SPEAKER_01: Good day, and welcome to North Raleigh United Methodist Church behind the scenes podcast, where we sit down weekly and discuss this week's scripture and sermon.
SPEAKER_01: My name is Kevin Van Hall.
SPEAKER_01: I serve as your host and moderator, and joining me today is one of the lead pastors here at North Raleigh.
SPEAKER_01: Kevin Johnson.
SPEAKER_01: Hi, Kevin.
SPEAKER_00: Hi.
SPEAKER_01: It's back to the Kevin and Kevin show.
SPEAKER_01: It was the Kevin and Laura show.
SPEAKER_01: Last week, we are in the middle of a uh series here of I Love You But and you guys are switching back and forth, but all our listeners out there should know that format.
SPEAKER_01: You guys have taken turns typically throughout the year of one uh preaches and then the next one preaches.
SPEAKER_01: We were blessed that uh one time during the holy week where you guys did that tag team sermon.
SPEAKER_01: So hopefully we can do another podcast like that again.
SPEAKER_01: That was that was great.
SPEAKER_01: But today is gonna be just Kevin and I, and I'm gonna try to trip him up.
SPEAKER_01: I won't be tripping him up.
SPEAKER_01: He is he is too well learned and knows all my curveballs.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: I can't get a pitch past him.
SPEAKER_01: But uh, like I said, we are recapping or still in the series of I Love You But, which Kevin started off.
SPEAKER_01: Last week, Laura said, I love you, but I hate your politics.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what her sermon tried to send her around of don't let the uh partisanship stand between people so much.
SPEAKER_01: So this is a six-week series.
SPEAKER_01: Kevin's gonna talk about I love you but how can you believe that?
SPEAKER_01: And talk about different people's varying perspectives and practices.
SPEAKER_01: And we can go all over the place with this, but I'm gonna let Kevin narrow this down because we can go into uh different uh religions, different uh inside, even inside of Christianity, all the different beliefs and varying grounds.
SPEAKER_01: And for reference, we're gonna be in uh 1 Corinthians chapter 3 today.
SPEAKER_01: But before uh too much further into our podcast, how about a word of prayer, Kev?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Oh Lord, I pray that you would open up our hearts and minds to hear your word, um, to think critically and with the guidance of your spirit about it.
SPEAKER_00: And also um we pray for that knowledge and depth of insight that only you can give, and we pray that um you would continue to keep us open-hearted toward one another.
SPEAKER_00: It's in Christ's name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: So I said we were going to be in Corinthians.
SPEAKER_01: Let's do a little background uh information here, what's going on in First Corinthians.
SPEAKER_01: Uh Paul writes this letter.
SPEAKER_01: Paul is I think he's in Ephesus when he writes to the church in Corinthians because he hears some things going on that aren't necessarily good.
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
SPEAKER_01: And so he gets uh message comes back that uh he'd set up the church there in uh Corinth earlier, and maybe they have started to go astray.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: What do you think, Kevin?
SPEAKER_00: It seems like so so it seems like he's heard of multiple things going on.
SPEAKER_00: Um there's a thought that we have what we call 1st and 2nd Corinthians, and ours are probably 2nd and 4th Corinthians, actually, that there were multiple letters that went back and forth, and what we have are part two and part four of correspondence.
SPEAKER_00: Like there was an initial thing to Paul that he responded to, then he got something back, and he writes 1 Corinthians.
SPEAKER_00: Um the thought being really what Paul wants to address ultimately is the factions that are happening in the life of the Corinthian church.
SPEAKER_00: There's factions happening, and they've got, you know, they've got some internal issues going on about worship.
SPEAKER_00: So he's gonna address those issues.
SPEAKER_00: They've got internal issues going in about the specific behavior of one member of the church who like you know, it's it's been said like, oh, a lot of some of this is about sexual immorality.
SPEAKER_00: Really, it's about one person's immorality within the life of the church who is in a relationship with his mother-in-law.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so like I don't think it's really particular to like all um sexual immorality as much as it is to that particular case um that was going on.
SPEAKER_00: So what's interesting about 1 Corinthians, right, is that compared to maybe Ephesians is kind of a more generic letter or Galatians.
SPEAKER_00: In Corinthians, we really get Paul, the pastor, addressing direct needs within this particular community, probably more than any other of his letters.
SPEAKER_00: Um and then his theology bears out in it.
SPEAKER_00: So this is First Corinthians is also where we get the best theology of the resurrection, and 1 Corinthians 15, it's the chapter on the resurrection that we have in scripture.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, so we have at least Paul's best explanation of the resurrection in this.
SPEAKER_00: Um, 1 Corinthians 13 is the love chapter.
SPEAKER_00: Well, but that comes out of the growth of what's going on in the worshiping life of the community with speaking in tongues and things like that.
SPEAKER_00: So, like there's there's a whole lot.
SPEAKER_00: So, what Paul is doing is practical theology for a real life church on the ground in Corinth.
SPEAKER_01: So in Corinth, uh just a little bit more historical background.
SPEAKER_01: It's in Greece, pretty much.
SPEAKER_01: Um it is very Hellenistic in modern day Greece.
SPEAKER_01: It was under the influence of the Greeks and the Romans.
SPEAKER_01: It was a port city, very big, important city.
SPEAKER_01: A lot of trade, a lot of paganism, a lot of different beliefs.
SPEAKER_01: There was a Jewish synagogue there, they worshiped um Aphrodite and Apollo, all the Greek gods as well, and some of their beliefs.
SPEAKER_01: So there's so much culturally going on here, mixed culture, that always kind of we finds its way in, does it not?
SPEAKER_01: Other other cultures, even though if you bring in Christianity, if we look at our own Christian holidays, uh pagan beliefs or rituals creep in.
SPEAKER_01: Christmas tree, perfect example.
SPEAKER_01: So Paul has to address this at the same time, try to explain what is going on.
SPEAKER_01: And that might be a little challenging because Paul has pretty much taken his message to the Gentiles, even though there's a Jewish synagogue there, he's really preaching to the Gentiles here.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: So, and that's uh that's kind of where we are uh right now.
SPEAKER_01: So, like I said, we're gonna be in uh on chapter three, verses one through nine.
SPEAKER_01: Kevin's gonna reforce.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul says, Brothers and sisters, I couldn't talk to you like spiritual people, but like unspiritual people, like babies in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I gave you milk to drink instead of solid food because you weren't up to it yet.
SPEAKER_00: Now you are still not up to it because you are still unspiritual.
SPEAKER_00: When jealousy and fighting exist between you, aren't you unspiritual and living by human standards?
SPEAKER_00: When someone says, I belong to Paul, and someone else says, I belong to Apollos, aren't you acting like people without the spirit?
SPEAKER_00: After all, what is Apollos?
SPEAKER_00: What is Paul?
SPEAKER_00: They are servants who helped you to believe.
SPEAKER_00: Each one had a role given to them by the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I planted, Apollos watered, but God made it grow.
SPEAKER_00: Because of this, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but the only one who is anything is God who makes it grow.
SPEAKER_00: The one who plants and the one who waters work together, but each one will receive their own reward for their own labor.
SPEAKER_00: We are God's co-workers, and you are God's field, God's building.
SPEAKER_01: Well, excellent.
SPEAKER_01: So he's addressing uh division, arguments, quarreling is what he calls it.
SPEAKER_01: And basically call them uh immature.
unknown: Yep.
SPEAKER_01: In a nice way.
SPEAKER_01: Uh acting childishly, yeah, acting like JV's.
SPEAKER_01: You were children.
SPEAKER_01: Um I had to start off basically, but you're staying there.
SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_01: You're not progressing, you're not maturing.
SPEAKER_01: They don't understand how to mature, really.
SPEAKER_01: So it's unlike everyone's my own personal faith.
SPEAKER_01: I had to start off at a building blocks, beginnings, and grow from there.
SPEAKER_01: So Paul can't expect too much from the church in the very beginning, early days, but he does call them out here.
SPEAKER_01: Do you think they'll understand what he's saying when he's saying you're just babies in milk, or are you going to be insulted by that?
SPEAKER_00: So I think that I think they'll understand.
SPEAKER_00: They'll understand because clearly within this church they've begun to form denominations.
SPEAKER_00: And there's the Church of Paul that someone's going to, and then the Church of Apollo's just popped up up the street.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Um there might even be a church of Cephas.
SPEAKER_00: He talks about Peter's church earlier in another place.
SPEAKER_00: Um and maybe there is a there's even someone who says, I follow Christ, and there's a church of Christ that has popped up.
SPEAKER_00: And they're all following Jesus, but now they're all doing it under a little bit different slant or a little different way.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they do maybe they worship differently, have a different practice.
SPEAKER_00: Um and and Paul's issue, right, is that their witness is far less effective because they keep splitting off of each other.
SPEAKER_00: They keep forming their own factions than this thing.
SPEAKER_01: Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Well, doesn't that go on today?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, don't we look at somebody else and go, you're getting it wrong in your faith.
SPEAKER_01: You're you just don't understand it.
SPEAKER_01: You're you're a child in your faith where we're so much farther advanced.
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
SPEAKER_00: Um I mean it happens all the time.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think this is part of the human nature of kind of tribalism, like what Laura was talking about last week, right?
SPEAKER_00: So we don't just the focus of the sermon is gonna be we don't just do political tribalism, we do theological tribalism, we do, we do Christian tribalism, and we do it really well.
SPEAKER_00: Um and we do it to such a degree that, and this has been a struggle for me as I start to think about where this is gonna go.
SPEAKER_00: I I become so convinced that my tribe is so right that to a certain degree I'm kind of saying, well, damn everyone else.
SPEAKER_00: And um that's not me bragging about that, that's me confessing it uh in this space, because I do think that that we get to a point where we, oh, I've learned more, I have some more knowledge, I've grown.
SPEAKER_00: And what I do then is repeat the same problems that Paul's talking to the Corinthian community about here.
SPEAKER_01: Right.
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's human nature.
SPEAKER_01: You can have your own, you have your favorite uh pastors uh preaching style.
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
SPEAKER_01: Uh enjoy one sermon over over another.
SPEAKER_01: That's really not what we're talking about here.
SPEAKER_01: There's there's a little bit of difference of uh liking someone's style versus uh almost worshiping someone where Paul is trying to get us to quit worshiping uh myself or anyone else.
SPEAKER_01: There should only be one person we're supposed to be worshiping, and he's trying to steer them back to the eye, keep your eye on the prize there, and it's Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Um we still do it today.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: How many different Christian religious uh sects do we have?
SPEAKER_01: I can't even probably name it.
SPEAKER_00: We probably have 3,000 in America.
SPEAKER_01: Literally.
SPEAKER_01: And how many of them are following false prophets where we're told we knew that was gonna happen, Jesus wanted to submit that?
SPEAKER_00: Or but how how many of them were just division over one thing and then formed a new one, and then that one divided over one thing and formed a new one?
SPEAKER_00: It's mostly that, right?
SPEAKER_00: So it's mostly I think I think at issue, and I think where I'd like to focus when thinking about this concept of can you believe that is is really boiling down to a lot of times we think so we think of divisions that happen within churches or between denominations as kind of single issue type of things.
SPEAKER_00: And really that's not that's not necessarily correct.
SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of times what what what it's boiling down to is an issue about interpretation of scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Um so a way to look at it, right, is is is to say there's uh a bunch of folks out there, some might be listening, who would say, yeah, I I the Bible says it, that's what it says, I do it.
SPEAKER_00: Um we'd call that a literal interpretation of scripture, right?
SPEAKER_00: It says it, that's what I believe, I do it.
SPEAKER_00: Um and I think United Methodist perspective is uh a little more nuanced than that.
SPEAKER_00: I I wouldn't call myself a biblical literalist.
SPEAKER_00: If I did, then it would be really hard to defend my marriage because my wife is a pastor, and there's passages in the Bible that I can say, say, you know, well, a woman shouldn't have a position of leadership or something like that.
SPEAKER_00: So if I'm gonna be a literalist, then I'm gonna struggle, for instance, with that with that point.
SPEAKER_00: Um we really follow uh a concept within the United Methodist tradition that we call the Wesleyan quadrilateral, meaning that scripture is our base for understanding and we believe it's God's inspired word.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that fully.
SPEAKER_00: And I believe that we can also interpr we we we bring our lenses of tradition.
SPEAKER_00: So tradition meaning what the church has taught for the last two thousand years, how it's interpreted, how we've interpreted scripture, how we've taught it, from church fathers in the 200s, three hundreds to contemporary theologians today and everyone in between.
SPEAKER_00: We also interpret through our lens of reason, meaning God gave me a brain, and so I should use it.
SPEAKER_00: Um so we're called to think through and and wrestle with passages and think about those places in scripture where it seems to contradict one another, right?
SPEAKER_00: Paul says in Ephesians 2, right?
SPEAKER_00: He says, or in Galatians 2, he says, then Christ says there's no longer Jew nor Greek, male and female, slave nor free.
SPEAKER_00: And that same Paul is the one who says women should be silent in the church.
SPEAKER_00: So which I think slaves should be submissive to their masters or so.
SPEAKER_00: So which one?
SPEAKER_00: Right.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And the only way to solve that dilemma the only way to solve that dilemma is to admit that there's interpretation that goes on and to have reason about it, to use my brain to try to determine it, right?
SPEAKER_00: So in my in my best reading of that, I say, well, what Paul writes in Galatians about there's no longer slave nor free or male and female or Jew nor Greek, that's that's the world we're supposed to strive for.
SPEAKER_00: That's the world that God wants us to have in his kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: That's the world that everyone understood at that time.
SPEAKER_00: Because slavery was so prevalent.
SPEAKER_00: But Paul was saying there's not that distinction anymore in what God's kingdom is.
SPEAKER_00: And so those places where he writes otherwise, that's him coalescing to the world that existed, but not necessarily giving guidance and saying there should always be slavery for all time when he's writing that, right?
SPEAKER_00: Or or women need to actually be in a place of submission.
SPEAKER_00: That was actually really to a particular situation in Corinth when he writes that.
SPEAKER_00: Um so I do think it's this issue of interpretation is really important.
SPEAKER_00: The fourth part of the quadrilateral with scripture tradition reason, the fourth part that Wesley labels is experience.
SPEAKER_00: So Wesley also said we can have an encounter with God, and that encounter and what the Holy Spirit shows me also affects how I read scripture and how I interpret it.
SPEAKER_00: And so that view of a Wesley and quadrilateral really affects how we come to Scripture from a Methodist, from United Methodist perspective, is to say, whenever I come to Scripture, I'm coming with interpretation in play.
SPEAKER_00: Now, that can be really abused by people, right?
SPEAKER_00: People can make scripture say whatever they want it to say.
SPEAKER_00: That's a danger of it.
SPEAKER_00: But I think there's also a place that's a place of humility that says, I'm going to come with these things to bear.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to try to be honest with myself.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to have conversation with others, and I'm going to try to figure out what God is saying to me in God's Word and what God is saying to us as a community through God's Word, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so I think this position of interpretation is really important.
SPEAKER_00: And I think we do a disservice when we don't admit that space for interpretation.
SPEAKER_00: Um folks who want to claim a literal reading of scripture often then want to be the ones to claim, well, we believe the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And I just I believe the Bible wholeheartedly.
SPEAKER_00: I I don't, I don't, so, so, so I don't like the claim that says, oh, well, people who don't claim literal interpretation of scripture don't believe the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: That's just not true.
SPEAKER_00: I think that folks who claim a literal interpretation oftentimes are actually not admitting those spaces where interpretation has to happen.
SPEAKER_00: So those contradictions that I'm saying and admitting that are there, there's a lot of argument away to try to get to or or or pulling out of which text you want to use.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Or what I'm also kind of hearing is you're using your experience to where you could even change your interpretation.
SPEAKER_01: The interpretation from the early church at Fall's Day in in 50, 60 A.D.
SPEAKER_01: versus the year 2026, based on experiences, different things that have happened.
SPEAKER_01: I get is there's opportunity should there be an opportunity?
SPEAKER_01: Should our interpretation of certain passages change?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think so.
SPEAKER_00: I think I I think I think there's space for that.
SPEAKER_00: I also think there's space where maybe we say, I'm not sure about that interpretation that was made.
SPEAKER_00: Like, right?
SPEAKER_00: So I think there's a space.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Judaism had this baked within it, right?
SPEAKER_00: They have an entire thing called the Talmud.
SPEAKER_00: They have a conversation that takes place underneath the letters of the scripture that's three times longer than the Bible itself, where the rabbis are writing back and forth in the Mishnah of how they how they interpret this text and how they so that's in, that's baked in to our experience of reading scripture, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's baked into it.
SPEAKER_00: That's how Jesus, when Jesus starts preaching, you have heard it said, but I say to you, Jesus is practicing that rabbinic practice, right?
SPEAKER_00: So he Jesus is schooled in that way.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is doing that all over the place in his work, not just when he directly quotes scripture, but when he indirectly is referencing it.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's living in that interpretive world and framework of knowing scripture so well that, hey, we have to think about how we interpret it for this time, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's part of the work of the church, is to say, okay, how do we interpret it for this time?
SPEAKER_00: Not that we always say what our culture is doing is correct.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, a lot of Paul's work is saying what our culture is doing is incorrect, and we've got to figure out what to how to how to reckon with it.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but at the same time, I I do think there is space for for fresh interpretation for the Holy Spirit to show us things.
SPEAKER_01: And so not everything is always black and white, like some people want to portray it.
SPEAKER_01: There's uh there's a gray area there.
SPEAKER_01: There's is there allowed for open interpretation?
SPEAKER_01: Are we allowed to accept different points of view from people?
SPEAKER_01: Obviously, everyone does.
SPEAKER_01: They have since the early church to today.
SPEAKER_00: So who's right and who's wrong?
SPEAKER_00: Well, so I'm gonna read you something here.
SPEAKER_00: It's from this book called Disunity in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, Christina Cleveland wrote this in 2013.
SPEAKER_00: She taught at Duke Divinity School for a little while after I was there.
SPEAKER_00: And um and this book is a challenging uh disunity in Christ, uncovering the hidden forces that keep us apart.
SPEAKER_00: Her first chapter is called Right Christian, Wrong Christian.
SPEAKER_00: And she begins, this is page 12 of that book.
SPEAKER_00: She says, When I first began walking with Christ, I felt an immediate and authentic connection with any other Christian who crossed my path.
SPEAKER_00: Orthodox, Catholic, charismatic, Lutheran, evangelical, black, white, Asian.
SPEAKER_00: It didn't matter, we were family.
SPEAKER_00: But as I walked with Jesus, somehow my growth had been coupled with increasingly stronger opinions about the right way to be a follower.
SPEAKER_00: I started keeping people I don't enjoy, I didn't enjoy or agree with at arm's length.
SPEAKER_00: I managed to avoid most of the bens in my life, she talks about this guy named Ben in a previous thing, by locating them, categorizing them, and gracefully shunning them, all while appearing to be both spiritual and community-oriented.
SPEAKER_00: Further, I could do all of this without wasting any of my precious brain power.
SPEAKER_00: I was quite good.
SPEAKER_00: I chose to build community with people with whom I could pretty much agree on everything.
SPEAKER_00: Then she continues in a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: She says, There I was, convinced that I was defending Jesus by condemning wrong Christian, when I saw that Jesus was beckoning both right Christian and wrong Christian, and inviting all of us to know more of his heart.
SPEAKER_00: As I read through the Gospels, I noticed that he had a habit of connecting with everybody conservative theologians, liberal theologians, prostitutes, divorces, children, politicians, people who party hard, military servicemen, women, lepers, ethnic minorities, celebrities, you name it.
SPEAKER_00: He was pretty serious about connecting in spite of natural and ideological differences.
SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't end in the Gospels.
SPEAKER_00: He repeatedly disregards my right Christian and wrong Christian labels and continues to beckon me, even though I still tend to cling to such earthly distinctions.
SPEAKER_00: He's relentless.
SPEAKER_00: So I think that her perspective of right Christian, wrong Christian, um and her she gets into deeper descriptions of what that means for her.
SPEAKER_00: That I mean that slaps me in the face a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Um it's her to say to me, you know.
SPEAKER_00: Frankly, how arrogant are you to think that you got it all figured out and to think that everyone else has it wrong.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe not everyone else, but at least those ones have it wrong.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a challenge.
SPEAKER_00: It's a challenge.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a challenge because there's also some things that I hold really, really dear in terms of scriptural interpretation.
SPEAKER_00: Um there's positions I think are uh faulty within a large swath of the Christian community, specifically the position of women, a view of complementarianism, right?
SPEAKER_00: That essentially says that that women and men, you know, each have their own specific roles in society and culture, um, and then they try to use biblical argument for that.
SPEAKER_00: I just think that's a really flawed way to look at the world.
SPEAKER_00: I don't like it.
SPEAKER_00: And if I just shun all of those people, then I'm saying that they're somehow not part of God's kingdom with me?
SPEAKER_00: I'm saying that on the other side when I'm in heaven and they're my next door neighbor, I don't think I have a way to keep them out there.
SPEAKER_00: True.
SPEAKER_00: Well, darn.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I love the point where she says um when she mentions earthly things.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Thinking earthly.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul says, I cannot address you spiritually, but as wordly, because they're still thinking, if we're all still thinking in a worldly point of view, he's trying to get us to think in a more universal spiritual point of view.
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
SPEAKER_01: We all do it.
SPEAKER_01: How do we stop from doing it?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think it's I mean, I think it takes a couple things, right?
SPEAKER_00: And I I think that's where we'll go a little bit Sunday is is good Lord, how do I I I mean I think some of it might have to be how we pull like we we have to stop an either-or type of thinking in our lives that that that wants to position that that forces people into categories that are us versus them.
SPEAKER_00: We just have to so I mean I think for a bunch of that us, we should probably just delete social media, like literally delete it.
SPEAKER_00: Um and and I r some people might be listening to this via social media, which is hilarious.
SPEAKER_00: But like, but literally I I think it's one of the great tools of Satan today.
SPEAKER_00: And and I don't even say it lightly.
SPEAKER_00: I I think the algorithm is designed to help me see content that's either going to make me applaud someone who already thinks like me or gets me really mad at someone who doesn't.
SPEAKER_01: Aaron Ross Powell, or so much misinformation that's out there.
SPEAKER_01: This is what I fault social media for.
SPEAKER_01: There's so much misinformation out there, it gets people riled up for something that didn't happen.
SPEAKER_01: It's not real.
SPEAKER_00: But I also but I think just our participation in that, and I I'm not just blaming one singular thing, but I do think that it gets magnified in that world, and and so I do think that's part of it.
SPEAKER_00: I think another thing is having good friends who will really hold us accountable to things that say, hey, maybe that's not the most charitable way to think.
SPEAKER_00: Um maybe, you know, I I for instance, there might be churches where I disagree with some of their theological stances.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I I have the doctrine I hold for a reason, and you know, the church up the street or whatever, I may not hold to some of those points of doctrine.
SPEAKER_00: And that doesn't mean that every single person who is within that church is somehow a bigoted whatever.
SPEAKER_00: Um it doesn't mean that everyone holds every single one of those points that that church holds.
SPEAKER_00: But I think it's tempting to look and say, oh, person at Church X, whatever, they they all think like this.
SPEAKER_00: They're just all and and and and fill in the blank.
SPEAKER_01: Um Well, that's labeling and judging, which we know is not good.
SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Yeah, but I think we know it's not good.
SPEAKER_00: But if we do it quietly, or we do it just with people who think like us, we we tend to think our our own self-righteousness gets in the way.
SPEAKER_00: Um C.
SPEAKER_00: S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis talks about the so C.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis, the the screw tape letters is a book I often go back to whenever something is messing with my head.
SPEAKER_00: Uh because C.S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis does such a good job in this book of describing the kind of very like the very little the little justifications for sinfulness that I have.
SPEAKER_00: Um and so in his book he says, so this is this is C.
SPEAKER_00: S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis, right?
SPEAKER_00: So in in the screw tape letters, he's got a senior devil talking to a junior devil giving him advice on how to tempt his tempt his person.
SPEAKER_00: And he says All extremes except extreme devotion to the enemy, meaning to God, are to be encouraged.
SPEAKER_00: Not always, of course, but at this period, some ages are lukewarm and complacent, and then it is our business to soothe them yet faster asleep.
SPEAKER_00: Other ages, of which the present is one, and he's writing at the time of World War II, are unbalanced and prone to faction, and it is our business to inflame them.
SPEAKER_00: Any small coterie bound together by some interest which other men dislike or ignore, tends to develop inside itself a hothouse, mutual admiration, and towards the outer world, a great deal of pride and hatred, which is entertained without shame because the cause is its sponsor and it is thought to be impersonal.
SPEAKER_00: Even when the little group exists originally for the enemy's own purposes, this remains true.
SPEAKER_00: We want the church to be small, not only that fewer men may know the enemy, but also that those who do may acquire the uneasy intensity and defensiveness of self-righteousness of a secret society or a clique.
SPEAKER_00: The church herself is, of course, heavily defended, and we have never quite yet quite succeeded in giving her all the characteristics of a faction, but subordinate factions within her have often produced admirable results from the parties of Paul and Apollos at Corinth down to the high and low parties in the Church of England.
SPEAKER_01: So C.S.
SPEAKER_01: Lewis starts off as an atheist, ends up becoming a strong advocate in the Christian community.
SPEAKER_01: Writing many, many books.
SPEAKER_01: Very well known.
SPEAKER_01: Perfect example of someone thinking one way and changing their way of thinking.
SPEAKER_01: Just like we talked about possibly changing our interpretations.
SPEAKER_01: We can say the same thing for people.
SPEAKER_01: But in the end, I gotta still think in my heart, there's I don't know, I don't want to call it a right and a wrong.
SPEAKER_01: There's the truth and then there's a lie.
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
SPEAKER_01: And I feel like we still, even Paul calls out the brother that was immoral.
SPEAKER_01: We still have to call out truth, do we not?
SPEAKER_00: I think we call out truth.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think we're called to embody it.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul calls out the immoral brother who was part of the very community with him.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's a really important distinction is that Paul isn't calling out generally from on high something.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's calling out someone within the very life of that community and holding them to account.
SPEAKER_00: Um I think the only way we can call someone on something is if we know someone and and and if we are in relationship.
SPEAKER_00: And if there's the trust and the vulnerability and the sharing of life to be able to do that.
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, it just falls on deaf ears.
SPEAKER_00: It's not going to be effective.
SPEAKER_00: True.
SPEAKER_00: So I I think that's the the greater challenge is to not just pigeonhole ourselves so that we actually have no one to ever hold to account because we all think the same anyway.
SPEAKER_00: So so the great the great challenge, I think, of living in the year of our Lord 2026 is to actually hold space to have relationships with people who I don't think like.
SPEAKER_00: Now that might be politically, but this week I'm talking theologically.
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking I'm talking people who who don't see eye to eye with me about how Christianity operates and works in the world.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking about people outside of the church here.
SPEAKER_00: I think I think it's tempting to go down that hole, but but I'm really talking about people within within the life of people who claim to follow Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Um and I really do.
SPEAKER_00: I I I think that the way that the from our perspective that the enemy is winning in Christianity today in America is by the continual factioning of the church.
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's I mean, you know, I when we say one holy Catholic and apostolic church, I mean, dang, we're pretty far from it.
SPEAKER_00: So so so I do think there's a there's a I think there's a challenge there for us.
SPEAKER_00: I think there's a reckoning um for us to think through in terms of how we hold relationships with people who don't who don't see eye to eye with us, or at least who haven't thought through the implications of their theological positions and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01: Well, uh the church evolves or religion evolves, world evolves, changes.
SPEAKER_01: We're going through that right now.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna look time we'll tell.
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
SPEAKER_01: And look back upon this time period.
SPEAKER_01: We can look back and see the Reformation that Martin Luther did at the time.
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
SPEAKER_01: He always he wanted to do was reform the church, call out his own church and for truce that he thought were wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Well, then 200 years later, that's basically what Wesley was trying to do, right?
SPEAKER_00: Wesley was trying to ignite a fire within the Anglican Church in England, not necessarily trying to start a new denomination, right?
SPEAKER_00: At least at first.
SPEAKER_01: Um but he did it not through exclusion, but trying to invoke change by calling out truce that they both saw.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think those people are so are so hugely important.
SPEAKER_00: And but you know, we could argue that they also then create a great faction, right?
SPEAKER_00: So like they I mean, you know, some of the Reformation may be one of the biggest, one of the biggest, you know, faction causers ever, right?
SPEAKER_00: So um so I think to see to understand both the gift of the reformer in that case and and and to its problem.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Laura and I have referenced in our lives before that like it seems like every 500 years since Christ there's been major events that have precipitated huge changes in how faith is followed and and and how Christianity works.
SPEAKER_00: I think we're in the middle of that one right now.
SPEAKER_00: If if 1517 and around the time 1500 with the printing press and with Luther was a major, major, major ground shift for the Christian church.
SPEAKER_00: I think this time in the early 2000s is another one.
SPEAKER_00: Um a lot about kind of digital age and what that means.
SPEAKER_00: I don't even think we know the full implications.
SPEAKER_00: You don't know it while you're living in the middle of it.
SPEAKER_01: Correct.
SPEAKER_01: I agree with that.
SPEAKER_00: I agree with that.
SPEAKER_00: And that's I mean, and you know, we're not gonna talk about that Sunday in the tournament, but you know, that's it's a great, it's a great topic to think through and to talk about.
SPEAKER_00: But we could look at 1000 around the great schism as another time.
SPEAKER_00: We could look at 500 and the events kind of right after the church fathers and things like that as another time.
SPEAKER_00: So like we we've got some major era things, and I don't know how human society all functions and works, and but but I do think there's some major themes there to pick up.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a possibility.
SPEAKER_01: So I kind of um talking uh more progressively spiritually and historically there at the end, but but back to I love you, but uh I really can't believe that you believe that is going to be uh Kevin's sermon this Sunday.
SPEAKER_01: He'll be preaching for us uh at the church.
SPEAKER_01: I hope you can make it out.
SPEAKER_01: If not, they are now posting the sermons on the uh website so you can reference them as well as long as as well as uh live stream.
SPEAKER_01: I apologize for going over a little bit this week.
SPEAKER_01: We try to keep this right around uh 30 minutes, but this is a great discussion that we could go on for hours.
SPEAKER_01: Uh I'm just gonna talk about more historical stuff, but we won't go down that rabbit hole today.
SPEAKER_01: We do want to uh thank everyone uh for listening.
SPEAKER_01: Um I hope you can uh you got something out of this I love you, but in this series will continue next week.
SPEAKER_01: I guess Laura will be back with I love you, but I don't understand you.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: That might be a good one as well.
SPEAKER_01: They're all very, very good.
SPEAKER_01: Well, Kevin, thank you very, very much.
SPEAKER_01: Love the insights, love the uh the C.S.
SPEAKER_01: Lewis uh reference as well.
SPEAKER_01: I'm also a fan of his.
SPEAKER_01: Well, any uh conclusion, last uh last remarks?
SPEAKER_01: I just pray for me all before we hit Sunday.
SPEAKER_01: So I have no worries at all.
SPEAKER_01: I'm glad you don't.
SPEAKER_01: The confidence is there.
SPEAKER_01: You're trying to please everyone.
SPEAKER_01: This is that's the problem.
SPEAKER_01: Just just go with what's in your heart, it's there.
SPEAKER_01: And like thank everyone uh for uh joining us.
SPEAKER_01: Please join us again next week.
SPEAKER_01: Until then, may the love of Christ be with you always.
SPEAKER_01: Goodbye, everyone.