars there. Um good to have you with us. Um as I was saying, you might have seen our thorny question from last night on uh dinosaurs. How do dinosaurs fit with the Bible? And for us, really, that was um a bit of a starter, really, a starter for ten. We were just dangling some discussion points out there uh for people, and we're absolutely aware, um, as we've seen on some of our comments, we're absolutely aware that we haven't covered everything, and there's a lot of things that we left unanswered. Um, and that's okay, that was actually pretty much a deliberate thing. Um, we're actually gonna look in a bit more depth um in a later thorny question video um at the topic of evolution, but we just felt that it's such a big topic, it may be more than one video, um, but we wanted to kind of try and do it a bit more justice um and look at it a bit more deeply. So we'll come back to that at a later point. Um also aware that it's a bit of a controversial one, that it will be kind of pulling the pin on the grenade, throwing it, and um we're sure it will uh create um lots of comments and thoughts anyway. Um I don't know what Glenn thinks about it specifically. I have ideas of what I think, but I'm sure we'll talk about it more. Uh so we will come back to it if you're waiting for more stuff on that. Um, but it will be a little while. We're actually gonna be resting our thorny questions for a little bit over the summer time whilst Glenn is away. So we'll come back to that kind of stuff in the autumn. And so with that in mind, it does mean that summer is gonna look a little bit different uh here at Speak Life. We've if you follow our page, you know that we have a regular or as regular as we can uh a video on a Monday night at 7 o'clock, which has generally been our thorny questions or things of that kind of vein. Now, with us not doing that for the summer, we have got some stuff lined up for you. What with Glenn? Glenn travels all over the place speaking at lots of different things, and um we're very fortunate that most of those or lots of those get recorded, not just audio but also video. So we've got about 11 or 12 videos um of sermons that he's done, which we're going to be posting up on Monday nights um throughout the summer time, and I know there's some, I think there's at least two on Habakkuk, which is not a book I'm particularly familiar with. Maybe you're not familiar with it so much. Um so a great opportunity to get into that. I know there's a few looking at different parables, I know there's one or two in Galatians, and I think right near the end, so probably into the beginning of September time, uh, an apologetic question. Would God uh would God send good people of other religions uh to hell? Um which I think we've talked about in a thorny a little bit, um, but you may want to get a bit more detail on that. Uh so that'd be a good one to check in for uh come kind of September time. But they'll all be going out our usual time, seven o'clock on a Monday. And we're still gonna be going live on a Tuesday. I say we, the royal we, me. Um we're still gonna be going live until at least the beginning of August, but actually that's gonna look a little bit different as well. Probably not gonna be here in the studio, um, because I've lined up what I think is uh are some quite exciting interviews um for the next uh few weeks, and each week I'm gonna be talking to uh somebody different, um hearing about their their testimony, how they came to faith, um, and the difference Jesus has made for them in their lives, and there's also the difference Jesus continues to make uh in their lives. And I'm I'm just very fortunate uh in that the church I go to has has just got a wealth of people with wonderful experiences and stories, and so they're all gonna be people I know, maybe from my house or wherever we can get the technology working. Um but I know we're gonna be talking to a university student, and I'm gonna be talking to him a bit about the challenges of being a Christian both at school but also now at university. So maybe if you're a student, that will be for you. Um I've also got a Christian graphic designer um who's been featured on BBC Trending, and he's worked with some of the biggest companies in the world, and I'm gonna be chatting about his faith and how he sees that interacting with what he does workwise. Um I've got another guy who's gonna be chatting about the place of his faith during a very difficult family illness. Um, uh an ex-marine who came to uh who came through alcohol addiction and uh to faith. I've got a Christian magician, um, so I've tried to convince him to do a bit of live magic right here on the live cast. So, you know, that'd be a great Tuesday lunchtime, wouldn't it? Add a bit of live magic and a testimony. Um and we'll hear a bit about how he was um he was very close to death actually, waiting for a liver transplant. He's got a fantastic story. Um and we're gonna be chatting to a uh a vicar, vicar of a large evangelical church, and I'm really keen to chat to him about um not only how he came to faith and and his own faith, but what is it like leading a large church and his thoughts particularly on evangelism? Um how do you grow a church? Maybe some of you are employed by churches, you'll you might be ministers, you might work for churches, I assume lots of you go to churches. I'm really interested to to find out how do you grow a church, and particularly, I guess, we'll be chatting about when a church hits a certain size. I know it gets difficult for a church to grow, so I'd love to hear his thoughts on evangelism there. Uh hello, Andy Brinkley. Andy Brinkley has just tuned in. Hello, good to see you, Andy. Um, but uh that we're gonna be chatting to all those people, but the first up is actually gonna be next week, where we're gonna be talking to um an amazing woman uh next week, um, whose father was a professional boxer and a gangster, and her story is um absolutely incredible. It's incredibly moving. Um you will be amazed at the things this woman has endured in her life. It's an incredibly powerful, incredibly painful story, um, but amazing to see what um what God has done uh in her life and and is still doing. Um so those are gonna be at 1 o'clock, 1 pm on a Tuesday, same time as the live cast. It's still gonna be the live cast, but we're gonna be doing these interviews, so do tune in. I'm gonna flag them up hopefully on Facebook earlier in the week, say who it is and what's coming. That'll take us through to the beginning of August, and then I'm gonna be on holiday a little bit. I'm hoping to do a little Bible series through the summer that I can pre-record. Um a long time ago now, we we did a sermon series at my church on the book of Jonah, um, and I did chapter one and I loved it. I think when I got Jonah, I looked at it and I thought, you know, we're all so familiar with Jonah, the Sunday school kind of classic. Uh, but as I delved into it, I thought, wow, this is so rich, and I wanted to preach chapters two, three, and four, um, but I didn't get to, um, because I couldn't tread on other people's toes. So I'd love to be able to come back and finish that off, um, and hopefully you'll find that edifying. That means there'll be another kind of three or so weeks at the end of the summer where there's an opportunity to maybe look at something else, and I haven't quite decided what that might be. Maybe there's something you'd like to hear about, a particular Bible topic, maybe a little mini-series. We're talking about maybe three three three slots really, probably. So maybe there's something you would like to do, maybe just let us know in the comments if there is, um, because if I can give you something, you know, that you would find helpful, I'd love to do that rather than just go off and do what I fancy doing. So that again, those will probably go out not live, but probably on the Tuesdays. Um so you might have seen on the blurb for this week that uh we were going to be chatting to Andrew Wilson, or Glenn has already chatted to Andrew Wilson, um, who's one of the pastors at King's Church in Eastbourne, and Glenn chatted to him last week a bit about his book, um, Echoes of Exodus, um, which you can see the link hopefully in the comments here, so you can pick up a copy. I think it's paperback and Kindle. Um, and I've already seen this interview, so in a moment, Glenn's got a little intro to it to give you a bit of context, and then we've got the the interview itself, and I'll kind of disappear, and I might just pop up at the end to say thanks and bye. Um I've already seen the interview, it's great. There are lots of amazing little nuggets that just pop up. I mean, some stuff, Moses, Joshua, uh, Jesus, John the Baptist, where things that you go, that should have been so obvious, suddenly that it just comes into a very clear view. Um, so I imagine the book is even greater. So we've got this great uh interview lined up. So let me hand you over to Glenn for his little intro, and then I'll leave you with um Glenn and Andrew to chat about his new book.
SPEAKER_01Earlier I recorded an interview with Andrew Wilson, who uh has authored Echoes of Exodus with Alistair Roberts, and uh we got into a great conversation about uh interpretive maximalism and how we can uh read our Bibles for all they're worth seeing Jesus at the center. Um the the night before we recorded the uh the episode I put out on Twitter what are the questions that people wanted to ask, and uh one of the questions was uh what does Andrew do with the Good Samaritan? And uh I I think that person was actually stirring because I think they knew that I believe that the Good Samaritan is a kind of a parable of Jesus, the beautiful savior who who you know redeems us from being left for dead and he, you know, uh lifts us up and rescues us, and it's a picture of Jesus' own story of salvation. Um Andrew was on record the night before on Twitter saying, no, that's Bunkham. So uh you'll you'll notice that I try I try to engage him on that topic during the interview, and uh to his credit, he just he just lets it slide. He just he just uh yeah, let's let that one go. Let's lets it go through to the keeper, as they say in cricket terminology. But that's what's going on at that stage. But I hope you really enjoy uh our conversation. I really enjoyed it very much as Andrew Wilson talks about echoes of Exodus. I am with uh Andrew Wilson, who is uh podcaster, author, blogger, pastor, preacher, and Eastborne. Uh good for you to be with us. You had to even practice that.
SPEAKER_03I thought there'd be more. Yeah, what else? I don't know, got the many.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. What what do you say when you're going through passport control? Like if you had to choose one thing.
SPEAKER_03I will say I'm a pastor, but I uh funnily enough, I had this thing when I was studying for my my PhD where we did a I was in a sort of research seminar with lots of what turned out to be basically Muslim women, and I didn't realise that they wouldn't know what a pastor was. So they they just go around the room and I said, Well, I'm a pastor. And to a woman they said, What's that?
SPEAKER_01Pen al Arabiata, what kind of pastor? Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Quite. I had no they and I had never experienced that where people just had no category for it. I said it was like a kind of Christian imam. And I suddenly thought maybe pastor is not quite the transferable word I think it is, but that's usually what I say.
SPEAKER_01Okay, pastor. Because you have a pastoral heart, everything else is kind of what, feeding the flock? Is that that's that's what a pastor does, isn't it? A shepherd?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so I well I my title at work is Teaching Pastor. So we kind of break because it's quite a big church, so we have quite specialized ministries, really. So I do I'm a teaching pastor in that context, and yeah, the sort of shepherd thing, but I just feel like that's a really good word to describe the sort of thing I do. But I spend I think on my Twitter thing I just say Christian pastor writer. That's like yeah, pretty bland, yeah, but true as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. And where does writer fit into the pastoring? What's what's the s what's the space for that within what you're doing? It depends.
SPEAKER_03It depends on what's going on in the church, but I think I've been very f very blessed, very fortunate that the two churches that I've worked for, so I was a pastor in Eastbourne for 10 years, and I'm now a pastor in London, and the two churches have both um been and I think some of this to do with the church size probably has just been large enough to be able to release me to write as part of what I do. And so what we do is, you know, when I write a book, and if it sells, then all of the income from the book goes to the church I'm from, and so the church then see it as kind of an investment in the wider serving the wider body of Christ, and uh I think I can then feel a certain sense of freedom. So in fact, when I saw you earlier today in the coffee shop, I was that's what I was doing. I was writing or trying to write a book. Um so I've been quite blessed in being able to do that with a chunk of my time, but it will depend on the year and what's going on in the church cycle as to whether I get any times.
SPEAKER_01And do you believe in books and reading for Christians just as part of their regular diet of of how they're getting fed spiritually? I mean what it would be bad if I didn't.
SPEAKER_03I don't think anybody should read them. That would be a very buy my books. Just don't read them. Yeah, use them as door wedges and bonfire. Um yeah, I mean, obviously, I I think I would be even if I didn't write, I'd be encouraging people to read a lot anyway, because I I think there is um people will read in different ways, some people do it on audiobook and so on, but I find that the I think the experience of reflecting in an extended way on a particular kind of biblical truth or insight is extremely formative, and I think that in and the fact that's become more true the more tax saturated we become, and I think that the the more noise that's being thrown at us in terms of numbers of words and images per second or musical sounds, whatever. Um that and that's been true even in the time I've been writing books in the last 15 years has become much more acute. I think the more you need to it's beneficial for your soul to take time if you can read and if you find that sort of at all beneficial to spend time trying to reflect and think and process and go slow and write things. And so for me, and I always do that with paper books because I just find that using virtual books much doesn't stop me from skimming.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_03Um that's not true for everyone, but that that's what how I do it. And I just think that's a yeah, it's a really helpful gift to the church, particularly in a very literate society like we have, to read. That's very cool.
SPEAKER_01Because John Stott was once asked by another pastor how you find the time to read. And if John Stott in a very John Stott way says, I don't find the time, I make the time. Oh a very John Stott thing to say. Like, how do you do that? Because I mean you you're on Twitter, you love Twitter, you're very good at it, you've got a following there, but you also take like rests from it.
SPEAKER_03I think it's one of those I think you you get it's um I think it's like you know, how do you find you always find time for things. I I I'm not sure I would quite make it the same way as Stott. I I in the sense that I I don't I do sometimes make time because there's books which I feel like I need to read. So I'll say I I think I should read that. I should have read it. Um I was reading New Zealand's the other day. I think this is one of those things which I'm taking in chunks, but I feel like I should have read this book and I haven't yet, so I'm gonna go through it. But usually books are you I don't need to make the time because I want to find I find the time because any excuse. I think if you really enjoy reading, you can do that. Um I think it's like where do you find the time to watch Netflix? Where do you find the time to you know what I mean? I I memorised many of the episodes of Friends, Black Adder, Red Dwarf, whatever when I was a teenager or in my twenties, and that's not something I had to make time to do. I just enjoyed it. And I think that obviously if you don't enjoy reading, that's not something that works. You have to then you do make it a discipline.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And so for me, there will be other aspects of my Christian life where I really do have to make time. Reading isn't one of them, but evangelism is. Praying is, you know, things which I don't instinctively go, that's what I want to do with my day.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um and you know, and some people probably find all of those things really appealing, and there'll be other things. So I I find spiritual disciplines-wise, there are things where you go, This one is I love doing this, this is really refreshing to me. And other things where I go, I'm this is good for my character, it's good for it's part of the mission that we have, but it isn't something I would naturally want to wake up in the morning and do, and that's where I have to make time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And do you with with Twitter, for instance, I know you come off at Lent quite often. Most years in the last few years you've been coming at each Lent.
SPEAKER_03I find that quite decluttering and so on. I'm actually just I've just picked up a book though by Jaron Len, no, I don't know how to pronounce it. Jaron Lanier. So American guy saying why you should close your social media accounts right now.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_03Um, and I'd a couple of friends guys I know had recommended it, and I'm gonna read it, and maybe in a week's time you'll just never see me again. That's like Kaiser Soza at the end of the U subtext, just like that. He's gone. It's so cool. I don't know. It I'm I'm thinking I yeah, I find that coming off is good for me, but it's a pride thing rather than a D and unplugging thing. It's the detox helps as well, but for me it's the approval that's the that's the problem. That's what I find myself at risk of me. Yeah, right. Um I don't think that's true for everything. I think a lot of people use social media and they they aren't constrained by that in the same way, but that's what it is for me.
SPEAKER_01So this is your 57th book. Um Echoes of Exodus. Just come out with Crossway. You've written it uh with Alistair Roberts. Have you now met Alistair Roberts? You have in the room. It went the wrong way round.
SPEAKER_03We podcasted together, then wrote a book together, and then metal.
SPEAKER_01I'm glad you finally met your co-author. Um was it was it everything you hoped for? We went painting in Oxford. What could be better? What else could you do? Well, Cambridge, probably you would say.
SPEAKER_03It was I'm afraid quite the self-parody, really.
SPEAKER_01Yes, it was it was really fun. Was one of you singing as the other?
SPEAKER_03It was actually four of us. Um my friend Matt Anderson was there as well, and so it was really nice.
SPEAKER_01Matthew Lee Anderson. Goodness me, because you're also a podcaster with uh music.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, we have the four of us do that. I mean, they they do more of it than I do, but I l I love that they're incredibly stimulating guys.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um and I and actually I think it is through that this book uh really came about through that friendship, which came about through that podcast. So, in a sense, the podcast is a big part of that story because I hadn't, as you say, I hadn't met my co-author until last summer.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_03Which is very strange. But um, yeah, I've just learned a huge amount from these guys. I they've just helped me learn to read the Bible and read the culture much better than I would have if I hadn't met them.
SPEAKER_01So what did Alistair in particular kind of teach you? Uh because this is particularly this is a book where I mean one of the one of the big motifs is that scripture is music. And there are themes and there's meter and there's rhythm and there's the recapitulation of the theme and the bringing to a crescendo and all that kind of stuff. Um and I know you've been very influenced by sort of Peter Lightheart and people like that who, my goodness, on the back, on the back cover says a marvellous book. But you can't spell the word marvelous, unfortunately. Being American. Being American, unfortunately. But that must have been wonderful to get Peter Lightheart to say unmarvelous.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it was that was quite a you know, oh, this is a dear diary moment. So I don't know. It's lovely. And and I I've I think that I mean to me, my introduction, obviously, some people, a lot of people listen to this wouldn't know Lightheart who he is, but I think guys who have this um very have a very heightened sense of the interconnectivity of scripture or the intertextuality of it that every time you read something, there's echoes, which is obviously in the title of our book, of something that's going on somewhere else, and that texts are full of resonances which need to be drawn out. And many of those resonances are things the author's aware of, but some of them may well be not they may be things that are resonances that have yet to be unpacked, but as you see it from God's perspective, scripture is drawing out things even perhaps beyond what the writer is aware of. And so that I think both that and then the controlling image of music, which obviously that's what happens all the time with music, is you get echoes and you get re-reframings and you think that melody is kind of reappearing, but it's reappearing in the bass, and it's a bit weird to me because I thought it was going to be in the treble. And I r it rings a bell, but where from? And I think all of those sorts of imagery, those images are ways of communicating the way that memory works and the interplay between two motifs can happen, and you can hear both at the same time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And I think that's why music is a is is a great image for what the Bible is.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, so for instance, to give you to give listeners a sense of what you do with Exodus as as one of the great themes that keeps on being developed and redeveloped throughout the scriptures. You know, Jesus is the firstborn son who dies in the climactic divine judgment under a darkened sky, opening up the doors of God's house. Jesus is the Passover lamb, whose bones are preserved from being broken, and whose blood proclaims freedom rather than condemnation. Jesus is the angel of the Lord, I love that one, who goes before us, forging a path through the deep so that we might pass through on dry land. Jesus is the one who outwits and overcomes the great dragon in an almighty showdown, drowning death in death at the very point when our enemy presumes he has triumphed. Jesus is the shepherd like Moses, who is struck but leads his people out. Jesus is the one who establishes a new covenant in his blood, sealed in a covenant meal. That alludes to the covenant meal of Sinai and on and on it goes. And it really does your soul good to kind of immerse yourself in this and see the intertextuality of the scriptures and to see the musical layering upon layering upon layering upon layering. Where do you learn to do that? Because I know I mean I I went to a Bible college in which very, very good one, but still the impression that I got was that the biggest sin was eisegesis. The biggest sin is reading into the text, things that aren't there. And almost the the there was never the equivalent sin on the other side of not reading out of the Bible everything that God's put in, which surely is at least an equivalence sin to reading into the Bible. And it seems like we do have a minimalistic approach to the scriptures at times. How do you learn to have a maximalistic approach? I don't know.
SPEAKER_03Um I I I I think what's the um wasn't there one of the Supreme Court justices in the 1950s or 60s was a case about pornography and they said, How do you define it? And he said, I don't I'm not going to say, but I know it when I see it. And I think sometimes that's that's the uh with a lot of these echoes, that's that's the best I've got. I think I could defend why it is that I think this one can be heard, and I but in a sense they have to be it has to be heard. It's like it I I used the analogy in the book, I think it's like explaining why a joke is funny. I think sometimes you you you what you need is effectively your whole imagination and your sense of I suppose you use words like providence, or you know, God sort of superintending of the whole of scripture, needs to be at a place where you could hear a connection and think, do you know what that that works? I I think that's there, I think that's intended. And also to be able so I'm not I I don't think I would want to argue either for the minimalism or the maximalism in the sense that every idea that might we could talk about this but be potentially shoehorned in. So I think I sogus is bad, but I just don't think that's the same thing as what I hope what we're doing, which is to say, actually, if a writer and I use you know the example I used because it was the one I was really skeptical of was the Rahab Scarlet Cord. So the judge the I just use it as a really good example of something where I changed my mind because I was I would have read the I read Judges 2 and thought, oh um sorry, Joshua 2, and just thought, oh for goodness sake, the idea that this scarlet cord is somehow supposed to represent the blood of Jesus is just a red piece of road. What on earth are you talking about? And I think that if that's all there was going on, I would still believe that. But then when you read the story in light of the Passover, it you go back in time and you say, hang on a second, this is judgment coming to a pagan city and somebody being rescued because something red is over their door, even though she's not part of the people of God, she gets to get out and it and suddenly thinking, hang on, that in the light of what Israel has just experienced, their controlling narrative of the Exodus, would be something that people would at least some readers would go, oh, that's very familiar. And then, of course, when you go back to the Passover, which clearly prefigures Christ, you so and effectively it's a degree removed away, but I think that gives you grounds to say that it's there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03In contrast, perhaps to some other readings where you'd say, I just think you've tried to match details here which are trivially similar, but not meaningfully. And I don't think anybody at the time would have thought they were.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And so I suppose it's that, it's the sort of the smell test. It's yeah, how do you know a joke is funny? It's developing that s a sentiment and a and a way of reading that attunes you to things. And to be honest, means that sometimes Alistair, who I wrote this with, and Peter Lightheart and others will I'm reading Lightheart on Revelation at the moment, and sometimes he'll say things and I just go, I just don't I don't buy that. Even though I'm reading on the method, I just think that's too far. And I will go, okay, interesting, but no. And others, I'm sure, will do the same thing with some of the things I've said.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. So with the Rahab example in Joshua 2, you don't go from Joshua 2 and leap all the way forward to Matthew 27. I don't. You don't. But you do go, oh well, Joshua II, let's go back to Exodus twelve. And actually, even when you're in Exodus twelve, the Passover, actually wouldn't wouldn't it make sense to go back to Genesis 22, where it says the Lord himself will provide the Lamb, who is, you know, like the great Isaac, the promised son, the heir, um the sacrifice of atonements on this mountain the Lord will provide. So so that actually there's this symphonic, you know, Oh sure, yeah.
SPEAKER_03I mean, and of course the actual story is itself picking up on all kinds of tropes from that are already there in Genesis. And I think in a sense, Genesis is so it depends how you date these things, of course, but I think that even when Genesis is written, it's written mindful of the Exodus story, at least in the version of it that we have, and therefore that some of those themes have even been highlighted in the text of Genesis, because we're going to come back to them later. You see what I mean. So I think that that works h at a level of history and a level of literature. You've got the dynamics working in both directions to draw out those connections. And so I'm certainly not saying no, you go back to the Exodus and then stop. You you see that all of these connections throughout, particularly the idea of substitutionary lambs, and you know, or a ram, somebody dies, you know, a lamb dies for an individual, a lamb dies for a nation, a lamb dies for the world, that sort of thing. Right. Um But I but I do think that probably some of those connections therefore need to be heard at a degree removed because I'd say the same with the major prophets, that if you just go from I don't know, one king's straight to Jesus, some of those connections won't hold. Whereas if you go from one king's back to Exodus and then you go, oh now can you see it? It'll become a lot more persuasive, I think.
SPEAKER_01Especially when you take into account in in your first chapter when you talk about the Last Supper, how the Passover was already intended to be something for telling the Messiah, the Christ who would die for us. Yeah, it's a major theme in the musical sense, isn't it?
SPEAKER_03It's one of those it's one of those things like the like that you know, that that theme in Gladiator that is just haunts the whole movie and then comes in in the base in some places and is in the treble in others, but it's always there. You got and the Exodus is one of those very small number of biblical themes that I think is just is right up front, is foregrounded and is, of course, even to this day. I mean, we you know you have communion on Sunday, and you are having a a I was preaching on on Sunday, you're having a Passover meal as you do it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um and with of course added meaning and added riches and depth that even Israel didn't have when they came out that night. So I think you're I think it's one of those handful of very significant things. Can you think of some of the others that there might be that are I think some of the obvious ones people often use they would often use themes of kingdom and temple. Uh I think Exodus is definitely what is one of those, I think I've already mentioned substitution. Um I think there's a I mean to be honest. All of which are in the book of Exodus, interestingly, exactly, and that's partly why that story is so powerful, because it brings together a whole bunch of images of the gospel and of the identity of Israel's God that become by being brought together in that way, help you. This is another comment I make even up front in terms of the application of this idea, is that they help you stop playing off images against each other and say, well, because this is a substitution story, it can't be a victory story, or because it's a redemption story, it can't be a you know, reconcile. And you think, no, no, no, the extra story does all of that, and I think that's one of the reasons why it's such a powerful fusion, and of course it's very formative for the way the gospel writers and Paul do the same thing.
SPEAKER_01And you apply that to atonement debates quite compellingly, I think. In uh in your prelude, you you talk about how we tend to play off against one another. There's Christus Victor on the on the one hand and your penal substitution on the other. Fight, fight, fight. And you'll say, well, no, there's there's there's here are these seven lenses you could look through to use a visual analogy, or or seven, you know, tunes that harmonize. Yeah. Um how d how does how does Exodus help us to think of the atonement?
SPEAKER_03Well, I think because all of those things are are interconnected in a way that none of them work without the others, I think there is a very powerful to me at least, and this is not uncontroversial in some circles, but I think they they provide a rationale for harmonising all biblical imagery and actually attributing saying these are all different ways of looking at the same reality, rather than saying there's effectively we're dealing with a logical sequence view, which is that this is primarily this, which then has the following implications. Right. I think when it comes down to so long as you affirm all of those things as being true, I don't particularly mind. I don't feel particularly you know, but I think you do get in some circles, you get often on an embattled one, substitution would be a good example where some will challenge it and say this isn't biblical at all, let's check it out, and other people will say, not only is it biblical, it is the one that we need to build everything else around. And I think the Exodus story doesn't quite do that. Not in the sense that substitution is trivial, it's not, it's absolutely essential. But victory is absolutely essential, and redemption is absolutely essential. And you in a sense, you use and baptism in that's actually in that story, you know, you have a you don't have an Exodus really, if you have the people leaving Egypt in the middle of the night, and then they all drown in the sea themselves, or Pharaoh runs through after them and kills them all at the waters of Mara. So you have to have all of those different pictures there if we're if we're gonna make sense of how they all fit. And I think Paul does the same thing, you know. But you've and all of that coming together to show that he is just and the justifier of the one who has faith, you see. Paul is very self consciously drawing on slavery imagery and substitutionary imagery and you just see what I mean. Roman six into baptism into Christ. All of it, all coming in at once. Yeah. And I think if if we don't if we don't do that in the same way, we we risk over foregrounding one, the diminishment of the others. And I think in the end, that's most Christian traditions have a risk of doing that somewhere. I just think this is a helpful story that puts them all together.
SPEAKER_01Yes. And and it's a cautionary tale as well, if if our theology is purely a kind of a six systematic doctrinal statement of, you know, 17 points all beginning with P. Well, the Holy Spirit hasn't given us that. The Holy Spirit has given us this richly textured story. Yes. So then how, you know, I mean, you believe in catechesis and you believe in, you know, teaching people, but you also very much believe in immersing us in the story and helping us to be attentive to these different storylines. So how is it that we as Christians can be better at reading the scriptures in this multifaceted kind of way?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well, that is a yeah, that's I think that's the big question because I I suspect it the answer to it, I assume, takes the form of the answer, how do you get people to read the Bible more in any way?
SPEAKER_01Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Which is what I think how do you know how do you form people in their scripture reading habits is what we're asking. I think one of the things is you get the Bible actually into their hands. So you encourage people have to start reading it at all. And in some parts of the church, getting to the point where you're reading it in this intertextual way is you know, that's way down the line. You hope people will, but initially you say, How do you get people reading the Bible? That might be where the sentence starts. Um I but I think that there is a I think there's a powerful particularly in a literate culture like ours, I say, you know, obviously a lot of people are very visual learners, but they can read. Most people in our culture can read. Um I think the the personal reading, and not just personal, but actually perhaps reading even in families of the Bible, is alongside the hearing of the word of God read in a Sunday kind of worship gathering, which is alongside reading the Bible alongs with others in s probably small groups, which most churches in the Western world tend to do, which is alongside hearing the Bible explained and preached, either in a form of a sermon or in a book or both. And I think you're you're really trying to get scripture into all of those settings, whether you call your small group a Bible study or a life or cell group, or whatever. And so I think you're really saying, how do we how do we get people doing all of those things if we can, as well as we can, as much as we can, and and as they do, you see the the preaching then is the one in which you're really training people how to do more than simply read the read the thing, but how to bring it into dialogue with other themes in scripture and in culture, which is not an insignificant, I think, part of what the preacher is trying to do, is trying to connect it not just to other passages but also to the life that people lead. And I think if that you do that, so this is what I would do in my preaching, so I think I'm then trying to I know that I'm drip feeding a way of reading scripture, even that even if people never read a book like that, they will pick up from the way they're hearing the Bible handled that there is often more going on. There's a Jesus-centred reading of Scripture which it it feeds in, and one I I guess I know that because in church life you sometimes hear people do, they you they pray that way, and you hear people say things, you think, oh, you've caught how to do that. No one said this is the right. You've just seen it done often enough that it's become intuitive to you, and then you and you know, God willing, the the culture of a of a church takes on that flavour as well. I don't know that I can do that without doing it in preaching, because I think I can't shape quite what this lady is gonna be reading as she's on her bus journey into work, right? And the way she thinks about, I can't control I've got no control over that at all. I can provide her with some resources, but in the end, I think my best tool I have is actually to publicly treat the word of God that way, and then people go into it assuming that they're gonna find stuff.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_03Um I think that the their faith for what they will discover rises.
SPEAKER_01So I suspect that's and almost like books like this give people the permission to see intertextual links, don't they? Because I I I think if people don't feel like like the red cord, you know, hanging outside rehab's, you know, window could be could that possibly be what I just read, you know, four weeks ago when I was reading through Exodus twelve, could that possibly But if if we have permission to do that, I think we start to see it. And I and I think also if we start to read bigger chunks and if we start to preach on bigger chunks as well, you know, if it's if it's just a verse at a time, you're never gonna see these grand symphonic themes, are we? But if if you if you read Exodus in a week, well you're gonna you're gonna put the beginning together with the middle together with the end, aren't you? And things like that. Um so uh we asked people on Twitter uh questions that they could ask you. Um so uh Dave Bish um uh has asked uh a number of different questions, but uh one interesting one was um what implications um are there for reading the the scriptures in this sort of symphonic, musical, intertextual way? What are the implications for using the Bible in evangelism? So with with the outsider, what what is our approach missionally if we think of the Bible in this grander way?
SPEAKER_03Well I'm not a hundred percent sure I know. Um I I I think I'm sure it depends on the level or not of biblical literacy or assumption. So evangelistic preaching is one thing. I think that's in in a that's an easy one for me, because in evangelistic preaching, as in let's say I'm in my church, I don't know, we we do a survey, we're probably sort of six to eight percent of the people uh who come along on a Sunday are not are not Christians at the moment. So you've got a sizable chunk of people on every on any given Sunday who are hearing this for the first time, and that's got huge implications because you're continually trying to show people why Jesus is good news from everywhere in the Bible. That's the easy bit of the answer, I don't think Dave, I'm sure he d would have done that for years before I have. But I think uh if it comes to the discussion with somebody who has just got very little biblical awareness, um I I don't know I don't know how I don't know. I just not explored that really. I don't think that's something that I've I haven't given any thought to it. I suspect that it the I suspect I suspect it can help in as much as almost anywhere, any objection, in a sort of defensive way, it can help because you begin to you know, somebody can't raises an objection to, well, of course, but the God of the Bible is so you know, the God of the Bible hates gays or something like that. That's sort of kind of common objection. Where you're saying, actually, okay, well well, the how does the Exodus story help me with that? In an apologetic context, it does a lot because it's a story about a people who are oppressed and trodden down and crushed, and then they get liberated and then discover that in fact you it's not just that you can be enslaved to external forces and the sort of the whips of the slave masters, but you can also be enslaved to your own passions run amok and start worshipping a golden calf. Uh and or they start committing idolatry and immorality with the Moabites. So you the Exodus story helps me go, actually, sometimes we need to be free, not just free from, but free to. Yes. And therefore there's a Yeah. So I can respond to that objection as to whether or not it would affect the way that I began an evangelistic conversation with someone who doesn't know the gospel at all. I'm not I'm not sure that I I haven't thought of that. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01But even that instinct to immerse someone in a story in answer to a question, I mean that's I mean, that's a very Christ-like thing to do, isn't it? You know, a teacher of the law says, And who is my neighbour? Jesus doesn't say, your neighbour is these five things. You know, he says, Let me tell you a story, the Good Samaritan, and we probably don't have time to go into that story and the the ways that it could be interpreted maximally. Um but but that wrongly Christocentrically, Andrew, Christocentrically stupid. We can just be stupid with the adverbs non-Augustinianly.
SPEAKER_03And Stephen Fry does that as something when he says, yes, and of course, this is true of a philosophy, and I use that word philosophy wrongly. I was just thinking maybe my maybe appropriate Augustine's reading. Anyway.
SPEAKER_01Anyway, so but but that is that is an an example of here is here is an evangelistic setting, if you like, Luke chapter 10, someone comes and asks Jesus a question, and we would be far more inclined to have Jesus simply answer the question in the terms in which it is asked, but instead he immerses the man in a story in which a man goes from the heavenly Zion and falls uh on his way east, you know, out of out out of the sanctuary, and uh he's left dead, and then religion doesn't help him, and then a beautiful stranger actually saves him, redeems him, and uh you know, raises him up through through the uh the wine and the oil, the blood and the spirit. Anyway, so I mean who knows what that might be about. I haven't had in my hands if you're listening to this video. Who who could possibly say what that what that might mean about Jesus? But uh but at the end of it, isn't that isn't that interesting that he immerses the man in a story rather than simply answers the question off you know off the cuff? And I I wonder whether just methodologically are evangelism.
SPEAKER_03I but I I I'm and I'm certain that's true. I I guess I'm just want not wanting to s act as if I've done that a load. I think in a more reactive way I have. But I think probably for me, because personal evangelism is as often as not dealing with people who've just got no biblical categories at all, yeah. That um that in some ways you I totally stories, but the whether the Exodus at this point helps most contemporary settlers of British people who don't know the Bible at all. Right. I think actually you want to go to the Jesus story first and then respond to objections and questions as they come, which may and as I've said, may involve may use the Exodus story, but may not.
SPEAKER_01Well let's let's finish with one example that does come up in evangelism quite a lot, and I and I've heard you deal with it very well in a kind of an intertextual way, and that's the sort of the conquest of Canaan. And a lot of people want to ask questions, there is holy violence. How on earth can you trust this book if the Old Testament is talking about these kinds of wars? And I've heard you deal with that in in a quite intertextual way, and you so you've got to understand the story. So So how how would you apply some of these tests to how we answer the question?
SPEAKER_03I think it depends who's asking. So I I think if if I'm dealing with So if that question is coming from somebody who doesn't believe the gospel at all, this is they this is the first stumbling block for somebody, like as in that's their in Keller's terms, their defeat of belief. I'm not gonna listen to anything you've got to say about Jesus because the God of the Old Testament kills people, and we've seen what that does in the modern world, look at 9-11, etc. Then I'm gonna handle that quite differently from somebody who, as a sort of Christian who's been reading the Bible for years, is wrestling with that kind of theme. I think for the person who who is new to Christianity or comp very sceptical or hostile even, I think actually I just want to I think there is a a much bigger problem here than simply that incident. There is the I want to go to the problem of death as and say, in the end, this person dies here of that, they die in the the exodus. I mean, I was preaching on it just two weeks ago. They die in the middle of the night. A child dies in the middle of the night in their sleep because the angel of death comes around and kills them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Well, of course that's tragic for everybody concerned, but if they had died the following year of leukemia, or if they died the year after that of something else, or if they died in childbirth, it would have been no less tragic. And actually, it we we cannot by trying to get out of that problem, we're only going to create another one down the line as long as there's still death here. So any you go to funerals, people are always sad at funerals, they're always crying at funerals. Every child you lose, every parent you lose is a tragedy and a grief to somebody, and so we can't act as if that's the that is that's too small a problem, actually. The idea that the God kills people through the angel of death in the middle of the night, it provokes and it troubles me, but it should. And according to scripture, I'm supposed to regard death as being something that's the wages of sin. It's a sign that something is badly wrong. On the day you eat of it, you will surely die. It's I'm supposed in that sense, I'm trying to see the whole biblical story about the fact that death is the last enemy that's gonna be destroyed, as every Harry Potter reader knows, um, and and therefore that I'm not supposed to try and defend it and say, oh no, there's nothing death, don't worry about that. Say, no, this is the the thing Jesus came to destroy, um, and all of its consequences. So I so I think with somebody who's very new, that's where I'm gonna go. I'm not gonna sort of say, well, of course, in the Bronze Age, you know, but of course, if somebody somebody who got a difference to say, no, I get that, I understand the wages of sin is death. But I find the conquest of Canaan, you know, there's were there men, women and children that doesn't seem fair in the light of other things we know about God's heart for the nations or whatever, how do you handle that? Then I think there's some more contextual factors to bear in mind. I think we have to think about the nature of we do have to think about Bronze Age warfare, but we also have to think about the what it was to be a walled city in Canaan, what it was, even whether or not we are there are literary, and I think there are, literary habits or tropes in phrases like leave nothing us nothing alive that breeds. That actually reflects a kind of a way of a means of speech in that period of history that we find in other writings outside of scripture as well, that don't necessarily mean every lost person was killed. In the same way nowadays we'd say we massacred them or we wipe the floor with them. I've never seen anybody actually wipe the floor with a person, but we say it, and people know in our culture that it means something slightly different. We'd look at walled cities, which are why is the only woman we find in a walled city in the book of Joshua a prostitute? Because this is a place where armies hang out, and basically these are military and constant. And and so we have to consider those things, and then we have to consider the temple theme, which is that this is going to be a holy land that God is going to live in, and that there is a cleansing of this temple space for God's presence to come in and dwell, and that that's not something that in any way maps onto modern-day disputes about who gets to live in Palestine or disputes a hundred years ago about who got to live in South Africa or North America or anywhere. And so anybody who has abused that text as a means of saying, There you go, we are a colonialist, come to settle in this new land.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_03And they say, you know, in Ezy Eddie Izzard's immortal words, you can't do that, we live here. And they say, Yes, but do you have a flag? That doesn't apply because that's not what Israel's doing at all. This is not racial cleansing at all. This is a a s a spiritual and and of course we can't find Canaanites who are welcomed in and allowed and allowed not just to live but to inherit the land, and you find Jews who are stoned along with the whole family for trying to pill for stuff in the book of Joshua. So you know it's not an ethnic thing. This is actually to do with the cleansing of sin.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_03So I think there's a whole load of contextual things you can bring in, but I think with the person who's asking as a first defense, you know, I first reaction, I don't want to believe Jesus because I I just don't unlisten to Christians because of your old testament has texts of violence in it, that's really an issue of death, and I think there's quite a different objection to the ones we're talking about in Joshua.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes. And then but for the Christian, therefore, you bring it through into the into the New Testament and you've got this guy called Joshua, literally. And in you know, places like Luke 19, he goes into Jericho and he absolutely obliterates an enemy of God's people called Zacchaeus by making him his friend. You know, isn't this an interesting way to cleanse the lands? And here comes the great Joshua going into Jericho and Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And I and I think if you you have to see that the that Joshua and Yeshua are the same, you know, one is more than anybody else, is bearing the same name. There's all kinds of obviously he's you know, he's David, he's Moses, he's Adam, he's m so many people. He's certainly Joshua, and I think that um the idea of again of the that the the you have the the forerunning prophet, the old guy with the beard who's out in the wilderness, and then the young guy who's you know a sort of young lived in a sense in his shadow for a season and then gets anointed by him and steps forward and says, Now I'm gonna take the land, right? And but but as I conquer the land, I'm not only gonna cleanse it of sin, but I'm actually gonna forgive my enemies and incorporate them into my people. Right. Is a sort of Moses Joshua, but also it's John the Baptist Jesus, sort of and it's actually Elijah Elisha as well, as it happens, but that's probably more than we've got time for. And I think that pattern then helps you see, yes, okay, so what does the conquest of Canaan look like now? It looks like Jesus and his band of followers, twelve spies, you could say, walking up and down the breadth of the land and claiming it for the king, but not claiming it by saying we're now gonna kill the Gentiles, but saying actually we're gonna cast a demon out of that man and it's gonna go under the herd of pigs, and we're gonna allow this woman to come and eat what we've given her, even though it's supposed to be scraps that have fallen from the table, it's supposed to be given to the children.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_03Uh, and so on. So you you see all sorts of things like that, which is effectively a gospel-shaped way of resolving the issue. I don't think it in a sense answers the problem that people often have, but what it having dealt with the problem, what it does is say, this is now swallowed up, and I want you to see again, this is not the kind of thing that anybody today is intended to live out. What we now do is we look to our true and better Joshua and see how different he is and celebrate that.
SPEAKER_01And that's why the New Testament Church does not take up the sword, except the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God and conquers that way. Um, Bruno, we could talk for hours and hours, but I must uh let you go. Uh I really want to encourage people to get this book, Echoes of Exodus, written between Alistair Roberts and Andrew Wilson, and it will do your soul much good. It will help you soak in the scriptures and really, I mean, there were things on on every page, literally, that were thinking, Oh, I hadn't quite seen that, I hadn't quite seen that. And light bulb moments will go off. It will do your soul much good. It will help you to read the scriptures in a much more holistic uh and and Jesus-centered way, and uh yeah, so I highly commend Echoes of Exodus. Get out and get one wherever books are sold. Andrew Wilson, thanks for being with us. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00So there you have it. That was Andrew Wilson uh with Glenn. Hopefully you enjoyed it. I think it was a fascinating conversation. You can grab Andrew's book, uh Echoes of Exodus. The link is down in the comment section. Love to know what you think about the Good Samaritan story. Uh is Glenn right? Has he got it right, or is he talking bunkum as Andrew thinks? Um hopefully that's been uh food for your soul uh on a Tuesday lunchtime as well. Um and like I said, we'll be back next week with the first of our live interviews where I'll be talking to um uh the lady uh whose father was a professional boxer and gangster. So do join us at one o'clock for that next week uh for for that next week. Yes, that's right. And um until then, thank you very much for watching, and we'll see you next time. See ya. Bye.