Tommy Brown is the pastor for spiritual and community formation at Generations United Church in Freeport, Florida. He has a BA in pastoral ministry and master’s degrees in divinity and management, and he is the author of The Seven Money Types: Discover How God Wired You to Handle Money.
He joins me to talk about his new book: The Ache for Meaning: How the Temptations of Christ Reveal Who We Are and What We're Seeking.
Description:
In The Ache for Meaning, Tommy Brown journeys through our questions and temptations into the deeper invitation Jesus offers. In the mindsets and practices Christ embodied, we discover what kept him centered on his identity and purpose—and what equips us to do the same. Because when you know where you’ve come from and where you’re going, daily temptations toward security, approval, and power to control pale in comparison to your most significant reality: You are a child of God.
Tommy Brown is the pastor for spiritual and community formation at Generations United Church in Freeport, Florida. He has a BA in pastoral ministry and master’s degrees in divinity and management, and he is the author of The Seven Money Types: Discover How God Wired You to Handle Money.
He joins me to talk about his new book: The Ache for Meaning: How the Temptations of Christ Reveal Who We Are and What We're Seeking.
Description:
In The Ache for Meaning, Tommy Brown journeys through our questions and temptations into the deeper invitation Jesus offers. In the mindsets and practices Christ embodied, we discover what kept him centered on his identity and purpose—and what equips us to do the same. Because when you know where you’ve come from and where you’re going, daily temptations toward security, approval, and power to control pale in comparison to your most significant reality: You are a child of God.
You're listening to episode 206 of the Pastor Writer podcast conversations on reading, writing and the Christian life. I'm your host, chase Rep, local. Well, it's great to have Tommy Brown back on the podcast for the second time. I enjoyed our last conversation and was excited to see he has a new book coming out in September entitled the Ake for Meaning how the temptations of Christ reveal who we are and what we're seeking. Tommy's a great writer, also somebody I count as a friend and love to talk writing with, and so it was great to be able to bring you this conversation about his most recent work, and I think it's a really interesting one. He explores the temptations of Christ and how they answer the most pressing, the most challenging questions of life who we are and what are we worth. It's a great idea, a great book, a well-written book, and I think you'll enjoy the conversation just as much as always. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm joined on the podcast today by Tommy Brown. Tommy is a pastor for spiritual and community formation at Generations United Church in Freeport, florida. He has a BA in pastoral ministry and a master's degree in divinity and management. He's the author of the Seven Money Types, as well as a new book that he's joining me today to talk about One I'm really looking forward to not just being able to have read, but also to be able to discuss in today's conversation. The book is titled the Ake for Meaning how the temptations of Christ reveal who we are and what we're seeking. Tommy, it's great to be able to talk to you and really excited about the book.
Speaker 2:Man Chase, you are such a cool dude for having me on this thing. You have me on before and I thought for sure it would never happen again. You've made a mistake and invited me back and I'm just glad to be here, so thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Well, I like repeat conversations. One of the joys of the podcast is just being able to keep up with what writers are doing and certainly, since we've talked to last, you've been working away, so maybe give us a little update on pastoral work you're doing and, just between now and the last time we talked, what ministry looks like for you today.
Speaker 2:Well, we've been through a pandemic, so that happened, and here we are on the other side of that and I love, I really genuinely love the church that I'm at. So, as you mentioned, generations United Church it's in a city called Niceville, florida, and it is as pleasant as it sounds. It's a great community. Schools are great, the athletics are great, the people are great Just genuine folks and so I've been there five years now in the role that I'm currently in, and then previously I was here for seven years.
Speaker 2:So this is a church that has loved me and my family well and I'm really enjoying getting to see just the fruit of slow and steady ministry. So I have the privilege of getting to lead a team of small group leaders and teachers and we're really seeing some strong relationships developed. We've created something called the School of Christian Formation, which our objective was to make it as unappealing and difficult as possible to be part of it, and, lo and behold, people showed up for the thing on Sunday mornings at 8 am and we're reading together, we're studying together, praying together and having great conversations, and so I think, if you know, if we put out the opportunity for people to grow and challenge them, without opportunity. They seem to be responsive to it. So not everything's perfect. As you know, you're a pastor and anytime you're in pastoral work, perfection is not the goal, but I'm I'm enjoying getting to be part of the process of paying attention to God and people's lives and helping them do that for themselves, so loving it.
Speaker 1:Certainly, for me, one of the joys of ministry is being able to spend a long time in one place. So you and I have both done pretty good stretches at the churches we're at and I think that's one of the joys is, as those years begin to accumulate, those relationships deep in the trust, deep in you really feel like you're a pastor and not sort of just bouncing between roles or places.
Speaker 2:It takes a long time, doesn't it? You know, and you, you get to know people. It's a. It's a I use this word before but it's a slow process and I'm very suspicious of anything that the promises quick results whenever it comes to the kingdom work, and so you're. It's. It's showing up for birthday parties and funerals and weddings and graduations, and that's the work that we do. Is is just getting ingrained in people's lives, and so I don't do that alone. We have a great team at the church and, and really our our job is to give away the work of the ministry to the people of God and to equip them to do it, and and that takes time, but the fruit is worth it. It's much better than just trying to blow something up in some marketing standpoint, you know, and make something happen on our own. You can do that. You just won't like the results in the long term. It won't last.
Speaker 1:Well, one of the things I know you take seriously is you're writing as well. You're somebody who cares deeply about not just publishing a book but actually the writing process. I know that came out in our last conversation, that know that, just knowing you personally, this new book, I was really excited because as I saw it coming out I thought you know there's not a lot of books out on the temptation of Christ for it to be such a central event in the gospel narratives. Of course there's great books on Christ's death and resurrection, great books on his teaching, the parables, but I thought this may be an actually a somewhat unexplored area to really delve into the significance of the temptations of Christ. What first got you thinking, got you interested in exploring Jesus and his temptations?
Speaker 2:I think I was pretty depressed and I came across this passage of scripture in my study one day and I didn't go looking for it. I wasn't interested in the temptations of Christ. It was one of those moments to where and you've had these moments and your listeners have to where when you're reading the Bible, it's like it starts reading you and rather than you just sitting there interpreting the Bible, the Bible starts interpreting the events of your life to you, to where it helps you make sense. And so whenever I was sitting one day in my study, just going through a real season of difficulty and just a real struggle, you know lots of anxiety and all kinds of stuff. I won't go into all of that, but searching for what God was doing in my life, trying to find language for that, trying to get voice to that, trying to discern my ministry, vocation and next steps. I was in a wonderful church, had a great pastor at that church, a great team, but this is a different church at a different time. But I just wasn't fulfilled in what I was doing. I'd allowed myself to take on a lot of work that had nothing to do with my sense of call. You know how that can be in church work. You just start collecting a lot of problems and systems and programs and you look up and you're like I'm not even pastoring people anymore and that was of my own doing, you know, and that's too extreme to say I wasn't pastoring at all, but I just felt, like you know, eugene Peterson I think it was an under the unpredictable plan he said that sometimes the church, the business of church, the organization or the work of church can become the single greatest block to a sense of vocational holiness for a pastor To think that the church could become a block and for me in many ways it had. It wasn't all bad, but in many ways it had.
Speaker 2:And so I found myself in that season and just, you know, searching and when I read the temptations of Christ, it's like you know it's too simple to say like light bulb started going off, because it was deeper than that. But the questions that I was wrestling with, that I didn't even have language for the, the ache that I was feeling. I started to see all of that come into view as I really delved into each of these three temptations and we can unpack, you know what the significance of each of those were. But I think you're right, chase. There there has been a fair amount of scholarly written and there's been a couple of more accessible books that have been written. But for me you know I didn't go into this reading and much of everybody else's material to to figure out the significance of it. At first I just let it really shake my life and over time did the study to really figure out what was going on there and enjoyed that. It's probably about a seven year process for me of living in one passage of scripture.
Speaker 1:I definitely want to get into the temptations themselves and the questions you draw out, but I was struck by the title and you use the language again in this conversation the idea of ache or an ache for meaning. What does that word mean to you? Where did that sense come from? What you were feeling? Some of us, I think probably in the busyness and the stress and the discontentment, disillusionment. I don't know if we're perceptive enough to sometimes recognize there's actually something in us happening, a kind of inner ache we're experiencing, Because we just assume this is life right. So what does that word mean to you and how did you begin to observe that there was something deeper going on than just the normal rumblings or stress of life?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think there's two parts to that. One is on the meaning end of it, and I was listening to a podcast. It was with Tim Keller. He was the guest on there, but the host said of Tim Keller that one of the things that he did better than anybody else is put his finger just on that need of meaning. He just kept pointing to the reality that the great crisis of our time is a search for meaning, and it's a human crisis, it's a human need, and there's not a single person with a pulse that is not in some way or another grappling with. Like what am I here for? Does my life matter? And so that's that. You could call it a search for significance. But I think meaning gets at the heart of it even better.
Speaker 2:But the ache part of it. I think that that language grew over time as so much of my understanding Of what this really meant. But it was more than just a head issue. This was a throbbing in the soul. There is something going on and this is. You know, I forget exactly what age I was, but at some point you hit a season in your life to where you're like the money doesn't matter, the career doesn't matter, the accomplishments don't matter. None of that matters. All of them are fine, but none of them matter, and so I think ache is a really good word that gets at that longing to say this is why I'm here in the world. This is, this is who I am, and this is what I really want.
Speaker 1:Certainly that idea of needing meaning, the search for meaning, has been something that's universal. I mean, you're drawing these questions out of even the temptations Jesus faced. Yeah, do you find something in this cultural moment that's contributing to that ache? That seems to be sort of worsening it? Or perhaps it's just we've lost the paths by which we once answered that question or addressed that ache. What is it in this cultural moment that's making that such a pressing issue for so many people?
Speaker 2:Well, I think you answered the question in the question. I think that we have lost the ways and means that lead to a life of meaning. Everything is instant and this propensity toward distraction, it's like I never am where I am. I'm addicted to pixels and so it's just constant the incessant flow of information. People are reading more than they've ever read, but they're reading books less and less, although I think that there's a little bit of a comeback of the book right, but we're just constantly absorbing information and you get to the end of the day and it's like oh well, that happened. My days are happening faster than they've ever happened. I don't know if you're feeling that, I don't know if it's because I'm aging or what it is, but the speed is picking up.
Speaker 2:But I think that there was a time not too long ago where life may not it wasn't perfect, but it may have moved a little bit slower and to where we were a little more connected to our work. You can work right now and never actually see your colleagues. You can sit in your office all day long and never actually have a conversation with anybody, and do work all day long, and for some people that's wonderful, but maybe we're a little more separated than what we've ever been. So I think it's the confluence of many things. I'm no social psychologist or anything of that nature, but it seems to me that my grandparents didn't wrestle in the same way that I wrestled. They're just like, yeah, we're going to work hard, we're going to love our spouse, we're going to love our kids and maybe, chase, there's something about a bill of goods that our generation was sold Like you're special, you've got to discover your destiny, you've got to have this job that you love.
Speaker 2:My grandparents didn't have any that I told to them. My parents didn't have any that I told to them. But I tell my kids things like that and I stop telling them, I quit telling them. My kids are special. They're not special. They're not. They're no more special than my neighbor's kids. I love them. God has a plan for them, god has a destiny for them. But somehow God has become like this cosmic consultant and life coach that's just supposed to give us everything we want when we want it. And I don't see that in the temptations of Christ, I don't see that in the life of Jesus. So maybe it's a product of just being offered everything. Maybe it's a product of the sermons we preach. Maybe it's a product of the way that we've designed church to be really convenient and slick and impressive and awesome and seeker this and whatever. I don't know, I don't know. That's enough about that, though.
Speaker 1:It certainly seems like alluding to past generations, likewise when I think of my grandparents. They grew up in a small town in Missouri. They lived in that same town. They raised family in that small town. They worked simple jobs, no sort of fame or great wealth coming to them, attended the same sort of Methodist church Most of their lives. The way that I would describe it is it always seemed like that was enough to them. They weren't searching for something more, and I know as well as everyone else right now that I think that sense of it's never enough. What is the next thing that we're missing seems to be constantly sort of plaguing the way we think about meaning, and we are experiencing that ache for more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you hit the nail side chase that there isn't. There is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. You never get to a place, to where you're like, yep, made it. Because the moment you've made it you're like, okay, what's next? What am I going to make next? What am I going to achieve next? And that that's always a meaning, is always a moving target or a moving goal, anytime you seek it outside of your identity and in your accomplishments or your achievements or your acquisitions or or whatever. On the other side of what you now have that to me, is a real seduction is to say I will be happy when, or I will be at peace when, or I will have finally arrived when. And it's not that we don't have goals and that we don't set out to do something with our lives, to work to add value to the world. But you know you're not going to be more satisfied with yourself tomorrow than what you are today. If you think that you're, you've missed the plot already. Like you just have to at some point find a meaning that transcends, you know, attaching itself to some future state, more money, more. You know when I become this, or once I achieve that, or when my kids do this, or when the house is paid off or whatever.
Speaker 2:Some of the most miserable people I know are retired. They retire and they die. They work their whole life, they retire, then they quit doing something, they just they're gone. It's like where did he go? Oh, he died. I'm not making a lie to people who die. I am saying that there seems to be something about this idea of I'll enjoy life whenever, whenever right, well, you may not have whenever. It might die, tomorrow it could happen. So what about now? Like, what about this moment? And that's easier said than done, especially in a world full of buzz and distractions. But it doesn't get any better than it is right now. And life may be, life may be a dumpster fire right now, but the meaning in life never gets any better than it does right now. That's it, it's as good as it gets. You find the meaning and now you wait till it gets better. Boy, that's a that's a dangerous thing to put your hope in that.
Speaker 1:What really struck me about the book was your recognizing that the temptations Jesus was facing were not just particular temptations to him. You know he's God incarnate. So Satan comes down and says, well, let me tempt you with these God incarnate temptations. But you actually see them, you connect them to these, these fundamentally human temptations. The way the book is structured is really helpful. You look at each of these three temptations. You offer out of that temptation and invitation and a practice which I think works well, and you you describe each of those three temptations with a question. I thought maybe we could look at each one and let you kind of describe how you're seeing something larger going on in that temptation that we too experience, rather than just the sort of momentary thing happening to Jesus in the wilderness. The first of those questions is will I have enough? Maybe you could set that temptation up in for Jesus and then also more broadly for us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, you know, thomas Keating really gave language for this and he said that you're, all of us, have three core needs in our life the need for you could call it security. Another need for like approval or acceptance, and then another need for power or control. And, as I recall, he wasn't mapping those on the. The temptations are of Christ, but they, they do map one to one. And then I reference, you know, the brothers Karamazov in there, peter Dostoevsky's work on that, and he says that all of the temptations of the, of the entire human history the world over, are as if pulled together and put on display in this one image that Jesus is three temptations in the wilderness. And so what I see in in these chase and this isn't, you know, something novel that I just came up with different people have looked at this in different ways, but this was the invitation of the journey that I went on. When I see the first temptation to turn these stones to bread, what I first see is what Jesus would have seen. What Jesus would have seen was Satan is not just concocting this test, as it were, just out of thin air. What he's doing is he's drawing on Israel's journey through the wilderness. So each of the three temptations actually is anchored in, or you could say is an echo of, something that Israel experienced during their wilderness wanderings. So turn these stones to bread has something to do with when God rained down manna from heaven and think it's Exodus, chapter 16. And so that's God providing. So turning these stones to bread. Some has something to do with provision, and provision has something to do with security, and security is one of the three most core human needs that we have. It's not a bad need. The needs that the devil struck at in Jesus were all valid human needs. The question was not whether or not Jesus needed to have these needs satisfied, but how Jesus would go about satisfying these needs. So when I, when I ask the question that really, I think, sort of personifies the first temptation will I have enough? What I'm saying is how am I going to think about my need for security? How am I going to meet that fundamental human need for security? So Jesus can turn stones to bread, or he can turn his attention to his father and say actually, you know, I'm not living off of a hand to mouth existence of a bread and crumbs. I'm relying on every word that comes from the mouth of God, and so, instead of succumbing to that temptation, he chooses to trust. And then in the book I talk about some practices on how to cultivate trust and and a mindset of trust and everything.
Speaker 2:But really the first temptation just to just to summarize it is the temptation to strive for security, based in that human need of security. And the question you could ask yourself is, when you're wrestling with it, the question will feel something like will I have enough? And when you find yourself striving, when you find yourself wanting to make something happen, when you find yourself wanting to whitenuckle your way through life, when you find yourself fearful about your finances, about feeling like I'm just not going to have enough, that puts you in a real place of angst and tension and just unease. And so I think that that was what was happening in the first temptation. There's a lot that's happening there, but I think that that's a simple way to say it is. It's the temptation to meet your own need in your own way rather than trusting in God. Whatever you're faced with the question will I have enough?
Speaker 1:The second of those temptations, the question you use is really similar but distinct. So the first question will I have enough? The second question am I enough? Maybe unpack the similarity but the difference between those two questions will I have enough? Am I enough? Thank you.
Speaker 2:You know, if you've ever met a teenager, you've seen the second temptation on display every day of their life when they go to school, and if you've been around me, you've also seen it at play. Because it's a question that I really wrestle with Am I enough? Everybody wants to be accepted, everybody wants to be approved of, everybody wants to belong. And so when I'm offered that temptation to leap from the temples of my life, as it were, as Jesus is seduced by Satan to say if you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from the temple and God will send His angels to catch you so that you won't dash your foot against a stone All of that's based in a backstory and the book of Exodus and in the Psalms and all of that. But am I enough? It's the question of having to prove myself, to show that I measure up. You know, to say look at me. And so how many times do I go through my day, whether it's with my co-workers or with my boss, or even with my children, or my children on the baseball field or on the soccer field, that I find my sense of approval in them? So the faces that the temptations take on, they're myriad and varied. There's no end to the way that these tests or temptations or seductions play out. But I see that all wrapped up in the question am I enough? So Jesus can choose. He can choose to say no.
Speaker 2:Actually I'm not basing my identity in my performance. I'm not going to throw myself down from the temple. I'm not going to put the Lord, my God, to the test. I'm going to find my identity in God alone and I think that the mindset that gives us that ability to resist is a mindset of gratefulness and Chase. If there's anything for me that has helped me whenever I feel like man, I'm not enough, I'm not going to measure up, I think it's just to say, tommy, look at your life. You have so much to be grateful for. Take a breath, man. How about that? That's pretty good. The AC is working today. Be grateful for that. You get to go to work, even though there's some not-head waiting on you there. That's going to give you a problem, right? You get to go to work today. You get to struggle, you get to persevere. Being grateful reframes the whole thing. Instead of saying am I enough, it's saying look at all that I already am and already have. That comes from the good hand of God.
Speaker 1:The third of those questions which we'll be familiar to people who obviously know the biblical temptations that Jesus faced. As Satan finally says bow to me, you describe it with the question do I matter? Maybe connect what Jesus is experiencing in this third temptation, the final temptation, with the question do I matter?
Speaker 2:The temptation is bow down and worship me. I'll give you all the kingdoms of the world and their power, If there was ever a moment to find meaning, to find power. I think power is the key word in the third temptation. Power is a healthy thing. God gave humans power and humans need power. Humans need a healthy sense of control. The issue is not power or control. The issue is how it's used. Whenever Satan offers Jesus all of these things to be able to get it in an instant, to be able to rule absolute power, all of those things sound great until you realize that Jesus is actually building a kingdom that has nothing to do with Caesar and all of the palaces and all of the power structures of their day, that he's actually doing something else.
Speaker 2:For me, the mindset that Jesus had that I talk about in the book that we can cultivate is a mindset of meekness, MEK meekness. When we think about meekness, what we often think about is just some mealy, mild sort of wimpy, some spaghetti, loose spaghetti, just like. It's just meek. But meekness in Jesus' world was actually a Hellenistic virtue that the kings like Alexander the Great and others would have had. The virtue of meekness attributed to them because, though they had power, they kept their power under control. Meekness is not the absence of power, Meekness is actually having power under control.
Speaker 2:Dr Mark Rutland, I think, coined that definition. I thought it was a really good one. I think you may be familiar with Jordan B Peterson. Some people like him, Some people have, I don't care.
Speaker 2:I thought this was true. He said meekness is actually not the absence of having a sword. He said meekness is having a sword in your sheath and knowing how to use it and occasionally rattling it, but leaving it there is showing restraint. So rather than Jesus saying I'm going to conquer the whole thing, I'm going to take it over, I'm going to ride in like a Jewish Rambo on a white steed and drenched in the blood of my enemies, he actually comes in on the click-clack cadence of a donkey and the people are shouting Hosanna in the highest and they have some expectations, but Jesus has a different goal. So again, Eugene Peterson said nothing that the devil offered Jesus was itself bad. It was just the ways and means that Jesus will go about getting it.
Speaker 2:And I think that's the real issue. Chase with the temptations of Jesus. You're going to face the temptations, Every temptation you face in your life, every annoyance, every test, all of it. I guarantee you, once you understand what's going on, you could hang every temptation you have on one of these three areas or more. So I mean there's lots of bleed when you feel the temptation to perform for approval. Often you strive and you power up. So there's a dynamic that's going on there. But you can see whenever you really start to look at it, man, my whole life is going to be filled with these things. I want to learn how to respond in a healthy way so that I can live with a deeper level of meaning and devotion to Christ.
Speaker 1:As you spend a number of years thinking about the temptations and rereading and meditating. What is it that stood out to you about how Jesus responded to those temptations? What's so unique about the way that he handles these eight of meaning, these questions, these temptations that he's encountering?
Speaker 2:What a great question, Chase. I've never been asked that your Bible is going to say the temptations of Jesus. Matthew, chapter 4, verse 1. It's also in Mark and also in Luke, but Matthew gives more detail. But the temptation narrative actually doesn't begin there. The temptation narrative actually begins at the end of chapter 3, whenever Jesus is in the Jordan River being baptized at the hand of His cousin John, and as he comes up out of the water the heavens are rent asunder. The voice of His Father thunders in the atmosphere and says this is my beloved Son, whom I love. In Him I am well pleased. And then the Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness where he fasts and he prays for 40 days and 40 nights, and then the tempter comes to him.
Speaker 2:And I prefer this translation better than what's in most of our Bibles. And I didn't come up with this, I think it was Jeffrey B Gibson that actually sort of pointed this out. The word that we translate is if you are the Son of God, turn these stones to bread. If you are the Son of God, you know, bow down and wear it, so on and so forth, or throw yourself down. It's actually better translated, since you are the Son of God. So the question was that whether or not he was a Son of God. The question was since you are the Son of God, this is what you should do. This is what the people would expect. This is how you can prove yourself.
Speaker 2:But I think every time the devil said to him since you are the Son of God, he hears the words of his father echoing in his mind you're my son, I'm well pleased in you. The father says he's well pleased in Jesus, before he does one daggum thing. He has an ill to person. He hasn't preached a sermon, he hasn't cast out a demon, he hasn't done anything as far as we know. Probably, when working with Joseph in the wood shed, until Joseph left the scene, you know who knows what he's been doing. He's been studying, he's been learning. As far as we know, he hasn't done much of anything. So what has he done to warrant the father saying to him I'm well pleased with you? Nothing.
Speaker 2:It's about relationship and for me, Chase, that's the most difficult lesson to learn and to embrace. Is that man? It's just absurd the fact that God loves me, Like we say it all the time Jesus loves me, Jesus loves you, when you believe that you work from a place of belonging, not for belonging. You work from a place of approval, not for approval. So that to me was a secret, Like the battle was won before it ever happened, because Jesus understood that his approval was not anchored in his actions but in the acceptance that he already had from his father.
Speaker 2:And your listeners out there may have lots of degrees. They may have enough degrees on their wall, you know, to cover the entire wall. If you don't understand that at a deep level, you miss the whole thing. And so I'm not against education. I am. However, I love and appreciate education, but the one thing that I've never got taught in the seminaries is Jesus loves me, and that's a revelation that has to happen heart to heart, to where the father affirms it in you and you say you know what I'm going to live from that place and that's enough.
Speaker 1:It gives poignancy, I think, to Jesus's response in that first temptation, you know, turning these stones into bread. Jesus responds he's quoting from the Old Testament as it's written. But he says man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. You can't help but wonder if that's also not him alluding back to this, what has just come from the mouth of God, which is this proclamation over him and his baptism, that it's both the law that's come before, but it's also this statement of relationship that's over him. That's really what sustains him in life and in his work and through these temptations. I think that's a really, really helpful way of thinking about it.
Speaker 2:You nailed it Like yeah, do I believe that I am who God says I am or not? Do I believe this scandalous truth that what God says about Jesus is true about me and you? And you're like bup, bup, bup, bup, bup. Jesus was perfect. Ok, either you are the righteousness of God and Christ Jesus or you're not. Either you're in Christ and Christ is in the bosom of the Father, and therefore you are held in the heart of the Father, or you're not. So a lot of the performance anxiety goes away and then all of a sudden you're like actually I want to live a wholly integrated life because God loves me, and I've heard it's true that it's the kindness of God that leads people to repentance. I know it's true. For me, fear is not such a great motivator, it turns out.
Speaker 1:Well, even that line, every word that comes out of the mouth of God are certainly both his commandments, but is it not also his promises, right? So every word that comes is not just Jesus's response, is not just oh, I'm going to be obedient to everything God has said. It's also I'm going to live out of everything that God has said and trust him in those things too.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:I'm curious to hear I know this. Reading the book as well too you write about this a little bit in the beginning, and you sort of alluded to that sense of ache that sort of drew you to the topic. How did these temptations, how did they affect you as a pastor as well? I mean, certainly they're helping you as you're answering these questions as an individual, as a human, but did they have an impact on the way that you think about pastoring and leading others?
Speaker 2:Goodness. All right, Let me think about this for just a second. So when I think about the temptation to strive as a pastor, it's really easy to make something happen in ministry. Enough marketing, enough pizza, enough band, enough this, enough that I can strive my way into making something happen in ministry. And I think that for me, the invitation is to move from striving to trust, is to release striving and to receive trust. I've seen it play out in my life to where, when I give a situation to the Lord that the Lord actually works to resolve it in ways that I never would have seen coming, and the confluence of events and the circumstances of ministry life, they start moving to where it's like OK, that's how it's going to work out. So I think pastors know striving. I think that we're just built with the ability to white-knuckle our way through and make something happen. So you know that you feel it. It's grinding, it's clasping, it's tight. I'm going to muscle up and do this. I'm going to make this happen, I'm going to push this through that sort of thing. So we all know what that feels like Performing for approval.
Speaker 2:Step off the stage every Sunday and you ask somebody how you did. You feel better about yourself whenever you think that people like who you are and what you've done. You know Jesus is somebody. At one point he looked at somebody I think it was some Pharisees or something. He seemed to always have run-ins with them and he said your approval or disapproval means nothing to me. You can't do the will of God if you're crowdsourcing what your next step should be, and I think that I think that, as pastors, it's easy for us to base our self-worth and our sense of approval and validation in how many people come in, how big the offerings are, in how many salvatians or baptisms or whatever your metrics are, how many books or articles you have or have not written. You know.
Speaker 2:And then power to control, you know again, power is fine. It's how that power is channeled. Is it the power of God or is it my power? Is it the power of the Holy Spirit or is it the sort of power that the devil offers? The power over people, the power to dominate and oppress, rather than the power to liberate and lift up? As a pastor, am I listening to the voices that other people discount? As a pastor, am I giving platform and audience to people who may not necessarily be the most elite. You know, we've got. You know I'm not even going to that issue, Chase, I would get canceled. Your listeners will get listening, so I'll just I'll forego some of the things that I'm seeing the power dynamics play out in our country right now, especially in pulpits, and who has access and who does not have access. But I think that anytime you're dealing with pulpits and you're dealing with budgets, you're dealing with power, and so how do you use it? Do you use it to liberate or do you use it to control and keep the status quo? So those are just some things.
Speaker 2:I would want to think about that a little bit more. And honestly, I'll just say this the people that read this book with me as I was writing it I would write it in sin chapters they kept coming up with insights and realizations and conclusions. They're like, yeah, when you said such and such, I'm like. I actually never said that, I never wrote that, but the writing was doing its work on them in such a way that they were coming to their own conclusions. So I don't claim to have the corner on the temptations of Christ.
Speaker 2:My Lord, are you kidding me? Some most cryptic, obscure passage in the entire Bible. Like who am I to think I've got the corner? I've just I've delved into the mystery and I'm still swimming at it, and so, for me, it's given me a whole new lens to see the world. If the book had never been published I'm glad it is the book had never been published, I'd still be obsessed with it, because for me it's not. I just tried to type up a witness of what I'm experiencing, Like these are life-born lessons and I haven't. I didn't write anything that I didn't live, and I'm sure five years from now I'll disagree with myself on some points and that we'll have learned a lot more, because when it comes to following the Master, I think we're all necessarily beginners.
Speaker 1:Well, the book definitely has that tone. It's the kind I appreciate, because you get a sense. We all know what it's like to pick up a book and a few pages in you realize, oh, I'm going to read this one pretty quickly, you know, maybe there's some helpful information or things you learn. This is not one of those books. It certainly strikes me as a book you want to take your time with. Perhaps, you know, you read the first section on temptations and come back to the book after you spend some time thinking and praying. It's just a helpful guide, I think, in trying to push these questions deeper into your life.
Speaker 1:The book we've been talking about is the ache of meaning how the temptations of Christ reveal who we are and what we're seeking. Tommy, I just wanted to say thanks. The work that you've put into the book is really apparent. I think it's a book that has a lot of transparency and it clearly does flow out of your life. And so I guess a sort of last question when you imagine somebody picking up the book, I've sort of described how I see it being used. What do you think is the best way for somebody to read through the book? How do you see the book being helpful for somebody who may be trying to investigate some of these questions in themselves, having not even recognized that they were temptations, but exploring maybe areas they haven't explored before. How can the book be helpful for that?
Speaker 2:It's going to sound like I'm trying to sell books, but I've learned through the second temptation that I'm not supposed to care what people think. So here's the deal. I think it's best read with a friend, at least one friend. I talk for an hour every week with my friend, rabbi Arthur Kurzweil. I think he's 72 this week and here I am in my mid-40s. We have this really bizarre friendship. He's not a Messianic Jew, doesn't think Jesus is the Messiah. Okay, there's plenty of differences. But one thing that we love we love big talk. We love talking about God and the things of God. There's so much that we have in common and I love him and he loves me, and one of the things that he's taught me is I don't trust anybody who just studies alone. But there's not a sense in the rabbinic tradition, the tradition that Jesus would have come up in. There's not a sense that you just go off and go head down alone forever and ever. There's times for that.
Speaker 2:But I think that when it comes to reading, I think that that's often too solitary of a process. When it comes to spiritual writing, you know, I mean even Reese, witherspoon and Oprah. They're going to have their book clubs. Why Not just because you love a book, but because the process of reading itself is a formative act, when done in community. My friend Austin Cardi one of your guests, the pastor's bookshelf, while reading Still Matters for Ministry a wonderful book on the formative nature of reading, and I think this book is best read with a friend and it's best read a little bit at a time to where you make your way through it. You know why. Take a year and read it, okay, fine, take six months or eight, it doesn't matter. Don't rush your way through a book, get the message out of it and live it out, and I think that's the invitation that I want to put forward to people with the ache for meaning. That would be my hope.
Speaker 1:I think that's a great piece of advice, A great way to be able to read a book, the book the Ake of Meaning how the Temptations of Christ Reveal who we Are and what we're Seeking. Tommy, best place for people to pick the book up or just be able to follow you and keep up with the work you're doing as well.
Speaker 2:You know, I am on the Twitter at slash. Tommy the Brown, do we call it?
Speaker 1:Twitter Stiller. Is it X now? I'm unfamiliar with the language. I don't know if your icon has changed, like mine, but mine just hasn't made X on it.
Speaker 2:My icon has changed and everything else has stayed the same.
Speaker 1:You are still Twitter, so that's where you go. Yeah, people still seem cranky to me.
Speaker 2:It's a jungle out there. But, yeah, slash Tommy the Brown, so you can find me on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter there. My website is TommyBrownorg, but I think the book is available wherever you find books online. So there is it's in paperback, it's in Kindle and there is going to be an audio book that is going to be released very soon. That I narrated and that was just pure fun, man, I loved it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, good to hear so. Well, we'll have links in the show note for the book as well as your profiles, and just want to say thanks again for another great conversation, another great book, and I know from one writer to another it won't be the last, so I look forward to work that's to come in the future as well.
Speaker 2:I will be shocked at the next invitation, like I was at this one. Chase, I love you, appreciate what you're doing and keep up the work, man.
Speaker 1:As always, you can find show notes for today's episode by going to pastorridercom. There you'll find information about Tommy, his past works, as well as the book that we've been discussing today, and while you're there, you might also check out the Five Masculine Instincts as well as the new Five Masculine Instincts study guide that's out in print. It hopefully makes the book a great resource for any men's reading group or small group that you might have personally or within your church. As always, I'm happy to help in any way. I can Reach out through the website if you are putting one of those groups together, as always. Thanks again for listening, until next time.