[00:00:00] Speaker A: Sexual sin is a major problem even within the christian church, and a lot of the resources that we have available to us tend to focus on stopping the bad sexual behavior, behavior modification, kind of white knuckling it through, and it leaves us frustrated. My name is Asher Whitmer, and a few years ago I wrote live free because I thought our people needed a tool to help them do more than just try harder, put in roadblocks. This book unpacks the underlying issues that get us involved in sexual sin and how we can find not freedom, not just freedom from the problem, but what it looks like to actually live free in all areas of life. I've sold a couple thousand copies of the book and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. People have found genuine freedom, but one of the things I've heard a lot of is a desire for a resource that could accompany this, that you could take small groups through. So I invited a couple guys to come to this lodge in beautiful Colorado, and we recorded a video series that helped small groups go through the process of finding true lasting freedom. Not just behavioral modification, but we worked through the underlying issues that cause us to get into sexual sin. And what are the pieces necessary to develop a whole and healthy life that we can live free from sexual sin going on into the future. In addition, we created a bunch of resources to help facilitators and teachers lead people through this process. If you have a heart for helping people overcome sexual addiction of any kind at any level, but you're not exactly sure how to do that or what steps you need to take, this whole course has the resources, the tools that you need to facilitate that and guide them through the process. So we have video lessons that you watch and you work through and then discussion that you see and watch happen with a workbook, and specific questions to help you reflect on your stories, and then discussion questions to help create real relationship and community. And we have even instructional videos for those of you leading this course so that you know how to generate the conversation that actually gets to the root of the problem. You don't have to be a pastor, you don't have to be a theologian, a teacher. All you need is a heart to help people find lasting freedom, and this course will walk you through that process. We believe at the end of this you'll not just be a group of guys who are batting round ideas about a common issue you're dealing with, but you'll actually be genuine friends. You'll know each other's stories in a way that maybe nobody else knows, and you'll have a community that you can begin walking through all of life. You can buy it
[email protected]. We know that sexual sin is a big issue and that sometimes it can feel overwhelming to know how to walk people through it. And our desire is that this course can do just that for you, so that in your community you can begin seeing transformed lives of people who are living free. We also have bonus content available. You'll hear the life stories of the different guys involved in the course. We have articles that expound on some of the topics addressed in the course, and we have faqs and so much more that will help you get to the bottom of the issue.
Hello friends.
[00:03:28] Speaker B: If you have been blessed by the work of unfamed Christianity, whether through the blog or the podcast, and you would like to support the work, or you'd like to go deeper, then I invite you to consider becoming a member of unfamed Christianity on Patreon. What the membership gives you access to is monthly Q A episodes. It gives you access to deep dive essays, where we take a particular issue and open it up even further and dive in with some of the nuance and complexities it gives you access to. Guided studies this first quarter of 2024, we'll be doing a guided study at what it looks like to become a healthy disciple of Christ, how to overcome habitual sin, how to interact with scripture in our spiritual formation journeys, how to deal with baggage from our past and what it looks like to value and pursue emotional and mental well being. All of that is made available through the unfained Christianity membership. There are five different tiers of membership and if you're interested and would like to learn more, just click the link in our description or go to asherwitmer.com member and you'll see the different tiers and everything you get with each one. Thank you for listening, and thank you for being a part of this workload.
Hello friends. Welcome back to Unthinked Christianity. This is the podcast where we flesh out what it looks like to follow Jesus faithfully in our current cultural moment. You just listened to a blurb, kind of an intro video to my upcoming video series, live free video series that accompanies my book live free, that will be released on March 6 of this year. So looking forward to sharing that all with you. Well, today I'm not going to take up a lot of time. We're going to dive into again another paradigm shift.
[00:05:45] Speaker C: And just to remember, as we go.
[00:05:46] Speaker B: Through these, there's eight specific paradigm shifts.
[00:05:50] Speaker C: That I think are helpful for us.
[00:05:53] Speaker B: In order to understand the biblical story well, and we've already looked at how the Bible is a story. So just that in itself and what.
[00:06:01] Speaker C: It means that the Bible is a story. If you missed that, go ahead and.
[00:06:04] Speaker B: Check out episode I believe 98 is where the Bible is a story. Everything that does and doesn't mean. And then in our last episode, we looked at how the Bible is a collection of writings by various authors. Today we're going to dive into how the New Testament tells the climax of the story. And basically what we're getting at here is how Jesus sees himself embedded within this overarching story. That's what we're going to get into.
[00:06:37] Speaker C: Today in this lesson.
[00:06:38] Speaker B: But first, I would like to share the book that I've been reading for those of you watching this on YouTube. Facing west by David Swartz.
[00:06:47] Speaker C: It's a history book.
[00:06:49] Speaker B: It's a bit academic, and so it may not be. Last week I told you about a really easy read. It's not as easy of a read, but it's really fascinating to me. Facing west, american evangelicals in an age of world Christianity. So basically, just kind of my quick summary of the book is that essentially there's kind of this premise that a lot of Christianity, we view Christianity and the influence of Christianity around the world, we view it from a very western lens. And he's tracing how there's been other cultures, other christian communities around the world that have shaped a lot of things throughout the christian experience throughout the world, and we sometimes overlook it. So one of the things that he starts out with is the founding of world vision.
Bob Pierce is the known founder of world vision. Many have not necessarily heard of Kyung Chi han, and I'm probably mispronouncing that name a little bit, but he was the korean pastor who was just as influential, if not more influential, in the founding of world vision as a whole.
One of the things that I really have enjoyed about this book is the way he traces the pushback from christians around the world, the global south. You may have heard about that. There's more and more writing being done on the rise of global south. When we talk about the global south, we're specifically talking about the global south countries in the southern hemisphere. Christianity is exploding in many ways in those countries, in majority world countries. But I appreciate the ways he demonstrates how majority world christians have pushed back to western Christianity in various aspects, and particularly he has traced throughout the book ways. So on one hand, they have pushed back in ways that to us from America who think in terms of politically right and left wing things.
On one hand, from the left, they have pushed for racial egalitarianism, ecumenism and more substantial development efforts. So essentially a racial equality, a fellowship among believers, even though we may fall under different theological camps, and then substantial development efforts. So people who are coming from countries.
[00:09:35] Speaker C: Where.
[00:09:37] Speaker B: They'Re not very economically stable, America has done well at emergency kind of jump in and rescue things. It could be debated whether we've done well because some of our efforts were kind of short term solutions that westernized cultures to a degree, but then didn't actually solve, create sustainable stability within that current culture. So those ways, when majority world christians pushed back against the west, it felt left leaning. But then from the right, they've advocated for a conservative sexual ethic grounded in post colonial logic. And I just read that chapter just this week, and that one was really interesting to listen to and hear how the compromise within western church around sexual ethic has greatly concerned.
[00:10:37] Speaker A: A lot of.
[00:10:38] Speaker B: Other church denominations around the globe. Now, obviously there are christian groups around the globe who I don't know how you'd say know are a little more open to a western view of sexual ethic and so forth. But one of the things that stood out to me was even in America, our views of these issues are so politicized. And so it was interesting hearing from his perspective as he's tracing some of the events throughout history, recent history.
[00:11:15] Speaker C: As.
[00:11:16] Speaker B: The church has become accepting of gay marriage. For example, he demonstrated how there were different churches throughout Africa, different church denominations who were greatly opposed to that, but then also wanted a friendliness to greater hospitality to gay people, but also still fairly firm in their view of sex and marriage. And so that was interesting to read and just see how different christians around the world critique western Christianity. And it kind of nudges me out of my box of how I think about the christian influence, and particularly the western influence on Christianity around the world, and how things aren't necessarily the clean binary that we tend to live by in the west. Anyways, if you would like a good, robust historical read, I recommend facing west by David Swartz. I'll drop a link in the description below. Now let's get to our look at the role of Jesus in this great biblical story.
[00:12:57] Speaker C: Welcome back to lesson three of finding my place in God's story. We have looked at how in lesson one, we looked at how the Bible is a story. It's not a reference book. It's a unified message from beginning to end and then in the last lesson, we looked at how the Bible is a collection of writings from various authors and discussed some of what that means as far as the fact that it's divine, but it's also human, there are human elements to it. In this lesson, we're going to look at how the New Testament tells the climax of the story. More specifically, how Jesus sees himself as embedded within the story of the hebrew scriptures and a fulfillment of, and the crucial part to continuing the story of the hebrew scriptures. I think sometimes we can think of these two covenants, these two large groups of documents, the Old Testament or the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. We think that they're separated or somehow God's a little different in the Old Testament than he is in the New Testament.
Or we focus on Jesus. Jesus is, it says, jesus is the word become flesh. And so he's the focus of our whole study of scripture. And we'll get into this a little bit more in the next lesson. But in order to understand even Jesus himself, it's important that we see that he pictures himself as a part of this overarching message, this overarching narrative. And so let's just dive in here and look how that is. The Bible is a unified literature that climaxes in the New Testament and specifically climaxes with Jesus. So he is the fulfillment.
Everything that the story has been communicating is pointing to Jesus.
But Jesus views everything leading up to him as important and necessary for his disciples to be able to understand him. Some of the ways that we see this is that in the titles that he used of himself, I think of the title that Jesus used most often of himself, and let others use of himself is the title of the son of man. And if you're like me growing up, you read the son of man. Like, why does he say son of man? Isn't he the son of God? And part of my confusion came from the fact that I had no clue how the son of man fit with this overarching story. In Daniel seven, there is a vision that Daniel sees, Daniel 713 through 14, where the son of man.
I'll just read it for you here. I saw in the night vision, and behold the clouds of heaven. With the clouds of heaven, there came one like a son of man. And he came to the ancient of days and was presented before him, and to him was given dominion and glory, and a kingdom that all peoples, nations and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, and his kingdom, one that shall not be destroyed. So this is a very distinct reference to the Messiah to come. And when Jesus claims the title the son of man, he's expecting that his hearers know this prophecy from Daniel, this vision. And so he is saying that he is this divine being who comes down and reigns on an earthly throne. He is the son of man. He is one. Like a son of man, he sees himself. So not only is he appealing to Daniel for the title, but he sees himself as fulfilling that and then continuing the story where he's setting up a kingdom of all peoples in all languages and who serve him and his kingdom is everlasting. Another title is the most common one, Jesus Christ, or even the Messiah. If you're like me, you grow up kind of thinking Christ is somewhat like a last name. It's just a way of referencing Jesus. But if you think of Peter's confession in Matthew 1616, you are the Christ, the son of the living God.
Christ means the anointed one. You are the anointed one. And so throughout the Hebrew Bible, throughout the Hebrew Bible, throughout the Old Testament, so far, the jewish people are looking for the messiah, the anointed one. Think of one Samuel two, verse 35, where it says, I will raise up for myself a faithful priest who shall do according to what is in my heart and in my mind, and I will build him a sure house. He shall go in and out before my anointed one forever.
The anointed one is a reference throughout the Old Testament to David and God's covenant with David. To raise up a king from David's line that sits on a throne forever and his kingdom is established forever. So it's a direct link to Jesus saying, I am the one that God covenanted with David to bring about. I am the descendant of David. Think again of Paul in two Timothy two eight. I believe it is where he says, fixate your eyes. Keep your eyes on the fact that Jesus died and rose again, and he's a descendant of David, so he is the anointed one. And Jesus uses that title of himself. So he sees him not only fulfilling the prophecy of David's kingship, reigning forever, but he's going to continue that. This is a kingdom that's going to reign forever. And again in John one, verse 41 is where we see Andrew coming and saying, we have found the Messiah, the anointed one. And speaking of Jesus. And then Jesus comes and he shows Simon Peter Jesus. And Jesus gives him the name Peter. Jesus sees himself as the one that the hebrew scriptures are telling about and as the one who's going to inaugurate the next phase of the story.
Jesus frequently appeals to the Old Testament for authority of who he is. Throughout Jesus'teachings there's constant references back to the Old Testament that if we're not familiar with the Old Testament, we can see and understand, and his teachings make sense. They seem good. But if we know the Old Testament, there's all kinds of ding, ding, ding, ding, like, whoa, I know what you're talking about. I know what you're talking about here.
Now, just to clarify, that's part of what was offensive to the Pharisees and to the jewish people is that Jesus was coming and claiming to be this person. But the image, the picture that they were expecting was so different than what Jesus was doing and being.
Just because people knew the story, knew Jesus's references, doesn't mean that they immediately saw that Jesus is the Messiah. As Jesus responded to Peter when he confessed, he said, flesh and blood is not showing you this, but the spirit has revealed this to you.
But let's take a look at an example, the way that Jesus's teaching assumes that his hearers know the story to that point in history, that they're familiar with the story of the Old Testament. If you look at John one, verses 43 through 51, this is the encounter where Jesus calls Philip and Nathaniel. And I'll just quickly read it here for you. The next day, Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, follow me now. Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathaniel and said to him, we have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. So obviously we're learning this story from John seems specifically interested in trying to portray who Jesus was.
His biography, you could say, is a little more focused on the aspects of who Jesus was and what he encapsulated, not so much on what he did or what he taught. There is a lot of teaching in there. But Matthew, Mark and Luke have a little bit more of that focus as opposed to John, which is really trying to drive home who Jesus was and specifically that Jesus is from the father and he is the messiah. He's the one whom the story's been telling about.
And so here we have John recording that Philip found Nathaniel and said, this is who Moses talked about, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. Can anything good come from Nazareth? Philip said to him, come and see.
Nathaniel wondered, can anything good come from Nazareth? And Philip said, come and see. Jesus saw Nathaniel coming toward him and said of him, behold, an israelite indeed in whom there is no deceit. Now, that phrase particularly harks back to Zephaniah, the one speaking of those who are left in Israel. The true israelite is someone who do no injustice, speak no lies, there is no deceit, nor shall there be found in their mouth a deceitful tongue. Nathaniel said to him, how do you know me? Jesus answered, before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you. Nathaniel answered him, rabbi, you are the son of God. You are the king of Israel. So all of these phrases are filled with pieces of the story that have come to this point. Jesus answered, because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree. You believe you see greater things than these? And he said to him, you will see greater things than these. And he said to him, truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened up, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the son of man. So again, the son of man reference back to Daniel seven. And the angels of God ascending and descending is a reference back to Jacob and his dream. So in this section of, like, eight verses, we have so many different references back to the earlier part of the story that the gospel writers for sure assumed that their listeners would know the story up until that point. Jesus, throughout his teaching, says, you have heard that it was said, and then he'll either expand on that or maybe he'll amplify it a little bit more or just completely turn it on its head and make it a matter of the heart. I think of Matthew 23 23, where the Pharisees are tithing dutifully, but they're neglecting the matters, the weightier matters of the law of justice. So Jesus not only sees himself as fulfilling and continuing the story, but he sees that story as important pieces that he is now judging the people of Israel by. And he's going to set things right so that it functions as God has intended, so that creation, ultimately creation, would function as God intended all along. Kind of the culmination of this is the new covenant that Jesus establishes in Luke 20 214 through 23, where he institutes the Lord's supper. And he says, this is the new covenant, my new covenant in blood, which is a direct harking back to Jeremiah 31, where God says, I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel. I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. So Jesus himself, when he comes, he sees himself as the culmination of everything that has been said before. And not only that, he sees himself as embedded within the story. He's now inaugurating something new, pushing something forward in this new covenant with God's people. And then he says in John 1612 through 15, he says that he's going to send the spirit of truth to guide them into all truth. What does it mean if God's spirit guides us into all truth? Does that mean we could write more scripture? No, I don't think it means that. But I do think that God's spirit is continuing to guide us into all truth as it comes to scripture and what we have in the canon. The parameters for that isn't simply that the spirit of God spoke it and inspired, rather that it was cohesive with the story that has been told through the scriptures so far, and that the underlying melody you could say, is consistent with the Old Testament and now is in the New Testament. But let's back up a little bit and discuss a few things. First of all, we have the Bible. We have both the Old Testament and the New Testament as one cohesive book. So I have my Bible right here.
It's a little Bible, but it's one Bible. This is one of my mom's bibles I've been reading out of lately. And so it's kind of precious to me. But it's Old Testament, New Testament. It has genesis to revelation right in here. And it's easy. If we're not careful, we can think that everybody's always had this, but that's not how it was. Even in New Testament days, the Old Testament was not one cohesive book or document. There were scrolls that they would read that you would pass around from village to village or town to town. And specifically the New Testament were letters that were written. You had the letter of Matthew and the letter of Luke and the letter of Mark, and these were being passed around. They were specifically talking about the life and the teachings of Jesus, but they were cohesive with the way the story in the Old Testament had been portraying what the Messiah would do, an example of another gospel, the Gospel of Thomas, was not considered a legitimate gospel. It sounds totally different. If you want, you can look it up, you can access it online. But Jesus is depicted quite differently than he is in the other four gospels. And so the churches of the New Testament era did not view the gospel of Thomas as legitimate scripture. It was not circulated like all the other letters were. So just a few things as you're reading the Bible and as you think about the Bible, remember that corinthians. Not only was it not a part of one whole book, but first and second corinthians were not together. They were two separate letters that were being written that Paul wrote and then were passed around. The process of canonization in the New Testament was a decentralized, organic process of selecting basically what everyone had already agreed upon as being scripture, being profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction. There never was one single event where church leaders got together and decided, this is the New Testament canon. Like Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code suggests, that's not a very accurate. As far as I understand the historical evidence. It was a lot more organic and kind of over time, and it just was what the churches accepted. The writers were people who knew Jesus, who were apostles, knew God, or had some divine revelation like we see with Paul. And then it was circulated among the churches. The churches already were using these. Everything that's written in the New Testament was written in about a 50 year period, but for over 100 years already before the New Testament was officially canonized. It was like close to 200 years till it was officially canonized. But these were the books that were being circulated throughout the churches for those 150 years. And so gospel of Thomas had gotten lost, it had gotten buried, and people did not circulate that one. So that's why we hold that off and say it's probably not scripture. Some other things to remember about the new Testament letters is that they were responding to specific questions and conflicts of the day, so they're not telling history as much. Acts, you get a little bit more that feel. Obviously, some of the gospels have that feel, but more of these letters are particularly responding to conflicts and questions. Even the Gospels, Matthew is written trying to show that Jesus is to the Jews, trying to show Jesus is the messiah, he is the one the Jews have been looking for. Mark is showing that Jesus is the suffering servant that we saw portrayed in Isaiah. He is the fulfillment, he is the suffering servant that has come. Luke is kind of an apologetic for all of Jesus's ministry, what God is doing in the New Testament church through Jesus, or in the New Testament era through Jesus. And then he continues that apologetic, so to speak, in the book of acts. And then John is a testament that Jesus is God. Jesus is the God come to earth, and he is the divine being whom we are to partake of. The New Testament letters were circulated throughout the churches, even in the time we see in Colossians 416 that Paul tells the people of Colossae to when they're done with this letter to pass it on. And then they're supposed to read the one from that. Paul had written to the church at Laodicea, which we're not entirely sure if we have that letter. Some scholars believe that that's probably the letter to the Ephesians. We don't know exactly, but clearly Paul is directing them. He's initiating them to pass this on. This was intended so these letters were written to specific people, but they were written for everybody. They were intended to be shared, and everybody can learn and glean truth and principles from them. While these letters were written in response to specific problems, both Peter and Paul saw themselves as writing scripture in two Peter 315 and 16, Peter references Paul's writings as scripture. Earlier, in the chapter in verse two, he had referenced the writings of the apostles and the prophets of God as coming from God. One corinthians 1437 through 38, and one Thessalonians two, three. Paul references his own writings as being commandments of God. And then Ephesians three, verses four through five, Paul is saying that God revealed to him a mystery that was hidden for the ages past, but now it is no longer hidden, and Paul is given this message. So they saw themselves as writing scripture for everyone, even though they were responding to unique situations. So for us, it's very relevant for us, for our life, but we should also remember that it was written to a specific situation. And so there's some work to be done to understand what those principles are that we can glean. I have heard it referenced. I kind of like it. This is not a gospel truth or anything, but I like thinking of it in this way, that the story of the Bible is genesis through acts. And then the New Testament letters you could think of as appendices. If you think of a book that has a story or has a message that it's communicating, and then there's different footnotes throughout that are addressing other problems but aren't essential or crucial to the message. And it'll say reference appendix one or appendix two. And we think of the New Testament letters as those appendices that flesh out how this message, this story, works in a practical situation. I kind of like that way of thinking about it. Obviously, it's not nowhere in scripture do we get that that's how we should understand it. But I think it's a helpful paradigm, helpful way of understanding how the New Testament letters fit into everything. They are rather different than everything else we've gotten from Genesis through acts. The Hebrew Bible and the New Testament writings are unified in their origin stories, how they came to be editorial collection of writings by authors who knew God and they're telling the same melody. They are unified with the overarching story that they tell and we're going to dive into that a little bit more in the next lesson. The Bible is about God and that title is supposed to be somewhat jarring, but it has a lot more implications. Sometimes we approach the Bible as if it's about me and I want the Bible to help me in some way and we've already talked about this before. The Bible is about God and something specific that God is wanting to communicate. We'll get into that in the next lesson. Be sure and check out the assignment for this lesson to kind of think through how we have approached the New Testament, how we have seen Jesus and what it might mean that we understand the New Testament as a continuation of the hebrew story up until that point. Until next time, grace and.
