Death to Life podcast
A podcast that tells the stories of people that used to be one way, and now are completely different, and the thing that happened in between was Jesus.
Death to Life podcast
#208 Joey Dodson: Sin Is Not The Boss
Dr. Joey Dodson, scholar and author, shares his transformative journey from feeling like an unwanted "accident" to discovering the fullness of gospel freedom through a fresh understanding of Romans 7.
• Adopted into a Christian home with deep biblical roots yet struggled with feeling like a mistake
• Searched for significance through sports, church involvement, popularity, and partying before encountering deeper Christian relationship at age 16
• Academic revelation about Romans 7 changed his understanding of Christian freedom
• Discovered that Paul in Romans 7 likely depicts someone under law rather than someone walking in the Spirit
• Scripture consistently teaches that sin no longer has power over believers except what we give it
• Multi-ethnic ministry experience demonstrated how the gospel breaks down racial and cultural barriers
• Grace is "unconditioned" (we don't earn it) but not "unconditional" (it comes with expectations)
• Christ came not just to forgive sin but to free believers from sin's power
• Bridges the gap between academic biblical scholarship and practical church teaching
Check out Dr. Dodson's book "Conquerors, Not Captives" available on Amazon or wherever books are sold to learn more about the freedom Christ offers from sin's power.
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The world doesn't think that the gospel can change your life, but we know that it can and that's why we want you to hear these stories, stories of transformation, stories of freedom, people getting free from sin and healed from sin because of Jesus. This is Death to Life.
Speaker 2:I did a paper on Romans 6, as you talked about before, where sin is not the boss of me, sin is not the boss of me, sin is not the boss of me, sin is not the boss of me. But again, growing up in church, having done biblical studies and undergrad and here at seminary, I knew the other shoe was going to drop when you get to Romans 7, right, sure, because Romans 7 is the things I want to do. I do not do the things I don't want to do. That's what I finally might stop doing. Oh, what a wretch I am. And so I had grown up hearing that, yeah, we're free, but already not yet, which already kind of meant not really you know, yeah, we're free, but this is how Paul lived his life. And so that day after I presented my paper, the professor Dr Rodney Wu gets up, and he was like you know, a lot of scholars don't think that Paul's talking about himself at this point and it was like the record skip.
Speaker 2:You know, it was like a Ferris Bueller break the third wall type of experience for me, like wait what?
Speaker 1:Yo, welcome to the Death to Life podcast. My name is Richard Young and today's episode is with Dr Joey Dotson. And Dr Dotson has an amazing book about Romans 7 that we heard about read and, man, what a pleasure it is to have him tell his story on the Death to Life podcast. He's going to be an upcoming guest on Internet Church and we're going to do some different kind of theology stuff with him. But just to hear his energy and his story was so much fun and so powerful. We got a little ADHD vibes energy going back and forth and it was a lot of fun to to hear what this guy is about. So, all that being said, this is joey dotson. Buckle up, strap in, uh, love, y'all appreciate y'all. All right, it is dr joey dotsson month at Love Reality.
Speaker 1:And we had you on another podcast with Jonathan and it was a couple of years ago where he introduced me to this YouTube video with Preston Sprinkle and you guys are going back and forth on Roman 7. And I just ate it all up. I'm like, man, this is amazing. And in that you said you were coming out with a book and I was like, oh, I gots to have it. The book came out. I read it. I heard that you were coming on with Jonathan. I was super pumped. And then he said why don't you have him on Death to Life? And I said can you hook that up? And lo and behold, here you are, man, welcome to the Death Life Podcast. How are you doing?
Speaker 2:I'm doing great. Thanks so much for having me on. I had a great time with Jonathan and expect to have a great time with you as well, especially in light of the ADHD vibes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we were talking in the background, real, recognized, real, I suppose, adhders. We're on a similar wavelength and so, for those who don't have ADHD, hold onto your butts this conversation. We don't know what's going to happen. And for those who do, whenever you get bored of what we're talking about, we're probably going to change the subject right then. So that's what's up. But, man, where do you feel like your story begins? Take us where you want to take us, sure yeah, in regards to this whole thing.
Speaker 2:Right, I think we probably need to start with my biological mom. She was a high school student from South Louisiana and this was in the 70s, and when she had me it gave me up for adoption and I was adopted into a home that was a Christian home. My adopted mom had grown up Church of Christ and my dad had grown up Southern Baptist, and so they decided to compromise and so I was raised a missionary Baptist, so kind of fundamental conservative Baptist, but a church that really, really, really, really loved the Bible. You know, you've heard it before the Holy Trinity, our church was the Father, really, really, really loved the Bible. You know, you've heard it before the Holy Trinity, our church was the Father, the Son and the Holy Bible. Maybe not to that extent, but the B-I-B-L-E. Assess the book for me was kind of our motto, and so I was raised in a church that taught the Bible, taught the Bible, taught the Bible. But even with the Bible I kind of had that wound from a very early age of feeling like that I was an accident, that I was a mistake.
Speaker 2:Back in the 90s, back in the, I guess, 80s, late 80s, there was something popular in the area that I grew up in among Christians of what's your life verse? I don't know. Did you guys ever ask that? I think it might be like residue from astrology, like what's your sign? And Christian's like no, we can't ask for signs. So, what's your life verse? And most people are like you know, philippians 4.13, jeremiah 31, isaiah 40. You know it's kind of the same one John 3.16. And, being a little bit of the maverick and rebel that I was, I would say well, exodus 4.3. And people are like I don't know what that means. And you look it up and it's God saying hey, what's that in your hand? And Moses says a stick and I thought it was funny. Some people didn't get it.
Speaker 1:Wait, so you were making a dirty joke.
Speaker 2:I was making no, no, not dirty joke. I was just making a joke. The joke was what's that in your hand? A stick, because it's a staff right.
Speaker 2:Right stick because it's a staff right. And so I was just trying to be funny, just to go off of the beaten path. But later on, man, I really began to realize that no, that is a really good life verse, because I'm just a stick, I'm just a staff in the hand of God. And so I felt like if God could turn a stick into a snake, if God could split waters, the oceans, with the staff, if he could spring forth water with the staff, then he could use me as well, which is kind of the point that he's making to Moses. And so later on in my life and we can come back to this point but I felt like God saying it's not about who you are, it's about who I am, it's not about who you were, but it's about who I will be in your life. You're just a stick.
Speaker 2:And so later on, when I got a little bit more sophisticated as a Christian, I switched my life verse to 1 Corinthians, 15, 10, where Paul says I'm the least of the apostles. I am ecthroma is a Greek word there Abnormally born, wrongly born, miscarried we're not quite sure how to best translate the word ecthroma. But then Paul says but I got a big butt and I cannot lie. But by the grace of God I am what I am and his grace to me was not without effect. And so Exodus 4, 3 and 1 Corinthians 15, 10 kind of meld together. But anyway, back to your original question.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I was raised in this church when I was eight. I kind of understood the gospel that I was a sinner, I was G-U-Y-L-T-Y, guilty, guilty, guilty. But God loved me so much that he sent his son to die for my sins and raise him from the dead and that if I confess with my mouth Jesus, lord, and believe in my heart, then I can be saved. And so, at the age of around eight, I went up and I said that the sinner's prayer ask Jesus in my heart, those terms that were often used. And I got baptized the next week and I remember walking up and saying the prayer.
Speaker 2:But I think I remember my baptism day more so even than that, because I had brought clothes to get baptized in, right, and. But then I went to the bathroom to change and I had brought clothes, but maybe this ADHD thing coming in, I didn't bring an extra pair of underwear. It's like here and I have to go back into church. You know like, so we get baptized and you go out of church and you have to come back in church and I didn't know what to do with my underwear. So here I'm like an eight, nine-year-old little kid with wet underwear. And so I remember like, well, do I wear wet underwear in Because I have like khakis on and then, like everyone's going to see, or do I like throw the underwear?
Speaker 2:So I have like this huge dilemma, like this was my baptism day and I don't know what to do with my tidy whities. And so I remember, making it kind of like contraband, I got some toilet paper from, uh, the stall and I wrapped it up and wrapped it up and like hit it in the trash can and put some other stuff on it so no one would see that I had, uh, this, the wet underwear. And so I put my little khakis on and I walked in as they're singing, like you know, come thy fount or something, and I sit down and for the rest of church service I'm like people gonna know I don't have underwear on. People, people are going to see, you know, and I had this huge fear, but anyway, yeah, so that was eight Hold up, hold up, hold up.
Speaker 1:You went commando. Why did you throw the underwear away? I don't know.
Speaker 2:I was afraid that someone was going to see underwear. I mean, like I just didn't.
Speaker 1:That is a complete ADHD thing. I asked you that because I've thrown stuff away that didn't need to be thrown away, but there was like shame attached to it and I was like, yeah, I can't get it out of here.
Speaker 2:God washed away my guilt, but not my shame with respect to my dirty underwear. So, uh, yeah. So I responded to the part of the gospel that I understood. But uh, at that point I kind of just began to live my own life. I had my quote, unquote fire insurance, like many people do, and I remember still having kind of this emptiness inside them even after getting baptized and probably again going back to that adoption orphan wound, but just wanting to fill that. And so I first of all I was like, well, maybe if I do really well in sports and that will fill that emptiness, that void that is lacking there, and so began to work hard to go all the way in sports.
Speaker 2:Growing up in the Dirty South it was football, basketball and baseball were our holy trinity when it came to sports and I played all of those. I was kind of above average in most of them and we'd go to baseball camp and basketball camp and play football. I was fast and began to excel in sports, but it still didn't really fill the void and said, okay, well, if it's not sports, then maybe I'll try the church thing. And so I began to become like the leader of the youth group and get all involved in church and go to the camps, and I still enjoyed it. But there still wasn't. There was something that was missing, and so at that point I was like, well, maybe if I'm popular, that'll fill the void, and so I began to figure out what it takes to be popular. Wear that'll fill the void. And so begin to figure out what it takes to be popular.
Speaker 1:Wear the cool clothes talk to the cool kids, hang out with the cool people, and I was what were the cool clothes? What were the cool clothes?
Speaker 2:oh, man z cavaricci's during this time, just like umbros or like late 80s parachute pants, you know uh, all right, I remember going to, uh, my first rated r movie my uncle took me and it was, uh, prince Purple Rain. And back at that time it was flipping up your collar like Prince did, right. So I remember for the first time flipping up my collar with my uncle, who's like eight years older than I was, and yeah, so began to do all that and I got popular you know the Mr and Mrs, high School, all those type of things but still didn't fill the void. And on and on it goes with popularity, begin to do the party scene and the stuff associated with the party scene, and that didn't fill the void. And then so I began to get involved in a lot of drinking with my friends. It's like, well, if I can't fill that emptiness, then maybe I will. Maybe I can just numb it with the hard liquor that I was drinking at the time.
Speaker 2:But I was big into basketball. Basketball was kind of my god, more than anything else during that time and I was getting ready one night to go play basketball and I was a trash talker. I still talk trash when I play basketball. And you know, I was like I was getting ready, I was thinking up some of my trash talking lines and all of a sudden my phone rings. It's bring, bring. And I pick it up and it's my girlfriend and she's like Joey. So she talked Joey, will you go to revival with me?
Speaker 2:And I was like, oh, baby, I don't want to go to revival, I'm about to go play basketball. I'm the bus driver, I'm going to take people to school. You know I'm going to talk so much my breath's going to stink, you know to stink, you know so anyway. But you know, man, girls can talk to you in anything. They just like tilt that head and say in their sweet voice please. You're like, okay, okay. So, of course, that night, rather than going to ball, I went to revival and it was youth night at the revival and the speaker was kind of a hellfire brimstone speaker. But what I remember first is this guy gets up to lead worship and he had this uh, this plaid suit on like uh, and it was nasty back in that time but it'd be really cool today. It was like I'm gonna pop those tags, got 20 in my pocket until he goes and he's dancing he's, he's worshiping and again growing up in kind of the more uh traditional, uh like our church thought that uh, contemporary christian music was from Satan.
Speaker 1:So, like you know, exactly right, yeah, even like, yeah, like.
Speaker 2:Twyla Paris. All those guys were bad. Sandy Patty, though, you could do a little, Sandy Patty, we're okay with Steve Green. I don't remember Steve Green back in the day, but none of the Petra, none of the DC talk, you know. Anyway.
Speaker 2:So I go and this guy, rather than singing like, Then sings my soul, my Savior God. Oh boy, it was like breaking it down. The singing my soul, my Savior God, to thee, To the world, to the world. I was like man, dude, tripping man, and he was like old and he's going to need some Geritol after this. But anyway, just the way that he was worshiping looked different than the way that I'd worshiped. And again, not that I I mean we sang some beautiful hymns but just the spirit that was in there, the enthusiasm was something that was new to me.
Speaker 2:And the preacher gets up and he preaches out of Matthew 7. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but many would come to me that day saying, Lord, Lord, do not prophesy in your name and drive out demons in your name and do miracles in your name. And Jesus says who are you? I don't know. You get away from me, you evildoers. And so there basically began to introduce. You know, it's not enough to have religion, you have to have a relationship. It's walking in allegiance with Jesus Christ, having that personal relationship. And so I went from responding to the part of the gospel that I understood the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ so that I could be with him in eternity and not face eternal consequences to now Jesus wants to have a relationship with me. He wants to walk with me and talk with me and have quiet times with me. And so again, I was this time 16, going on 17 and they have the invitation. I can get into that, but I know you want to kind of move on. But anyway, kind of some really unusual things happened during the invitation. I didn't go down because I was too cool to go down during an invitation, but anyway, after the service I turned to my girlfriend who, by the way, is now my wife and I was like, hey, we go talk to the preacher dude with me, because I with. I turned to my girlfriend who, by the way, is now my wife, and I was like, hey, will you go talk to the preacher dude with me, Because I feel like I need to begin to walk in discipleship with Jesus and so went down.
Speaker 2:At that point, you know, Christ really became the center of my life, as much as I allowed him to, and not just became the center of my life but the center of my relationship with my girlfriend as well, and we began to start a Christian club at school. I wanted to do an FCA because I love sports, but then we're like, and my wife and her wisdom, my girlfriend and her wisdom at that time she's like, you know what that kind of rules out those who are not athletes and they may be intimidated. And so we started Basic Brothers and Sisters in Christ, intimidated. And so we, we started a basic brothers and sisters in Christ, which is so cheesy, but so nineties at the same time, yeah, so, but so we started having like prayer meetings and doing revivals and all these different things and I began to feel like God was calling me in the ministry at that time, which goes back to the what's that in your, your hand, a stick.
Speaker 2:And one night, when I was about 17, going on 18, I'd gone to do a mission field in Kentucky, in the Appalachian area, and at that point God just used me in great and mighty ways by his grace and just kind of showed me that it wasn't about who I was and what I'd done, but who he is and what he wants to do in my life.
Speaker 2:And so I surrendered to the ministry who he is and what he wants to do in my life. And so I surrendered to the ministry, and then I wanted to be like a sports doctor or physical therapist or whatever. But at that point God called me to study biblical studies and began to pursue really kind of. The next bucket of salvation that I realized was that he didn't just come to save my soul, but also my mind. One of the ways to love him with all my heart was to love him with all of my mind. That he wanted me to add to my love and faith knowledge and insight. And so that's where I became an academic, as one who began to pursue God with my mind as well.
Speaker 1:But I've been talking quite a bit. Let me ask you a quick question. So was there something about God that changed that night? Like was he just kind of absent, like what was he before that night?
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, right, I think he was always there. I think I just wasn't tuned in to him. But it was at this point when I said the prayer, just saying you know God, I want you to have a relationship with you, I want to pledge allegiance to you and walk in that allegiance. It's also when Ray Boltz was out, the I pledge allegiance to the Lamb. You may not be old enough to remember this stuff.
Speaker 1:But anyway, thank you for giving to the Lord, right, yeah.
Speaker 2:So same same guy, but he had a song I pledge allegiance to the Lamb and it's like. It's like Christian nationalism back in the day, but it's like it's revelation, christian nationalism, 90s music, but anyway. So just this idea of you know, christ has called me not just to say a prayer and so that when I die I can go to heaven, but he wants to dwell with me and be with me and wants me to walk in obedience to him, and so some more salvation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one more question, cause I think you're going to like this one. What was your best high school basketball game? What'd you do in it? Like gotcha.
Speaker 2:So we were a double a school and we beat the four a school. So we were like a little small town and we beat the big, the big town. And so two of my guys went on to play. One went to play at Louisiana Tech where Carmelona played, and one played overseas and I was just like the pure point guard. I would just like drive down and throw the ball, but yeah.
Speaker 1:You're like Mike Bibby, just directing traffic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So this is back when Coach K was in town. Yeah, like Bobby Hurley. So even though Bobby Hurley was kind of a chump at that time, I was much more like a Bobby Hurley type of player. So I was quick, I could add great ball skills and I could see the court and get the pass down, and so yeah, anyway, yeah.
Speaker 1:Sorry, I just didn't hear that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, honestly, there's times where I think, when I retire, I may just like volunteer to be a basketball coach somewhere, cause like if I had a second calling, it would be a basketball coach, I think you're a big nuggets fan.
Speaker 1:I am wearing another.
Speaker 2:Yeah, go Nugs so anyway, back to uh.
Speaker 1:so you, you decide like I'm all in on giving my allegiance to God and also I want, like there's something about this that interests me, uh on a scholastic level, like educationally wise.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So I had a lot of zeal but little bit of knowledge. And, uh, so I go to school and I just want to get the degree I don't care about the grades because I wanted to serve Jesus. I became a youth pastor at the age of 18. So this is like six months later. I know, man, the things that I taught during that time. I'm just praying that the love truly covers a multitude of sin, because I love Jesus and I was really good at bringing people to Jesus, but didn't really know what to do once I got them there. And I was really good at bringing people to Jesus but didn't really know what to do once I got them there. So I was good at evangelism because that's kind of the revivalist tradition that I've been raised in but then I had no idea how to disciple. And so the first I don't know six months of my youth group, we just kind of mushroomed. We had all these people that accepted Jesus but then just fell off the wayside. Then just fell off the wayside, but anyway.
Speaker 2:So I just started taking what I would learn in my biblical studies classes or my Christian philosophy class, and I would have that like on Monday, and then what I had on Monday, I would teach on Wednesday night. And then what I'd get like on Friday, I'd preach on Sunday morning to the youth group. And one day my Greek professor came to me and he said Joe, you got a lot of noise, which I think it was his way of saying I'm loud and obnoxious, which is evidence. Right, you got a lot of noise, but I think if you pursued Greek and Hebrew, it'll give you some volume. And so he invited me that night, that day, to take a summer intensive translating from the Greek of Ephesians into English and again, daddy issues. Anytime a father figure asked me to do something, I was like, of course, of course, of course. And he began to mentor me, and actually my firstborn son is named after him, j Scott Duvall.
Speaker 2:But anyway, in that class I wasn't good at Greek, I was good with the ball and I didn't know English very well. Growing up in South Arkansas, north Louisiana, not a high priority placed on English grammar, and so it's hard to learn Greek when you didn't know English. And it was like well, this is a participle, I'm like a participle, that's what I'm talking about. And yeah, so I had. It took me a while, but then that summer the light bulb came on and almost a mystical experience as much as mystical as a Baptist can get with the text. It was almost like the word just came off of the text and the living word came off of the little word and I just began. I memorized Ephesians. It just began to transform my heart and I began to learn other things about the gospel.
Speaker 1:You memorized Ephesians. How long did that take?
Speaker 2:You're just reading it that entire summer because I was struggling so much with the Greek that I ended up memorizing the English. So it wasn't like even trying to, it was just like having to work so hard because I was definitely the least of the students in that class. There were only four of us, definitely the least of the students in that class. There were only four of us and the other three ended up going to Cambridge and Oxford and are top scholars and I was just trying to pretend to be along and was there for the comic relief and the Pop-Tarts and Slim Fast that I would bring to do it. I have no idea why I brought Slim Fast and Pop-Tarts. I guess maybe to balance it off, you brought the Slim Fast. I would bring Slim Fast and Pop-Tarts. I guess maybe to balance it off, you brought the Slim.
Speaker 1:Fast and. Pop-tarts. I would bring Slim Fast and Pop-Tarts. That's kind of like getting baptized and throwing your underwear in the trash. Can bro?
Speaker 2:Maybe it's connected somehow, yeah, anyway. So I learned two things then, and one was that Christianity is not just about the heart, and one was that you know that Christianity is not just about the heart, it's not just about emotions and feelings, but also about the importance of understanding and studying, and so that really changed the trajectory of my life. Before then, I wanted to be like a youth evangelist or a Kanakuk leader or, you know, a pastor, and at this point I felt like God was saying no, I want you to be in the classroom, and even then I still feel like I'm more of a preacher dressed up as a pastor. And at this point I felt like God was saying no, I want you to be in the classroom, and even then I still feel like I'm more of a preacher dressed up as a scholar. The imposter syndrome is strong with me, but yeah, so. So that's one thing that I learned.
Speaker 2:And then God also began to put seeds into me that salvation wasn't just that God was calling me to heaven when I die. It wasn't just calling me into allegiance and a relationship with him, he wasn't just calling me to honor him with my brain and my thoughts, but Ephesians chapter two we weren't saved by works, but we're saved for good works. What are those good works? As God's poema, he goes on in the next verse to say to tear down the walls of racism, to take down the wide and those who are far and near and bring them together. And so, all of a sudden, something I'd never heard in my entire life. So I'm a junior at this time, about to be a junior, and no one has ever told me that one of the aspects of being in salvation is God hasn't just called me, not saving me from sin and from death, but he's actually saving me into a multiracial community. That he's calling me to help tear down walls of racism. And we can talk about that thread a little bit later, if you want to as well.
Speaker 1:I do have a question about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I read this. It's just sitting here, this book by Gorman oh yeah, Michael.
Speaker 1:Yeah, great commentary. And he starts talking about and maybe one of his other books, 2 Corinthians, 5, 21, where he says that we're the righteousness of God in Christ and he describes righteousness as the right doing of God and how God actually makes things right. And so I think in my faith tradition we're just worried about being right with God. So anything that says that we're righteous, we're like, okay, I have right standing with God. But he thinks that Paul's saying more about that as Christians we get to go out there kind of the same thing. You're saying we get to go and make things right. Do you think that's what he's kind of talking about?
Speaker 2:I do. So. Richard Hayes has an article that says you know, it's almost like a prince's bride you keep using that word. I don't think it means. What do you think it means? And so he looks at dikaiosune and the dike verbs that are connected to it Dike is an adjective and dikaiosune is the noun and he looks and says actually, Paul defines this by quoting the Psalms and like Psalm 143.
Speaker 2:And if you go back to that, righteousness is best defined as God's righteous deliverance of his people from bondage. And so, in accord, in harmony with this chesed. And so it's one of the most impacting journal articles that have been written by Richard Hayes to say that, hey, this is what righteousness is, and so that we become the righteousness of God, he is the one who makes us righteous, so that we walk in righteousness. And the dikayosune and dikay these are words that can be translated righteous or justice, mishpat, justice like the prophets. And so us becoming the righteousness of God is not just us having holiness and this character of God, but instead of us joining God in that righteousness to deliver people from oppression, out of bondage, to bring forth justice into the world, the mishpat that the prophets had talked about.
Speaker 1:I guess if your whole life you're just trying to make sure you and God are okay, it's going to be difficult to actually go and do those things because you're so inwardly focused and trying to make sure you're all right things because you're so inwardly focused and trying to make sure you're all right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So the Lord called me to Houston at a multi-ethnic church and one third of our students were Asian, one third were Hispanic and one third was African, african-american. And well, let's do it in quarters, and then the last quarter, if we do switching the quarters. Well, let's do it in quarters, and then the last quarter, if we do switching to quarters was just confused, just kind of a mixture. So we had kids that their dad was Chinese, had married a Mexican, and so they referred to themselves as Chexicans. Wow, so we were in Texas, in Houston, but we had gone to this youth camp that was predominantly white, you know, 95% white and here we were coming, just this multiple colored.
Speaker 2:We're running late because the youth pastor has ADHD. We get onto the bus and they have VHS, so they're trying to let you know what time it was and TVs, and I was like, oh, I didn't know we had this. Can you stop at Wally World? So we stopped at Walmart and I run in and I grab Remember the Titans that just come out on VHS. And so we watched Remember the Titans over and over and over again, and to the point that the kids are just like making fun of it or quoting it. But we get there late, they're having field games, and so we get there. Everyone sees the bus come and they see all of us coming out and Jerry Ocampo, one of our Mexican students, he gets out and I didn't realize that they had actually planned something and he was kind of a loud mouth, took after his youth pastor and he gets out and he screams out everywhere we go and the whole youth group, like 40 other kids, like everywhere we go, and the whole youth group, like 40 other kids, like everywhere we go.
Speaker 2:People want to know. People want to know what are the black folks, what are the black folks? Asians and Hispanics, asians and Hispanics hanging out with honkies, hanging out with honkies. So we tell them. So we tell them it's about Jesus. It's about Jesus, the mighty, mighty Jesus, mighty, mighty Jesus, where there is no black or white, where there is no black or white, greek or Jew, greek or Jew. So here we are, here we are bringing it to you, bringing it to you, and at that point they all just begin to break out and dancing and it was awesome and I was like they get it, they get it. Here are these, you know, 14, 17 year olds that are understanding that man.
Speaker 2:That's the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's not just individual righteousness that God has given me because of Jesus Christ, it's not just the freedom that he's given me in this personal relationship, but it's caught us into what Revelation is saying that every tongue, every tribe, every nation comes together and that's God's poiema. That's why God goes booyah. God dunks over the principalities and the demons by saying look at my church. That the only thing they have in common is the blood of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2:And so often in our world, when white folks worship with white folks and Asians worship with Asians and Hispanics, but Hispanics and black folks with black folks, what we tell people is that the color of our skin unites us more than the cross of Jesus Christ. And so we've misunderstood the gospel idea. And so, translating and struggling through Ephesians 2, and the Lord, calling me to Wilcrest there in Houston, really began to let me know that God hasn't just called me to him, he's called me to his body as well, that salvation is to be saved into this body, and the body is not meant to be one color or culture.
Speaker 1:Man that is powerful. Who would have known that trip to Wally World would turn into a drumline sequence?
Speaker 2:Man, I tell you what Remember the Titans. It stands up. My youngest child is black and I wanted to introduce just kind of that racial tension. My youngest child is on the autism spectrum and towards the middle, but I still want them to know, raised even in a white family, understand kind of the background of all of that. And so we watched Remember the Titans together. It stands out, it is a great movie.
Speaker 1:Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go. A lot of it makes you weak. You killed me, petey, it's one of the greatest. So what happened after Texas? How long were you there? Sure, one of the greatest.
Speaker 2:So what happened after Texas? How long were you there? Sure, yeah, I was in Houston for about six and a half years at that point. So after Houston, I moved to Scotland, scotland, germany, germany, greece, greece, back to Houston.
Speaker 1:So what's going on? All right, taking a quick break, don't skip ahead. I wanted to read you this thing and it touched my heart. This was a review for the podcast and it said this at first I was like I don't have this long to listen. Then I popped in my AirPods and immersed myself in truth, grace and the power of the gospel Exactly what I needed to strengthen my belief in who I am in Christ Real, raw, honest people sharing the gospel that brings true freedom. Amen and amen.
Speaker 1:Man, I am humbled whenever I hear that the podcast has been a blessing to people, that it has helped them see who they really are in Christ. But God has blessed, and that's what this podcast is doing, and it is because of people partnering with us, donating, giving their hard-earned finances to help this gospel message keep going forward. So I'd like to invite you, if you want to partner with us, go to loverealityorg slash give, and every dollar that you donate keeps this thing going forward. Whether it's the podcast, whether that's internet church, whether it's the Bible studies, it all goes into getting this message to keep going forward, and we thank you and appreciate you for partnering with us in this. So yeah, loverealityorg slash give. Let's get back into the episode. What was going on in Scotland and Germany?
Speaker 2:So I did a PhD. So back in the 90s I also saw Braveheart. I love Braveheart. It was like one day I want to live in Scotland. My wife and I went to watch it.
Speaker 1:I was like I want to see how the movie ended. It didn't go well.
Speaker 2:It actually does. You know, robert Bruce he actually wins it doesn't go well for William, but it sets up the revolution. But I had no idea at that time that some of my favorite scholars actually went to do their PhD in Scotland, and so, as I began to start feeling like the Lord was calling me to do a PhD, I began to look at on the back of the books of the scholars that I liked the most, and almost all of them had graduated from Scottish universities.
Speaker 1:And your wife was like, yeah, let's go, I'm in Germany.
Speaker 2:We were inner city church in Houston. And so we lived like in the government housing because we made some, because we didn't make enough money to live anywhere else and so and also to be around our community. And so our idea was like, hey, we're poor in Houston, we might as well be pure, we might as well be poor in Scotland as well. And we moved from hot as Hades. You know, one of Dante's levels of hell is Houston, because you've got the traffic, you've got the humidity, you've got the mosquitoes and you've got the cheating baseball team. But anyway, Trash cans.
Speaker 2:Sorry, train of thought. Yeah, and that's a whole different story. On how God uh basically paid for us to go to Scotland to do PhD, uh, and to get me into the program, which is actually where I met Preston you mentioned Preston at the top of the hour. Uh, so we both were in the PhD program. I was finishing early from there and they're like well, you can finish early and get the JLO-B, or we have this handshake with this school in Tübingen. Tübingen is like a Harvard-type school of Germany. It's where Dietrich Bonhoeffer went, it's where Karl Barth was, Kaesermann and Bultmann. This is kind of the place of the Tübingen school. Maybe you've heard of that before.
Speaker 1:Anyway, I've seen Oppenheimer, where Oppenheimer goes to the school.
Speaker 2:That's my favorite dude. I tell people that's my favorite part of it because that's what my PhD program was like.
Speaker 1:So when that music comes on and you see that thing going into Germany, I replay it for my kids. I'm like look at this Now he's looking at Picasso.
Speaker 2:That was you, bro. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and it's talking about immeasurably more than you can ask for. Imagine that God had taken this bastard from who was born on the bayou, who grew up in very humble beginnings and to be at one of the top universities in Scotland and in Germany, still always afraid that they're going to find me out. So I'm like, oh dude, this guy shouldn't be here, and so always kind of looking over my shoulder for someone to figure it out.
Speaker 1:What was the main thing? What was your sermon? If someone were to hear you preach four times, five times, they'd be like man Joey he's preaching about. What would it be back then?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think probably the same thing that I, and it's not even the bucket that we've got to yet with respect to salvation. So when I was in seminary back in Houston, I and so end up reading Doug Moose NIC commentary on Romans, and really that that was the point where I realized that salvation wasn't just about the personal relationship that I had with God. It wasn't just about fire insurance, it wasn't just about growing in my mind, it wasn't just about the personal relationship that I had with God. It wasn't just about fire insurance, it wasn't just about growing in my mind, it wasn't just about the community, but it was about redemption, that sin no longer has to be our master.
Speaker 2:And, like what we see, paul says in Galatians, galatians was Paul's first letter that he wrote. Maybe 1 Thessalonians debated, and Galatians was written before the Gospels. And so the very first Gospel statement that we have, Paul says in Galatians 1.3 that Jesus Christ gave himself for our sins. Now I expect the next line to be so that we don't have to go to hell or so that we can be forgiven, which again, I think those are true. But Paul says he gave himself for our sins in order to set us free, to set us free from this present evil age that's characterized by legalism, our lust, and then Paul's going to, that's got that idea of freedom going back to Braveheart. They can take our lives.
Speaker 2:They got freedom, freedom, is that the theme, the thread, the keynote of Galatians is for freedom that Christ has set you free. Don't use your freedom as an opportunity to indulge the flesh. And so, at that point, just this idea of the freedom that we have to bring in JT. He's bringing sexy back. I bring Wesley back. John Wesley, I think, is the first one who actually has the best reading of Romans 7 post-enlightenment, and he makes this comment that Christ didn't come just to save us from the penalty of sin, but also from the power of sin. And so I've been, in a sense, a one-trick pony in preaching that, partly because I just feel like there are so few people that get it that Christ didn't come just to forgive us of our sins, but to set us free from those sins.
Speaker 1:Am I way off if I say that sin has no power over you, although Romans 6.14 in the ESV says it has no dominion, Because I feel like that can be the same thing right.
Speaker 2:I think so. Yeah, I mean it's the same Greek word and we're just using two different English words at this point. Yeah, the only power that sin has over us is the power that we give to sin, and of course this gets us into that apocalyptic understanding. So Gorman's going to bring some of that in the Romans commentary. He's going to focus on kind of the participation Salvation has, participation with Christ. So it's a mystical relationship. But I put mystical and apocalyptic. They're like kissing cousins, you get that growing up in Missouri.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so they're connected. So it's not sin as a misdeed or sin as a wrong action in Romans 7, but it's sin as this demonic power. Sin and death and flesh are the capital, these tyrants that Christ has set us free from. So, yeah, the only power that sin has over us is a power that we give to sin.
Speaker 1:So did understanding this. Reading Doug Moo's book and really looking at Romans 7, did it make Romans 6 come a little more alive for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it made it true. Like before, it was kind of like ah, yeah, but it's not really. Maybe one day. But so now I realize that no, romans 6 and Romans 8, what Paul says, they're legit, they're full of truth and so yeah, but before I kind of Romans 6 was uh wishful thinking and Romans seven was the reality.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you this If we understand Romans seven the way that your book describes and the way that you know, doesn't it make the rest of the epistles of Paul just kind of click together? Doesn't it make so much more sense than if it's just this random weird chapter in here and the rest of it? He's like hey, live how I live, imitate me as I imitate Christ, except for this one weird chapter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. In the book I use the illustration of Cookie Monster growing up again 70s, 80s, 90s of Cookie Monster.
Speaker 1:I was upset that Preston didn't understand the Cookie Monster when you did your interview. Oh, did I?
Speaker 2:use it then yeah, no, I was like, of course, man the Cookie Monster, my granddaughter she lives in my daughter's doing a PhD in St Andrews right now and so she's over there with my granddaughter. My granddaughter has picked up a poo, a Winnie the Pooh impression, and I can do Donald Duck, and so we like there's a time when we're doing FaceTime or talking on the phone where she goes full on Winnie the Pooh and I go full on Donald Duck and we're having this conversation as if she's Pooh and as if I'm Donald Duck. So it's brilliant. But yeah, for those who haven't seen the Preston Spring, I didn't realize I'd brought it out with Preston.
Speaker 2:But in the book it's the cookie monster will come out with the different cookies all the same cookie. In the book it's the cookie monster would come out with the different cookies all the same cookie, but they're that one cookie. And he would say you know, one of these is not like the other, one of these just don't belong and you're like it's the chocolate chip. The chocolate chip is different. And so Romans 7, it looks different than anything else Paul writes when he talks about the Christian relationship with sin. Not just Paul. It's different than anything Jesus says about the believer's relationship with sin. It's different than anything Peter says. It's different than anything that James says. It's different than anything that John says. It's different than anything the early church fathers say you know, and so it's different. Can you hear me?
Speaker 1:I think my Can you still hear me, okay, good.
Speaker 2:I thought my air pod fell out. I got too excited. Sorry, am I talking too loud? Sometimes I get so excited.
Speaker 1:No, man, you got some volume as well. You're talking loud and you got some volume.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think it makes sense that way and again. So I have a debate. Craig Blomberg is. I have the Craig Blomberg Endowed Chair at Denver Seminary in honor of him, and he still thinks that Romans 7 is talking about the post-Christian life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I watched it. I didn't think he didn't convince me. I was ready to be convinced. I was like let's hear it. I was rooting for you.
Speaker 2:I was like, oh, man Honestly, yeah, I want to be convinced If I'm wrong, I want to know that I'm wrong. But his gotcha moment where he thinks he got me because we've had two debates, one in DC and one here is that I do think that Romans 7 can explain a Christian life, but that's not what Paul is doing. And I think Romans 7 is what happens when a person walks underneath the law rather than with the Spirit. And so if a believer walks under the law rather than walking with the, and so if a believer walks under the law rather than walking with the spirit, then Romans 7 can look like what their life looks like in that frustration. But the guy in Romans 7, it's I, I, I, I, rather than we, we, we, we, we. So this I won't say it, okay, I'll pull back, I'll practice restraint, but it's I, I, I, I, as opposed to we, we, we, we, and it's flesh, flesh, flesh, flesh, sin, sin, sin, sin, death, death, death, death. And there's no mention of the Holy Spirit. And we know there ain't no party like Holy Ghost party goes, holy Ghost party don't stop.
Speaker 2:And so if a person has isolated themselves, if a person is walking under law, law, law rather than the we, we, we who are walking according to spirit, then Romans 7 can look like what your life looks like, but that's not what it's supposed to be. We were meant to live with so much more. We were meant to live in Romans 6 and Romans 8. And so I think Paul makes that clear in Romans 6 and Romans 8. And so it makes us say wait a second, romans 7, it's like Transformers.
Speaker 2:There's more than meets the eye here, there's something else that's going on, and the earliest interpreters of Scripture told us yeah, this is Paul doing an impersonation of someone living under the law rather than walking according to the Spirit. That goes all the way back to Romans 2, where Paul conjures up this frenemy, this hater, and says but what about you, oh man, and the guy who lives according to the law but doesn't actually fulfill the law? And so, yeah, I don't think that's a gotcha moment. I do think that Romans 7 can be what a Christian experience is, but that's not Paul talking about himself as a post-Christian experience.
Speaker 1:So understanding this redemption, this idea that he has freed you from the power of sin, and that light clicking just in your own walk. It just gave more power to live this thing out. Talk to me about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So I realized that before I felt like I had a license to sin. Well, I'm going to sin and God's going to forgive me. But now I feel like it gave me a license not to sin. As Paul says in Titus you know the grace of God, it shows up to teach us to say heck to the naw-naw to sin and ah, yeah to righteousness and self-control. And so, realizing that God's grace gave me the power to say no, that I did not have to let sin be the one that was in the driver's seat Again, I still struggle with sin, I struggle with temptation, I still fail, but I realized that, honestly, when I sin unlike the guy in Romans 7, I know what I'm doing and I know why I'm doing it. I know that I've chosen to do it and so it leads to greater repentance on my behalf as well. Yeah, so he gave me a license finally to say you know, I don't have to live this way.
Speaker 1:I think before this understanding, like you said, we have a license to sin. Now it's almost just like there's something that I'm not believing or thinking correctly. It's now it's all about changing the way we think. Like if we used to think this way, like, for example, um, we would get triggered easily or we're oversensitive to something like that. Now we know I actually don't have to be triggered, I can set my mind on this and do this where before it was just like oh it is, it's kind of just, it's going to happen and you'll always have an excuse for it, but then that people don't like that answer either. So that's like no man's land there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's not a very popular opinion, and so in the book I try to say hey, you don't have to agree with me, but I just want you to understand that there are other interpretive options on the table and that the majority of scholars today of Pauline New Testament scholars don't think that Paul's talking about himself as a believer. The earliest interpreters did not, and even those who began to switch it to Paul, they're defining it and spelling it out differently than the way we do today. And so this idea that if you think you're going to be defeated by sin every day, then you're already defeated by sin every day. But, to borrow from John, if greater is he that's in me than he that's in the world, then I should be able to grab a hold of that which he's already grabbed a hold of me, for to bring John and Philippians together.
Speaker 1:So since then, your sermon has been Jesus has actually redeemed us and given us power to walk in his righteousness.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I think it's moving from just salvation as this forensic salvation, as, again, kind of fire insurance, to redemption salvation as redemption, and that we once were in darkness and God called us out of darkness into marvelous light.
Speaker 2:It's not that Christ came to make us better, but he came to make us a new creation, he came to ransom us, and so it brings in more of the Christus Victor, understanding of atonement and not to discount by any stretch of imagination justification by faith and the Lutheran idea and the idea that we have been forgiven and justified and reconciled.
Speaker 2:But I really think that Paul's his heartbeat. He talks about justification by faith and righteousness with respect to it being credited to us when he's talking inside baseball, when it's intramural discussion about the law, but when Paul doesn't have the constraints of the Mosaic law, what he really wants to talk about is how we died with Christ and we've been raised with Christ, and Paul gives us and this is from Doug Moo's Romans 6 in his commentary he says Paul uses a syllogism that Jesus Christ died to sin once and for all. We died with Christ through baptism. Therefore, we are dead to sin. Therefore, to quote TI, the old me is dead and gone dead and gone, dead and gone. And how crazy is it when there's a rap song that understands the gospel more than the majority of our preachers?
Speaker 1:Man, tip was on it. Man Back at ATL's finest. We should have been paying attention to TIP man. Man. So now that you've written the book, do people come to you as, like you're the Roman Seven guy, Like I don't know? Your community, this super, you know, scholar community. Is that what you're known for? Or what are you known for? Are you known for having the song lyrics on deck whenever I?
Speaker 2:don't know if I'm known for anything, but what I've done in the Romans 7 book is just taking what is common in the ivory tower and bringing it to the church with some cultural references, trying to make it more accessible.
Speaker 2:Huge gap, chasm between what is common in scholarship those who study the New Testament all their life and what's making its way to the church, and so I'm trying to build that bridge, and this is definitely one of the major planks that I'm trying to lay out between the ivory tower and the church. But just like the idea of grace, we take grace as this thing that's no strings attached, that is unconditional. But in the scholarship now, everyone understands grace as that which has strings attached. Grace is unconditioned and that there's nothing that we can do to deserve it. But it's not unconditional. When we receive God's grace there are strings attached, there's reciprocity, that is expected, and so now that's pretty common in Pauline scholarship and New Testament scholarship, but that hasn't made its way down to the church. And so I guess, if I'm known for anything, that's what I'm trying to do is take what these people are doing in the Ivory Tower and studying and understanding and communicating that to the church in a way that may be more entertaining. Are you not entertained? And ADHD-ish?
Speaker 1:So you're speaking of, like Ephesians 2, when Paul says that we're created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared for, and that we should walk in them? Is that what you're talking about? The strings attached are like I've actually prepared this for you. You're supposed to go out here and love these people, and if we're not, grace reigns through righteousness, right, grace reigns as we understand who we are. Is that what it's kind of taught?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean we go to Romans 1, is it 10? Where he says I can't wait to share my gospel with you. I love me some gospel, gospel, gospel, gospel. But I've come to preach to you a gospel that is faith that produces obedience, and so the strings attached is obedience. Obedience to what? Obedience to the law of Christ, loving one another. And so the strings attached is walking according to the spirit. In community, the strings attached are when community community, offering your body as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. The strings attached is not judging someone else's servant, and so Paul's ethics are the strings attached.
Speaker 1:Wow, wow, that's powerful. Well, hey, man, if people want to know more about this, why don't you give a shout out to the book, a shout out or anything that you want? If someone's interested, they're hearing you and they're like I don't know, where would you direct?
Speaker 2:them. Yeah, well, I would say, be a Berean, yeah, check it. You know I try to check myself before I wreck myself. And so be a Berean, go and check it. Give me, give me your best argument. I've tried to hear the best arguments, probably the best. On the other side, the bizarro Joey is Will Timmons. He has a book on Romans 7. That's kind of arguing for the traditional view from an academic standpoint, but I do my best to present it in the book. And so the book is called Conquerors, not Captives and it's published by Lexham Press Conquerors, not Captives. And you get it on Amazon or wherever you buy your books.
Speaker 1:We have a link to it on our Love Real, more Good Gospel page. Last thing, man, if you could jump in the DeLorean and go back to Joey and he is the charismatic guy in the youth group, but he's got a lot of zeal but not a lot of knowledge and you can put your arm around this guy. Knowing what you know now, knowing what's happened and what God has actually done through Jesus, how would you encourage this kid?
Speaker 2:I think my encouragement would be that I can't do it alone. I tried to do it by myself. I pictured I quoted a gladiator earlier. He not entertained, but I felt like my spiritual life was me more as a individual gladiator, taking on sin and death and the principalities and the powers, when really spiritual formation takes more like the Roman turtle shell where I have to have someone having my back. And so I probably would tell him to read John Wesley a lot more, even though I grew up as a Baptist. We dated the Wesleyan girls, the Methodist girls, but we actually never read Wesley, and so I might encourage him to read what John Wesley has to say about holiness and spiritual formation.
Speaker 1:You're like. I know you're about to go hoop tonight, but read this, john Wesley, my boy might change some things for you. No, man, you're a testimony to us. You're a testimony to our community. We've been super blessed by your ministry, and so we see your good works and we're glorifying our Father in heaven. So thank you so much, thank you.
Speaker 2:Thanks for coming on the podcast and telling your story.
Speaker 1:This is. I don't think anyone would disagree with me. There's never been this amount of energy on the death of life podcast man. So, thank you so much. Man Appreciate you. Yeah, Lord's peace.