We talk about discipling nations a lot—it is in our name! But what does a discipled nation look like? What makes it different from other countries, communities, and cultures? This week, we discuss real-world examples of discipled nations, and how biblical principles have impacted people for generations after they were first brought into the culture.
For more discussions on Discipling Nations and the Kingdom of God, listen to our episode, "The Role Of The Church." and "Why Disciple Nations?"
We talk about discipling nations a lot—it is in our name! But what does a discipled nation look like? What makes it different from other countries, communities, and cultures? This week, we discuss real-world examples of discipled nations, and how biblical principles have impacted people for generations after they were first brought into the culture.
For more discussions on Discipling Nations and the Kingdom of God, listen to our episode, "The Role Of The Church." and "Why Disciple Nations?"
And we're either proactively bringing forth the culture of the kingdom, in our moment of time, in our country, in our communities, or we are being discipled by another set of ideas. And I think that's what you can see in so much of the world today, particularly in our country, we can see it in spades. We are as a nation being discipled, but not in the path of the Kingdom of God and not by the church. And it's very destructive. And we're standing and watching this unfold in front of our eyes and saying,"What's going on here?"
Luke:As Christians, our mission is to spread the gospel around the world to all the nations. But our mission also includes to transform the nations to increasingly reflect the truth, goodness and beauty of God's kingdom. Tragically, the church has largely neglected the second part of our mission and today, most Christians have little influence on their surrounding cultures. Join us on this podcast as you rediscover what it means for each of us to disciple the nations and to create Christ honoring cultures that reflect the character of
Scott:Well, welcome again to a new episode of Ideas Have the living God. Consequences. This is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. And it's great to be back with you. I'm Scott Allen, president of the Disciple Nations Alliance, along with Dwight Vogt and Darrow, it's great to have you back, Darrow Miller is with us today, and Luke Allen. We are going to continue in our series on discipling nations. What does that mean? How is that done? What are we talking about when we talk about discipling nations? We got into that in our first episode, and today, I'd like to focus just kind of at the macro level, the big picture, because I think a lot of times I run up against people that have questions about this, what do you mean by discipling nations, in the sense of what is a discipled nation? What does that look like? What does a nation look like that's been discipled? Has there ever been such a thing? And so I'd like to just talk about that kind of, what is the the target, if you will, that we're aiming for here when we talk about discipling nations? And what isn't it as well, maybe we can talk a little bit about that. You know, I'd kind of like to open it up. Just right now, just to kind of go around and get kind of initial thoughts on that. And then we can kind of dive into it a little bit more. But if you had to answer that question, briefly, if somebody asked you guys, what is a discipled nation? What does that what does that look like? How would you answer that question?
Darrow:I would say it's a nation that's been transformed by the kingdom of God. I'd be careful to say, a discipled nation, because when we say that we think, Oh, it's a process that's been completed, but there'll be no discipled nation fully until the return of Jesus Christ. But we are to disciple nations, and this is seeing nations being transformed by the gospel of the kingdom of God. That would be my simple way of saying it.
Scott:Great, Darrow.
Dwight:And I would add to that saying, that kingdom look to that nation would be an alignment, throughout its institutions, throughout its culture, throughout its societies, in terms of what God says is good, and beautiful, and healthy.
Scott:Good, true and beautiful. So it's at all all different levels.
Dwight:Right, it affects everything.
Scott:It affects everything within that nation, entertainment, economics, culture, education, institutions, right.
Darrow:And it would be moving towards social harmony, not that it would be perfect in a fallen world, it would be moving towards economic flourishing, moving away from poverty, but where during the Reformation, middle class was grown. And it would be a continuation of that and there'd be less and less people who were poor. So you'd see these kinds of things materializing as it were.
Scott:So Darrow, you're talking—I think it's helpful—you're introducing the idea of process. That this is a process. It's not something that you achieve next week or next year, but it's a process that's going to be ongoing until Jesus returns.
Darrow:Yes. And it's a conscious process. It's something that the church needs to recognize, and then consciously intentionally embrace and work towards. If we don't see it as a goal, it won't happen. Or if we see it as a goal, but don't intentionally take steps in that direction, it won't happen.
Dwight:Yeah, and it's a process, whether we like it or not, because it's a process, it's either going towards God's designed for people, or it's going away. So we're in stuck in a process either way. We don't have a choice.
Darrow:And we're either proactively bringing forth the culture of the kingdom, in our moment of time in our country, in our communities, or we are being discipled by another set of ideas. And I think that's what you can see, in so much of the world today, particularly in our country, we can see it in spades. We are as a nation being discipled, but not in the path of the Kingdom of God and not by the church. And it's very destructive. And we're standing and watching this unfold in front of our eyes and saying,"What's going on here?" What's going on is the nation has been discipled by pagan ideas and pagan forces.
Scott:Yeah, yeah, Darrow, you, when you teach, and I use this a lot when I teach on this as well, you use that diagram, it's like a pyramid basically. And at the foundation of the pyramid is worldview. It's your basic understanding of reality, okay? And then from there, you get to foundational principles, you know, upon that worldview, you have foundational principles. And then from there, you get the principles shaping the institutions of the society, you can think about policy, government policy, or you can think about educational curriculum, or just the way people do things. So you know, that's the practice, you know, kind of the daily practice, that's the culture, if you will.
Darrow:Then you go from the policies to the practice and the practices, as you're saying, Scott, the top of the pyramid. And when you see practice being transformed in front of your very eyes, you have to ask, where is this coming from? It's not just coming—it's not just dropping out of the sky, it has come from this process of embracing a paradigm.
Scott:Exactly. I mean, this is, somebody is going to be shaping somebody, some worldview, some ideology is going to be at the foundation of your culture, of your curriculum, your policies, and if it's not rooted in the Bible, and rooted in truth, it's going to be from somewhere else. Okay. But, and this is your point, Dwight, some somebody is going to be always actively shaping culture, somebody's always going to be discipling a nation, if you will. And so, you know, the question then becomes for Christians, if you don't like the way—if you don't like the curriculum in the public schools, okay, so some set of ideas is shaping that curriculum. Is it ours? Is it is it true biblical ideas? Or is it some other ideas? You know,
Darrow:Hold on just to use that, Scott, you can say, well, I don't like the ideas in public school. So I'm going to start a quote unquote, "Christian" school. But are you thinking on a worldview level when you think of starting that school? And if you're not thinking on that level, you will basically create a religious school that is shaped by the larger culture, but it's run by Christians, and you have Christian teachers, and it wouldn't be a Christian school.
Scott:Yeah, no, exactly. So let me talk a little bit about Darrow. I like to what you just said in terms of, when we talk about discipling nations, we're talking about a process and you talked in terms of "less of this and more of this," you know, there's this kind of continuum between, let's say, less slavery and greater freedom, less poverty and greater prosperity or flourishing, less injustice and greater justice. And so it's each one of these things is on a continuum as well and you're seeing it move in the direction of greater alignment with the kingdom of God. This is what it means to... this is what a discipled nation looks like, again, the word discipled is a little bit, you know, it's a nation in the process of being discipled is a better way of saying it. Yes.
Darrow:And all of these will be on that continuum somewhere. The question is, where are they? And which way are they going?
Scott:What direction is it moving in?
Darrow:So you could have something economically near poverty, but moving towards human flourishing, or you can have a situation where there's a lot of economic wealth, but it's moving towards poverty. And do we take the time to see where we are on that line in any of these areas and which way we're moving? And if the church is not engaged consciously in these things, everything will be moving into that downward direction.
Scott:Yes. And that is the problem we're facing today is that the church largely because it doesn't have a concept of discipling nations. It's not involved in it. It's involved in evangelism, or maybe a level of personal discipleship, discipleship the level of the individual, but it doesn't have a concept that goes much beyond that. That's the problem, right?
Darrow:And that's rooted in the sacred/secular divide, we have this division, and you come to Christ, and it's about going to heaven. It's about a spiritual life, it's going to church. Those are good things. But that's the limit of it because of the sacred/secular divide.
Dwight:I think one of the things that's lost is, you were describing going moving towards poverty, or away from poverty, and all these directions, and trying to balance all of these different needs. And that takes tremendous wisdom, tremendous wisdom to say, well, what is it going to take to stifle greed, but encourage economic development, but not have, you know, but not have a one sided economic development that just helps a few and all of that takes tons of wisdom. And if we're not as a church engaged in that, the wisdom that we could bring that's from the Bible, from the Spirit of God, it's lost, it's missing. So we're losing wisdom if the church isn't engaged, and wisdom is so critical.
Darrow:Well even look at the word wisdom. How often do we use it? We're using it in this conversation. And that used to be at the heart of society, right?
Dwight:Or Proverbs said, it's the most valuable thing you could ever have. More so than silver or gold.
Darrow:Exactly. And that is a mind blowing concept.
Scott:So a nation that's being discipled is a nation that values wisdom. A nation that's in the moving in the opposite direction is a nation where you're losing the concept altogether of what is wisdom. We didn't even talk about that. Yeah.
Darrow:We are foolish. And we are foolish in spades right now in our country. Yeah. And the church has virtually lost. We talk about this all the time on this podcast, the importance of words, the importance of language. And here's a word that is incredibly important, because it's more important than silver and gold. And we've made silver and gold extremely important so that it's the ultimate metric. Yeah. And algorithms are set to silver and gold, not to wisdom.
Luke:Hi, friends, thank you for joining us today for part two of our series where we've been covering the need for discipling our nations. Today we cover what a nation being discipled looks like, and how we can personally prepare ourselves to disciple the nations that we live in. If you're new to this podcast and our ministry, we would love to have you join us as we collectively understand and seek ways for each of us to play a part in God's plan for our nations. To stay connected and see all that God is doing in and through the Disciple Nationss Alliance, the DNA, we would encourage you to take a minute after this episode to sign up for our newsletter. To do so just tap on the link down in the description below where it says newsletter, or follow us on social media. We are the Disciple Nations Alliance on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. Let's just stay on this a little bit longer and say where have we seen examples of nations that have made significant and progress towards being discipled in the principles of God's kingdom, is there something you can point to historically? And say "This is an example of what I'm talking about." That helps people understand what this looks like. What comes to mind for you folks on that kind of historic examples of this?
Darrow:Oh, in my mind, it's easy. It's the Reformation. Nations were transformed in one or two generations because of the Reformation. The Wesley revivals in England brought transformation to England and the British Isles. Very prominent examples.
Scott:Yeah. Let me give just one example that we share sometimes Darrow on this, you know, when we talk about the Reformation. There's a set of powerful, true biblical principles that when they take root in a culture, things begin to change. And two of them would be—and there's many—but two of them would be all people are created by God in His image with incredible dignity and value and worth. And secondly, God has created people to have dominion, to wisely rule over creation. Now, every Christian goes "Yes, of course, I know all that." But we take those things for granted. Those are not at the root of a lot of cultures around the world. The fact that we are able to take those ideas for granted is because somebody's done a lot of hard work over the years, putting those into the soil, if you will, of our culture. But going back to the Reformation, you had Comenius, forget his first name, the famous Czech reformer, Amos Comenius. But anyways, he took those two principles. And I'm oversimplifying here, but you get my point. Human beings are created by God in His image with dignity worth, it doesn't matter if you're male, female, black, white, you know, all human beings have that value, that dignity. They bear God's image, and they are created to rule. And he apply that to education, because he thought, the Bible applies to education, it applies to all areas of life, because God is the Lord of all areas of life. And then he developed a principle that was specific to education. Everyone should be educated in everything. And at that time, that was revolutionary, because not everyone was educated. Only the wealthy were educated, only males were educated, etc. But no, everyone needs to be educated, because everyone's made in God's image. And education was limited in terms of what you learned, what you were taught. It was very limited. And he said, No, we need to be educated in everything, because we have to have dominion over all of creation. That gave rise to something that we all take for granted all over the world, which is the concept of public education. And this is just one example of the power of biblical worldview shaping an institution a concept of what an institution should be and how it should be run. I think we don't even think about that. We just live in a world where that has happened. And there are public schools and everyone should be educated. You know, we just kind of assume that it's always been that way. No, that was, going back, as you were saying Darrow, an example of a time in history where nations, specifically in Northern Europe, were impacted by the, you know, a biblical theology that said, we need to bring this truth into our nations.
Darrow:And this was a theological perspective of education. This is back in the time when theology was considered the queen of sciences. And theology was what shaped all of the academic disciplines. That is worldview applied. That is discipling nations. Today, nations are being discipled by a different ideology. And it's...
Scott:It's not the idea that human beings are created by God with dignity and rights. It's that human beings are cosmic accidents, highly evolved cosmic accidents. So that's a very different idea at the foundation.
Dwight:Well, and I'm thinking that that's, I'm going back to Comenius. And I'm thinking, we still have education, we lost the dominion part. I mean, you look at university students that I have one in particular, I'm thinking of it and he's not looking at this as how do I learn so that I can have dominion over life, it's how do I learn something, get a job or how do I learn so I can get into my niche in society where I can make money. But we've lost this. We're learning to have dominion. Nobody goes thinks about that.
Darrow:Well, this is where I would make the distinction between schooling and education. And people are schooled today, but they are not educated. And the problem, as we talked about a few minutes ago, you can be frustrated with the public schools and say, well, we need to start our own schools. Are we starting schools? Or are we creating a place where children can be educated? Those are two different things. And you can have Christian churches, starting schools that don't educate, because they haven't thought theologically about the child and what education is.
Scott:For sure, absolutely. So going back to the Reformation, Darrow, you saw a lot of nations in Northern Europe, be significantly changed in a positive way during that time because the Bible was opened. And biblical principles, foundational biblical principles were being applied in a way that there hadn't been before that in a variety of ways, not just an education. You can think about Bach and the way he applied them to arts and to music, and what that led to in terms of just this blossoming of this incredible beauty of classical music, or you can think about agriculture during that time. Today, we hear about Dutch farmers, for example, being some of the most prosperous farmers in the world. Why is that? And their farms are incredibly beautiful. You go and you see some of these farms, even today, in Holland, or in Germany, I mean, they're exquisite. So, because these principles of dominion, of what does it mean to be human, all of these biblical principles were being were being lived out culturally, at that time. And so you can point out, that they weren't perfect nations. Okay. And this is another thing I will say Darrow when we talk about discipling nations, and Dwight, this is not a linear, upward process. I think sometimes people get confused by that, like, Oh, it's just going to get better and better and better. No, it can get better. And it can get worse.
Dwight:I mean, it's kind of like the kings of Israel. You had some good kings. And then you had some bad kings? Things were always going one direction or the other.
Darrow:That's the point, they're going in one direction or the other. They're not always going in the same direction? And what direction are they going in? And why are they going in that direction? And do you want to really end up where they're going? We don't even think of that.
Scott:We're living in a time where the church doesn't think in terms of discipling nations. This is really why our ministry exists, because we want to address that problem. It's a huge problem. But because we don't think in terms of that, the nations are being discipled by other principles, and other ideas that are essentially leading to an incredible amount of brokenness and destruction.
Darrow:They are leading towards that. And is that where you want to go? And if you don't want to go there, you better turn around and move in the other direction.
Scott:I think some Christians, I wouldn't say they want to go there. But there is this kind of School of Theology that it's like, if things get worse and worse, in a sense, that's good, because then when they get really bad, Jesus is gonna, he's gonna destroy it all. And then he's going to come back and it'll all be done. There is a branch of kind of...
Dwight:But then you have to drop back. And you have to ask the question, Why did God create us? Why did he create creation? And if you go back to that question and answer that you don't end up with well, let's get things get out here. Yeah.
Darrow:Luke you were gonna say something.
Luke:To summarize what you guys are saying, as best as I can. I thought of an analogy, and it's a classic upstream/downstream analogy. And the way I had someone tell me this a little while ago was in you know, talking about sanctification. There's someone in a river, and at some point up in the river, there's a bridge, and that's God. And that's all the characteristics of God. That's truth. That's wisdom. That's justice, but the rivers flowing away from that bridge. So to get towards that we need to swim upstream continuously. Are we ever going to get there in sanctification? We all know the answer to that. No, not until we go to heaven. Or we should still, the idea of sanctification is to swim upstream because our natural tendency as humans is to fall back into sin, and therefore flow downstream. And the thing about that is, number one, you're not swimming towards God anymore. But number two, you're also drifting further away from those hallmarks of God and His Kingdom, truth, goodness, justice, wisdom, you know, all of these things. So the same thing happens with nations, because humans are just what makes up nations. If a nation is not purposely swimming upstream in the direction of God—again, they're never going to get there—but it doesn't mean we shouldn't try because the closer we get, the more truth we see in our cultures, the more beauty we see in our cultures, justice. Whereas, you know, in the US right now, we can easily see around us, not only are we not swimming upstream anymore, but we're drifting further from these characteristics of God. So therefore, wisdom is not, you know, something that we see stressed in education anymore, and the justice system is falling apart, and people are questioning that, and truth is subjective now. So yeah, that analogy helps me a lot when you guys are saying, like, the directions of which way we're going with this.
Scott:I do think it's really helpful, Luke, like you're doing the parallel the discipling of nations with just the discipling of people. There's a lot of parallels, and there's things we can learn. There's an end to that, which is glorification, we're Christ's-like, and we're never going to get there until we are in our glorified state on the other side. But on this side, you know, we should be making progress towards that Christ-like life. And it's not a linear thing, either. You know, in most cases, there's times where we are making great progress. And there's times when we're backsliding, it's a battle. There is a battle element to this thing. And it's the same with discipling nations, we've got an enemy, he's opposing us. And so there's going to be wins and losses. And so you have to think in terms of that, but I think, thinking about it in terms of just, you know, the individual process, we understand that, like, to some level, it's very similar when it comes to nations as a whole, I think. Go ahead, Darrow.
Darrow:Yeah, I'm thinking, as we're having this conversation. The three of us around this table all worked at Food for the Hungry for years. And I remember years ago, studying the International Corruption Perception Index, when I was developing lectures on poverty and development, and I was stunned by that index, this was 35 or 40 years ago, because virtually all the countries that were least corrupt, all had a Judeo Christian foundation. And they were also the most prosperous countries. So you have this empirical chart, showing the relationship between cultures that had a concept of justice, and flourishing. And those that were down on the other end, the poorest countries in the world had the greatest corruption in the world. But if you look at that index now, and you can trace over the years, the United States has been moving from the top area, it's moving slowly down that. Because as you become more corrupt, there are consequences for that. So we have this continuum, which way are you going and where are you? And if you want to see a nation flourish, there needs to be justice established in the nation, and you need to flee from corruption.
Scott:Yes, no, for sure. I think you can literally there are certain indices like that corruption indices that that actually measure this kind of continuum that we're talking about in nations and discipling a nation should move you in one direction on that. Freedom is the same, Darrow, there's groups that measure relative freedom in a nation as opposed to tyranny or, you know, it's enslavement of some sort or some level and you should see greater freedom. The only check I've got as I'm using these words, justice, freedom, is they have to be defined biblically because right now, we live in a time where even these words are being redefined. You know, even though there are Biblical words, we have to understand them biblically.
Dwight:So what are you doing about that, Scott?
Scott:Yeah, I'm trying to help Christians understand what true biblical definitions of these important words are because—well I don't want to go off on that tangent, basically, we are together writing a book, you know, I just finished the chapter on freedom and biblical, the way that the culture currently defines freedom is just this radical autonomy with no barriers and no limits to do whatever I want to, with me being on the throne in control. And that's a very different idea than what the Bible says is true freedom, true freedom in the Bible is living in the way that God created you and created the world around you within those limits. That's where true freedom is found. So, you know, just using a word like freedom, or is a country more or less free? Well, it depends a little bit on how you define freedom and justice and things like that. So I think one of the challenges when people say, Can you give me examples of nations that have been discipled, especially those of us who come from the West, our nations have been discipled way more than we are even conscious of or aware of, in hundreds and hundreds of ways. Again, I think of Vishal Mangalwadi, because he's done more to kind of enlighten my own understanding of the impact of believers over many generations who have sown the seeds of truth at the level of culture and the impact that that's had. We live in a bubble, we just take these things for granted, we don't see them around us. Vishal tells, you know, a story of—oh, gosh, there's so many stories he tells, but I'm thinking of, he was in Holland, and he was in Amsterdam, and you could ride the city buses. And he noticed that some people were getting on the bus, and it was an honor system, you had to go up and you had to put your money in. But if you didn't do that, you could still get on and off. You can cheat, more or less. And he noticed some young Dutch people were cheating, they weren't paying. But he was marveling at the fact that you had a system that was built around people being honest. And you know, that you could just literally go in and you know, not cheating. And he was just like, how did that system develop, where people were honest, and they put the money in without anyone kind of compelling them or forcing them? And he said, that's because the Bible teaches in the 10 commandments, Thou shalt not steal. But to make that something that's embedded in the culture takes generations often, you know, and it can be lost very quickly, too. He talks a lot, Vishal, as well about compassion, you know, societies that demonstrate compassion towards the poor. That's not normal, either. He talks about India. And it's a society that's shaped by this idea of karma, where it's kind of anti-compassion that people, if they're suffering, are getting what they deserve from their indiscretions and problems in past lives. And so to be compassionate towards those people who are getting what they deserve in this life is just prolonging the problem. So to be compassionate is a very biblical idea, to the degree that we have compassionate societies or we should help the poor, we should help people that are on the margins are struggling in different ways. The only reason we think that way is because we've been shaped, people have shaped a society and a culture to think that way. It just doesn't happen. So I guess my point is, there's just so much that we do, our nation has been discipled in a significant way. Part of the problem is we don't see it, we don't recognize it. We just take it for granted. Although I do think we're living at a time when we're losing it. Like for example, we've had a justice system that's been based off of truth, a commitment to truth, we don't punish someone for an injustice, we don't send them to prison unless they actually committed a crime. And it can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in court that requires a certain level of commitment to truth. And that's a biblical idea. But we're losing that now. And so it doesn't matter if we've got facts or evidence if they're an opponent, and I can get them put into prison, great. So I think that the fact that people are seeing those changes now is helping them to maybe have their eyes open to things that they may have taken for granted. Where did that idea come from? I'm on a soapbox now. Go ahead, Luke. Yeah.
Luke:You were talking by Vishal a minute ago, and "The Book that Changed Everything," I believe in that book, he talks about how you know, nowadays in the 21st century, the Bible's gone all the way around the world, essentially, it's reached every single nation. But go back to like, let's say, the 1600s and put a pin there on the timeline. If you look at the nations around the world, at that point, the Bible had only reached so far. And you can compare a nation that was affected by the Bible, like let's say, Turkey and the Ottoman Empire at that time, to some nation in South America that had never reached that level. Just compare those two nations and the peoples there, and the way they're living, in one of them, you know, there was a stark difference at that point in the 1600s. And everything from law to industry, to economics, to arts, to, you know... so I thought that was an interesting point in those when I was reading that book, something something led to the difference here. How did one people group get this far, you know, whereas another one is in a totally different time period, it seems like almost? And he drew back to the Bible on that is, you know, the emphasis on education and learning and learning from history and so forth, is what builds nations.
Scott:Yeah, no, I think we sometimes in America, we talk about American exceptionalism, and I think people can move in a true direction with that or in a false direction. A false direction is that we are somehow a superior people, you know, that we're an exceptional people. No, we're not. But the true way of understanding that is that biblical principles have been sewn into the institutions that have resulted in really positive things. For example, right in our Declaration of Independence, you read, we hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. And among these are life and liberty. Now, that's a very biblical idea that was put into our founding documents that resulted in maybe, arguably the freest nation that's ever existed, you know, and the fact that we had to fight a civil war, to free slaves is rooted in that document. What makes America exceptional, to the degree that there's things that make us exceptional, is nothing that we can claim intrinsically in ourselves. It's all because we've been blessed by the Bible. And any nation can be blessed by the Bible and the truth of the Bible. And in move in a positive direction in that way.
Dwight:I don't know if this helps or not, but it's this last weekend, we were with some friends and their son is a freshman in college. And he has a—this is a Christian family, been Christian for many, many years—and so the mother and father have a very biblical worldview, but the son is moving away from that, I mean, dramatically. And I'm like,what happened here? And, even in terms of dominion, or what does it mean to be a human being? There's just a huge difference now. And I saw it pretty glaringly in this family. And I asked the question, why? What happened? What didn't get discipled? Because the young man is the future of our nation's discipleship. Not hid parents.
Scott:No, it's a complicated question.
Dwight:To me, that's the problem right there.
Scott:Yeah. No, I think that right now—there is something that Darrow said I think it's just worth underscoring. There has to be an intentionality. You have to know what you're aiming for, you know, we want to see these truths. These biblical truths be sewn into the culture and there has to be an intentionality about that with an understanding that some principles are going to be at the root of everything in the culture. Because we don't think that way largely by and large as a church, an evangelical church anyways. Discipleship is this very truncated, very kind of neutered idea. You know, it means it's very personal. It's very individual and it has to do with, you know, maybe don't lie, don't cheat, don't steal, read the Bible, go to church, do personal evangelism. But the thing is, you live a whole lot more of life than that, right? My mind is whirling. You're out there watching movies, you have friends, you're in the culture, you're in a vocation. All of those things are shaping and moving in a certain direction. based on a certain set of ideas, and for a lot of Christians, the Bible doesn't even speak to those things. So they're gonna need somebody to talk about those things. You just assume that the way the culture is doing it is fine. Well, what does that mean for young men and young women, there's a power there that draws them away from from the truth. They're being discipled by the culture, because there isn't an intention to think biblically about those areas. I'm seeing that.
Dwight:I can see it Darrow.
Scott:Got some smoke coming out our your ears Darrow.
Dwight:Coming out of your mind.
Darrow:No, when you were describing your friends and their son, and I'm thinking, okay, so what happened, because their intentions were probably good intentions. Christian parents wanting to raise their kids to be godly. So what happened? And the thing that came to mind, and I'm not sure where this is going to go, but bad ideas are like viruses. And do you go out to try and get a cold? No, you don't, you try to protect yourself against the cold, but you can still get a cold. COVID, you can try to protect yourself against COVID. But you can still get COVID because it's a viral thing. And lies are like a virus. And...
Scott:They spread, there's a force behind them, if you will,
Darrow:There is a force behind them. And they spread even in a place where you are seeking to protect yourself against the virus or against the lies, or you're with your children seeking to protect them to immunize them against the virus. But the virus is still there, and there's something behind it. And how do we deal with that, because that's a more significant virus than a COVID virus? It will have a more destructive impact. And we see this today, just with the the changes, the discipling taking place in the culture today, around the breakdown of the family. It's an intentional thing to break down the family, and to institute a virus that destroys human sexuality. And it's destructive. And do we understand the significance of these ideas? And the impact that they're having in somebody's body?
Scott:If the analogy is to... do we understand how dangerous how destructive they are? And are we taking—at a minimum are we taking precautions? That's the defensive side. There would be an offensive side too. Are we countering them? But I think that no, I think there's a lot of ignorance. And I'm not saying this is true of your friends at all, because I don't know their situation. But I do know my own kind of circle of people that I engage with, I think there's a lot of ignorance about the power of culture, it's going to shape you and it's going to shape you in ways that you don't realize. There has to be an intentionality and awareness.
Dwight:And I think this goes back to, because I asked the question this weekend, what is the lie here? What is the deep understanding this shifted between a generation here? And I didn't put my finger on it right away. But even asking that question and having to think about it meant, this is below the surface now, this isn't just well, this person's behaviors this way and this person's behaviors this way, what's going on underneath the surface? And that's the challenge, because it's a worldview issue. What worldview shifted here, because that's what I'm seeing. I'm seeing a worldview shift and that's below the ground. We can't see it.
Darrow:And its a generational shift.
Dwight:And it's a huge one. And because it's at the worldview level, it will bear tremendous fruit in all areas of life, Scott, you've talked about and have fruit in every area. Well, I don't have an answer, but I'm thinking, well, it's who am I as a human being? Why am I here? What was I created for? Those questions are all being answered now in this generation by evolution. And so there is no reason for being here. There is no reason to have dominion. If anything, you're the problem. If you weren't here, the world would be to a better place, both creation would be better and society would be better. You're not here to fix anything.
Scott:Dwight, let me...
Dwight:It just keeps going.
Scott:Those things are not being taught directly necessarily, but they're being taught indirectly in millions of ways. And that's the thing we don't fully understand.
Dwight:The "who are you" is pretty clear. You are a product of material evolution, that's all you are.
Scott:The way that you're being marketed to, you know, entertainment, everything else is built around that even if nobody says it directly, you know,
Luke:Exactly, you know, I see this with so many of my peers today, is they grew up in the Christian household, so on and then in their 20s, they leave the faith completely. And I think a lot of that is just it comes down to what we're talking about today is discipleship, we have the wrong view of discipleship, because if you're teaching your kid as they're growing up, that discipleship happens in the morning, during your Bible study, or over a pot of coffee with a mentor, then, is that it? You know, because some kids have more interest than just those two things. God's given us gifts and abilities and interests in so many categories. Some people love sports. What does the Bible have to say about sports? Some people love the arts. What does the Bible have to say about the arts? And if you're not discipling into those categories as well, then you're gonna miss that kid for 90% of their life.
Scott:They're living in those areas based on whatever the culture is saying about those areas, or however, it's being shaped by the culture. Exactly. Luke. Yeah.
Luke:Yeah. So because the church isn't discipling in all those categories, there's this huge gap. And people are just falling into that gap and having their questions answered by those places.
Scott:Let me this is an interesting thing. I remember Arturo Koopas said this, to me said you can disciple non-believers. By it, let's say you set up a system of justice in a nation that's rooted in biblical truth, a search for the truth, fair and impartial justice. You know, these hallmarks of what we might consider kind of biblical justice, you set up a system of justice, your system of justice functions in a nation, according to those principles. You can't convict somebody without the witness of two or three witnesses speaking truthfully, and all these hallmarks of true, okay, you can be a non believer and function within that system, as a judge or jury member, or whatever part you're going to play, and you're going to be shaped by biblical ideas. And you're going to absorb those ideas, whether you're a Christian or not. And what we're talking about right now is just the opposite happening. Okay? So our society in so many ways, is being shaped by ideas that aren't biblical. And if there's not an intentionality, all of us, and especially our young people are being discipled by those systems, those structures, those ideas that are undergirding them, that's what's I think is happening right now to a lot of our our young people.
Darrow:What I'm thinking about is, ideas take time. And the ideas that are viral now, didn't start just like that. They've been coming for 100 years. And we can analyze this historically, to see how they move from here to here to here to here. And now, at this moment in history, they're viral. They haven't always been viral.
Scott:They've really shaped the institutions, let's say.
Darrow:And okay, if ideas take time, then where do we start? Today. Moving ideas out there that may not become viral for a generation. But if we don't begin by reaffirming biblical principles, biblical vocabulary, a biblical worldview today, it'll never get to the point where it's vital in shaping the culture.
Scott:Yeah, you're going where I want to go next in our conversation, or we've been, you know, on some different rabbit trails. I think they've been really powerful ones though. But the question we started with was what, what is a discipled nation or what does it mean to be in the process of being discipled as a nation? And now you're you're starting to shift towards the how. How does that happen? How do we begin to do that? You know, what does that look like? And I do want to go there. I don't want to foreclose any final comments on the other aspect, I think, just again, to underscore somebody's always discipling the nation and if it's not the church based on biblical truth, it's going to be people that aren't operating from a biblical worldview with other foundational ideas—lies, essentially, you know, destructive lies. And I think it's powerful Darrow this imagery of a virus, you know there's a force to it, there's a life to it, it spreads.
Dwight:So I'll pick up on your illustration, Scott, you're talking about how eventually, the ideas, create institutions that then disciple us.
Scott:Yes, the institutions shape us.
Dwight:They start to shape us and Darrow saying, but where did they come from? Well, they come from ideas, and eventually, over time, they become institutions that then shape us. So now we're being discipled, by culture, by arts and music and by work. And then the question is, well, how do you turn that around? And then I think of John Beckett, I think, okay, you have some sphere, that you have, kind of use the word dominion over—in his case, it was his company, says, I will create a company, I will create in my sphere, a company that will disciple the employees by saying you are valuable. This is how we work here. This is what we do in terms of treating our vendors justly. This is how we're going to function. We're going to create a kingdom environment. You may not buy into it a convert, but we're going to create a kingdom culture. And then that starts to disciple those people. And that's what Arturo was getting at.
Scott:For sure know, that. We're so shaped by the culture around us by the institutions. And I think we just take that for granted, you know, because we all live in these institutions, we're all shaped by them. We all go to school. We're all under some kind of curriculum. We're all working in some kind of an office environment where there's office policies. I mean, we're all just shaped. We're all going to movies and listening to music, you know,
Dwight:But my point is, we all have little spheres, some people have bigger spheres. For example, an athletic coach, pretty big sphere, he's got a team, and he can influence those people. And I was discipled more by coaches than anybody is sometimes, tremenously.
Scott:What I just wanted to bring up one more point, for me, it's been very important on this question of what does it mean to disciple nations? What does a disciple nation look like? And I think there's this confusion that, again, that well if things aren't getting worse and worse, are you talking about things getting better and better? And I'm like, No, it's a messy process, because it's a battle between light and dark. But you can make progress. There can be victories, there can be advances, there can be institutions that can be shaped for generations, based on biblical truth. But it's not this kind of straight linear process, either good or bad. And I think that the picture in the Bible that gets at this closer than anything that I have been made aware of this, Jesus's parable of the wheat and the weeds. And it's always meant a lot to me, because I think it's a picture that he paints of the world, where you've got both kind of his kingdom advancing, growing, that's the wheat and the weeds growing as well. They both are growing, and they're growing side by side. And then, of course, he says that at the end, when the King returns, you know, he's going to go into the field himself, pull up the weeds and burn them, so that the wheat will remain. We live at a time where they're both growing kind of side by side. And I think that's the imagery, that picture that we're talking about here. It's not that the weeds are getting less or the weed is getting more the other way around. They're both they're they're both growing. But we have to be focused as Christians as followers of the king on his kingdom, on the wheat. And what are we doing is there, an intentionality seeing that grow in, as you were saying Dwight, in whatever sphere God's called me to, whatever area of influence that I have, where I can make a difference? Is there an awareness, is there an intentionality there?
Darrow:Just picking up on that Scott. This is the place for hope. Because we know how the story ends. Christ is going to come back and the tears will be thrown into the fire and the wheat, as it were, will be harvested. The Kingdom is coming. And it will come at a moment in time in its fullness. So we can look at all this going on right now, we can focus on the tears. And be totally depressed.
Scott:Discouraged.
Darrow:Discouraged.
Scott:And there's a lot of that, right.
Darrow:There's a lot of that, yes.
Scott:And people just giving up, yeah.
Darrow:People giving up, but the wheat is growing. And God is doing his work. And at that moment, we will see the fruit of what God's doing. And we can either decide to live within the framework of the weeds, or the reality of the Kingdom of God coming. And what does my life today in the midst of the wheat and the tears? Where am I focusing my life? And am I contributing to the coming of the Kingdom of God? Or have I just said, this is so overwhelming, wash my hands of it, and just stick my head on the sand.
Scott:Right? Just wait until Jesus comes back because it's a lost cause. It's a hopeless cause. I agree Darrow, it gives me a ton of hope. I'm so thankful that God in the Bible tells us how this ends, and that he is the victorious king. And he and his kingdom is eternal. And it will be fully established, and he will have all rule power and dominion and and all of his enemies will be put under his feet, there will be no more lies and justice, there will be no tears. I think another thing that gives me a lot of hope, and a lot of motivation Darrow is that I'm convinced that the advance of the kingdom, the wheat, if you will, it's not what we see in the news, it's often not the kind of thing that we're all paying attention to. It's stuff that happens often, you know, in kind of quiet ways, unreported. I think about Jesus himself when he came into the world, right? The Roman Empire was at its height. And if you had big news organizations, they'd be reporting on what was happening in Rome and the fights that were going on and the advance of the Roman Empire, and this and that, and here comes the King of kings and Lord of lords, the creator of everything into this little outpost, in this little nowhere country into this little stable, and everything begins to change. And I don't think that process of change has changed. I think that stuff is still going on, in very kind of unpretentious, quiet ways. Not that it can't have major impact, or that it can't have a significant shaping influence, but you don't often see it. So what does that all mean? To me, that means I don't need to be discouraged because God's Kingdom is advancing. The wheat is growing even now. Even at a time maybe when the weeds are growing more. It's still growing. And I just need to be about that. And even if nobody knows.
Dwight:Nobody knows. It's interesting when you're talking about Jesus versus Caesar and the Roman Empire, I think. And even in Jesus's life, you know, he was the King of kings and full of the Spirit. But he worked one to one. Yeah, I mean, he didn't heal. I mean, he healed the 10 lepers. Yeah, that was 10. That wasn't one, but oftentimes, it was just this person, I will influence this person. It wasn't like, okay, city be healed, done. I can go now, right? No, it was single person. And so you got home at night exhausted because he dealt with people individually. That's really slow. That's really small.
Scott:But you know what? This is getting to the how, again, and I do want to, I do want to in our future episodes on this subject. I really want to focus in on that how because I do think the advance of the kingdom, the discipling of nations, is this kind of inside out process that all of us are involved in. I think sometimes we think, Oh, well, if that's going to happen, it's going to require big powerful movements and people with lots of money and maybe powerful politicians. I can't do anything. Who am I? I'm a nobody. No, that's exactly the way God's going... This is the process by which nations are discipled, through everyday ordinary people acting in the power of God's Spirit, taking advantage of the opportunities that God has given them and the giftings that they have. So we want to get into this because this is something that we don't wait for other people, powerful wise people, not that they don't have a role to play. But this is something for everybody. It's not necessarily big, grandiose macro plans. But often it's very individual, as you were saying, Dwight, very personal, very much at the level of a family. You know, these kinds of things.
Darrow:This is, I think we're getting close to one of the things that Jordan Peterson has captured the imagination of hundreds of thousands of people around the world. You want to change the world, make your bed. And he is focusing on a word—we talk about freedom all the time. But freedom is only had with responsibility. And we want freedom from responsibility. No, real freedom comes with responsibility. And Peterson is saying, and I think this is a biblical concept. Take responsibility. Be responsible for making your bed, take the small things that are part of your life, and act responsibly in those small things. And your life will begin to change. But as that happens on a cultural level, where people are pursuing, what does it mean to be made in the image of God? What does it mean to be a responsible citizen? That's where the process begins to unfold. But as long as we want freedom from responsibility, to be able to do whatever we want, whenever we want, without having consequences, we're doomed.
Scott:Yeah, I like what he's saying there, Jordan Peterson, as well with what I hear when I hear him speaking that way is, if your life is chaotic, and you know and the world around you is just chaos, and you don't even know who you are, what your role is, in that, you're struggling. You want to bring order to this chaotic world, start with the most simple world that exists—your own bedroom, your bed. Is your bedroom chaotic? Bring some order to that chaos, start there. And it's something that you can do, and it starts with what you can do within that sphere.
Darrow:And it is the true word spoken, that begins to transform the chaos into order.
Scott:Explain, Darrow.
Dwight:The true words spoken...
Darrow:God spoke the universe into existence. And in Genesis
1:1, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, verse two, and the world was formless and void. And darkness was over the face of the deep. And then what happened? Separated light from dark. God spoke and began to bring order out of the chaos. So we come back again to the importance of words, but not just any words, true words, this is where truth comes in. We have true words, the speaking of true words, to one another, in our own individual lives, speaking the truth to our own life. Make your bed if you want to change the world.
Dwight:And I want to connect that, "make your bed, take responsibility," back to Genesis 1:2.6 Have dominion over the face of the earth. In Psalms, it says "Over the things that I have created," which basically includes everything, but it starts with your bed and your person.
Darrow:And in Genesis 2, God tells Adam to do what? Name the animals. Now you're bringing order, now you're having dominion, naming the animals, analyzing these animals. What makes this animal different from this? What word can we use? It's a real word to describe this real difference. This is speaking words that bring order.
Scott:We have a lot more to say on this subject of how nations are discipled, how the how God's Kingdom advances. I think we'll save this discussion for future episodes, because we're just scratching the surface of it right now. I do always feel like I want to bring up one point when we're talking about Jordan Peterson, and the "make the bed." Because I feel like he's saying some really important and true things there. But he's also missing something super fundamental, which is that at the end of the day, this isn't something that we can do apart from God. You know, that nations are discipled, God's Kingdom advances in his power and for His glory. He was talking with Vishal, you remember the interview we had with Vishal. It was interesting, because Vishal started talking about himself as a young man. And he said, You know, I was really lost. I had a habit of stealing. I would just constantly steal, you know, and it was just habitual. And Jordan Peterson was like, Well, how did you get over that habit? And he said, I had to confess that I was a sinner, and I needed the power of God to essentially change me, from the inside out, I needed to be reborn. I needed God's power to change me. That's something that Jordan Peterson doesn't yet talk about very much. But this is so fundamental to any kind of positive change in culture, it has to start with this kind of power of God changing us dead, broken people from the inside out, and then we can begin a process of change. So I just want to connect it to God. This isn't a human centered project here. This is something that God is doing. But it's something that we have the privilege of being a part of, as well.
Darrow:But it is saying yes to His story, and becoming part of His story. That's, I think, the balance. It's God's work. Yes, he is sovereign, he is Lord of all. But I am not nothing.
Scott:I'm made in His image.
Darrow:I'm made in his image. And it's connecting those two things that moves the kingdom of God forward.
Scott:Yes. So much more to talk about. I think we'll save it, guys. This has been terrific to talk about what is a discipled nation? You know, what isn't it? What is it? I think we've got some clarity on that, guys. Thank you for sharing great insights. And for a terrific discussion today on this subject. And next time we get back to it, we'll dive into more of the how. How does this happen? And what role do we play
Luke:Thank you for joining us today. In the future episodes of in it? this series, we will continue to focus on the how we can disciple our nations. For example, we will talk about how to disciple nations, through our families, in our workplaces, in schools, in the arts, and so on. I hope you will join us for each of these upcoming discussions here on Ideas Have Consequences. As a heads up this series will not be a consecutive series week to week because we still want to sprinkle in discussions about prevalent ideas that are actively pushing our nations towards or away from God. As always, please consider sharing this episode with a friend and leaving us a rating and review on Apple podcast or wherever you're listening. Thanks again for joining us on ideas have consequences brought to you by the Disciple Nations Alliance.