Transcript for:
Rediscovering Faith through the Nicene Creed

Welcome to the Holy Post. Why are more churches rediscovering and reciting the Nyine Creed? And what can the ancient articulation of our faith offer the church in these divided times? Today, Phil, Caitlyn, and I discuss the 1700th anniversary of the creed and its place in the modern church. Then, we know the Bible is critical to our faith, but have we been taught to worship the Bible rather than the God of the Bible? My guest this week is Dave Ripper, the author of Experiencing Scripture as a Disciple of Jesus. He explains how Dallas Willard engaged the Bible and how it can become a source of transformation in us and not just information. Also this week, what really qualifies as anti-Christian behavior. We have an update on Afghan and Africana refugees and scientists discover that auras are real. As always, we've got some fantastic content exclusively for Holy Post Plus subscribers. That means Holy Post Plus subscribers will get either a digital or hard copy of the book. I also did a bonus interview with Dave Ripper about how Dallas Willard understood those messy parts of the Old Testament, you know, the genocide and whatnot. Holy Post Plus subscribers will also get ad free episodes of the Holy Post podcast, Skypod episodes every Friday, getting schooled by Caitlyn Chess, and Esau Macaulay's exclusive series 66 verses to explain the Bible, and of course, much, much more. So, come join the larger Holy Post media community by becoming a subscriber today. Go to holyost.com to find out how. Here is episode 670. Hey there, welcome back to the podcast. My name is Phil. My last name Fisher. Middle name Roger if you're curious. I'm here with Sky Jatani. Hi Sky. Hi Phil. Hi Roger. Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah. How did I know? Yeah. How do we know that? From R Brown. One of the Rs. Yeah. It's one of his Rs. It's the second one. Robert. Yeah. And And Philip is the middle name of my paternal greatgrandfather. I have my maternal grandfather's middle name. Whoa. Charles. Yes. Yeah. Wow. And Mike Erie is Carl. Yes. Yes. I got I got those I got those confused. And this is like the most old man conversation. It is Caitlyn Chess. Middle name Margaret. Kaitlyn learned it. Chess. I'm sure I did. No, I did not learn it. I heard it. There's a difference between hearing it and learning it. Isn't it Lynn? No. And what did we figure this out before? Caitlyn Marie. Someone someone I don't know how they knew this, but someone on Patreon and was just like, "Oh, that's what it is." Junior, it starts with an L. Wouldn't that be great? No, it doesn't. Caitlyn, it starts with an N, right? N. Yeah. How do you know that? It was put in slack at one point. How old do you think I am? Caitlyn Neapolitan. Caitlyn Nora of the Netherlands. No, this is not hard. This is like a very common middle name. Non. Nargret. Nar. Narwhal. Caitlyn Narwhal. What's What's a What's a woman's name that starts with I am going completely blank. This is like Nora. Nor baby. Incredibly baby. Huh? Like top middle names. I had 90s babies. Um I did not. Yeah, I did. And And they don't have any ends. No ends at all. I I give up. Nicole. Nicole. Oh, okay. And now it's time for the theme song. What's the news that you like the most? Who's your favorite podcast host? If it's breakfast, get your toast. It's Sky and Phil and the Holy Post. Sky and Phil and the Holy Post. and sometimes Caitlyn. [Music] You know that I'm a skeptic. I like things to have evidence, proof, data. I like to research things before I commit to them. And that even goes for my supplements. I want to know that they're high quality. That's why for the last year, I've been drinking AG1. Unlike many supplement brands, AG1 conducts relentless testing to set the standard for purity and potency. I know I can trust what's in every scoop of AG1 because it's tested for 950 contaminants and banned substances, while the industry standard typically only tests for 10. 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And the cost of traditional in-person therapy can be huge, costing anywhere from $100 to $250 per session. Online therapy with Better Help can save you on average up to 50% for each session. BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served more than 5 million people around the world. It's easy, too. You can join a session with the click of a button to help fit therapy into your busy life. And you can switch therapists at any time. You can do better than just survive these crazy times. Your well-being is worth it. Visit betterhelp.com/holypyost today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp hp.com/holyost. How is everybody? Sky, you good? I'm Yeah. I hear you held a baby yesterday in church. I did. That's so cute. Almost like the whole time. Are there any pictures? cuz I think I I did not take any cuz my hands were full. Some of our full of baby. Some of our listeners might be saying, "I need to see that to believe it." I am actually quite good with children. I believe I when Amanda and I first got married, I used to serve in the nursery all the time, even before we had kids. Gosh, you're so I like kids. I like And I love babies. I actually do like babies. So, you just don't like the full grown version of humanity? Adults? Yeah. I find they do deteriorate with age. Yeah. Well, that's for sure. That's true. My wrist hurts and then I I'm deteriorating. No, it's fun to hold a happy baby. It is fun to hold a Oh, nothing's more fun than a Okay. Did you know science from the science desk? Oh, our science desk is right over Actually, it's right where the Pope had lunch. That's where the desk is of our science department. And they Science and Faith together. Yeah, they just sent that in. Humans give off visible light. What? That vanishes when we die. No, we glow. Come on, Skye. Stop. We glow. I What? It turns out the idea that humans glow might not just be poetic. A new study from the University of Calgary and the National Research Council of Canada, which is now the primary scientific body in North America and the only one left, has captured physical evidence showing that living organism organisms including mice and plants emit a faint visible light that vanishes upon death. This barely there glow known as aura. It's up. Do you know what that stands for? UPE. unidentified phone photograph phenomenon whatever ultra weak photon emission ultra weak it's ultra weak that's why you can't see it if there's light and you really the naked eye can't see it which is I'm not sure if the classifying it as visible is correct well yeah if you can't see it well these these biofotons are far too dim for our is to see. They're very real. And scientists have now observed the glow flicker. Oh, flicker out in real time. Okay. So, they took here's what they did. They took mice, they put them in a completely lightless box basically with a very sensitive camera and they could see the glow. And then, and this is where again most of my stories get macob at one point, they euthanize the mice in the box and watch the glow fade out. Oh, yeah. I know. Fade to black. That's sad. But it was important. They gave their lives for science so we could know. Oh, yeah. There's a little there's a little glow there. Yeah. What did we learn from that? There's a little glow there and it goes away. do all now let's try it on kangaroos or children like I want to know if there's differences in glow like do some people glow more than others if they're more quote unquote alive or holy or is there like what about uh a Jesus glow there seems to be with with plants with plants they glow more when they're under stress so there is one theory that sounds like a Pinterest post there's one you glow more when you're under stress. We love you for it. No one glows like you do in a bad situation. Me, guy, it brings out your glow. Is this about my my baldness? You They could pick it up easier on you. Difference between shine and glow cuz you can shine reflected light but glow that's internal. That's internal. That's from the heart from the But does hair does body hair block some of the glow? Surely. Probably. So I do glow more. I I guess so. Let's put you in a box and then euthanize you and watch your glow go out. They think it may science have something to do with cells under stress and they're not sure why. They have to look into it more because plants that have been cut or uh are know that they're stressed will glow. Well, it's because they're more active. If they're more active, aren't they giving off more energy, more heat? They're burning more calories. I don't know. The idea that humans glow may seem silly, but this research suggests it's a measurable biological fact. If these emissions reflect cellular stress and health, they could one day become tools for medical diagnostics, offering a non-invasive way to monitor health, detect injury, or even study the aging process. Do we glow more as we age, or do we like glow like where we have arthritis? You know, like, wow, look at the knuckles. They're lightening up. Woo. which you could also ask someone, do your knuckles hurt? Yes. Okay, we solved it. You have arthritis. Well, we don't need to put you in a completely lightless box. This is a little macab. So, but could there be a case where somebody has uh expired based on, you know, the medical Yeah. evidence, but we find the glow, but they're still glowing. Yeah. And like is there a a lag time between when the heart stops beating and when the rest of the body stops glowing? Yes. And is and can you consider them truly dead when there's still some glow with with the mice? The glow um receded over time. It didn't just turn off, right? Because it takes a while for a body to assume room temperature. No, but that's it's not about temperature. It's about It's not about temperature. Okay. Because that would just be, you know, infrared heat. But you can see that with an infrared camera. Yeah. But this is a this is a regular camera. You can see it with a regular camera. It's just super sensitive to light. This is the visible spectrum. Light on the I guess that's why they call it visible light because it's on the visible spectrum. Our eyes just aren't sensitive enough to pick it up. H fascinating. I wonder if there's animals that can Oh, what if you could look for like buzzards missing people? What if buzzards could see the glow so they know that? Oh, that's alive. I'm not going to fly down and eat. That's what I'm wondering. Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Sky. Oh, shoot. Sermon illustration. sermon illustration. Um, we have we have this glory in jars of clay, right? And it's Yeah, it's radiating and though we are Yeah. on the outside dying dying. Yeah. We're being renewed. Though we're under stress, we're still glowing. We're glorying. Right. Count it pure joy, brothers and sisters, when you face trials of many kinds because it's for the refining faith of Christ is in you, right? My my uh his his what's it what's his strength is made perfect in my weakness. His strength meaning your glow. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Sure. Caitlyn, you got anything? Can you up Can you one up him? No. I mean the Jards of clay one. That was that was pretty good. That was impressive. Sky, that was really good. Um I was more thinking along the lines of the the you mentioned that this is like all living things have this um more just kind of like evidence of the continuity of creation and like you know the evidence of of God giving life to all things. Yeah. Everything that has breath. Yes. I was going to say breath from God. That is that a sermon illustration? It's not a you're not using it as a metaphor. You're using it like as Yeah, lots of sermon illustrations aren't using as like apologetics. God is light. In him in him is no darkness at all. John says, right? And I'm made in the image of God and I'm made in the image of God. So I glow or to to reject God from my stressed selves. To reject God is to reject life and to choose death and die. Yeah. But that you make light dark. Well, that's what I'm saying is God is light. He's the source of all life. And to reject God is to reject life. And we're the light of the world. A city, he's the light of the world. That then we are the light of the world. A city on a hill could not be hidden. So put your light, let your light shine. Don't wear too much clothes. Except am I am I doing something? Except we can't see this light unless you're in a very dark room. Don't let your light be hidden in the in the lightless room with the special camera. But if everyone if every living thing has that light, then what's so special about yours? You know what would be cool? My god. Like if you could go into, I don't know, a Kohl's or or some store. Target. You go into Target. You're so into Kohl's. I know. I get everything at Kohl's. If you can't buy it at Kohl's, I just don't I'm not going to have it. Actually, I didn't get it from Amazon. And I don't I don't go into Kohl's very often. So, that's this is all lies. Just lies. You go in and it's like a photo booth and you you put a dollar in a slot and you go into a completely dark box and they take a picture of you and you come out with a picture of your glow and you can show everyone. How will you know if it's actually your glow because it's shaped like you because you could see that your glasses blocked it and the clothes you were wearing that day. So you got strip naked. Yeah. You go into Kohl's, you strip naked. No, I already know. Go into a box. They take a picture, five bucks, you come out and you get arrested. That Yeah, sounds like the TS. The box should get arrested. The person Yeah. It's not my fault. It's not my fault. You just believed them. They were doing a science experiment. Yeah. I assume since the box is here, it must be okay. Yeah, it must be okay. Okay. Okay. I'm going to do a couple of updates then. These are quick, so we're not going to talk about these for a long time, but we want to know what's happened since last week about some of the stuff we've been talking about. We talked about the white Africaners coming over as as um refugees. And last week, the Episcopal Church, which has been working with the government on refugee resettlement, announced they're not going to resettle white Africaners as the only refugees in the system. So, they ended their partnership with the US government. question. Does this mean the Episcopal Because I've had people when I pointed this out online, people come at me and say, "Oh, the Episcopal Church is racist. They refuse to help white people." They got anything. I'm assuming they've resettled refugees in the past who were white, given that the refugee resettlement program goes back to World War II and included European refugees from the war. Well, yeah. And there's a lot of Ukrainian refugees. Yes. That they've been working with, right? So probably but now that it's only for white people now they show their true colors. They hate white people. If there's one thing we know about Anglicans, right? Rabid racist. Okay. Okay. So other aid organizations like World Relief are wrestling with this saying should we follow the Episcopal? Well, aren't there like 30 people? It's not a lot of people. I was going to say this cannot be done. Yeah, but it's going to happen. You know, I mean, if it happens, what do you do? That's the question. And do you like the Episcopalians did preemptively quit the program? Yeah. See, this these are challenging times we live in where you know what's what's a compromise? What's a compromise? Where do you take a principled stand? What does the light of Jesus that glows for my stressed cells demand of me? The part I don't get though is my my reading of the the Africconers situation is the the government of South Africa has not actually taken any of their land. Yeah. So a refugee is somebody who has been displaced by well famine or war or political turmoil. Yeah. They're in danger but they're not but the government hasn't actually done it to anyone. Yeah. And it's my understanding it's not act whatever there's it's creating an atmosphere of anti-whitness. And so because we're a white country, we need to come to their rescue. I honestly think that's the thinking of some people, though they would probably maybe not say it out loud, but we Westerners have to stick together. We European origin. I think there's a way, what I'm trying to get to is I think there's a way, I don't know what the Episcopal Church's statement was, but I think there's a way for other refugee resettlement groups to say, "We will not participate because these people do not actually qualify by our definition of refugee." Yeah. But now, are you pulling out from helping any refugees, assuming that they start up the program again, or can you rejoin the program? Who knows? Anyway, it's interesting to see. Last week, we had the Quakers on the move. Quakers were on the move last week. This week, the Episcopals are sitting out. We are done with this. We're taking a stand. So, Quakers on the move, Episcopalians, take a stand. Also, our friend Shane Claybornne, you know, our friend Shane Clayborn. Yeah. He got arrested. Shane Claybourne's arrested. It's like a weekly event. I was going to say, what is for for William Barber, but how many times is Shane Oh, I think he's he's like always arrested on Liberty's campus. Oh, that's true. Yeah, he's been arrested quite a bit. Yeah, it's part of his vocation. Okay, here's what's interesting. So, so Shane Claybornne and four other faith leaders were protesting the GOP budget because of how it takes money from Medicaid and and takes money from SNAP, uh supplemental uh food provisions, food stamps, what we used to call food stamps. So, we're taking a lot of money from poor people so that we can extend tax cuts for wealthy people, mostly for wealthy people. So they protest. So they went five people in the Capitol Ratunda praying and they were arrested for me. You want to know what they were arrested? What they were charged with? Okay, I'll tell you. Were they throwing their feces around the capital? I can hear. No, those people got pardoned. Oh, that's right. That's right. That's not They should really change how they protest. Yeah, that's Wait, I highlighted it. I think I Oh, Capitol police confirmed they arrested five people after warning them multiple times, charging them with quote crowding, crowding, obstructing and incomoting. What is that? I That's where your feces go in the incomoting. It It is inconveniencing. Well, why don't they say that? Because they got a term. It sounds cool. They got a term that sounds cool. Shane Clayborn is an incomoter. and you go, "Oh no, I thought he was a Christian. I didn't know he would incomode." What? I want to look that word up. Yeah, look it up. I'm probably saying it wrong, but I imagine has it's the root is the same as accommodate. Like indemating. Incomode. Uhhuh. See, uh, it means to inconvenience. That's what I said. Oh my gosh. Thank you for looking that up. Incomoted by the traffic. All right, we have to dig deeper. I need to do. Yes, we don't. We really don't. So, here's my point. To distress or to disturb. Could Could five I mean, were they yelling? Were they being really really loud? Cuz it's like that's a really big room. That's where Trump's inauguration was. It's a big room. I'm not How did five people really obstruct obstruct crowd and inconvenience in a room the size of the ratunda? Anyway, here's my point. Is the task force of against anti-Christian behavior going to look into this? No. Five American citizens were arrested for praying. They weren't arrested for praying. They were arrest arrested for incomoting. Uhhuh. Okay. Okay. But the task force is looking into the American citizens who were arrested for praying in front of an abortion clinic. It is looking into that. And they were not also not arrested for praying. They were arrested for violating the FACE act, which means you can't obstruct access right to um healthcare facility. But that we're looking into because that's anti-Christian bias, right? So why is it anti-Christian bias to arrest someone for violating the face act, but it's not anti-Christian bias to arrest someone for incomoting in the capital? Well, I think it's pretty obvious. Why? Say it. Say it, Skye. Because one protest aligned with the party of the president and one protest did not. You think it's that simple? I do. Yeah. Do you think we're dealing with Caitlyn? Do you have a I mean on on some level I think what Sky is saying is correct. I also think the the the argument that more people would be likely to make explicitly is one of these to some people seems to be a more intrinsic inherent part of Christian ethics than the other. I would disagree with them. But I think part of how people end up parsing this out is the same way that people in churches parse out like what can be preached from the pulpit and what's something political that shouldn't be preached from the pulpit. Very often that dividing line is not actually between what's like in scripture and what's out of scripture. It's sometimes explicitly what's goes with one party or the other. Sometimes it's just what in our cultural context have we placed closer towards the center of Christian faith and what have we placed farther away as an issue of kind of up for disagreement, you know, left to your conscience, etc. versus what do we think is so central that like of course Christians are against this or for this that's central to what it means to be a Christian. Yeah. I I I just don't understand how five people in the rotunda of the Capitol praying can be such an offensive act that they get arrested. But thousands of people storming the capital, breaking down the doors, assaulting. Yeah. But they got pardoned for it because they're patriots. If you stand up for poor people, that's not patriotic. But and it's not just that they're standing up for poor people. They are peacefully praying in a public part of the capital. Mhm. They're not violating. They commoted. Okay. I'm just saying I think that you whatever. Not that to to search for consistency from this administration is a fool's error. It's messed up. Yeah, it's messed up. But you know what, guys? Do you know what? Something or someone, you have to guess which is turning 1700 this year. I'm gonna say it's not someone. Oh, Caitlyn. Kaitlin raised her hand. Caitlyn, are you turning 1700 this year? That's me. Yeah, it's me. What is it, Caitlyn? What's turning? Council of Na and therefore in a certain sense the Nine Creed. Not totally. You know, we could, you know, get into the nerdy details, but people are using the the anniversary of the council of Nika to celebrate the Nine Creed that was partially written there, partially came out a little bit later, but yes, the Ning Creed. So, it's a little bit like Jesus birthday. We celebrate that it was zero, but it wasn't exactly zero. Math was wrong and it wasn't exactly December 25th. Well, definitely. It's a great um actually moment if someone's like the 17th 100th anniversary of the Nian Creed. Yeah. You can be like, "Oh, actually not quite." Oh, it's just a good way to show people that you're just a little bit smarter than they are, right? Who can pass up that opportunity? Just a little bit smarter. Actually, it's 17th anniversary of the council, the statement, the creed came out three weeks later. Anywh who, um, what is it? Why do I care? Why do I honestly care that about the nine creed? Yeah. that a creed turned 1700. And why do I care? Cuz I'm I'm a Christian. I only need the Bible. The Bible in me, Jesus me, and the Bible is all I need. That's how I grew up. That's the evangelical trinity. And now you say that this thing that like Emperor Constantine said make and he was kind of a cook and I don't care about him. So why do I care? Why do I care? Caitlyn, tell them. Caitlyn. Wow. Okay. Okay. Well, first of all, Sky and I did a whole episode of getting schooled recently on the Nine Creed for Holy Post plus subscribers. Get on Holy Post Plus. Yeah, I guess I better check that out. Um, yeah, become a subscriber, Phil. Um, you should care about the Nine Creed because it is like one of the oldest, most unifying documents that gives the foundational beliefs of the Christian faith. And to this day, even amongst denominations and traditions that tend to shy away from creeds, most of us really will take the words of the Nyine creed as the defining line between what is foundational and required to be a Christian. These are the things that we all must believe and what are things that are open to disagreement or difference. The things that you know divide our denominations, the things that we fight about on the internet, those kinds of things are separate from these most foundational things. So the nyine creed predates the east west split of the church. It obviously predates the Protestant Reformation. Is it still the case that all Eastern Orthodox, all Catholic, all Protestant agree close on this? There's one little, it's one word in Latin and a couple words in English that have been added to the Ning Creed that the Western church believes that the Eastern Church does not believe. What is it? Other than that, I'm excited. You got to tell us what is it. Okay. I actually think that this thing which in Latin is is called the filioquay which is like it's like the classic you've went you've gone to seminary thing. If you talk about and know about the filioquay, then it's like that's a nerdy seminary thing that basically just says the holy spirit, the nice and creed says the holy spirit proceeds from the father and the western church added and the son. That's right. I've heard of this. I've actually heard of this. We disagree about that. In my church, we put parentheses around and the son just to kind of acknowledge that we're saying something that is not universally said. I think everyone says those words. Why why was it added in the western church? Why did we decide Phil, this is a holy. The Holy Ghost must also proceed from the sun. Here comes the sun. Here's what's interesting. So, it's important to say that this by itself is not really the thing that splits the east and the west, even though it's like sort of like the presenting problem. There's all these other ecclesial and political disagreements that all kind of come to a head to this one edition. But the funny thing is the addition is not like trying to defeat a heresy which a lot of the rest of the nine creed is explicitly saying we believe this and the implication is so not these other things. We believe Jesus is fully man and fully God unlike these other people who think he's not fully man or he's not fully God or whatever. This is one thing that like we added it even though it's not really I mean not not really it's not addressing a heresy. Yeah. Um, so it's not I don't think it's necessary and I kind of think maybe we should hold on to it less tightly. But at the moment in the mo at the moment it was very important to the point where it became a theological dividing line between was this the western church just trying to pick a fight with the eastern church. You know like I said there's all these other disagreements and political conflicts that are at play, right? And I think it just feels more kind of righteous to say it was this theological dispute. Augustine, my favorite, is really the person that that became so centrally cited as giving reason for adding and the son. And he has a handful of biblical passages that he goes to to say it's actually really important to say that the holy spirit proceeds from the father and the son. The theologians in the eastern church had some complicated like metaphysical and theological reasons why that was not a good idea. So there is a real theological difference here. It's just should that really be seen as the one thing that split the east and the west? No. I mean, it's more complicated than that. This is one little tiny part of the creed. Yeah. Everything else, the whole church for all of our history has agreed on all this stuff. Okay. But Kaitlin, in general, the evangelical world hasn't, you know, we don't have many pillows embroidered with the Nian Creed. We should stop. It's not on our walls. So, but it's it's made a bit of a comeback. But the prayer of Jabz, now that's important. The prayer of JZ, talk about foundational documents. Um, but it has made a bit of a comeback. Yeah. Why Why are we Why are are more evangelicals talking about the Night Scene Creed and even shock saying it all together in their churches like their Yeah. I mean, our friend friend of the podcast Glenn Pacquia wrote a whole book about the Nine Creed. There's another book um that came out pretty recently, Philip Kerry, that's just like a whole more academic explanation of the Nying creed. I just was talking with a pastor, dear friend of mine, who was one of my professors at Dallas Seminary who is doing a whole series preaching through the Ning Creed at his church. Like there there are a lot of evangelicals that are interested in the Ning Creed and I think for two reasons. One, we're reaching the end of what we can really do as a completely seemingly completely unrooted faith tradition. Like people are hungry for things that come from somewhere that have a older history than just a guy with a Bible started this church 20 years ago and that's the basis of our history. I think people are looking for something more rooted. And secondly, with all of the polarization and political division and theological division, I mean, we talk a lot about the political stuff, but most major American denominations in the last 50 years have split, sometimes multiple times, over questions of sexuality and gender and other theological questions that play into those questions of sexuality and gender. So, I think people are hungry for something that helps them divide between what is essential and what is not. And one way that the Ningree does that is by laying out here's what Christians have always believed. But it's also helpful that it's so ancient and that Christians across the world and in different traditions have held to it. That gives you a greater leg to stand on when you're in your particular non-denominational church in America and you're trying to say, "Hey, we all have to believe these things to be Christians and these other things we can disagree on." And maybe our church will still take a stance that's more specific than the Nine Creed. might divide us from other churches, but in terms of who we are able to partner with, in terms of who we call fellow Christians, brothers and sisters, it should be these things that that define whether or not we can do that. Okay. Um, you had sent out an article from Christianity Today put together by Daniel Sleman, interviewed like 10 or 11 different uh academics about the creed and how it was being used or influencing the evangelical world. Um Dale Coulter, professor at Pentecostal Theological Seminary, said it's a really good thing to use as a counter to a lot of the craziness that can happen when private revelation and the prophetic become paramount. It's an anchor. The Nyine Creed is a lens on biblical interpretation. So I like that view that it that it helps you look at the Bible and bring things into focus in a historically consistent way. But that does lead to the question, is it infallible? Is it inspired? How do we know that it's right? I mean, I I think most Christians who read, recite, rely on the Ning Creed would make pretty clear that there's a difference between the inspiration of scripture and the infallible work of humans and trying to work out a summary of Christian faith. But I think the reason that we put a lot of stock in it is partially because it's very old and partially because if it's so old and used across so many different traditions and we still haven't come up with a serious objection to it, then it has stood the test of time. That's really positive. And I think the point you just made, Phil, is really important in that heretics had Bibles too. And like every heretic that has launched a serious challenge to Orthodox Christian faith has found biblical passages to support their heretical belief. So just having the Bible, I mean, you can take the Bible and construct it in such a way that you end up with pretty serious trinitarian heresies that the church has condemned. But that's harder to do when you've been kind of swimming in immersed in the language of the creed and you come to a passage that you might be tempted to think shows Jesus as merely a really cool human, but you know the language of the creed, so you know that can't be what's happening there. And the idea that we can just construct all of that theology on our own, that anytime we read one individual passage, we should just because we're Christians know exactly how to interpret it, I think puts such a burden on people that especially now that we have a world with access to so much information. Like people can go look up a bajillion commentaries online and they can read a bajillion theologians. That's so overwhelming and exhausting, especially for evangelicals who tend to place the locust of that authority on the individual. I think people are sick of that weight and they're going, "Okay, well, if I have these foundational beliefs from the creed, I can come to a passage and there might be differences of interpretation. There might be disagreements. I might not totally understand it, but I can know I won't wander into heresy territory because these foundational beliefs help me interpret what's happening in this specific passage." Okay, Sky and also how as an individual believer that didn't go to seminary, how do I use how could I apply the Nyian creed or work it into my spiritual life? Okay. Well, first of all, I think it it like all the creeds, they are best utilized in community rather than individually. Crap. So, um, and not that they can't be a source of guidance or instruction for the individual, but I think there's more formative power in reciting these things collectively. So, I because I was thinking about just when I have my toast in the morning, walking out on the back porch and just yelling the Nian Creed to the neighbor. Go for it. I love that. Would that make me more holy? Yes, it would. Possibly, for sure. I think I mean this might be an echo of what Caitlin said a little bit, but I think there's two main reasons why this is becoming popular again. One is the church in America is just so divided these days over especially political and cultural issues that I can see church leaders, worship leaders, others looking for something that transcends our particular divisions going, "Okay guys, whatever you think about MAGA, whatever you think about woke this or that, whatever you think about what's going on in the news, this grounds us in our faith." So that I think is one of the reasons it's popular. And you're not just grounding it in like an individual church's doctrinal statement or even a denominational doctrinal which then gets to the broader thing which I think a lot of us have a sense right now that the United States and and the American church is kind of a it's a it's a mess. I mean it's it's it's a feal festival going on right now and people are looking for a sense that my Christian have any merchandise with that term on it? That's that's a good idea. Yeah. Uh I think we're looking for a sense of the thing I really believe in the faith I'm following is not rooted in this place in this time in this experience it goes back much further and yes a creed like this not only the creed but this creed is a way of getting that sense of transcendent identity and uh in a hope that this time will pass and we'll come back to our senses but those things all lend us to reach back and look for something more stable. Yeah. Yeah. Uh Tish Harrison Warren said in the piece in CT and I I was at a conference um a month and a half ago with Jessica Hootin Wilson and and we took a picture because she's friends with Caitlyn and so we wanted to send a picture to Caitlyn of us two together and and so so my wife saw that picture and said who's that? And at first I said Tish Harrison Warren and then I got confused. I thought no that's not it. And then I made like 10 different combinations of Tish Harrison Warren and Jessica Hootin Wilson. Like trying the different It's these three name people. I know. It drives me crazy. And but but that was Jessica Hootin Wilson who's by the way tremendously fun person to hang out in St. Louis with. I'd highly recommend it. Um this is Tish Harrison Warren who I've not hung out with. I don't know what she's like to hang out in St. Louis or elsewhere or elsewhere. Anyway, she says, "People are drawn back to the liturgy and drawn back to the great creeds because it roots them in a much bigger story of God's work." It centers our Americanness. Oh, it desenters. Sorry, I want a creed that centers Oh, that's the Trump Bible. So, there you go. Um, it desenters our Americanness. It desenters our moment in history. It desenters our politics and our divisions. It centers the story of Jesus as told for thousands of years in the church. So, I've had some people on social media, you know, trying to grill me like, "What do you believe about every issue? Tell me what you, you know, what's your theology and I at one point I just tried, you know, I'm completely on board with the Nian creed, completely on board." And it was very clear that was not enough, right? It was like, gender, sexuality, you know, these are I need to know. That's not the stuff that I need to know. If you say the Apostles Creed and the Ning Creed, you are you are in lock step with the global church throughout all of history. Like that is Orthodox Christianity. The Apostles Creed, the Ning Creed. But that's not enough for today's American evangelical fundamentalist MAGA world. They want to know where you are on your politics and social issues because they've not just them, right? But they've lifted those up to to credle importance. Yeah. which is a a a form of Christian. I'm not going to say they're not Christians if they also affirm the apostles creed in the icing creed. But by adding these other issues in they are casting out the majority of believers around the world from being legitimate Christians. Well, we don't want that. Well, they do. That does Oh, that's my point. We do want that. But that's what fundamentalism always does is it it increases the number of things you have to adhere to in order to be considered right a sister or brother in Christ. Right. Right. Right. Okay. Um, Caitlyn, how can I work the NY creed into my spiritual life? And do I I need to do it uh as a community corporately? I need to I mean, I do enjoy it corporately. My at my church, we alternate every Sunday saying the Ning Creed or the Apostles Creed. That's cool. And I really think it it does something to have that language be so familiar to you. um we put the words up, but by, you know, a couple months of doing that, you will have it memorized. In fact, I get a little frustrated when I'm in like an Episcopal church or something and they use a slightly different translation and I'm like caught up on the words not being exactly right. Um, so I think that's beautiful. But I also think even if you're at a church that does not do that, spending time regularly reading it, and I think reading things out loud still matters even if you're by yourself. I don't think you have to shout it, but you can say it out loud with yourself, with your family, with your roommates, like whoever's in your household. I think it out loud and saying it out regularly is more formative than just you could read it once and be like, "Oh, yeah, I agree with all those things." But it's different to have it be such repetitive language that it pops up when you're reading scripture, which I think is part of the point. Like part of the reason creeds mattered so early in the church, people didn't always have access, I mean they definitely didn't have access to the whole of scripture as it was being written and they didn't have access to it based on literacy rates or how expensive it was to have a Bible. So having that foundational language meant even if I can't intimately study every verse of scripture, which is a new thing that we have the ability to do, I can have a sense of what the summary of the whole of the Christian faith is. And then increasingly, especially actually during the reformation as people were trying to figure out what were excesses or errors in the Catholic Church, the medieval Catholic Church that we want to avoid or condemn and what are things that are actually gifts that we continue to receive from the faithful before us. The creeds were a helpful lens like most of the reformers were referencing the early Christian theologians and documents like the Nyian creed in order to say how do we parse between things? Having that language just kind of in your bones, I think can be really helpful. Not to replace scripture, but to be an aid to reading scripture faithfully, reading scripture as Christians throughout all of Christian history and around the world have read scripture. Right. Right. What do you think about the people today that say um that works so well that today we need a Christian prince, a Christian Caesar who can call conferences to resolve issues just like Constantine did. And yes, there are people that are Yeah. Yeah. I I don't know how we possibly could do that today given the the wide diversity of of Christian traditions. Um well, just one one tradition needs to dominate all the others. But I I also think this is like we don't have to reinvent the wheel. It doesn't mean that there aren't new questions to be asked. There absolutely are. But sometimes I think we forget that some of the questions that were being asked in the era where something like the nine creed was being written were the kinds of foundational questions not questions of like American policy or new questions about sexuality or gender ident which are important questions for us to consider and ask what scripture says and listen to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. But those weren't the kinds of questions they were asking. I mean they asked them at the time but the questions they were fighting over to the degree that it produced documents like the Nyine Creed were who is God? Was Jesus God? Was he a man? How do we understand scriptures witness of both father, son, and spirit? How do we understand how the church relates to the future promised new creation? All of these like really foundational questions. It doesn't mean they're not still important. In fact, they're crucially important, which is why we should return to the creed. But we don't have to feel the weight of reinventing the wheel, especially when we do have other pressing questions that aren't as foundational to Christian faith. We can receive this as gift in order to then ask some of the questions that are new questions that are being asked of us now. Yeah. Another way of putting that is what what the creeds, the apostles creed, the nine creed are addressing are first order questions of the faith. The stuff we're wrestling with today are second order at best. Maybe third, fourth, or fifth order. I'm not saying they're not important. First order. Exactly. Why do we insist on making them mean everything? I I mean I think some of the things that are happening right now do feel really foundational just in the sense that like they're dealing with questions that we all sort of thought were settled. Like I think some of the sexuality and gender things feel really scary to people because it's like well we might have disagreed on, you know, baptism or or even outside of the church. Like the church might have been different in some ways, but we all culturally sort of agreed on I mean I I've been in conversations with people in my church about sexuality a lot recently and it always is surprising to me how many people a generation or two older than me will say this is all so scary partially because it just didn't even seem like a distinctly Christian ethic when I was a kid. It was like, well, the world just sort of agrees with us on sex before marriage or gender identity. Like none of that felt like it was something we had to work out. How are we different or not different? How where can we agree and where can we disagree? So, I think it matters to say that people feel like this is foundational because it's so unsettling and it is really scary. But I and I think we think we're granting it importance by calling it first order. And we can say it's still really important what we do with our bodies, how we relate to one another, how we understand what God commands us to do. Those are important things. We don't have to elevate them to first order in order to stress their importance. We can stress their importance and say, "But treating them by first order doesn't just make them too important. It malforms them. They're not intended to be those kinds of questions." And we'll answer them wrongly if we treat them as those kinds of questions. I think the other reason they're so important though is these questions have a massive impact or how you answer these questions have a massive impact on the shape of your church and your home. So what we believe about marriage, what we believe about family, what we believe about the congregation is our lived experience. Are we going to ordain women? Are we going to have samesex marriage ceremonies in our church? are all that is so lived in our daily experience that these questions do matter but they don't matter on the cosmic level of who is Jesus what is the nature of divinity all of those things that the creeds were answering yeah I get that like you can't read a nine creed and say oh that's the position on women in ministry because it's it's just not in there it's not there but if you're in a church community you do have to have a position on that you can't to say we're not going to decide. Right. Right. Because it it's and I think people are you know so that's one of the areas where people say well we have to decide this and then the tendency is and once we've made our decision if you disagree with us you're wrong as opposed to you've chosen like with baptism we've for the most part said you do you we'll do us. You baptize babies we'll baptize which is like new in Christian history. Okay. Do you think we'll get there with women in ministry or is it going to be a some places are doing that already? Fight to the death. Some people do that already. But I think the difference is as a local congregation or maybe as a denomination, you may make your decision. The question then is do you view people who've made the other decision as apostate heretics condemned by God and for all eternity or do you view them as sisters and brothers in the faith with whom I have a disagreement on a non-essential doctrine? That's right. That's that's the question in my mind. Okay. And I just want to say I mean a lot of churches in my area, including my own, are really grappling with this, right? I mean, this is true across the country, but it feels very like personal and lived to me right now. And it's striking to me how challenging we have made it to talk about this when it's not even just one side that claims that being right about this is a matter of orthodoxy and Christian righteousness. It's like, but you're coming to the table with this like seemingly impassible problem because it it's always turned into not just do you take scripture seriously, are you compassionate, are you kind, do you love God, do you want to respond to God's commands? And both sides are feeling like I am the one who's doing this right and anyone who's not is not just, you know, wrong, they're evil, right? So, I am going to go in my backyard and yell the Nyine Creed to the neighborhood. I love that. And see the squirrels gather around me like St. Francis saying, "Preach. Preach." And then we can do an experiment to see if those rodents glow more. Do they glow more? Yeah. Yeah. Before I euthanize them. And no, I would never. My dog would. My dog would definitely euthanize them. And she has. That's neither here nor there. Hey, thanks everybody. There's some encouraging things happening. Encouraging things happening. We've talked a lot about the immigration policies of this current administration and how uncchristian they are. Well, 10 leaders, Christian leaders, reached out to plead with the Trump administration to change their uh reclassification of Afghan Christians who are here under protected temporary protected status because they would be sent back to very very dangerous situations. And among the people signing on to disagree uh with the administration about doing that, include people, wait, I'm looking at the wrong one. Look at the other one. Here it is. Yeah. Christian leaders. Include the head of world relief, the head of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. Um the president of policy at Family Research Council. That's like Uber MAGA. Mhm. And the head of government and external relations for focus on the family. What? Focus on the family and family research council are standing up and saying no to the Trump administration. In other words, we need to protect Afghan refugees here in the US and not send them back. Yes. The Christian ones. The Christian ones who are going back to a particularly nasty situation. So that's encouraging. I'm Do you think the Trump administration will listen? Well, we'll see because because here's a headline. Afghan Christian pastor pleads with Trump warns of Taliban revenge after administration revokes refugee protections. Okay, another story attacking the administration for doing this from Fox News. Fox News everybody is saying, "Hey, hey, hey, you've gone too far." That's good news. Mhm. It is. I guess I'm encouraged. Yeah, I'm encouraged. Okay, that's all I'm going to say. We don't have to cover it anymore. You okay, Sky? Yeah. you okay? You going to be okay? I just I I feel like the bar is so very low for what we celebrate. You got to start You got to start where the bar is and then I just feel like as as Americans and frankly more importantly as Christians, we should be protecting even the people that don't believe the same things we believe. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That's all. Yeah. But this could be a starting point conversation for people to say like this. It's the willingness of very Trump friendly news outlets to say we disagree with this. Just that that's the victory. I know. But I I assume it's because they know they're not going to get any retribution for disagreeing on something as seemingly small. Got to start somewhere. Got to start. Yeah. Okay. Hey everybody, thanks. Got a great guest. Stick around and we'll see you next week. 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Code shopm 15 for 15% off. This episode is sponsored by Policy Genius. I got a life insurance policy almost 30 years ago when my kids were little. I wanted to know that they'd be okay if I were unexpectedly well not here. And it's been great knowing that that policy was always there regardless of my income in any given year from my peculiar line of work. Just recently, I was wondering if I should rethink my life insurance and see what my options were today. So, I reached out to Policy Genius. They aren't an insurance company, so they aren't trying to sell their own product. Instead, Policy Genius is a marketplace that helps you find and buy insurance. After filling out a simple online form, I got an immediate call back from Jason, who spent almost 40 minutes answering my questions and walking me through my options. He was great. No pressure to buy anything, just helpful info and recommendations with my needs in mind. With Policy Genius, you can find life insurance policies that start at just $276 a year for $1 million in coverage. It's an easy way to protect the people you love and feel good about the future. If you've been meaning to get life insurance but don't know where to start, this is your sign. Head to policygenius.com/holyost today. That's [Music] policygenius.com/holyost. Many of us have been told that reading the Bible will transform our lives. But if that's true, why do some of the people who know the Bible the best seem to reflect God's character the least? That was true of the religious leaders in Jesus day. And sadly, it's true of some church leaders today. Could it be that we're reading the Bible wrong, or at least with the wrong expectations? Dallas Willard was a philosopher who wrote extensively about the Christian life. He believed in the inherency and the infallibility of the Bible, but he also believed that many of us didn't read it the way God intended. Too many of us were taught to read itformationally rather than transformationally. In other words, we learned doctrine and theology from scripture, but we fail to actually discover communion with God through the scriptures. My guest today, Dave Ripper, has written a new book outlining Dallas Willard's vision of the Bible. It's called Experiencing Scripture as a Disciple of Jesus: Reading the Bible Like Dallas Willard. And it's our selection this quarter for the Holy Post Book Club. That means subscribers to Holy Post Plus will be getting either a digital or hard copy of Ripper's book. Dave Ripper is the lead pastor of Crossway Christian Church in Southern New Hampshire. And as you'll hear, like me, he's been deeply indebted to the teachings and example of Dallas Willard. I think our conversation will make you want to reexamine your own assumptions and approach to the Bible. And for Holy Post Plus subscribers, we have a bonus interview with Dave Ripper where he explains how Dallas Willard understood those more problematic parts of the Old Testament. So to get that interview and to be part of the book club, you'll want to sign up for Holy Post Plus by going to holyost.com. Here is my conversation with Dave Ripper. Dave Ripper, welcome to the Holy Post. Hey, thanks so much for having me, Sky. Really honored to be with you. I'm delighted you're here. You've written experiencing scripture as a disciple of Jesus, reading the Bible like Dallas Willard. That title caught my attention immediately. Uh people who've listened for a while know that I I'm indebted to Dallas, his writing, uh his scholarship, his mentoring, and this idea of reading the Bible the way Dallas did is just immediately appealing. What was your introduction? You talk about this in the book, but share with others. What was your introduction to Dallas Willard? Yeah, I was taking a class uh in college. It was called Revisiting the Reformation. And we were in London in Westminster Abbey in particular. And I caught a book that just seemed to leap off the shelves. It was called Devotional Classics. And there was so much information I was taking in in the course. I was kind of hoping it would feel a little bit more like a pilgrimage. And so I was kind of hoping for some other resource to kind of follow along. And this book immediately caught my attention. Edited by Richard Foster. The first entry was CS Lewis who I knew, and it was from Mere Christianity. And then the second entry and going, this is going back to 2005. Now, second entry was somebody I'd never heard of, Dallas Willard. Sounded like the kind of guy with a name like that who perhaps had something significant to say spiritually. And I started reading the excerpt from there, which was taken from his Christianity Today article written back, I think in 1980, is disciplehip for superchristians only. and he made an observation I had never seen before that the word disciple in the New Testament is used 269 times and the word Christian is only used three times. So the New Testament is a book by disciples about disciples for disciples of Jesus. And that resonated so much because I think when I was coming out of college, a lot of the real focus on the church was more on the ABCs of attendance and buildings and cash rather than disciplehip. And so this felt like a gateway for me. And after reading that piece, I just started to read everything I could from from Dallas. And then five years later, uh, during my last year of seminary in Denver in 2010, I was able to take a class that Dallas guest taught down in Colorado Springs. And getting to meet the man really seemed to confirm a lot of what he said. I was skeptical a little bit about Dallas's message initially because it was just so profound. I didn't understand it. And a lot of us, if we don't understand something, we must think it maybe isn't right. But seeing how Dallas really lived out the secret of the easy yoke as he would write about in the spirit of disciplines. Uh that he arranged his life following the overall style and manner of Jesus was so stunning and I left having the overwhelming impression. This is not only the most brilliant human being I have ever met. This is the most Christlike person I have ever met. and and Dallas uh as John Orberg described him was like a man from another time zone. Dallas really seemed to show me that an eternal kind of life here and now really was available. And I just really eagerly desired to to pursue that. And so for the last yeah 15 years I have tried to learn everything I could related to what Dallas has said and written. uh Francis de Sales uh in his book introduction to a devout and holy life which Dallas would recommend. He says teaching is the best way to learn. So I started just offering courses at my church to try and learn Dallas by teaching Dallas to as many people as I I could. And what I ended up doing uh because I would quote him so often in my sermons, I had a really long document uh as almost like my Dallas Willard commentary that I would refer to and just loved all the things he had to say about scripture. But then I realized a lot of the times Dallas would make these great statements like uh Colossians 3:17, he would translate this uh idea of doing everything in the name of Jesus as acting on God's behalf with his resources, but he doesn't really tell you how he came up with that interpretation. And so in my doctoral program that I got to do with uh Fuller and the Dallas Willard Research Center at Westmont College with Gary Moon who wrote Willard's I love the biography becoming Dallas Willard. I started uh looking at how did Dallas arrive at the conclusions he did. And I think so much of it really emerged for me that it was the unique way in which he read the Bible. And I think what stood out about he how he read the scriptures was that when Dallas read them, he believed the author was really in the room when he opened the pages of God's word. So he read scripture in a realistic and experiential way. And as the last several years I've really worked to implementing that that in my life, it has really helped me have an ever deepening experiential life with God, you know, through his word. which has been an amazing gift. Yeah, we're going to get into that in a little bit. I think your experience uh your introduction to Dallas and his perspective and then meeting the man himself like I've it resonates completely with my experience and so many others I've talked to about Dallas like his scholarship, his writing was intriguing because he came at faith with the tools of a philosopher. Yeah. Rather than just a theologian or even a pastor. And then he embodied it. He lived it. He there was an authenticity behind it all that was incredibly appealing and winsome. Um I I my first introduction to Dallas was reading the divine conspiracy. And in that book he unpacks in in great detail his understanding of the sermon on the mount. Yeah. At that point in my life I had already been to seminary. I had I don't know how many books I had read on the sermon on the mount. And yet his book stopped me in my tracks partly because just the language he used was not sort of the Christian theological language I was used to. Again, he was writing as a philosopher. Yeah. But then his interpretation was striking. Two things jump out to me. one, he viewed the sermon on the mount as a cohesive argument, as an actual sermon, not and and so many other things I had read like just took pieces of the sermon on the mount and isolated them from one another and he read it as a comprehensive argument. But then secondly, he says this early in the book, he talks about genuinely believing that Jesus is the most intelligent person who's ever lived. Like he's he's smart. He knows what he's talking about because he is of course God incarnate. And just when you enter into the scriptures with that assumption, it changes the way you read it. And it's remarkably different than the way many of us have been taught to read it. So let's get into this framework for how Dallas read the scriptures, applied them, and then what that means for the way we might do it. I'm guessing most of the people listening to us are coming from church traditions that do highly value scripture and even highly value the role of scripture in the life of the believer for um their perhaps their transformation certainly for their obedience. So if we're all coming out of these churches and communities and traditions that value scripture, what are we doing wrong? Or another way to put it, what would Dallas say we're missing in the way we've been engaging scripture? H yeah. Well, I think Dallas, to go back to the point you just made, you know, Dallas believed Jesus wasn't just nice, he was brilliant and he offered the world the best information about the most important matters of human existence. And so Jesus was a great teacher. And I think a lot of us approached the scriptures not believing Jesus is actually that smart or that Jesus is a brilliant teacher. Uh for Dallas, he grew up as a Southern Baptist with a dispensational sort of bent. And so he had a high reverence for the Bible. He would still describe it as inherent in its original copies. And he still believed in the infallibility of scripture as well. And he would nuance that by saying that God the scriptures are infallible because God never leaves his word alone. And I think what really shaped his view was an experience he had with the spirit uh with the scriptures when he was a young college student at Tennessee Temple uh University. And Dallas didn't have enough money at that time to commute home to Buffalo, Missouri uh because of during one of the school breaks. And so he's end up finds himself doing laundry and he opens the the gospel of John and something tells him almost that still small voice of God I think he would reflect on it now told him to just not stop reading John's gospel and so during the next hour and a half two hours while he's doing laundry he reads all 21 chapters of John's gospel and he felt such an undeniable real sense of the divine presence pres right with him that he reflected that he didn't walk back to his dormatory. It was like he almost floated back, levitated back. He was on such a spiritual high and that started to help him realize the gospels are not just for another era. They are for here and now. And so we should read them realistically. We should immerse ourselves in these passages. So when Jesus is talking to one of the disciples or asks them a question like what are you after? What do you want me to do for you? Imagine he was reading and asking us those very things as well. Uh so Dallas would definitely say we should use every means at our disposal of studying the scriptures uh commentaries Bible backgrounds uh you know the original languages but don't just study to get information. Allow that to help you encounter God in a deeper way. Some of the things I think people would get wrong that he corrects and and you can read about some of this in like his book Hearing God. He he really warned against biblology where we worship the Bible instead of the author of the Bible. And I think in his background, he saw that happen a lot that we have such a high reverence for the Bible, but we're not revering it when we make it the ultimate thing. We actually are not worshiping God the the way that we could or should. And so so Dallas read it like a Southern Baptist. And I think there's a lot of correctives there uh with with the sense that he read it with an inherency and an infallibility and a high high reverence for it. But then he read it as a philosopher and uh Dallas he he would talk about biblical realism and that's a that's a bent of his philosophical background is is is a sense that he was a realist that he believed that the invisible spiritual realm is is real. It's the most real world of all. The spiritual disciplines enable us to access this spiritual realm. And so the scriptures then for him would really be a gateway to experiencing the presence of God in a real and undeniable way that should have then a change over the very facets of our life, the different aspects of who we are. And there should be measurable change in our lives if that is taking place. So I think the realistic way that we should read it like we can have a holy encounter with God is paramount for how he read the Bible. I think one of his uh little words of advice that he gave in hearing God was come to your chosen passage as if you're coming to a place where you will have a holy meeting with God. And then Willer would also pray as he would open the text,"Lord, beyond these sacred pages, I seek you." When I was trying to boil down what Dallas taught me about how to engage scripture and I uh a little bit like John Horberg, I find some of what I do is just take the cookies and put them on a lower shelf for people because Dallas can use such exalted and philosophical language and sometimes you got to make it simple. Yeah. A lot of what I was taught, I think, as a younger person was to view the Bible as a manual or maybe as a uh a depository of theological truth. Yeah. And the challenge I had, especially as an undergrad, is some of the people I knew who knew the most about the Bible were the least like Jesus. And I had this this kind of crisis of faith at that age where I was think because I thought if you just know the Bible, memorize the Bible, study the Bible that it that knowledge in and of itself would transform you into a more Jesus-like person. And yet the people I knew who had done that, who had memorized a lot of the Bible or knew a lot of it were not like Jesus. And I realized there was something deeply flawed in my approach to scripture. So this manual idea didn't work. And what I heard Dallas saying was, "Don't primarily view the Bible as a manual, but view it as a window." Yeah. It's through the scriptures we see who God is. Through the scriptures, we see who we are. Through the scriptures we see what the world really is. And you have to look through it, not just at it. Um, that's good. Yeah. You write in the book about, and Dallas talked a ton about this, the the problem with a Christian messages message that focuses on sin management. Um, explain what that is for those who aren't familiar with Dallas's work. What is sin management and how does his approach to scripture challenge that view of our faith? That's great. Well, just to offer some resonance, I had very similar experiences too with it seems like the people who were most knowledgeable were the least Christlike when it came to the scriptures. And so meeting Dallas and seeing how Christlike he was, it made me realize maybe other people's not only their approach to scriptures was wrong, but maybe their theology wasn't as uh on point as well. And I think the way Dallas lived helped me see that I believe he's right. at least gave me the chance to give Dallas a fresh hearing. And you mentioned about memorizing scripture. I should definitely add that Dallas would say memorizing scripture was an absolutely indispensable part of his life. Yeah, we're going to come to that for sure. Cool. Cool. And I think that's why he had the kind of knowledge he did of the Bible was because of how much he internalized it. But right, yeah, going back to the divine conspiracy, one of those chapters that absolutely just impacted me profoundly was that chapter on gospels of sin management. And Dallas essentially says the gospels that are preached in our world today, uh the gospel of the rights. And we're thinking about the theological right, not necessarily the political right. Anytime you use right and left language, we all hear stumbling all the time on this show. Yeah. So, I'm talking about the theological right that would essentially say the gospel is a a way for us to be able to be saved, to be forgiven for our sins so that after we die, we could go to heaven. It was all about the courtroom metaphors and those are certainly apparent uh in the church. And so, if you say the right profession of faith, then you have an eternal security. you have that fire insurance and and Dallas would kind of call that type of Christianity vampire Christianity. We really don't want to follow Jesus. We just want a little bit of his blood, just enough for us to be able to get into heaven after we die and live however we want here and now. So, we trust him with our eternity, but we don't trust him with our present. And then the gospel on the left, the theological left. And I'm thinking more, you know, I think Dallas had in mind more mainline denominationalism, progressive Christianity. And again, that that's being written in the late '9s when uh the divine conspiracy came out. He would say the gospel of the left is essentially all about just a social gospel that the good news of the gospel is that we can join uh this mission of overcoming, you know, the bad things in this world with good. And that that that's important. That's part of the gospel for sure. Both the gospel of the left and the right have a lot to do with what Jesus says. But at the very core, they miss the aspect of disciplehip being central to the gospel that Jesus came to preach and proclaim. So Dallas would say, "Hey, let's look at what gospel the gospel Jesus preached." And what was the good news that Jesus preached? You know, we see it in Mark 1:15 or in early parts of Matthew that the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news. So the kingdom of God, as Dallas would say, is the range of God's effective will. It's where what he once done is done. It's this eternal kind of life here and now. The kingdom is among us. The news of the good news is the availability of life in the kingdom here and now. And so based on this incredible opportunity, life's greatest invitation, we are called to repent. And Dallas would say to repent is to change the way you're thinking and acting based on this great opportunity that is before you that Jesus is calling you to come and be like him uh to experience an eternal kind of life that will begin now and go on forever. And that's certainly going to on the in the gospel of the right. It's going to help us uh find an eternity with the Lord. you know, in the gospel of the left, it is certainly going to cause us to join this divine conspiracy, as Dallas would call it, to overcome evil with good, but we would do that with the character of Christ, uh, not as a means to our own sort of salvation. That's a great summary. I think I think understanding these divergent gospels on the right and the left Yeah. help us understand how the assumptions we carry into our reading of scripture. So if you've been shaped by the gospel on the right, the gospel of sin management of just the atonement for your sins and justification so that you can be saved, you know, the end of history. Yeah. If that's the gospel you believe, then what's the role of scripture? Well, scripture is the depository of the theological truths that explain that how that happened. And then you can understand why folks immersed in that gospel really want to fill their head with all kinds of doctrine and theology. And so they can argue with people who aren't don't share their understanding of justification and it becomes just this this uh encyclopedia for citing scripture against your theological opponents. If you've been shaped by the gospel on the right, this gospel of of social justice and we're going to overcome the challenges of our world. Well, then you engage the Bible because the Bible's given you really practical um marching orders for how do we change the world? How do we overcome injustice and racism and poverty and all these different things which are good causes? But that becomes your primary way of engaging it. But what you're saying and what Dallas is saying is well no first and foremost the gospel is about our communion with God, our life in his kingdom. And if that's our primary calling, then the scriptures become a means by which I see God, I see his kingdom, and I am equipped to experience life with him. Well said. And that's a totally different way of engaging the Bible. Okay, with that then let's talk about engaging the Bible the way Dallas did and and his belief obviously that all scripture is God breathed it. You mentioned his Southern Baptist heritage, his belief in erency and infallibility and all of that. And yet uh in chapter 3 you talk about how he believes certain parts of the Bible I don't know what the right language is for this but are kind of more important than others. Um, he lists Psalm 23, the sermon on the mount, the Lord's Prayer, the Gospels, Romans 8, 1 Corinthians 13, Colossians 3, 2 Peter 1 as like super texts. These parts of the Bible that maybe to put it back in my language, the window is clearer and you can see more clearly what we're called to. But what explain why he focused on those texts and what he instructs disciples of Jesus to do with them. Yeah, great question. So, I think it's important to note how did Dallas define the Bible. So, based on all these experiences he had as a Southern Baptist, that background, a philosopher, you know, a mystic uh where a mystic is really just somebody who when they talk to God, they believe God talks back. And so, these experiences that are kind of almost like a kite and scripture is like a a string or rope that tethers the kites to the ground. That dynamic is I think what Dallas would really talk about. And he would then define scripture. And there's kind of three key words to this. Scripture is a communication that leads to communion that is for the ultimate aim of the Christian life. Union with God. Communication that leads to communion that goes all the way to union. And that's a relational idea that I think you think about if you're married. You know, you first were communicating with your spouse, getting to know them. And that communication eventually led to a sense of commitment and being with them or you really didn't even need to use words so so many times you just enjoyed their company so richly and then also that would lead to marriage and union and Dallas would describe you know marriage is building one life together. So you have that sense of union. And so that relational dynamic that he would say is the dynamic of the spiritual life. We progress from communication to communion all the way to union with God is the ultimate goal. If that's the goal and the progress of the Christian spiritual formation kind of life, then then God gave us the Bible to follow that same sort of means. And so I think when he highlights what he'll call like the great formational passages, he is saying there there are some passages that we should dwell in a little bit more deeply because they will be able to have the effect that will enable us to live in the kingdom in such a way that our character is transformed so that we can be the kind of people who could be participators in the divine nature. to use that uh kind of intriguing phrase from second Peter uh 1:4. I'd love to say before going to those other passages, probably the text that Dallas quotes the most and and uses the most throughout his writings is John 17:3. This is where Jesus is at prayer and he says the most explicit definition we're given of eternal life from Jesus. and this is eternal life that they may know you the only true God in Jesus Christ whom you sent. And so Dallas then taking the both the sort of experiential and philosophical viewpoint of the word know would say knowing is always about an intimate interactive personal relationship. So not just knowing God as mere head knowledge as eternal life, not just having knowhow uh or skilled kind of the skills of a practitioner which could lean toward gospel of the left. The first one the mere head knowledge could be kind of gospel of of the right but knowledge by acquaintance uh direct self- authenticating knowledge of the reality of God is what knowing Christ really is. And that invites us into an eternal kind of life today. And I think Dallas in highlighting these great formational passages really wants people who are biblically literate to allow the knowledge of the Bible not to puff up but to actually build up in love. And so rather than you Dallas sometimes discouraged people who were reading through the Bible in a year and he would say it would be more important for you to get eight or 10 really good verses deep down into your heart and into your life rather than to see every word of the Bible briefly flash before your eyes. And so what are some of these passages that maybe are uniquely rich and especially relevant for the formation into Christlikeness that we might have the inner life of Christ in and of ourselves. And he highlights things like Psalm 23. You know, we live in such a world with scarcity mentality being so prevalent. So Dallas would translate that as God is my shepherd. I lack nothing. and his book Life Without Lack is an incredible exposition of how we can experience the fullness of Psalm 23 here today. You know, the Sermon on the Mount, as you talked about, it's not just for another era, but it's for here and now. It invites us to it really answers one of the great questions that the greatest thinkers throughout history ask, which is uh you know, who is a blessed person? How do you have uh a blessed life? Who's really well off? And and that sermon answers uh God in his kingdom is what is really real. The person who is well off of are those who are alive in God's kingdom. And how do you become that kind of good person? You become an apprentice or disciple of Jesus and follow him. And so he would say, let's concentrate on these passages that really could transform our character. You know, one of those I've probably personally spent the most time with over the last 15 years since I heard him say that is just Colossians 3. And boy, how how incredible it is to think about things above and not things here below. To become the kind of person who doesn't run on what is earthly, to clothe ourselves with compassion, love, kindness, humility, you know, gentleness, faithfulness, uh putting on love, doing everything in the name of the Lord Jesus. uh that's really helped me as an apprentice of Jesus. So I think these passages really help almost accelerate what an apprenticeship to Jesus could be like through the scriptures. Some of us probably remember as kids in the church uh memorizing our Bible verse for the week and coming back on Sunday and getting a piece of candy if you can recite it or sword drills in high school youth group or whatever depends how old you are. Uh so a lot of our traditions have highly valued the memorization of scripture. Yeah. But Dallas and Dallas did too, but he he advocated not just the memorization of individual verses, but wide swaths of scripture, whole chapters or in the case of the sermon on the mount, three chapters, like internalizing it. Explain uh why he felt that was a more productive or transformative way of memorizing scripture than the the kind of peace meal out of context verse here and there. Yeah. Dallas would say the single most important spiritual practice of his life was memorizing scripture. And he would say when we internalize scripture, our daily quiet times don't just end when we close our Bibles and go off to work or school or whatever it might be. We carry those quiet times with us all along. I think memorization when I've taught this stuff to people, this is where I get the most push back like, well, I can't do that, right? I would want to clarify that I don't think Dallas when he talks about memorization, he's not talking about recitation. Like I get anxiety thinking about having to recite uh like a Shakespearean sonnet uh like I had to in high school and embarrassing myself because I would stumble over my words or get stuck or anxiety would kind of me. He's not talking about memorizing scripture so you can impress other people with your knowledge of it. I mean again Dallas would say eliminate performance entirely from your spiritual life. We don't have to impress God at all. Rid ourselves of impression impression management. But I think there's a way that in internalizing God's word, carrying it with you, walking it with you, there's a way that understanding comes in a way that just dissecting a text or just exeding a passage sitting down just doesn't enable you to do. I think you only know as you go a lot of times. And the more of the scriptures that we internalize, I think the more we can carry that communion with God with us wherever we go. And Dallas would say the most important things about us is our mind. And the most important thing about our mind is what it's fixed upon. So, the more of scripture we can have fixed upon and the the longer the narratives perhaps and the stories, uh, the more we're going to have our mind set on what's going to shape us in the best way possible. And this is one thing I hope the rest of my life to be able to do a lot more than I have. But, uh, Michael Wilkins, who is a distinguished professor of New Testament uh, at Talbot, he would say that Dallas had the greatest intuitive grasp of anybody he ever met uh, of the Bible. And it's largely because of how much of it he had just memorized and internalized. And I think through that lengthy internalization of God's word, we go from communication to communion to union in a much deeper, slow, unhurrieded way. Um, I don't know if you experienced this in your education, Dave, but when I was a seminary student, I remember struggling immensely with Bible reading because the Bible had literally become my textbook and I I had my nose in it all day long every day, but it was a very technical way of reading it. I was studying it, I was parsing it, I was exaging it all. And so it it was really difficult for me to engage the Bible again as that vehicle of from communication to communion to union like you're talking about until I it wasn't through Dallas wood. I don't think I'd read any of Dallas at that point but uh I was introduced to the practice of lectio deina which is a more reflective meditative prayerful way of reading scripture as a vehicle of communion with God. and then getting engaged with Alice's writings, it only amplified that approach and it was transformative for me. So I think again a lot of people listening to this probably have read the Bible a lot. They're engaged in scripture and church and different environments. They may well have a relationship with the Bible and yet they may lack a relationship with the God of the Bible. And I think that's a direct reflection of the way we've been taught to read it. which is why your book and Dallas's vision of the scriptures is so valuable and important. Um, we got to wrap up this interview, but would you be willing to stick around for a few minutes for a bonus conversation about how Dallas understood the Old Testament because I think this is a really interesting part of your book. All right. Uh everyone for for those of you who are Holy Post plus subscribers, Dave's book is our uh book of the month or book of the quarter for our Holy Post book club. You're going to be getting a copy either digital or physical as part of your membership if you're not a Holy Post Plus subscriber. What better time to sign up than to be a part of this? We're going to have more conversations about the content. Again, the book is called Experiencing Scripture as a Disciple of Jesus. Reading the Bible like Dallas Willard. Dave, thank you so much for the book and for being with us. you're going to stick around because we're going to have this conversation about uh the Old Testament, which is fascinating. Uh and those of you again who are Holy Post Plus subscribers can get that bonus interview over on our website. Thanks, Dave. Thanks so much, Sky. The Holy Post podcast is a production of Holy Post Media, produced by Mike Stlo, editing by Seth Gvette. Help us create more thoughtful Christian media by subscribing to Holy Post Plus at holyost.com/plus. Also, be sure to leave a review on Apple Podcast so more people can discover thoughtful Christian commentary, plus ukulele and occasional butt news. Visit holypost.com for show notes, news stories, Holy Post merchandise, and much, much more.