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1:00
[MUSIC]
1:08
This is Undaunted Life a Man's Podcast.
1:22
I'm your host Kyle Thompson. Let's get into it.
1:25
All right, guys, we've got a special guest on the podcast.
1:26
Today's name is JT English.
1:28
He's a pastor, professor, podcaster, and author.
1:31
He has a new book out now called Remember and Rehears, an invitation to participate in God's story.
1:36
He's also the co-host of the Knowing Faith podcast.
1:39
He is the co-founder of The Training, the Church Ministry,
1:42
which is there to basically help ministry leaders develop proven discipleship frameworks
1:47
and strategies in their local context.
1:48
So, excuse me, from the beginning, I hate that we didn't have as much time with JT
1:54
as we normally do with other guests.
1:56
So, just the way the cookie crumbled this morning, wife woke up very, very, very sick.
2:00
So, had to take the boys to school, so I had to kind of push his a little bit,
2:04
and then I had another thing right after him.
2:05
And so, we didn't get to do another full hour or anything beyond that,
2:08
but I'm sure we'll have him back on.
2:10
But in this particular podcast, we start out by talking about, okay,
2:13
how do you become a Christian? How do you become a professional Christian?
2:16
But then we got onto a very interesting discussion about discipleship,
2:19
because his story and my story about how we came to faith and our families of origin
2:23
and things like that are fairly similar. And so, we talked about what is the church
2:27
missing when it comes to discipleship? Why are there so many, especially young men,
2:31
just out there, rudderless, just basically going whichever way the tide takes them?
2:35
So, very interesting discussion about that.
2:37
Then we get into the book, remember, and rehearse about how there's a story
2:42
that we're all living in, right?
2:43
And there are a lot of people that can tell you Bible stories,
2:47
but they can't tell you the story of the Bible.
2:50
And that's because of false stories, which we talked about a couple of them.
2:53
We talked about, you know, which ones are we talking about?
2:56
We talked about pragmatism, that's one.
2:58
Another one that we talked about is basically politicalism,
3:01
how everything's political, and then really this whole concept about how
3:04
you don't read the Bible, you don't study the Bible, you live in the Bible, right?
3:08
That doesn't mean it's about you, but that's how you should treat your Bible study and stuff like that.
3:13
We got into a little bit of a discussion about, you know, people arguing about,
3:16
hey, you can't just say the Bible's true because the Bible says it's true,
3:20
like how do you deal with that type of objection?
3:22
And then at the end, we talk a little bit more about Calvinist theology,
3:25
about Reformed theology, it wasn't the plan for today's episode,
3:28
but just the struggles that a lot of people have with the sovereignty of God versus our free will
3:33
and how he handles things like that.
3:34
But man, I just really enjoyed my time with him.
3:36
I enjoyed the book as well.
3:37
It'll be in the show notes.
3:38
So guys, without further ado, let's get into it.
3:41
JT English, welcome to Undaunted Life in Man's podcast.
3:45
Man, I'm pumped to be here.
3:46
Thanks so much for having me.
3:47
Well, hey, you've got a bunch of guys that are fans of yours.
3:49
So I kind of asked around, you know, because now I get so many pictures for people to come
3:52
and show them like, hey, who's this JT English fell?
3:54
Because I'd heard the name before and all that.
3:56
So you've got some huge fans out there, Matt Chandler, not the least of which.
4:00
But for anyone that doesn't know, you are a professional Christian, right?
4:04
So you're not just a podcaster and an author.
4:06
Like you're a pro at this.
4:07
Okay.
4:08
And so let's just, yeah, let's, let's do the background information.
4:11
So let's talk about coming to faith in Christ, why you pursued full-time vocational
4:16
ministry and what you're doing now.
4:18
Yeah.
4:19
I mean, to kind of get to the end of the story quick, then I'll go back.
4:21
I never thought I'd be doing what I'm doing now.
4:23
I mean, I just was a sports kid, sports brat.
4:26
Parents got divorced when I was young, played baseball, basketball, football,
4:30
kind of did the brand, the game.
4:32
My mom was actually the vice president for the Rockies baseball team.
4:35
So I thought, man, sports, not like professional sports,
4:37
but like do sports marketing, sports business, that kind of thing.
4:39
Hey, JT, you could maybe play for the Rockies right now.
4:42
What they lost their 50th game before they won their 10th.
4:46
They are epically terrible.
4:48
As we record, if we, if the Rockies were to win 40 straight games,
4:52
that would put them right at 500, which is like, it's just amazing.
4:57
That's one of the most astonishing things ever.
4:58
But anyway, sorry, go ahead.
4:59
No, that's fine.
5:00
So yeah, I just kind of grew up doing the sports thing.
5:01
And then I ended up at CSU Colorado State University here in Colorado.
5:05
And somebody just shared the gospel with me through just a gospel track.
5:09
Somebody sat down, it was campus crusade.
5:10
They shared the four spiritual laws.
5:12
Man, and God just radically transformed my life.
5:14
I understood that God made me.
5:16
I had sinned against him.
5:17
And the wages of my sin was death and separation from him.
5:19
And I just put my faith in Christ in that moment.
5:23
Never even in a million years, even in that season,
5:25
thought I would go into vocational ministry.
5:27
I just, the Lord changed my affections for him.
5:29
I began loving him more than I loved other things.
5:32
And I wasn't really discipled in those early years other than how to share my faith.
5:36
And so for me, I went to a couple men in my life that I respected.
5:39
And they said, you should consider going to seminary.
5:41
And that became part of my story.
5:42
I went to Dallas seminary and Southern seminary.
5:45
And the thing that's wild about my story, Kyle, is I got into CSU on probation.
5:50
Like I was not in the academic.
5:51
I still don't consider myself an academic.
5:54
I don't, the fact that I've written a book is a little crazy to me.
5:56
I don't like writing.
5:57
I don't particularly love reading.
5:58
It just has been theology specifically.
6:01
Knowing and loving God has kind of become something I'm passionate about.
6:04
So I'll talk about it.
6:05
However, the Lord lets me.
6:07
And that's been, you know, through books.
6:09
But now I'm a pastor.
6:10
My pastor back home actually kind of had about a 10-year journey through Louisville and Kentucky.
6:14
Doing different ministry things.
6:16
And then in God's kindness, he brought me back.
6:18
I mean, I pastor people who prayed for non-Christian high school punk JT,
6:22
who are now members at my church.
6:24
So back home in Colorado, pastoring storyline church and having a blast.
6:27
Well, let's go back to punk JT before we get to the book.
6:31
I became a Christian at the age of 15, right?
6:34
So either I chose it or God forced me to do it if you're Calvinist.
6:37
You know, whatever you're into, but basically I wasn't discipled either.
6:41
And so I'm a very conscientious young man.
6:44
I was even back then.
6:45
I was a knucklehead, but I was very conscientious.
6:47
I got my work done.
6:48
I got it done to the best of my ability and I got it done early, right?
6:50
And so, you know, I go to the salt cellar in law and local home and next to the Hastings.
6:54
And I go and buy me the most extreme looking teen Bible possible.
6:58
And I just started in Matthew and I work my way through the New Testament.
7:01
It's just like, oh my gosh, mine's being blown.
7:03
I'm like, I need seven different colors of highlighters because, you know,
7:05
I'm basically highlighting every word.
7:07
And then I get bogged down.
7:08
Once I get to the Old Testament, I get to like Leviticus numbers.
7:10
I'm like, what is going on here?
7:12
And basically for decades after that was never really discipled.
7:17
And I had sought out discipleship and I had done some things like that.
7:20
So I don't want to get too far off on a tangent because we got a lot of ground to cover on the book, JT.
7:24
But my goodness, churches do an absolutely awful job.
7:29
They get a great, they do a great job of Ted talking to you.
7:32
And, you know, big production music in you to raising your hand and saying,
7:37
hey, I'm following Christ and they may even get you to walk down to the aisle
7:41
and, you know, pray at the altar with a pastor or elder.
7:43
But then they don't disciple you.
7:45
So you're just kind of like that you're, you're just this rudderless boat.
7:49
That's just like being taken wherever the tide goes.
7:51
And gosh, if you're getting your, you might be getting disciples from Dorks on TikTok
7:56
or from, you know, bad pastors that don't have correct doctrine,
7:59
North theology, or you get pulled in like if you're a little bit rougher,
8:03
maybe you're pulled into kind of like the Latin mask Catholicism or even like Eastern Orthodox.
8:07
So what is it about the church that we just seem anemic when it comes to discipling young,
8:13
especially young men?
8:14
Yeah. I mean, now you're talking about one of my other passions,
8:16
just discipleship in the life of the local church.
8:19
I mean, I couldn't agree with you more.
8:20
The church has just completely failed at this in our generation.
8:24
I would argue for really the last 20, 30 years.
8:27
It just hasn't been a part of what we do.
8:28
We've built things like programs, entertainment,
8:31
built services that kind of keep us happy and satisfied,
8:34
but don't really change our lives or invite us to follow the true Jesus of Nazareth.
8:37
And so I believe in the core of my being that the primary context for discipleship
8:41
is the life of the local church.
8:42
This is God's spirit empowered authorized means to make disciples.
8:46
And I believe it's time for the church to recapture and maybe put the mantle back on
8:51
herself so that we can seek to make disciples of Christ.
8:54
So whether that's, I mean, one of the things I was just talking with somebody's last night,
8:58
I've got a group of men that I get together with.
8:59
And one of the things I just mentioned last night is I don't think the church is a place
9:03
that, what's the right way to say it?
9:04
I don't know, just culturally, we see so much going on specifically in kind of the
9:09
bro-culture masculine world that's happening because it's not happening in the life of the
9:15
church in healthy and biblical ways because we have a philosophy of who Jesus is.
9:19
And it really kind of a feminized version of the church, I think, in many ways.
9:23
And so I think the pastors really have a chance here.
9:25
And again, we can over-torque this. I'm not asking for a over-course correction and
9:30
some kind of culture that wouldn't honor Jesus, but man, pastors, if you're listening out there,
9:37
the church is the place where we need to be calling men to follow Jesus to Nazareth.
9:41
And if you're doing anything that looks like that's the case, but isn't actually happening,
9:45
like you might need to rethink through what are the metrics by which we're measuring this.
9:49
Like, let me just tell you one story that happens to me every single year.
9:53
This is a small moment in life of our church, but it's powerful.
9:56
Every single Father's Day, we invite the men in our church, the fathers in our church to stand up
9:59
in our services. And it's just five minutes of me encouraging them, blessing them, trying to honor
10:04
them. And Kyle, I got to tell you, I mean, it's everything from 85-year-old men to 23-year-old men,
10:10
and they just weep. Yep. They just weep. They just say before you did. Yep, absolutely.
10:14
And it's because it's one of the only times in the course of that year where somebody will see them,
10:18
acknowledge their pain, acknowledge their struggles, acknowledge what they're going through,
10:22
call them to life, call them to brotherhood, to follow Jesus and to hold arms together with
10:27
each other. I mean, we got to find a way that doesn't just happen on Father's Day once a year,
10:32
where we're reminded what it means to be a biblical man and to follow Jesus, but really make it a
10:36
part of our culture. I lied. We're not going to get to the book. We're going to dig into that a
10:40
little bit further because here's the thing, like I castigate pastors because on Father's Day,
10:46
they will look at the men and they will castigate them and they will say, you're not doing what
10:51
you're supposed to be doing. You're not volunteering. You're not giving. You're not discipling. You're
10:55
not the head of your household. And then I'm going, okay, pastor, who according to the writer of Hebrew
11:00
says, you're going to have to give an account someday for how you've shepherded this flock,
11:03
including the men. What have you done the last 364 days to acquit these men to do those things?
11:09
Oh, nothing. Oh, you did one thing. You called it beast feast. You brought in some speaker like
11:14
Nadia Gella, your guys for you and you just called it good for the rest of the year. Like, give me a
11:19
break. All the women leave the church on Mother's Day feeling like they're not even sinners. And then
11:23
you just destroy the men. And the reason why these men are weeping, why I knew you were going to say
11:27
that is because men are desperate to know that people appreciate them, that they want them,
11:32
that they need them there. You want to know why a bunch of women go to church alone on Sunday
11:37
morning? Because it's because when they walk into church, there may as well be a blinking neon sign
11:41
in the lobby that says men, we don't have you in mind. We're not going to sing songs and keys that
11:45
you can hit. It's going to be homoerotic lyrics where if you insert the name Larry and take out
11:50
the word Jesus, it seems like you're singing to your boyfriend. The pastor is this doughy,
11:54
frumpy guy that you would never follow. Certainly not into battle. And then none of the volunteer
11:59
opportunities have men in mind, right? We live in Oklahoma. So if your church doesn't have a
12:03
shed full of chainsaws that are ready to go for tornado season to help the widows and and orphans
12:07
and you know, all the elderly, you get all the limbs off the tops of their houses after tornado
12:12
hits or something like that, then what are you doing? Like most men don't want to sit down
12:16
and hold a newborn baby. And so the part of thing, and again, I'm saying this not to destroy pastors,
12:21
but to encourage them to be like, let's get some lead in your pencil. Like, let's not do the whole
12:26
swing way over to the right thing where your Christianity is based on how many pull ups you
12:31
can do and how much meat you can eat. But also, it's not this manby, pamby, Jesus was some sort of
12:36
like Danish model guy with soft features and never did anything wrong and certainly wouldn't
12:40
tell guys that they need to live a better, more structured and disciplined life. I so understand
12:45
where pastors are losing the thread, JT. Yeah, I think it's exactly right. Well, I think there's a
12:49
fear on both sides, right? There's a kind of a fear of perhaps over course correcting, which you
12:53
just mentioned there of making it not about Jesus of Nazareth. And we're following a man who lived
12:57
2,000 years ago who's right now reigning and relaying his king over heaven and earth. And that's who we
13:02
want to call men to follow. There's other cultural versions of that, both on kind of maybe the
13:06
feminized version of Jesus or the overmasculized version of Jesus that isn't the actual real historic
13:12
Jesus of Nazareth. And so, man, like you said, I think pastors have a real opportunity here,
13:17
like you said, not to overcastigate, but to call men into who God has created them to be, to give
13:22
them purpose in following Jesus of Nazareth, what if they're married to lead their households? Well,
13:27
if they've got kids to lead their kids well, but ultimately to be engaged in the life of the local
13:32
church to make much of Jesus. And so, that was even something for me that has been a part of my
13:37
story because I grew up and my parents got divorced and I was in first grade. My mom got remarried,
13:43
and my parents didn't follow the Lord. I was the first to become a Christian, first to follow Jesus
13:47
in my family. And so, there's been a lot of, I don't know, even first generational Christian man
13:54
thing in my life that I'm even thinking through, because there's so many men at Storyline Church
13:59
who that's their story too. They didn't have a male father, father figure who followed Jesus.
14:03
And so, when I do that moment in the life of our church, I'm also telling them to look to each
14:07
other. Certainly look to me. I want to be an example for you, but let's do this as a community
14:12
of men who want to follow Jesus together. Very good. Well, we got transitioned to the
14:17
business end of today's discussion because you got a book out right now. It's right here. Remember
14:20
and rehearse an invitation to participate in God's story. And so, here's the thing about the book.
14:25
This book is very concerned about story. And so, there's actually a quote from the book here.
14:30
The goal of this book is very simple. It is an invitation to participate in the one true story
14:35
of the world, the story of Scripture. And so, you talk about the power of story. And so,
14:40
that's where we should really start our journey. But one of the things you talk about early in the
14:43
book is there's a pretty big and stark difference between stories and story, okay? And so, I'll read
14:49
another short quote from the book. What I found to be true over the course of my ministry is that
14:53
people tend to be very good at remembering the stories of the Bible, but not quite as good at
14:58
being able to rearticulate the story of the Bible. And so, JT, again, I didn't grow up in a family
15:04
with any Christians. So, I was a first person, a professed faith in Christ, had no discipleship.
15:08
So, I missed VBS. I missed a Wanna. I missed all that Old Testament like Jonah and the Whale and
15:14
the Ark. I missed all that stuff. I colloquially knew about it because culture taught me. But,
15:18
you know, here I am at 15 years old and there's people that have spent 15 years basically knowing
15:23
all these stories. I was like, "Oh, yeah, you know, this story and that story connects to that."
15:27
So, they can regurgitate the story, but then these are people that are not Christians today,
15:31
right? So, they know the stories, they know the morality that the Bible says, but they don't know
15:36
where to find it. They couldn't point someone else to it and they couldn't say how that somehow
15:41
pointed to Jesus Christophany or not. And so, why this book? Why now? Why you?
15:46
Yeah, I mean, get to your question again. Kyle, our stories are real similar. My first Bible
15:50
study that I went to after crew, they said, "Open up to the book of Jonah." And I did not find it.
15:53
Like, I was kind of thumbing through the Old Testament, hoping that I'd eventually come across
15:58
it. And you can't go to the table of contents because if you go to the table of contents,
16:01
you're like outed as the person who doesn't know their Bible. And so, I think that's true
16:06
a lot of us. Like, we're probably at a place as a religious scripture that we don't want to be,
16:10
but we don't want to admit it. Like, we don't know how to get help. So, we kind of fake, you know,
16:13
maybe we go to church, we kind of fake our way through it. I mean, when I went to seminary,
16:17
I was blown away to realize that the story of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation is a story.
16:22
Despite the fact, like you mentioned, there's a story of Jonah or Daniel Shadrach and Meshach
16:26
and Abednego. The story of Israel is an exile. The story of the Exodus. We know those stories
16:31
almost like we have pieces of a puzzle, but we don't know how to put them together.
16:35
And the Bible can be so intimidating that I don't even know where to start. How do I start putting
16:40
these pieces of the puzzle together? And so, remembering Rehears is a guide to help give some
16:46
thematic themes on the story of scripture for somebody like me. Like, this is the book I wish
16:50
somebody would have handed me. Either right after I came to faith or shortly after, not because it's
16:55
for a new believer, but it's for somebody who doesn't know the Bible very well. And that's why I wrote
17:00
it as I thought, man, I wish somebody would have handed me this to help me put the themes together
17:04
from Genesis to Revelation about who Jesus is and what he's accomplished. And it's really,
17:08
the theme that I use is all about the kingdom of God. I talk about Genesis chapter one is the story
17:14
of the establishment of a king establishing a kingdom. Genesis three is a story of a kingdom
17:21
citizens rebelling against the king and the consequences of that rebellion. Genesis 12,
17:25
really through the rest of the Old Testament, the promise of the king reestablishing his kingdom,
17:30
the gospels as the story of the king establishing his kingdom, the kingdom accomplished, the story
17:35
of acts moving forward, the story of a kingdom being applied. We're now kingdom citizens living out
17:40
the ethics of the kingdom. And one day in the future, a kingdom fully consummated. And so,
17:45
if you would think of yourself as somebody who, man, I love the Bible, I'm learning how to follow
17:49
Jesus, but I'm not sure that I know how to put the Bible together. I didn't remember in a
17:52
reverse might be a good book for you. One thing as well, because for whatever reason, I'm obsessed
17:57
with the book of Nehemiah. I love the story of Nehemiah. I mean, because it's, it's got fighting,
18:02
it's got building, it's got like, like Nehemiah was a politician, right? Like he was a community
18:06
organizer. He was like, he had enemies of both of those things. Yeah, he had enemies that he had
18:09
to deal with. And these weren't enemies that were just sending mean tweets. These were enemies that
18:13
if given the opportunity would have slit his throat, right? Right. And so, but you can read
18:18
through the book of Nehemiah. And if you leave that as a truncated version of that one book,
18:23
and don't look at it as the totality of scripture, you can kind of lose the threat as to why it's
18:28
even there to begin with. Now, if you just pluck a random scripture, especially out of the Old Testament
18:32
and be like, how in the world does this point to Christ? Well, that one particular scripture in a
18:37
vacuum may not be able to do it. But if we pull out just a little bit and look at maybe that entire
18:43
section of scripture, that entire chapter, that entire book, oh, the narrative of the Old Testament,
18:47
the different covenants that were, were pointing in the exact same direction. So it's like, I'm not
18:53
looking behind like every scripture waiting to see a Christophany happening, or like a direct
18:58
reference to, you know, Jesus of Nazareth. But it's just, it's a different approach to the Bible. But
19:03
like, no one's really teaching it that way. And I just, I don't know. I mean, everyone's got their
19:07
own way of teaching things. And everyone has their own way of learning and absorbing things. But I
19:11
feel like that's just a better way of doing it to where it's like, Hey, who is this message to?
19:15
What was it? What was it for at the time? What is the context? What's going on historically? And
19:20
gosh, we just don't do that. That's right. Well, I think the, the re one of the reasons I use the
19:24
category of stories is because we're all living in them. Like, whether we know it or not, what I mean
19:29
by that is, is like all of us have an understanding of what's going on in the world, whether that be
19:33
right or wrong story, like some of the false stories I talked about in the fall story of perfectionism,
19:37
like, I'll only be loved or accepted once I make myself perfect, the false story of pragmatism,
19:42
that what, you know, what, what works must be true. And they're true things to all of those false
19:48
stories. But ultimately, the story of the Bible isn't just meant to be looked at, but to be lived
19:52
in, like the call of being a disciple of Jesus Christ isn't just to study your Bible. It's to live
19:58
in its story that you as a man of God has been having called, not just to read your Bible as like
20:04
a student, but to live in the drama of redemption that centers around the person of Jesus Christ.
20:11
And then what I find so compelling about that is it like makes sense of my day, like today is a
20:16
Wednesday and helps me make sense of the story that I'm living in. How am I supposed to pastor
20:20
this church? How am I supposed to love my wife? How am I supposed to take care of my kids? Well,
20:24
once I understand the story of scripture, what God's doing in the story that God's called me into,
20:29
I can begin to understand in deeper ways what faithfulness looks like and what unfaithfulness
20:34
looks like. Am I living towards or in the grain of the story of scripture or away from or against
20:39
the grain of the story line of scripture? And so it's less looking for doctrinal statements or one
20:44
verse that helps me make sense of my life, but the totality of the Bible that's pointing towards
20:49
Jesus and calling us as his image bearers to follow him. Well, yeah, and don't have coffee
20:53
cup theology to where it's like all of your theology can be like one coffee cup or as I call it here
20:58
in Oklahoma country music theology. So because, you know, grandma and grandpa were good Christians
21:04
because you were baptized as a child and because when you vote, you vote Republican and because you
21:08
listen to 90s country, which is the best version of country, then you get to go to heaven because God's
21:12
pro all those things. It's just like it's foolish. And that's, you know, when Matt and I talk, you
21:16
know, the dangers and the difficulty of doing ministry in the suburbs of Dallas, right? Where he is
21:22
in all these people. I mean, how could you not be a Christian? You make half a million dollars a
21:26
year. Your wife's hot. You know, she's gotten some help with that, but she's super smoking hot. You
21:31
got a brand new vehicle. The, you know, the edging on your on your lawn is always perfect. And it's
21:36
just like, yeah, the gravity takes many forms. That's just one of them. But to the living in the
21:40
Bible thing, I want to actually read a quote from the book here. The Bible is not only a story to be
21:44
read. It is a story to be lived in, but to truly participate in this way, we must identify and
21:49
remove the false stories we are living so that we can put on a better story to grow as a disciple
21:56
of Jesus is to have your story rescripted by his spirit edited to follow the contours of Scripture
22:03
in written so that we may participate. So a few years ago, JT, I got to the end of the year, I got
22:08
to December. I'm kind of looking back at the podcast for that year. And I was like, man, I read 54
22:12
books for the podcast that year to prepare for interviews, right? And I'm like, man, I'm awesome.
22:18
Gosh, I am so smart. I'm the guy that couldn't finish Lord of the Flies in high school and look
22:22
at me now. And immediately the conviction came, Hey, son, how many books of the Bible did you read
22:28
this year? Wow. And I was like, Oh, no, I don't think I read 54 chapters of the Bible that year.
22:35
And I was like, no, no, no, no, we got to fix this. And I talked to my inner circle here. We came up
22:39
with this idea called the forging table. It's me and three other non professional Christians.
22:43
We sit around a table in one hour at a time. We go through chapters of the Bible and we do that,
22:49
record it and we put it out there on the show. It's modeling normal dudes doing Bible study.
22:53
We've gone through Matthew, we've gone through acts for wrapping up Genesis. Now we're moving
22:57
on, you know, to a book that I can't talk about. Yeah, we've done Nehemiah, we've done some Psalms
23:01
and Proverbs. We've done some things like that. But part of the thing that is so easily distracting
23:06
to us, JT, is the false stories that I talked about there in that quote, you elucidate a lot of
23:12
those. And so I'll actually list them from the book. We won't certainly talk about all of them.
23:16
But you talk about, and this will take me just a second, but guys, this is worth it. Romanticism,
23:20
this is a story that you are your feelings, consumerism, which is you are what you have,
23:25
rationalism, which is whatever seems reasonable to you must be true, pragmatism, which is whatever
23:31
works must be true. Individualism, you are at the center of all things. Hedonism, pleasure is at the
23:37
center of a meaningful human experience. Progressivism, things are continually getting better.
23:42
Deconstructivism, which is where basically like, you know, any traditions or rituals,
23:46
you should be like skeptical, all those things. Perfectionism says that you will not be loved
23:50
until you are perfect. And once you have made everything around you perfect, postmodernism,
23:55
which is there is no big overarching true story. Fatalism, which is things are perpetually getting
24:00
worse. Politicalism, which is everything will be right when human governance and politicians are
24:05
made right. Safetyism, which is the goal in life is to be safe in a dark and dangerous world,
24:10
and then secularism, which is there is nothing beyond what can be seen and experienced in the
24:14
natural world. So I do want to drop down into a couple of those. First one I want to talk about
24:19
is pragmatism. So in the emergent church movement or the seeker sensitive movement or any types of
24:26
things, everybody's following the dictates of John Maxwell and Dale Carnegie and not necessarily
24:32
Jesus or the apostle Paul or the apostle Peter or things like that. And I keep hearing these things,
24:37
which is like, hey, if it works, we're going to use it. Whether or not this is of God or not,
24:43
the biggest example is the the Enneagram, right? I've talked to so many Christians about the Enneagram,
24:47
they're like, oh, this is just like a neutral, it's just like a personality test. I was like,
24:51
no, the person that invented the Enneagram said he did it via automatic writing, which is where he
24:54
allowed his brain and body to be taken over by a demon and put his pen to paper and then came
24:59
up with the Enneagram, right? This isn't some age old thing of wisdom that God, you know, hid
25:04
somewhere, right? But hey, it works. I do this Enneagram, but like, that's the thing when I talk
25:09
to costy him recently, it's like, man, some of these healings and different things like they work,
25:14
but it's like, why do they work? Right? Because like, we wouldn't pay attention to any of these
25:18
negative nefarious things if they never worked. And so why is the false story of pragmatism
25:24
such an issue? Well, because it's easy. I mean, we get immediate results if we want to do the
25:30
false story of pragmatism. The challenge with it is, is like, you're being governed by what you
25:34
think is supposed to work. Does that make sense? Like, you've set up a report card, so to speak,
25:40
that isn't necessarily the story of the Bible or isn't biblical. So whether it's healings or
25:43
whether it's personality tests or whether it's to pack a thousand people into your church,
25:48
that might not necessarily be the goal. And so pragmatism is often governed by a false
25:53
set of goals that don't actually lead us into a deeper relationship with the person of Jesus Christ,
25:58
but our grow your ministry, or, you know, get that better job, increase your 401k. Again,
26:05
and it's not to say that those things are necessarily bad. It's not bad to grow a church. It's not
26:08
bad to know who you are. And it's not bad to make money. But it's like, if that's the goal,
26:13
then you're living in the false story of pragmatism. Hey, guys, real quick, according to a recent
26:18
Gallup poll, only 31% of Americans express confidence in the mass media to report the news fully,
26:23
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26:29
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26:32
worrying about them being propagandized by left wing weirdos. I mean, you remember when that
26:37
Disney employee came out, they were caught saying on camera that they have a not so secret gay
26:41
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28:28
Well, I think as well, it's so easy to be drawn to things that are exciting, right? So we've got
28:37
one church. That's not full. Well, let's just do a second one. And so then you have these
28:41
churches that seem to be opening. They're not campuses as much as they are like another McDonald's,
28:47
right? So it's a franchise, a franchise and they're kind of expanding their influence.
28:52
And there's some churches out there that are doing it well, and they're creating space for
28:55
more people. And you know, we talked about Chandler. Why did why are they building out their their
29:00
facility? And why did they do a parking garage and all that? It was because they were constantly
29:04
having to turn people away at the door and say, Hey, there's not enough room. And so why not create
29:09
more room? I'm totally pro that. But let's also talk about politicalism.
29:12
So in this podcast, we talk about faith culture and politics, not necessarily in that order and not
29:17
a third, a third and a third all the time. But sometimes we're hanging out in the world of the
29:21
political a lot. And so again, if you think that the world would be made right when Trump is in
29:27
office, or when your favorite politician is, you know, ascended to the cabinets, or, you know, when
29:33
your your party gets back in power during the midterms or whatever the thing is, you do have
29:38
a misplaced faith. And so yes, but what is also true is most of the moral things that are handled
29:45
on a cultural basis are through a political lens, right? So I've been told by people all the time,
29:51
like, Hey, you shouldn't talk about, you know, abortion in a political sense at all. It should
29:55
only be talked about in a moral sense. I was like, cute. But morality is formed by what laws are
30:02
coming, right? We live in a culture right now where, you know, Christians, especially are downstream
30:08
from culture. So we look at what culture is doing. And then we try to do that in the church so that
30:11
we can seem relevant. We try to make the music that they're making so that it'll somehow be like
30:15
Christian eased up or something like that. But the same thing in politics is policy is a lagging
30:21
indicator, JT, because by the time you've created some sort of policy around whatever issue,
30:26
way upstream, somebody figured out morally speaking, this is a detriment to human flourishing. And so
30:33
I feel like I have to talk to both sides, which are like, Hey, Trump is not the second coming of
30:37
Christ. Please stop making images of Jesus, you know, hugging Trump and doing it like stop. It's
30:42
weird to stop doing it. And then on the other side, these people are like, Nope, we're just going to
30:46
take our hands off the wheel. We're going to let go and let God well, you almost let go and had
30:49
Kamala Harrison office. And can you imagine the number of babies that would be murdered right now,
30:53
the number of children that would be having their healthy breast tissue or genitalia cut off and
30:57
altered because they want to sacrifice it on basically the altar of progressivism. And so like,
31:04
talk to the people about kind of both sides of the politicalism issue.
31:07
Yeah, I agree to everything you just said. I mean, the reality, I remember a pastor once said to
31:11
me, I was in this is right after I came to faith and he said, you can't legislate morality. And I
31:15
said, yeah, but you can't legislate without morality. Like what you're trying to do is to
31:19
legislate from a moral position laws are meant to help us either lead a life that is governed by
31:25
God's laws or to go against the grain of God's laws, even as natural law and is revealed by.
31:30
So when I talk about false stories, whether it's the false story of politicalism or pragmatism,
31:34
it's not to say that they're unimportant. And it's not to say that they don't have
31:38
value in life. Like going back to pragmatism, I want to do things that work. I'm not arguing
31:42
that I want to do things that don't work. Or when it comes to politicalism, I'm not suggesting
31:46
that Christians should not be meaningfully engaged in the political sphere of life from a Christian
31:51
perspective. Of course, we should. What we're talking about is, is it the main overarching theme
31:57
of what I should be placing my hope and joy in? So like, for example, you know, pastoring a church,
32:02
we have a, you know, most of our church would identify themselves. I mean, virtually all of our
32:07
church as being politically conservative. And so like, man, it just feels chill right now in some
32:12
sense. I mean, no, no, no, like our hope is not complete. We're waiting for Jesus Christ of Nazareth
32:16
to come back and we're not looking for the next election to either be the war that we win or the
32:20
war that we lose. The war will be won when Jesus Christ returns and establishes his kingdom without
32:25
end. But again, do not hear me say that means don't be involved in political discourse. Even
32:29
here in Colorado, we've got some very significant state legislative bills that I want Christians to
32:34
be aware of and fighting against. So when I talk about the false story of politicalism, it doesn't
32:38
mean therefore be disengaged and allow the secular radical progressive left to run the political
32:44
sphere of Christians. Please be engaged. It's to say, do not place your ultimate and final hope in
32:49
it. In other words, if Kamala Harris was an office, we don't start reading the annual revelation,
32:53
thanking the world's ending. And if Donald Trump's an office, we read Ephesians just thinking everything's
32:58
fine. All of our hopes will ultimately be fulfilled and satisfied only by a theocratic monarchy
33:07
kingdom that is brought by King Jesus. Yeah. And so the other thing about it is it's okay to be
33:12
excited if if your favorite candidate wins. That's okay. It's also okay to be relieved. I was recently
33:18
listening to a conversation between Jordan Peterson and Megan Kelly and Megan Kelly said she stayed
33:23
up late with some of her teenage boys and they had their friends over and things like that.
33:26
And when Trump was announced as the winner, they didn't jump up and down and go crazy. They just
33:30
put their head in their hands and they were like, Oh, thank goodness. Like thank goodness. Like they
33:35
were just so relieved. All those things are okay. But that's obviously not put our hope in it. So
33:40
well, now we've wax poetic and we've agreed a whole bunch. Now we just need to hurry up and
33:43
disagree. Okay. Because there's something from your book that I just I've heard a lot of people say.
33:48
So this isn't your fault, but I'm making it your fault for the sake of the interview. Okay. So let
33:51
me read this quote. Yeah, it's probably your fault. We'll see. Here's the quote. You might be asking
33:55
yourself, why should I trust the story of the by of the Bible? Why should I trust that? The story
34:01
of the Bible is true. That's a fair question. It is also a question that the Bible answers
34:06
for itself. Okay. So I've been told by a lot of people that are smarter than me that have fancy
34:11
degrees and which seminary and all that that. Hey man, just let the Bible interpret the Bible.
34:15
Okay. The issue comes JT is you would not accept that. Uh, you know, let the Bible prove the Bible
34:24
literally in any other context. So like imagine if I had written a book and on page 34 that book,
34:30
I said, uh, the moon is made of cheese. Okay. And a reader of the book comes to me. They come across
34:35
that. They know that it's wrong and they proceed to present me with evidence that argues that I am
34:41
wrong. And it would be as if I were to respond, well, hey, turn to page 493. So they turn to page
34:48
493. And I point them to a quote that says everything in this book is 100% accurate.
34:53
Like that person would look at me like I was insane. And so they're like that. That is literally
34:59
definitionally circular argumentation and circular reasoning. So when you're like,
35:05
why does the Bible true? And it's like, well, the Bible says it's true. Why would anyone accept
35:08
that JT? Yeah, the reason they should accept it is because the person who says it is God. I mean,
35:13
this is a challenge. I realized that. So here's what I would argue, all arguments at the end of the
35:17
day are circular arguments. Every single one of them has to reference itself. Scientific theory
35:22
has to reference itself. Uh, in any form of inquiry ultimately is self-referential. How do we know
35:29
what we know? This is one of the greatest questions of philosophy, the question of, uh,
35:33
epistemology. How do we know what's real? How do we know what's, what's, uh, what metaphysic to
35:38
follow? What is ontologically real? So I follow the philosophical train of thought that says,
35:43
if arguments are self-referential and circular, follow the one that begins with its foundation is
35:49
God. Uh, and so what the Bible is is, and this is the, this is the way the Bible argues for itself,
35:54
by the way, this isn't something that I'm like pulling out a thin air because, you know, modern
35:58
theologians said that we should argue this way. Paul argues the reason that we should follow scripture
36:03
in 2 Timothy 3 16 is because it's they off news to us. It's God breathed. The reason that it is
36:08
if the word of sufficient and errant, uh, clear, the reason that Christians should follow it to
36:13
lead a cell to lead a righteous life is because the Bible is God's word. And what he doesn't say
36:17
is we can know it's God's word by referencing Socrates play to our Aristotle. He says we can
36:22
know it's God's word because of its self revelation and the spirit illuminating it for us.
36:28
And so I have, I don't think saying that it's a circular argument is an argument to say,
36:33
therefore it can't be true. All arguments are circular, but one circular argument is true. And
36:38
it's that the Bible is God's word. So I can get down with some of that. The, the issue becomes is
36:43
most people look for truth outside of the statement. So if I make a statement,
36:48
uh, we, we talked about the Rockies. If I made a statement that the Colorado Rockies are going to
36:56
win the world series this year, I know it. It's going to happen. Right. So that's kind of like
37:00
predicting the future or something like that. I can look at evidence outside of my argument,
37:05
outside of my statement to show that there would be the most epic comeback in the history of sports,
37:11
like bar none, those types of things, the evidence is outside of itself. So someone looks at the
37:16
Bible and says that, uh, King David existed in this particular place in history, uh,
37:22
in this particular location geographically. Well, we can point to archeological evidence and
37:27
historical writings outside of the scripture that prove the point. I'm not saying that scripture is
37:33
insufficient. Guys, don't send me your angry emails. I won't read them, but like that, that's ultimately
37:38
the thing is it can be proved outside of it. So there are people that were eyewitnesses to Jesus
37:43
being raised from the dead and walking around. It says 500 people saw him alive and all those
37:47
types of things. Well, I wasn't there. And so, but when you hear about people like Josephus
37:53
or Pliny the Younger or any of these people talking about what Christians claim to believe at that
37:58
time, claiming that Jesus actually rose from the dead and they're dedicating their lives to him.
38:02
It's evidence outside of what the Bible says. That doesn't refute the Bible. That doesn't make
38:07
the Bible not worthy. It just, it's evidence outside of itself. So it's non circular,
38:11
definitionally. That's right. And I think to make another point, I think in your line of arguing there,
38:17
Paul does that in Romans chapter one when he talks about natural theology demonstrating
38:21
what the world is like. He says, I just pulled it up. Romans chapter one says,
38:24
the wrath of God is being revealed against all ungodlessness and wickedness of people because
38:28
they suppress the truth and their wickedness. But here's the interesting point that he makes.
38:32
Here, he's arguing for natural revelation for us to know that there is a God to know who he is,
38:37
not even by looking at the Bible, but by looking at creation when he says this,
38:41
for since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature,
38:46
here's what's wild. He says, have been clearly seen. In other words, he's saying, without looking
38:52
at the Bible, you should experience God's created order and his created world and say,
38:58
God's eternal invisible qualities have been clearly seen being understood from what is made.
39:03
Therefore, people are without excuse. So it's not just the knowledge of God's special revelation
39:09
and scripture that makes people without excuse, but God's revelation and scripture aligns with
39:14
natural theology in the created order revealed outside of scripture. So I don't think there's
39:18
an inconsistency between saying God reveals himself in scripture, but God does not reveal
39:22
himself in the created order. He certainly has. And that, if we are arguing for some kind of
39:28
evidential claim of the reality of scripture in this true story of the Bible, I think we can say,
39:33
yeah, let's look to the world and see that Romans chapter one is exactly what's going on in our
39:37
culture in our world right now, not just in the postmodern American West, but has been going on
39:42
since Genesis chapter three. So JT, I'm curious, because you're obviously talking to another Christian
39:47
right now, you're talking to a largely Christian audience. How would you change that, you know,
39:53
semantic argument that you're making if you were talking to a nonbeliever, and they could be,
39:57
you know, a calm, reasonable nonbeliever, or they could be an ardent atheist. How would you adjust
40:02
your approach? Because when I'm, when I'm thinking through things like this, I hate saying devil's
40:06
advocate that just sounds weird, doesn't make me feel good on the inside. But if I am playing
40:10
that role, it's because I'm thinking about the conversations I've had with people that are
40:14
somewhere between not even Christ curious to completely dismissive of people that, you know,
40:19
claim to follow some sort of random sky daddy. So how would you change that?
40:24
You know, I don't know that I would. So again, we got to talk about this at the beginning,
40:28
whether you reformed or not, I personally am deeply reformed. And what that means is, is
40:36
all people are dead in their sins and trespasses, and therefore no evidential claims. Now here,
40:42
hear me, we should make reasonable, reasonable evidence-based claims. I'm not suggesting we shouldn't,
40:48
but no arguments can argue somebody into the kingdom of God. Why? Because there is no such
40:53
thing as an alive, rational individual who can hear an argument and therefore believe. Now again,
40:58
the Bible says that we should be ready to give an answer for and defend our faith at any time. So
41:03
caveat ad nauseam. At the end of the day, the only way that somebody can come to a saving
41:08
knowledge of Jesus Christ is through regeneration, which is a work outside of arguments and even a
41:13
work outside of themselves. It is God, King Jesus, reigning in ruling in heaven by the power of his
41:18
Holy Spirit taking a dead person. And when the Bible says dead person, it means dead person.
41:23
It doesn't mean somebody who's neutral able to make decisions to either believe this argument
41:28
or not believe this argument means take a dead person and draw them to life. And one of the
41:32
reasons I believe that is because when the Bible, when the gospel was shared with me,
41:36
they didn't really share it in a compelling way. It was just, I could just sense it was Jesus Christ
41:41
reigning in ruling in heaven, drawing a dead sinner to life in himself. Now again, I want to go back
41:46
to the caveat that doesn't mean therefore that we shouldn't make the best argument possible for
41:50
the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We should. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't have evidence-based
41:55
claims for the veracity and the truth once the scripture. We should. It is to say that when we're
42:00
dealing with a non-deliever, what we shouldn't, the assumption we shouldn't say is the more compelling
42:04
or rational argument I make is therefore giving them a greater chance to come to faith. The only
42:11
way a dead person to be made alive is by Jesus Christ making them alive.
42:16
It's so interesting because as you were saying that, I was thinking of all of the different
42:20
apologists that I've followed and learned from. So he shall not be named Robbie Zachariah.
42:25
She've got Jay Warner Wallace. You've got Wes Huff, who's now the most famous Christian
42:31
apologists in the history of the planet because of one interview he did on Joe Rogan. And I don't
42:35
say that sarcastically at all. I mean it. But then you look at an apologist like Phil Robertson,
42:39
who may he rest in peace. I'm so thrilled to get to spend time with him and his family
42:45
in the years before he passed. But what was his approach to scripture and to evangelism?
42:52
There was no philosophizing. There was not a single argument that was made outside of the
43:00
Bible and his personal experience with changing his life and being saved. Here's, it's not necessarily
43:06
the issue. And I've talked about this with a lot of people. And so we're kind of veering outside
43:09
of the pages of remember and rehearse as we wind to a close. But reform theology, Calvinism,
43:14
especially things like election, it seems like those are very convenient things to believe until
43:23
it's your kid. And I got two boys, you know, sitting down there, they're five and three years old.
43:30
And I am scared to death that God didn't pick them that they're not elect, right?
43:35
Did I bring people into this planet that I love more than anything that are going to
43:40
eventually be damned to hell? Just because my wife wanted to have sex and, you know, be fruitful,
43:45
multiply and do those types of things. You know, it's always convenient until it's your father,
43:49
until it's your brother. And then it's just like, are you really going to look at a non-believer
43:54
that you love more than anything and would lay your life down for them and just say, ah, they're
43:59
just not elect. Who cares? I'm just going to go on about my day and you can pray and you can do
44:04
all the things. But ultimately, it's like they're either elect or they're not, right? They're either
44:08
on the team or they're not JT. Yeah, so like I resonate with that deeply. I've got a 10-year-old
44:14
little boy at home, man. He is just my champ right now. Just watching him grow up and flourish and
44:19
sports and school. I mean, but he came out of his bedroom today. He's reading the Bible and his
44:25
room unprompted. He's got so many questions that I haven't thought of before. And so we're having
44:29
this dialogue. He has not repented from his sin and believed in a way that I would say is a spiritual
44:35
fruitfulness. But we're talking about the Bible praying about those things. And two nights ago,
44:38
it's so funny, he brings up Kyle as he came out with like a little note. He's like tore a page out
44:41
of a notebook that he had and wrote a note of his own. He said, "Dad, I want to memorize this
44:46
passage." I said, "What is it, buddy?" And he had written it in cursive. He had classical school
44:49
teachers in cursive. And he shows it to me. It was John 3.36, which says this, "Whoever believes in
44:54
the sun has eternal life. Whoever does not obey the sun shall not see life, but the wrath of God
45:00
remains upon him." So we're having conversations right now about this. And the question that you're
45:04
asking me about my son specifically is what hope do I have that my son Thomas will be in the kingdom
45:12
of God? The only hope that I ultimately have isn't my ability to reason or argue, though. And again,
45:18
caveat, ad nauseam, I want to reason and argue with him. I want to present the gospel in a compelling
45:23
way so that he might believe. But at the end of the day, I believe that irresistible grace,
45:29
one of the doctrines of Reformed theology, is my hope, is that my son will not be able to resist
45:36
the grace of God in Jesus Christ if and when the Holy Spirit reveals it to him. Therefore,
45:41
the pressure isn't on me. It's on a good, loving, knowing Father who accomplishes salvation of the
45:48
sun, applies it in the power of the Holy Spirit that I believe will draw him to life one day.
45:53
So JT, not to belabor the point, because again, we do have to whine to a close and the Calvinists
45:59
either love this section or hate this section. And I don't really care, because it's just a
46:04
conversation that we're letting you in on. So socket losers, sorry, we might cut that out later,
46:09
maybe we won't. So if the grace JT is irresistible, because we use that word cloak willy and it doesn't
46:18
make any sense like, oh, I just couldn't resist that donut. It's like, yeah, you could fatty,
46:22
like just don't eat the donut, right? Like same thing about force. If I put a gun to your head and
46:28
say eat that donut and you eat it, did I force you to eat the donut? No, you chose to eat the donut
46:36
at threat of force, you could have chosen not to. And then I either get to choose whether I follow
46:41
through on my threat, or I do not. But part of the criticism, there's a lot of criticisms of
46:46
Calvinism from all different places, even within Calvinism. Yep. Is if the grace is irresistible,
46:52
then we are automatons as CS Lewis talked about in CS Lewis, it's like creating a world full of
46:57
automatons is not a world worth creating. And it's not a world capable of love. It won't have
47:02
the capacity for love, because it's being created to do something specifically that it has no other
47:06
choice to do. It's just zeros and ones at the end of the day. And so if his grace is irresistible,
47:12
if I had no choice, that means he forced me to do it, which also means, if it follows,
47:18
that he's forcing others not to do it. And that is the great, you know, 500 year old debate about,
47:24
or I guess you can say multi thousand year debate between the sovereignty of God and, you know,
47:29
man's free will and autonomy to make decisions. So in the next two minutes solve that issue for
47:36
everybody for all of time, ready, set go. Yeah, yeah, I'll just go ahead and solve it. Yeah.
47:39
So here's the thing, we're not, I'm not going to solve this, but let me give an answer that I
47:42
think is a reasonable answer. I mean, ever since these doctrines became part of the conversation,
47:47
the church, theologians have tried to answer this question. And it is around irresistible grace,
47:52
but specifically around the nature of human will, if we were taking this at the political
47:56
realm, we would say radical secular progressivism has said the will is entirely free and unbound
48:02
from from even natural bounds, specifically a boy deciding to be a girl or girl deciding boy,
48:06
that is, on, on, on a disordered will, right, what we can say, where I can choose to do or be
48:14
whatever I want. That's not true. So one of the things that Martin Luther and Jonathan Edwards,
48:19
I think are really helpful on, is they talk about in its ironic, they have two books that
48:23
sound like they're saying the opposite thing, but they're saying the same thing. Luther writes
48:27
bondage of the will, Edwards writes freedom of the will, but they're saying the same thing. And
48:32
their point is, is the will is only free to choose that which is within its realm of nature.
48:39
So a dead person can only choose things within the realm of the dead. So if you would ask me, Kyle,
48:43
JT is the is the will free, I would say 1000%, every single human has freedom of the will,
48:51
but it is bound to act in accordance with its nature. Does that make sense? So a dead person
48:57
can only choose dead things. I can choose things within the realm of the dead at regeneration,
49:01
what happens? And this is according, I would say to John chapter three, new birth, but also the way
49:05
that, for example, did you choose to be born? No, sir. No, none of us chose to be born. We were
49:12
born. And I would say the same is true with our second birth as none of us are chosen to be born,
49:17
none of us choose to be born second time, but God and His mercy by the power of the Holy Spirit,
49:21
Jesus says to Nicodemus, how could you be a teacher of the law and not know these things,
49:25
birth us again a second time? But in our experience, it is a choice. I sat in the Lori Student Center
49:31
of Colorado State University, somebody shared the gospel with me and I said, I believe that Jesus
49:35
Christ is Lord and has forgiven me of my sin. In hindsight, I also realized this was a dead will
49:41
being given a new option of life. And the will will always choose that which is most beautiful and
49:46
pleasing to itself. And I choose Christ. JT, as you were saying that I was overwhelmed with this
49:51
picture, one of my favorite places I've ever been in the entire plan is the Sistine Chapel.
49:56
If you've never been there, when you look up on that wall and you see the last judgment,
49:59
it's just so big, so detailed, it's just impossible to understand. But then you look up on the ceiling
50:04
and see the creation of Adam. And there's a lot to look at when it comes to the creation of Adam,
50:08
but there is a center point to that painting where God has His finger extended as far out as it can
50:14
go. And Adam's finger is bent. It's reaching towards God, but it's bent. But if He straightens His
50:20
finger, right? Because people have done scientific lego, your measurements and all that. If He were
50:24
to straighten His finger and straighten out His knuckles, He has now made contact with God.
50:29
So when people say the only thing you bring to your salvation is your sin, would it be also
50:35
fair to say, we still have to reach out? Because I've heard people say, Nope, God, you were drowning
50:38
and God just came down there and snatched you up. Do we at least have to reach out our hand to be
50:43
saved? What I love about that passage that I just wrote is whoever believes, you know, there is a
50:47
belief, but you can't believe outside the regenerating power of God. But we then do have a human act of
50:53
belief, repentance, baptism, following Jesus with our lives. So I love this debate because I think
50:58
it's so helpful shows. And I think the reason people get so passionate about this is because, man,
51:03
and I love people show passionate about the Bible because we need more Bible. We need to keep spending
51:07
time in Scripture. So yes, we believe, yes, God saves. And I think that's really good news.
51:11
- When all you cage stages, you can save the emails. I already told you, I ain't gonna read them, but J.T.I,
51:17
I'm just, I'm not excited. - And if you email me at mchanler@thevillagechurch.net.
51:22
- That's right. Hey, so literally someone, I can't believe I want to say this on the air.
51:26
Someone asked me the other day, they're like, Hey, do you have like a PO box or something like
51:29
somebody wanted to send you something? I'm like, well, if this is someone you trust, here's my
51:32
personal address. But if you don't really know them, if they're just a random slap, you send it to
51:36
this PO box, they're like, yeah, I don't really, I don't even feel necessarily comfortable with giving
51:40
them your PO box just to be honest. I'm like, okay, then I just looked up the address for Stephen
51:44
Fertig's church. I was like, just send it there or whatever weird thing, pictures are your feet,
51:48
or random things that you've molded out a peanut butter. Yeah, you can just send it over there.
51:52
But as we wrap up here, J.T. again, I wish we had more time, but maybe we'll be able to do this again.
51:57
We'll circle back. But what's next for you? Like, is there something else you're working on? What's
52:01
the thing you haven't even told the people in your congregation? Like the next book or the next
52:05
podcast idea or the thing that's going to melt down the universe. So you haven't told anybody,
52:09
you're going to tell my audience right now. Come on, let's go. Yeah, it's so funny. Yes. And again,
52:12
I just want to say thanks for having me on. And of course, that's not Matt's actual address. So
52:16
don't email that address. Actually, it's ironic you asked this, Kyle, I signed another book contract
52:21
yesterday. I spent my time in my in my dissertation phase at school writing on the Trinity. And the
52:27
Trinity can be such a challenging doctrine for people. We always appeal the mystery and the things
52:32
we can't know. And I think the Trinity is absolutely essential for the Christian life. So I'm writing
52:37
a really short kind of paperback book on the Trinity and the Christian life. How does the Trinity inform
52:41
our prayer, inform our worship before evangelism, inform the way that we treat one another? So the
52:46
Trinity and the Christian life is the next project. 2026? 2027. It's due it's due in 10 months. It'll come
52:52
out March 2027. All right. Well, we'll certainly figure out something else to do with you in the
52:55
meantime. But JT, that's all for me. Is there anything else you want to get off your chest?
52:58
No, brother. And I appreciate your brothers for listening, Kyle. Thanks. I appreciate you,
53:02
your ministry, this podcast. I'm just grateful to be on. Appreciate it. There you go, guys. I hope
53:07
you enjoyed my time with JT. But before we let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost
53:11
at undaunted life or mission is equipping men to push back darkness with content that forges,
53:14
spiritual, mental and physical resilience. So today I'm going to give you all the links to where you
53:18
can pick up a copy of the book and check out everything else that JT's got going on. Thank you
53:22
for listening to this podcast. Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe, rate and
53:25
leave us a positive five star review. If you want me to come speak live at your event or on your
53:29
podcast, or shoot me an email to info@undonton.life. That's i-n-f-o @undonton.life. Follow us on Instagram
53:36
and like us on Facebook and check out our website for everything else, including how to donate to
53:39
keep more content like this coming your way. Just go to www.undonton.life. And as always, we want to
53:44
thank the band Holy Name for allowing us to use their music for our content. The music on this
53:48
podcast is our song Perpetua, which is off their self titled debut album on Face Down Records.
53:53
The links are in the description. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep pushing back
53:58
darkness, keep forging spiritual, mental and physical resilience. Keep seeking the lion of Judah.
54:28
you