120. What Can the Dead Sea Teach Us About Forgiveness with Brad Nelson

The Lord’s Prayer might be the most memorized Christian prayer in the world, which also makes it dangerously easy to skim. We sit down with Brad Nelson to slow it all the way down, chasing the original context, the translation details, and the lived implications that hit hardest when life is ordinary and messy.

We explore Brad's favorite Hebrew root word, kaved, and how “heavy” burdens can somehow become “glory.” We also unpack the Lord’s Prayer’s communal language, why the familiar doxology appears later in church history, and why “Our Father in the heavens” can train us to zoom out for trust while also zooming in for God’s nearness.

Some moments are unforgettable: forgiveness pictured through the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea, awe as a practice that rewires how we see the world, and “your kingdom come” as the center of Jesus’ message and our daily discipleship. We also take “deliver us from evil” seriously, naming the dangers of obsession and denial, and why resisting evil looks like cruciform love shaped by the truth of Scripture.

If you’ve wanted a Lord’s Prayer study that is biblical, practical, and honest about real life, press play. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs fresh language for prayer, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show.

Connect with Brad @ The Lord's Prayer

Watch the entire episode: https://youtu.be/BuU00dCvOVs

Brad’s 1st interview: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1882033/episodes/16586243

https://generationstogenerations.com/podcast

ordinarypeoplestories@gmail.com

https://www.facebook.com/ordinarypeoplestory

https://www.instagram.com/ordinarypeopleextraordinary/

X: @storiesextra 

Any advice should be confirmed with a qualified professional.
All rights reserved: Ordinary People Extraordinary Things

Stories shared by guests may not always be shared views  of OPET. 
Being a guest does not mean OPET approves of every decision or action in the guests' life. 

We all have a story, all of us, share your story. You don't have to have the perfect answer or the perfect life - share what Jesus is doing in your life. This is an easy, real way to witness & share your testimony.

Transcript

Welcome And The New Projects

Nancy Bruscher 0:00

Welcome to Ordinary People Extraordinary Things. I'm here with Brad Nelson. Thanks for being on. Hey everybody, thank you. So excited to be in person with you. Yes, what a treat. We got to do one on Zoom a while ago, and then uh you're in in town, you got to speak, and then you're going to be showing the Lord's prayer, which my family has already gotten to see because we got to come and see you guys at the premiere, and oh my gosh, what a treat for us. That was so fun.

Brad Nelson 0:28

I'll tell you that the weird part about that was seeing you guys from the other side of the country, yeah, and only having like a few minutes to chat with you.

Nancy Bruscher 0:38

Yeah.

Brad Nelson 0:38

It was that way with pretty like there were all these people from our lives from all over the country. And it was like, you get two minutes with them.

The Hard Work Of Writing

Nancy Bruscher 0:45

Yeah, you're like hog picture. Hog picture, go, go, go. So we get to talk about your book you read. I've got it here. Um bringing heav bringing heaven here. Bringing heaven here. Um, so how was it like to write a book? Easy peasy, right? Oh man, yes.

Brad Nelson 1:06

I have heard people say that writing a book is like birthing a child. Yeah. I'm not gonna go that far because I don't know what birthing a child is like, but uh yeah, it was really hard. Um I think it's hard to do anything creative on your own to begin with. There's the whole battling a blank page, and I had plenty of days where it was like I I I can hear the clock ticking, I know what the deadline is, but I sat down today and there was just no magic. And then there's the element of we co-wrote this book. So Brad was on location filming Brad Gray, uh, the host of the Lord's Prayer and uh film in the series The Sacred Thread. He was on location most of the time all over the world filming for the show. So my primary role was to write the book while he was out. Now we're still co-writing, so we're corresponding from afar, but a lot of times he's not available. I have deadlines coming and we're not able to speak. And anytime you try to bring your creative process and merge it with somebody else's creative process, it's hard doing it on your own. It's really hard doing it with somebody else, and getting it all to match up with the deadline. So there were a couple times where I think I wrote what is chapter two in the book five different times before we landed on with the editor, yeah, this is what we're going for, this is what we want the rest of the book to look and feel like. Wow. So that was I could just feel the clock ticking in the kind of the anxiety building.

Why A Book Adds Something New

Nancy Bruscher 2:46

Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. And I I think I wrote this to you, but my family and I have been following locking the text for years. I mean, we we dive pretty deep into the the Bible. We watched the Lord's Prayer at the premiere, and then we got these books. So if I can be super honest, I I wasn't expecting to get a lot of stuff I hadn't known already. And I feel bad saying that, but you know, I've done work on the Lord's Prayer. Like, yeah, I've done a lot of studies on this. I thought this was gonna be like an easy peasy read, like, oh, I got one thing out of it. Oh no, it was deep. You guys just always bring just some new content, and yeah, it was so good.

Brad Nelson 3:33

It's um, it's a challenge with the different mediums. So when you're filming, whether it's a film or a show, one of the things that Brad Gray had to relearn because the producers were constantly telling him, like, hey, you can't be a Bible teacher right now. You are the you are the guide of this show. So you need to be in host mode, not teacher mode. So there was this the film and the show are uncovering all of this context, but it's this it's this journey, it's a cinematic journey. So there really aren't these moments where you're turning to the camera and landing the plane for, and what does that mean for me today?

Speaker 4 4:15

Right.

Brad Nelson 4:15

And so that's where the book was like, we need a place to help people understand when you understand this prayer in its original context, how does that change the way you wake up and go into your day on a Tuesday? Or you walk into a hard conversation in your life with a family member or a coworker or something like that. And so, I mean, I I have heard this now a number of times from people who are like, Really? You did a film, a series, and a book? How could you possibly have something new to say? Right. I mean, honestly, like, yeah. Yeah, but it's I mean, this is what is so energizing for us about the Bible is once you start accessing the original context, I mean, it truly feels like a rabbit hole. You go down this rabbit hole, there are all of these connections. Um, and it, yeah, I think Abraham Joshua Heschel has this quote that he says, We have essentially only scratched the surface of the Bible.

Speaker 3 5:14

Wow.

Brad Nelson 5:14

That it's it's an ocean of depth that we will never get to the bottom to, but every generation has this task of you need to go as deep as you can, more or less.

Simple Stories With Deep Layers

Nancy Bruscher 5:24

Yeah.

Brad Nelson 5:24

And so this was such a fun project because it felt like we got to do that.

Nancy Bruscher 5:27

That is so cool. I feel like the Bible is so interesting, and maybe you would disagree, but I feel like a child can get the basics of it, right? Like, love God, love others. Hey, go live that out, which is obviously not easy, but the concept is easy. Yeah, and then you can dive and dive and dive. And so do you feel I feel like in that way God's made it for every mind, you know, like a child or someone who has a childlike mind, or someone who like God has given just a powerful mind that they would be never like able to get all the way and be.

Brad Nelson 6:04

Yep. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think of Jesus, number one. You know, when Jesus was trying to describe for people what the kingdom of heaven, what the kingdom of God was like, and that was his main message, he didn't begin by trotting out a bunch of hefty theological language or you know, deep teaching. He would say things like, the kingdom of God is like a father who had two sons. Yeah. The kingdom of God is like the vineyard owner who hired workers for the day. He told stories. Yeah. And what was so cool about that is he could speak to the uneducated farmer, he could speak to the priest, uh, he could speak to the Pharisees and the Herodians, and everybody could understand him. He left he leveled the playing field essentially.

Speaker 3 6:50

Yeah.

Brad Nelson 6:51

And so you could look at Jesus' parables and say, they're simple, but there is a simplicity on the other side of complexity. So if you think of even just about products, I mean I'm looking at this this Mac book here. I love Mac because it's such a it's such an intuitive brand. And Steve Jobs was ruthless about design. And so you look at that and it looks so simple. But to get to that simplicity, you have to go through so much complexity. So there is a simplicity on the other side of complexity, and it has all of these depths. So you're right. Yeah, a child could read the text and understand it, but then a scholar can keep finding these new depths. Yeah. And that's what is, I just think the it's layered.

Nancy Bruscher 7:42

Yeah.

Brad Nelson 7:42

It's so layered.

Nancy Bruscher 7:44

Yeah. You were talking about in the book about a your favorite word in Hebrew. I don't know if I want to butcher it, so could you say it for us?

Brad Nelson 7:52

Yeah, so it's this root word, uh, Kaved. And it has uh couple different meanings, and this is like all Hebrew words. Okay. You know, Hebrew is a very word-poor language. I think ancient Hebrew only has something around like eight to ten thousand words.

Speaker 2 8:09

Okay.

Brad Nelson 8:09

And so And how many do we can you put that into context? I don't remember off the top of my head, I want to say, I mean, we have tens of thousands. Oh, possibly hundreds of thousands, I wouldn't I want to fact-check myself on that. But um, we have a lot more words than ancient Hebrew. And so as a result, what the ancient Hebrews would do is depending on the context, that root word could have multiple meanings. It could have two meanings or three meanings or four meanings. And Semitic writers would have fun with that. So they would do all these word plays. Um but one like this word kabed, it can mean burden or heavy. So in Exodus 18, when Moses' father-in-law comes to him in the wilderness and sees he's been judging the people all day, and the people are waiting in line, he says, What you're doing is too heavy for you. He's using that root word, uh caved. That word, I think, when it shows up as a verb, or maybe it's a noun, means glory.

Speaker 3 9:10

Oh.

Brad Nelson 9:11

So heavy, significant, substantial, weighty. Um, and so I have always seen this connection between burdens and glory. And so, like this book, it was a heavy lift. It was a heavy, heavy lift. I mean, our editor, Carrie Mars, she was amazing at just guiding us and getting the best out of us. I mean, it was a heavy lift for Brad and I creatively, even for our own friendship. Like, how do we merge our two voices? But be true to you and be true to me.

Speaker 3 9:45

Right.

Brad Nelson 9:46

And yet, in the midst of all that heaviness, there was this substantial weighty goodness that came out of it. And so I've always just seen this beautiful connection between when we both lean in around a burden, something happens there, and that burden gets transformed into glory.

Nancy Bruscher 10:09

Yeah. I think we understand that, but we still don't like to go through it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 10:15

Yeah.

Forgiveness And The Dead Sea

Nancy Bruscher 10:16

Yeah, definitely. The other thing that really stood out to me was this idea of the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. Yeah. Could you talk about that? This is fascinating to me.

Brad Nelson 10:29

Yeah. So that was in the chapter on forgiveness. And so Jesus is basically in the Sermon on the Mount, he talks about forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. Yes. And interesting, number one, that Jesus wants us to pray for forgiveness on a daily basis, which I think is a fascinating rabbit hole all on its own. But secondly, in the original ending of the Lord's Prayer, the that little doxological ending that is in our Bibles, for yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, that wasn't added in in the manuscripts until like the fourth century. And so the original ending is Jesus talks about deliver us from evil, but then he circles back around to hit forgiveness one more time, to say, and basically, if you don't forgive others, your father in heaven won't forgive you. And so there is an intimate connection between the grace we receive and the grace we pass on. And you see this in the geography of the land of Israel, because there are three main bodies of water. Uh, the one is kind of the Jordan River that starts, the headwaters begin up at the in northern Israel at the base of Mount Hermon, and then they kind of descend. Um, Jordan actually Yarden means descender. So it descends south to the Sea of Galilee, and so the Sea of Galilee is this beautiful freshwater lake, and I mean it's it's gorgeous to be there, it's just wonderful, and always tons of fishing and industry around there, but then the Sea of Galilee passes on the water that it receives from the Jordan River, and so it's teeming with life. Well, the Jordan River continues to descend south to the lowest point on earth and empties into the Dead Sea.

Speaker 3 12:19

Yeah.

Brad Nelson 12:19

Well, the Dead Sea doesn't give out what it receives, it just takes. And this juxtaposition of the one that passes on what it receives is full of life, and the one that only receives and doesn't pass on is toxic to the point of death. Wow. And so if you think just about, you know, when when water doesn't keep moving, it becomes stagnant and it becomes this pool where all kinds of viruses can breed, but water that keeps moving is is alive, it's fresh, it's it's life-giving. And so it's just that same idea with forgiveness that when you pass on what you receive, and you are experiencing flourishing in life. But man, when you don't, you are setting yourself up for a painful future.

Nancy Bruscher 13:13

So you're saying when you receive the forgiveness of God, but you are not willing to pass it on to others. You're like the Dead Sea. Yep. Yeah, yep, absolutely. That's powerful. I think for me, a lot of times having those analogies or like a word picture, even though I haven't actually been there, I've seen pictures, everybody's seen pictures of it.

Speaker 13:34

Yeah, and so to see that, and oh wow, that's oh it's so it's so stark, it's so so stark.

Nancy Bruscher 13:42

That's interesting. You were talking about how the Lord's Prayer didn't have that ending that we put on it a lot of times. Um, can you tell us the ending? And then why did you decide to add that when you have like I think you call it the author's version of the Lord's Prayer? Why did you put that on there then?

Brad Nelson 14:01

Well put the doxological ending. Yeah, yeah, just because the first of all, the Lord's Prayer, the whole prayer, is in the plural form. Our Father, our daily bread, forgive us. And so it is communal in nature. And actually, the first time the Lord's Prayer shows up outside of the New Testament is in a late first century, early second century document called the Didicky.

Nancy Bruscher 14:26

Oh, okay. It shows up pretty fast.

Our Father In The Heavens

Brad Nelson 14:28

Yeah, it shows up really fast, and it was a discipleship training manual, and what we see in the Didicy is that this particular group of followers of Jesus are praying the Lord's Prayer three times a day. Wow. So it's it's liturgical. Um, and so that doxological ending was added on so that these Christian communities who are praying this together multiple times a day, it has like a rhythmic ending to it. Um, so that's why we included it. And the way we did the author's version is just there are a couple places in the prayer where the way it often gets rendered in our Bibles into English, it's not it's not wrong, it's not bad. It's just when you render it a little differently, it captures this nuance that doesn't always come through in translation. And the biggest example of that is in the second line. You know, we typically say our father is the first line, who art in heaven, um, second line, but that word heaven in Greek, in that line, uranos, is in the plural form. So it literally reads, our father in the heavens. Now, here's what's so cool about that the way an ancient Jewish person thought about the cosmos, they envision the cosmos as this like inverted dome. It's like what in Genesis is referred to as the firmament. Okay. And so if we're standing here on the ground, um, all the air around us is in a Jewish person's mind, that that is the heavens. Okay. And then they go far up to this dome where uh the moon, the stars, the sun are, and that is also the heavens. But then they also believe that far up above that you had the highest heavens, uh, the heaven of heavens. This is where God dwelled on his throne and looked down on his good creation. So you have like these multiple levels of heaven. So when the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 12 talks about, I know a man who was caught up to the third heaven, that's what that means. He's seeing the world that way. So there are these multiple levels of heaven. But what is so fascinating about that perspective of the world for a Jewish person is that they have then this ability to say, the God who created this world, the God who loves me, the God who's in relationship with me, with us, rules and reigns above it all, sees what we can, is in charge in a way that we're not, and yet that God travels through the heavens and comes close to us, comes near to us. So you get this picture to pray on a daily basis, our Father in the heavens, is to say, at the same time, God, I know that you are in charge, that nobody challenges you, and that I can rely on you and you know what's good, but you're also close to me in this moment. So it's it's like this almost the spiritual ability to zoom in and to zoom out. Because there are times when we need to zoom out, and you actually see this happening in the book of Revelation. So in Revelation, uh John is writing to the churches in Asia and he's telling them like what's what's going to come. Um, this this judgment, this apocalyptic judgment that's coming. And I think it's chapters six through 19 is where like those judgments unfold. But he interrupts his his like telling of what's going to come ten different times. They're called interludes. And each of the ten times he interrupts, it's like he sweeps his readers up into the throne room of heaven to say, don't forget to see this chaos that's unfolding around you from the vantage point of the heavens. So think about all the times when you and I are going through something awful and we need to remember, like, okay, there's there's goodness here that I can't see. Um, I don't understand what's happening, but God is in control. And in those moments, that ability to zoom out and to see from this higher place is so epic. I mean, it's just so helpful. But then also there are moments when we get zoned out, numbed out, checked out, and we'd be it's like we sleepwalk through life, yeah, and we're oblivious to the presence of the holy that's like right here in this conversation in this room. And so there are times when we need to flex that capacity to zoom in and to become aware of God's holy presence in what to us seems like a very ordinary thing, yeah, but it's actually like humming with the holy.

Nancy Bruscher 19:24

So, how do we how do we do that? How do we see God as like a holy God, like so big, so magnificent, but then also he wants to draw close to us. And one of the things I'm thinking about is you talk about in Deuteronomy about this apple of the eye, is that correct? Yeah, and I feel like we use that word still, yeah. Um, but I I was fascinated that it was actually in the Bible, yeah. And then to hear like what it means was like, what? That's so close. Yeah. So could you explain the apple of the eye? And then also how I guess how do we have this paradox, right? Of like close but far, like mighty, but like wants to be like a an Abba, a father.

Awe As A Spiritual Practice

A Rocking Chair Holy Moment

Brad Nelson 20:13

Like how yeah, yes, that's that's such a great question, and um I think there are really thoughtful answers to it. Um, so I'll take your your Deuteronomy 32 thing first. So Deuteronomy 32, I think it's verse 10. Um, and here's the context Moses has just led the Israelites through their wilderness wandering, and they are on the verge of entering into the promised land. And Moses gives this farewell speech in Deuteronomy 32. And he basically says to them, Don't forget that these 40 years, your God shielded you, guarded you, protected you, nurtured you, cared for you like the apple of his eye. Now, that's what you will read in most English translations. It's uh it's our modern expression, but behind it is a Hebrew idiom. And the Hebrew idiom really conveys this idea of what is called the little man in the eye. So if you read it in Hebrew, that's what it would say. God, God cared for you like the little man in the eye. And so here's if you go back into an ancient context, and I do this when I take my groups to the desert, and um I have them pair up, and two people will get about four inches from one another's face. That's close. Which is a little unnerving because you're inside somebody's personal space, and then to make it worse, you look deep into their eyes, and you do that until you can see your own reflection in their eye. That in Hebrew is the little man in the eye. And it's like they get through this 40 years of difficulty and hard journey, and God says, I was that close to you. I could look into your face and see my own reflection. Don't Forget how closely I journeyed with you. And that I just I love that. It's so beautiful. How badly do we sometimes need to be reminded when we feel alone, when it feels like, man, this has just been tough sledding for a long time. And maybe it's a good biblical practice occasionally to like look in the mirror, see your own reflection in your own eye, and to remind yourself, God is this close to you. He's been journeying with you like this. Um, so that that's a beautiful, beautiful image. And then your question about how do we do that kind of zoom in, zoom out. Yeah. And let's start with the zoom out. There's a guy named Frank White who uh was a space philosopher, which, if you want a job title, I mean that's a cool job title. But he wrote a book in the late 80s called The Overview Effect. And he had interviewed all of these American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts who had flown into space and actually had the privilege of viewing Earth from the vantage point of the heavens. And he found that almost overwhelmingly, every one of those people who had that experience experienced a similar phenomenon, and he called it the overview effect. It was this simultaneous sense that our world is fragile, it's intricate, it's interconnected, and that it's worth fighting for. And it was almost like a spiritual, like most of these people came home like deeply changed, with this sense of I lived my life chasing all of this stuff, and none of it matters. And there's all this stuff that really matters that I need now to give my life to. And one of the answers that you find in Scripture is the practice of awe. And Abraham Joshua Heschel was one of the greatest rabbis of the 20th century, he wrote extensively about awe. And awe is just that it's that feeling you get when you stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon or on the summit of an alpine mountain, and you see this vast expanse in front of you, this abyss, and you are overwhelmed by its immensity, its beauty, and it's not a good thing. Yeah, yeah. Well, and and you have that sense at the same time of like uh you can't tell me this is accidental. Like, how did all this, but at the very same time that you're feeling those things, you feel small, and yet you somehow feel connected. And so um, there was a book written a number of years ago uh by a guy named Dr. Kelner, who is at UCLA Berkeley. He wrote a book on the new science of awe and basically talked about what happens in the human like brain and heart when you regularly get experiences of awe. And you don't have to go to the Grand Canyon or uh, you know, a vacation on the other side of the world to experience awe. Some people get it when they see a beautiful sunset. Um, some people get it in a I remember we have a video of when our oldest daughter was maybe like three months old, and she's cooing and playing on the floor and looking nowhere in particular, and then my wife starts speaking to her, and you can watch her eyes find my wife's eyes and lock in, and all of a sudden she becomes still, and for like a minute, she gets lost in my wife's gaze. And we know that developmentally that when that happens between a parent and a child, that is what is helping this little child attune and get what she needs to grow and become developmentally, and I got goosebumps watching it, and still I can come to tears by watching the video because what is happening in that moment is the same, it's awe. And when you get awe, you get a little taste of the overview effect. So for me, whenever I experience awe, whether it's beauty or something like that, I intuitively understand that as holiness. Okay. This is unique, this is different, this is set apart, this is not ordinary. And so I interpret those experiences as profoundly spiritual. This is the presence of the Holy Spirit. I have just become aware of the presence of God or the presence of the Holy Spirit in this moment. And so we need to practice awe. We need to pursue it, we need to seek it because it does something to us. It helps us have that zoom out experience. And then it also, though, helps us zoom in too, because it it's not just this big stuff, it's this stuff that's right here. Um, it could be a holy conversation that you have with someone. And I I wrote about this in the book, but we had this lazy boy chair that yeah, my parents it you know what's funny about this story is this is the story I've gotten the most feedback on in the book. I've I've been you know, we've been doing these screenings all over the country, and I've had probably 10 people come up to me and say, Oh, the rocking chair story. You're killing me. So when I graduated college, my parents bought me a lazy boy recliner, and it moved with us all over the country as our family grew and moved, you know, from Michigan to Florida, from Florida to Georgia, and it acquired all the telltale signs of a well-used piece of furniture. So it was like sharpie, you know, courtesy of one of the kids on it. And so it got looking pretty rough, and my wife said, not in the living room anymore. So it got assigned to nursery duty. And when we would put our kids to bed, that is the chair that we would rock them in, read them stories, get them calm before we put them in the crib. So finally one night, I was just I mean, the thing was so big, it took up so much space, and I just said, All right, yeah, I'm getting rid of it. I'm putting it down at the end of the road with a free sign on it.

Speaker 3 28:46

Yeah.

Brad Nelson 28:47

So Trisha and the girls were gone, and I hauled it down and plunked it at the end of the driveway. Well, at the end of the night, when the girls got home, Charlotte, who was only like three at the time, saw her rocking chair at the end of the driveway.

Nancy Bruscher 29:05

Oh yeah.

Brad Nelson 29:06

And I wasn't even, I just I wasn't prepared for her grief. Her eyes like filled with tears. And so I picked her up and I said, Oh babe, what if we go have one last rock? And she, you know, whimpered and nodded. And so I carried her to the end of the driveway. And by now, like it's completely dark out, stars in the sky, and it was like, you know, sometimes there's no traffic sound. It was like quiet, dead quiet. So we're sitting at the end of the driveway, and I'm holding her and I'm rocking her, and she's sucking her thumb, and we're just looking at the stars, and all you can hear is the creak of the rocking chair. Holy, such a holy moment. And like I could just feel welling up in me this God thank you. This, like, this is a memory I'll take with me to my grave. Um, and I could be in a horrible, bleak situation in life, and I can return and access this memory, and something good and beautiful will happen inside me. And so I think what happens is the more you practice awe, the the better kind of muscle memory you have for spotting those moments when they happen. So I think that's how we do that, both and.

Nancy Bruscher 30:23

Would you call that bringing heaven down? That you know what I mean? But we hear that, right?

Brad Nelson 30:30

Like yeah, so I think in that moment, that's more of that's more in my mind, that's more of recognizing God's presence where it is already. So for instance, I would say the ground didn't become holy when Moses took off his sandals. The ground had become was holy all along. Moses just became aware of God's presence. Okay, and I think that's what often happens for us is God was here long before you were.

Speaker 3 31:02

Yeah.

Kingdom Come And Bringing Heaven

Brad Nelson 31:03

Long before I was. And so when we awaken to God's holy presence in this place, our experience of this place changes. Now, what Jesus will do in the very next line, right? So, our Father in the heavens, holy be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Nancy Bruscher 31:24

Yes.

Brad Nelson 31:24

And this is the heart and soul of Jesus' kingdom message. I mean, the kingdom shows up in Matthew's gospel over 50 times. Um, it's there at the beginning, as soon as Jesus comes up out of the waters of his baptism and he begins his ministry, repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near, which means is arriving. And so Jesus is about the kingdom. And then he makes a bunch of disciples. And a disciple, a Talmud, is somebody who apprentices themselves to Jesus and follows him so closely that they learn to adopt his lifestyle and they learn to live as he lives. And that's what we're called to as his followers, to join him in this mission of your will be done, your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. And this was like a big aha for us because both Brad and I grew up in a religious tradition that basically had a message that the reason Jesus came to earth was to take us from here to there. Right.

Nancy Bruscher 32:33

Like let's just skip it, right?

Brad Nelson 32:34

Yeah, yeah. I mean, salvation is the finish line. Uh, believing in Jesus is this is this is a bad cliche, but fire insurance. And when you understand what Jesus is doing with his kingdom message, he is actually trying to become a portal through which the goodness and power of heaven can begin to invade earth and challenge the evil powers that right now have authority over the earth. Um, so there's heaven where things are as God wants them to be, and then there's the earth where things are as you and I want them to be. What we're called to as disciples is to say, no, you have an earthly kingdom. And the philosopher Dallas Willard uh he describes a kingdom as the range of your effective will. In other words, it's everything you have say over. Your finances is a kingdom, your relationships is a kingdom, your influence is a kingdom, what you do with sensitive information is a kingdom. And when we awaken to this fact that these things that I have say over, if I can surrender them to God's will and way, and allow this to become a sphere of earth where what God wants done is done. So we start to rethink like, not what do I want done with my finances, but God, what do you want done? Not what do I want done with how I run my family, but God, what do you want done? And the more we do that, and the more we imitate Jesus in doing that, the more our lives become a portal through which the goodness and power of heaven are crashing into earth.

Nancy Bruscher 34:18

Okay. So that's what you're talking about with bringing heaven here.

Brad Nelson 34:21

Yes.

Nancy Bruscher 34:22

What your book is called, bringing heaven here. Yep, exactly. Right, exactly. Is that why you named it that? Is because that was the part that just really struck you.

Brad Nelson 34:30

Yep. So interesting thing, in terms of like the way biblical writers would write, we as like Western Greek thinkers, we will often save the best for the last. So think uh the grand finale at the fireworks show or the climactic scene at the end of a movie. But biblical writers would often place the most important information right in the middle. Okay. When you look at the Lord's Prayer, the Lord's Prayer itself is the center of the center, of the center of the Lord's Prayer. Matthew's doing everything in his literary power to say, don't miss it. This is the nuclear core of the Sermon on the Mount. There's something about this prayer that is 101 to who Jesus is. In fact, we we say in the book that we think the Lord's Prayer is the greatest distillation in all of Scripture for understanding who God is, why Jesus came, and what our role is here on earth. And then, of course, when you look into the Lord's Prayer, it's got these seven lines. Well, what is the middle line? It's the line about the kingdom. Okay. And so it is the most important part of Jesus' ministry, Jesus' message, and Jesus' prayer. And so it's it's the climax, it's it's what everything is building to. And so that's that's why we chose to name it that.

Nancy Bruscher 35:55

Okay. Uh, could you go if if this is the climactic part, can you maybe share another portion of that then? On like you said like aligning yourself with Jesus and like kind of being a Talmud and a disciple and walking. Obviously, that's what the disciples did, is they walked, you know, with Jesus. Is there something else you can share with us on how do we do this?

Brad Nelson 36:21

How do we walk with Jesus?

Nancy Bruscher 36:22

Yeah, or how do we bring more bringing how do we bring heaven here?

Brad Nelson 36:27

Yeah. Well, I think this is where it's helpful in in the book. We need metaphors, we need stories that help us understand what that looks like. You know, we process visual information like 60,000 times faster than we do just like information that we read on a page.

Speaker 3 36:48

Right.

Brad Nelson 36:49

And that's why I think like the power of Jesus' parable. So if I could give you some examples of what does it look like to bring heaven here, one of the things that I think is true for every last one of us. Um it's been said that uh a preacher ultimately only has one sermon. And it's it's a message that comes from the core of who this preacher is, and if you listen to all their sermons and all their writing and all their ministry, you'll hear this one message over and over, and it just comes out of them. In fact, when Eugene Peterson passed away at his funeral, um, his son basically said, My father's one sermon was uh God loves you, he is on your side, he's coming after you, he is relentless. Peterson would like sneak into his room after he was asleep in his crib and he would pray that prayer over his son. And if you read Eugene Peterson's writings, you will hear that one message in all of these different ways. Okay. And so I think for each of us, there is this question of what is your one sermon? What is the unique way that God has gifted you to reflect his goodness and glory in this world? And so I see this in my wife. My wife is just this lovely human being, and she is so gifted at seeing other people. And she notices what other people don't. She picks up on these little details that turn out to be the key that unlocks the deeper regions of a person's heart. So you could be in a conversation with my wife, and you could just a throwaway comment. Oh, I love peppermint mochas. And conversation goes on, you go about your way. Six months later, you're having a really, really hard day, and you come back from a meeting to your desk, and there's a peppermint mocha on your desk, and you say, Oh my gosh, I love peppermint mochas. How did you know? Yeah, and my wife would say, Well, you told me six months ago. And it would blow your mind, like you remember that? You saw in my wife, she moves through the world, and I'm telling you, she is so good at this, she does it so consistently, it's her one message. She sees what others don't. And when she does that, I'm I'm telling you, she is bringing the goodness and power of heaven here. Um, I have another friend, Steve. He was my mentor in college, and uh, he was like the student ministry pastor at the university I attended. Every guy on campus wanted to be mentored by Steve. And uh, Steve likes to joke that he has the spiritual gift of meetings. He's at his best in a setting just like this, sitting across the table with coffee, asking questions. And while Steve left Cornerstone, he went into the church, was a pastor for a long time, he was so good at pastoring people just in like this. Well, then he ended up moving beyond the church, he was a missionary in China, again, did this. Then he like later in life, he became the like manager of a Chick-fil-A, and he was still so good at doing this. He he referred to it as uh pastoring off the grid because he would just he would interact with the people that came into the restaurant, and he'd end up sitting at a table across from them asking them thoughtful, meaningful questions that had to do with where's your life headed. And that's Steve's one sermon. He is at his best when he does that, he is actively reflecting God's goodness and glory in a way that brings the power and the goodness of having here. And I think we all have that capacity, we all have that marking on us, and it seems to me that the first half of life is like discerning and discovering what that is. Um, but I think the challenge of the second half of life is to remember what that is, because life has a way of beating us down and making us cynical and um causing us to forget who we are.

Nancy Bruscher 41:21

And m maybe I'm putting this because it's such a huge thing of who I am, but maybe also we don't think it matters. You know, do we think that a peppermint mocha does that matter to someone? You know, I'm not doing anything big, yeah. I'm not, you know, a great speaker, I'm not a great, you know, author. I mean, you could I think everyone's always looking at someone else, right? And saying, like, look at what they're doing for the kingdom, look at what they're doing. But those things that you just said were kind of small, right? Having a conversation with someone at Chick-fil-A, yeah, bringing someone uh peppermint mocha seems small, but they're not.

Brad Nelson 42:02

Yeah, they're not at all. And so that's where we have to change the way that we see the world because we need to see the world like Jesus. If we want to live like Jesus, we have to adopt his lifestyle. If we want to see like Jesus, we have to develop kind of his way of understanding people and seeing things. And so um there's an author named Andy Crouch who wrote a book. Oh, I'm just blanking on the name right now. It's his most recent book and it's on technology. But he makes this really fascinating distinction between impact, which is a word our culture is obsessed with. Yes. What kind of impact are you having? And he actually does this little word study on impact to say it's actually etymologically a pretty violent word. Like if I were to punch this wall, that's impact. And but we we think just in these grandiose, like I gotta change the world, like Steve Jobs, I gotta make a dent in the universe. But actually, what Jesus calls us to is influence. And think about this. Nobody had a bigger mission than Jesus. Right. But what was the primary vehicle that he chose to develop that mission? He went out and found 12 teenagers. Ordinary, really, and gave his life primarily to these, and and in what we know about first century uh like the Jewish educational system, the best that we know, because Jesus found these young men working their father's trade, what it means is at some point in the Jewish educational system, they were told enough you're not really good enough. You're not the best of the best. So go learn a different trade. And Jesus comes along and says, Oh, oh, come follow me. Yeah, you can be my disciple. Jesus changes the world through influence, not necessarily through impact. And I think that we like that's something that we need to keep front and center for each of us. Like I've just, for example, you know, I was here teaching at Southeast this weekend, and it was such a unique experience because I did the morning services, and you know, you're speaking to thousands of people. And then afterwards, I did four sessions on prayer with a room of 30 people. And I told my wife on the phone last night, Sunday was great, the like the services were fan, like they were they were great. I had fun. It was I could feel the spirit in the room. I think it was helpful. Oh my goodness. What we what we did together in that room of 30 people. I will go to sleep tonight knowing that the bigger impact I made with God for the kingdom today happened in a room of 30, not in a room of thousands.

Deliver Us From Evil

Nancy Bruscher 45:07

So we've gotten to talk a lot about the Lord's Prayer. We kind of went in different ways. Oh we forgot to talk about deliver us from evil.

unknown 45:17

Yeah.

Nancy Bruscher 45:18

And I feel like, and I I've heard you talk about it, a lot of people talk about it, as I feel like we have this either we're like obsessed with the devil, yeah, or we don't want to hear about it. Like it's, you know, he doesn't exist. And not everybody, obviously, just a very general yeah.

Brad Nelson 45:35

Yeah, there is a continuum, and C.S. Lewis talks about it that you know, sometimes you're you're the sort of person who's like, there's a devil behind every bush. Right. Um, the devil made me do it. You know, if anything goes wrong, we ascribe that to evil, right? Not our own stupid choices. Um, but then on the other end, you have this very like secular mindset that's like, well, there is really there's really none of that going on, right? It's all just our stupid choices. Um I I love there is a uh counselor here in Colorado named uh Adam Young, and he says that there is this other category of uh understanding or relating to the idea of evil, and he calls it like the duck pill the duckbilled platypus camp. Okay, and it's the idea that um I know duckbilled platypuses exist, I know they're a thing, read about them in books, read about them in school, never seen one, don't know what, if anything, it has to do with my life. So for all I know it exists, but for all intents and purposes, I'm gonna live my life as if it has no bearing on me. Oh, okay. And I think that is how a lot of us relate to evil. We are which might be even more dangerous, willfully ignorant of the presence and impact in our lives. And that is really dangerous because when Paul when Paul talks about powers and principalities, and he he uses this expression, the powers. And I think what often happens is because we are willfully ignorant of evil's presence and impact in our lives, well, then we just normalize its presence, and then that normalization gets embedded in systems, and then those systems create all kinds of downstream pain and oppression and injustice. Um, one of the examples that comes to mind is if you go back to uh the Great Recession. I don't know if you've ever seen the movie The Big Short, but yeah, in the Big Short, greed became normalized. Right. And it created the system that imploded and hurt so many people. And it's because we're just we turn a blind eye to greed. Oh, that's just how the cookie crumbles. That's just life, that's just how we do it. So there's that, but then the way the structure of the Lord's Prayer is if you have been faithful to do all of these other things in the prayer, I think Jesus finishes with this line because it's his way of saying, if you've been faithful with that other stuff, then buckle up because hell's coming after you.

Speaker 3 48:15

Yeah.

Brad Nelson 48:16

Because evil cannot tolerate people who walk in truth, who seek to live truth. And so you will experience resistance. And a lot of times when things get hard, when we give pushback, and I'm not saying, again, I'm not saying that whenever something doesn't work out for you, right, that it's evil opposing you. Right. But a lot of times, when we decide to pursue faithfulness, it doesn't happen overnight. And it's a long, arduous journey of like, God, did I hear you right? Are you there? Why is this taking so long? When we experience that kind of resistance, it's often a sign that we're moving in the right direction. Because evil does not want to see God's people live in faithfulness, and so if you've done all the other stuff, like buckle up because hell's coming after you.

Nancy Bruscher 49:12

But again, like there's there's not a whole lot to be afraid of at the same time. I is that correct? I mean, like, Jesus is over the devil as well, so like it's gonna come, but I mean, that's not a reason not to bring heaven here.

Fighting Evil With Cruciform Love

Brad Nelson 49:28

Yeah, no, certainly not at all. In fact, one of the biggest motifs throughout the Bible, and when I say motif, that's a fancy sounding word, um, it just means themes. Um, but is this idea of God as a divine warrior? And so in the Hebrew scriptures, you see God is the divine warrior who battles with evil, battles with these uh Israel's enemies, sometimes even battles against Israel when they're not faithful. And then this imagery gets picked up and applied to Jesus in the New Testament, and you see it culminate most expressively in Revelation 19, which is this final battle between the forces of good and the forces of evil, and you know, Jesus is like on this horse, and he's leading the armies of heaven into battle, and he's battling with this sword of his mouth. And some really interesting detail there's blood on his robe, but the blood is there before he goes into battle. And here's the thing the way Jesus defeats evil, and the way that he invites us to join him in vanquishing evil is not through winning and fighting and conquering and defeating. But we like that. But we love that.

Speaker 4 50:53

We love that.

unknown 50:55

That's evil.

Brad Nelson 50:56

This is this is what this is what this is what Peter and every other first century Jew wanted. They wanted a Messiah who was going to be a military conqueror, right? Who's gonna defeat these Romans and establish his kingdom, and how Peter responded when Jesus said, Oh no, no, no, no. I am the Messiah, but I have to go to Jerusalem and suffer at the hands of the religious elites and die and be raised. There's a bigger battle here, Peter, than the Romans. It's sin and death. And by the way, the way you win that victory looks like the cross. It looks like sacrificial suffering love. And so, yes, as we join Jesus in opposing evil in our world, we have nothing to fear because we know how the story ends.

Nancy Bruscher 51:42

I just wanted to bring that up. Yeah.

Brad Nelson 51:44

Yeah. But at the same time, what we're called to to resist is a life of cruciformity. Um, and so our weapon for the fight is this double-edged sword that's coming out of Jesus' mouth. What Paul refers to as uh the sword of the Spirit. And when you look through the scriptures, anytime God is fighting with the sword of his mouth, it's talking about God's word, scripture. And so the way we fight evil is with the truth of scripture. And so the more that we can get that in us, the more that we can oppose the evil that we encounter with scripture, not just quoting Bible verses, but how do I get it in me? How do I live this scripture? That is somehow all bound up with how we join Jesus in living a cruciform life and opposing evil. And so I I want to be, I want to balance it because yes, we know how the story ends, but the call to the cross, I mean, how many of the apostles like suffered and died the way that they did? And it may well be that Jesus is calling us to a life of hardship and struggle, just like he lived. And I want to say that I think what the Lord's Prayer invites us to is the kind of faith you see in Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego that say, oh, our God can deliver us. But if he chooses not to, but if not, we'll be faithful anyways. And you know, Martin Luther King Jr. has this incredible, there's the if faith. God, if you keep me safe, and if you'll protect my family, and if you provide all these things with me, then I'll go. But there is a though faith that though he slay me, I will hope in him. And there's something about that that is an image of Jesus kneeling in Gethsemane the night before the cross. He doesn't want to go. He doesn't want to go, but he surrenders his will. And he's willing to go.

Nancy Bruscher 54:03

Yeah.

Brad Nelson 54:04

And I think that's like as we join Jesus in opposing the forces of evil, that's that difficult discipleship that we're called.

Nancy Bruscher 54:13

The red on the on his robe, I assume, is from when he died on the shed blood. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Brad Nelson 54:23

Not the blood of his enemies.

Gratitude And Useful Kindness

Nancy Bruscher 54:27

Yeah, because it was on the road. Well, I feel like we could just talk for hours and hours. Let's wrap it up. What are you grateful for?

Brad Nelson 54:35

Oh, well, uh I am grateful for relationships. And so I have been in a very, very busy season of travel and I've been away from my family a lot. And so uh to come here to this this church, this community to see you and your husband and your kids, um, to see other friends. Frederick Biegner uses this expression um meeting strangers who aren't strangers. And to be tired and away from my family, and to realize, like, oh no, I have family here. That is really special. So the some of the conversations that I've been able to have and you know, just seeing people, feeling known, feeling like uh, you know, the whole cheers thing, you want to go to a place where everyone knows your name. Um, so yeah, that's one of the biggest things I'm grateful for right now.

Nancy Bruscher 55:34

That's great. What kindness have you seen, or what kindness have you shown?

Brad Nelson 55:42

What kindness have I seen? Well, for one, I've been staying with the Chrysler family, and so they've put up with me for four days. Um you know, hospitality is such a it's such an important thing. It's a huge part of the kingdom of God. You know, the gospel writers talk about the Son of Man came eating and drinking, so hospitality is at the core of the kingdom. So when you show up as some rando from the other side of the country, and a family of five welcomes you into their rhythms, I mean that's just that is so kind. And it's it's thoughtful, and I I think I maybe said this to you the last time we talked, but you know, in Greek, the difference between uh we often think in English of like kindness means nice, yeah, but actually in Greek kindness means useful. That has stuck with me, that really has. Yeah, yeah. And I and so I just see like, wow, this this family has invited me into their home and into their rhythms for the last four days, and they have did they've gone out of their way to be useful, um, to like open their lives in a way that's like, what can we be for you? What can we do for you? What do you need? I mean, it's so kind.

Where To Watch And Go Deeper

Nancy Bruscher 57:03

Well, and I think about how Jesus said, or people say, like, how when did we see you naked? When did we see you without food? When did we see you in prison? Yeah. And he says, when you did it for others. I I'm butchering it, but yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, just the usefulness, right? And yeah, yeah, yeah. That's good. It's good. Where can people watch the Lord's Prayer, yes, get the book, and then we've kind of talked about it, but I don't know if we really landed on this mini-series that's coming out.

Brad Nelson 57:36

So here's a quick here's a quick rundown on all of that. So we started shooting uh the Lord's Prayer uh season one called The Sacred Thread. So The Sacred Thread is an episodic series, seven episodes on the Lord's Prayer. We started filming that six years ago, and the idea was to put this documentary series on a major platform. And then we ended up getting a call from a guy named Mark Burnett, who's you know, arguably one of the most well-known producers in the world. He's done Shark Tink, Survivor, The Voice, and he basically said to us, let's turn this into a film. Okay. So he came on board as our executive producer, and we produced this film on the Lord's Prayer, and Angel Studios picked that up, and that is streaming right now on Angel Studios. So if people have an Angel subscription, they can go to Angel Studios and watch it there. Um, or if you sign up for an Angel subscription, you will actually be given a link where you can share it for free with other people, which is really cool. Very cool. But then, you know, once we had the film, you know, our publisher came along and said, it would be really great to have a place where people could unpack the pastoral implications of this prayer.

Speaker 3 58:58

Yeah.

Brad Nelson 58:59

And so that's why we wrote Bringing Heaven Here, and that's available. You can get that on Amazon or pretty much anywhere books are sold. But here's the exciting news that we just got is that uh in about three weeks, three or four weeks, the first two episodes of the Sacred Thread are going to launch on Angel. So I think March 31st, episodes one and two will drop, and then every Tuesday after that, uh another episode will drop.

Nancy Bruscher 59:28

Oh, it's so exciting! It's really, really it's very fun. And if people want to connect with the sacred thread or walking the text, or you like what's a good way for them to stay in contact?

Brad Nelson 59:42

Yeah, people can learn about all of this at two websites. Believe it or not, when we got to the end of this project, thelordsprayer.com was available.

Nancy Bruscher 59:51

Oh, awesome.

Brad Nelson 59:52

And so we snatched that up, and so you can learn about the series, the film, and the book all at thelordsprayer.com. But thesacredthread.com is specific to the show, and we will we're gonna the plan is to do multiple seasons of the show. And so the sacred thread is the place where if people want to go deeper with the show, they can learn that there. We're also building some discipleship tools that people can come to that website and find. So some of those tools will include things like we did a Bible reading plan, a UVersion reading plan in partnership with Bible Project. Oh, wow. So it's uh, I think an eight-day plan. It's got excerpts from the book, clips from the film, and then Bible project animations that go along with it. Oh, very cool. So that you can get on u version, or you can get that at the sacred thread.com. And then we've created some prayer tools. Like, how do I pray the Lord's Prayer as a part of my daily life? How can I pray it with my kids? How can I pray it for my kids? And so we've put some of those tools up there on uh thesacredthread.com as well. And so anything related to the series, people can find at the Sacred Thread.

Nancy Bruscher 1:01:04

Awesome. Yeah, I can see you haven't been busy at all. Oh my gosh, even more things keep coming on what you guys have been up to. It's so cool.

Speaker 4 1:01:13

Yeah, it's so true. Thank you.

Closing Prayer Together

Nancy Bruscher 1:01:14

So amazing. Well, I know that people are gonna want to pick up the book and keep in touch with everything you guys are doing. As we end, could we read the prayer together? Yes. And I'm gonna have to get mine out, not because I don't know it, but because of your version of it. I'm gonna make sure I say it correctly.

Speaker 4 1:01:32

Okay. Our Father in the heavens, holy be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Oh, thank you so much.

Nancy Bruscher 1:02:03

Thanks for being on.

Speaker 4 1:02:04

Yes, it was so good to be with you.

Nancy Bruscher 1:02:06

Yeah. And on ordinary people, extraordinary things, your story is his glory.