Welcome to the Daily Blade . The Word of God is described as the sword of the Spirit , the primary spiritual weapon in the Christian's armor against the forces of evil . Your hosts are Joby Martin and Kyle Thompson , and they stand ready to equip men for the fight . Let's sharpen up .
Hi guys , welcome to a new week of the Daily Blade . One of the greatest things about this weird job that I have being a podcaster and a speaker and doing all this stuff is I get the opportunity to meet some amazing , awesome people . But one of the best people that I've ever had the privilege of meeting was John Eldridge , and so John Eldridge is a fantastic author . He's the author of the seminal work in men's ministry , and that is Wild at Heart . It's basically the only men's ministry book that has sold more than like 14 copies , and I've also had the opportunity to have John Eldridge as a personal mentor of mine . So if you're not familiar with John Eldridge or Wild at Heart , I highly suggest you go
get that book and read it . But kind of the main nexus of that book is this quote from it here Deep in his heart , every man longs for a battle to fight , an adventure to live and a beauty to rescue , and so Wild at Heart as a book really changed how I view manhood and manliness , you know , certainly in a Christian context , but there's actually a lesser known book by John Eldredge that completely shifted how I view Jesus Christ , our Savior , and so that's his 2011 book Beautiful Outlaw subtitle here Experiencing the Playful , disruptive Extravag .
Speaker 2Experiencing the playful , disruptive , extravagant personality of Jesus . Now I remember getting this book I just love the name , beautiful Outlaw . But then whenever I read the subtitle , I remember seeing personality and being like , okay , I'm kind of intrigued by that , because up to that point , if I'm being honest , I don't know that I had ever really considered the personality of Jesus , that Jesus
was a man that actually had one of those right . Because when other people would read the gospels or when I would read the gospels myself , I would just kind of read it like Jesus was , you know , this robot or the zombie , like , and then Jesus went to this place and then he did some things and people got mad and then Jesus left and did more things , like that's just kind of how I read it . But then I read Beautiful Outlaw and each chapter of this book delves into a different part of the personality of Jesus the man . Now , as you know , with many John Eldredge books , he does take some poetic license in different places , but , guys , he doesn't do so in order to contradict or add to or to change the text in any way , but he's trying to bring it to life , he's trying to provide some light for it .
Speaker 2So today we're going to start by looking at chapter five of Beautiful Outlaw , and it's called the Most Human Face of All . So I'll read from it here , for something has crept into our assumptions about Jesus that makes it almost impossible to relate to him , not to mention love him . I say crept because it has not been a conscious decision . Few of the things that shape our actual convictions are . I think much of the creep has happened , ironically , as a result of our attempts to love and revere Christ . But crept in this notion has and it has done great damage to our perceptions of him and our experience of him . It's the notion that Jesus was really quote , unquote pretending when he presented himself as a man . And so the point here is that , okay , yeah , yeah , you know God , you know was , you know Jesus was God and all that kind of stuff . But you know he was just kind of faking it , he wasn't actually hungry , he wasn't actually distressed at all these points .
Speaker 2So let's go back to a beautiful outlaw here to hear and make his point . After all , we're talking about Jesus here . The guy walked on water , raised Lazarus from the dead . He never broke a sweat , right . But then what do you make of the terrible sweat in Gethsemane ?
Speaker 2They went to a place called Gethsemane and Jesus said to his disciples sit here while I pray . He took Peter , james and John along with him and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled . My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death . He said to them Stay here and keep watch . Going a little further , he fell to the ground and prayed that , if it was possible . That's Mark 14 , 32-36 . In Luke 22 , 44 . He says and then Eldridge goes into talking about the 40 days and 40 nights of fasting in the desert and the temptations that he experienced .
Speaker 2And then it kind of hit me at this point when I was reading the book Jesus was fully man , like he was actually a man . This might make some of you think I'm kind of dense , but I was like , oh my gosh , like he's actually a man . And then Eldridge hits us with these three scriptures in the same chapter
John 1.14, . And the word became flesh and dwelt among us . Hebrews 2 , 14 . Since the children have flesh and blood , he too shared in their humanity so that his death might break the power of him . Who holds the power of death ? Philippians 2 , 7 and 8 , but he emptied himself , taking the form of a bond servant and being made in the likeness of men , being found in appearance as a man . He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death , even death on a cross .
Speaker 2Because , guys , on this earth , jesus was God and a bod , for sure , but the bod was a human bod . Right , he was fully God while simultaneously being fully man . And what do all men have ? They all have a personality . And so that was the big kind of aha moment for me when I was reading through this book . It's like , oh my gosh , I've been reading about Jesus so wrong . And then , when you're reading Jesus wrong , you don't get the fullness of who he was , because , yes , he was God , but yes , he was man , which allows us to relate to him even better . So , guys , come back here tomorrow where we will explore that further and answer the question is Jesus really playful ?
Speaker 1Thank you for listening to today's episode Before you go . If you want to help equip other men for the fight , share this podcast around and leave us a five-star rating and review . Stay sharp .