Greater Things
A podcast about how faith fits with your everyday life. Matt interviews various speakers from around the globe and invites them to share their own experiences. For those who are asking big questions around faith, religion, church, and life.
https://www.greaterthingsinternational.com
Greater Things
Divine Romance: Unpacking the Song of Songs with Dr Brian Simmons
Brian Simmons returns after facing significant health challenges to share his profound passion for the Song of Songs, revealing why this ancient text remains perhaps the most transformative book in Scripture for understanding God's heart toward us.
After surviving heart failure with just 15% heart function, Brian brings renewed perspective on what truly matters - experiencing and sharing divine love. He offers a glimpse into the final stages of completing the Passion Translation, with only five books remaining before the entire Bible is finished in early 2027.
The conversation shifts to explore why the Song of Songs was the favorite book of the early church fathers long before the New Testament canon was completed. Rather than viewing it as merely one of Solomon's romantic exploits, Brian unpacks how this poetic masterpiece reveals the divine romance between Christ and His bride.
What makes this text exceptionally powerful is how it legitimizes our emotional connection with God. "How can we dare relate to God without our emotion?" Brian asks, challenging religious perspectives that prioritize intellect or behaviour over heart connection. The Song portrays a God who sees us as already beautiful and perfected, even while we still see our flaws - a "divine psychology" where loving affirmation becomes the catalyst for spiritual maturity.
This perspective transforms how we view ourselves and others. Brian shares how God challenged him to "overestimate the value of people" - to see them not according to their current state but according to God's perspective. Through personal stories of morning communion rituals and blessing even those who have harmed him, he demonstrates how this "love theology" creates space for authentic relationship rather than religious performance.
Curious about discovering your identity as the beloved of God? This conversation invites you to return to this ancient love poem with fresh eyes, allowing its divine romance to transform how you see yourself, others, and the One who pursues us until we surrender to love.
https://www.thepassiontranslation.com/author/briansimmons/
www.greaterthingsinternational.com
In today's episode I'm back with Brian Simmons. It's been a little while and he's had a few health challenges in the meantime, but today I've asked him to unpack his passion for the Song of Songs Hope you enjoy. Today on the Greater Things podcast, I'm back with a friend of mine. It's been a little while and there's been a few ups and downs and speed bumps and hiccups along the way, but he's back doing brilliant things. He's a few books shy of finishing the Passion Translation and to most people around the world he is the author of the Passion Translation or the key translator of it. But to me he's a friend and it's just such a joy to sit with you, brian. I just want to hear, mate, how you're doing and what you're up to at the moment.
Speaker 2:Thank you, my friend. Love being with you anytime. I'm doing well for those that you know that care. I had a heart failure in 2024 and kind of kept me sidelined for a number of months. My heart function was at 15%. I don't think you can get much lower and God has been the strength of my heart. That verse really encourages me. The Lord is the strength of my heart and been doing better.
Speaker 2:The good thing about all of this is that I have been able to catch up a lot of translation work and I'm currently about to start the book of Ezra. So we have five books left after Ezra only four. So I'm counting them down, getting really excited about the finished date, excited about the finish date 2027, early in the year, about 18 to 20 months from now, I hope to be able to have the entire Bible finished and then, of course, it'll go through a significant theological review, an editorial review, and, yeah, then the whole Bible will be out in the Passion Translation for those that like it and for those that don't, that's okay, they'll still be able to read it and hopefully it will touch the lives of many people.
Speaker 1:I love that For those who like it. I've found many, many people who would go beyond the word. Like there, brian, and like I said to you before we started, I often say to people is there anything you'd like me to ask, brian? And once again and I've said this before it all just comes back to saying thank you, thank you for the things that you've brought in to this work, thank you for your integrity, thank you, thank you for your courage, man.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you, I'm humbled by that. It's astounding to me how many people have prayed me through this health challenge. I do feel like I'm getting stronger. I visit the cardiologist soon and hopefully he'll give me some. I know he will. He'll give me some really good reports. But I'm humbled by this, matt. It's just incredible the love that you have shown to me, you and your crew, your team. I'm just blessed by that and honored to be with you today and honored to be able to speak into the hearts of your friends.
Speaker 1:Thanks, mate. Today I wanted to have a conversation with you around a topic that is so dear to your heart and again, I've heard you speak on this topic a few times. I enjoy reading it in the translation that you put together. It has opened up my heart and mind to so much more that was contained in such a small book of the Bible. But the Song of Songs, or Solomon's great song that's recorded there in the Bible for so long, has had all these other nuances that have been associated and attached with it. But for you it's something that draws you back, and I heard you say the other day that if you were God for a day, you would just have everyone fall in love with this one book. Mate, I just want to dive into understanding why this is such an impacting book for you, mate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's great. That's a great topic, one of my favorites. So thank you. You know, if you looked at church history, this book the Song of Solomon, song of Songs, was the favorite of the early church Before the canon of Scripture was completed. Every church did not have every book in our New Testament. They may have had a few letters or gospel, but they didn't have a completed canon until what? Third century.
Speaker 2:So the earliest records we have of our church fathers. They were enamored with the Song of Solomon. They taught it to the people as a divine romance of God's great love through our Lord Jesus Christ, for his bride, the Shulamite, of course, being the bride of Christ, solomon being a picture of the king. So, rather than it being one of Solomon's adulterous affairs and he had a lot of them it is the most holy, in my understanding, the most beautiful, holy, powerful book that will change the very DNA, the spirit, life of every believer. It has to be the devil that tries to keep people confused about it and you know having them not read it it. I encourage everyone to read the Song of Solomon and understand that you, male or female, you are the one he has chosen and he's chasing and he will relentlessly pursue you until you go to the mountains with him. So it's an allegory, it's a metaphor, it's a story, it's a parable, and perhaps that throws some people off because we've been taught, you know, that the Bible is to be taken literally. Well, yeah, but there are many places that you cannot interpret the scriptures literally because they're parables, they're parabolic. And the Song of Solomon, when you understand the symbols, it comes alive. But as far as my own personal journey in this book, for about 30 plus years, it's been my fascination and I've read, I've tried to read, every single commentary I could find. Perhaps you have one that I've not read. I doubt it, but possibly, and I just, you know, head first, heart first.
Speaker 2:I've gone into the study of this book and I am convinced by what it's done in my own heart that it is a God-ordained weapon, a tool to break open the hard shell of our heart. Break open the hard shell of our heart and when it happens, when the heart breaks open like the seed that falls into the ground and dies and breaks open, life and love come streaming out. You know the first love it tells us in the book of Revelation. It gives us a warning to come back to our first love. Well, first love is his love for us. He first loved us. So it's not a yoke of bondage.
Speaker 2:Oh no, I got to come back to my first love. What does that mean I've got to do all this? No, what you really need to do is receive the first love of God for you, and when you become a really good receiver, then you can become a transmitter. You can release it to others. But it's so crucial that you, me, all of us, you and I that we receive in the deepest place of our heart this profound revelation that he calls us beautiful. He wants us in the cloud-filled chamber. He wants to walk with us and run with us and take us to the mountains of spice, into the bliss of union with Him, and to show us how deeply he cares for us and loves us, how deeply he cares for us and loves us. There's so many beautiful scriptures, you know, in the Bible, but none better than the Song of Solomon.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I cannot agree with you more. Like my wife, she would be reading Song of Songs regularly through the year and the only version she reads now is yours, and I'm sure that there are plenty of other takes and versions on it, but there's something about it that speaks so strongly as well into the feminine heart that I've watched time and time again Because I love how you connect the Shulamite with the Bride of Christ, the church, and there's so many times women have had, we say, the rough end of the pineapple over here in Australia, the pull the short straw, whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 1:But it's been abuse over years and all kinds of things. And this book calls to them, calls to their spirit, calls to their heart, and I was going to say it's the grace of God. But I feel like there's more words than just saying this is the grace of God. Is there more words that you'd place around that sort of idea or concept?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's brilliant. I would say that it legitimizes the feminine heart and it legitimizes our passion and our emotion. How can we dare relate to God without our emotion? You know, it would be like me telling my wife you know well, I like you, but don't expect my emotions to be moved by you. No, we're to love God with all of our heart. That's passion, that's emotion.
Speaker 2:Now, life is more than emotion and our love and devotion to God is more than an emotion. But it has to include and involve the very intimate places of our heart where we are moved by the things of the Spirit. And when somebody you know, just your friendship, moves me, matt, I'm touched. I appreciate so much you and other friends that are kind and generous in your. You know how you relate to me and I want to be that way to you as well. I want to be a friend that speaks life and love into your heart. But who better than Jesus, the lover of our soul, that when he whispers? I call you lovely, I call you beautiful, flawless. You're my lookalike, you're the one I bled to death to have, you're the one I delight.
Speaker 2:In Chapter 7, he says all his delights are in us, even as our delight is in him. He says my delight is in you. I have a longing for you, even as you have a passion for me. So that mutuality of love and desire for the things of God that is in part, that is emotional.
Speaker 2:So I believe the Song of Songs legitimizes passion for God and we're told to love Him with all of our heart. So let's start with our heart and love Him and give Him our heart, give Him our time and the very passions of our being. In him we live and move and have our being. We need to be moved by God and not just by what's happening in the world or by the difficulties in our family, but to be moved by this fiery passion God has for us. Wow, matt, it's incredible.
Speaker 2:You opened up a can of doves when you invite me to talk about the Song of Solomon, because there's nothing like it. It changed my life, it changed my ministry, how I see people, how I relate to others. When he looks at us and he calls us beautiful and lovely, long before we feel it. I mean we look in the mirror, we see our flaws, we see our issues, but he looks at us not according to our issues. He looks at us according to what he's doing in us and the, the finished product, that completion of his work to make us like christ, to become like him. So he sees us in that completed work and that's why he can speak to us, those words that that move us so deeply.
Speaker 1:I love that my heart like it.
Speaker 1:When I'm reading what you've been writing, and just even the things that you're saying, as a husband, my mind broadens, my eyes get opened to see more of Trish, to see more of my wife, and it's the language that is added to the conversations.
Speaker 1:For me, that listening to you talk about it, listening and seeing the passion within you, is something that blesses my spirit, blesses my heart, but it widens my thinking, it opens my mind, it allows me to see more than I've ever seen before. And that's when you first wrote it and I was pastoring a local church at the time, and you landed on me the concept that the Shulamite is the bride of Christ. It was like that moment where I sat there and go wow, let's just think deeper, let's open ourselves up to an understanding of what does this divine dance, this divine romance, actually look like. And so I felt like it grew something within me that was God had already placed there. But it allowed me to think again. It allowed me to see, and the phrase in the Bible that I just so much love is eyes to see, ears to hear.
Speaker 1:He's given us both of these things already. It's not like I have to ask God for eyes or I have to ask God for ears. He's given me those things. And then you come along, drop a revelation into the bride of Christ. I love how you say it's been there for centuries, millennia, but inside of it you've allowed us into a moment where we can grow, where we can understand, where we can develop, but we can see and as part of the human condition to be seen and designed to be seen, it's a part of love to see the person that you're actually walking beside, regardless if it's your wife, your son, your daughter, your friend, whoever it is that comes across you, to see them. Like Jesus saying don't judge by what you see. Look beneath the surface your writings on the Song of Songs, your teachings on it. That's to me, looking beneath the surface to see something that is heavenly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is heavenly. It is like it's not the most beautiful song of Solomon, it's the most beautiful song ever. It is the most superlative, transcendent, because it comes out of heaven. It's how heaven sees you. Wouldn't you like to know what Jesus really thinks about you?
Speaker 2:Well, the Song of Songs is his heartbeat. It is his words, his love and his affirmation that he doesn't give up on us. He doesn't get disgusted by our slow growth and our immaturity. He loves a challenge and, just like you know, I love my kids and my grandkids, and that doesn't mean they're perfect, but I love them. I'm not going to let my love be diluted by their issues.
Speaker 2:So it is with God. He can look at us with a lens of love that comes out of eternity and he's unmoved by our flaws and He'll take care of it. You know, he's king of our hearts and he's king over our flaws. So he's committed his very blood. He's committed to finishing the beautiful work of transformation in our heart and he sees us already there. That's the thing about the Song of Solomon is that he sees the bride already perfected.
Speaker 2:She doesn't and we don't. We have to go through this process of understanding that when he calls us beautiful. It's so that we'll rise up and be that beautiful partner, that perfect match for Him. So it's divine psychology and it has such power to mature us. Angry exhortations don't mature the bride, but loving affirmations will put a crown on our head and will cause us to grow, and to grow until we fit that estimation that he has of us, to grow until we fit that estimation that he has of us. So it's really. You know, if you tell your children how horrible they are, they're going to be horrible. If you tell your kids how wonderful they are, they're going to live up to that. They may do horrible things, but that's not who they are. They're wonderful.
Speaker 1:And if we keep affirming them them, they'll come back because they know the heart of love is towards them yeah, I love how you picked up on that identity piece because it's it is an act of love to see someone for who, who they are, and love elevates where often religion will de-escalate. Like it, the love looks at the heart. The religion will often look at the sin or the behavior, and time and time again in Scripture we see God doing that very thing where he's looking at the heart, like when he turned up to Gideon. He's not there telling Gideon about his unbelief. He's actually calling him this mighty champion or this mighty warrior.
Speaker 1:And you have these extraordinary figures inside the Bible, like Samson, for goodness sake, like where's his list of good deeds that got him into the favour of God, that allowed him to be this judge of Israel, and you read that and you go how does grace, how does love, how does? And if you get into that place of confusion, it's often because we're thinking with those thoughts of religion Wow, that we need to qualify someone before they can be this person that God has created them to be. And I love this is what I love about how you've done this with the Shulamite too, and it's the way Solomon wrote it Like he pursued her, he went after her, even when she pushed him away. He's like you can push me away all you like, I'm still going to speak what I see. And each time he comes back to speak what he sees, it's like there's a different part of her character that he's speaking powerfully to. But I just so love how you land in that place of identity.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I know from experience how it's changed my heart and, like I said, how I see other people. I'm trying, you know, I'm attempting with grace to view every single person I meet with a lens of love over my heart. And the Lord said to me one time he said I dare you to overestimate the value of people. And that just rocked me been trying to look at every person, those that you know don't drive right in front of me or next to me in a line or whatever to see every person with God's heart of love. That's the key that will make your life winsome and alluring to others and only open doors and give you greater influence.
Speaker 2:Love is the key and you know religion will always say don't take it too far. You know they'll want to throw a little bit of this or that in there to ruin it. Why can't we just leave it the way John said it God is love. If you don't have love, you don't have God. So to truly walk with God is to walk in his love and to see him as our perfect savior and king and to see other people as those whom he dearly loves, so important.
Speaker 1:Yep, when I think about God is love, I about the brian simmons uh footnotes around that you know.
Speaker 1:and I think so often, mate, I I love reading your thoughts in those notes, but so often religion will put a footnote on there of a an out clause or a yeah, don't take it too far, don't read too much into it. And, having been in the church as long as I have, it's time for the pendulum to swing back. It's time for us to. It's like the people of Berea be open-minded to the things of the kingdom of God. And so Paul rocks into town. He's got something to say. They don't kick him out like the people in Thess and ike are all those others that are just um down on him. They're like sit down, let's have a cup of coffee, let's talk about this thing, let's unpack the very thing that you're talking about and we want to engage with it.
Speaker 1:My heart beats faster when you come across people who just want to engage, want to understand, and when you start talking love. I have yet to meet a person who doesn't want to be loved. I've met plenty of people who don't want to be evangelized, but I've yet to meet a person who doesn't want to be loved, and this aspect for me is so, so important in the understanding of my relationship with God. But just the way that I do life, like to love the person standing beside you in a queue. It changes something internally of you. It makes you think, not about how much am I about to pay for these groceries, but I wonder who this person is beside me.
Speaker 1:When you start thinking about people who've done you great harm in aspects of how can I see them, how can I love them. It does something internally to me where it's like transformation, it's like an invitation into transformation, just simply by I wonder if I can love this person. Years ago it would be. How can I share the gospel with these people? But I feel like God's, like we can get to that. But I want to start with. Who is this person standing beside you? Can you see the wonder of the person that I have created? Like the Shulamite woman? We can sort of put together some concept of the parable of the history of her life, but could we really stand in her shoes? Well, I reckon there are people who are standing in those places waiting to be seen, waiting to be heard, waiting to be understood, to discover this first love that you're talking about.
Speaker 2:You know, here's something I found in translating Genesis the very first revelation, self-revelation of God. Now we know he's Elohim in Genesis 1, but the first time God revealed himself it was I am the God who sees you. I'm the God who sees you. And he gave that revelation to Hagar, who was rejected, who you know wasn't in our thinking, wasn't, you know, the favorite. She was, you know, an outcast. And yet the Lord came and said I am the God who sees you. And she called the well where she was at. She was the first woman at the well. She called it the well of the God who sees me. I think we need to come back to the well where she was at. She was the first woman at the well. She called it the well of the God who sees me.
Speaker 2:I think we need to come back to the well of the God who sees me. And when you understand that, if you have felt rejected by others the world, family, whoever come back, take a drink, take a long, cool drink at the well of the God who sees you and know that he hears you. Not only does he see you, but he hears you. Not only does he hear you, he loves you. So to help people belong before they believe is the key. And the way we help people to belong is you have a place in my life. You have a place. I'm present, I'm going to listen to you, I'm going to hear your heart, I'm going to respond in love and I want you to know that you belong and that will open the door for the gospel to believe. So you know, I think love's the key.
Speaker 1:You know just as you're sharing the whole belonging to believe. When I was pastoring, the idea is you belong to this church, like you're a part of this church. We would even use language around, you're part of the family, but as a pastor, from that personal point of view, that you're a part of my life, you're in my life that was a far trickier thing for me to navigate and I didn't do that brilliantly well often. But it's that idea that so often the model of doing church revolves around you belong to an organization or you belong to this thing, but to belong to me, like, not as in ownership, but as in connection, as in relationship, that is a far richer conversation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, not only are we the Shulamite, but they are too if they follow the Lord Jesus and become a lover of God. So we need to see the pre-Shulamites. As you know, they're on a journey, like we all are, to come to faith in Christ. Not everybody believes. We understand that, but God so loved the world that he gave, and we need to so love that it causes us to give our time, our treasure, our attention, our heart to other people and just put the bubble wrap of love around their life. That you know, you're okay. God's going to work this out. He has a plan for your life that's greater than the momentary mess you're in and if you'll take one step toward Him right now, you're going to be overwhelmed with the wraparound love of God that will soothe, comfort, encourage and give you a focus for your life. Yeah, yeah, let me ask you one focus for your life, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you one more question, mate the wraparound love of God. I've heard you share this before and I love it. How does Brian Simmons put that wraparound love around himself?
Speaker 2:How do you love yourself? Well, my focus is to really love the Lord Jesus with all my heart, and, of course, self-care is important, that we have a love for ourselves, that the day you know, to awaken the dawn with my song of praise and love to Jesus and with the cup and the bread of communion that the Lord has given to us as a way of remembering him. Wow, it has become a portal, my chair, right over here where I sit and watch the sun come up. It has become like I don't know how to say it a chariot of grace and glory and it transports me and I'm able to experience the fresh kiss of God on my heart as the Duke of the morning comes. It refreshes my soul and strengthens my life.
Speaker 2:And as I take the bread, I just feast, I feast, I feast on his love. I try not to make it about me. We're to remember Him. So it's not just my sin that we think about. We think about His body that took our sins. The feast of love. And then the blood, the cup. As I drink the blood of Christ, I ask for cleansing, and you know I don't worry about theology, and here I am a theologian, but I don't get in the weeds, I don't get lost in that. I just say cleanse me. Your blood has power to cleanse my soul, secret sins, sins that I don't even know about. Lord, just cleanse my conscience, my heart, and, lord, if you bring something up in my spirit that I need to ask you to forgive, so be it. And there are many mornings that will happen, and not every morning, but many mornings. I will name the names of people who have attacked me and who have slandered and come against me personally in a really in a serious way, but I lift their name before the Lord.
Speaker 2:I speak blessing, I speak love and I say Lord, help me to mean it, help me to not to just say that but to really mean this and I bless their family and hope one day maybe one of them will watch this and know that I'm praying and I'm blessing you and I'm releasing love back over you and you know their health, their finances, their family. I go through that with them and just pray like they're my best friend so that's you know, communion and communion and, of course, worship.
Speaker 2:I'm a worshiper and an intercessor, so to worship every day and to set my heart before him, that's the bubble wrap that gets me through the trials and the heat of the day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. I love that, mate, and it's just to me, the loving self statement. I think at times, as the Christian church, we've missed that. Yeah, we've taught people, we've sent people out, but we looked in a mirror to look in and that conversation of how to. I think that's unique, like I love that you can put that into words, for the uniqueness of how that works for you. And the challenge in so much of the Christian world is they'll go well. Brian said that, so let me just do that, that, that, that. But that's not the divine dance. The divine dance, the divine romance, is to discover these life-giving moments for self. Like, trish and I do something similar where we sit and watch the sunrise. We have two chairs in our bedroom that watch the sun come up over the east, and often it's not the wine we have in our hands, but it's a nice cup of coffee.
Speaker 2:Of course.
Speaker 1:But it's that sort of aspect that allows us slow down, connect with our Saviour, to look out on creation and to see the work of the Father right there in front of you, rather than rushing into a day Like today.
Speaker 1:I've rushed into the day. I haven't had my coffee with Trish yet because I get to sit here with you for a moment, but she's going to be so excited to hear what we've been chatting about and talking about. But these are the rhythms for me of you know, jesus pursues us like Solomon pursues the Shulamite, and discovering those rhythms inside of our lives, that he wants to be present, that he wants to be met, that he wants to be loved as much as we want to be loved. And I think you've captured that so beautifully that it has allowed the word of God to breathe that love out to us and to draw us in, to connect with the characters. And again, I can't tell you how many people have said I just so much connect with Ashulamite, whether they are male, whether they are female. In a world that is racing to the future, could we be a people that slow down in the moment and discover the wonder of the person that God has created in front of us?
Speaker 2:Wow, that's incredible. Yeah, oh, tell me more. I feel like interviewing you. This is so good man.
Speaker 1:It's just I love sitting with you, mate, because when I sit with a man who has gone through the things that you have gone through and going through, that's the inspiration for me. That's where I get curious. Like the first time I interviewed you, you shared your story around being a missionary and how fraught that was physically, let alone anything else, and I saw a guy and his wife and his family, the cost that you've paid. None of us are going to be able to understand that properly or fully, and we get a taste of it when we sit and go. Can you tell me the story? Can you help me understand what drew you to the mission field? And what I'm doing then is going beneath the surface and seeing the man, seeing the marriage, seeing the family, seeing the call of God on life.
Speaker 2:Mate, this is to me it's like that love that binds us together as Paul would say yeah Well, my wife and I we got married with this plan that we would go where the gospel had never been, and God let that dream come to pass. He fulfilled our dream. But for weeks and months, and really years before we got there, we just would weep before the presence of God as a couple on our face, and just ask God to use us. Take our life Long or short, if it's brief, or if we live to be aged, just take us, lord, we want to make your name famous. We want to see one tribe come to know Jesus, because it says in Revelation that every tribe, tongue, people and nation are going to come to the Lord. And we heard that there were 2,000 tribes that had never heard. There was no representative at the Sea of Glass, so that you know, in a theological construct.
Speaker 2:That's what moved us in part, and just a longing to make a difference, to change the world, to share this love that we experienced with others. And now, 54 years down the road in marriage, we still have that desire as a couple to express the, the inexpressible love of God, to touch the most broken, the most hurting, the most devastated and to tell them Zechariah 12, verse 8, the weakest among us shall be like David. So God has strength in your future. He has transformation ahead for every person here viewing this today. He's going to change you powerfully, dramatically. He's going to love you into wholeness. He's going to love the daylights into you and glory is going to surround your soul and the bride will become radiant. So radiance is in your future. The best days ever are still ahead for each one of us, and when that hope-filled message gets out, wow, it changes us. It gives us a reason to get out of bed in the morning.
Speaker 1:You preach prayers, man. It's just like I feel like just saying amen on the end of when you speak. It's just like the way you speak draws me into relationship, connection with yourself, with God. I just can only say thank you and giving me this time and allowing me just to pick your brain.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you. It's just incredible, isn't it? If we focus on the love of God. You know, I know we need to finish here, but why don't we talk more about it? If love is really supreme and what Paul says, that love conquers, love endures. When faith and hope fade, love will endure. Faith and hope fade, love will endure. If it's really that foundational, why don't we teach more and speak more on the love of God? Yes, he's holy, yes, he's the king and he's the judge. I totally get it. But what will transform you more than anything else is the sweet, delicious, radiant love of Jesus Christ. It will change you from the inside out and it doesn't modify your behavior. It transforms your soul.
Speaker 1:Again, it's just amen and amen and amen. Like Paul says, it's the greatest of the faith, hope and love. But we seem to speak the least on it when I hear Christian leaders say I found the secret. It's fasting or it's serving or it's giving. It's just like all of those things are cool and great, but why do we jump over love others, as I have loved you to get to a practice rather than to a connection and relationship.
Speaker 2:And Paul says we can do all those things without love and it's nothing. Yep, I wonder how much nothing we've been doing in the church.
Speaker 1:That's, yeah, that's. There's a sadness in my spirit like about that too, Like being a part of the process and part of the that for so long, until people like people like yourself, they're helping us shatter the mould of a model of church that has always been, or for as long as I've been around or leading churches, or there's some sort of method of success that we strive to attain, rather than how can I love Brian brilliantly well? And what I've found is, if I can discover how to love Brian brilliantly well, I can even discover how to love me well. I can love my wife better, well, deeper, I can. Eyes to see and ears to hear.
Speaker 1:I've often said to people that love is the greatest evangelistic tool we have. But why do we use theology to convince when we can use love to connect? These are the aspects for me. Brian and I know the ideas of sharing and speaking more in this place. I feel like this is an opportunity for people to listen, to engage, to be like the people of Berea and go if you've only ever thought theologically around these ideas and even theologically trying to sift through it, do that. But first love. Allow the love to be seen, to be heard, look to the heart of Brian to discover who this man is. Listen to the story of Brian and you'll see far more than you will from trying to judge a theology from a distance. And the same for myself. So you've got me going, mate.
Speaker 2:Well, I call it love theology. Let's start there. You know that's the only theological system that God invented, the ones that man invented. They will get you off track and will divide over that, but the love theology of you know God is love and that he created us because he loves us and wants fellowship with us, wants to be with us, longs for us with yearning and will pursue us until we surrender, until we wave the white flag and say I love you, lord. He's going to keep doing what he's doing to pull us like a tractor beam into his heart 100%.
Speaker 1:I'm going to put a full stop in this.
Speaker 2:I'll keep just going and going and going, brian, yeah, Thank you so much for including me, matt, and you're a wonderful brother in Christ and a treasure in the kingdom. I'm honored to be your friend and you're a wonderful brother in Christ and a treasure in the kingdom.
Speaker 1:I'm honored to be your friend. I can't tell you how much those words mean to me, brian, coming from a guy who sees and does the things that you do, and to know that you can see my heart. There is no greater statement than that. Well, friends, this is the Greater Things Podcast. Thanks for hanging out with Brian and I today. I trust that something has been super helpful for you in this and we'll be back in your ears sometime again soon. Bye for now. You can find us on Facebook, instagram and YouTube, or go to our website, greaterthingsinternationalcom.