Janette Ok - On Reading the New Testament in Color

What are we missing when we fail to (or are afraid to?) bring our full ethnic, cultural selves in reading the Bible? A lot, actually, because God meets us in the concreteness of a person whose meaning is fully formed in a particular time and culture. 

Dr. Janette Ok is a professor of New Testament at Fuller Seminary, a preacher, and the co-author of New Testament in Color (IVP). Vania Gomez and Jin Cho have an encouraging and important conversation with Janette, on having early gender and cultural role models; how owning our own authentic ethnic/cultural  identities is a gift to the church; and how justice at a defining characteristic of God is a divine imperative for God's people.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Welcome to Revelation 7-9 Conversations, where we center voices at the margins, pursue justice and action, and dream together about a church that reflects God's beautiful, diverse kingdom. I'm your host, Vanya, and I'm here with Jin. Say hi, Jin.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Hey, hello.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

Today we are diving into how we read and interpret scripture, especially when we bring our full ethnic and cultural selves to the text. What does it mean to read the New Testament in color, and how might it transform how we see God, ourselves, and one another? Our guest today is my friend Dr. Jeanette Oak, pastor, New Testament, professor, theologian, and one of the editors of the New Testament in Color, a multi-ethnic commentary. She's also the author of Constructing Ethnic Identity in 1 Peter, and she's currently working on a commentary for the Epistles of John. Today she helps us consider how biblical interpretation can center diverse voices, challenge dominant readings, and breathe new life into the household of faith. Welcome, Jeanette.

SPEAKER_02 1:17

It's a pleasure to be here, Vania, and nice to meet you, Jin.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

Well, we are so excited to have you here, and we'd love to start by learning a little bit about you. So tell us a little bit about your own journey. How has your faith, your family, and your background shaped your calling as a professor, author, and pastor?

SPEAKER_02 1:44

Gosh, I'm trying to go think about how far back I should go. But I will say that growing up in Michigan, that's where I'm originally from, uh, I grew up in a suburb of Detroit, Michigan. And my family, um, my dad was raised Catholic in Korea, and my mom Protestant and more specifically Presbyterian. So when they um immigrated to Korea, I mean, when they immigrated from Korea, and then they actually got married in Michigan, which is rare for first-generation Korean, um, they uh attended a Korean immigrant church. And I really loved church. It was a place where I could feel like I could be at home in a way that I couldn't at school or even just like in my neighborhood. I didn't always feel at home, though I was like, that's my where my home was located. Um, but at church, we first of all we'd be there all weekend, at least all Sunday. And we'd arrive a few hours before our worship service started to participate in Hangarakyo or Korean language school. And just as like a, and you might relate to this in the Latina, Latinx or Hispanic church, but Korean immigrant churches not only served as places or serve as places of worship, but also their cultural centers and can often they provide like cultural services or social services, I should say, like helping people figure out how to enroll their kids in school or get like driver's license or how to learn how to get around, uh, especially as if they are uh struggling with the language. It's not their first language. But it's also a place to learn and Korean. It wasn't like I wouldn't say the greatest pedagogical experience of my life, but you know, it's that's something I it was part of my formation. And after service, um, because services were often split in, you know, we didn't have kids, teenagers, college kids, and adults all in one service. And that was primarily because, well, different, you know, ages and levels of reception of the gospel and sermons and stuff, but also language, language issues. Um, but after service, our respective services, we would also eat lunch and in our you know, in the basement in this case. And so it was a really full day of um spiritual, cultural uh uh like gathering. And I'm not saying not fraught with some issues and along the way, but that was my that was my reality. Um and this church at the time, I feel really specifically fortunate about this, but at this time in this suburb of Detroit, Michigan, Southfield, Michigan, they uh hired a Korean American female pastor to lead their young adult or the English ministry. And this was over 30 plus years ago. And um, I didn't realize at the time because I was too young, but she was also happened to be the fourth ordained Korean American clergywoman in the PCUSA. Oh, the historical nature of being at this church at this time as a young kid, um, it was lost on me, but not on my mom. My mom was like, this is amazing and a big deal. And so she, even though it wasn't her service, she would go to the young adult service. So we were at church really all day. We have multiple services, Korean school, lunch, meetings, all the things. But she took me, like in my early elementary years and my brother, late elementary, to these services because she knew the historicity or the historical significance and the potential impact of just seeing the Reverend Mary Pack preach and minister. And I'm just so grateful for this because I, as a young person, in my young formation as a Christian, as a pastor, as a preacher myself, uh, I took for granted that women could be pastors. I took for granted that women could preach. I took for granted that they could administer the sacraments and benedict and um lead other people and lead ministries and actually even have an office, you know, in the church. In a, you know, not in like not like uh where the vacuum cleaner is located as well. But like she even had primacy of place, I would say, yeah um in in the space of the church. And so, like that was such a vivid memory. I would, you know, she was such a great preacher. And it was really powerful for both me and my brother and my special and my mother to bear witness to the Reverend Pack do her thing. Um church, you know, supporting and celebrating that. I'm sure there were hardships behind the doors, behind the scenes that I didn't know about. But for me, she cleared a path for trajectory in my life to take shape. And like when people say representation matters, like it matters.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:42

Because my formate, my my imagination was formed early. And she existed and she pastored well. And she gave me tangible living proof that despite what people would say to the contrary, that woman could and should preach and pastor. And because I did years later experience pushback on that very thing. But I remember the Reverend Mary Pack. Uh so that was really significant.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

I love that so much. And I see so much of my personal story in your story because my grandmother was ordained, my mother was ordained, and I just I took for granted. And so it's so such an impact to have that early on and be able to have kind of like I don't know, like uh power um to be able to stand on their shoulders um in when you come up to those um tough discussions that people might not uh be so willing to say this is possible because you say no, I've seen it. I've seen it, I've seen it done well. And so that's so amazing. That's so beautiful. So you did mention about like you probably saw something that not saw some things, but you probably um know that they have experienced some tension behind closed doors. Um what are some of the tensions that you have maybe experienced? Um, maybe in church or in academy, and um when you're bringing your full identity, not only as a woman, but as a Korean American woman, um, and what are some of the tensions that you have experienced as you bring your full identity as a woman, as a Korean American into the academy, into the church, into a uh scholar of biblical interpretation?

SPEAKER_02 8:47

Yeah, I you know, sometimes this is kind of personal, but sometimes I wonder if I were a guy, if I would have pursued scholarship as early as I did. I think I might have been encouraged to pursue ministry and, you know, like go to seminary or after college and been encouraged to uh, you know, sh vocationally brainstorm and vision cast among other pastors. But I think that, but I don't I don't see scholarship as like a second path of an alternative. I do, I do believe that was God's calling for me. Um, but you know, there was more resistance to the idea of going into ministry full-time than it was to going into scholarship. And nevertheless, biblical scholarship is still quite entrenched in whiteness and in maleness still. So that's kind of, you know, it wasn't an easy experience. Um, but that's just a side note. Um, I do think women, uh younger women, especially if they're exploring uh whether they want to be pastors, don't have as many early conversation partners to even imagine what that looks like. And I hope that can change in in your denomination or diocese and and in um the spaces where I pastor and teach. Uh, but you know, yes, tensions and dissonance. It's part of the experience. Because, you know, when you bring your whole self, um, I think sometimes we think of that as like every part of ourselves comes out of the pores and uh comes out of every example in every moment. No, it's in some ways you experience um there's parts of yourself that are you you you have to negotiate which parts are gonna be emphasized and which parts you hold back on. And I think that's a decision a lot of people make. But I think what you're getting at, Vanya, is that um a lot of times we have to repress or suppress our fullness um in order to fit in or to be accepted or to be heard. And I think for me, in at least in the academy, the challenge I faced was I was always interested in being explicit about my Asian Americanness as a biblical scholar. Like for some people, and I want to, when I say always, I don't mean since I was, you know, two, but when I started to endeavor and go on the journey and path towards biblical interpretation, um, you know, I had a professor named Brian Blunt at Princeton Seminary, and he helped me imagine the possibility of um ref reflecting your my experience as an Asian American, as an Asian American woman, as a Korean American, Korean American woman, um, from in in my scholarship and in the in and at the pulpit. And he taught me how to read biblical texts carefully and exegetically, but also to take my context and my community's context seriously.

unknown 11:53

Right?

SPEAKER_02 11:53

So I had that influence. And also Dr. Gail Yi, she was a really significant mentor for me, and she really mentored countless students in biblical studies with uh doing Asian American um biblical interpretation. And so I didn't have a lot of, you know, some people feel like, oh, I don't want to be typecast as an Asian American biblical scholar, or that's not all that I am, or all that I do. And of course, like that isn't. But like I was okay and I still am okay with being an Asian American biblical scholar who does biblical scholarship. But yes, I am conscious and explicit and intentional about considering how my social location comes to bear on my interpretation of text. And I really do want in my teaching and preaching to help others do that too, because we all read from context. Um but I think when you're in the academy, um, or even when you're trying to make your way in different denominations, um, you don't want to be marginalized. And I remember getting advice from like a professor saying, hey, Jeanette, I don't, I really I suggest you do something that has like a longer shelf life, not basically something that's not, you know, something more universal. Um, which is usually code for not mentioning your social location, not being honest about how it comes to bear on the way you the questions you ask of a text or how you read the text or the communities um to whom you're accountable. And or another way is maybe you're uh I was being discouraged from being too ethnic-y.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:31

And also, you know, it's funny because although there aren't many people of color in biblical scholarship, um, I would get questi comments from my male MDiv students who'd be like, Oh, you if I wish I were an Asian woman or a black man, I'd be much more likely to get into a PhD program. And those comments like that, um, I think are expressed in what Kathy Parkonk, she wrote the book Minor Feelings. I find that like how she describes minor feelings to be really helpful. And and she, um, first of all, she's a um a poet and author, and she describes um it refers to the Asian American psyche. And minor feelings are these emotions hard to articulate, but they're negative, they're um intelligenic, they're dysphoric, and they're built from these sediments that we experience of everyday racial experiences that like irritate at us, that rub against us about having our uh reality constantly questioned or dismissed.

SPEAKER_01 14:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:38

And that builds up in a person. And I would go to my doctoral classes and I'm like, why do I feel like my questions, like I'm crazy for asking the questions that I have? Or why why are other people asking the questions that I have, or why are those questions not my questions? Like I'd like I'd have those thoughts and often think I'm thinking the wrong way, or approaching it from a less, you know, accurate angle or something like that. And so those are experiences where I did feel tension and dissonance. Also, you know, a lot of times people want in the church context, they want diversity, they want physical diversity, but what about epistemic diversity?

SPEAKER_01 15:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:23

What about different ways of leadership, different ways of expressing leadership, different ideas, and having giving space to those in a way that has structural impact? You know, I experienced tension and dissonance with those things too. Um and so I I don't think I can I have like achieved a lack of dissonance or tension. I think I don't think many do.

SPEAKER_00 15:47

If you had, I would have asked you for the secret of how you did that.

SPEAKER_02 15:51

But I have actually learned to um think of it a little more creatively. Maybe that's a coping mechanism. Um so okay, so like uh jazz pianist Bill Evans, do you know him? He he's a uh he he has this song that I really love called Peace Peace. It's P-E-A-C-E and then P-I-E-C E. So peace peace. I think it was recorded like in 1958 or something, first time, but it's a song that starts off really melodically, uh quietly, very simply, and then it gets more complex and actually more discordant as it develops. And so I'm like, why do why is this song so interesting? And um, and I think it's this seeming fragmentation or dissonance that makes it intriguing. And there's a way in which to make effective use of dissonance or tension while still holding down the melody. I'm no musician, so that maybe my analogy comes to a halt at some point. Um but another way to look about it in terms of fragments, um, uh Willie James Jennings in his book After Whiteness, he talks about like the, you know, these fragments in our formation and theological education. And there's he talks about three of them, but the first one is positive, the other two are negative. But the positive is that as Christians, like we are never fully formed. Like we're come, we're not complete on this side of heaven, right? We're we're not self-sufficient, all-encompassing individuals with fully formed faith and and and a perfect interpretation of scripture. We don't have it all. And we have our faith in slices and slivers, and and what this does is it humbles us. It makes us dependent, interdependent, it makes us curious, you know, um, and allows us to be a part of something shared, like shared project that a spirit weaves together these fragments and these pieces. Um the others are formed by colonism, colonialism, and the commodification of knowledge and power. I don't have time to talk about it, but it is related. But I think what I'm trying to say is that um we put we took so much stock in like the whole the whole. And the danger, I think, is when we think we have the whole piece of the hermeneutical pie that we see in full. And so we don't really need to have other conversation partners. We don't really depend on others to help us become more like Christ. We don't need the church, we don't need teachers, we don't need conversation partners that are different from us in so many ways. And so that is also, I experienced the dissonance and I've had to learn to work through it. Um, but on the other hand, I also think that I have a new way of thinking about fragments and limits as not a bad thing. Uh especially, you know, as the body of Christ. I mean, isn't that like our ecclesiology ultimately?

SPEAKER_00 18:59

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 19:01

Dr. Oak, that's so uh thank you so much for sharing so openly and voluntarily about your journey. And what you're I I hear you describing is this journey of being made to feel like your your ethnic otherness or diversity or the minority status in this dominant culture is a disadvantage. It's something that you need to hide or to try to find less confidence in. Um and then this slow journey of of learning to realize that that is where the source of strength is and the power is, and and and finding your voice in that. And and it feels like this is such an important part of what it what we need to get out there for uh uh women and people of color who are who are learning to own this authentic voice and that this is something that God has given to us as a gift. Um, and I see like this is sort of your work, right? So this is where you're leaning into like um the next book. I mean, I don't know too much about it, but this work is on constructing ethnic identity. Uh and I'm wondering if you could comment a little bit more about that and and how you're finding this as uh a source of it, a resource within the the scripture itself.

SPEAKER_02 20:28

Yeah. Um so, you know, what what's interesting about this the how I got to this book um is I think it's also part of the journey because I thought I was gonna work in Romans. Everyone, not everyone, but many people want a piece of Romans or Paul, you know. And I was thinking initially I would go into Romans 5 and uh learn the role of suffering. Um, but I ended up entering into the little the small letter of 1 Peter with the same intention of studying the role of suffering in the text. Um, but as I was doing that, I was actually so taken aback by the use of or by the uh the role of identity formation in the letter. Uh and how the author is making use of ethnic language to help forge what it means to be Christian.

SPEAKER_01 21:20

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 21:20

Now, would that mean everybody would enter the text with the same questions or the same attention to certain things? No, and I think that's what's so interesting about how who we are, like you can't like it's not a science, but like we come to a text with different questions. And our questions are or are are cut often formed from different experiences that we have in the world and realities with and with scripture and with the church. And so this is just the reality. It's not on it's like a neutral reality. This is but so but we that means we don't come to the text like a blank slate. Just me, God, Holy Spirit, text, and then something happened. No, so and that's okay. And that's a that's okay. You have to embrace it. That's part of becoming a more honest, self-aware, humble reader. And also realizing that, you know, not being ignorant of the fact that that's a that this is something that happens. You and I might come to the same chapter. How is it that we might focus on a different part?

SPEAKER_00 22:26

Right?

SPEAKER_02 22:26

What is it that brought us? Why are we fixing our eyes on a certain verse and you on another and you on another? Or, you know, how is it's an amazing reality? Why are books continuously being written on the same uh text of the Bible? Thank God it gives me a job to do, but it has a lot, but it has to do with the act of interpretation.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:48

Right? So that's let me go back to the the book. Um so what I what I what I argue in the book Constructing Ethnic Identity, First Peter, who you are no longer, is that um the author makes use of ethnic language uh to forge what it means to be Christian because he for he sees that uh doing so helps to create a stronger, more distinct, cohesive and positive group identity and a sense of cohesion among people who may not otherwise see themselves as belonging to one another, and who have to endure anti-Christian hostility and subsequent, even subsequent persecution for being born anew to a living hope. So a lot of times we just as Christians assume that Christian identity just kind of and the church and getting along and finding really actually thinking we belong to one another, apart from um the actual bloodlines, right? It we and that it just happened, but no, it was a it was not easy for the early believers to see, understand how do they actually see one another as family. And um, how do they have an identity beyond the one that they that their parents gave them and the one beyond the one in their household and then society? And so the author of First Peter is employing like the vocabulary shared blood, of peoplehood, of human difference as an important point of entry to define what it means to be Christian and for his um addressees to define themselves actually in contrast to non-Christians or outsiders. So it's a way in which they uh could understand how they belonged to one another through the blood of Christ. I mean, there's a lot more to it, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

Yeah. But I love that it it's you're talking about like not erasing your identity, because oftentimes I know that people will come in and be like, oh, I need to form myself to this Western-centric way of reading or this Western-centric way of um thinking about the community of God. And so I love that it's kind of challenging um kind of both our both our both of our identities and helping us become closer to God and to one another. Um, this sounds a lot like like justice work. Um of helping bring that uh piece of identity back to who we are as people. What how would you respond to people saying, like, no, Vanya, you're crazy. This doesn't sound like justice work. Theology and biblical commentary isn't justice work.

SPEAKER_02 25:41

Well, it's it's interesting. I mean, it's to me, the separation between justice and theology, or justice and interpretation, or justice and praxis, or faithful living is just one we don't see in scripture. We don't see this separation. Uh, that's somewhat modern uh uh uh concern in a way. And so the prophets like Isaiah and Amos, they're not separating justice from righteousness. You don't see that. That's the whole problem is when people do separate them. In fact, justice is a character of God, a defining characteristic of God and God's people, and hence a divine imperative. It's not something that just passively comes down from heaven, but actually has to be sought and defended and pleaded for. And, you know, the prop Prophet Mike Micah, the Prophet Micah tells us that God actually desires, God actually requires that his people are act justly, that they love mercy and walk humbly with him. And so it is the we cannot the mistake, I think, uh in our culture wars. And in the ways that we are wanting to differentiate between this type of Christian and that type of Christian. Oh, you're in a the social justice, you're a social justice Christian. And I'm a gospel, you know, missionary, mission, evangelized, evangelistic Christian. Like I find those dichotomies really artificial, um, especially when you're trying to find justification for them from the Bible itself. Uh, we we see that justice has to do with fairness and integrity, righteousness, not only of God, but in our actions, in our doings, in the way, in who we defend and who we uh uh advocate for. And that God is concerned with the most vulnerable, invisible, and marginalized in society, in our communities and churches. And God's people always struggle with this. It's not an easy uh thing to walk in, to love. Or a new phenomenon. It's not something that just started happening. It's not the result of DEI initiatives and wokeness. No, it is not. Um and so that's where the New Testament in color comes in. This is not a book that is responding to um uh like the you know uh tearing out of DEI in in our institutions and schools. No, like we actually believe that theology is rooted in the particular, right? Like what do we talk, who do we just who does the Hebrew Bible describe God as? God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And who did he deliver Israel from? He delivered Israel from actual slavery in an actual place. He delivered actuality through his son Jesus Christ as well. So Israel from slavery in Egypt, humanity through his son Jesus Christ. So like concepts of the concept of redemption really cannot be understood apart from God or Yahweh's relationship with Israel. And like the language itself is we understand it in light of the sociocultural realities of ancient Israelite society. It's not just like makes sense to us apart from that. And so I find that I hope that the book, the commentary and the ways that we try to open uh invite people in um to scripture uh uh at the table with a diverse witness of interpreters, um it isn't just an act of like, oh, I want to be, I want to embrace diversity because that's what seems like the appropriate thing to do, like because that's what my church is requiring me to do to be a better pastor. No, and actually that if God's eternal son came in the flesh, an incarnation, in the fullness of your humanity, right, for the work of redemption, and he came in his maleness, he came in his Jewishness, he came in first century Palestine in embodied historical concreteness, doesn't that mean that our historical concreteness matters too? And that God's redemptive work is uh culturally and ethnically specific and socially located, but also universal and cosmic in scope. It's both. And so we can affirm, and the book, the New Testament Color, affirms both the particular and the universal, right? The socially located and the cosmic nature of God with us and the way God works redemptively among us.

SPEAKER_01 30:13

Yeah. And you know, your book, uh the commentary uh in itself, it it positions itself, right? I love that this isn't uh a work of the academia for uh for the academic world, but this is for preachers, right? So this is to get to the front lines of actual ministry, and you do both, which so this is actually really helpful to hear from your perspective, because there is such a um uh American Christianity, both I would say conservative or progressive, there's so much ahistoricity to it that it it it I don't I can't even begin to like imagine. Like, how do you jolt our churches, our preachers to get out of this mode of thinking that they approach a text? I'm gonna do my commentary work to get at the actual thing that God really says, right? This is the typical thing that most preachers will say that they're doing is that I'm just trying to get at God's word, and then I'm going to find the application for it in my context. And there's such a uh arrogance to it or naivete to it that I feel like this work breaks, is meant to break. And I wonder I wonder if you could comment on that and and your hopes for it.

SPEAKER_02 31:43

Yeah, no, I think uh when we okay, so first of all, I think that um I think it the New Testament color is is special and one of a kind in that it's got a team of scholars from various ethnic backgrounds, and and we were each tasked to bring our unique interpretive lens to eliminate like how our social location and biblical interpretation intertwine. And not everyone does it exactly the same and has exact same, like, you know, um way in which they do it. Like it's not we didn't give like this many words to this and to that. We gave some space. Um, but it really is rooted in that trust in God's word is scripture, and to help us read scripture and follow Christ more faithfully in this rich multiplicity. So that's like the the the premise that we gave um uh our authors, and of course, within the bounds of orthodoxy, et cetera, can this can't the canon, et cetera. But we kind of think this it's very a linear motion, right? And that contextuality is just something we can lop on at the end.

SPEAKER_01 32:54

Right.

SPEAKER_02 32:55

But it is much more dynamic than that. And so we have to work that out. And and we the the New Testament color helps to give an example of how different interpreters are doing this. We take the history of the text seriously, we take our history as readers seriously, we take the literary realities and and the styles of the author seriously as well, and the theological concerns in their context. And but yet we're trying to bridge how we we will the interpretive task is what does this mean today? When we talk about the living word of God, we mean it's living today. It's not some artifact that we're trying to undig, and then then we're just gonna have to like deal with it. That's and then it meant that, and then we don't know what to do. The preacher, the teacher is doing that interpretive work. And we we when we can't do that well when our commentary sources are not themselves um diverse.

SPEAKER_01 33:55

Right.

SPEAKER_02 33:57

And we have all different types of commentaries. Like I'm writing a different, you know, I'm writing a commentary right now on the letters of John. Um, it's not the New Testament in color. It's gonna be a little, it it'll have a different page length, a different type of emphasis. But still, it's not like I'm shutting down who I am as an as an interpreter in my work. And they're not asking that of me. So going back to your question, Jin, I hope that um what happens when you bring more people to the table, um, you realize actually that every interpreter that you're reading has a theological or an inter uh hermeneutical um I don't want to say you could say edge, but you could also say leaning. And we need as as readers to be more aware of like where our uh our our commentators are leaning. And some are much more explicit, like when you read the intros and you read the series description and even like the bios, like you can do that, but I think we're naive to think that only people of color are reading in color and everyone else is just reading in black and white, as if that's better, or if that's even possible. Yeah, you have this like weird, um, kind of scientific misunderstanding that commentaries are this neutral, disinterested, like medicinal text of sorts.

SPEAKER_01 35:32

It's years of discipleship. Yeah.

unknown 35:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:35

But I'm actually saying, no, we're not disinterested, objective readers of the Bible. And when we acknowledge that, we come to it from a certain perspective and vantage point. Um, we become humble and interdependent and more self-aware. And that when we do this, it helps us nourish the church and all of her multi multicultural beauty better because that means that I need to get a better diet and I'm more nutrition, and that will take some conscious effort. And my congregation needs that too in their discipleship. And I should, I would say, even show that I'm growing in this way versus just pretending you came up with it as a preacher. Like preachers plagiarize like big time. You did not make that up, buddy. Come on. And there's nothing wrong with saying that you got it from the help of somebody else.

SPEAKER_00 36:28

Right.

SPEAKER_02 36:28

And if you are so called out, but I mean, okay, you know, I what I mean, we're all called out in our ways.

SPEAKER_01 36:37

That's that's that's wonderful in a good way, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:40

But like this whole idea, why do we feel the need to make it seem like we just, as a preacher, I just know all this? It's it's a from a deceptive idea that that's what makes us legitimate. When actually I would say you should sus be suspicious of a preacher who doesn't read other books and now nod to the fact that he or she is being trained and discipled by other people that are not just looking and sounding like them or not just white Western European interpreters.

SPEAKER_00 37:07

Yeah. And what a gift for the congregation to be able to know that they are hearing from all of these diverse perspectives.

SPEAKER_02 37:16

And honestly, you'll always hear Brugamon or Wright, you know, quoted, because people are like, oh, I okay, I'm I don't want to assume. But I think people think they're too famous to not quote. But these minority scholars or minoritized scholars, they don't need a name or a face, or, you know, because like whatever. Like it it sometimes you have to reflect on the way you even value who you read. Um and you got to take inventory of your sources because these are your conversation partners. Think of them as conversation partners. And sometimes I think in my um um communities of color or pastors and preacher, we kind of overvalorize the Western European white male scholar as like the end-all be-all, and then maybe throw in a few people of color in there, like, okay, maybe Ethel are lucky and a woman, God will God willing, you know, and and and but yet you we think that we have a hierarchy of who we think are more legitimate. And I want to, I dare to question where you got that idea of that hierarchy and to expand that. And and it will require you to go beyond maybe the books that were passed down to you and the people that were quoted and and referred to in the sermons you that formed you. You might need to push yourself to expand who you're engaging and and um uh and be be more explicit about that process. And it takes effort and it takes time, but I think it will form your congregations to be more faithful, to be more humble, to be more kingdom um reflective, actually.

SPEAKER_00 39:02

I love that. That's just so amazing. And I'm so thankful for your voice, the way that you've impacted my life personally and so many other people, um, as as you've helped in their training and in pastoring, and and as people read the words that you have written, I am so thankful for you and thank you for um taking some time to spend with us in talking about these really hard, uh, important topics um that sometimes are a little intimidating. And so I really appreciate it. I do have one last question though. It's a very, very important question that we ask a fun question at the end of our interviews. Okay. Um, and my favorite one to ask is if Revelation 7.9 was a potluck, what dish would you bring and why?

SPEAKER_02 40:04

Oh wow, that's a great question.

SPEAKER_00 40:06

I'm a foodie, so I want food recommendations.

SPEAKER_02 40:12

Definitely okay. I would bring peep pimp pop, peeping pop. And um, the word bib means like mixed and pop is rice. It's so it's like a dish you could find at most cream restaurants, mixed rice and usually meat and assorted veggies. But you can make endless varieties or variations of this dish depending on what's fresh, what's accessible, and there's not one way to do it. And it's like a mix up. And if you take an individual like spinach all alone or the carrots all alone, it's not fun, but it's the mixture of it coming together. It makes it so delicious. And so I would I recommend people trying beeping pop, but that's what I would bring to the potluck.

SPEAKER_00 40:54

Awesome. I, you know, it's just kind of like whatever's in the fridge, let's go, let's mix it up and it'll be delicious.

SPEAKER_02 41:01

No, exactly. You can totally do that. That's legit beeping pop.

SPEAKER_00 41:04

Yeah, that's we have those dishes also in Mexican cuisine where it's like, let's just put it in and it'll be good at the end. Great. Awesome. Oh well, I can't wait for this potluck whenever it is. Um, thank you so much for uh being with us again. Don't forget to check out the New Testament in Color, a multi-ethnic commentary, and any other writings by Dr. Oak. What a gift to be able to be reminded in such practical ways of how to incorporate the kaleidoscope of our identities as a body. And I hope that today was useful and that you found some tips and tricks in order to be able to incorporate into your everyday life. Don't forget to check out our other episodes if you haven't, and stay tuned for more. Let us know if you have someone that you would like to invite to our podcast. We'd love to hear from you!