#53 - Renewal Essentials ft. Dr. George Guthrie

BCMB 053 - Renewal Essentials.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

BCMB 053 - Renewal Essentials.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Dr. George Guthrie:
Read and understand the scriptures. And if we just do the stuff it says, we're going to be okay. That was the Pharisees approach, treating Scripture as an object to master. But what we do is we live under the lordship of the Living Christ, by the power of the Spirit, who leads us into open hearts that understand the Scripture and are living the Scripture out as it's written on our minds and our hearts. And that brings about transformation and renewal. So Scripture is the foundation for renewal, because it is the authoritative, transforming, shaping Word of Christ that is the basis of all of living really.

Intro:
Welcome to the BCMB podcast, Pastor to Pastor. This is a podcast by the British Columbia Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches. We want to help, equip and encourage pastors, churches, and anyone else who wants to listen in and be more effective in their ministry. This is episode 53, Renewal Essentials with Doctor George Guthrie.

Rob Thiessen:
Welcome welcome everyone. This is the BCMB Pastor to Pastor podcast and it's Rob Thiessen the conference minister with my guest here today, Doctor George Guthrie. And I'm out at UBC. Yes. In your place here, George and Pat are teaching teaching, well George is teaching at Regent College. And, yeah, we're very excited to have you with us. I know your specialty is New Testament. You're an author, and you have a heart for pastors. By the way, for BC pastors, especially listening, George and Pat are going to be our speakers at our retreat coming up later at the end of April. And you do need to register for that. And we'll also maybe touch base on another project where he's going to be our resource person for pastors for a week of delving into the book of Philippians. So we're looking forward to that. But as we always start with our podcast, tell us a little bit, George, about the community that shaped you and your journey with Christ and the people that have impacted your life.

Dr. George Guthrie:
Well thanks Rob, I'm really excited to be with you today. I've really want to be connected to the church and to pastors here in the Lower Mainland. So thank you for having me on. I grew up a Baptist. Actually grew up in a Southern Baptist church in the South. I grew up in Tennessee. I was going to church nine months before I was born. Not quite nine months, actually. That's part of the story. My mom had struggled with having children and had had three miscarriages before I was conceived. And I was born premature about ten weeks in 1959, which means I had a 1 in 10 chance of living, had one lung working, weighed three and a half pounds. And my grandmother was told, don't get your hopes up. And so my mom went out on the front porch of the house and cried out to God and said, God, if you'll just let him live, you can have him. And so my earliest memories were of being very interested in the things of the Lord. I mean, literally, one of my earliest memories is of a big red Bible story book kind of opened in the middle of the floor. My parents would just kind of open it up, and I can still, in my mind's eye, see, you know, the picture of David and Goliath and that kind of thing. So I was raised in a Christian home, was very interested in the things of the Lord from early on, and made a commitment to Christ two weeks before I turned seven and, you know, very childlike kind of faith. But from that point on was interested.

Rob Thiessen:
What is that commitment to Christ at in the late of your sixth year? Look, I think I was about the same. I was born '59, and I probably opened my heart up to Jesus at about the same age.

Dr. George Guthrie:
Yeah, I think very childlike. I can remember my pastor using analogies with me about, you know, God saving us and the problem of sin and that kind of thing. So I think in a childlike way, I committed myself to the Lord as his person and understood that and was baptized. But of course, that blossomed and grew as I got older and as I was growing into my teen years and through high school, struggled like every everybody does, you know, with figuring out my place in the world. But by God's grace, you know, I was raised in a context in which the preaching of the word of God was central, was very, very important. And I was taught, you know, there are downsides to a conversionistic orientation where, you know, so much depends on these kind of events of encounter with God. If that's all you have, then you miss the process of discipleship. But my upbringing taught me to anticipate and seek the move of God in my life, to be open to that. So I was raised in this context where we had the preaching and teaching of the Word of God.

Dr. George Guthrie:
I was encouraged at these key moments of the year to really be open to God, moving in my life and changing me and moving by the spirit. And then also was blessed with some leaders when I was in high school who were kind of open to what God was doing in the broader Jesus movement and broader evangelicalism and to discipleship. And I started getting connected to The navigators and others started memorizing scripture. So it was more of a balance of kind of having these encounters with the Lord, but also that being grounded in the teaching of the word and went to a Christian university, Union University, where I would later teach for 28 years, and again had a mentor there named Bob Agee, who was a godly man who walked with me during those years. And, you know, so the Lord, Lord was very gracious to give me strong foundations, and especially people who kind of taught me how to walk in the word and yet that in a balanced way. You know, that was more relational and community oriented and that kind of thing.

Rob Thiessen:
Well, that's fascinating. And you with your southern accent. So you're from the South and, you know, here in Canada, of course, there's caricatures about, you know, Southern Baptist Christianity. And there's a lot of negative stigma out there, media influenced. But you're reflecting just, you know, growing up in a balanced home where, yeah, conversion was emphasized, but also, you know, that following Christ in life was you're not just saved for heaven. Yeah. You're saved for the journey that Christ has for us. Right?

Dr. George Guthrie:
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you know, when I look at my heritage, I'm actually a member now of Christ City here. So I'm in a Mennonite Brethren church. And I never was super denominationally oriented, you know, that wasn't my orientation. I was really more connected from early on to broader evangelicalism. But I appreciate things about my heritage. You know, we would raise $110 million for missions every year in one week, the Lottie Moon Christmas offering. That's right. And there was at its, you know, at its best. I mean, it's very easy with any group to look from the outside into caricature. But actually Southern Baptists were very, very diverse. And I was there in those years where we went through all of the conservative, you know, controversy and all of that kind of thing. But I'm thankful for what God did in my life, during that, that stage, and we all, you know, all of us, whatever community we're in, we have challenges because real people are involved in the process. Right? But I'm thankful for those people who had a big impact on me during those years.

Rob Thiessen:
Now, George, in you're calling, you know, you're here teaching New Testament. You've been writing and written commentaries, and I was checking out your blogs and very focused on the word of God. And, you know, we're tackling as a denomination, as a community, the renewal of our churches and just talk to us a little bit about why you're so passionate about Scripture, about helping the church engage well with Scripture. Why is Scripture foundational? And, you know, that's kept you so committed to this?

Dr. George Guthrie:
Well, one way to think about it is we, I think especially in the Western world, we can very easily fall into treating Scripture as an object, you know? So this is a body of literature that I need to master. Right? And yet we need to kind of back up a couple of steps there and understand that God is a communicator, that God was a communicator before the foundation of the world. You know, most ancient religions have the gods doing something, some weird action in the creation of the world. Well, we know from Scripture that God spoke and the world came into being, that God was interacting within the Trinity in communication prior to the creation of the world. So God is a communicator, God is a speaker, is a part of who He is. And so when He creates the world and it creates us as human beings, God communicates from the beginning with us as, as as human beings. So we know from the scriptures that God created the world through the Son, Jesus, that Jesus has created all things through His powerful word that shapes and forms the world. And then when we look at the ministry of Jesus as the incarnation takes place and Jesus steps into his creation, it is grounded. I'm actually teaching Matthew right now, and we were just going through Matthew eight and nine, which is talking about the ministry of Jesus as founded on his authority and on his call to discipleship.

Dr. George Guthrie:
So Jesus steps into the world and he shapes the world through his teaching, Sermon on the Mount, and then his parables, his other teaching. He founds a community that's grounded in his authoritative word and calls people to a life of discipleship, of living out those teachings in the world. So he is shaping and forming a community, but he is also in the process of putting things in motion that are going to literally, issue into the transformation of the heavens and the earth at the end of the age. So the kingdom has come in the person of Jesus. Jesus has put things in motion in the world. And that kingdom will develop and culminate at the end of the age with the new heavens and the new earth. So when we think about Scripture and the Word of God, what we have before us is in some ways a witness to what Christ has put in motion. And we have an in Scripture ration, if you will, of what God has done in the world and what God has said in the world, his authority, authoritative words. And we have the foundation of the prophets, you know, the Old Testament scriptures and the apostles, the New Testament scriptures that are the only connection that we have with what God did in the world in the person of Jesus and in the early Christian community.

Dr. George Guthrie:
There's no other connection. There's no other place that we can begin to understand what God was doing. And kind of the foundations that were laid in the person of Christ and in the apostles. And of course, all of this is working by the power of the Spirit. So Jesus sends the Spirit to continue to lead us into all truth. So it's not just saying, well, okay, we need to read and understand the scriptures. And if we just do the stuff it says, we're going to be okay. That was the Pharisees approach, treating Scripture as an object to master. But what we do is we live under the lordship of the Living Christ, by the power of the spirit who leads us into open hearts that understand the Scripture and are living the Scripture out as it's written on our minds and our hearts. And that brings about transformation and renewal. So Scripture is the foundation for renewal, because it is the authoritative, transforming, shaping Word of Christ that is the basis of all of living really.

Rob Thiessen:
Right. Well, that was one of the questions that we were talking about and that I wrote to you about is the interaction of word and spirit. And, you know, I was just recently, well last week was with a dying elderly person whose Bible I was looking through. The Bible is quite marked up. Right. And notes here and there, but as this person was dying, and you know, we were conversing at the bedside, there just wasn't any evidence to me that the person was prepared at all for heaven. And so, you know, I have been thinking about why it is and how it is that a person who has a marked up Bible and has, you know, somewhat of a knowledge of Bible, I would say that this person knew the facts of salvation, of grace, but their knowledge of God, like, in terms of personal knowledge, seemed to be at a zero. There wasn't any evidence of the fruit of the spirit. The character hadn't been shaped. And consequently, you know, in terms of the church, a person very critical of the church, not very engaged and in terms of the future in heaven, not particularly interested.

Rob Thiessen:
And in terms of a person shaped in the character of God, not a lot of evidence so, you know, that's sort of the opposite, right? That's a person who knows the facts of the Bible. And is this like, George, this goes into the a question that I have too, maybe some of our pastors wrestle with this and it's kind of, you know, the modern in our time disillusionment with the church, right? Disillusionment with evangelicalism and looking at evangelicalism and saying, oh, sure, you guys claim to be the people of the word, but you all argue about the Bible and have different opinions and who has any agreement about it. So how can you say that's the foundation? I think you've answered that, but maybe put a point on it. You know, for people who say, oh, well, Christians just argue about the Bible, how can that be the foundation?

Dr. George Guthrie:
Well, first of all, it's not true that Christians just argue about the Bible. I mean, if you look at the history of the Western world, the Bible has had a profound influence on the shaping of the West in all kinds of amazing ways. In fact, just to give you one example, a sociologist named Woodbury, has done work where he has shown that if you go and you find you look at all the places in the world right now that have a very strong foundation of democracy, the rights of women, education, medical care, all of these kinds of things. The foundation of many of those places goes back to 19th century Protestant missionary activity. And it's striking and it's, you know, it kind of, he's had a big impact on secular sociologists understanding the shaping influence. And you look at things like Tom Holland's book Dominion. and there have been a number of other books like that. The reality is that the church has had a profound impact for good. Now we know that there are all of the bits of where the church has done really badly and, you know, caused all kinds of heartache. But I would say that...

Rob Thiessen:
That's the narrative that the media is like, oh, the Bible supports slavery. And you're like, well, no.

Dr. George Guthrie:
But the reality is, that happened in the church when the church got away from a balanced understanding of Scripture. And we have tended to fall in the ditch on one side or the other, you know, on the road of walking the scripture. So what I would say to pastors is that the answer is to go more deeply into the scriptures and to, you know, if we're systematically kind of working our lives through the Scripture and helping our churches walk through the Scripture, what that does is that keeps us more balanced, because if the Scripture is not pushing back on us with our cultural prejudices, whatever they are, whether it's religious cultural prejudices or broader cultural prejudices. If the Scripture is not confronting and pushing back, as well as affirming and encouraging and all that, then something's wrong. You know, we're not really approaching the Scripture in a balanced way, because it will bring about the, you know, the ongoing renewal of the church. So I think part of the answer is to figure out, okay, how do we live, spirit filled lives that are have a posture of openness to what the Scripture would say to us, to what God by His spirit would work in us through the Scripture.

Rob Thiessen:
And in that sense, you know, with maybe evangelicals leaning towards saying, well, I'm interested in Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy or Anglican faith. I mean, each of those tracks in Christianity. Maybe you want to comment on. But to me, the validating part in each of them would be the degree to which they also are word and spirit communities. And I think each of those communities do have, you know, some evidence of word and spirit and where they veer away from it, they're just as chaotic as any other group.

Dr. George Guthrie:
That's right. Yeah, I think that's right.

Rob Thiessen:
You know, and we're sort of watching that in the Catholic Church now with the Pope and people are scratching their heads going, has he lost his, his compass in the Scripture with some of the things that he's saying?

Dr. George Guthrie:
Well, in the positive way to say it, like, you know, I teach at Regent College, which is transdenominational, but the source of our unity, you know, when you're in a context like that has to be God's word. you know, the great tradition at its best, which you look back through church history is where, that tradition was grounded in Scripture. And, you know, and the reason why we do disagree is because God chose to give us scripture in human language. And human language has to be interpreted. Right? So when we study the words seriously, what we're doing is we're respecting God's choice of communicating Scripture in human language in specific places and times and ways, you know, and so that's and I tell my students, look, the serious study of Scripture is all about respecting God's choice of how he communicated it to us. And we could say, well, I wish he had done it in a different way. You know, I wish he'd given us these golden tablets that just didn't have to be interpreted right? But that's not the reality, right?

Rob Thiessen:
The Bible is a handbook for living. It's just not the handbook we would have written. Yeah, that's right. It's not The Idiot's Guide and it's not, you know, it doesn't have an index the way we would do it in the West.

Dr. George Guthrie:
Millard Erickson, you know, who was the great systematic theologian, evangelical. Back when I was in seminary, his was the textbook that most seminaries were using for theology. And he used to do a class where he was talking about God and started taking off his tie and unbuttoning his shirt in the middle of class and on the front of his t shirt underneath it said, there is a God. And then he'd get to a certain point in the lecture and turn around on the back of his t shirt. It said, and you are not him, you know. And his point was that, look, God is God. We're not. We arrogantly think, well, probably it should have been done better, you know. But the reality is that the renewal of the church has always, always, in a sense been getting back to what is more, being pushed to what is more biblical. And that looks in all different kinds of ways, you know, depending on our backgrounds and our traditions, some of us need to be pushed, for instance, to more social action. Right? And if we're not careful in conservative circles, we think, oh, well, that's more of a liberal concern. No, it's a biblical concern that we care for people and love people and that kind of thing. It's just are we going to be balanced in those kind of things? Biblically. Right? So, you know, I guess that's a kind of a place to start.

Rob Thiessen:
What about, discipleship in the Word of God in the local church? So you're teaching the seminary level? Obviously. You know, people are there. You're walking through courses. What have you seen? You're attending Christ City. What have you seen? And would you say to pastors about discipling people in the local church, in the word of God, what sort of approaches, what are some of the foundational things that they should keep in mind? Because if renewal in the church is grounded in Scripture and its impact in people's lives, what would you say that you've observed in that bears good fruit?

Dr. George Guthrie:
Yeah, I would say that, you know, the foundationally, what we want to do is establish rhythms of life that are oriented to the word. I have said to pastors that it's astounding in our churches that we will hold up the Bible and we'll say, look, this is the Word of God. This is the foundation for everything we do in the church, foundation for everything in your life. And you ought to read this on a regular basis. And good luck with Leviticus. I hope that goes well for you. You know, so we challenge them that this is foundational, but we don't give even basic training to people in how to read the Bible well. I was involved back in beginning in about 2011, in an initiative in the United States called Read the Bible for Life. And we had over 50,000 people go through basic training in how to read the Bible more effectively. My, you know, website has a lot of the information of, you know, some of the stuff that we did during that time. And what we did was we basically challenged churches to do a basic class on how to read the Bible, and then to have an experience of reading through the story of Scripture together as a church. The churches that were most effective with that had two characteristics. One, the pastor was modeling, how to live that out. So in the midst of doing sermons and stuff like that, the pastor was very open about what was being learned in their own life, you know, scripture and transparent about that.

Dr. George Guthrie:
The other thing was churches that said, you know what? We're going to take time and make this a focus of our church for the next year. The churches that said, yeah, that's a great idea. We'll make it one of our 15 classes we're having on Sunday nights. That didn't work very well. But for those that were oriented to saying, we're going to really focus on this, this is one example of what they did. They would have a training at the beginning of the year, and then the rest of the year, the whole church would read through Scripture together and the pastor would preach through the story of Scripture in that year. So whatever the section of Scripture in kind of this chronological order was being read that week, the pastor would choose a passage from that section that was then preached on Sunday morning, and the whole service would kind of, you know, focus on that. So when you were going through, Lamentations, you actually had a lament service. And the pastor preached about lament, you know, that kind of thing. And we had people in their 70s who had been teaching Sunday school all their life who said, you know, why hasn't anybody ever kind of told us this stuff before? And it gave them a sense of a framework of the story of Scripture and people then wake up one morning and they think, wow, okay, this is who we are, because they're getting a sense of where we fit into that big story of Scripture.

Rob Thiessen:
Yeah, yeah. For me, probably like for you too. In your journey, you know, it was, my year at Capernwray, where we were studying the Bible, and I got my Ryrie study Bible.

Dr. George Guthrie:
Yeah. You're right.

Rob Thiessen:
My Ryrie study Bible. Yeah, with its cessationist.

Dr. George Guthrie:
Probably mid 1970s or early 80s or something like that. Yeah, yeah.

Rob Thiessen:
I made my dad buy one, and he was looking at it with me the other day and he goes, I can't believe, you know, he goes reading some of these notes. I'm like, yeah, but I said it was a good Bible. It's a good Bible and the American standard solid. But it was the exposure to the Bible that captivated me and it was God communicating. Really oh, I'm getting to know God. I'm building a base of knowledge of who he is. And that becomes a foundation. So in our church, you know, life journaling, you know, when I was 25 years ago or whatever, I was introduced to that habit. So we use it through the Bible. I was actually through the New Testament twice in a year in the Old Testament once. I'm not sure where that was. Wayne Cordeiro out of Hawaii, he had developed that and we used those journals and I preached on a Sunday about it. And then I started groups, you know, I would meet with people in coffee shops. Here's how to do this. It's devotional reading, but it's systematic.

Rob Thiessen:
But you developed a chronological Bible and you're introducing also like some tools like the narrative sweep of scripture. So you're helping people not just to read through it. Because honestly, Leviticus is a challenge for people when they hit it. As are other parts of the Old Testament and the prophets. And if they don't understand it in the sweep of redemption history, it's a little bit hard to negotiate. I remember a friend of mine once said, I don't think Leviticus was put there for devotional reading. And I went, no, you might be right about that. And so it needs context because it's important. So talk to us a little bit about that chronological Bible. Is that what you're describing. And maybe this is something that our churches and pastors want to take a look at. Because I think it's good to change up. I mean, life journaling is awesome, but after 25 years of doing it the same way, I'm thinking maybe it'd be good to read through the Bible in a different way.

Dr. George Guthrie:
Sure yeah. I mean, I think again, back to your previous question. We want to have rhythms personally. We want to have rhythms with our families in some way, and we want to have rhythms with our church family. Right? So we want to be people who are having these rhythms going on in general. The book, Read the Bible for life, that's still available on Amazon, that pastors can take a look at does deal with a lot of those different kinds of issues. I interviewed different people, in that book who were experts on different parts of the Bible, and then those who were pastors who were dealing with things like my wife and I did the chapter on how to read the Bible with the family, for instance, and we have real practical suggestions in there on how to do that. So, you know, you can use that resource "Read the Bible for Life" book. There's a little book that I did came out last year called, Short Guide to Reading the Bible Better. That's kind of a step back, even from the Read the Bible for life book.

Dr. George Guthrie:
And they will talk about some of the other tools. So there's a Bible called the Day by Day Chronological Bible that you can also get on on Amazon that has the CSB translation, but it is already put together in chronological order. And then I coach the person day by day, on how to read that section of scripture that day. So exactly what you're talking about, where are we in this in the story? How do we read, you know, biblical narratives of the Old Testament, for instance. And I will remind the reader, you know, when we're reading Old Testament narrative, God's always the hero of the story. So when you're reading David and Goliath today, ask the question, not how is David the hero? But how is God the hero of the story? That kind of thing. So they can look at some of those tools. But, you know, I honestly, I don't care what tools people use, but, you know, whatever is helpful for them in kind of establishing these patterns and their rhythms, that's what I'm interested in.

Rob Thiessen:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's so helpful, George. And I think a great reminder to us when we're talking about renewal in our churches, it's intimately connected and foundationally connected to Scripture to renewal. Absolutely. Yeah, it's transformative.

Dr. George Guthrie:
And having joy in the word. I mean, one of the things that I think was a mistake, the way that we started the Read the Bible for life initiative was we focused on, you know, statistics of how badly we're doing with with biblical literacy. And it dawned on me as I was going through that, you know, the reason for us settling in and reading the word is because we can meet the God of the universe, and it's in the pages of this book, you know, and that is a thing of joy. And I can honestly say, you know, I teach New Testament. I'm still in the process of discovery, and I am having great joy in discovering the word and hearing the word speak to my own life in my heart. It's about joy. It's about joy and that's what brings renewal.

Rob Thiessen:
Well, let's maybe we'll switch gears and talk a little bit about Philippians, because this reminds me of, you know, I think in the opening chapter where Paul talks, he has that joy even though he's in prison and his prayer is focused on knowledge. It begins in praying that you would grow in the knowledge of God. So joy and knowledge are connected. And I remember I was listening to Dallas Willard recently. He talks about the importance of knowledge, that it's foundational. Yeah and that everything is built off of what you know about God. And so pastors who are seeking renewal, need to go back to that awareness that God has revealed himself. And it's the knowledge of God that brings transformation. And so, you know, talk to us a little bit about Philippians, because I know you're going to use that text for our study in August for our pastor's day. But why is this? And you wrote a commentary on it. So what has this letter got that maybe speaks to us today? Because honestly, pastors are facing a lot of challenges in today's world. There's a lot of reasons, it may be Covid highlighted, but there's a lot of reasons why pastors feel like quitting. And as David Short said to us at the retreat a couple of years ago, what did you all think you were signing up for? You know, why are you so surprised that this is hard? None of this is is going to be easy.

Dr. George Guthrie:
Absolutely right.

Rob Thiessen:
Still we're shocked by it. Yeah. And so what does Philippians say to us? You know, as you've been deep diving into that.

Dr. George Guthrie:
In some ways, Philippians is a wonderful, kind of programmatic, you know, encouragement for us in pastoral ministry today because, Paul is dealing with two big challenges that are facing the church in Philippi. One is internal. The church was really struggling with unity. And you had relational breakdown. I think that relational breakdown, could have been a mix of ministry issues, but probably was grounded in just some practical issue that was going on, especially between Euodia and Syntyche, who are mentioned there in chapter four, verses one and two.

Rob Thiessen:
Center of the storm.

Dr. George Guthrie:
Center of the storm. That's right. The whole book. Structurally, we'll talk about this in August, but the whole book builds to that point. And for him to confront two people by name in a public, you know, statement, because a letter was meant to be read publicly. And the way the Greek lays it out there is, he says, and I say to Euodia and I say to Syntyche, I mean, he's making it very clear that he's addressing them individually and in essence saying, come on, ladies, you got to get it together here for the sake of the gospel, you know? So he's addressing the problem of disunity in the church. Does that sound familiar? And then he's addressing the problem of cultural pressure from outside the church. And the two are exacerbating one another. The church in Philippi, was living this countercultural gospel in a place that would have been very hostile to any religion that said, we're the only we're the only way. Yeah. And probably one of the things that was happening, for instance, is Philippi was built around the guilds, different types of work, guilds. And if you were a part of like the metalworkers guild or whatever you, sacrifice to the gods of that guild. So probably what was happening was people were in the church were actually pulling out of the guilds and pulling out of, you know, making sacrifices to Caesar, which because the Roman emperor cult was a big, big, big deal, Philippi saw itself as connected by the hip, you know, to Rome. They were a colony of Rome. And, so everything that they're doing to kind of live out this heavenly citizenship was actually causing people in Philippi to look at them and say, you guys are weird, you're off your rockers, and you're really dangerous for the social order.

Dr. George Guthrie:
And so Philippians really addresses how do we live together in unity by self-sacrificial service to one another? And then how do we live in the world in a way that is winsome but standing together for the sake of the gospel in a way that is, is effective, you know, in reaching people? So what we'll do in the in the course that week in August is we'll talk about the rich backdrop of what was going on in Philippi and in the church in Philippi. And then we'll kind of walk through and see what Paul does there. And the center section of the book is really framed around three key examples of leadership, the leadership of Christ. You know, that great Christ hymn we call it. And in Philippians two five through 11, the example of Timothy and Epaphroditus and then the example of Paul himself and, those examples kind of build the substance of the great center section, to say, these are the people you ought to be looking to for a model of how you pour your life out for other people. And that's then going to be the foundation for really building unity in the church. And of course, we as pastors need to lead by modeling, you know, that that vision for life, if you have if you have a leader who is wanting to be the center of attention, wanting everybody to kind of kowtow to them and what they think should be done and is not pouring out life for the community, then. You've got, you have a problem. Because that's not following the pattern that Philippians is talking about.

Rob Thiessen:
Yeah. The Philippians. Talk to us a little bit more about that. There's a bifurcation that sometimes and maybe this is with Anabaptist groups, but we like to emphasize Jesus, you know, when we read the scriptures through the lives of Jesus. And that's that I think is true. And I think I hope all Christians do that. But then there's a bifurcation that I hear between Paul and Jesus coming up for people and particularly the last while with some Anabaptists saying, oh, you know, we're looking for a more Christ like God. So now we're reinventing the God of the Old Testament and saying, oh no, whatever we read in the Old Testament, that doesn't, according to us, measure up to Jesus, uh, must be spurious or misguided. So all of a sudden the Bible, you know, seems to be divided into sections with the teaching of Jesus being sort of trumping everything. And I'm thinking like, well, Philippians doesn't allow that. I mean, and I don't think any of the Bible or, you know, as, as Ian Provan said, Jesus doesn't allow that. Like. That's right. What makes you think you can get off with separating out the God of the Old Testament? So in Philippians, Paul highlights the example of Christ, but then later on he says, but follow me and my example. So and you're saying and the pastor also has to likewise be willing to realize that their life also is an example. Yeah.

Dr. George Guthrie:
Well, the approach you describe is is very common. And it's deeply, deeply flawed for a number of reasons. Let me give you just a couple of them. One is, first of all, we need to remember that what we call the Old Testament was the Bible for Jesus and the early church. So they're profoundly oriented. There are 60 something like 68,000 cross references in the scripture, 68,000 and the reason for that, the reason why the Gospels and the letters of Paul and the other books of the New Testament are saturated with the Old Testament scriptures. So to some somehow start, you know, causing a divide between the Old Testament vision, new Testament vision is not fundamentally New Testament, you know, to begin with.

Rob Thiessen:
That was an old heresy, too, right?

Dr. George Guthrie:
Yeah. that's right. Yeah. Marcionism was, you know, kind of one of the expressions of that, and then the other thing is to start drawing a line between Paul and Jesus. I mean remember, Paul is put in motion by Jesus on the Damascus Road. He is seeing himself as living in Christ, out under the Lordship of Christ, going into the world. So you see a passage like 2nd Corinthians 2:17, where Paul is making the distinction between himself and the false teachers in Corinth, as he says, we live as sent by God before God. In other words, a posture before God of wanting to live out and in Christ. So Paul's whole ministry is driven by the ministry of Christ, the ongoing ministry of Christ. And to begin separating out is just basically something that shows there's not a balanced approach to the Scripture as a whole. There's not even a there's not even a sensitive reading of the Gospels and the letters of Paul. You know, there are different ways to kind of get at that. But it goes back to what I was saying. If we are reading in a balanced way, then we don't start playing parts of Scripture over against other parts of Scripture as if one part trumps the other.

Rob Thiessen:
What do you make of Paul's interesting kind of take on people who are preaching the gospel, out of various motives? How do you think that informs our attitude today? What does it say and what maybe what doesn't it say about how we should look at the sort of. Because in today's world, with the internet or whatever, there are so many preachers out there.

Dr. George Guthrie:
Yeah.

Dr. George Guthrie:
Well I mean, and let me answer that in two ways. The second one's a little harder to get at, and I'll explain why, but one, the preaching from different motives you actually see maximized in 2nd Corinthians. Now, I'm going to come back to your passage in Philippians in just a minute. But, you know, in chapter 11 of 2nd Corinthians, Paul says, these false teachers have come in and they were people who I think were what were called sophists. They were kind of professional preachers for hire who came in with they were dressed in, you know, the hippest clothes. And we don't have any of those all that kind of thing. Yeah. And yet, Paul says they're using the name of Jesus. They're talking about the gospel, and they claim the spirit, but it's a different Jesus. It's a different gospel. It's a different spirit. And so, you have people coming at things for self promotion, self aggrandizement, those kinds of things. And that's deeply problematic. But going back to your passage, you're talking about Philippians 1:12-14. And then as he transitions into verses 15 through 17. So he gets to the end of 14 there, and he's celebrating the fact that there are people in the church, I think they're in Rome, that Paul's in Rome.

Dr. George Guthrie:
I think he's talking about the church in Rome at that point. And he's saying there are people who have been emboldened to preach the word of God more fervently, publicly because of Paul's imprisonment. And there's a very interesting grammatical transition that he makes with verse 15. That's really important because that little grammatical transition would say, be translated something like. Now in addition to these, also there are those in the world who are speaking publicly about Christ out of envy and factionalism and these kind of things. Let me tell you what I think he was talking about there. He's not talking about people preaching the gospel as we think about it. He's talking about people who, in his public political context in the heart of Rome, are talking about him and his gospel. And so there are people who are standing up in public there. It's clear from verse 17 that they're trying to hurt Paul. In other words, they're trying to get him killed while he's in prison. And what they're doing is they're standing up and they're saying, look, this Paul is this and he's speaking about Jesus Christ being Lord of the universe, not Caesar. And, you know, he's talking about the forgiveness of sins and all this kind of stuff.

Dr. George Guthrie:
So what they're doing is they're inadvertently promoting the gospel even as they're trying to hurt Paul politically. Now, they may have been Jewish in background. They may have been, you know, some other kind of political stripe. But the point is that they were inadvertently promoting the gospel through what they were doing. I tell you a good analogy of this I've done a good bit of teaching in Israel, and I'm a part of or have ministered in the context of a ministry called "One for Israel". And a number of years ago, a Anti-missionary group, ultra-Orthodox Jewish group, took out a big ad in the paper warning people about this group who were talking about Jesus and the gospel and all of this kind of stuff took out a big ad and said, do not go to this website, okay? Do not listen to the podcast of these people. Well, you know what happened. I mean, their hits were blew off the chart because this anti-missionary group was saying, don't go listen to these people. and it inadvertently, you know, promoted the gospel. And by the way, God is doing amazing things in Israel and the church there. But, so anyway, I think that's what's going on in that case. Yeah.

Rob Thiessen:
Well, you know, these days, I mean, I've mentioned it before on the podcast, but, you know, quite often tune in to, Jordan Peterson and his discussions or like you mentioned, Tom Holland or Doug Murray, you know, and it's just fascinating. I don't know if you heard, but Ayaan Hirsi Ali, has become a Christian. She identifies as a Christian now. So you've got all these people who, you know, you scratch your head, you're going. Well, I'm not sure what kind of a Christian are they? And some some of them, you hear their story. Like when I listen to Jordan Peterson, I'm thinking. I'm not really sure that he understands or has embraced Christ, but my word, people are showing up in church, going. I listened to Jordan Peterson, and I just have to find out if there's anything to this Christianity.

Dr. George Guthrie:
It's amazing. I mean, you have these intellectuals in the world who through looking at like the history of Western Christianity, like Tom Holland would be an example of that. You have the same thing going on, for instance, in China, the gospel is spreading dramatically among the elite intellectuals as well as among, you know, their estimates are over 100 million Christians in China now, and you know, I mean, right now I have five, I think it's five PhD students from China in this exchange program that Regent has with these top universities in China. They're not believers yet, but they're sitting in my New Testament Foundations class and asking amazing questions about the faith. And I'm hoping that they're going to come to Christ, you know, but you have this dynamic going on in the world, but it's because they're taking seriously that, you know, this kind of what's going on in the Western world is grounded in the Judeo-christian view of the world. And when they start looking at that carefully, they begin saying, you know, this makes a lot of sense.

Dr. George Guthrie:
You know? Yeah.

Rob Thiessen:
And even sometimes, like, I haven't listened for a while, but a while ago, Peterson had a YouTube where he was chastising the church. And I was like, well, you're spot on. You know, he was calling the church out. I said, where's your courage? Where's your your voice? Yeah. So yeah, the Lord is stirring up things from strange corners. And, and that's a little bit of, I guess, like you pointed out very well how Paul was experiencing the same thing.

Dr. George Guthrie:
I'm excited about what we're going to do both in the April weekend and also the, I think it's in August that we're doing Philippians that actually that idea came the guy who, you know, originally is organizing that, was a part of a group where I had done this with Haddon Robinson, you know, the great kind of prince of preaching professors in the United States. And I taught through Hebrews. I taught through Second Corinthians with his group for a week. And the idea was that we would go through the details of a book like Philippians, so that then the pastors can turn around and preach through that book for six months or a year or whatever. And I love that. I love doing that to help pastors get really deeply grounded in a book so they can turn around and share it with their congregation. That's what we're going to be doing.

Rob Thiessen:
Yeah, exactly. That's Pastor Stewart, Brian Stewart at Life Center. He told me about that idea years ago, and I said, that's brilliant. How do we get something like that going? And so this is our first year. Yeah. For our listeners, do sign up for that. That's coming, I think August 5th to the 8th or something. It's that first week in August. And you know, if you're a newer preacher, it's going to be an amazing opportunity for you to learn some habits of exegeting the Scripture well and developing a good, you know, the big idea, the sermon outline. Yeah. How to illustrate and yeah. And I think it'll be fun. We'll be up in Vernon for that. And, well, that's a good place for us to wrap up maybe this conversation. Thank you so much for taking out the time in your busy schedule, Doctor Guthrie. And we're just really looking forward to interacting with you at retreat. Coming up at the end of April, listeners, do sign up for that Pastors and Spouses retreat. We're at the Westin at Whistler again. Great spot. And we want to be encouraged and fed from the Word of God and challenged together. So God bless you in your ministry. We love Regent. And yeah, we're very blessed to have this time with you.

Dr. George Guthrie:
Well, Rob, thank you. This has been a real privilege to

Dr. George Guthrie:
be with you. Look forward to being with you in April and in August.

Rob Thiessen:
Okay.

Rob Thiessen:
Take care. And, we'll be with you again next time on this podcast. Thanks, everyone, for joining us and giving us this hour.

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