S4 Episode 34: Romans 6:1b-11

Translation: NRSVue

3 Questions:

What word, phrase or image strikes you in this text?

Toward what is God calling you in this text?

What is the evidence that you walk in newness of life?

Additional texts:

Jeremiah 20:7-13

Psalm 69:7-18

Matthew 10:24-39

Genesis 21:8-21

Psalm 86:1-10, 16-17

Transcript

00:00:03.12
Nathan Pile
Kevin, right outside of my window, there is a Robin who is hopping around in the yard and sticking his beak in the ground looking for worms right now, right at this very minute. I can just see him perfectly.

00:00:18.59
Kevin Shock
Gross.

00:00:19.16
Nathan Pile
he, He's feeding himself.

00:00:22.40
Kevin Shock
I know.

00:00:22.71
Nathan Pile
That was my connection, Kevin.

00:00:23.34
Kevin Shock
I know. Sorry.

00:00:26.04
Nathan Pile
all right. Just like we are about to feed our souls with the word of God, this Robin is feeding and maybe even feeding his family or her. I can't, I can't tell if it's a male or female Robin.

00:00:37.59
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

00:00:37.84
Nathan Pile
I don't know.

00:00:38.27
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

00:00:39.35
Nathan Pile
It could be whichever one they could be looking for food for their own family. Like even, even, um even more touching that they're going to feed their family with a wholesome worm.

00:00:54.71
Kevin Shock
So, so the robin the robin is feeding on the worm in ground, and we are feeding on the word of God.

00:01:00.24
Nathan Pile
yes word yeah yeah very nice super good connection, I like that um

00:01:04.89
Kevin Shock
Wow. Mind blown.

00:01:11.26
Nathan Pile
Well, welcome back, everybody, even though Bishop is going to be a little snarky, it seems, this morning or this afternoon, depending when you're listening.

00:01:13.19
Kevin Shock
Yep.

00:01:16.35
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

00:01:19.62
Nathan Pile
um But this week, Kevin and I are going to look at a Bible passage from the book of Romans, chapter 6.

00:01:31.45
Nathan Pile
verse one b to 11. um And that 1b is really important. You're going to avoid the first like six words and a question mark, and then you're going to continue to read.

00:01:45.56
Nathan Pile
So um

00:01:46.68
Kevin Shock
it's only, It's only because that's what the lectionary assigns.

00:01:50.16
Nathan Pile
that's only because that's what the lectionary says.

00:01:51.08
Kevin Shock
You can read the first question if you want to.

00:01:52.73
Nathan Pile
yeah It's not going to ruin the whole text if you read the first sentence, which is a question.

00:01:56.47
Kevin Shock
no. no

00:01:58.76
Nathan Pile
But anyway, Romans chapter 6, 1b through 11 are the verses we're going be looking at today. Kevin and I are going to read it through the New Revised Standard Version, updated edition.

00:02:11.10
Nathan Pile
um You could follow along in whatever Bible you have close at hand, or um you could look it up on thebiblegateway.com. or in your Bible Gateway app if you happen to have it on ah on your cellular device.

00:02:28.22
Nathan Pile
um Yeah, so that's um that's what we're going to be doing. We're going to look at it using the lens of three questions, or maybe I would say the filter of using three questions. What word, phrase, or image strikes you in this text? Toward what is God calling you in this text?

00:02:47.26
Nathan Pile
And what is the evidence that you walk in newness of life? Hmm.

00:02:56.98
Nathan Pile
Maybe hopping like a robin in the yard.

00:02:59.54
Kevin Shock
Mm hmm. Could be.

00:03:00.63
Nathan Pile
Could be, that could be it.

00:03:03.03
Kevin Shock
Here is some information about your hosts. We are men married to women in financially stable households, white, firmly in middle age, college and seminary educated. We work in the Lutheran Church and were born and raised in Western Pennsylvania.

00:03:17.59
Kevin Shock
All of this affects how we read scripture and discuss it, but none of this makes us better able to read and discuss scripture than anyone else. We believe that the wisdom of scripture is the whole community's compiled interpretation for life with God and one another. So we want to know what you hear and think from your life experience.

00:03:37.02
Kevin Shock
As Nathan said, we're reading from Romans 6 in the NRSVUE.

00:03:43.83
Kevin Shock
Should we continue in sin in order that grace may increase? By no means. how can, How can we who died to sin go on living in it?

00:03:50.49
Nathan Pile
Thank you.

00:03:54.84
Kevin Shock
Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore, we were buried with him by baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.

00:04:10.17
Kevin Shock
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, so we might no longer be enslaved to sin.

00:04:24.79
Kevin Shock
For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again.

00:04:35.45
Kevin Shock
Death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all. But the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

00:04:51.29
Kevin Shock
If you are meeting with a group, you can pause the podcast now and engage the questions on your own. um But you can also listen to Nathan's inspired response to this question.

00:05:03.42
Kevin Shock
What word, phrase, or image strikes you in this text?

00:05:03.48
Nathan Pile
ah

00:05:07.21
Nathan Pile
Uh, I was, my inspired response is I wish you would have picked a different translation. Um, no, I'm just joking.

00:05:13.59
Kevin Shock
Well.

00:05:14.23
Nathan Pile
Um, no, this is this, this is, uh, again, Romans. I, I'm sure I've said this some time point in the last three and a half years.

00:05:21.71
Kevin Shock
Yep.

00:05:24.07
Kevin Shock
Yep.

00:05:24.13
Nathan Pile
Romans is, is Paul's, um, final writing. It's his system at its most, um, complex yet he's trying to make it understandable um but here is where it feels like it just we we get into a um a thought theolog-, theology tornado maybe and and trying to wrestle with well what does this phrase mean and we're talking death and resurrection and um and he kind of spins us around a little bit here so so uh

00:05:58.08
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

00:06:00.25
Nathan Pile
so, So for me, the, the, the word, phrase, that kind of stuck out to me was in that sixth verse.

00:06:12.63
Nathan Pile
um We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed. And so here is where Paul is...

00:06:26.03
Nathan Pile
placing us with christ in the, in the tomb on the cross and in the tomb and that essentially christ is carrying us through the process of which we can't um we can't live or earn for ourselves um this is the gift this is where where Jesus puts us on our backs and carries us home kind of a thing um And that, you know, essentially that's one of the pieces of his argument here is, is that that Jesus frees us from the thing that the the thing that destroys us, our own sin, our own selfishness, our own desire for our own way that gets in the way of us living as disciples, living as God's loving people in every situation.

00:07:18.04
Nathan Pile
to the thing that we can't get past this, this idea of our own selfishness, our own sinfulness. Jesus is helping us, carrying us across the finish line of the race that we can't possibly complete ourselves. And so That's the, that phrase to me, again, it's, it's far more complicated than it, than it I feel like it needs to be.

00:07:45.27
Nathan Pile
But again, this is Paul's system and this is the end of, it's a great system. It's a wonderful system. It's a system that Martin Luther, when he reads Paul,

00:07:56.18
Nathan Pile
Martin Luther becomes a follower of Paul's theology because of the freedom that that it brings forth for us. And so a lot of times we would say that, that um, you know Luther, Luther follows Paul.

00:08:09.49
Nathan Pile
We're not positive Paul would follow Luther. We don't have that reciprocal way of, of understanding their relationship because they were 1,500 years apart.

00:08:18.87
Kevin Shock
Right.

00:08:20.16
Nathan Pile
But Luther absolutely read Paul's theology and feels like it, it frees us by understanding, our relationship with, with, uh, with Jesus and, and who Jesus is, uh, for us. And so, um, Martin Luther grabs onto this language and and helps us to understand that we're saint and sinner where, you know, it's all those, it's all those pieces of, of, um, we're sinful and saved.

00:08:54.94
Nathan Pile
That word "and," Jesus is the one that's able to unite them for us because we, through our own actions, aren't going to be able to do it because eventually our own selfish desires are going to get in the way of that.

00:09:05.50
Nathan Pile
So so this that that sixth verse to me is a powerful verse. It is...

00:09:15.26
Nathan Pile
I think, again, would say complex, but it's, it is, think, freeing for us as we move forward. This whole section does that for us. But that would be my answer here to this first question of what phrase catches my fancy. It's that statement by Paul.

00:09:36.86
Nathan Pile
that that statement by Paul

00:09:42.81
Nathan Pile
um his confidence, I'm not positive we have his confidence of six. We know, you know, we know that our old self was crucified. I think sometimes we don't know that.

00:09:54.12
Nathan Pile
or Sometimes we doubt that. But again, this is Paul at the end of his

00:09:56.34
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

00:09:59.48
Nathan Pile
um the end of his ministry writing to a community that he's coming to, to preach and teach among um and he wants to make sure that they understand what he has come to learn in his journey of faith so... what about you my friend what word phrase or image strikes you about this passage

00:10:24.34
Kevin Shock
Well, I, I know that you like Paul.

00:10:27.64
Nathan Pile
I do sometimes

00:10:29.05
Kevin Shock
You just don't like talking about Paul.

00:10:31.19
Nathan Pile
Well, I don't like sometimes reading Paul. Really, I like the other letters. this, I, Romans I do find to be complex.

00:10:39.67
Kevin Shock
It is complex. It's also...

00:10:45.27
Kevin Shock
I, I don't know. Maybe, maybe I, yeah, this isn't this isn't the easiest kind of text to do what we're doing what we do with text. I'll, I'll admit to that.

00:10:53.80
Nathan Pile
Sure. Sure. Sure.

00:10:55.00
Kevin Shock
um But I do like that Romans doesn't pull any punches and just gets it all out there in whatever way he can say it and and try to make it understandable for people.

00:11:05.36
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

00:11:11.18
Kevin Shock
um Romans definitely takes a bit of study, I think, um to start to grasp what it's saying.

00:11:15.54
Nathan Pile
It does. I agree.

00:11:18.13
Kevin Shock
And I'm not saying like, I'm not saying like you, you dumb people out there need to study it more. I'm saying it has taken me a long time to start to grasp what it is saying.

00:11:30.38
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

00:11:30.77
Nathan Pile
Sure.

00:11:31.20
Kevin Shock
So

00:11:34.73
Nathan Pile
Well, Luther really liked Romans, but he also really liked Galatians.

00:11:34.76
Kevin Shock
he did. He did.

00:11:37.91
Kevin Shock
He did. he said he did

00:11:41.18
Nathan Pile
um And between the two, Galatians is easier to read. Oh, yeah.

00:11:45.06
Kevin Shock
Yeah. Yeah, that's that's probably true. um I just, I like the way that Paul says things definitively in Romans. and I mean, he says things pretty definitively in every letter, but this is, um yeah, the the there's not there's not really any question about who he sees Christ as and the role that he sees Christ playing in salvation, in relationship with us, in relationship with God.

00:12:15.03
Kevin Shock
in relationship with sin and grace. So anyway, um ah the word that gets me is consider. um Because I think it's very easy to read this section of Romans and just say, oh what I'm getting out of this is I just shouldn't sin anymore.

00:12:40.18
Kevin Shock
because Christ died for me. And that's not what's being said here. Like this reading should not drive us to say, oh, I really need to stop sinning.

00:12:52.31
Kevin Shock
and That's not the point of this text, I don't think.

00:12:52.51
Nathan Pile
Right.

00:12:54.87
Kevin Shock
um

00:12:55.41
Nathan Pile
Right.

00:12:56.56
Kevin Shock
The point of this text is that we have been freed from sin because Christ has joined himself to us in death and resurrection.

00:12:59.95
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

00:13:04.60
Kevin Shock
ah And being freed from sin is probably, there's a subtle difference between, the being freed from sin is not saying that you don't sin anymore.

00:13:25.21
Kevin Shock
I mean, I, I, I think that certainly is like, ideally, that's the case. um and, and, And there is some kind of transformation that happens. But the reality is, and um this is, this is maybe where Paul doesn't wouldn't jive with Luther, but Luther says very strongly that we're we continue in this life to go through a daily process of dying and rising again.

00:13:52.18
Kevin Shock
Because sin still has a hold on us. Luther doesn't say that exactly in that way, but that's, that's, I mean, that's why. That's why this is a daily process of dying and rising again.

00:14:00.36
Nathan Pile
moment.

00:14:03.33
Kevin Shock
And it's not really a process that we have a lot of control over. It's a process that Christ has control over. um And, you know, could Jesus snap his fingers and...

00:14:16.57
Kevin Shock
Like we all just stop sinning put potentially, but that really doesn't lend toward transformation. That just lends toward a quick fix for the big problem.

00:14:32.12
Kevin Shock
um so ah So anyway, to get back to the word, um I don't think this is saying Don't sin anymore.

00:14:43.35
Kevin Shock
think this is saying, recognize on a regular basis that you have been freed from sin.

00:14:51.22
Kevin Shock
and And I think that, I think there's a better chance of the Holy Spirit transforming us if we adopt that kind of attitude toward our relationship to sin instead of just trying not to sin anymore.

00:15:06.33
Kevin Shock
us Us trying not to sin anymore removes Jesus from the equation.

00:15:13.05
Kevin Shock
like if, If that's how we solve the problem, then, then we, then we solve the problem. But that's not how we solve the problem. um Jesus has solved the problem, and we ah we need to figure out what the solution actually means for us.

00:15:33.18
Kevin Shock
So it's, it's considered.

00:15:33.28
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

00:15:35.18
Kevin Shock
This is this is not a um this is not a John the Baptist or even a Jesus passage of repent or change your hearts and minds.

00:15:46.39
Kevin Shock
This is Paul saying, this is how it is. So recognize that this is how it is and figure out what that means for you.

00:15:56.12
Nathan Pile
Well, and it's, it's a.

00:16:01.21
Nathan Pile
The way that you you think you live into the world

00:16:06.49
Nathan Pile
has been, is dead.

00:16:09.90
Nathan Pile
It's dead and buried. and And so each new day we need to be thinking about

00:16:18.30
Nathan Pile
how is it that we're living in this world?

00:16:23.58
Nathan Pile
Because the the old way of living...

00:16:28.40
Nathan Pile
isn't, isn't our way of living, isn't God's way of living, at least. And then therefore it should, not, not should, not the word should, but the, the I know, I know you, you and your, you're it's not a bad thing.

00:16:41.62
Kevin Shock
Well, no, no.

00:16:43.98
Nathan Pile
It's a good thing.

00:16:45.34
Kevin Shock
But also this is like this kind of read, this kind of reading is my chief evidence for why should is not a helpful word.

00:16:51.64
Nathan Pile
Right, it's not a helpful for

00:16:54.81
Kevin Shock
It's, it's not, it, it can be helpful, Nathan. I'm not, I'm not against the word itself.

00:16:57.93
Nathan Pile
I know, I know, I know. But as a part of this, part of Jesus getting us across the finish line, completing what we couldn't complete for ourselves, is there's a piece of freedom that comes with that.

00:17:14.07
Nathan Pile
But it the that daily cycle that Luther argues for us of of death and life is,

00:17:25.53
Nathan Pile
is it's hard to put the thing that the thing that we do and and really as American Christians, as a part of our culture has been all of our lives is that, you know,

00:17:39.32
Nathan Pile
have it your way. You do it. You know, when, when we're pushed with all of that, um, propaganda, that, that marketing, um message. And so it's, we want it, we want it our way. We want it, you know, we're going to just do it the way we want it.

00:17:59.29
Nathan Pile
All of those pieces, um, putting all, you know, putting Nike and Burger King slogans together there. Um,

00:18:10.10
Nathan Pile
How do we how do we put the, the, those desires that are that are within us, how do we put those aside and recognize that we've been freed to live a different way?

00:18:24.76
Nathan Pile
um It's a retraining, and rethinking, a rewiring that has to happen. And it's a daily, it's a daily process. I...

00:18:35.78
Kevin Shock
Um,

00:18:36.50
Nathan Pile
how do I love you more than I love myself.

00:18:45.82
Nathan Pile
is ah Is a different way of having to think in the world.

00:19:01.87
Kevin Shock
I, yeah, hearing what you said also got me thinking about, you know, the,

00:19:08.77
Kevin Shock
it's hard to find a metaphor for like how this feels or how we should consider it to be that that, as you said, Jesus has solved the problem for us. Jesus has accomplished what we could not accomplish on our own. um ah The only, you know, a lot of times we hear um like references and lot and they come from traditions other than ours usually. um and and some,

00:19:39.61
Kevin Shock
ah some salvation, like theory, theories of theories of atonement, theories of salvation that are not always helpful, I think. But I do think of it in this way that in terms of debt, if,

00:19:59.70
Kevin Shock
If there were a debt that we that we had incurred and it was so bad that we spent a good part of our day thinking about, well, I don't know how I'm ever going to pay this off.

00:20:14.94
Kevin Shock
I don't know how, how I'm ever going to get this balance down to zero. And then one day someone one comes along and says, I've taken care of your debt for you. What then changes about how we live our life?

00:20:32.60
Kevin Shock
I mean, ah I can make some assumptions about human beings, I think. One, we're not, we're not ever going to worry about paying down the debt again. So that worry is removed.

00:20:45.40
Kevin Shock
But then what does that, and this is a question I think people have to answer for themselves. What does that inspire in you to, to what you do being free from that worry? and being free from that debt.

00:20:56.70
Kevin Shock
Like how does that change the way that you live in life every day? And I could make assumptions about people. For me, I would like to think that it would change how I view the money that I am making and what I do with that.

00:21:16.54
Kevin Shock
I would hope it would inspire a spirit of gratitude in me for the person who took care of that debt for me. that I would spend more time thinking about them and and what they did that I would be worrying about the debt.

00:21:31.19
Kevin Shock
Um,

00:21:35.26
Kevin Shock
yeah. So I, I mean, it's, I, it's a hard thing to think about, but I think maybe the debt imagery is actually helpful imagery in this, in, in this scenario.

00:21:45.20
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

00:21:46.84
Kevin Shock
I don't know.

00:21:48.42
Nathan Pile
Yeah. Well, again, the debt, I think the debt piece helps with the I, the gratitude and the, and the thankfulness for sure.

00:21:59.44
Nathan Pile
Helps us to see that.

00:22:00.95
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

00:22:02.04
Nathan Pile
At the same time, I, you know, when you talk about that the world, life changed, world changed, i keep the thing that popped into my head is the pandemic and how we were forced to live differently, right?

00:22:14.95
Nathan Pile
And I don't know how many conversations I had in the year, two years after the pandemic, even living in the midst of the pandemic. Oh, we're all going to live our lives differently.

00:22:27.32
Nathan Pile
um Because it realized it like gave us some chance to say, oh, we're going to do this differently. And yet, when I think back, at least on my life, my life seems more chaotic than before 2020 than it does less chaotic.

00:22:42.33
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

00:22:44.57
Nathan Pile
So it's like, my point there is that it's just really hard to live into new realities.

00:22:44.61
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

00:22:53.35
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

00:22:54.62
Nathan Pile
They're really hard.

00:22:54.68
Kevin Shock
Yeah, it is hard to live into new realities, yeah.

00:22:56.66
Nathan Pile
Really hard. And so I think, I think it is one of those daily things, like you just have to be reminded of it every day.

00:23:05.91
Nathan Pile
How can we be reminded of what God has done for us

00:23:14.90
Nathan Pile
in freeing us to live

00:23:19.91
Nathan Pile
in a more loving way.

00:23:21.34
Kevin Shock
Yeah. Nathan, I think that we have gone into the territory of the second question.

00:23:26.84
Nathan Pile
Yeah, probably.

00:23:28.92
Kevin Shock
Do you want to go ahead and read it a second time?

00:23:32.41
Nathan Pile
I would love to.

00:23:38.04
Nathan Pile
Should we continue in sin in order that grace may increase? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it?

00:23:49.27
Nathan Pile
Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.

00:24:06.32
Kevin Shock
Thank

00:24:10.04
Nathan Pile
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, so we might no longer be enslaved to sin.

00:24:28.82
Nathan Pile
For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again.

00:24:43.13
Nathan Pile
death no longer has dominion over him the death he died he died to sin once for all but the life he lives he lives to God so you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in christ Jesus

00:25:09.78
Nathan Pile
um Kevin I'm going rogue here. um

00:25:14.49
Kevin Shock
Oh, no. Oh, no.

00:25:15.53
Nathan Pile
Yep. Yep.

00:25:16.83
Kevin Shock
No.

00:25:16.95
Nathan Pile
um I'm not, I'm not asking you the question that you've written for the last three and a half years.

00:25:25.11
Nathan Pile
If I'm reading this text,

00:25:29.11
Kevin Shock
Oh, geez.

00:25:30.70
Nathan Pile
you're the bishop.

00:25:30.94
Kevin Shock
Why are you doing this to me?

00:25:31.14
Nathan Pile
When you get when you become the bishop, you certain theological questions need to be answered, I think, by the bishop. um If I'm reading this text for the first time or hearing it for the fifth time or um following along for the hundredth time, why is it that God, for in Paul's system,

00:26:01.78
Nathan Pile
and, and maybe it's not fair to ask you about Paul, but as Lutherans, we've, we've adopted of a healthy portion of Paul's theology.

00:26:10.64
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

00:26:11.38
Nathan Pile
um Why is it that, that, um,

00:26:18.01
Nathan Pile
Paul spends a significant amount of time helping us realize this freedom from sin?

00:26:28.38
Nathan Pile
Like, It feels, again, this is gets into atonement. It gets into sanctification stuff. You know, why does God need atonement for our selfishness, our sinfulness?

00:26:40.57
Kevin Shock
Oh, jeez. Oh, Nathan.

00:26:44.57
Kevin Shock
Well, I'm happy to answer this question because someone out in the ELCA may hear it and then I will be defrocked and will not no longer have to fulfill this role.

00:26:46.52
Nathan Pile
I know you are.

00:26:52.76
Nathan Pile
So if you're that person, stop listening now.

00:26:59.06
Kevin Shock
I find it incredibly difficult. ask, Ask the question. That was a long way to ask it. ask

00:27:04.82
Nathan Pile
It was.

00:27:05.43
Kevin Shock
Ask the question again.

00:27:06.49
Nathan Pile
Okay.

00:27:06.90
Kevin Shock
Just the question. What's the question, Nathan?

00:27:10.04
Nathan Pile
So why does God need atonement? Why does God need Jesus's death to put up with our, our selfish brokenness? No, he's shaking his head at me, everybody. It's not my question, I guess. That's not the right question.

00:27:28.95
Nathan Pile
What question do you want me to ask, dude?

00:27:32.18
Kevin Shock
No, that's the right question. I'm, I'm getting choked up here.

00:27:33.79
Nathan Pile
Oh.

00:27:35.14
Kevin Shock
God, God does not need atonement.

00:27:35.59
Nathan Pile
Oh.

00:27:37.45
Kevin Shock
God desires atonement.

00:27:40.13
Nathan Pile
Hmm. Okay, so how's that not linguistics?

00:27:42.90
Kevin Shock
God desires.

00:27:44.43
Nathan Pile
How's that not just semantics?

00:27:45.21
Kevin Shock
oh Okay, so, well, I guess what, atonement atonement, in my mind, and I could be getting the definition wrong, atonement is the the process by which God brings us and all creation into unity with God again.

00:28:09.34
Kevin Shock
And that to me is what that to me is what atonement is, and, and God does not need it. God desires it. God wants to be made one with us.

00:28:23.06
Kevin Shock
God wants reconciliation with us. God has tried it multiple ways throughout Scripture. um Through the law, by the, by the words, by the word of the prophets,

00:28:38.65
Kevin Shock
and then God finally saw it fit not to send it not to send a son to die, quote unquote, because God needed a death. I don't, I do not, I will not ever prescribe to the notion that God needed to kill in order to, or, or to sacrifice in order to make one. And why do I think that?

00:29:06.74
Kevin Shock
Because God tells the people a dozen times or more throughout all of Hebrew scripture, I desire mercy, not sacrifice.

00:29:17.38
Kevin Shock
Why would a God who does not desire sacrifice have to send his son in to sacrifice him for our behalf?

00:29:24.62
Kevin Shock
It does not make logical sense to me.

00:29:27.79
Kevin Shock
It's a, it's, I think, I, all, All honor to the saints who have come before us, but I don't think that St. Anselm did us any favors by offering up substitutionary atonement.

00:29:41.53
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

00:29:42.68
Kevin Shock
I don't.

00:29:42.87
Nathan Pile
Because it still very much lingers in all of our theologies, right?

00:29:45.69
Kevin Shock
It very much lingers, right. it's, It's Christ died for your sins. Christ died for your sins. Christ died for your sins. God, which, which is true, which is true. But let's be clear.

00:29:57.75
Kevin Shock
that God was not, I can't, I cannot, I mean, I can't, I can't speak for the mind of God, but I'm speaking for the mind of God because Luther told us, and I hold it to be true, that everything that we come to know about God, we can see present in the person of Jesus Christ.

00:30:18.96
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

00:30:19.83
Kevin Shock
Who did Jesus kill? Nobody. Nobody. Nobody. He didn't kill. he did the He did the inverse of killing. He gave himself over. He let other people kill him to avoid

00:30:37.40
Kevin Shock
um a violent wrath.

00:30:42.62
Kevin Shock
Because God is not a God of violent wrath. Does that mean that God never did anything violent or never did anything wrathful? No, by all means. But ah but I think that... um God has certainly done those things. And those are things that we also, like, let's not forget that sometimes God did those things because we were cheering God along to ask God to do those things.

00:31:08.63
Kevin Shock
Put those people to death for us. and, And certainly the scope of atonement has changed throughout the history of God's relationship with humankind. Yeah.

00:31:26.17
Kevin Shock
I mean, there was one point very early in Scripture where God did say, I'm going to wipe everyone out except for this one family, and I'm going to rebuild.

00:31:38.01
Kevin Shock
and then, And then God does it, and the first thing God says is, I'm never going to do that again.

00:31:45.76
Nathan Pile
Right. Yeah.

00:31:47.26
Kevin Shock
Like this isn't the way. God could clearly see this isn't the way. And, and I don't think, and i've said I know I've said this before on the podcast, I do not believe our God to be imperfect. But I do think that when a perfect, the perfect being is trying to build relationship with imperfect beings, there are going to be some bumps along the road.

00:32:14.10
Kevin Shock
And the bumps along the road ended the day that God decided, not that God needed a death, but that God decided, I'm just going to go and live among them.

00:32:28.22
Kevin Shock
That's, to me, that's where atonement happened.

00:32:32.40
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

00:32:32.86
Kevin Shock
And not substitutionary atonement.

00:32:34.78
Nathan Pile
Before Jesus ever sets foot on earth.

00:32:41.18
Kevin Shock
be Well, at at the very least, ah to me, the let me look it up here quickly so I get the the scripture reference right. I think I'm talking about John 1 and 14.

00:32:53.82
Kevin Shock
um

00:32:57.30
Kevin Shock
But to me, the beginning of John is a, that that's all about, that's about atonement. um and, And atonement, I think, yes, yeah.

00:33:11.74
Kevin Shock
Yeah, this, this is atonement here. And the word became flesh and lived among us.

00:33:20.25
Kevin Shock
And we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.

00:33:27.42
Kevin Shock
That's.

00:33:30.30
Kevin Shock
ah To me, that's the line in the Gospel of John that tells, alerts us. God is. God is uniting God's self with us, with us human beings.

00:33:41.18
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

00:33:42.81
Kevin Shock
And, and that's what, that's what atonement is. Um, David Lose, who's a Lutheran pastor and has been a professor. And, uh, I haven't read the book in years, but, um, he, he wrote a series of books making sense of, and one of them is making sense of the cross.

00:34:02.49
Kevin Shock
And at one point in that book, he taught, he's talking about different theories of atonement, um, and you know why we need the cross and things like that, you know um which again, I'm putting those words in his mouth. i don't I haven't read the book for a long time, but I remember him talking about atonement ah and toward the toward the last part of the book where he was talking about what how he sees atonement actually being, and not just him, but in line with others who have similar theories, that you take apart the word atonement

00:34:36.09
Kevin Shock
um to to pronounce it or utilize it as at-one-ment.

00:34:42.14
Nathan Pile
Mm. Mm.

00:34:43.19
Kevin Shock
that That God is at at one with us. And we are at one with God. and And, you know, to talk about John's gospel again,

00:34:54.97
Kevin Shock
ah John 17, Jesus' prayer in the farewell discourse, make them one like you and I are one. and make them one with us.

00:35:07.10
Kevin Shock
I mean, it's, it's, it's, you know, you think, you think Paul is difficult to read, read Jesus's prayer in John 17. It's hard to follow, but all it is, is, I, I want them to be one, like we're one and you and I are one and I am one with them and they are one with me. And I mean, it's it like, that's what, it to me, that's what atonement is. And that's what salvation is.

00:35:32.50
Kevin Shock
so Salvation is bringing us into perfect relationship

00:35:37.50
Nathan Pile
until you get you're at a hold on that and so get

00:35:41.62
Kevin Shock
with Jesus Christ and end thereby with God. um I, I recently, and I can't even remember where it came up, it came up at a conference meeting, I think.

00:35:53.78
Kevin Shock
um in response to so what someone else was saying, and I don't know the Greek word right off the top of my head, but you know Jesus, when he breathes his last on the cross, and I can't even remember which gospel it's in at this point, but it might be in John, I'm not, not sure, where he says, it is finished.

00:36:13.72
Kevin Shock
um But that that word, the concept of that word is more than just finished, it's completed.

00:36:22.94
Nathan Pile
Mm-hmm. Has been accomplished.

00:36:23.61
Kevin Shock
Or we might also say perfected.

00:36:26.74
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

00:36:27.34
Kevin Shock
it's It's made whole now. Everything that I needed to do, I did. and Or I have done. And I am doing. You and I did talk about that at one point.

00:36:39.47
Kevin Shock
I remember.

00:36:39.75
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

00:36:40.47
Kevin Shock
but um But I think the reason that Jesus says that at the point of his death isn't because he's thinking to himself, well, God needed a death and here I'm about to die, so I guess it's all done.

00:36:52.09
Kevin Shock
No, it's because Jesus wanted to be united with us in every single aspect of our lives. and And death was the final thing to conquer, and he conquered it.

00:37:10.74
Kevin Shock
And so now, getting back to the reading... um we've been united with him in a death like his, and we will certainly be reunited with him in a resurrection like his.

00:37:23.67
Kevin Shock
That is to say,

00:37:27.35
Kevin Shock
we just as Jesus lives in eternity now, we we too have received eternal life already. we We don't have to die to receive eternal life. We've already received it because Jesus died and was raised from the dead.

00:37:47.96
Kevin Shock
um Bob Suckling, who was a who is a saint of God, um a former member of Zion in Hollidaysburg.

00:38:01.78
Kevin Shock
I remember him talking to me one time before I went to seminary, when I was working there before I went to seminary, and hearing him talk about, saying that exact thing. Eternal life isn't something that we wait to receive, it's something we've already received.

00:38:21.26
Kevin Shock
And that made a huge impact on me in how I understood Jesus' death and resurrection. Yeah. And how I understood atonement, how I understood salvation.

00:38:37.56
Kevin Shock
um Yeah.

00:38:39.16
Nathan Pile
Good.

00:38:39.70
Kevin Shock
I'm like getting choked up here because atonement is not about needing a sacrifice.

00:38:40.38
Nathan Pile
Good stuff. I know you are.

00:38:48.40
Kevin Shock
Atonement is about love.

00:38:54.30
Kevin Shock
And I think that's where we, Christian people, have gotten it wrong so often.

00:39:02.72
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

00:39:05.46
Kevin Shock
Atonement isn't about struggle. Atonement is about the completion of a loving act. And, um yeah, there was something else I was going to say and that just went right out of my head. But, but that's it. That's it.

00:39:24.74
Kevin Shock
Jesus' death shows how much God loves us, not how wrathful God is.

00:39:28.49
Nathan Pile
Right.

00:39:31.42
Kevin Shock
and, And if it

00:39:36.82
Kevin Shock
if it takes for someone to understand, if it takes the idea that God needed a death to like you know whip them into shape,

00:39:53.27
Kevin Shock
then I think they're still embroiled deep in sin.

00:39:58.30
Kevin Shock
if, If you can't look at the, if you look at the cross and only see a vengeful act and not a loving act, you got some big theological problems.

00:40:13.08
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

00:40:14.30
Kevin Shock
And at present company,

00:40:16.06
Nathan Pile
But I think our I think for us as the church at times, it feels as if we're still stuck there, right? We're stuck with some of this old theology that continues to compound itself, continues to recycle within our churches um

00:40:22.84
Kevin Shock
It does. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

00:40:36.66
Nathan Pile
because it was taught to us at some point in time. And so it's the only... It's the only cycle. Well, it's not the only cycle, but it's the cycle we hear because somebody taught it to us.

00:40:50.81
Nathan Pile
and um And I think, you know, I've spent much of my time in seminary and after seminary continuing to wrestle with atonement, um sacrifice, mercy, grace, trying to fully or more more better understand again, this God who is the divine one for, you know, and lives has sent Jesus to come and live to teach us a different way.

00:41:19.54
Kevin Shock
Thank you.

00:41:21.46
Nathan Pile
Um,

00:41:24.76
Nathan Pile
and it's almost like we have to reprogram ourselves. and And the problem with reprogramming human beings is we need to hear it so many times to be able to start to rewrite the old programming.

00:41:37.75
Nathan Pile
Um, And I think in some ways, I don't want to, i don't want to our education when we're kids,

00:41:48.30
Nathan Pile
it's hard to talk about sin and selfishness until we get enough distance between ourselves being a kid. um Because a lot of times I think about selfishness as as like, you know, yeah like the the the origins of selfishness are already baked into Nathan.

00:42:08.73
Nathan Pile
So when I was a baby and cried because I was hungry, it was me saying to my mom or dad, yo, I'm hungry. I'm crying over here. Get me something. Or I pooped my pants. I need you to do something for me. It's all about me over here. You know, that's a terrible way to think about kids. but it But it is, right? And then we become a kid and we still rely on our parents for things. But at the same time, we, the church, are trying to teach the kids about this story.

00:42:34.84
Nathan Pile
of God's great love for us. And so we talk about great God's great love for us. We talk about God's forgiveness for us. And we talk about God dying on the cross for our sin. And because we're kids, and maybe this is just true for me because I was a kid and grew up in the church. And so I carried that baggage, um good and bad.

00:42:55.16
Nathan Pile
But I'm taught that I need Jesus to do something that I can't do. Jesus becomes again, Anselm's replacement theory kind of stuff. And so that's how I begin to make sense with it, right? But now I got to, I get to seminary and I start learning deeper and understanding better atonement, sacrifice, mercy, grace, and and and that Jesus doesn't come and die...

00:43:28.50
Nathan Pile
Jesus come and die, dies more so about human beings doing the killing and not because God needs Jesus dead.

00:43:38.04
Nathan Pile
Right. And so, so that's the re-, rewiring, the re-, reprogramming that I think we need to continue to do or do more of, but it's complex, right?

00:43:38.83
Kevin Shock
Yeah, right.

00:43:49.30
Nathan Pile
Like you and I've been talking about this for 43 minutes and we might be making a scratch. on the surface of this to think that, uh, uh, whoever's preaching in your congregation has 12 minutes on a Sunday after this to try to make a dent.

00:44:04.12
Nathan Pile
Like it's hard work.

00:44:05.69
Kevin Shock
yeah Right.

00:44:06.03
Nathan Pile
It's hard work to, to do that education unless you, unless we're giving more time to Bible study into conversation to dig into this, you know, you and I've spent time in seminary, Martin Luther spent time in seminary and, and, um,

00:44:22.94
Nathan Pile
you know, and and and all of the time, well, even before he became, went to the, went to the um became a professor, he spent all of the time as ah in the monasteries as a friar.

00:44:36.02
Nathan Pile
So there was there was this time to kind of live and, and, and work and try to understand better these pieces. And, and I'll be honest, as when I became a father, I became better under-, I better understood oneness than I did before.

00:44:55.86
Nathan Pile
Like there's parts of my life, you know, going to seminary, becoming a pastor, I've learned more about being one with God. Becoming a a father, becoming a a spouse, I learned more about being one. Like it's a lifelong process.

00:45:13.37
Nathan Pile
My problem, you know, well, my problem, and I would imagine many much of our problem is we all wanted, we all want the answers and to perfectly understand at the beginning of life, right? So that we can have it for all of life. But oftentimes, but again, it's about life. It's about living. it's And so it's a, we learn as we go. um we are a creature of experiences and and mentors and teachers that that over time compounds and we get a better understanding. We learn more about it. And so this,

00:45:47.90
Nathan Pile
part of our faith, um,

00:45:54.68
Nathan Pile
The season of Easter and

00:46:00.41
Nathan Pile
and the, the the days following of talking about new life and resurrection, um it takes us a while to wrestle with and figure out what that means. I think, from, from not just our human understanding, but seeking to understand what God was trying to do through that process.

00:46:19.93
Nathan Pile
God didn't come to say, this is the way it is. In our culture, we, we have a battle, we fight, and we say, you're the winner, and the winner sets the rules. God chose not to do that. God chose not to come into the world and say, my way is the right way. I'm going to suppress anything else, defeat you, take over,

00:46:40.50
Nathan Pile
in political and and army power and tell you the way it is. No, God chose to come and walk alongside, live alongside, feel the, the human feelings, you know, and and in the end, struggle the way humans struggle and eventually die at the hands of other humans.

00:47:05.14
Nathan Pile
So that, so that God would feel what we feel, what we live with, what we struggle with. So, don't know. I appreciate you answering the hard question that wasn't really the question for today.

00:47:14.58
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

00:47:18.34
Nathan Pile
So, um, cause as I read that passage that second time, I was like, Oh, we should talk about this. So,

00:47:25.46
Kevin Shock
Okay.

00:47:27.96
Kevin Shock
Well, I appreciate your reflections too. I, what, What is it about being a parent that makes you...

00:47:36.22
Nathan Pile
It's not, It's less about me.

00:47:36.34
Kevin Shock
that brought a...

00:47:37.83
Nathan Pile
It's less about be me.

00:47:38.73
Kevin Shock
It's less about you.

00:47:39.32
Nathan Pile
I make, I'll make a sacrifice for somebody else that's my kid.

00:47:39.69
Kevin Shock
Okay. Okay.

00:47:43.16
Kevin Shock
Okay. Out of love.

00:47:45.62
Nathan Pile
You know, out of love, out of love.

00:47:46.31
Kevin Shock
Out of love. Yeah.

00:47:48.12
Nathan Pile
And the same thing is for a spouse, right?

00:47:48.17
Kevin Shock
Yeah. Yeah.

00:47:49.72
Nathan Pile
Like it's less about me.

00:47:50.26
Kevin Shock
hu

00:47:51.30
Nathan Pile
I'm willing to make a sacrifice for my partner.

00:47:52.15
Kevin Shock
Well, yeah. yeah Yep. Yep.

00:47:56.06
Nathan Pile
And like ah without, without those pieces, there would be a part of my understanding of God that would be missing now.

00:47:56.25
Kevin Shock
Right. Yeah. Yeah. yep

00:48:03.38
Kevin Shock
right yeah yeah Well, it may, it may, there may be other ways that it shows up for you, but yes, I, yeah, yeah.

00:48:10.40
Nathan Pile
Right. Sure. Sure. Well, and I'm sure it's ah true for other people.

00:48:12.28
Kevin Shock
Right. Yeah.

00:48:13.90
Nathan Pile
Other people have found that connection of love, maybe through other experiences and other roles or tasks in their life. But those are two that pop into my head as things that have helped to teach me about love.

00:48:23.28
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

00:48:27.58
Nathan Pile
When I think about being taught about love, whatever, whoever that was, it could be a mentor, it could be an experience. Um, ah those ah Those I give credit to the Holy Spirit and to God, something that's forming me to be more one, to live more in the way of one together.

00:48:46.14
Kevin Shock
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And what you say is,

00:48:54.72
Kevin Shock
what you say that's very helpful to me as I'm thinking about this is the idea that it's, it's less about me.

00:49:03.26
Nathan Pile
Mm-hmm.

00:49:03.48
Kevin Shock
um And that's not that's not um identity stripping language. That's it's it's less about us in the sense of getting what I want, because actually in in in that in lessening the need to be fulfilled in the ways that we want to be fulfilled.

00:49:25.75
Kevin Shock
I think we find our roots growing deeper. We're rooted in a community and in a God. We're rooted in the God who created us. and we're rooted in a community that at its best embraces us. And I don't mean I don't just mean, ah, I just don't just mean a congregation. I mean the whole company of saints.

00:49:44.86
Kevin Shock
ah you know All of these people who have experienced and know the love of God in Christ. And I um I wholeheartedly reject the notion that God needed a death, a sacrifice in order to because God can choose whatever God wants.

00:50:10.36
Kevin Shock
And so like, who who's the governing body over God to say God needed a sacrifice? And I also wholeheartedly reject that because,

00:50:21.94
Kevin Shock
um

00:50:25.37
Kevin Shock
Everything that we learn about God in Scripture. Now, granted, like I said, God does wrathful things in Scripture. God does violent things in Scripture. But when we look at the overarching story of Scripture, it is a God who is loving and merciful, who is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

00:50:46.04
Kevin Shock
that's That's the picture that we get of God.

00:50:49.02
Nathan Pile
Mm-hmm.

00:50:49.24
Kevin Shock
and And the notion of like this slaughtering God, does not jive with that notion. And especially if we consider what Luther says, that everything we need to know about God or everything, everything that there is to know about God, we can see present in the person of Jesus Christ.

00:51:07.19
Kevin Shock
So it, it just doesn't, it does not make it, I think, I think it's a sloppy argument to say

00:51:19.51
Kevin Shock
to say anything short of God loves us so much that God would go to any lengths necessary in order to to be made one with us. and And that includes taking on a flesh and dying violently at the hands of the very people that he's trying to save.

00:51:45.72
Kevin Shock
well, I, maybe, maybe that, maybe that covers the second question.

00:51:50.64
Nathan Pile
I'm sure somewhere in there, there was good stuff.

00:51:53.50
Kevin Shock
is, Is there anything that you would like to respond for the second question before we move on to the third question?

00:51:59.03
Nathan Pile
No, no, I think I'm good.

00:52:00.63
Kevin Shock
Okay.

00:52:01.00
Nathan Pile
Let's do it a third time.

00:52:01.07
Kevin Shock
All right. Okay. From Romans 6. Should we continue in sin in order that grace may increase? By no means. How can we who died to sin go on living in it?

00:52:13.21
Kevin Shock
Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, so that so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.

00:52:28.18
Kevin Shock
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him, so that the body of sin might be destroyed, so we might no longer be enslaved to sin.

00:52:41.62
Kevin Shock
For whoever has died is freed from sin. Nathan, what is the evidence that you walk newness of life? we know that christ being raised from the dead will never die again death no longer has dominion over him the death he died he died to sin once for all but the life he lives he lives to god so you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in christ Jesus. Nathan what is the evidence that you walk in newness of life

00:53:15.32
Nathan Pile
Um,

00:53:18.87
Nathan Pile
that I walk in life with other people might be the simplest way that I would boil that down. Um, cause the reality is

00:53:34.25
Nathan Pile
I'm still living in the cycle of life and death of, of selfish sinfulness. and seeking the new life, life that, that, that God is calling us, calling me, towards.

00:53:50.36
Nathan Pile
And so because of that, there are going to be times that I make selfish choices for myself,

00:53:57.62
Kevin Shock
Hmm.

00:53:59.58
Nathan Pile
which might hurt those who are closest to me or the people that are that I live in community with. And so I need to then seek forgiveness and reconciliation of those relationships to be able to continue to do that. And so I guess an evidence of of walking in the newness of life is that as I walk through life, that I have other people with me who I can, I love and I seek to continue to be with as community, as family, as friends.

00:54:38.49
Nathan Pile
that to me is as evidence that I'm seeking to live in that newness, I guess.

00:54:42.50
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

00:54:44.54
Nathan Pile
Otherwise, ah again, life would be lonely and um not what I think God has intended for us. Again, when we think about that that idea of living in unity with God. God is intending for all you know for us, for creation, for God to live together in, in unity. And so if that's the if, if that's God's end goal for us, how am I doing that?

00:55:14.42
Nathan Pile
Both in how I care for the natural world in which I consider to be home that I'm not ruining it and destroying it. um then I, Then I have to move on because I've destroyed, I've made the, the land where I live unlivable. And so I have to then move down the road and, and get another plot of land because I've ruined the, you know, so all of that is unity, how how i live with the land, how I live with other human beings. um how I live within community, all of that is evidence to me that I seek to live in that newness of life.

00:55:49.24
Nathan Pile
And, and if it's And if the, the others in the community are doing the same things, then I see blessings flourish.

00:55:59.31
Nathan Pile
Things blossom, not just natural things blossom, but I see relationships blossom. I think I see things relationships getting better, thoughtfulness within relationships when we think about each other and those pieces, I guess.

00:56:12.86
Nathan Pile
as so um So I guess that's the kind of...

00:56:14.84
Kevin Shock
who

00:56:17.34
Nathan Pile
having good, good relationships with people is one of those ways that I see evidence of walking in newness of life. Excuse me. How about you, my friend?

00:56:28.23
Kevin Shock
Yeah. I think there are lots of things, some of which you already name. And I think actually, I think that you already answered this third question in the best way possible.

00:56:39.45
Kevin Shock
in, in the last section. And that is, you, you think of yourself less than you used to. Like that's, I think that's clear evidence that we walk in newness of life is that we're we're less concerned with our own wants, desires, safety, security, and more concerned with all of those things with the people around us. Yeah.

00:57:02.58
Kevin Shock
Yeah. So I, I think one thing that I was thinking about, I think all of those things are probably the best answer. But one thing I was thinking about too, is that I've noticed as I get older and I they grasp this understanding more and more, um it, when I hurt someone else, it hurts.

00:57:19.88
Nathan Pile
Yeah. Yeah.

00:57:29.34
Kevin Shock
That's it. That's hard for me to let go of. when I hurt someone else. And I, and I think that that's, I think that's evidence of the spirit working in us.

00:57:42.94
Kevin Shock
Um, it's not, it's not like, you know, people talk about like Catholic guilt or something. It's not that it's that we, I think, I think being born anew, having died to sin and made, being made live together in Christ, um,

00:57:59.61
Kevin Shock
together with God in Christ Jesus means that we we want to be a reflection of that loving force, that loving being.

00:58:08.50
Nathan Pile
Hmm.

00:58:08.86
Kevin Shock
and And when we're not, I think it i think it it it hurts. It hurts because we're not being true to whom God made us to be. So I do think that, and, and it, it drives us to seek forgiveness.

00:58:26.84
Kevin Shock
So yeah, there's, there's, there's that. I think, I think that's evidence that we that we slash I walk in newness of life, that that it hurts us when we hurt someone else.

00:58:32.20
Nathan Pile
Hmm.

00:58:44.11
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

00:58:47.83
Kevin Shock
But yes, to all of the things that you said as well, that we seek deeper relationship, better relationship,

00:58:57.18
Kevin Shock
more loving relationship. And we don't we don't think of our we don't think about our own wants and needs, or wants, at least desires, as much as what we used to.

00:59:08.76
Nathan Pile
Yeah, it's still there, right? Like that's the that's the Luther that's the Martin Luther daily struggle of this, but that we're striving towards

00:59:11.00
Kevin Shock
Yeah, it's still of course it's still there, yeah.

00:59:24.02
Nathan Pile
vision of ah of a way of life that is not focused on me.

00:59:30.30
Kevin Shock
Yeah, yeah. yeah

00:59:32.16
Nathan Pile
And I love your reflection piece of, of how much it hurts when we've hurt others, when it's our actions, our words, our things that we shoot, could and should be able to control and don't, and then and we cause that ache and hurt.

00:59:51.19
Nathan Pile
I, I, I resound the same, and like I said, I would say the same thing. Like when I, when I see that I've done that, boy, does that hurt.

01:00:03.70
Nathan Pile
And like, how do I get

01:00:08.06
Nathan Pile
How do I do that less

01:00:12.98
Kevin Shock
Yeah, that's yeah, yeah.

01:00:13.18
Nathan Pile
with others?

01:00:19.38
Nathan Pile
ah Yeah. Other thoughts as we wrap this up?

01:00:28.41
Kevin Shock
No, no, I, I think we've covered a whole slew of thoughts today.

01:00:34.01
Nathan Pile
We have some additional texts.

01:00:35.03
Kevin Shock
so

01:00:37.98
Nathan Pile
Jeremiah 20, chapter 20, verses 17 verse 7 to 13. um The prophet must speak despite opposition.

01:00:49.90
Nathan Pile
Psalm 69, verse 7 through 18. Answer me, O Lord, for your love is kind. and Matthew chapter 10 verse 24 through 39 uh the cost of discipleship um probably weaves quite nicely into the things that we've just talked about here with uh in in romans uh the semi-continuous readings for the old testament which would be the old testament and the psalm reading uh first first reading in the psalm uh

01:01:25.04
Nathan Pile
Genesis chapter 21, verse 8 through 21. This is the rescue of Hagar and Ishmael. And then Psalm 86, verse 1 through 10 and 16 and 17. Have mercy on me. Give your strength to your servant.

01:01:44.73
Nathan Pile
Kevin, as always, thanks for your reflections and, and, and your flexibility today, adjusting to the new second question on the fly.

01:01:56.70
Kevin Shock
Yeah. Thanks for asking it.

01:01:57.56
Nathan Pile
when I, When I put you on the spot. um And yeah, and we would ask you, are there questions that we that that you have after this conversation?

01:01:59.70
Kevin Shock
Well, it's an important question.

01:02:07.76
Nathan Pile
What kinds of things...

01:02:08.98
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

01:02:09.82
Nathan Pile
um are perplexing you that are that are challenging you by this reading or our conversation of this reading. Um, we'd be interested in that. So, um, feel free to send us an email.

01:02:22.46
Nathan Pile
Uh, we hope to tend our faith with you again soon. Grace to you.

01:02:25.75
Kevin Shock
Grace and peace.