In this episode, we interview Jared Byas, author and co-host of the hit podcast The Bible for Normal People. We discuss his new book Love Matters More, available now wherever books are sold. It's a lively discussion about love and truth, and how those concepts are often abused by religious people under the guise of "telling the truth in love."
The beer featured in this episode is from Central Waters Brewing Company.
Content note: this episode contains some mild profanity.
=====
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The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount.
If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal.
Other important info:
Cheers!
In this episode, we interview Jared Byas, author and co-host of the hit podcast The Bible for Normal People. We discuss his new book Love Matters More, available now wherever books are sold. It's a lively discussion about love and truth, and how those concepts are often abused by religious people under the guise of "telling the truth in love."
The beer featured in this episode is from Central Waters Brewing Company.
Content note: this episode contains some mild profanity.
=====
Want to support us?
The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount.
If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal.
Other important info:
Cheers!
[Music]
00:14
welcome to
00:14
a pastor and a philosopher walk into a
00:16
bar the podcast where we mix a sometimes
00:19
weird but always delicious cocktail of
00:21
theology
00:22
philosophy and spirituality
00:28
well hello friends and welcome to
00:29
another installment of a pastor and a
00:31
philosopher
00:32
walking to a bar as usual we're excited
00:35
to be with you today
00:36
and we're extremely excited about this
00:39
episode today we
00:40
are interviewing a co-host of one of our
00:43
favorites if not our favorite other
00:45
podcast called the bible for normal
00:47
people if you haven't listened to it
00:49
you've been missing out so go put that
00:51
on your q right now
00:53
and we are interviewing jared bias a
00:55
co-host and an author
00:57
and he just wrote a book called love
00:59
matters more
01:00
it's a brilliant book really beautiful
01:02
dropped yesterday
01:04
and we're excited to talk to him but
01:06
before we talk to him
01:08
it's always better to talk to somebody
01:09
with beer or whiskey or something like
01:12
that right kyle
01:13
always yes absolutely so what's
01:15
happening today
01:17
well today we have a beer from central
01:19
waters brewing company which is kind of
01:21
a staple
01:22
in wisconsin very well known among beer
01:25
aficionados in wisconsin it's known
01:26
and a little bit outside i was gonna say
01:28
is it known outside of wisconsin
01:30
yeah so i'm in a lot of beer like
01:34
maybe i shouldn't say this on the
01:35
podcast i don't know i'm in a lot of
01:36
beer trading groups
01:38
are those illegal or something well
01:41
[Laughter]
01:43
as long as it sticks to trading i think
01:45
it's okay i'm in a lot of groups where
01:47
people talk about beer how about that
01:49
and uh and central waters comes up from
01:51
time to time they do a few
01:53
special release stouts every year for
01:55
example they have one called black gold
01:57
that everybody loves barrel age stout
02:00
they have an anniversary stout they
02:02
release every year and
02:04
usually they have like a 5k to go along
02:05
with the release of some of their beers
02:07
and like people flock up to central
02:09
waters and it's a whole thing
02:10
in the fall so it's a lot of fun and
02:12
they have this
02:13
uh this series called brewers reserve
02:17
which is just a series of barrel-aged
02:19
beers of all
02:20
varieties so what we have here is called
02:24
call me old fashioned it's one of their
02:26
brew reserve beers and this one
02:29
is a 12 red ale and it says it's got
02:32
cherries and it was aged in
02:36
uh various barrels brandy bourbon and
02:39
orange curacao barrels so
02:40
there you go it doesn't say what
02:41
brandies or whatever well
02:44
cheers yeah cheers cheers
02:53
i'm gonna say interesting
02:55
[Laughter]
02:58
yeah my wife grace really likes cherry
02:59
pepsi and i feel like she would love
03:01
this
03:02
it's a little thin um
03:05
i don't know hot like uh like a young
03:08
whiskey hot
03:10
it's sweet like like barrel aged ales
03:14
are
03:14
it's got that back of the tongue layer
03:17
of sweetness you know i'm talking about
03:20
it's not as effervescent as bright
03:23
yeah um as i would like either yeah
03:25
almost tastes over carbonated
03:27
over carbonated that makes sense yeah it
03:30
tastes like really high quality
03:31
coffee syrup uh it's a good that's a
03:35
very nice backhanded cotton
03:36
yeah there elliott that's good that's
03:38
not really nice that's like the best
03:40
version of the
03:41
this is like the best version of the
03:44
cheap way to flavor your bag
03:46
i mean central waters does some great
03:48
stuff but i'm i'm just
03:49
they really do yeah is it i wonder if
03:51
it's maybe maybe not their best this
03:52
might be a bit more of a novelty though
03:54
is it it's something that's kind of it's
03:56
meant to be a bit off yeah i think the
03:57
idea is that it's supposed to taste like
03:59
a like a brandy old fashioned i think is
04:01
the idea
04:02
i feel like if we which i'm you know i'm
04:05
kind of opposed to the idea of a brandy
04:06
old fashioned anyway so maybe i'm not
04:08
there
04:08
i can't say that oh wisconsin i mean i
04:10
agree
04:11
right i like ryer berbino fashions but
04:13
old fashions
04:14
are my jam i feel like if we were at a
04:16
real bar
04:17
the name in the brewery would have
04:20
caught our ascension we
04:21
said yeah let's have some of that and
04:23
then we would have had this experience
04:25
yeah yeah don't don't let this uh
04:28
put you off of their other brewers
04:29
reserve series though because they do
04:31
have some interesting stuff i mean god
04:32
bless central waters
04:33
but for me and we'll find this because i
04:35
know you love barrel age stouts and all
04:37
that business kyle but
04:38
if barrel aged beers of all sorts just
04:40
went away
04:42
i think the world would be a better
04:43
place oh good
04:47
what is wrong with you oh geez i'm good
04:50
just because of that just for that
04:51
comment i'm gonna force you to go back
04:53
to our previous episode
04:55
disagreeing well
04:58
well uh hopefully our interview is uh
05:01
more tasteful than the beer
05:02
right you are just full at the backhand
05:06
they're not even beckoning compliments
05:07
they're just
05:08
[Music]
05:11
all right well central waters nice try
05:16
[Music]
05:21
so in this episode we're really excited
05:23
to have our guest jared bias he is the
05:26
co-host of one of our favorite podcasts
05:28
it's called the bible for normal people
05:30
i have to say jared
05:31
it's one of my favorite podcasts being
05:33
an academic because i feel like you guys
05:36
really showcase genuine expertise and
05:38
this is something that
05:40
is fairly unusual in the kind of
05:42
progressive evangelical podcast space
05:44
that we both inhabit
05:45
so i'm super grateful for you guys for
05:48
for doing that
05:49
uh and you have a new book coming out
05:51
and we're we're really excited to talk
05:53
with you about it on this episode
05:54
excellent well thanks for having me i'm
05:56
looking forward to it awesome
05:58
jared you recently wrote love matters
06:01
more that's
06:01
out now people can get it everywhere you
06:04
buy books
06:05
and it's a really really wonderful book
06:07
i'm wondering why you wrote it what
06:09
inspired you to write that
06:10
what was the process as to why you think
06:13
it's important
06:14
yeah i mean i think it really comes down
06:16
to and i think this theme will come up
06:17
again and again and i love that you guys
06:18
bring a philosophical and a pastoral
06:21
perspective because
06:22
for me it was a little bit of a
06:24
challenge to put those all within myself
06:27
and that's kind of what it was is
06:29
philosophy this pursuit of truth i mean
06:31
i've always been extremely curious and
06:34
so that was and also if we're being
06:36
honest a need to be in control and truth
06:38
is
06:39
easy to co-opt for control so
06:42
i was going down that path but then as a
06:44
pastor man i recognized really quickly
06:46
one a lot of people weren't as
06:48
interested in truth as i thought they
06:50
should be
06:51
and two that was okay for them and in
06:53
fact
06:54
they ended up loving and living
06:56
well-lived lives better than me
06:59
and so it was this idea that you know in
07:01
my tradition we privileged
07:03
truth and somehow that was the magic
07:06
bullet that was going to solve all of
07:07
our problems and make us all happy and
07:09
and love was going to come out of that
07:11
and it didn't it it didn't work for me i
07:13
felt trapped
07:14
and so this idea that love matters more
07:17
is my kind of exploration through that
07:19
which didn't come naturally for me i'm
07:20
definitely more of a person in my head
07:22
more of a person who's drawn to
07:25
philosophy and thinking
07:26
and thoughts and being right and having
07:28
the truth so it was this journey of
07:30
learning from other people how much
07:32
love matters more jared you mentioned
07:35
your tradition
07:36
what is your tradition what's your
07:37
background faith and maybe even faith in
07:39
philosophy
07:41
yeah so it kind of merged when i was in
07:43
college but i grew up
07:44
in i grew up in a small town in texas so
07:47
i grew up southern baptist
07:48
as well as charismatic so my grandmother
07:51
is a charismatic minister my dad is a
07:53
good old boy from texas so that kind of
07:55
was merged throughout my upbringing and
07:58
then
07:58
was drawn to a presbyterian church in
08:00
high school
08:01
that i went to by myself because i was i
08:03
was much more drawn to kind of
08:05
intellectual
08:06
ways of being in the faith and that led
08:08
me to
08:09
uh to liberty university where i went to
08:12
undergrad
08:13
and i was gonna i was planning to go and
08:15
major in mathematics so my major was
08:17
math when i went there
08:18
and then i had this philosophy class and
08:20
i said
08:22
you can major in this like you could
08:23
just sit around and do this
08:25
oh i switched in a heartbeat who was
08:27
your professor there do you remember
08:28
what class
08:30
uh professor would have been martin
08:32
would have been that my intro
08:34
uh he would have been dr martin i don't
08:36
know his first name um but he's the one
08:38
who really
08:39
reeled me into this whole philosophy
08:41
thing and then i was like oh it's
08:42
amazing and of course when you're in
08:43
college you don't think okay but what do
08:44
you do with this
08:45
when you graduate um of course
08:49
obviously i was the i was the only i was
08:51
the only one in my class that wasn't
08:54
like pre-law like everyone else that was
08:56
philosophy majors would
08:57
they were going to like do something
08:59
practical like go to law school
09:02
and then you wound up in ministry what
09:04
tradition was that
09:06
yeah so i would have went to westminster
09:07
seminary uh which is presbyterian not
09:10
officially i don't think presbyterian
09:12
but
09:13
very presbyterian and basically what
09:16
happened was in seminary i had no
09:18
intentions to be a pastor
09:20
i went to seminary i wanted to get a phd
09:22
in presuppositional apologetics
09:24
which is why philosophy into apologetics
09:27
defending the faith um and really which
09:31
is defending me
09:32
and wanting to be right and then i got
09:35
there and and to be very frank the
09:36
faculty were kind of jerks
09:38
and and i was like really turned off i
09:41
think to be a successful
09:42
presuppositional apologist you need to
09:44
be a jerk
09:45
it's been my experience anyway i mean i
09:47
don't know if causation and correlation
09:49
i don't know how that works but
09:51
um yeah so that's that's where that
09:54
shifted and then i
09:55
fell in love with the bible in terms of
09:58
biblical studies and really getting into
10:00
the
10:00
the nuts and bolts of how the bible
10:02
works and that was really because the
10:03
faculty
10:04
really displayed the kind of faith that
10:06
i wanted
10:07
and so through that it kind of threw me
10:09
off on my career path
10:11
and led me to to being a pastor for a
10:14
number of years
10:15
first of all i'm blown away that liberty
10:16
university has philosophy
10:18
courses they don't even department a
10:20
couple months ago they shut down their
10:22
department
10:22
they released all the professors yeah so
10:24
there you go
10:25
jerry falwell jr yeah i'm sure he had a
10:28
handle
10:29
but that was yeah that was during his
10:30
tenure yeah
10:32
all right good good good so you were you
10:35
studied along the lines of
10:36
philosophy you were a pastor for for
10:39
several years
10:40
tell us how those two fields in those
10:42
two
10:44
vocations really have influenced the way
10:46
you see the world the way you see
10:48
people the way you see humanity the way
10:49
they see faith yeah
10:51
it kind of going back to what we said as
10:52
that theme of i i feel like they really
10:55
shaped each other in in healthy ways
10:58
where
10:58
you know philosophy was even at liberty
11:01
of
11:02
kind of of all places you could be to
11:04
study philosophy which is ten
11:05
and it was housed in the school of
11:07
religion but even there there was a
11:09
sense that we have to be open we have to
11:11
go
11:11
wherever the logic and the reasoning and
11:14
the evidence
11:15
points us to and so i really appreciated
11:18
what i felt like was a pure
11:20
while the sciences did it in in sort of
11:22
uh the nat
11:23
with natural sciences they did that with
11:25
kind of hard evidence and other things i
11:27
found philosophy to
11:28
do that with more about language and the
11:30
human experience
11:31
and so that was really important to me
11:33
because they were asking the deep
11:34
questions and that was something that i
11:36
was always doing even from a young age i
11:37
was
11:38
i was very weird as a kid i tried to
11:41
hide it as best
11:42
i could but you know i was thinking
11:43
about death and all these things from a
11:45
very young age and trying to figure out
11:47
how it all worked
11:48
and and so that really was giving me
11:51
a leg up in terms of how do what's the
11:54
mechanics of
11:55
the human experience and then the
11:57
ministry part of that
11:59
was again a smack in the face to
12:00
recognize like you may
12:02
find that curious you may think that's
12:04
super important but most people don't
12:06
and does that mean that you're right and
12:08
you're better than them or does that
12:09
mean
12:10
we now have to learn how to serve other
12:11
people and to help other people and to
12:13
kind of walk with people on their
12:15
journey
12:16
and so i had to you know i had to hurt a
12:18
lot of people to be honest
12:20
um to find that out and then kind of
12:23
recognize that that didn't
12:24
feel very good and it didn't seem
12:26
consistent with the kind of life that i
12:28
imagined
12:29
for myself or for anyone and so i had to
12:32
really
12:32
recalibrate that and so the pastoral
12:35
part of me
12:36
very much was about learning about
12:38
humanity
12:39
i tended to live in the clouds and so it
12:41
really brought me back to earth
12:43
in in really really healthy ways i think
12:45
that's that changed
12:46
the trajectory of of what i'm doing so i
12:49
don't think i do the bible for normal
12:50
people without a philosophy background
12:52
and a ministry background yep yep you
12:55
can hear it
12:56
so in the book in your book love matters
12:58
more you said
12:59
i love it when people do the research so
13:02
that i don't have to because i'm gonna
13:04
i'm gonna steal this
13:05
in the future but um you say jesus asked
13:07
307 questions in the gospels then he was
13:09
asked
13:10
183 questions but he only directly
13:13
answers
13:13
three of them what does that how does
13:16
that inform your picture of god what
13:18
does that say about god
13:20
in the christian faith what should that
13:21
say about the christian faith
13:24
well i mean i think it's open to
13:25
interpretation but for me
13:27
it points us to the the fact that maybe
13:31
we've put a little bit too much emphasis
13:32
on the answers and not enough emphasis
13:35
on the questions
13:36
and i think for me if there's been a
13:39
guiding principle for me over the last
13:40
five years it's the recognition
13:42
that questions can be more powerful than
13:44
answers
13:46
because they're an invitation and so it
13:48
questions really do
13:49
meld the head and the heart for me
13:52
because
13:52
the question is seeking
13:56
right and whenever we're seeking
13:58
whenever we're curious
13:59
it's already and always a posture
14:02
of humility because it's always a
14:04
posture of ignorance
14:06
and when i ask a question i'm in the
14:07
question saying i don't know
14:09
and i think that's really valuable for
14:11
our faith so i think it's
14:12
it's important to recognize all these
14:14
questions and that jesus was okay not
14:17
answering directly i feel like we have
14:20
this in
14:21
kind of social media world we think that
14:22
just because someone asks us our opinion
14:24
we're obligated to give it and even when
14:27
people don't ask us our opinion
14:28
we're still obligated to give it that's
14:30
my view of the of apologetics in general
14:32
by the way
14:34
giving your opinion when it's unasked
14:35
for that's
14:37
that's so great to hear you say
14:38
literally today i was teaching plato's
14:40
apology to my students and how
14:43
ignorance you know admission of
14:44
ignorance is the birth of philosophy
14:46
uh that's that's fantastic it's just not
14:48
many people connect it to what jesus
14:50
does in the gospels though
14:51
yeah i mean one of my favorite
14:53
philosophers is jill de luz
14:55
and he talks about you know philosophy
14:57
is
14:58
the practice of happening not to know
15:00
what everybody knows
15:01
and i really like that that's good
15:03
that's good yep that's good
15:05
early in the book jared you talk about
15:08
this thing called
15:09
umvelt am i saying that correctly yeah
15:11
sure
15:12
i mean i'm no german but it sounds good
15:13
to me we're in milwaukee we're
15:16
everything's german here so um yeah you
15:18
would know better than me you're the
15:19
authority then
15:20
exactly so umvelt i've never heard of
15:22
that word but i
15:23
loved how you unpacked it and how that
15:26
how you framed things
15:27
up with that um can you explain that um
15:30
what that means and what that
15:31
what that means scientifically but also
15:33
what that means for us as human beings
15:36
yeah you know i was looking for a
15:37
picture because it's it's pretty
15:40
clear to me in my head because i've been
15:42
dealing with these abstract things for
15:43
so long that we don't have access to
15:46
absolute truth but when you say that it
15:48
can be scary
15:49
on the one hand or it can be confusing
15:51
because it's so abstract
15:53
but this idea of umvelt uh i came across
15:56
which is
15:56
just a way of saying so there's the
15:58
group of scientists called ethologists
15:59
they're studying
16:00
animal behavior so they're kind of
16:02
animal behaviorists
16:04
and they came up with this idea of an
16:06
umvelt which is
16:07
the world as it's experienced by a
16:09
particular organism
16:10
so it takes into account everybody's
16:12
differences and
16:13
limitations and so whenever we think of
16:16
a dolphin
16:17
and their ability how they hear things
16:19
and a bat
16:20
through echolocation and then maybe a
16:22
bird and how they see
16:24
things and they can see from very far
16:26
away and
16:27
that means that they are experiencing
16:29
the world differently because their
16:30
sensory organs
16:32
are sensitive in different ways so what
16:34
one person might experience
16:36
or one animal might experience is really
16:38
loud
16:39
another might not hear at all because of
16:41
the different frequencies and that sort
16:42
of thing and so
16:43
they go through their whole life not
16:45
realizing that there are these high
16:46
pitched sounds or that
16:47
this sound is lower or higher or
16:49
anything like that so
16:51
that as they experience the world is
16:52
their oom vote and so it's not a
16:55
very difficult step to go to humans and
16:57
saying well we all have our own oom
16:59
vowels
17:00
and in sometimes we're in some ways
17:01
we're more complicated because it's not
17:03
just our sensory experiences but
17:05
because we're conscious and we have
17:06
memories we have this whole background
17:09
we have our cultures we have societies
17:12
we have our
17:12
physical locations we have our bodies
17:15
that are built differently
17:17
and so what it the conclusion is you
17:19
know we all have our own umvel and the
17:21
there's a difference between how we
17:23
experience the world
17:24
and the world as it really is and so
17:26
when we say we don't have access to
17:28
absolute truth all we're saying is that
17:31
that we have an umvelt because of all of
17:33
our particularities
17:34
and we can't get outside of those to see
17:37
the world quote as it really is
17:38
yeah it's so beautiful and would be so
17:41
helpful
17:42
for particularly christians to come to
17:45
grips with this reality when he when he
17:46
talked about the dolphin is one that
17:47
came alive for me and let's even think
17:49
about
17:50
like because maybe somebody could argue
17:51
well a dolphin jumps out of the water
17:53
and they're really smart you know so
17:55
they know there's another world out
17:56
there
17:56
but like thinking about a snapper for
17:59
instance who doesn't
18:00
jump out of the water just just and
18:03
there's this reality that their world is
18:05
entirely underwater that's what they
18:06
know
18:07
reality to be it's nothing else besides
18:09
that
18:10
not realizing that there's a whole whole
18:13
world and then universe out there that
18:15
is striking in it
18:17
that made me feel small
18:20
and aware of my limited nature
18:24
which is really really helpful that that
18:26
brings up awe
18:27
and wonder and all sorts of healthy
18:28
things in our process
18:31
super important can you explain like
18:32
what are your what's your take on that a
18:34
little bit and kyle i'd be interested in
18:35
yours as well
18:36
just um that just that just tells me
18:38
maybe there are other worlds maybe
18:39
multiverse is a thing and we just have
18:41
this tiny little
18:42
understanding of what reality is yeah i
18:45
mean i think that
18:46
the whole force of that section of the
18:48
book for me was to let we have to start
18:50
with humility and that's why
18:51
i started that the whole book with that
18:53
idea is we have to be humble about what
18:55
we know and what we don't know
18:57
and you know i paint the picture too of
18:59
of scientific discoveries
19:01
is a practice in this that when we
19:03
discover these things they change our
19:05
whole paradigm of what we thought the
19:06
world was like and how it's made
19:08
and how it works and then we have to
19:10
sort of adjust to this new reality and
19:12
the things that we were so certain about
19:14
that we would literally burn people at
19:15
the stake over before
19:17
now is incontrovertible and who's to say
19:20
that things in the future won't
19:22
be that revelatory either do we do we
19:24
think that we're so smart now that we've
19:26
uncovered all there is to uncover that's
19:29
naive
19:30
and so it's this posture of humility
19:31
that was the real force for me that i
19:33
think is important
19:34
yeah it's good stuff so the the main
19:38
thesis of the book i mean it's right
19:40
there in the title love matters more and
19:41
the implication is
19:43
more than truth right and so you say
19:46
some
19:46
rather provocative things in the book
19:48
about truth so i'd like to talk about
19:50
some of those
19:51
uh one one persistent theme throughout
19:53
the book is
19:54
is this verse from ephesians 4 where
19:57
paul says that you should speak the
19:58
truth
19:59
in love to other people and you have
20:01
quite a bit to say about that so
20:03
so what do you think that phrase
20:05
actually means and
20:06
and what do you think about how it's
20:08
typically used well
20:10
yeah and i think we could go on for this
20:12
on this a long time
20:15
i think we have to start with the fact
20:16
that this phrase really was one of the
20:19
anchor points for me
20:20
in writing the book because this was a
20:23
phrase that would have been
20:24
utilized as a weapon in a lot of ways
20:27
when i was younger
20:28
it was a get out of jail pretty hard for
20:30
i get to say whatever i want to you as
20:32
long as i say
20:33
it's sort of like the just kidding of my
20:35
kids you know
20:36
as they can say whatever they want to
20:37
each other as long as they say i was
20:38
just kidding
20:39
it's like well your your brother's over
20:41
there like crying in the corner i don't
20:42
think it matters that you were just
20:43
kidding
20:44
and i think that's how it was with
20:45
telling the truth in love for people
20:47
it's like
20:47
what i i said i was telling the truth in
20:49
love like well it doesn't look like that
20:51
person
20:51
feels loved so i don't know what you
20:53
mean by love
20:55
uh but i don't think you did what you
20:57
thought you did so i wanted to just
20:58
unpack that phrase and say you know how
21:00
can we look at it differently how can we
21:03
de-weaponize this and it doesn't take us
21:06
long to recognize one if we look at the
21:09
context in which paul is writing this
21:11
the irony for me of the whole thing is
21:13
the whole section's about unity
21:15
and right before he says tell the truth
21:18
in love
21:19
he says bear one another's burdens in
21:21
love
21:22
so if we're not bearing one another's
21:23
burdens in love we're not telling each
21:25
other the truth and love either
21:27
and i think that's a really important
21:29
context but then
21:30
secondly we assume
21:34
when paul says tell the truth in love
21:38
we have so much baggage with that phrase
21:40
we have so much baggage with the word
21:42
truth we make all kinds of assumptions
21:45
about what
21:46
paul means two thousand years ago when
21:48
he uses this word truth
21:50
we we're post enlightenment we're
21:52
post-renaissance we're
21:54
post-modern at this point and so we just
21:56
have so much history with this word
21:58
so what we usually think of it meaning
22:00
is tell people my
22:01
accurate opinions about how the world
22:03
works
22:04
like that's what it we're thinking
22:06
that's what paul means but nowhere else
22:08
i'm going to say nowhere else there are
22:10
one maybe two occasions
22:12
of the dozens and dozens of uses of the
22:15
word truth in the bible
22:17
where it means something even close to
22:18
that
22:20
almost always it means don't be
22:22
deceiving
22:23
it's an ethical and relational term it
22:26
is not an abstract epistemological
22:28
category
22:28
and i think that's really important
22:32
for how we understand what paul is
22:33
talking about it's it's almost always
22:35
in the bible truth is used in the
22:37
context of relationship
22:38
in an ethical way yeah that's that's
22:42
really helpful to contextualize
22:43
some of the other claims you make in the
22:45
book which from the perspective of a
22:47
philosopher can seem a little bit
22:48
startling
22:49
right um so so you say things like um
22:52
here's a here's a paraphrase at least
22:55
the the highest form of truth
22:57
is a life of love at one point you say
22:59
there's no distinction between
23:01
truth and love uh in another place you
23:04
say if you're not in love with the
23:05
person standing in front of you
23:07
then you're not telling the truth no
23:08
matter what comes out of your mouth
23:10
right
23:10
so you know as a philosopher who uses
23:13
truth in different ways in different
23:14
contexts that that can seem a little bit
23:16
shocking
23:17
can you maybe contextualize some of
23:19
those claims a little bit for us
23:21
yeah well i think it starts with in the
23:23
very beginning recognizing i have a
23:25
whole chapter called truth is
23:26
underpaid and overworked and that is we
23:29
just mean too much with the word
23:31
so that's confusing so i try to break it
23:33
down into these three
23:34
you know uh kyle you'll probably
23:37
maybe cringe at how i oversimplify this
23:40
but i thought it was helpful to have
23:42
these three categories and i talk about
23:44
fact truths
23:45
so facts meaning truths and then wisdom
23:48
truths
23:49
and so when we use the word truth some
23:51
people might mean
23:52
facts and some people might mean meaning
23:54
and some people might mean wisdom
23:56
and so it's important to distinguish
23:57
those first so that we can actually have
23:59
a conversation because
24:01
some people say you know is jonah the
24:04
book of jonah true
24:06
well some people are going to say that
24:07
and they mean is it full of facts is it
24:10
historically accurate
24:12
retelling and accounting of history some
24:14
people might say is it meaningful
24:16
is it telling us the truth about god and
24:18
how god interacts with the world
24:20
and some people you know for me there's
24:22
an existential
24:23
uh component to that which is do i am i
24:26
living it out truthfully
24:28
am i following its invitation or
24:30
evocation so
24:32
i think that's important to set that
24:34
stage because when i say things like
24:36
you know if you're not in love with the
24:38
person you can't speak you can't tell
24:40
the truth
24:41
it's in that existential sense in which
24:44
jesus says you know i am the way the
24:45
truth and the life
24:47
or in which john says we have to walk in
24:49
truth
24:50
like that was a conundrum for me right
24:52
how do we walk
24:54
in truth how do we use a verb with truth
24:57
we walk truthfully and so it sort of
25:00
it compels us into this existential way
25:03
of understanding that
25:04
so that i live out truth i'm not just
25:08
checking accurate beliefs off in my head
25:11
which
25:11
is important that's why the book's not
25:13
called you know
25:15
love is the only thing that matters but
25:17
love matters more
25:18
so this is there's a place for facts
25:20
there's a place for meaning
25:22
and it's first getting clear and then
25:24
maybe taking a look at our lives and
25:25
saying
25:26
where have we placed the priorities in
25:28
our own life and for what reason
25:30
what do we think we're going to get out
25:31
of it by placing those priorities
25:33
the way that we do and i think i as a
25:36
pastor have a much easier time with the
25:38
way you're using truth here
25:40
uh jared because because of that
25:41
biblical nuance that where i
25:43
i love this idea that if you're not
25:44
walking in the way of agape love
25:46
you're just actually not walking in the
25:48
way of truth it's that simple no matter
25:50
what you believe what you know what you
25:51
don't know
25:53
if you're not walking in agape love it's
25:54
not true
25:56
biblically speaking right yep yeah and
25:58
and biblically i think that's
26:00
that's true uh and
26:03
i would have to say i'm showing my cards
26:05
here i wouldn't necessarily say this all
26:06
the time but
26:07
you guys kind of it seems like this is
26:09
the appropriate place
26:11
i'm heavily influenced by the
26:12
existential philosophers i think they
26:13
were undoing
26:15
some of the bad habits of the
26:17
philosophers that came before them
26:19
if we look at the the pre-socratics or
26:21
even plato and socrates
26:23
they were highly invested in things like
26:25
uh politics
26:26
and how we run a city and it was very
26:28
practical and then we get into the
26:30
enlightenment and it becomes this just
26:32
i mean we're just out in the left field
26:35
with ideas and it's
26:36
it's good it's good stuff but it starts
26:38
to get on board from reality
26:40
i think in a way that the early
26:42
philosophers
26:43
would have maybe just not recognized
26:47
i wish we could have a much longer
26:48
conversation about that
26:50
that could be a whole episode what you
26:52
just said there that's good
26:54
before before we leave this topic too
26:56
much though so um
26:57
i i would assume from listening to your
26:59
podcast and now having read your book
27:01
that
27:02
you're very okay with the phenomenon
27:04
that is sometimes known as speaking
27:06
truth to power
27:07
right and which means saying some really
27:11
hard things sometimes and doing so
27:13
publicly
27:14
to people who are in power who who are
27:16
not interested in hearing
27:17
those things um and then you know
27:20
demanding change and sometimes even
27:22
uh trying to forcibly start change so
27:26
does that count as loving in in in your
27:28
view and if so can you explain
27:30
how so yeah and that that goes into uh
27:34
you know there's a part in the book
27:35
where i i veer off because i thought it
27:37
was important to talk about the freedom
27:39
aspect of love
27:41
and again grant if you if you ground
27:44
that biblically
27:45
you know jesus mission is to set the
27:48
captives free and so there's this
27:50
liberating
27:51
aspect to love that we can't ignore when
27:54
we're talking about love
27:55
love isn't just some abstract thing and
27:57
it's not just a feeling
27:58
but it's a concrete action toward i
28:01
think i use
28:02
bell hooks definition of the will to
28:04
extend oneself
28:06
for myself or someone else's spiritual
28:08
growth
28:09
and sometimes that's a liberating act
28:11
and i think that's
28:12
really important when we're talking
28:13
about truth to power
28:15
and uh so i think we can't get you know
28:18
that is a
28:18
nuance that i think is a challenge for
28:20
people is how can i stand up for myself
28:22
and how can i stand up for other people
28:25
and still be loving yeah and i think
28:27
that's important
28:28
i don't think the speaking truth to
28:32
power is the problem i think
28:34
it's the way in which we speak truth to
28:36
power
28:37
that we have to be careful you know as
28:38
nietzsche says that as we stare into the
28:40
abyss the abyss doesn't stare back into
28:42
us
28:43
and that's the real challenge is that we
28:45
don't fight fire with fire and that we
28:47
don't fight hate with hate
28:48
and i think that's the real challenge we
28:50
don't slip in self-deceptively
28:53
the justification for our own hate in
28:55
the service of
28:56
liberation yeah one more challenging
29:00
question while we're on that topic do
29:01
you think
29:03
that it's ever appropriate or
29:04
responsible or best or something like
29:06
that
29:07
to choose who you love so
29:11
in the in the sense of to choose who to
29:13
prioritize so
29:14
when i'm speaking truth to power i'd
29:16
like to think i'm loving those in power
29:18
but i'm prioritizing those who aren't
29:20
right
29:21
right yes well it's also the belief you
29:23
know i appreciate some of my more
29:24
radical
29:25
activist friends who would say do we
29:27
actually think that
29:29
uh liberating when we are liberating the
29:32
oppressed we may also be liberating the
29:34
oppressor
29:35
that in the end it might be best for all
29:37
of us to have a different system
29:40
and that for me resonates with with
29:42
paul's idea that hey our
29:43
our enemies aren't actually flesh and
29:45
blood but there's those principles and
29:46
powers
29:48
and principalities it's the systems in
29:50
place
29:51
and the people can be symptoms of that
29:53
but really what we're after is a change
29:54
in the system
29:56
and so yeah i think absolutely we can
29:58
and recognizing that
30:00
those people who who are the oppressors
30:02
are themselves also in bondage
30:04
and i want to highlight just what you
30:06
just said there jared for for the
30:08
listeners because some people could hear
30:09
that
30:10
what you just said and say oh we
30:12
actually don't have to fight against
30:14
systemic injustice and racism because
30:16
our battles are against the spiritual
30:18
forces
30:19
which is not what you just said right
30:20
but people would think that you
30:22
you you just said the systems are
30:24
actually the powers and principalities
30:26
that paul was talking about
30:27
systems of oppression systems of
30:29
injustice correct yeah absolutely i
30:30
would equate that when we talk about
30:32
systemic racism i would put that
30:33
squarely in the camp of what paul is
30:35
talking about as far as powers
30:37
and principles and principalities so it
30:39
seems like you would agree that
30:40
insofar as we're advocating for change
30:42
to those systems
30:44
we are simultaneously in a way loving
30:47
even the oppressor
30:48
right but but they're not going to
30:50
experience it as love
30:52
which which is kind of a segue into my
30:53
next question right because at a couple
30:55
places in the book like chapter 3
30:56
chapter 5
30:57
you seem to suggest that love isn't love
31:00
unless it's understood by the recipient
31:02
to be love
31:03
so can you help us to understand what
31:05
that means yeah well i think this is
31:07
where it starts to get really messy
31:10
and i think it's not either or i don't
31:12
think it's not love if someone doesn't
31:14
experience it as love i think
31:16
it's extremely important that we
31:17
consider the experiences and feelings of
31:19
the other person
31:21
in our judgment of whether it's loving
31:23
or not and i think that's been my
31:25
case growing up we just discounted it
31:29
as long as we didn't understand the
31:31
difference between intention and impact
31:33
so just because i'm intending to love
31:35
you and you get offended and you're hurt
31:38
and you don't experience that as loving
31:39
that's not my fault
31:41
i'm loving you're just it's the impact
31:43
and we have to recognize that love is
31:44
bound up
31:45
in this relational sense where it's not
31:48
the lovey or the lover
31:49
who get to define what's love is it's
31:51
some messy middle
31:53
in there in between it's found in the
31:55
meaning
31:56
of that interaction and and i go on to
32:00
say
32:00
in the book meaning isn't determined by
32:03
one person or the other meaning
32:04
is always the clashing of two or the
32:07
merging of horizons as
32:09
as gatimer might say and that's where it
32:11
gets really messy it's like was it 70
32:13
you do you get to determine meaning do i
32:14
get to determine like
32:16
how do we do that and that's the the
32:18
challenge of relationship
32:19
is it somewhere in that messy middle and
32:22
and i feel like that process can be
32:24
extended over time too right so
32:26
you you give a nice example in the book
32:28
of someone that you were
32:29
um you were going to officiate their
32:32
wedding
32:32
and then you had some misgivings about
32:34
it going through um
32:36
do you want to maybe recount that story
32:37
for the listeners because i found it
32:38
particularly helpful here to understand
32:41
yeah that was uh yeah i had someone who
32:43
i was
32:44
going to officiate their wedding had to
32:45
do pre-marital counseling had some
32:47
misgivings in there felt like it was not
32:50
a good relationship he was the the
32:52
husband
32:53
you know groomed to be in this case was
32:55
very controlling
32:56
and just a lot of red flags and me you
32:59
know being young and not really knowing
33:01
how to handle that kind of situation i
33:02
waited a little too long i mean it was
33:04
like
33:04
three or four weeks before the wedding
33:06
and i i just couldn't do it so i had to
33:08
call her
33:09
who was the person in my church the the
33:11
parishioner
33:12
who considered me her pastor and i had
33:14
to say it
33:15
and she was not happy um and she thought
33:17
i was abandoning her and
33:19
and all these things it come you know
33:20
turns out
33:22
a few years later that he was quite
33:24
abusive and
33:25
uh her friends had to kind of usher her
33:27
out in the middle of the night and
33:28
uh and she had to get away from that and
33:31
and we came back around and we
33:32
reconciled and she
33:34
she came to realize that i wanted the
33:36
best for her and
33:38
we wouldn't have known that you know and
33:39
it could have it could have gone
33:40
differently and that's that messiness of
33:43
if we're looking for what are the rules
33:45
by which we love well
33:47
um i think that's a contradiction i
33:49
think that's not going to happen
33:52
and i want to say too i think that
33:54
loving
33:56
condition is also on the end of the
33:58
recipient
33:59
where i mean i'm sure all of us have
34:01
have had those
34:02
really painful conversations i mean i
34:05
have had painful conversations with
34:06
family members who would mean everything
34:08
to me who basically
34:10
sat me down to say you're walking in the
34:12
way of
34:13
the enemy and you should not be a pastor
34:16
feeling you know long
34:17
excruciating and
34:21
it took years for me to process that for
34:23
me to work through that
34:24
but i knew the whole time that this
34:26
family member
34:27
really was trying to love me like i knew
34:30
that
34:31
and these family members there were
34:32
there it was it was more than one but
34:34
um and that helped actually it it
34:37
felt a little condescending at some
34:39
times on my end but it actually helped
34:40
to re
34:41
to keep in mind over and over again this
34:44
is this person's best
34:45
way of loving me and i would love to get
34:48
them to
34:49
to a point where they see that
34:51
differently or they they act differently
34:52
but i do think
34:53
that is a really helpful thing on not
34:55
just the deliverer but the recipient of
34:57
that kind of thing right
34:58
well yeah and i want to be careful
35:00
because i've been
35:01
i've had many people correct me on this
35:03
and i think it's important
35:05
because i'm i tend to be the aggressor
35:08
in these situations
35:09
i tend to only see these kinds of
35:11
situations from that standpoint
35:14
now there are other people who are the
35:16
recipients of that aggression
35:18
like you're talking about and i think
35:19
it's important that we don't
35:22
we don't prescribe for people what our
35:24
remedy is
35:26
so there's this really important concept
35:28
here of boundaries
35:29
right and so if you talk to any
35:30
psychologist they'll tell you how
35:32
important boundaries are
35:33
in these kind of relationships and
35:35
boundaries are different for every
35:36
person and i think that's the important
35:38
part so yes i would say
35:40
that would be wonderful if we can all
35:42
come to a place where we can be battered
35:44
and abused and people can
35:45
tear us down and we don't take it on and
35:48
we say hey that's their problem
35:50
they're trying the best they can it's
35:51
not affecting me but everyone has to
35:54
have that line in a different place
35:55
everyone has a different capacity to
35:58
take that kind of thing from someone
35:59
else
36:00
and i wouldn't prescribe some people the
36:02
most loving thing you can do
36:04
for yourself right remember to love your
36:05
neighbor as yourself
36:08
and i love the the idea of boundary is
36:11
that space at which i can love both you
36:13
and me simultaneously
36:14
i think that's really important um and
36:17
so there are times when the most loving
36:18
thing i can do is in a kind and
36:20
compassionate way
36:21
say i can't have this conversation with
36:23
you anymore
36:24
it's too painful for me and we aren't
36:27
going to be able to talk about this
36:28
let's talk about other things that's
36:30
fine and if you can't respect that
36:32
boundary
36:33
i can't be in your presence yep and i
36:35
think that can be the most loving thing
36:36
that can be said
36:37
it's really good and let me also say
36:39
i've been on the receiving end of
36:41
other stuff like that and they weren't
36:43
being loving
36:44
you can you can pretty easily tell they
36:45
were just being dicks and i'd
36:47
you know that's that's easier to handle
36:50
well and i think the the last thing i'll
36:52
say about this i think it's really
36:53
important and i think it's just a small
36:54
part of the book and i wish i would have
36:56
made it a bigger deal
36:57
is i think the difference is tell me
36:59
your opinion once that's fine
37:01
but respect me as an adult to know that
37:03
i heard you and if i don't act on it
37:05
that's my own choice
37:06
and i think we treat adults like kids
37:10
and that's where i think we start to
37:11
weaponize telling the truth in love like
37:13
if i tell you the ninth time that your
37:15
life decisions are really bad and you're
37:17
gonna go to hell or whatever then
37:18
somehow you're gonna change your minds
37:20
like
37:20
just respect my autonomy and understand
37:22
that i disagree with you
37:24
i know where you stand thanks for
37:26
telling me you've warned me you're off
37:27
the hook so now if i go to hell it's not
37:29
on you
37:30
and just let let's be adults here so i
37:32
think there's some some growth we could
37:34
do in churches
37:35
to just treat people like adults yep so
37:37
my personal favorite
37:38
chapter in the book was chapter seven to
37:41
me this is worth the price of admission
37:43
if just you guys should buy the book
37:45
just for chapter seven
37:46
and in that chapter you illustrate how
37:48
jesus in particular
37:50
but also the new testament authors kind
37:52
of creatively interpret
37:53
the text of scripture you like like
37:55
legitimately change its meaning
37:57
and then you illustrate how our own
37:58
culture has done the same thing and is
38:00
kind of still doing the same with
38:01
various issues like gender
38:03
sexism racism lgbtq plus issues
38:06
you reference gautama and there which i
38:08
was really happy to see um so so one
38:10
quote
38:11
you say i have experienced too many
38:14
spirit-filled gay christians to deny
38:16
their baptism
38:17
almost like stood up and clapped at that
38:19
point and so you argue in this chapter
38:20
that the holy spirit
38:22
is actually guiding us into these more
38:24
progressive egalitarian
38:26
interpretations so i absolutely agree
38:29
with you i've said many times to anybody
38:31
that will listen that
38:32
the lgbtq issue in particular is going
38:34
to look to us in 30 years the same way
38:37
it's going to look to people in 30 years
38:38
the same way that racism looks to my
38:40
generation now
38:42
hopefully that's my prediction anyway
38:43
which means
38:45
people in the church even you're saying
38:46
in the church yeah people will remember
38:49
that people used to use the bible to
38:51
oppose
38:52
equality but they won't understand why
38:55
and it will seem hateful to them
38:57
so i think that is just the trajectory
38:58
of our culture that's where we're headed
39:00
and i think the holy spirit's behind
39:02
that but i can hear a lot of other
39:04
people saying
39:05
well that's just capitulation to secular
39:07
culture so how do we distinguish in your
39:09
view between what the holy spirit is
39:11
doing
39:12
and what's just giving in does that make
39:14
sense
39:15
yeah and i think that goes back to you
39:17
know the the thesis of the book is the
39:19
ethic of love
39:21
and how we're gonna frame what love is
39:24
if if love is just what we think god
39:26
says
39:28
then that's a scary and dangerous
39:29
position but if we have these other
39:31
criteria
39:32
like liberation do people feel free
39:35
are we freeing people are we extending
39:38
people's spiritual
39:38
are we including rather than excluding
39:41
and we talk about
39:42
some of this at the end of the book kind
39:43
of laying out some of these ideas
39:45
of inclusion and love and
39:48
that that's what guides us and so are we
39:51
capitulating to the secular culture or
39:53
not i would say well
39:54
are we loving people better or are we
39:57
not
39:57
and if we are then we're going down the
40:00
right track
40:01
and if that's capitulating to the
40:03
culture
40:04
oh so be it can i can i ask a follow-up
40:08
question jared because i agree with you
40:10
um by and large but i i have
40:12
fundamentalist friends
40:14
who you know in my head who would
40:15
basically say well
40:17
jared jesus tells us to pick up our
40:19
cross and follow him
40:21
and self-denial is the way of christ and
40:24
so
40:24
that doesn't seem very freeing it
40:26
actually seems restricting in some ways
40:28
but that seems like what jesus told us
40:30
to do
40:31
yeah i think jesus told us to pick up
40:33
our own cross not lay one on someone
40:36
else
40:38
so in that way right we choose that for
40:40
ourselves again it comes back to
40:41
respecting other people's choices and
40:43
that
40:44
is a way but but jesus would say a way
40:46
of denying yourself is a way to true
40:48
freedom right that's the paradox
40:50
that jesus talks about and i think
40:53
that's been borne out by
40:54
quote-unquote secular culture of you
40:56
know psychologists and other who says
40:58
yeah the more you think about others the
40:59
more you're generous the more you're
41:01
grateful
41:02
you find life and that's important
41:05
but you don't find that when someone
41:06
else puts that on you
41:09
so would you say that it's important to
41:12
get your definition of what love is from
41:15
some place
41:16
bigger than just the text of the bible
41:19
oh absolutely yeah i think i think we
41:22
have to
41:23
yeah i think we have to we have to
41:25
recognize that things
41:28
well one the text is the text and
41:31
nowhere in the bible does it say um
41:35
yeah i think we we do this already and
41:39
we do it intuitively
41:40
until we don't want to and then we set
41:42
up these barriers where
41:44
it's fine to go outside the text for all
41:46
kinds of things except for the things
41:47
that we don't want to go outside
41:49
except for the things that we actually
41:50
don't want to believe um and then we
41:52
just stick to the text
41:54
which feels disingenuous to me yeah
41:57
so explain that you guys because i mean
42:00
even me
42:01
i'm like oh interesting kyle's glad that
42:03
jared said that
42:04
i don't know what i think about that
42:06
tell us why you guys think that
42:08
do you want to go first kyle sure yeah i
42:10
mean
42:12
you can this could be the subject of a
42:14
whole other episode you can make the
42:15
bible mean anything you want the bible
42:17
to mean
42:18
and and you can as jared is pointing out
42:20
pick parts of it
42:21
to focus on that um that you can then
42:24
enforce in your experience in your
42:26
communities and then ignore other parts
42:28
and not realize that you're ignoring
42:29
those other parts
42:30
and when it comes to something as big
42:31
and pervasive and important as defining
42:33
what love is
42:34
basing it on your particular reading of
42:37
this ancient text
42:38
is going to be limited whether you
42:40
realize that it's limited or not
42:42
and you're going to sort of step outside
42:45
of your own methodology
42:47
even if you don't intend to so so
42:49
something that you know you think you're
42:50
getting
42:50
your definition of love from the text
42:52
but then in some situation in your life
42:54
you're gonna
42:55
you're gonna act in a way that you
42:56
assume is loving but if you were to
42:58
reflect on
42:59
whether it matches your definition that
43:00
you're getting from the text you'd find
43:02
that it doesn't and so in practice your
43:04
your definition is actually bigger than
43:06
you think it is
43:07
even in practice and it's just my view
43:09
in general
43:11
that humans ought not to
43:14
just submit to epistemic authorities
43:18
whatever the authority whether it's a
43:20
it's a text or you know a
43:22
magisterium of experts who have
43:23
pronounced on a text or whatever
43:26
personal experience and reason and
43:29
objective factors like
43:31
health those should influence your view
43:34
of something as big as love
43:35
and if they conflict with your reading
43:37
of the text well that's a problem for
43:39
your reading of the text
43:42
i would maybe just i may be saying the
43:45
same thing but i think two things come
43:46
to my mind
43:47
one is we do not live
43:51
in ancient palestine 2000 years ago so
43:53
we're already
43:55
bringing baggage to the text and it's
43:56
dangerous to think we're just getting it
43:58
from the text
43:59
it we don't we can't like what does that
44:01
mean um
44:02
so even though there's a word called
44:04
agape we don't know
44:06
exactly how that was used in everyday
44:09
language 2000 years ago
44:11
we just don't we don't have enough
44:12
evidence for that and so we're always
44:14
importing our own experiences
44:16
because that's what we have to do we're
44:18
human beings it comes back to that
44:19
umvelt thing
44:20
but i think secondly the corollary to
44:22
that is our definition of love changes
44:26
what is loving kind of objectively well
44:29
as objectives you can get with something
44:30
like love
44:31
changes throughout culture right so we
44:34
if we go back i'm trying to think of a
44:35
few examples off the top of my head
44:36
they're not going to be great
44:37
but if we go back to the middle ages and
44:40
my
44:40
son comes down with some disease the
44:42
most loving thing i could do
44:44
is probably like put leeches on him and
44:46
bleed them out right
44:48
so that's love right
44:51
if we tried to do that today would we
44:52
consider that love
44:54
we would consider that abuse probably
44:57
right
44:58
um the same with you know when i was a
44:59
kid it's little
45:01
little simple things like it was loving
45:03
to you know
45:04
let your kids indulge in i was drinking
45:06
probably mountain dew when i was like
45:07
six right because it was like
45:09
whatever it's the 80s man um so
45:12
but that today like would i consider
45:14
that loving i don't think
45:16
that probably and even things like
45:18
divorce to go
45:19
even more uh i think more importantly
45:24
something like divorce can actually be
45:26
where
45:27
in the ancient world not allowing
45:29
divorce was actually a way to protect
45:31
women
45:33
because if you if you don't have a
45:35
husband you're basically
45:36
relegated to being a prostitute that's
45:38
really all you can do you can't go get a
45:40
job you're not having a career
45:42
as you know a librarian or a doctor or
45:44
an attorney
45:45
if you get a divorce and so is it not
45:48
that proclamation not to get a divorce
45:51
is actually
45:52
loving toward the woman well that has
45:55
been
45:55
that sticking to what the bible says has
45:58
actually led to
45:59
unloving things towards women in the
46:01
20th and 21st century
46:03
so if we don't evolve in our definitions
46:06
of love we may actually end up
46:07
harming people more than we're actually
46:09
loving them because the context changes
46:11
women aren't in that place anymore
46:14
yeah i think uh gottemer is actually
46:16
quite helpful here
46:18
uh so in his enormous work truth and
46:20
method
46:21
um he he talks about how and we can
46:24
think of this in terms of the bible as
46:26
well right so
46:27
getting at what the authors intended to
46:29
say right the the original
46:31
intended meaning of the text what the
46:33
original audience would have understood
46:34
something like that
46:35
we have a method for getting to that
46:37
it's called the historical critical
46:38
method and we
46:38
we like to think as good evangelicals
46:40
that if we could unearth that
46:42
with our method if we could apply our
46:43
method appropriately then we have the
46:45
meaning
46:46
right and we have this objective thing
46:48
but gottamer points out that we forget
46:49
that even the method
46:51
is a is laden with cultural value the
46:54
method is a choice and the use of the
46:56
method is a choice
46:58
and it's a choice that that culture
46:59
could never have envisioned right they
47:01
didn't have that method and they
47:02
wouldn't have seen the reasonableness in
47:03
that method
47:04
and we do because our culture has values
47:06
that say that method is important and
47:07
covering objective fact whatever the
47:10
these are just competing values there's
47:12
no getting outside of
47:13
you know what you would call the umvelt
47:15
or whatever uh
47:16
and so he likens interpretation to a
47:19
play
47:20
it's it's more like art so you can have
47:23
the same
47:24
text of shakespeare or something that's
47:26
acted out by different troops of actors
47:29
and in one case it's done really well
47:31
and people consider it art and all the
47:32
critics rave about it in another case
47:34
it's done really poorly
47:35
but it's the same words right and what
47:38
makes the difference between the
47:39
proficient performance and the shitty
47:41
performance
47:42
is cultural values and the opinions of
47:45
experts at the time
47:47
and there's nothing beneath that and
47:49
that's a scary place for an evangelical
47:51
to be right
47:52
uh we're stuck in the boat so to speak
47:54
as as quine put it like
47:56
there's no getting outside and latching
47:58
on to objective reality we're just
48:00
we're just here in it
48:04
friends before we continue we want to
48:06
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48:41
so towards i don't know the two-thirds
48:44
of the way through the book or so
48:46
you say this so here's a quote you say
48:49
as long as we use love
48:50
and i think you mean in interpreting the
48:52
bible that's what you're talking about
48:54
in the context here so as long as we
48:55
use love and interpreting the bible we
48:57
need not worry
48:58
about not having enough degrees to read
49:01
it accurately
49:02
so this kind of connects up to what we
49:04
were just talking about so you're you're
49:05
the host of a podcast
49:07
whose explicit stated goal is listening
49:10
to people with degrees
49:11
talk about how to read the bible
49:13
accurately or at least well right
49:15
so can you frame that up for us what do
49:17
you mean by that and you use an example
49:19
that i found super helpful so maybe if
49:21
you want to just retell the example
49:23
you use the analogy of jazz
49:25
improvisation
49:28
yeah it kind of does does go back to
49:30
that and i think that's more of a
49:31
the the jazz analogy and improvisation
49:34
is more about methodology
49:35
but before that i would again i'm i'm
49:38
trying to again and again
49:40
unearth this presupposition that would
49:43
have been
49:44
in my tradition which is the best
49:47
christians are the smartest christians
49:51
and i think that's a fallacy that's
49:53
that's really what i'm after here
49:55
and so this idea that you have to have
49:57
all these degrees and you know what well
49:58
i know greek and hebrew and so
50:00
i get to be the one who's in the pulpit
50:02
and i get to be the one who makes all
50:03
the decisions for the congregation and
50:04
all of that
50:05
that seems fallacious and i think it's
50:07
dangerous it gets us into trouble
50:08
so that's kind of the the reasoning
50:11
behind
50:12
hey you know what what i learned was
50:14
i'll take someone who knows how to love
50:16
well
50:16
over the scholar any day as the pastor
50:19
of my church
50:20
and i think that's really important um
50:23
because
50:23
i i don't know a lot of people who go
50:25
astray by loving well
50:27
uh but i know a lot of people who go
50:28
astray by
50:30
knowing things and i'll put that in air
50:32
quotes
50:34
so that's that's really the the impetus
50:36
for that and again
50:37
there's a reason this is called love
50:38
matters more and not only love matters
50:42
is i i have utmost respect for that like
50:43
you said that's the first half of the
50:46
equation
50:47
how do we respect other human and i
50:49
would call authorial intention
50:51
a facet of love because it's a way to
50:54
respect the authors of these texts
50:57
we don't want to disrespect them by
50:59
putting our own words and our
51:01
own thoughts into what they intended
51:03
however i also don't want to respect me
51:06
as a reader saying that my own
51:08
experiences and my thoughts don't count
51:10
at all
51:11
and i have to shut myself off and i only
51:13
get to listen to what paul said
51:15
in the first century i think meaning
51:18
the beautiful thing about meaning is
51:19
it's a mutually respectful relationship
51:22
where we have to understand what paul
51:24
meant without bringing my own baggage
51:25
into it
51:26
which is a little bit of my critique of
51:28
progressives i think they sort of read
51:30
into paul because they want paul to mean
51:31
something paul doesn't mean
51:33
where i say why do we do that we just
51:34
let paul be paul respect paul on paul's
51:37
terms
51:38
recognize that the spirit of god is
51:39
found in the intersection of what paul
51:41
originally meant and what we need it to
51:43
mean now
51:44
in our current context and that's the
51:48
respectful relationship
51:49
so charlie parker it was a it's i think
51:52
it's funny that he probably didn't
51:53
actually say this but i put it in the
51:54
book anyway it kind of goes to my point
51:56
but uh he was rumored to have said you
51:58
know um
52:00
you know how do you how do you uh how
52:03
are you such a good jazz musician or
52:04
something like that and he says well you
52:06
master the music
52:07
the kind of the art of improv is you
52:08
master the music
52:10
you master the instrument then you
52:12
forget all that [ __ ] and you just play
52:15
so that's like that's the heart of
52:16
improv and i think that's
52:18
how i think of the people that i think
52:21
weave biblical scholarship in this
52:25
loving guided way of life
52:28
are those who love the text so much that
52:31
they
52:32
they live it and they breathe it and
52:34
they
52:35
it's such a part of who they are and i i
52:37
think of um
52:39
not that this is a great example but i
52:40
always think of tevye from fiddler on
52:42
the roof
52:43
who is just quoting the bible all the
52:45
time misquoting it doesn't matter
52:48
takes it out of context uses it for his
52:49
own good uses it for the good of others
52:51
it's just
52:51
always coming out of his mouth and a lot
52:54
of the jewish
52:55
professors that we have had on the bible
52:58
for normal people
52:59
do this so well where you can just tell
53:02
i think i make the joke in the book that
53:04
they they dream
53:06
in bible like they know it so well that
53:08
they're dreaming in bible
53:09
and i think that's what that does then
53:12
is it seeps into who we are and then we
53:14
can forget about it and we can play
53:16
when we know it that well so i feel like
53:18
a lot of pastors
53:19
not to pick on pastors i feel like they
53:21
know just enough to be really awkward
53:24
and really uh hold it with an iron fist
53:27
like
53:27
there's another level beyond that of
53:29
play and of creativity
53:31
but we have to we have to know it well
53:33
enough it has to be kind of seeped into
53:35
our bones
53:36
before we can get to that place and
53:38
you've been mentioning the apostle paul
53:39
quite a bit jared but
53:41
i would say uh if we had a little bit
53:43
more of a johannan perspective
53:45
we might actually stomach this a lot
53:47
better because i was just preaching
53:48
first john 4 on
53:49
this past sunday and i made the
53:51
statement that first john
53:53
4 if if that wasn't canonized of
53:55
scripture already
53:56
most evangelicals would throw that out
53:58
as utter heresy
53:59
to say that we we've never seen love or
54:02
we've never seen god but if we love
54:04
god lives in us there's no asterisk
54:07
there there's nothing it just
54:08
that's what he says that sounds pretty
54:10
similar with what you're trying to get
54:11
across with this book
54:13
yeah absolutely i i lean a lot on john i
54:15
think that's exactly right
54:17
i think he definitely has more of that
54:19
been and the reason i pick on paul is
54:20
because paul gets weaponized
54:22
in a way that i think john needs to
54:24
correct some of that
54:26
at the at the end of the book i think
54:28
it's the last chapter you talk about
54:29
hypocrisy and you come down pretty hard
54:31
on it
54:32
so what is hypocrisy and how does it
54:35
relate to truth and love
54:38
yeah i think it's because i think the
54:41
greatest danger
54:44
of privileging truth-telling over
54:47
love is that it ends in this insidious
54:51
reversal
54:53
because biblically truth is used to talk
54:57
about
54:58
being honest with one another and and
55:00
hypocrisy is a deep
55:01
dishonesty it's a deep dishonesty about
55:04
who we are and how we are in the world
55:06
it's sort of an existential dishonesty
55:08
it's not
55:09
telling truths it's not telling lies
55:11
it's being lies
55:13
and so in the same way that true love
55:16
is the highest form of truth-telling
55:18
hypocrisy is the highest form
55:20
of deceit and i think that jesus
55:24
makes that pretty clear jesus is quite
55:26
opposed to the hypocrites
55:28
as well and if we think about all of the
55:31
harsh words that jesus has in the new
55:33
testament
55:35
don't quote me on this one i haven't
55:36
looked it up but i'm pretty sure all of
55:38
them
55:39
are reserved for pastors
55:42
all of them are reserved for the
55:43
religious leaders
55:45
all harsh words and i think hypocrisy is
55:48
at the root of that
55:50
[Music]
55:51
uh jared i know you've this is a baby
55:54
for you this book in the labor of love
55:56
i have no idea how long ago you wrote it
55:58
but i'd be interested to know what's
56:00
what might be next from from jared bias
56:02
what's what's what are you dreaming of
56:04
thinking about what might you write next
56:06
yeah well if you don't tell anyone
56:08
so this book that's been brewing was me
56:10
trying to take down the idea of absolute
56:12
truth and how i think it's an idol
56:14
the next one i'd really like to do that
56:16
with purpose
56:18
so that's really what i'm trying to uh
56:20
that's that's
56:21
next on the agenda and i'm hoping to get
56:22
started on it pretty soon
56:25
um to move from discovering our purpose
56:27
to creating our meaning
56:29
and grind grounding that in in the bible
56:32
as well
56:32
yeah we totally won't tell anyone at all
56:36
complete secret well jared so grateful
56:38
for you
56:39
and making time for us really grateful
56:42
for this conversation it's been a
56:43
delight and i'm wondering could you
56:45
speak a blessing over our listeners
56:48
um that they would walk in the way of
56:50
love
56:51
yeah and i'd like to uh maybe
56:54
for this time i'm gonna read a little
56:56
bit of kierkegaard's writings because
56:59
again
57:00
for me where this all comes from is the
57:02
belief that god is love
57:04
and that's sort of what grounds all of
57:06
this so i want to read this passage i
57:08
just think he puts it so beautifully
57:10
this is all i have known for certain
57:13
that god is love
57:15
even if i have been mistaken on this or
57:17
that point god
57:18
is nevertheless love if i have made a
57:21
mistake it will be plain enough so i
57:23
repent
57:24
and god is love he is love not he was
57:27
love
57:28
nor he will be love oh no even that
57:31
future was too slow for me he
57:33
is love oh how wonderful sometimes
57:36
perhaps my repentance does not come at
57:38
once and so there is a future
57:40
but god keeps no person waiting he is
57:42
love
57:44
like spring water which keeps the same
57:46
temperature summer and winter so
57:47
is god's love his love is a spring that
57:50
never runs dry
57:54
that wash over you today jared baez
57:57
thank you so much
57:59
yup absolutely thanks for having me on
58:06
guys
58:08
thanks for listening we hope you enjoyed
58:10
this conversation you can find us on
58:11
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58:12
like and share and subscribe wherever
58:15
you get your podcasts
58:16
if you're inclined to leave a review we
58:18
read through all of those and we love
58:19
the feedback
58:20
until next time this has been a pastor
58:22
and a philosopher
58:23
walk into a bar
58:36
[Music]