Benjamin Vrbicek — Living Like We Really Believe in the Return of Christ

Benjamin and his wife, Brooke, have six children. He has written for The Gospel Coalition, Christianity Today, 9Marks, Gospel-Centered Discipleship, Desiring God, and For The Church. He is the author of several books, including "The Restoration of All Things," "Blogging for God's Glory in a Clickbait World," and "Don't Just Send a Resume."

He earned a degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering from the University of Missouri and a masters in divinity from Covenant Theological Seminary. He is the lead pastor at Community Evangelical Free Church in Harrisburg, PA.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

You're listening to episode 241 of the Pastor Writer Podcast, conversations on reading, writing, and the Christian life. I'm your host, Chase Rep Lobel. One of the joys of being a writer is getting to meet and become friends with other writers, to hear about the projects they're working on and to watch them come into full publication. And one of those friendships that I've enjoyed cultivating is with the author, Benjamin Verbachek. He's been on the show before, but he has a new book that's coming out with Baker, and it's a topic and a book I think we need. How do we think about the return of Christ? And how should the return of Christ give us hope for the challenges, the suffering we face? I really hope you enjoy this conversation. Thanks for listening. Well, I'm joined on the podcast today by Benjamin Verbachek. Benjamin and his wife have six children, and he currently works as the lead teaching pastor at Community Evangelical Free Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He earned a degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering from the University of Missouri and a Masters of Divinity from Covenant Theological Seminary. He was previously the managing editor for the Gospel Center Discipleship website, and he's co-authored Blogging for God's Glory in a Clickbait World, and also published his own, Don't Just Send a Resume, Struggle Against Porn. And the book he joins me today to talk about, a newly released book that I was really excited to get a copy of, The Restoration of All Things, How the Promise of Christ's Return Brings Us Comfort Today. Benjamin's a returning guest to the podcast and uh somebody I consider a writing friend for sure. And so, Benjamin, it's great to have you on the podcast today and really looking forward to talking about the book. Thank you so much. I'm happy to be here. Well, you uh you published a book on the end times, which that's a big uh a big uh a hurdle for people to jump over. Not on my list of upcoming books, and to add to it, not only a book about the end times, but suffering on top of it. Uh, a book about how, in the midst of our suffering, the promise of Christ's return brings us hope. We're gonna get into the book and obviously a lot that you talk about, but uh I'd love to hear, you know, what drew you to the topic and what made you say I'd love to tackle uh something like the return of Christ.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

But you sometimes I think the uh you get you feel forced into it rather than uh rather than uh choosing it out of uh an array of 30 great options. Here's the one I really want. Um and and that's how I felt, but but in a good way. So very briefly, I went through my ordination process probably seven years ago, something like that. And um, our denomination at the time had changed one word about the statement of faith related to the end times, which meant that my ordination, which kind of synced up with that, was I'll just tell it the way I experienced it, which is highly scrutinized. And it was, it was well meant and so on and so forth. It went really well. But what that meant is for a couple of years, because I saw kind of the the timelines converging, I had to really beef up on the end times, the return of Christ, all the different views, the main ones and some of the nuance between them, and then to articulate my own view uh from scripture, uh, which is an Orthodox view of the return of Christ and so on. But anyway, that process, which wasn't super fun, but it did for me the lingering effect, is what I like to say, is that the biggest truths became the brightest truths. And it hit me that I don't think this is a doctrine we talk about much, and we can talk about why that is, but um and I just it it blessed me to think there's more to this life than we can see with our eyes, and there's a future world that is grand and glorious. And then when I started reading the scripture more, like I've always been reading the scripture, but once something got turned on that, oh, look for the return of Christ, oh, look for the end times, oh, how does this relate to the end of everything? All of a sudden I was like, wow, that's in there an awful lot. And so I've just felt that our the normal Christians' experience with this topic had been soured or um just relegated to indifferent or so confusing, so controversial we can never know, or it's fear or whatever. And it was just fun to read and write about the good stuff. And so that that's how I got into this project.

SPEAKER_02 3:56

Yeah. In my experience, there's sort of two in-time uh genres of books, right? There's the sort of like prediction books that are sort of unpacking current events, trying to guess where we are. This book is not that. Uh, or there's just the sort of theology books that do kind of what you were describing in your ordination process, lay out the various views and try to argue for a particular view about in-time events and order. This book does really does not do that as well. Too. What you're trying to do, that I actually think is way more helpful, and we probably need a ton more books on, is how do we take the truths of what is future, eschatological, and actually apply those to the parts of our lives where we're living today? And you do that specifically through suffering and what you call genres of pain and suffering, which I thought was really interesting. Uh again, most books on suffering tend to be uh general on the topic of suffering, but you really delve into some of these specific areas that you describe as suffering. So uh, you know, uh things like uh food and things like, you know, rest and exhaustion, the brokenness of our bodies, uh senses of abandonment or injustice, uh, recurring struggles with sin. Uh how do what made you pick these particular genres and also just this idea of not suffering as kind of a general category, but these various ways that we experience suffering?

SPEAKER_00 5:11

Well, it wasn't obvious to the publisher that that was the right thing to do at first. Um and and I know there's some, you know, you you're the pastor writer here podcast, so there's writers listening and maybe. Yeah, feel free to cover as much of that. People enjoy that too. Yeah, I I for me, I there was this disc I mean, I just put it bluntly the way it was was said to me is like, hey, we know how to market an end times book and we know how to market a suffering book, but we don't know which this is. And I was like, well, I I I don't know. When I read the Bible, I feel like what they're doing is what I'm trying to do, which is to take the hope of Christ in the fullness of all that the gospel is for us. And then it was different facets of it, but particularly this return. And it's applied to people in real life circumstances who, you know, the the New Testament language have fallen asleep. They're their brothers and sisters in the Lord have died. They don't know what to think about that. They don't know when Jesus is coming back, the Rome is pressing in on them. There's uh moral degradation associated with that. And they're just they want to know what to do with their lives and how to look forward to a bright forever. And so I I felt like the New Testament authors are not just speaking good news into a vacuum, which we know that, but but particularly it's people who are hurting and applying it to that. So that's when that linked up for me. I thought, well, I don't know that there's a book, you know, because you're thinking you think advan competitive advantages. I don't, you know, not really like I don't think mostly in those terms, but like, what is there something already doing that? And there's some that do that generally, it's a hopeful thing. It's not all doom and gloom, or it's not all just egghead theology. But but I think to do that explicitly to suffering hadn't been done in quite the same way. So that's that's how I narrowed it down to those genres of suffering, which I felt like was a made-up term, but seems to be uh sticky to other people as they they grab onto it.

SPEAKER_02 7:00

Well, I think it uh it captures the fact that we don't all suffer in exactly the same way, and that the the hope of Christ's return doesn't get applied in just sort of one general abstract way, but it it does get applied in these very specific ways. I think one of the advantages uh of you writing it is as a pastor, you get this front row seat to the way that people are experiencing suffering. Excuse me. And uh as a pastor, I'm just curious how, you know, how witnessing the pain and suffering in people's lives, uh, how it shapes the book, because a large part of the book is you sharing stories of friends, of congregants, uh of people you know who have walked through these seasons of suffering.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

Yeah, that's great. I'd love to hear your own answer to that too, because I think I know you're in the the trenches as pastor and seeing people through the ups and downs of life, and you're there at their weddings and child dedications or baptisms, all those sorts of things, but then you're there at funerals as well. And I think for me, just watching that, um I mean, the the classic one is like 1 Thessalonians 4, which is, you know, in dispensational theology, it's it's the classic rapture passage. It's it's more than that, I think. But um, but but what people are doing is like our brothers and sisters, again, I already said this, but they've died and we don't know what to do. And when are they coming back? And how's how will we always be with the Lord? Are we going to be separated from him? And these real uh grieving type suffering questions. And that's where Paul brings in the return of Christ. And even then in the the 2nd Thessalonians, this man of lawlessness and evil and rain, the reign of it just felt like I assume to them as it might feel to many that evil is getting the upper hand. And what will it mean when Christ comes back? Well, he's gonna destroy the evil with the breath of his mouth. That kind of power, like that you and I blow dust off our laptops, that that's what Jesus does when he comes back, how he destroys evil. And I'm like, wow, that's really encouraging because it feels like evil's gonna win. And so anyway, all that I'm doing Bible stuff, but when I look out to pastoral situations, and and there's a young couple that had cancer, uh, the the guy and going through chemo, I'm like, man, that guy's young and he's strong. And what is his hope? And what what are they longing for? And and there was another guy who had come to church regularly as he was, uh, his heart was failing, but when he would come, he'd just hobble into church and sit in that third row and look at me as I preach. And I thought, man, that guy is that guy's preaching to me the importance of church and the gathering together. And so I I think just for me, it was the I felt in the New Testament in that regard of that it it it didn't become mainly academic, but just people's lives set up and downs. I'm sure. Tell me about that for you. Like you, you, you're seeing people suffer and and wanting to apply the hope of gospel. How does that affect your ministry?

SPEAKER_02 9:39

Yeah, I've had the exact same experience. I actually think it's one of the great, it's one of the great gifts of being a pastor, though I know that not in a sort of callous or cold way, but in exactly the same way you described it. You know, watching people's genuine faith in the midst of their own suffering and seeing the sort of grace that people receive in those moments, and watching people who who sort of don't have that or haven't matured that, you know, to a point to match what they're facing. You just realize how how true and real uh this hope that we have is. And I think it's one of the great gifts as a writer. I think pastors have a particular advantage because you're sort of, you know, you're you're in these, hopefully in the real lives of people in your church. I think it's why, you know, you can be a pastor and distance yourself from people and all of these problems as well. And I think you do it at your own disservice, you know, you you miss those opportunities, both in writing and pastoring, to really sort of be able to articulate what people experience. And when I think about uh great novelists that I've heard, you know, they always will talk about that the the the core skill of the writer. There's a craft element, but it's really the the ability to see the world and to notice things and to recognize things and then draw that out in writing. And a pastor has this great opportunity to really sort of be embedded in the lives of real people and to see the way that life plays out. So yeah, for me, it's you know, it's it's been one of the great gifts is just to live in that close proximity to other people as a pastor.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

Yeah, amen. And I think it to your point, uh, yes, to see the world, but I think the world of the human heart, anthropology, the, the, the struggle, the dignity, the depravity, all of that mingled together in such a way of uh, yeah, that that that to me is the world that is most riveting as far as exploring and drawing out and applying gospel to.

SPEAKER_02 11:16

Yep. Uh, I do want to talk a little bit too about how, because again, you pivot in the book to say the real answer to this suffering is that I think there can be a temptation in suffering to just, you know, sort of uh wallow in it a bit, right? Like, oh, I'm just, you know, I'm just suffering and I've got to endure this suffering. And there's some truth to that. There are times that we suffer with Christ and we bear this cross. Uh, but you think as Christians, we do it with a particular kind of hope, which is the promise of Christ's return, which is where the book makes its sort of in times, its eschatological claims. Uh, one of the things I think you also do well in there is is articulate, at least briefly, how perhaps the the anxieties, the controversies, the complexities over how we've taught and thought about the end times has in some ways uh caused us to with treat or withdraw from the conversation. And so we've lost something of that hope, something of the promise of Christ's return. Uh, how do our particular anxieties shape the way that we think about or uh the way that we sort of apply or or sort of dismiss conversations about the end times or the truths of the end times?

SPEAKER_00 12:19

Yeah. I heard a someone who had had a PhD once say, you know, 10, 15 years later, is like, here's what my PhD was about. And I think I still believe it. You know what I mean? Not meaning they would, you know, changed their theology radically, but you know, they dived into some nuance and they they articulated something very particular and like, okay, this one very particular thing, I think I still have the right answer on that. I bring that up to say I these were hunches to me five, six, seven years ago of suffering and the end times and the way the Bible's applying it, and and our apprehensions, or even for some, it's a revulsion at the topic. Um, I I had felt that would be true as I talked with people. I having now written the book, published the book, and in early stages of marketing and talking about the book, I get a go to a church tonight down the road, a couple hours, and we're having a Return of Christ seminar. Um, but but doing these, this teaching about it, I I am, I don't want to use the word shocked, but I am or vindicated. I don't really want to be either. But it has been abundantly clear that people have turned this, we have relegated this topic to the unnecessary and the indifferent because we're just we're disturbed by how it's been talked about. A friend as on the day of the book came out, he gave me a gift and he he had found on Amazon a book from the 60s about uh the return of Christ and the end of everything. And I mean, there's six chapters. The first five are all geared towards fear-mongering. I mean, the rise of Russia, the one world church, and all these things. And I just think, you know, I didn't grow up in the 60s per se, but my parents did, and and and we're downstream of that. And and I just a very mature Christian just the other day was reading the book, was fascinated, taking notes, says, I want to take you out for coffee. Okay, great, let's do that, do it in August. Um he just said, I didn't want anything to do with this topic. I I have I've not just been indifferent, but have intentionally avoided the topic. And I thought, wow, that is unfortunate given the prominence it experiences in the New Testament, given the hope that it could offer Christians. So it that that was a long-winded answer, but I I just felt like people were turned off from the topic. And it's really been true. One woman uh wrote me a note and just said, you know, all I learned about was the man of lawlessness and the antichrist and the tribulation and and all these things and all these charts, and and and I never got to the good stuff. And I just thought, oh, that feels like a miss.

SPEAKER_02 14:43

Yeah, that's certainly been my experience. Uh you and I probably grew up in the same left behind kind of uh series timeline, right? So these were the books that when I was a teenager were kind of circulating and uh they got us thinking about the end times, but I think I walked away mostly thinking the end times was a puzzle that I had to figure out. So the way you engaged it was you like put scriptures together and you sort of try to connect and figure out timelines. And I I certainly never thought about the end times as a truth that I could apply to with hope to the situations I'm facing now. I and I think in many ways we we've sort of taken all of the end times and everything beyond this moment and compressed it all down to the Christian message is basically when you die, you go to heaven. Uh and anything sort of beyond that, eh, we're not quite sure about.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

So and then ask the follow-up real quick. Yeah, so say real quick, someone says we die to go to heaven, but what do you mean when we die and go to heaven? Do an exit poll on your church. I I don't think you want to see the answers. And I know I I love you as a pastor to Bible teaching man. I've listened to a lot of your sermons. I don't think I want that exit poll, like answers from our church. What happens when we die? Write me three biblically informed sentences on personal eschatology, from death, intermediate state to the final resurrection. I I think people would struggle. And these are people who love the Lord, read their Bibles in good churches. And so, yeah, the teaching on it is really necessary.

SPEAKER_02 16:07

Well, and what your book, I think, rightfully points out is what we're actually robbing people of, it's it is correct theology about these things, but beyond that, it's the hope that these things are supposed to give us in our midst of suffering, which is what the New Testament does over and over when it brings up Christ's return. It's not just a puzzle to be solved, but a sort of hope that stabilizes our life. Um, are you attempting to, I mean, obviously writing the book, you're recovering some of this, but in conversations with people, the way that you're pastoring, are you finding ways to sort of uh, you know, start this conversation that perhaps for some people has felt confusing or there's been reluctance to engage?

SPEAKER_00 16:45

Yeah, I think threading it into preaching has been helpful. Um and then it it just shows up in prayers as I, you know, you lay a hand on a shoulder of someone hurting at the end of a meeting and you just talk, say, Hey, can I pray with you about this and try and weave some of the not as a strategy per se, but just as something the most natural thing in the world is what you hope it becomes, the a bigger hope than than what can be seen here and now. But yeah, the preaching has been interesting. I we preached through First Corinthians. I can't remember. Is that one you've done before? Have you gone through First Corinthians?

SPEAKER_02 17:16

Oh, I have, but it's been a while back. I probably need to redo it too. Who knows what I said.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

So uh yeah, that's what you thinking about my PhD buddy who's like, yeah, I still believe that. You know, you listen to an old sermon series. That wasn't too bad. Yeah. Um Yeah. So but we did that. Um, this is now two years ago, and then the other year did second, but but you know, I don't know how you total up references to the return of Christ, because it gets hard to s you know, chapter 15 is the this long chapter about the resurrection and and and Jesus' resurrection, our resurrection and all that. Oh, death where's your sting, oh death, where's your victory? But so I don't know if that one mess massive reference or seven different references, but let's just say there's about 15 references. We preached about 36 or 37, I can't remember, set sermons. So you do that math, it's like every second or third sermon, we should be preaching in significant ways about the return of Christ. And even, even I want to say I'm a little turned on because it was in the midst of thinking and trying to pitch the book or like and write it and sample chapters and so outlines. I'm like, I'm thinking about the return of Christ. And here I am as a pastor leading a church in a book that talks about the return of Christ all the time. And yet I bet most of our people didn't would would leave going, I don't think we talked about the return of Christ every third time. And we didn't. Um, we just I don't think we have in our preaching a density or in our pastoral ministry or in our reading or writing or thinking um near what the scriptures are.

SPEAKER_02 18:35

Yeah, how prominent when you look across the New Testament, you know, how prominent is the idea of Christ's return and how do you see it being used by the New Testament authors?

SPEAKER_00 18:44

That's a good point. So I, you know, how prominent I lots of things are prominent. So I, you know, but but just to give you one example, when I used to share the gospel, I used to say, you know, shorthand, because we all we all need a shorthand we can just grab onto and you know, say it quickly, say it long version two, but you know, the life, death, resurrection of Jesus and the the announcement of that forgiveness through him through repentance and faith. So life, death, resurrection of Jesus. I was somewhere and um there's a Q ⁇ A with pastors and someone raised a hand, asked a question. I don't know what it was, but in the process, the speaker, this is years ago, gave life, death, resurrection of Jesus and the promise of a second coming. And I thought to myself, oh in my shorthand for the gospel, which really is probably indicative of what I would do in a longer setting too, I just would have left off the second coming. Like I just wouldn't even say it. And and so when you say how prominent, I I don't know how to percentage and apply, you know, the the words of scripture to that. I think there's a hundred verses or passages that speak to it in in the New Testament. I know I took when I was working on the book, I took 50 of them essentially, printed them on like a piece of paper, and I'd just read my Bible in the morning, you know, say a prayer or two, read through three verses and set it aside and go about my day. And then do it again the next day and just keep kept moving through those. And it just dawned on me there is a really high density. I I don't know how to put it in a prominence, but it's certainly, I think we're safe safe ground to say it's more prominent than we are um experiencing it in in the ordinary Christian church these days.

SPEAKER_02 20:16

The book says that this uh recovery of a theology of Christ return or focus on Christ's return provides comfort in the midst of our suffering. I want to give a chance just to talk about uh, you know, maybe this conversation so far has just sounded like two pastors being like, we need to talk more about this theology point. But for you, it's not just, you know, we need to rebalance the exegesis. It's really that no, no, no, there's something that we receive from this focus on Christ's return. And you you describe that as comfort. Maybe talk a little bit about how we find comfort in Christ's return. Because I think a lot of people, uh, perhaps their experience has been they're a bit unnerved by it or confused by it.

SPEAKER_00 20:52

Yeah. Well, to just to go to the classic, 1 Thessalonians 4, I imagine you've done this before as well, as I have quite a few times. You you you stand at a graveside and you've got the funeral's over, but you know, the handful of the closest family is there, perhaps the widow or brothers or sisters or cousins or whatever it is, and you read First Thessalonians four, and you realize I okay, he's gonna return with a cry of command and the shout of an archangel, and and it's this big and it's a loud thing. But Paul says um what's the line? I want to get it right, but it it is um, I do not want you to grieve as those who have no hope. So so there's a kind of grief that's appropriate and right, but then there's a kind of grief that's just bottomless, which is not which is not what God wants for us, and what Paul, through his pastoral ministry of the gospel, doesn't want for any believer at the graveside or, you know, going through the midst of a divorce and adultery and fair and just trying to figure out a life going forward or cancer diagnosis that was unexpected and very young, all those things, there's a grief associated with that that is appropriate. Appropriate and right, but it's not a bottomless grief when we're in Christ. And so the lines in there, we will always be with the Lord. And and I think what Paul intends, what I hope we we're intending when we're talking about the return of Christ, is to say that the sorrows in this life have an expiration date. The temptations we experience towards sin, whatever those sins, the besetting sins that just feel like, okay, you get a year ahead of them, and then bam, the the the gossip, the greed, the jealousy, the lust, whatever, it just flares back up in ways you didn't expect. And you find yourself in Romans 7, going, I'm not doing the things I want to do, and I'm doing the things I don't want to do. And who is this wretched man? And when will Jesus ever come back? And will this body of sin ever be done away with? And when you feel like that, I think that's when the promise of Christ's return and glorification, not merely of our body, but of our sinful nature being done away with and total depravity is totally gone. These are these are the sorts of hopes that I think the Bible wants to offer us in very practical ways.

SPEAKER_02 23:02

The book takes its title from the great phrase, the restoration of all things. Uh, how do you think about what happens at Christ's return and specifically this meaning of the restoration of all things?

SPEAKER_00 23:15

Yeah. You know, it's funny with with titles, you you probably know this too. Like you don't get to choose them.

SPEAKER_02 23:22

You're also you can you can say I don't like the title of my own book. That's mine too. But uh yeah, I think it's uh it's such an important phrase. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

I love the title. I love I'm so happy. I'm so thankful to work with have worked with people that think about things much better than I did and made everything I tried to do that much better. And and I think the title is is one of those great examples. My original title, not that anybody cares anymore, was Look to the Hills. And it was a from drawing from Psalm 121 that that, you know, I look to the hills, where does my hope come from? The the the maker of heaven and earth, and this this posture of looking our eyes up and out, which I think is what I'm trying to do in the book is that suffering and and and the cares of this world and affluence and all these things pull us down and in, but we need to be looking up and out. So look to the hills was the original. But the reason I love, I think, as you're highlighting, the restoration of all things is that they we restoration is the things that we hope for and long for and desire right now at their core, what is good and right and true about them, what is beautiful about those desires. There's sinful parts of them and we're mingled and mixed in all those ways. But the longing for home, the longing for love, the longing for acceptance, the longing for full forgiveness, the longing for a f to to not take God's good gifts and treat them in idolatrous ways, but to just value the gifts as we value the giver. All those longings are will be restored and they they will reach the ability to grow into them in a way that we we have never before experienced. And I think that is what gets missed when we're we're into the timelines and and all that sort of stuff and the puzzle as you described it. And so I love the idea of restoration of all things and that it it can look at people who are long- I was you've probably worked through the Marilyn Robinson Gilead series, I would imagine. Maybe not. But he he has there's two two very brief, um two things in there that I say he, it's Marilyn Robinson's the she, but the author is is this pastor who for those who don't know who's so old and his boy is so young, he's gonna write him a letter because he didn't know if he's gonna live long enough to to see him to grow up into adulthood. So it's this meandering story of life and family and and so on and so forth. But he begins by saying, writing he says, I you know, I used to say we have no home in this world, and then I go home and make myself a pot of coffee, a fragged-aid sandwich, and listen to the radio, which which was this weird mashup. I'll give you two data points from the book. That's one where he's just going, I there's no I used to say there was no home in this world. And then I go to my home and I eat a set the my favorite sandwich and and want listen to the radio and make coffee. Later in the book, he's he's looking for his father, going through um his grandfather's grave and with his father through Kansas. They're trumping around, they almost died through starvation. It's a wild story. But they find his father's grave, and um the grandfather through the son had always said, the body's just an old suit of clothes. Like that's all we are, is just this. And when the spirit's done with us, it's gonna leave this old suit of clothes. And meanwhile, he says, We're we're looking for this grave. They find the grave, it's all nature's taking it back over and they're gonna mend it and clean it up and you know, get the grass off. And there's step he actually steps on some graves and he just feels this horrible childhood guilt that he's doing something he shouldn't do. What's going on there? I think there's something in us that's going, we want a real home. And this home that approximates the home that is our forever home. We we this body that is physical and good and right, even though we can call it with this bad theology that it's just a suit of clothes and the body the spirit will discard it and one day we'll be spiritual and better. No, like there's something in us that goes, there's there's there is uh a gravity and weight and beauty to our bodies, and we want a restoration of all things. And so I I just I let what I I ramber for a while there, but I think the title for me says, those those longings we have are not a waste, and one day God will redeem them.

SPEAKER_02 27:08

I think one of the great joys is is actually starting to believe that and finding ways to act to live that, to live as if you believe that. Because it is really easy to say, you know, I believe in Christ's return, I believe in a future resurrection. I have no idea what any of that means is gonna look like, but yeah, sure, I believe. Uh versus, you know, I've been trying to find ways to say this that that almost sound absurd, but to try to draw out the fact how much I we should mean these things. And uh I I like to sail, uh post about that or written about that. And I've always wanted to sail, like do one of the great uh kind of passages across the Atlantic or the Pacific, but that's a you know, a multi-month kind of thing with preparation. Look, I've got two kids and a church that I pastor, and like that, probably not happening anytime soon. And if I was totally honest, like even in retirement, like there's gonna be grandkids and I'm gonna be still writing and doing things, like, you know, this is probably a dream that I'll read books about and watch documentaries about and never do myself. Uh, but I will often say to myself, very practically in these kinds of situations, like, well, that's what eternity's for. That's what the resurrection is for. Like, there'll be, there'll be plenty of time to sail. And I know that seems so ridiculously small, but I try to do that on purpose, partly to say uh, really, the hope that we have is that nothing is ultimately lost, that every tear is wiped away, that all things, I think joys and dreams and things unfulfilled, that all of these things are ultimately restored to us through resurrection, through the return of Christ, this new creation. Uh, and so finding ways to like really pull that down into our actual day, our actual living seems to be the gift of that truth versus it living in some sort of abstract, distant theological place that we're not quite sure what to do with. No, that's so good. Yeah, you you will have time. You will have time. And all things. I think that's what you get at with the title of the book. All things, all things personal.

SPEAKER_00 28:54

All things. All all that all that is good will will be back. We'll it's like Genesis, but better. You know, you know, the garden and and so on. Yeah, sailing the what kind of ship would you sail in if you could go in right now? What like what would that look like? I don't know how big you need one to get across.

SPEAKER_02 29:09

The bigger, probably the more comfortable. So yeah, but my budget would put me in something probably less comfortable. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:15

Did you follow there were some guys, I think it was last summer that like rowed across. I think there was five of her.

SPEAKER_02 29:19

Yeah, that's been a trend. I actually think there was a woman who just broke a single rower record, maybe across the Atlantic, if I remember seeing that right. So yeah, there's a uh there's a a famous little little boat, the Contessa, uh like a 32, I think, that there's a great book about uh the guy who rounds Cape Horn in it, which that's a pretty small boat for some pretty big water down there. Um yeah, that that's sailing a boat like that would be a blast too. So yeah. In an uncomfortable, miserable sort of way.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

If you're into that sort of thing, yeah, exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 29:48

Well, I we hinted at this earlier in the conversation, but I want to I want to get to this point for pastors, but also just for Christians listening. Uh, it's one thing to talk about the the the promise of Christ's return. It's one thing to preach about it, to even write a book about it. Uh, but as you begin to sort of apply these things in conversations or offer this hope to people around you who really are suffering? Uh you and I both know there can be a kind of wrong way to do this when somebody's in the midst of real suffering to sort of, you know, well, hey, cheer up, you know, all things are going to be restored, you know, Christ returning. What does it look like to try to, and you know, perhaps part of the problem is these are things we should be sort of storing up in us for that day of suffering that's still to come. But how do you go, you know, how do you actually offer this hope to somebody who is in the midst of one of these seasons of suffering?

SPEAKER_00 30:39

Yeah, that's slowly um carefully, sympathetically, I think I think you know, uh probably it starts with this feels too uh maybe pointed because it's not at you, but just back at me to say, like, is this is this a platitude in my heart or is it really my hope that I have to offer? Is this really God's hope through his word and gospel that that is in me that I could that does give me hope? And I think that's where when as it becomes that more and more, I think it becomes more and more natural and not this affectation to wiggle a conversation towards something that should be hopeful, but you know, who really knows? Um and who really believes it. So I think people can sense that. But I do think the restoration of all things allows us to say both things of what's happening to you is really wrong or really hard or both. Um and to sit with that for as long as it makes sense, but to then offer s something bigger and better. I um it it's even our pain, you know, say job loss, if someone loses their job and they they want meaningful meaningful work, you know. You have something of an identity crisis sometimes when you you lose your prolonged period of without work. You say, Well, I I want to pray for you, I want to root for you, I want to help you in practical ways. Let's work on that resume, let's talk to people who might be able to interview you and so on and so forth. But that longing you have for for work and meaning and purpose and sailing the high seas, whether that's recreation or exploration, uh, you know, for us it might be fun because Cape Horn has been navigated before. But um but but there are people who are doing it vocationally for the first time as adventurers and like all that longing for purpose can can exist, and you're good and right to want that and and long for it. And and one day, even if you limp along with some sat you know dissatisfaction, even people who are underemployed in careers that they don't you know, maybe this is just a way for them to provide for their family, and well, which is totally meaningful, but it's it's it's not stirring the satisfaction of their soul in ways they need it and want it to. You can kind of you can do both. And and that's what I think is um encouraging. That's what I've tried to do pastorally.

SPEAKER_02 32:59

Yeah, I think that's really well put. Uh maybe a few writing questions, if you don't mind. Oh uh well, I was really excited to see this book published uh and really grateful for Baker for publishing it because it's uh is this fair you and I know each other well enough to say neither one of us are like celebrity writers. Is that is that okay?

SPEAKER_00 33:15

Well, my Chase, how could you go? I don't know how big your social media following is these days. Maybe it's yours in half. Yeah, that's that's what mine is, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:25

Well, it's uh this is a book about you know, I uh about Christ's return and our need for it in the midst of suffering. It's not written by a you know a mega church celebrity pastor. And so for publishers to recognize it it's easy, and I hear this when I talk to writers. It's it's and look, I've got my my own challenges with publishing and in what's getting published. Uh, but I was really grateful to see this book come out. And I think a large part of that is one of the things I respect the most about you is you have just been working on writing for as long as I've known you, for a long number of years now, writing articles, self-publishing books. Um, that sort of commitment, because I know it's not always easy. I know pitching books is just, you know, an experiencing constant rejection and feeling like it's a you know going nowhere. Uh just your perseverance in writing. Where has that come from? How have you sort of been able to keep going when I know getting to a book like this is just, you know, even the years before building up to it? It's just uh it's just a long, grueling process.

SPEAKER_00 34:22

Yeah. I I don't know where it comes from. Sometimes it feels like a disease more than it is this virtue. Like you're asking, like, where does this great thing about you come from? Like, I don't know. I wish I could turn it off, actually. Um I I think two things if I if I was trying to be positive and less less silly about it, I I would say I do enjoy it. I do enjoy the the quiet craft. I I I obviously when there's a deadline or you you want something to go bigger and wider than it did, or or or so on, you know, you you get the rejection. So there's a discouragement. But when I'm actually tinkering with words, I I don't know why, but I enjoy that. I I can envision the reader out there that would hopefully be blessed by this sentence or this paragraph. And it's been fun actually now to have a book um that people can put a finger on a specific sentence and say, this made me laugh, or this made me cry, or this made me, you know, be really hopeful. So that like I enjoy that process and dreaming about that. And I think the other thing would be calling. I um, you know, if we're constantly take pastoral ministry, because I know that's what you do, but there's other callings in life, obviously, lots of them. Um but it you know, you get called into something. I think you have to be, you should be called out of it probably. And sometimes it's circumstantial. You look at your life and say, okay, this feels like the Lord is calling me out of X, Y, or Z. But I just I haven't felt called out of it, so to speak. So I felt called into it uh 15 years ago through the crucible of seminary. You read my bio at the start. I was an engineer. I hated words and I hated writing, I hated reading. And so I chose a profession at first that didn't involve or has involved as little as possible of all of those things. And through coming back to the Lord and following him, um, college experience and campus ministry and local church stuff, and then going to seminary and being around all these liberal arts guys and some gals who were just good with words and doing this magic thing of writing papers. Like, how do you do that magic? Um, I just didn't understand it. I was like, this is what how this output is exceptional to me. So anyway, but but that that crucible, I left going, I think I like words and I think I feel called into them. And that's that's how it's gone for the last 12 or 15 years.

SPEAKER_02 36:30

Yeah, it's uh I think it's the right answer. It I talk to people all the time who tell me, you know, they're thinking about writing a book, they want to write a book, they're asking me, you know, how do you get a book published? And I never quite know what to say because you know, there's the obvious answers. Well, here's the process. Uh, but the real answer feels like, you know, hey, just prepare yourself for years of just, you know, trying to find a way forward, perhaps. And for some people, it doesn't go that way, but I think for most, you know, it is a long process to try to publish a book. And so to recognize it as just something, number one, I enjoy doing the process. I mean, that's kind of what you were getting at. I think you have to have that. And number two, you know, there's some sense of calling. There's some sense of like, you know, regardless of what happens or works, like I just feel like I'm supposed to do this. That definitely resonates with me as well.

SPEAKER_00 37:15

Super cool.

SPEAKER_02 37:16

Yeah. Uh as far as this book itself, too. Uh, maybe a little bit about uh, as you kind of alluded to this, that uh early in the conversations with publishers, uh, trying to position the book correctly, I think that's something people don't think a lot about. Uh, how early did that become a part of the process for you? Figuring out, you know, what is this book? Who is it for? As you were working on a book proposal, that I'm assuming that's normally where that shows up. Trying to figure out, you know, how do I take these ideas about Christ's return and make it something that, you know, you hear this language around felt need a lot. I'm not sure if that came up with your publishers, but how do I take these these ideas I have about a theological topic and actually package that in a way that a publisher can see a market and that a reader's uh interested in picking up?

SPEAKER_00 38:00

Yeah. Yeah, I I try to do my best on that. I I I did did you interview Russ Ramsey? I'm wondering actually if this quote came from your podcast with him. Have you ever done that? I have had him on here before, yeah. I bet this comes from there. But so I it ling it rumbles around in my mind. Russ Ramsey has talked about like there's two kinds of books on suffering. There's like the theological ones that you, you know, read when the sun is shining and you're trying to, you know, understand things and build up your you know, prepare perhaps for a hard day. And then there's the book that you give someone in the midst of what's hard and and life is is tough. And so he he wrote his memoir about Strck and the infection he got that led to a heart thing and and this massive amount of suffering and recovery. Anyway, I th I thought about that with this book a lot, that I wanted to be able to not just do the theological thing with the return of Christ, but the felt need of, hey, my life is actually hard. I I feel wronged in this way, and I I don't know what to, I don't know how to forgive people when I really don't know that God will make all things right in the end. And I was just trying to connect, like, okay, I I see people who struggle with forgiveness, and yet we've lost the return of Christ doctrine and the the final judge at the end of time who will put everything to rights, the things either either in hell or on the cross, all sins will be accounted for. And so that to me was like, wow, I think that feels really practical. And so I just tried to lean into the felt needs, which was confusing, I think, at first to the to the publisher, but um I don't know, eventually convinced them. I it's funny how it didn't change a whole lot. I I wrote the first draft of this book. Uh this was funny. I re-pulled out the email that said, no, uh, we're not gonna publish your book. But for six months, worked with a publisher who who liked the initial idea. I wrote the proposal, turned in the proposal. It was March, I think it was Wednesday, March 11th of 2020, um, which is about two days before the world fell apart, at least in America. We can't, I thought going into the weekend on Saturday, we're gonna have church. Uh met with the elders uh Saturday morning. I was like, I don't think we have church. This book is what became this book. That wasn't that that was that proposal that then eventually, I mean, it got better. Every year I took it back out and tried to make it better and would show it to a new publisher and then and eventually found two that said yes and one, well, three that were interested, two that said yes, and I chose what I perceived the better one. I so thankful I chose Baker Books. It's really been a great experience. But it really didn't change that much. It just I think I had maturity to do as a writer and and and whatnot, but it was just trying to pitch it in a way that was helpful. But it's just funny that that it really didn't change a ton from March 11th of uh 2020. Yeah, this is which I know you went through a storm during that time as well. Yeah, yeah. I'm so glad you brought this up. I don't know how much you want to say about that.

SPEAKER_02 40:43

Well, I was just gonna say I people think about books as they think of books as like, oh, like a year-long project. Uh and you've been thinking about this book. I mean, you were uh presumably, I mean, if you were working on the proposal in 2020, you were you know thinking about it and jotting down notes well before that. So I mean, for you, this book has been basically a decade of worth of work and thinking. Is that sort of right?

SPEAKER_00 41:06

That's totally true. Totally true. And I could put data points to that. Well, there was a class uh at a former church, I've been here 13 years, but I co-taught Revelation with two other pastors. I guess I don't know if it's a co co co-teaching. And I mostly I was like the junior partner in that relationship, and I they just taught and led, and they taught through the book of Revelation like 15 years ago. I was mesmerized. And that's where my views of the return of Christ started to shift a bit, move towards what they had, and and so on and so forth. So it's it's been a long haul on this, which kind of ruins me for the next. I want to read more books and do more things, but there's just a limited number of topics that I've been thinking about deeply for 15 years. Yeah, yeah. I think that's such a I don't know what to do with that.

SPEAKER_02 41:43

A helpful thing to say because it's uh that's my experience too. I mean, books, uh, you know, I'm thinking about them for a long time, but just the like actual, you know, okay, I'm gonna write this book is is always a three or four-year process for me. And so uh yeah, I think helping people understand what goes into these books uh is just such a helpful perspective. And the fact that, you know, you persevere and and see a project through like that says a lot about it. Uh the book, The Restoration of All Things, I think you were alluding to uh which this was very kind. Uh I've written quite a bit about some health issues I've had with food allergies from a tick bite. Uh, you actually picked that story up. It makes it in the book, which was fun to read about too. So I was glad, I was glad a little bit of my suffering might be uh uh hope and uh help for somebody along the way too. Uh but the book, The Restoration of All Things, How the Promise of Christ Return Brings Us Comfort Today. The book's out now, so people can pick it up anywhere, right?

SPEAKER_00 42:35

Absolutely. The best place is come to church on Sunday, and I'll be happy to hand one to you for free. But outside of that, you should probably go buy it somewhere else.

SPEAKER_02 42:42

Yeah, if you're in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, that's definitely the uh the place to be then. So uh and best place if people want to sort of follow you and keep up with your work and hopefully uh another book, not 10 years down the road. Maybe there's something already in the works, so we don't have to wait that long. Uh, but the best way for people to just sort of keep up with you and the work that you're doing as well.

SPEAKER_00 43:01

Yep. So I have a website, just my first and last name, Benjaminverbacheck.com, and then try and kind of mirror some of that with a Substack account. So that would be the best place.

SPEAKER_02 43:10

Yep. Well, Benjamin, uh, it's always a joy to have you on the podcast. And uh, like I said, I just uh a lot of respect for just the the work you keep putting in. And I have no doubt there'll be future books too, and look forward to talking to you to you about those as well.

SPEAKER_00 43:22

Oh, thank you so much for having me. I've been looking forward to staying for a long time. So thank you for having me back on. It is I I love your podcast as a listener. So it's super fun to be on as a as a guest. Oh, thanks, man. I appreciate that too. An honor to have you.

SPEAKER_02 43:39

As always, you can find show notes for today's episode by going to pastorwriter.com. There you can get links to Benjamin Seitz, his books, as well as learn more a little bit about him. And if you haven't already, I hope you would consider subscribing and leaving a review. Also, I've mentioned on the podcast I've been working hard on a new book that will come out next year. And so uh the episodes on the podcast have been a little slower than normal, but I'm looking forward to submitting that manuscript. And I should be back to some more episodes coming up. I've been scheduling some for the near future, and so I hope you will subscribe, leave a review, and I look forward to seeing you back here on the podcast. Thanks for listening to the money.