Praxis
Praxis
Love Is The Plumb Line
What if the only true measure of spiritual maturity is love—and not the easy versions? We bring our series on mental models for missional discipleship to a close by naming love as the plumb line that aligns everything: discipleship, mission, leadership, and daily life. Not the Hallmark fuzzies, not constant affirmation, not Midwest nice. We look to Jesus who had grace and truth in full measure, self-giving at the cross as the standard that straightens what our culture and our churches often bend.
Together we build a thicker vision of “God is love.” Love isn’t one attribute balanced against holiness, justice, or power; it’s the very nature through which God expresses all of them. That reframe changes how we read the Bible, how we think about divine power at Christmas, and how we set goals for our churches. From hospitals and universities to abolition and peacemaking, we celebrate the quiet, steady legacy of cruciform love. Then we tell the truth about our failures: empire-chasing politics, us-versus-them religion, judgmentalism, and scandals that misuse God’s name and wound the vulnerable.
Finally, we get practical. We share simple practices to receive before we try to give, because loved people love people. Try a daily examen of love to notice where God met you and where love flowed through you. Then, each morning, choose one person to intentionally love with words and actions calibrated by grace and truth. Over time, these small, steady moves align our lives to the straight edge of Jesus-shaped love and deepen our witness in a world hungry for the real thing.
If this conversation challenged or encouraged you, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review so others can find it. What’s one way you’ll measure your day by love this week?
Welcome to Praxis, a podcast where we explore how to practice and embody the way of Jesus in our everyday lives. Thanks so much for taking the time to listen. Today we're wrapping up our series on mental models for missional discipleship, a framework for living out our faith as disciples of Jesus in everyday life. Whether we're aware of it or not, we all have mental models, deep convictions and assumptions that shape how we see and take action in the world. Mental models are kind of like prescription lenses. While often invisible when wearing them, they consistently shape the way we think, feel, and act. So what were the mental models Jesus lived by? What conviction shaped how Jesus saw people, responded to needs, formed disciples, and joined God's mission in the world? That's what this series is all about. Each episode, we've been unpacking a key conviction that shaped Jesus' way of life. And we're exploring how it can shape ours too, as we seek to be a community of disciples living on mission in the way of Jesus. And today we're going to close out this series by exploring a final core conviction that is at the center of everything we've been discussing, and it's this love is the plumb line. Let's get into it.
SPEAKER_00:My name's Josiah.
SPEAKER_07:I'm Katie.
SPEAKER_00:I'm Mac. Uh Mac and Katie. It's great to be back in this room with you too. Yeah, I have fun with this. Yeah. Yeah. It's uh it's winding down to the end of the year, right? It's Christmas season. Um, it's almost here. Our calendars are full, school activities are in full swing, and every day's busier than the one before. So Merry Christmas, everyone.
SPEAKER_07:Every day has a higher sugar intake, though.
SPEAKER_00:Essentially, yeah. Um, but I was I was reflecting on the fact that, hey, it's December. So that means that if anybody made any New Year's resolutions, we're we're uh the time is ticking if you're gonna try to accomplish any of them. So I'm curious if either of you two had if you guys do New Year's resolutions, uh, whether they're super formal or more informal. But I'm wondering if you two had made any and uh if the year has uh panned out.
SPEAKER_02:I do have a little aspiration going into this coming year. Um I've got a buddy that is on our leader's journey team, and we had a retreat in November, and he was telling me about this fast, five-day fast he does four times a year. And he orders, there's this company called Prolon that gives you everything you're supposed to eat and when you're supposed to eat it for those five days. And it basically is like an anti-sort of cancer uh purge, and his family has high cholesterol, and he was saying that since he started doing that quarterly, his numbers have completely changed. Um, I have high cholesterol in my family too, and I'm like, hey, uh, I would love so I think I'm gonna get it, give it a go in the new year. But here's the catch is instead of buying like the$300 package, I've done some research to go, oh, I know what they're trying to do with your macronutrients, and I could just mimic that myself. Um, so I think I'm gonna give that a go in early January, and then again sometime in spring, summer, and fall, and and see what happens.
SPEAKER_06:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I wouldn't say it's a resolution per se, but um, he also reported to me that not only did it help with some of his lab work, but it sort of like reset all of his cravings. So let's say you have some, I don't know, attachment to sugar. He just noticed that like after five days of being that dialed in, um, some of those cravings had completely disappeared. And so he was just saying there's kind of an advantage too, because three months time you start to kind of, I don't know, maybe lose some discipline when it comes to if you if if you're trying to be careful about what you eat, and that sort of resets some things. Interesting. So yeah.
SPEAKER_07:I believe it. Um yeah, I'm not really a New Year's resolution type person. I just never have. I don't I don't know. I just I feel like well, you have a New Year's resolution I can think of. What?
SPEAKER_02:Um you well, you're having a baby. Well, I am um and you're gonna try cloth diapers this time.
SPEAKER_06:I am. I am. Mac thinks that's funny.
SPEAKER_02:I do.
SPEAKER_06:I don't know if that ex is is an expression of his confidence in my well.
SPEAKER_02:I just find it somewhat funny because um if it came to like an efficiency award, right? Katie would win the efficiency and productivity award.
SPEAKER_07:I actually do have something like that for my uh task manager.
SPEAKER_02:That's what I mean. Like you're a very efficient and productive person. And when I think of like cloth diapers, I think of like very tedious, putsy, gross, um, like inefficient. Like, yeah what I mean. I can see the advantages for the environment and so on.
SPEAKER_07:Yep.
SPEAKER_02:I joked with your husband if he starts coming in with mustard colored clothes, we'll go at something like it gross.
SPEAKER_07:Gross. Um yeah, I suppose that's one. Well, also I was gonna say the past two years, probably the closest thing I can point to is I've done the the Bible recap, reading through the Bible in a year. I did it last year, I did it this year, and um I've stuck with it and it's been it's been awesome. And so it's it's really fun to get to the end of the year and be like, okay, like I've gone through it again.
SPEAKER_02:That's cool. Yeah. What about you, Josiah?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Um, I don't know if I made one last year. There was one year where uh a few years ago where I just decided I wasn't gonna eat any chips for the the entire year. I remember that. And you did it. I did it. I accidentally ate chips um twice. Okay. Uh one time early on in January, I made chili and I put some Fritos in it, and I didn't even didn't even think about it until later my kids pointed it out.
SPEAKER_06:They're like, You had chips. Did you choose that because you are tempted by chips?
SPEAKER_00:Uh I I mean it was just one of those things. It was actually kind of spur of the moment, really. I didn't really think about it a lot. I was actually I was inspired by Cameron, who's on our our staff, if you don't know. But he he made a resolution for himself that he was not gonna buy anything for himself for an entire year.
SPEAKER_06:I remember.
SPEAKER_00:I remember that. And no uh no items besides the normal like essentials. The normal essentials like personal hygiene and things. So he's like couldn't buy himself clothes, couldn't buy himself games or anything like that. And no, I saw I was inspired by him that he did it and had a good experience. So now I I try to pick something similar. And this last year I didn't do it perfectly, but I actually did give up alcohol for most of the year. So good for you. I found that to be good. Yeah. But yeah, for this uh next one, I don't know what I'm gonna do.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:I'm still thinking about it.
SPEAKER_02:Well, you can always report back to us. I know our listeners can't see us, but I just want to name this before we do this transition that our sweater game is spot on today, you guys. Dude, yours looks so nice. I like that. He's got that's green. I'm colorblind, but that that appears to be a green, and I really like it. Um, my sweater has some moose on it. Uh that's my favorite animal. I think it's mice. Okay. Chloral moose eye.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, you guys are more Christmas me. I've got the leopard game going on. But you know, I'm very limited in what fits me right now.
SPEAKER_02:So I wasn't gonna say anything. I think uh I just meant it as a compliment. We're yeah. Well, speaking of strong sweater game.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah. Speaking of that and mies, um, we are continuing our series on mental models for missional discipleship. And when we say mental models, again, we're simply referring to the convictions or the frameworks that we use to make sense of how we believe God works and how we're invited to participate. Um, so these help us engage the world and engage our faith with intention and clarity. So in each episode, we're digging into one of these core convictions that shape how we follow Jesus together as a community on mission. So far, we've explored the convictions God's presence precedes our participation, God bends or stoops to meet us in reality, God is like Jesus, God's kingdom looks like Jesus' ministry, trust leads and effort follows. In our last episode, we unpacked the conviction God cares about the who and not just the do. And this was the idea that who we're becoming matters just as much as what we're doing. And I think that naturally leads us into the conviction we're exploring today, and that's love is the plumb line. And this is the idea that love is what matters the most. Like we see all over scripture that love is the defining mark of a disciple. Um, but when I first heard that, I had to Google what is a plumb line. So I thought maybe we could start there. What is a plumb line?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I threw it out there as the uh core conviction, and it and it is perhaps somewhat of an unfamiliar reference. I get that. But uh, a plumb line is just a simple tool used in construction to determine what is perfectly vertical. So it consists of a string with a weight on the bottom, which is called a plumb bob. And you hold the string from a fixed point and then it hangs freely, and gravity will do the work, right? And and so the plumb line lets you know what is perfectly vertical vertical, and then buildings often use that to ensure whatever they're building is straight and aligned. Like everything else can be aligned, but if it's not aligned with the plumb line, then your building isn't going to be vertical the way it should be, right? And the first time I encountered this uh phrase, a plumb line, was actually while reading the Bible. Um, it's used in Amos 7, where God tells Amos that he is setting a true uh line to measure Israel's faithfulness and conduct. So in Amos 7, um, this is what it says the Lord was standing by a wall that had been built true to plum with a plumb line in his hand. And the Lord asked me, What do you see, Amos? A plumb line, I replied. Then the Lord said, Look, I'm setting a plumb line among my people, Israel. So here it's obviously being like used metaphorically to sort of represent an objective standard. Like it's not gonna base uh bend based on preference or convenience. Everything built must be reconciled with this objective standard. It determines alignment and integrity. So if something's off, you can't argue with the plumb line. That makes sense. And so when we say, hey, love is the plumb line, what we're saying is that is the objective standard for everything, for discipleship, for mission, for leadership, for all of life in the kingdom of God, everything must be aligned with the measure of love as an objective standard. And I want to say this has always been God's plumb line. Um, I mean, it isn't new with Jesus. Remember, Jesus summarizes the entire Old Testament by saying, Hey, love God with your whole self and love your neighbor as yourself. And anything less than that, scripture teaches, is just noise. Like you can have all knowledge and wisdom and be able to do all this stuff. You can even give everything you have to the poor, but if it lacks love, Paul basically says it's just like noise, right? And so love is the plumb line. That's what we're getting after today. It's a subjective standard of what is right and true, what belongs and what doesn't, and it's the point of everything. That's what we mean by love is the plumb line.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And if we're going to talk about love, then we need to we need to have a solid definition of it. I'm thinking about how just our our culture, all although it tries its hardest. We need to know what what love is. And you know, I think that most of us could consider the fact that we we we live in a culture that does its best to define what love is, um but but is misguided at it at best. Um if we look at the entertainment and in industry, for example, movies, shows, even the kids' entertainment that my kids watch, they're doing their best to try to define what it is.
SPEAKER_02:You had me at hello.
SPEAKER_00:Is uh is that a movie?
SPEAKER_02:That's uh oh okay.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I see what you're saying.
SPEAKER_02:You complete me. Uh yes basically anything hallmark movie.
SPEAKER_07:Right.
SPEAKER_02:Well, yeah, you're into Hallmark movies. Yeah I love that movie. So you must be really confused about what love is.
SPEAKER_07:What do you mean? It's obvious. Yeah. You walk around holding hands while the snow falls and eating bonbons.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. That sounds great. Um Yeah, but so everything that that shouts what love is portrays um things that maybe have some truth to it, but they fail to see the f the full picture. So some common um maybe just to name some common misunderstandings of love. Um the first one would just be that love is a feeling or an emotion. Um the feeling of being in love, right? The the warm fuzzies you get when you're holding hands in a Hallmark movie, walking down a winter snowy lane, you know, drinking hot chocolate.
SPEAKER_07:Um then you see the love of your life from high school that just moved back from the big city.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Oh my. Wow.
SPEAKER_07:Every Hallmark movie has the exact same plot.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Well, that's why people like them.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:This is what really listen to country music because it's like it's it's uh overtly predictable.
SPEAKER_02:It's funny that I don't do either of those things. I don't listen to country music or watch Hallmark movies.
SPEAKER_07:You don't like the predictability.
SPEAKER_02:Um, no. Josiah, what you're naming though, is legitimately makes me nervous. This is like an underlying anxiety and nervousness I have whenever I start working with a couple um who wants to get married in their premarital counseling. Because you always ask them, like, hey, well, why do you want to get married and whatever? And they often talk about how they feel about each other. And in my most like negative moments, I'm just like, that's just a chemical cocktail happening in your brain. You know what I mean? A dopamine hit. And eventually that's gonna wear off. Like that, that's that's not gonna last. And so then we have to have conversations about, okay, but so I'm glad you have the feels. Like that's wonderful. I'm not saying those are all bad, but let's not confuse that with love.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Because that's not gonna like sustain your life together, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. I've found that the feelings you want from love are often um are often a product of real love happening within a relationship. And when we start as as great as all the feels are, which I'm personally a big fan, um uh using them as the primary indicator of whether love is taking place or not isn't is is problematic. You see, Josie and I, we try to avoid all feels.
SPEAKER_02:Uh to purification of our idea.
SPEAKER_07:Purely rational human beings. Maybe you do well in the in like an arranged marriage culture.
SPEAKER_02:That would be bad news.
SPEAKER_07:No. No feelings at all.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's just to say if it's a feeling, your brain chemistry isn't gonna stay the same. That's what I'm trying to add to this conversation. Your brain chemistry doesn't remain consonant, it's constantly in flux. And so if love is equated with a feeling, that's gonna be like something that ebbs and flows quite a bit.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, and it and we can't use that as what you would say is the plumb line, because uh the in the uh the objective standard of gravity is not what's holding the love in place if it's feelings. It's gonna go everywhere.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Yeah, I can uh I can see that point despite my love for Hallmark movies.
SPEAKER_07:Um another one I would name is like, or another common misunderstanding would be that love is like unconditional affirmation or validation. This would be the idea that, like, well, if you truly love me, you'll celebrate everything I do, like every choice I make. You'll validate my decisions, my preferences, my impulses. Even if you think they're harmful to me, love means like being my cheerleader no matter what. And I think this idea also distorts what love is. It turns love into something more passive, almost like approval, than like genuinely caring for someone. Um, because I think if you have this idea of love, like love is that you always agree with me, you always cheerlead my choices, then somehow disagreement or challenge or correction becomes equated with the opposite of love, or it's seen as unloving. And the problem is that this version of love can't bear the weight of real relationship, right? It doesn't allow for like growth or accountability or transformation. It reduces love to like a people pleasing rather than a commitment to the other person's good. Um so I would submit that the type of love we're called to isn't just unconditional affirmation or agreement, um, but something deeper than that that that seeks the other person's good.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. If you don't approve of of my choices in life, then you're you're judging me.
SPEAKER_07:Right.
SPEAKER_00:Right?
SPEAKER_07:Because so common.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Right.
SPEAKER_02:If you don't uh not just approve, but validate and affirm my choices, then you're unloving and judgmental. Yeah, but yeah, yeah. Right?
SPEAKER_06:Yep.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I think at the heart of that, this myth you're naming of what love is not, uh, is also like a confusion of um freedom and love. Because we're living in a culture that I think is desperately confused around what freedom is. Freedom in the Bible is a freedom to love God and love others well. And I think we've inherited a construct around freedom where freedom is um is what gives me permission to do what I want to do. And it often doesn't lead to the freedom that I just named, freedom to love God and love others, but actually leads to enslavement to my desires and choices. And then that's sort of slapped love on side next to that to go, and you have to affirm those choices, otherwise you're judgmental and unloving.
SPEAKER_05:Right.
SPEAKER_02:Um, and yeah, that if that's your pivot, if that's your understanding of love, it makes it really difficult when you encounter someone who's making self-destructive choices in their life and you genuinely care about them.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah. And of course, I would add that it matters how we bring that word of truth and how we challenge. And we've talked about that a lot in previous episodes. And so um so I think that just needs to be said. But yeah, the idea that loving is loving me is just nodding your head and going along to get along, I think really distorts the type of love we're called to.
SPEAKER_02:Maybe another one that I think is common in the Midwest is love is often confused just for being nice or kind. You know? I mean, in the Midwest, we have this Midwest nice thing where like we're just sort of enculturated into always being kind to other people and smiling, but underneath the smiles, like all sorts of frustration and irritation and anger, right? Um, and I think sometimes uh a flimsy definition of love is it's just like superficial kindness. And I I want to be careful because I do think that the majority of the time, um, love will manifest itself with a kindness and gentleness to it, right? It is a fruit of the spirit. Uh, love often is expressed with heartfelt kindness and sincerity. But um, sometimes it has some tenacity and some punch to it. And of course, we see this in Jesus. If Jesus was perfectly loving, and love is the plumb line, um, it's sort of a mixed bag for some people. For some people, Jesus was overly gentle and kind, and I imagine the way they experienced him. But for other people, it may not have felt all that kind. You know what I mean? Yeah. Or nice necessarily when you think about his interactions with the religious leaders or whatever. So, so perhaps we need a bigger definition of love that sort of fits the range of relational interactions we're gonna have. So it's not always just this flimsy superficial niceness.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, I read a book. It just made me think of a book I read years ago, probably over a decade ago, by Sharon Hottie Miller. I think it's just called Nice. And it was her own journey of how she grew up. Um, well, especially as a female, I feel like there's especially pressure on women to have like a sort of just a nice disposition, be nice, like you're kind of taught as a little girl, like smile and nod and get along, especially in churches. I feel like it can be heightened. Um, and she was in the south, which I also feel like is a strong part of that culture. And so it was just her journey of kind of deconstructing that whole idea of that being a Christian and you know is just being nice.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:So I totally agree.
SPEAKER_02:I see the the Bible belt, sort of the South. This might be very common. And then the Midwest is like the Bible brasier. And so this is also where it's common. Yeah. So, you know, you're asking the question, Josiah, like, what is love? And this is where I think scripture is really helpful because it gives us a definition of love by pointing to Jesus. My favorite verse in scripture is 1 John 3:16. And it says, This is how we know what love is. Jesus Christ laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. Um, and so just notice it's giving us, it defines love by pointing to Jesus. This is how we know what love is. Jesus Christ laid down his life for us, he went to the cross for us. And then in light of that, we're called to do the same. And so love is cruciform, it's other centered and it's self-sacrificial. And then we're called to model that or embody that in our own lives. This is a theme I think we see throughout the New Testament. Philippians 2 is a great example, you know, where it talks about having the same attitude of mind as Christ Jesus. And then it goes right into the same sort of cruciform reference point. Jesus, uh being God, didn't grasp onto that, but rather emptied himself, becoming nothing, going to the cross, and then God exalted him. So I want to say that love, if we're gonna have a definition of love, we need to actually look at Jesus. He's the plumb line of what love is. And um, it's all about moving toward the other with self-sacrificial choice-based service. It's about downward humility, it's about sacrifice, it's not just warm and fuzzy feelings, it's not merely actions rooted in niceness, it's a deep self-sacrificial cruciformity. And it results, I think, in a deep love and a fulfillment of that command of loving God with your whole self and others as yourself. What do you guys think? What would you add?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think that when I when I hear that God is love, and when we see it in light of this, it's easy to dismiss how powerful love is. If love is the is part of God's character, like who he is, then um figuring out what love is and what it looks like to love the world around us and ourselves in a way that is like God seems like it should be very, very important to us as Jesus followers.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I hear you calling um us to a deeper understanding of the power of love in our lives. And almost maybe if we were to flesh it out a little bit, to the degree that we aren't committed to living in love, the kind of love that Jesus embodied and called us to. It sort of betrays not only our lack of imagination of what love is, but our conviction of its power.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. Do we actually believe that it can transform things? Right?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Uh you know, yesterday I uh outlined the entire book of First Corinthians um for a sermon series that I hope to do at some point. And it's interesting because in the first few chapters, this seems to be a major thing that Paul brings attention to is that like God's power is made uh manifest in weakness, and that the cross, which is obviously motivated by love, looks like foolishness. And so part of it, I think, Josiah, is that it's counterintuitive. It doesn't look powerful. In fact, it looks like the exact opposite. It looks very weak and impotent. Um and so what do we do? And we see this all over the place in our culture right now. We chase after power over so that we can legislate our values and you know what I mean? Um, pull pull the levers in our society and in our world. I was just on a conversation, I was just on a call with my spiritual director, and we talked about this. One of the questions he asks is if you were to reflect on your life, how many times have you tried to fix problems in your own life by using your own power? And it's sort of a humbling question to go, ah, I often try to fix the problems in my life by using my own power, by grasping for power to come up with my own solutions. I think there's a what I'm trying to get at, and I'm probably not being as articulate as I want to be, is just to say, I think we have a fundamental confusion around the power of love versus uh the type of power that the world offers us, which is actually impotent to change things and malforms us along the way.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah, and we're not we like to list love as just like one of the things that we're about as Christians. Rather than the thing. Rather than the thing. And if we see at that all the other things stem from love, like an all-encompassing view of what it looks of what God's love is, to participate in that. Yeah, I find it very transformative. And although it's difficult, it's it's it's empowering to know that loving like loving in the way of Jesus is actually gonna make a difference.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, I'm so glad we're pressing into this because if if I'm honest, um, you know, I hear the phrase Please be honest.
SPEAKER_00:I don't want you to keep lying, okay. Yeah, that's enough. I mean, I hear enough dishonesty.
SPEAKER_07:You hear the phrase God is love, and you're like, yep, okay, nice. Like, next. Um, and I I don't know if that's because we just hear it so often, and so it just kind of like goes in one ear and out the other, or in part because we've watered down the idea of love. But yeah, I would agree with what both of you are saying. When we really take a look at what Jesus looking love looks like in the Bible, it it challenges us and it's it is completely transformative. Um, one thing, so I lead leadership intensives, which is our year-long sort of intensive discipleship courses. And one of the units that we do in our leadership intensives is is called grace and truth. And we spend the whole time, a month or two maybe, talking about what Jesus is looking love is, and it's this like this idea that Jesus always embodies grace and truth together. And we've spent a number of weeks kind of looking at what that means and what that doesn't mean. So we start with okay, the idea that some people have this idea of love is high grace. This is what we were talking about is like people pleasing, unconditional approval, nice. Like in our minds, we often tend to think that love is just all of those things, um, especially in the church again. But I think when we look at Jesus, we see the idea that his love always has grace and truth in full measure. Like he's able to speak truth to people and to say hard things, um, to challenge them. But he always does does so from a place that's rooted in loving them and wanting their good. It's never just from like a punitive place or a place of superiority or a place of, you know, one-upping someone. It's always with a heart towards their, their, their wholeness, moving towards healing and wholeness. So the idea of love as just grace is not a is not a fully fleshed out Jesus looking love. And some of us have the idea that love is just all truth all the time. Like if I love someone, I'll try to fix them or I'll point out their flaws. And I, you know, if I love you, then I'm gonna tell you what you need to know. Um, but that type of love just kind of makes someone into a project. Like you end up just trying to fix them and kind of control them. And again, when we look at Jesus, we see that his truth was also always full of grace. Like he carried both of them together. Every time he gave someone truth, it was rooted in their love. So I just learned a lot by going through that teaching and studying the life and teachings of Jesus. I think he did this masterfully. He never lacked in one or the other. He um and we use the word he calibrated them.
SPEAKER_02:Like he didn't say more about that.
SPEAKER_07:Well, it's like I always say he didn't balance them. In my mind, balancing them means more grace means less truth, or more truth means less grace. But in a sense, he had both of them in full measure all the time. He perfectly c calibrated how he delivered his message of grace and truth, depending on the person and the context and what that person needed to hear. So he didn't give the same message to every person. But it, if you look at anything he says, you can point to the grace and the truth, both present in what he's saying. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_02:It does. I like that phrase, full measure. Um, he had a full measure of both grace and truth, and that calibrated combination was the manifestation of love in each and every situation that he encountered in the people before him. That gave him a flexibility and a situational awareness that allowed him to love the person in front of him through the spirit's power. Um, and part of our growth as disciples, as we'll get into, is learning how, in a similar posture of spirit dependency, because I don't think you can love like Jesus on your own, to have that same full measure of grace and truth such that we can love the people in front of us depending upon the situation. Where we're not just balancing, like, oh, if I speak truth, it's because I lack grace, but rather because a situation requires a higher calibration of truth than grace, because that's what the situation warrants.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah. And part of the work is to go, am I a person that leans towards grace? Well, if that's the case, I might have to learn the opposite. Learn truth a little bit, or vice versa.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, totally. That's a good word. You know, one of the things that has bubbled up in your comments, you guys, is you both have kind of uh alluded to like this idea that's common where, oh, like God is love and it sounds good. Um, but like what does that actually mean? And and part of what um I'm thinking about is just how we need a thicker description or theology of love, right? I mean, to to kind of piggyback on your point, Josiah, of like, is it really the most powerful force in the universe? And of course, we go, yes, but do we really believe that? It seems like we need to do some deeper work to understand this God who is love and what it looks like to receive and embody his love in the world and the power that that creates. So maybe let's just unpack that phrase that God is love. It comes from 1 John 4, 8, God is love. But I want to say love is not just what God does, it's who God is. Know what I mean? It's not just a verb that God does, love is a noun that God is. And this might be a little heady, but um, follow me here for a moment. This is at the heart of understanding God as triune, that the father loves the son and the spirit. The son loves the father and spirit, and the spirit loves the father and the son. So God, God's self exists in intimate triune community, marked and characterized by perfect self-giving love toward one another. The the early church fathers actually had a word to describe this, and it was the word pericuresis. It's a Greek word. Um, and it's it's a compound word, it has two parts. Perimans around, and caresis, where we get our word choreography from, um, means to dance. And so it was this mental picture of uh the triune God dancing in perfect loving unity of self-giving love toward one another, pericuresis. And so God is love. All of God's actions are expressed in love. And this is why, you guys, I get a little bit amped um when people try to put love as an attribute of God alongside other attributes that are sort of intention or or competition with God's love. Because it results in sort of balancing God's attributes that then create like internal conflict within God, it would seem. So I'll give you a reference. I remember someone at one point handed you uh RC sprawl's knowing God. Yes. Okay. Someone did. Yes. And uh, this is my major beef with that piece of work is that um love is not the umbrella under which all God's attributes are understood and manifested. It's just one placed alongside others. And then God's love becomes like in competition at some points with his holiness or his justice or so on and so forth, right? It's why, by the way, R.C. Sproul mentions wrath as one of God's attributes. Wrath is not an attribute of God, it's a response to sin. So this just creates problems. I want to name that at the core of who God is is love. That's what scripture says, 1 John 4:8, God is love, and therefore everything God does and everything that God is is an expression of his love, including, by the way, his wrath. Wrath is nothing less but the purification of God's love towards you. God's holiness is an expression of love. God's justice is what love looks like in public, right? It all comes back to um every attribute, everything God does is an expression of his perfect love in that situation. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, it does. So even when we see God disciplining um, or we see like stories of God's judgment or references to God's judgment, are we might immediately think, like, oh, he's being punitive or he's punishing. But what you're saying is, no, that's actually all done out of love. It's all anchored in love.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, or take power. I mean, this works for any attribute. Take power, right? Apart from the incarnation, apart from God revealing God's self in Jesus, we end up with some pretty messed up views of power, as if God's power is all about control and acting on other people and overriding their agency. God can do whatever God wants, that type of theology. Okay. But what do we see in the Gospels? Well, we're nearing Christmas time. It's interesting that God doesn't show up as a power-hungry monster who gets to force people to bend to his will. Rather, he comes in profound humility and helplessness as the as a form of an infant.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So, and all of this is done in love. In other words, God's power is always expressed in love. Those aren't in competition with one another, they're actually synced up in unity. Right? There's a synergy to them.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, and the fact the fact that God is love means he can't do anything that's not loving.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Yeah, there is never a moment where God isn't acting out of love.
SPEAKER_02:Correct.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Nor has there ever been.
SPEAKER_02:Right. That's right. So I'm trying to name that like what that we do need a thicker theology of love, starting with our understanding of who God is. And I'm also putting my cards on the table that I don't think love is just like one attribute amongst many, but it's actually the attribute that like defines every attribute.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and if that's who God is, not just what he does, or one attribute among many, then love is also what we're created for as well. And and why we were created for a loving relationship and a union with God. Yeah, bro. So the right relationship of all things. God's God's mission in the world isn't necessarily um our goal in discipling and to joining in that with that work primarily starts with the union that we experience with God. And and and to that end is the thing we are working towards. So yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Maybe one way I would say it is that to get at what you're naming, is that uh out of the overflow of love that God is, God creates us by love and for love.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, it also connects again to our last episode when we talked about God cares about the who and not just the do. Um, right? If God cares not about us accomplishing great things in the world or being really successful, but he cares about who we are and who we're becoming. Well, who we are becoming is to be people of love, right? That exude God's character.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and it gets at what you have tattooed on your arm.
SPEAKER_07:Partakers in the divine nature.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, participants in the divine nature is all about uh communion with God in love. Um it's what the uh Eastern Church tends to refer to as theosis, union with God in love. Um, the goal is to be filled with all the fullness of God such that we become with God, one with God in Christ. And that union is characterized by perfect love, so that we receive the overflow of love that God is toward us, and we respond by essentially entering that perikoretic dance that the early church fathers uh talked about.
SPEAKER_00:It's so interesting how easily distracted we are as people who are following Jesus to make life about anything else. Right? Well, you like how how easy it is. And and and again, we we look at all these points about who God is and all his attributes, all this is love, God, God is love. He invites us to be participants in that love, in in the nature of who we is. But then you also go back like, well, Jesus said that very plainly. All of what life is about is loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and loving your neighbor as yourself. So the point is like Jesus, Jesus condenses it there, and it sounds like, oh, that's overly simple. And then you go and you zoom out and you're like, look at these bigger, broader concepts and theological endeavors, and it just comes back to the same thing.
SPEAKER_02:It's actually quite simple. God is love. Out of the overflow of love that God is, he created us to give and receive love with him. Yes. And one another. And um, and so the goal is not how much you can do for God. Like this is a huge temptation in the church, is all of our energy and attention goes towards the things we're doing to make a difference in the world. That's great. But but ultimately, what God wants, more than you making a big impact in the world, is to experience and know his love in an intimate relationship. That's what God wants with us. This is the center of the center. At the end of your life, the most important thing will be like, do you know this Jesus?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Do you know him? Right? And so uh I was just naming with my spiritual director, like, there's this audit we have to do to go, do I genuinely desire God for God? Do I genuinely desire Jesus simply to know Jesus? Versus, hey, I need you to help me with this. I need you to like, you know, write, fix this problem in my life, sort of treating Jesus out of utility or what I get out of it rather than like, I genuinely desire. It's the difference between being friends with someone because of something they do for you and going, I genuinely enjoy you as a person.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah. Yeah, I love that. Uh, as part of my Bible recap reading plan, this morning I read Romans 13 and Romans 13, 10 says, Love is the fulfillment of the law. So just I you kind of hinted at this, but you know, when Paul says this, he's echoing Jesus' own summary of the entire story of Scripture. In Matthew 22, Jesus says essentially, love God, love your neighbor. All the law and prophets hang on these commands. So I love that. Thinking about the story of Scripture, I love the idea that every command God gives, from like the Torah, way at the beginning to the Sermon on the Mount, is ultimately aimed at forming us into a people who love. Love like God loves. Like they all point towards that. It means that the law wasn't just given to make us good moral people, which is sometimes sometimes how I think we can see God's law, like, oh, I should do these things to make a good Christian. But rather, the law was given to teach us how to love well. So back to your point, Mac, like the commands about justice are all ultimately about love. Commands about holiness, all about love, commands about relationships, forgiveness, money, worship, et cetera. Like they're all aiming at love. So I think when Paul says that love fulfills the law, he's saying love is the aim, love is the standard. Love is like the intended outcome of God's entire covenant with his people. Again, it's the plumb line. It's like the straight edge that reveals whether our lives are aligned with the heart of God, and it's the measure of a genuine disciple. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_02:You use the word hang, right? Everything hangs on this. The Greek word there uh means suspended from this. Suspended. Like it's hanging, it's suspended from this. Think plumb line. Like interesting everything hangs from this.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, interesting.
SPEAKER_02:The way a plumb bob would, right? It's it's the objective measure that we need to. And and and so let's take that a step further. Like love is the metric of spiritual maturity. If we're saying everything hangs on this, this is the plumb line, then just like we have to reckon with how wrong we get it, you guys. Because so often in churches, what are the what are the metrics that we're measuring? It's, and we've talked about this before, it's the stuff that's quantifiable and easy to notice. It's buildings, how big is your building? It's uh your budget and and butts in the seat, what's your attendance? And all those are fine to note or whatever, but but um those are the hallmark measurements of the church growth movement. And underneath that, of course, is this assumption. I think it's a bad one, that if your church is growing, well, you're successful, right? And and how many more examples do we need of growing churches that actually aren't making disciples of Jesus to go, we've got the wrong metrics in place. Yeah, there's something wrong here. We're we're using the wrong plumb line. The plumb line isn't church growth, it's it's love. And so if we begin to ask the question, how do we measure love? that immediately pushes us into a territory that is uh uh gonna require qualitative measurements, not just quantitative ones. And it's gonna be a lot more challenging. How do you measure love? How do you observe it? How do you note when someone is actually growing into it? Right. In some sense, the quantitative measurements are a mark of our own laziness because it's it's just easy. It's just easier. It's easy to count attendance, it's easy to note how big the budget is compared to last year. It's easy to measure square footage, it's easy to count up the number of church programs and ministries you have, it's easy to count how many Bible verses you've memorized. Those are all easy to measure. It's a lot harder to go, hey, how am I growing in my ability to calibrate grace and truth situationally the way Jesus did?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's also funny to me that it's not it's not a new temptation. I'm I'm remembering, and forgive me for not knowing the exact reference. But uh Jesus gives the the parable where he talks about um the wheat and the tares. Right. So and they wanted to try to when they saw that there were weeds or tares or whatever um planted in with them, that they wanted to rip them out. And it's like, no, you'll end up ripping the good stuff out with the bad. So let it all grow together and God separates it in the end. Yeah. So I think about that, and maybe that's a maybe that's a it's a a far connection, but I think about that in terms of how we like to try to measure and we like to identify people who are in and out. We like to try to identify easily what um what we can take credit for and what other people can't. And in the end, uh quantitative measurements such as the ability to love the fruit of the spirit. I mean, like you could name a few of those, difficult to measure and uh difficult for you to know about someone else.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, dude, you are triggering something in me big time because there's a few people in our church that I would say this is a conversation that periodically bubbles up again and again, and they sort of have this binary, saved and unsaved. And um, and they want to know hey, which it which category does this person fall into? And maybe from like an ontological place, like we can say, yeah, those categories are correct and God knows. But I keep saying we don't know. There's no way we know. I don't know a person's heart. And drawing on that parab parable, like trying to figure out figure it out, actually will do harm. It's problematic. Yes. I I'm just realizing as you uh brought that parable up, I have some deep, deep convictions around that, that like trying to discern who's in and out, um, which scripture I think repeatedly, both in the Old Testament and New Testament, like has some surprises. Those who you think are out are actually in, and those who you think are in are actually out, major theme in Jesus' ministry. But just to put some caution around that, that like, hey, the more we try to figure that out and sort of like um divide people up into these categories, we actually do harm to God's harvest.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, and maybe to bring that back to our conversation, I would ask, and what does that do? You know, how is how is trying to figure that out rooted in love? It would seem that Jesus would say, No, this is your primary mission.
SPEAKER_02:Well, if someone's out, I I can tell you what the response is. If someone's out, we need to tell them that out of love.
SPEAKER_07:Oh.
SPEAKER_02:So that we can get them in. Sure. Yeah. Um but in any case. Um Yeah, and I uh kind of picking up on this theme of like, okay, well how how do we engage people who maybe aren't we don't think are quote unquote in, it seems to me that like love is part of our witness to a watching world. Like the best evangelism, you know what I mean? Yeah, the best form of evangelism is a love that looks like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah, if love, if love is the plumb line, maybe just think about it um in different categories. You have my internal category, my own personal relationship with God, love being the plumb line and the objective standard of what it looks like to become more like Jesus, to move towards Jesus. Um you can also look at it publicly. Like what um love is the plumb line for what other people can see of what of what love is. And if we don't have that right, um now like what do we actually have have to offer? A world that um thinks they know what love is, but it comes up empty and it leads people astray. If if we're created for love and by love, then living our most fulfilled life is going to be a life filled with God's love and in the way of love. So if we're living that way, that becomes a very attractive witness to a watching world that doesn't always have the answers or thinks they do. And and when we get it wrong and we don't have that objective standard very clearly defined within our communities, the flip side is that it it actually repels people. You know, like it it it pushes people away because um a pseudo form of love that is always happy and always accepting and um and doesn't bring challenge, right? Right and uh and always feels good seems a lot more attractive than the one that um can look judgmental.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Yeah. Um I'm indebted to one of my favorite books that Greg Boyd ever wrote was Repenting of Religion. I I know we've mentioned it on this podcast before. Um, but he just goes um to great lengths to show how our judgment is one of the primary things that blocks our love for people. Um he talks about how um love is about ascribing worth to others at cost to ourself. That's what love is. And judgment does the opposite, it flips it. It's ascribing worth to ourselves at cost to others. So we're constantly like measuring and evaluating other people in a way where we feel superior and we get a sense of life from it. So we're actually subtracting worth from others, borrowing their worth to increase our own.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And um, sadly, this is what the church is primarily known for, to pick up on your point. Is it any surprise that some of the people I think I would like to most see in our church community? Um, I'd love to see certain groups increase, um, have a larger presence in our community, have found community in other places that are just not as judgmental.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah. Yeah, I think you're right. I think we I do have we do have a problem with that, and we're not all that secret about it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Well, okay, so let's let's maybe do some reflection on where we are in as the church as a whole. Okay, so I'm not just talking cross point here, I'm talking about like the church universal. If love is the plumb line, how are we doing as a church, as the church? Um it's kind of a scary question when you think about it. If love is the objective standard and we ask the question, so how is the j the church doing measuring up to this objective standard of Jesus looking, Jesus like love, how are we doing that? How are we doing with that? And and maybe we could talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly. So I'll start. I mean, the good, and maybe there's some tenacity for this for for me in this answering this question is that we live in an age, um and we've done a a series on this of deconstruction, and part of that is church hurt and um and so on. And and so there we'll get to this. There's some legitimate stuff that the church can do better, absolutely. But I also like talk to a lot of people, and they just seem to have a chip on their shoulder when it comes to the church, right? Like it's easy to pile on. And part of me finds myself getting a little bit defensive. And um, Katie, you recommended this book to me by N.T. Wright recently. I've I've done a lot of study on the powers, and him and Michael Byrd came out with a book. But one of the things that he names in that, in that book is just that even the criticism against the church of not measuring up to the plumb line of love is happening within the context of you being given Christian categories. In other words, you're still trading. Your I'm getting amped up here. Like your ability to critique the church for not loving in the way of Jesus is trading on Christian currency. Right? No matter how irreligious you claim to be, we all have internalized essentially the Christian revolution in the world. And we believe almost by instinct, they point out, that things aren't how they should be. And you don't have that reference point, honestly, without the kingdom revolution that Jesus created. Here's what they say: most people in today's world recognize as noble the ideas that we should love our enemies, that the strong should protect the weak, and that it is better to suffer evil than to do evil. People in the West treat such things as self-evident moral fact. Yet those values were certainly not self-evident to Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Vikings, Mongols, or Aztecs. The reason why most people today accept those ideas as axiomatic is that they are products of the Christian revolution. Even when people hotly deny this, insisting with some justification that it's the church that has been the oppressor, the moral uh protest against oppression as itself rooted in Christian belief. So it just gets me amped up because sometimes I like absorb criticism against the church. And in general, I want to like apologize on its behalf as a way of like moving towards that person because the church is far from perfect. But I also am kind of growing in my uh grit to go, time out, like cut off the shenanigannery here for a moment. The very fact that you're naming these standards that we're falling short from point to Christ in the first place. You're still trading on Christian currency.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, yeah. Yeah, right. So you think picture of someone kind of pointing the finger and going, the church isn't loving well enough. And you're like, well, hang on, why do we think love is important? Like the fact that you know what love have this picture of love and all the things you just mentioned is in thanks to Christian values.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. And then when we start to like do just a basic historical survey and you look at all the things that uh I think even non-Christians would hold up as commendable in our culture. Well, quite frankly, a lot of them point back to Jesus and how the how Christians throughout history have championed that way in the world, founding hospitals and healthcare. You guys, we don't have hospitals and healthcare without Christians. Um, championing education and literacy. You look at most of the universities in the United States, they were founded by Christians. If you look at how education was championed through the medieval ages, it was mostly Christians. Yes, Christians propagated and perpetuated slavery. I would say they were pseudo-Christians, but the abolition movement was largely led by Christians, caring for widows and orphans. That's largely led by Christians, advancing human rights and social reform. Think Martin Luther King Jr. He was a pastor, you right?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, right, right.
SPEAKER_02:Um you just keep going. And it's like most of the reconciliation and peace efforts that have had any type of merit in the world, again, point back to the peaceful way of Jesus.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think it's in that NT Wright Michael Byrd book, Jesus and the Powers, if I remember correctly, they also talk about how Christianity has been the driving force historically around the world behind ending child sacrifice. Yes. Like in the Greco-Roman world, it was common just to abandon infants to die if it was, especially kids with like disabilities or girls or just unwanted babies, they would just leave them outside and to die from starvation or animals. But this the Christian belief, the Christian conviction that every life matters, every person has dignity, everyone's made in the image of God, um, propelled the early Christians to rescue those. And then same thing like with um practices of actual child sacrifice in parts of Africa and Asia and South America, Christians are the ones who challenged and confronted those.
SPEAKER_02:Right. So, yes, I mean, I'm all about naming hey, if we look at this plumb line of love, the church does fall short. And we'll get into that in a moment. But I also find myself going, Time out. Um, you know, it's only appropriate that we also recognize that there have been a lot of people who have genuinely followed in the way of Jesus over the last 2,000 years. And that mark, that is a mark on the world.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:It's left its mark in a profoundly beautiful way.
SPEAKER_07:And it's still happening. Like even today at the local, everyday level, tons of Jesus followers are quietly serving in unnoticed ways.
SPEAKER_02:Thousands and thousands um are doing mustard seed work that we don't know about, probably will never be on the news. And yet they're like they're they're embodying the way of Jesus in ways that are actually absolutely beautiful and extraordinary and generous. I'm not saying non-Christians can't love. I'm not saying that. So don't hear that. But I don't know when I think of the people that have uh embodied love the most, they happen to be Christians.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and I hear you also saying that there's a we um our culture, Western culture especially, takes takes for granted a lot of the values that they think are more uh modern and uh secular, even though secular, yes, thank you. The that were actually could are only adopted the way they are because of Christianity.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, take science for instance. A lot of people pit science against faith. Well, actually, Christians led the scientific revolution because they were studying God's creation, that's how they saw it. Yeah. You know what I mean? So it's just to say, before we look at some of the problems, and there are many, I just want to go, hey, time out for a second. Um I think that there's a strong evidence that the way of Jesus, um, not its um not it in its negative forms, people claiming to follow Jesus who weren't, but genuinely following Jesus, actually, to your point, Josiah, is incredibly powerful. It transforms things. Love it. Now there's plenty of bad stuff and ugly stuff. What would you guys say about like, okay, let's be honest, we're also um failing. The church has failed and is failing in many respects according to the subjective standard of love.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah. Well, I mean, Jesus' followers are humans, so I think we get it wrong in all the ways that humans get it wrong. I think the church can sometimes mirror like the divisions, the anger, the polarization in the world. Um, I think there are plenty of examples throughout history where you know the church has been driven more by cultural power or fear than love. Um, moments when our identity as Christians has been come has been like entangled with like a form of nationalism or empire or cultural dominance. You know, like you think of missions movements, which have also done a ton of good in the world. I can also point to examples where missions work sort of mixed with cultural superiority and we ended up confusing spreading the gospel with westernization. Um you can point to periods where Christians supported or fueled religious rivalries and hostility and ultimately contributed to more conflict than peacemaking.
SPEAKER_02:The Crusades, the Inquisitions.
SPEAKER_07:Totally. Totally. Yeah. The Crusades, Inquisitions, um, times when the church became more concerned with defending territory or influence than embodying Jesus' self-sacrificial love. So I think maybe it's because I just got finished reading that book, like the power theme is really strong in my mind. And a lot one common thread through all of these, I think, is the church grasping for power. Yes. It's all distorted.
SPEAKER_02:You use the word empire, and um they in the book talk about how like the entire uh canon of scripture, the story of scripture takes place within the context of empire, right? The people of Israel are um enslaved under the empire of Egypt. And then if you just study the Old Testament, it's like one major superpower after another, they're sort of under that the thumb of whoever's in charge. And this is the context that Jesus is born, they're under the thumb of Rome. And for the first 300 years of church history, the church was a persecuted minority. It had no power whatsoever. And in the 300s, all that changes with Constantine. And that's when things become really complicated because they go from a persecuted minority to a privileged majority, and they now have a seat at the table of power, and they become complicit in empire. When you look at all of the gross injustices, all the miserable failures of the church throughout history, the defining mark is they've become an instrument of empire. Instead of being anti-empire, they've become an instrument of empire. That power you're talking about is now something they're pursuing and leveraging in the world, and it's not cruciform power. And so let's I'll just name this, you guys, because it is one of my concerns is that the church seems to be groping for that kind of power today. And I'm referring to American politics. And it's on both sides. Um, but but once again, uh America is an empire, and uh Christians seem A lot of Christians seem to go. Hey, the solution is for us to kind of well get in charge of that. We need to gain seats, prominent seats, and sort of take hold of the steering wheel so that we can guide the empire. And that is anti-Christ and anti-biblical. Uh, we will end up inflicting way more harm and damage and compromise our witness to Jesus to the degree we try to grope for that kind of empire and become an instrument of empire.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, you don't need to look very far of examples inside and outside of America throughout history of that being done.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:You know, even if it's sometimes with good intentions. Every time you grasp for power and a line with empire, I think there that that does perpetuate the harm.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Yeah, I would say on some of the bad, maybe more on a on a granular level, um, locally, uh churches can get it wrong. Um rather than rather than letting love drive people towards um marginalized people groups, um, it causes them to s to remain isolated and uh lots of in-group behavior happens where it's us first them. And rather like again, we we see Jesus moving towards the people that were on the margins, and uh it's common to look at local churches or maybe even some of the larger scale churches where it becomes less about moving towards people and more about getting people to come to our thing. And um love stops being the standard or I should say the the driving force of what we're doing. And as we named before, it starts becoming more about um accumulating something within our group.
SPEAKER_01:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I see that too.
SPEAKER_02:Another thing that really chaps my behind is uh just the scandals and cover-ups that we're seeing in churches today, whether it is abusive, toxic leadership, or sexual scandals or whatever, it just really bugs. Starting to grind my gears.
SPEAKER_07:It does it does. And I think it, yeah, and that's probably in the category of the ugly. Are we talking about the ugly or still on the bad? Are we distinguishing between the bad and the ugly?
SPEAKER_00:I was gonna say I figured that would that was the ugly thing.
SPEAKER_07:I mean, you mentioned the crusades and the inquisition, which I would have said are yeah, not just bad, but but ugly. But yeah, I totally agree because I mean that stuff is is bad, like harassment, sexual abuse, all of that is bad in its face. But when you're weaponizing scripture to perpetuate that kind of abuse and exploit those who are vulnerable, um man, that's a whole level of ugly.
SPEAKER_00:Can I ask a question? Yeah, go for it. In the Ten Commandments, not taking the Lord's name in vain. Correct me if I'm theologically misguided.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I will.
SPEAKER_00:Katie will. Katie will. I often uh interpreted that as to not swear, or at least that's how it was taught. That it's like about the words he used. And um, I wonder if I would be totally off base to think that using God's name for selfish gain or to perpetuate some sort of evil would be a violation of what God would name as like the sort of core of like, hey, you're not to do this.
unknown:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:Am I am I way off base?
SPEAKER_07:I thought you were just looking for permission to cuss. No, right.
SPEAKER_00:Instead of saying like, oh, oh, like, hey, make sure and never say, Oh my god. Make sure and say, oh my gosh. Right.
SPEAKER_02:I or like my oh gad.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I don't know if that's I don't think that's what that that commandment is getting at. Now maybe I'm rejecting.
SPEAKER_02:When it says do not take the Lord's name in vain, I don't think it's just talking about um uh swearing. Um, I actually think it's way it cuts to the heart. It's the first one. How often we try to use God to manipulate other people or circumstances, where we leverage God as doing something when it actually doesn't reflect God's character or what he's up to in the world. If I can claim divine like uh prerogative in a situation that God's behind me in this, think about how much power that gives me. And I'm telling you, I see it all the time.
SPEAKER_07:God is on my side. Yeah. And if you are against me, then you must be against God.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I was reminded of a situation. I watched a church who was looking for a building maybe seven years ago, and they were at a town meeting. It was recorded, and um, and it was kind of like this property that was being debated. What should we do about it? And the pastor looked at the board and said, If you don't back us, you're getting in the way of God.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:That is a violation of the first commandment. You're equating all that you're doing with God and um taking his name in in vain, which is all of a sudden we're slapping God's name to things that may not represent God. And we need to be really careful about that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Especially if that way, the way God uh uh reveals God's self looks like Jesus to the degree we baptize things that actually don't look like Jesus with God's name, we're actually committing blasphemy.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and how important it is for us as his people to desire wanting to represent Christ well. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, I think this is a helpful exercise. You know, I think I see us just naming that again, love is the plumb line, love is what everything hinges on. Um, and we see this embodied in the church, and we've seen many examples of Jesus followers embodying love in in amazing, world-changing ways. And the church is made up of a bunch of people who are gonna get it wrong and are gonna go sideways, and they but they have and will continue to do a number of just bad and ugly things that distort the way of love in the world.
SPEAKER_02:Right on. Well, friends, practice padcast. It's praxis time. Let's get into some concrete practices in light of this conversation that love is the plumb line.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, one practice I think you mentioned in a sermon recently, Mac, was just creating space to receive God's love. And I love the idea that um if we want to extend love, we are to we should first receive it. It's really hard to extend love when you haven't been loved. Like again, that back to that phrase, love loved people, love people. Um if we try to just love on our own strength and with our own idea or our own sense of being a good moral person, we can sometimes do that for a period of time, but it's only, you know, it's only a matter of time before we get burned out or exhausted or all messed up on what it actually means to love. So the very first move, I think, should be to create space just to receive God's love. Uh, we spent time looking at this as a staff. And I think we uh quickly realized that many of us in some ways lacked imagination for what that even looks like.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:You know?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I can fill that out. Uh uh because a second practice that maybe puts some flesh on that, how do I receive it, is to do a daily exam of love. We we recommend doing an exam quite a bit as a practice because it's just so essential. If you can create space um at the end of every day to simply review your day in God's presence with a few questions in mind, God will meet you there and and maybe reveal some things you missed in the moment. And one question you can ask is, God, where did you show me love today? And maybe you recognize in the moment and you can savor it a little bit more. Maybe you didn't see it at all, and God will reveal it to you. And if you don't create that space, you'll just run right by it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:You know, another way to another question you can ask with the examine of love is where did I show love today? Again, you may not be aware of all the ways that you showed love to other people, and God might highlight those. See, you were doing that, you didn't even realize it. Other times you might have noticed in the moment and you want to savor that. God's going, Yes, more of that. That's that's what we're here to do, right? So this is a receive loved people, love people, receive God's love. And one common way or good practice is to do an examine with love as the filter.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I I just I feel like it's worth double clicking on because maybe maybe you're listening and you feel like the call to love more in a self-sacrificial way sounds like becoming more and more empty. And although loving in the way of Jesus will be a self-emptying act, God does not call us to live from an empty cup. Like God wants to fill us with his love first out of the overflow. Yes. I think of Psalm 23, where it talks about my my my cup running over. I think that's a good picture for us to see. Like God's not calling us to like keep pouring from an empty cup. It's that God continues to fill us, and learning to receive his love is one of the more important things we can do.
SPEAKER_02:And an overflow of a cup means that the cup is never has less liquid in it. It's literally just overflowing. Like it's it's more than you can hold.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. I remember um on our retreats learning about the Ignatian spirituality and how um he called people to, if they wanted to learn to love more, to not seek to have more output, but learning to receive God's love becoming the one of the more important things we can do.
SPEAKER_02:More input.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, because it increases our capacity to love more. So, yes, receiving God's love is super important. Um, yeah, and then maybe something more practical is to um just wake up uh in the morning and just choose one day or sorry, choose one person that that you're gonna love today. Just choose one person that you know you're gonna interact with and try to visualize what does it look like to embody love for that that person today. It could be something very small, it could be something, maybe someone that uh you're closer to. You're like, I'm maybe I want to do a larger thing. But the point is is like just just pick one person rather than trying to think of it as this broad term of I have to love everybody. It's like, okay, God, who is it today that I can focus on and make sure I'm embodying love towards them? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Start with your family. I think that would be a win. Yeah. You know, especially if you have kids. Well, thanks for joining us today, you guys. We hope you enjoyed today's episode and this entire series. Next time, we're going to be missing Katie. Uh, Katie's gonna be having baby number four.
SPEAKER_07:Hopefully by next time.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, you'll be yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Fingers crossed.
SPEAKER_02:Katie's gonna be on maternity leave. And while she's out, we're gonna do a short series. It's gonna be a short one on disability in the church and how we need to go beyond just creating inclusive spaces to spaces where there is genuine belonging. I'm just gonna say this because I'm a little bit nervous about it, that maybe some of our listeners will go, oh, disability. I don't really have any interest in that. Statistics suggest uh somewhere between 17 and 20 percent of people uh have a disability. The chances are pretty high that you already know someone or at some point will know someone with a disability. I want to suggest this is a highly relevant topic. And I encourage you guys to tune in.
SPEAKER_07:So we'll see you then.com. If you have any questions, comments, or have any suggestions for future topics, feel free to send us an email. Also, if you enjoy the show, consider leaving a review. And if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
