Today on the Evangelist Podcast we talk to Peter Mead about his book Lost in Wonder.
SPEAKER_00The Evangelist Podcast. Encouragement to speak life to a needy world. With Glenn Scrivener and Andy Brinkley.
SPEAKER_01You're listening to the Evangelist Podcast, the show where we discuss all things regarding telling the good news of Jesus Christ. I'm Andy Brinkley, and I'll be joined in a moment by Glenn Scrivener and Peter Meade, and they will be discussing Peter's book, Lost in Wonder. And in that they discuss questions such as how does God's story relate to marriage? How can we be the bride, being men or women? And uh you also find out why you should put the book down and read the Bible instead anyway. Um so that's coming up next. We would value prayer for uh this coming season, uh coming up to Christmas, we're doing uh a video which is to do with uh Downs syndrome, Downs Nativity. We'd really value prayer for the the filming coming up uh in the middle of November, and we'll hopefully have more details out next time. It's gonna be a another of our Christmas productions. If you're if you're new to us and you don't know already about our Christmas productions, we've done uh we've done several Christmas videos now which uh are socially shareable online. Last year we did Four Kinds of Christmas, which was uh sort of exploring the different ways that we approach Christmas. And there's a book to go alongside it that uh could be given out of Carol Services and following the video online people can fill out a little survey and and request a book as well. If you want more information on that, go to fourkindsofchristmas.com and uh you can go to our our main website to see the previous videos, speaklife.org.uk, and if you click the link there to go to the resources page, you'll find out uh previous uh Christmas videos such as uh Santa vs Jesus and Christmas in Dark Places and uh Oh Christmas Tree. So hopefully these resources can be uh valuable to you and your church or your youth group, home group, or to your non-Christian friends on uh social media. So without much ado, we'll go straight into uh talking to Peter Meade about his book, which we recorded uh a while ago, so this is the the second interview that we did with Peter. So here's Glenn and uh Peter Meade.
SPEAKER_04Well here I am with Peter Meade. Last time you were on, I think you were talking about Pleased to Dwell. You might have been uh a book that was released at Christmas time how many years ago? That was 2014. Okay. Okay, and a wonderful kind of Bible overview taking the theme of Emmanuel God with us. That's right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And God was pleased to dwell with us. Yes. Amazing union of God and humanity in one person. Yes. Yeah, that was that was fun. I enjoyed writing that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and uh uh yeah, and a brilliant kind of Bible overview because getting you into Christ in all of Scripture, and uh you're doing something similar like that, sort of doing a thematic Bible overview.
SPEAKER_02Yep. Um November 2016, the hope is that the next uh kind of sequel will come out, and that's uh, as you say, cover to cover uh from Genesis to Revelation, but thinking especially of the issue of God's union with us. So, in a sense, it's sort of the next step. If if please to dwell is about the union of God and man in Christ, then this next one will be about the union of us with God because of our union with Christ.
SPEAKER_04So exciting. So the God man in his manwood ministry and now the god man in his summing up man towards God. Yeah, that's right. To use the older language. But the older language of man, do you still use that in your preaching? Do you sort of say man or do you go with humanity?
SPEAKER_02I I tend to say humanity, or it'd just be sensitive with the audience, isn't it? But the Bible, it depends on what version you're reading, but if the Bible says man, sometimes you have to clarify.
SPEAKER_04Yes. But even with your your book title, Pleased as Man with Man to Dwell, Jesus. That was quite long. So I it wasn't a rejection of man, it was a rejection of too many words. But isn't that but theologically, the fact that Adam means man means humanity, so that there you are looking at humanity, and then Christ the second Adam. There is man, not just a bloke, but humanity doing stuff with the world. It's amazing.
SPEAKER_02There's a yeah. And we treat it as normal because we do Christmas every year, and you know, we some of us grew up hearing the stories about Jesus walking around doing miracles, but actually I guess that's what we should be doing, right? Pausing and really realizing how amazing it is that he became one of us. Yeah. And still is one of us.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it remains forevermore bearing us before the Father.
SPEAKER_02And so what's the thrust of this union with Christ kind of book? Well, it's just looking at the fact that um from the very beginning, from the creation account, uh, the whole plan is a marital plan, a wedding plan. And uh not just Adam and Eve. Even though it seems that way when you read it. Yeah. Uh but once you get to Ephesians 5, it talks about, it quotes Genesis 2 and says that this is a mystery talking about Christ in the church. And you go, was it? Yeah. Uh but but then you you go back and you say, actually, all the way through, the the marital theme is huge. Yeah on a human level. The marriage seems to be a a big thread through the whole story, and God cares about that, and he seems to care about it because he's got a marital intent. And so once you get through the Old Testament into the well, the prophets have skipped them. Hosea and yeah. Oh, yeah, Hosea and uh Ezekiel, and some some very in almost negative, shall we say. Yeah, yeah. Ezekiel 16, yeah, 23.
SPEAKER_04Just before bed. Oh, yeah, 23, oh the dogs. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02That's why I got to write about all that. And and yeah, and then you come through to Christ, and his ministry starts at a wedding, and he keeps using marital bridegroom language, and John the Baptist refers to him as the bridegroom, and uh and so you come through that, and then you get into the epistles, and the epistles talk about us being in Christ.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And that whole union with Christ theme kind of becomes theologically explained a little bit, and then of course, Revelation finishes with a great wedding feast. So we've there there's plenty of scope there, and hopefully the book will at least scratch the surface.
SPEAKER_04When I do evangelism and and I I mean I drop in the marriage illustration as soon as I possibly can. Yeah. You know, and all your debts go to your rich spouse and all the riches come to you, and what you know.
SPEAKER_02I steal that from you, by the way, but then again, you stole it from Luther.
SPEAKER_04I stole it from Luther, and who yeah, he might have stolen it from Song of Songs and you know, nothing new under the sun. But sometimes there's a pushback and and in in a couple of from a couple of different directions. One is um what about people for whom marriage is just a train wreck and incredibly painful? Yeah. How do you how do you preach the glories of marriage union with Christ when people's experience of marriage has been anything other than anything but glorious? Yes.
SPEAKER_02Either their marriage or their parents' marriage.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So yeah, I start in the book, I start with that, just saying this is a book about marriage, not really about your marriage on a on a human level, but just talking about marriage is going to raise all those issues. Uh but here is a glimpse of the perfect one. This is what it's supposed to reflect. And I suppose it's the same as talking about God as Father. For some people that's just horrific. Yeah. But to say to dismiss it, therefore, is to lose the treasure there, but instead to be sensitive, be careful, and say, you know, your your father may have been doing a ghastly job of representing what the father is like. Yeah. But wouldn't you like to know what the true father's like? So it's the same kind of thing. I think it's not something we just it's, oh well, never mind, we'll use that again. It's God's preeminent image, it's his illustration. We've got to use it. Yeah. But let's use it sensitively.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and it can and it can redeem our experience. I know with fatherhood, for instance, the fatherhood of God has been incredibly redemptive in terms of my own experience of fatherhood. And I've spoken to many people who've had uh bad fathers who've not reacted badly, but incredibly positively.
SPEAKER_02So it's the other one, I don't know if you're gonna go to it, but but it sounds very feminine. Uh-huh. You know, especially since we're the bride.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know, and so what do uh manly men want to, you know, be told they're being a part of a bride for? That's not very catching. But women's fancy Jesus, what?
SPEAKER_04You are fancy Jesus.
SPEAKER_02You know. Yeah, I'm not sure there's a way to get around that other than to just accept it. You know, I mean I don't think that therefore we should dismiss it, and with men we should only offer them the chance to join the army.
SPEAKER_03That's right. Which is what happens.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Because I've got a good footballing illustration of oneness. And so, yeah, I tend to think, yeah, use the footballing thing for the men and the marriage thing for the women, but I don't think they're counting right now.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, but I think again, it's just got to be handled sensitively. If you're talking to a a group of men who are all, you know, uh a couple of pints in them and they're rowdy, then it's probably not the best illustration at that point because you're gonna get mocked and it's probably not gonna be heard. Um but I think most people, when they're sober and coherent, will accept an analogy.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know, even if they're just uh humoring you.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But hopefully, in the process, it becomes a captivating one.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And I I I've never really gotten inside that objection, the whole, oh, but what about for blokes? They find it difficult, the idea of being married to Jesus. Because just emotionally, I haven't found that a problem. And I just wonder whether in the atmosphere we know that we should find it problematic. We know that there should be an issue, that blokes shouldn't warm to this. But actually, getting blokes to articulate that, I just I I'm not sure it gets anything beyond a kind of an e-ject reaction.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I suppose if I've never done it, but if you give the give the impression that it's an individual marriage to Jesus, yeah, then it would be awkward.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know, but but either either we've got to be overt or at least sense that people can get what we're talking about. So it's not sounding like uh a one-to-one relationship where you're the f the feminine one. Yes. That's weird for any male to hear.
SPEAKER_04But it's weird for a woman as well. Yeah. Like like it would be weird if the woman was by herself and Jesus was her boyfriend.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_04Like in that sense.
SPEAKER_02And then it can naturally go into sort of the sexual side, and that that's not what we're talking about. That that's that what we have now is a picture of something, yeah. But doesn't mean that it's going to be that kind of oneness.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_02And so I think when we talk about marriage in terms of our our being a part of the bride of Christ, I tend to say part of. And that just seems to dissipate the tension because I'm not going to have to dress weird or you know, do whatever. It's okay, part of the bride, we're going to be united with Christ, he's going to be the one that is captivating and satisfying, and he's in charge and he leads, and we respond. I don't have a problem with that.
SPEAKER_04I don't have a problem with that.
SPEAKER_02I just worry that people think I need to have a problem with it. I have a problem with it in the sense of living it out. Yeah, right. I'm not perfect at following him, but but conceptually it doesn't feel awkward.
SPEAKER_04And once and even if you have that awkwardness, once you embrace union with Christ in that marital sense, it's it just opens up your understanding of the gospel, of what is conversion, of what is the Christian life, what is discipleship. It's just it just explains everything.
SPEAKER_02Exactly, and it's not that you have to put into place this massive kind of theological structure of salvation in the context of union, which is a marriage, and let me introduce you to Jesus. We introduce people to Jesus. Yes. Yeah. So it's not the overwhelming kind of reality of the relationship in some sort of structural form, it's the person.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And we're offering Christ and inviting people to Christ.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And then that's the level he's talking about. Wow.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You see what I mean? Rather than this big intimidating intimacy that you don't know who it's with yet.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_02Here's the surprise, it's Jesus.
SPEAKER_04Yes, yes. Let me offer you an institution. It's called marriage. It's not a blind thing. I often say that about some, you know, it's with regards to Christianity, it's not that I'm sort of generally theistic and I've happened to found my my brand. My brand is the Jesus brand, and I'm and I'm sort of going for that. I sort of I I often say I'm I'm more like the woman who's dead set against marriage. I don't like marriage. I hate the institution. I would never get married, but then I find the Mr. Wright. Yeah. And okay. And and so I'm not into marriage. I'm into him. You know, and I'm not into religion. I'm into Christ. You know, it's it's exactly it's yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_04Perfect. And and it also just clarifies in that your evangelism is just opening up the scriptures and pointing to Jesus and saying, Look. It's gotta be. Look. Yeah. You know, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because what are the alternatives? Well exactly, but but when you the alternatives are not very tasty. No. They don't they don't really interest us. Why do we think they're gonna interest others?
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, here's a system.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Wouldn't you like to believe a system? Or here's a here's a coherent worldview. Yeah. Everyone needs a coherent worldview, but no one's out shopping for one. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Do you know what I mean? And you don't introduce someone to one by saying, here are the six doctrines. Yeah, let's tick them off one by one.
SPEAKER_02Exactly, it's the response to the person. Everything goes. It's the three doctrines, obviously.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah, so simplifying, so clarifying. Brilliant, brilliant. And actually the third, the third, because you you raised a second uh objection to the marriage. But that wasn't your second objection. That wasn't my second objection. So my first one was what about you've had a bad experience of marriage? Yours is like, what if you're a dude? I wasn't even thinking about that because I don't think in those categories. But the third one is obviously gender is just a massive issue culturally, and you know, there are 78 different genders aren't there. Um, and you're coming into a culture that's that's quite confused on gender, and you're almost assuming there's a male-female binary, and let's use that as the sort of the building blocks of your illustration, when actually you'll need to convert your non-Christian even to that male-female dot binary.
SPEAKER_02Maybe I just haven't tried to explain it to enough you know non-Christians that will struggle with that. But what I wonder is, or what I what I tend to do is when I when I try to illustrate it, for me the the ultimate kind of illustration of it is not just in terms of oh, it's a marriage, but in terms of what does it look like, how does that work, is is the the dance of a married couple. So like the first dance. And I've tried to find a film with the perfect I can see it in my mind, I just don't know what film I saw it in, because I don't tend to watch those films, but where you know the the couple are dancing, he is leading, she's responding, she's thoroughly active, but she's not proactive in a sense. She's she's responsive in. And there's a totally perfect flow. Yeah and so everything around goes into that kind of hazy, you know, out of focus, and it's all about him and she trusts him, and he can swing her around and she gets close to the table or whatever. It doesn't matter because she's seen our wedding video.
SPEAKER_04It must be that. Maybe that's what it is.
SPEAKER_02But but people don't go, because in a sense, I'm describing Disney. I'm describing you know something that just feels or oh yeah, that's that old thing. But actually, deep down people go, oh, yeah, yeah. There's a warmth to that kind of image.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And that then becomes a wonderful picture of what it means to be the bride of Christ. In terms of being responsive to him, captivated by him, safe in his arms, led by him. And those are all thoroughly gender-specific. Yeah, they are. But it's maybe it's just putting it in an image that even people who have gender, you know, resistance to gender kind of ideas, they they get what I'm talking about. Yeah, yeah. They've heard that. Oh yeah, yeah, I've seen film like that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. So paint the beautiful picture and then let the details sort themselves out.
SPEAKER_02I think so. And the fact that it's not um, okay, ladies, okay, here's the gospel for you. You get to be the lady in the dance. Right. Okay, guys, you get to be a soldier. You know, because it's it's not differentiating where in the realm in which gender is an issue, as in in this room, you know, between these people on a human level here and there, it's say, okay, beyond this world, that that thing that even the most ardent whatever is at some point may have looked at that and been moved by it. Beyond this world, that's kind of where we're headed. Do you see what I'm getting? Yeah, yeah. So therefore, male, female, whatever. Together in this thing. We are the bride responding to a perfect led by perfect leader, perfect savior, perfect lover, perfect husband, whatever. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04What's the book going to be called?
SPEAKER_02At this point, unless they tell me otherwise, Lost in Wonder.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_02You like the song titles that? Well, yeah, it's going with a bit of a Charles Wesley theme at the moment. Yeah. But yeah, so the Lost in Wonder, Love and Praise. That this day, um, Love Divine All Love's Excelling. When you go through that, the the theme of union is just wow, it's overwhelming. Yes. And ultimately, where does it all end up? It ends up with us lost in wonder, love and praise. Yes. Yes. So we cast our crowns before you. Yes. And so, yeah, I I've gone with a little bit of a Charles Wesley theme, but thanks for spotting that.
SPEAKER_04And just even in and even in that like language of lust, that you kind of get this sense of you're lost and found in this relationship. Safe.
SPEAKER_02Safely lost.
SPEAKER_04Safely lost. And then yeah, you find who you truly are in this particular so like picking up again on this massive theme in the scriptures of you know being lost and then found. And it makes sense in a relationship. Yeah. If it's in the abstract, I lose myself to find myself in.
SPEAKER_02And you know the thing about that is that it's easy to think, oh, there are people who have really difficult relationships, and will they relate to this? All of us have difficult relationships. Yeah. You know, if someone went to the city, if we've tried them, we know exactly, and if we haven't, we're missing something. So, you know, people look at look at us, oh, you're happily married, you have children. So hang on a minute with the happily married. This is just hard work. You know, I'm married to the best woman in the world, but it's still hard work. Yeah. And and I I want to be real with my wife, and I want to be vulnerable with her, and I know that she'll forgive me, and I know that she loves me. You know, and and have a wonderful marriage, but it's still a wonderful marriage in a fallen world.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Which means there's still something that it's not like I'm going to get to heaven and be with Jesus and go, yeah, this is okay. You know. It's okay. Other people must be really loving this Jesus, but for me, I I I really had a perfect marriage. That's nonsense. We we've all struggled in relationship. We've all found ourselves hiding or pulling ourselves away or feeling scared to be real or struggling to forgive or you know, frustrated, or whatever. That's normal. Yeah. And therefore, the idea of being perfectly loved by a perfect spouse outside of a sinful world. Yeah. Something so captivating that it it's beyond anything that any of us have experienced.
SPEAKER_04And the parallel with the father thing, you know. Well, some people haven't had a good father. Well, everyone's had a sinful father. And if God is only as good as the best human father, we're all in trouble.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's going to be profoundly disappointing.
SPEAKER_04And and also there's great hope for your own personal marriage, that your own personal marriage isn't the be-all and end-all. That there is, because you know, I how how do I have the strength to go on being married if I'm just trying to get that strength from within the relationship? I've got a friend who's a marriage counsellor, and he says, you know, he's cancelled for 30 years, different couples. And he says, some couples, they're like a tick-on-a-dog relationship, just one one partner just sucking the life out of the other. He says, But most couples are two ticks and no dog. It's okay then. It's just, you just suck the life out of each other. And like if that's your model of marriage, then you know, you're gonna suck the life out of each other. But if there is this grander thing that you're talking about, this marriage with Christ, then well that's my goal in the book, is to to I'm not trying to same as pleased to dwell.
SPEAKER_02I'm not kind of doing a big old systematic theology type thing. I'm just walking through scripture in a fairly light and um quick moving pace, I hope, and uh hopefully easy to read and you know, just just kind of a nice, light, almost devotional read, really, through scripture. Um but my hope is that it will lift our hearts. And when we read it, we go, oh, really? Because it that's what it does for me when I when I go through and I see that theme.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Wow, that's yeah. God could have gone with something else as his main image. Yeah. Isn't it a privilege? We get to be his servant. But that's there, and we are his servant, you know, and bond servant, and you know, pierce my ear, Lord, and all that. Amazing. But but the ultimate image, are you serious? We get to be united in marriage.
SPEAKER_03That's insane.
SPEAKER_02How do you decide what is the ultimate image? Well, just it's all the way through, it's so pervasive.
SPEAKER_04Word count. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, not to dismiss anything else. But you know, there's there are things that are to be found here and there, and there are things that are here, there, and everywhere. And I it's hard to get away from that.
SPEAKER_04I mean, I even do it from Genesis 1 1. But in the beginning God created the heavens masculine and the earth feminine. And it like and it works in Hebrew and Greek, you've still got time to change your manuscript. But it works in Hebrew and in Greek and every romance language, like everyone's like, oh yeah, heavens masculine, earth feminine, and you're thinking these two should get together. Maybe you should write your manuscript. No, no, no. Great. And so that's coming out in November. That's the plan. And the hope for the book is what?
SPEAKER_02Um well I hope. I hope that people put it down and open their Bibles, really. That's the same with Please to Dwell. As much as it's nice for my ego for people to say, I read your book and I loved it, ultimately I want to be pointing to Christ. I want people to be saying, oh, really? That's there. And so that's why kind of a fast-paced through-the-hole Bible is deliberate rather than let's take 250 pages or whatever to zero in on one passage. That would be great too. But I I kind of want to give us a sense of the whole so that people as they're reading it are getting excited about Jesus, getting excited about the wonder of union with Christ, a sense that actually salvation is more than just forgiveness. Not to dismiss or diminish forgiveness. If forgiveness was the deal, we would praise God for all eternity. But forgiveness is only part of the deal. And therefore, as people are going through it, my hope would be obviously for those that don't know Christ, that they would choose to or respond to that love and trust him. But uh for Christians, I my hope is they read it, and as they're reading it, they don't finish it because they pick up their Bibles and enjoy their Bibles because that's the better book by far. You don't have to say that, by the way. It clearly is. But it's it's it's obviously a better book. God wrote it, but yeah, but it's sometimes a bit intimidating. Yeah. And I hope that this can kind of give a pathway through it and and maybe uh an orientation, a set of lenses to say, hey, look for this. So the next time you go through the Bible, look for this, yeah, and you'll find it just jumps off the page. And themes of faithfulness and unfaithfulness and spiritual adultery and all these kind of things are just all over.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. How do you deal with the the corporate issue with union with Christ? Because sometimes when I think of union with Christ, I think of perching on the end of my bed with my Bible open, alone on my lap, having my quiet time, me and Jesus, and that's my union with Christ.
SPEAKER_00And that's okay.
SPEAKER_04Which is which is lovely. But as you're saying, we are part of the bride of Christ, and we corporately enjoy this union with Christ. What difference does that make?
SPEAKER_02That's huge, isn't it? Hopefully, you know, like it says in uh 1 John 3, is it that uh having this hope we purify ourselves? There's a sense of hey, if if I'm looking around at a congregation, my my local church, which I love being a part of, but it's full of normal people and uh people with with sin and issues and baggage and just like me, you know, just really real people. We we we talk about let's not be a plastic community, let's be real with each other. That's nice in theory, but then there's there's kind of the muckiness of that. Yeah. And it's easy to get caught up with that as if that's the whole thing for pastoral ministry or for church experience or whatever. But actually, you're looking around, you're saying, This is the bride of Christ. Wow. Yeah. And he is cleansing her by the washing and water of the word. Yeah. So I'm preaching, I'm preaching my church. Yeah. I'm part, I get to be part of that, and I get to be on the receiving end. This is the groom lovingly washing us. And our response to that is that we want to we want to purify ourselves. Not that we fix ourselves, but we want to be responsive to his purifying work in us. And so, issues of unity, you know, issues of uh how we treat one another, yeah. There's just so much that that flows out from it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Brilliant. Well, we'll all look forward to that book. Uh, thank you so much for joining us, Pete. Thank you. Thanks for having me. All right.
SPEAKER_01That was Peter Mead talking to Glenn Scrivener about his book Lost in Wonder. And uh you should be able to get all the information from that by going to www.trinitytheology.net. And Lost in Wonder, I'm sure, is available at all Good Christian Book Outlets. Before I go, I'd just like to say thank you to uh Nick Wood for leaving us uh a rating and review on iTunes. He says genuinely entertaining and helpful. So great guys sharing great tips on how I can best love those around me, points my heart in the right direction on a commute. Thanks. Thanks very much, Nick. And uh if you'd like to leave us a rating and review, we'd be very happy if you could do that. Uh the podcast page is speaklife.org.uk slash tep. That's speaklife.org.uk slash tep. Okay, that's it for this week. Thanks very much for listening, and we'll catch up with you next time.