A

Foreign. This is the Bama podcast with Marty Solomon. I'm his co host, Brent Billings. Today we begin the last leg of our journey through the four pillars, examining our commitment to wrestling.

B

That's right. We've got the first three pillars under our belt. We have journeyed through three quarters of this series up to this point. We have talked about the text and the importance of making sure we have the scriptures with us. The thing that the. At least one of the things that the spirit wants to work through. We've talked about the importance of community and not doing anything. Bema, Faith alone, by ourselves. We have talked about discipleship and just how important that is to not just developing leaders, but a unique way of finding people that God wants to shape and develop in unique ways. Because we've talked about the call of discipleship not necessarily being for every single believer, at least in the way that Bema talks about it, but we've done that. And so now it's time to grab the last pillar, which is a pillar of wrestling, which means we basically turn around and we say, let's just ask the question, what if everything that we've set up to this point in the series needs to be reexamined? Beautiful.

A

That's a nice way to put it.

B

That's what we do. Yeah. And I can't remember, Brent, I had a great idea for this episode right before I started Book Tour, and I was like, oh, when the wrestling episode comes along, I'm going to do this. And for the life of me, I sat there yesterday for half an hour, like, what was I going to do? As I went to write the episode, couldn't find it. Was digging through the archives. Heck if I know what I was going to do. It was a good idea, though, whatever idea it was. I was like. I particularly thought to myself, reed will be so proud of me for getting out of the box. And Reed doesn't have to worry about being proud of me, because I can't remember.

A

What if you get into the box with Reed and you and Reed wrestle physically?

B

That's right.

A

Absolutely.

B

Boom. Octagon. Let's go. Ufc. All right, well, I'm just going to dive into what I wrote instead, which I feel like is pretty good. I'm excited for our conversation today. Wrestling.

A

Yeah. Wrestling is like the universal pillar.

B

Yeah.

A

You can do it anytime, anywhere, in any context.

B

Yes.

A

You can always sit back and examine things and consider other possibilities. Like, it's just. It's so. It's so useful.

B

Yeah. It is the universal pillar. And over the years as I've gotten to meet more and more people and kind of travel more and more and do meet and greets or book events or just meet people all over, I have come with, like a new appreciation of. This is a very large part of what the Bama experiment does for people. It validates questions, it encourages wrestling. This is not a throwaway pillar. When we were doing the community pillar, we joked that it was kind of three, then four. And this fourth is a big one that we add in. It's not a toss away. So why not start with why this pillar is important to me. I've watched how important it ends up becoming to other people, which has been very affirming and very encouraging to watch and to hear and to listen. But why is this pillar important to me personally, kind of when I constructed all of this stuff, I would start by saying Western Christianity has always. Western Christianity, not necessarily ancient Second Temple Judaism, not necessarily the world of Jesus and his disciples and apostles, but Western Christianity kind of second and third century on. We have always been about defining truth. We have been people of creeds as early as we could be. We have been people of belief statements. We have built theology. Everything that I've just mentioned has been rooted since the dawn of Western Christianity, Western Gentile Christianity. It's almost all of it been anchored in philosophy. And that leads to a particular thing. And it's not a knock. I am not throwing shade at Orthodoxy. I think some of those conversations, I think the creeds and the things that came out of Western Christianity for the history of our faith are deeply important. I think knowing what Orthodoxy is and why the early Christians thought certain conversations were so important, I think those are very important. We don't need to throw out creeds. We don't need to throw out Orthodoxy. Not a knock on that. It's not a knock on truth. It's not a knock on definition. Our systems of theology and people know that. I've been irritated at times with systematic theology and what it becomes, but this conversation isn't a knock on that. There's such a beautiful place for what Western Christianity, that Left hand has brought to the larger song of God's people. It's beautiful, but on its own it leads in a particular direction. What's happened is that Western Christianity has often had a weird addiction or obsession with certainty, which whenever I say this, I always think of P dens as a book called the Sin of Certainty. I really like it.

A

It's a great title.

B

It's a great title, absolutely. And it's a title that kind of captures where we've been in the Western world of Christianity. A lot of those things are beautiful things, but it leads us down a road, if unchecked and untethered, to kind of like our. I don't want to say Eastern roots, but our. Our roots in a Jewish world. It's led us to this weird relationship with certainty. So Christianity is often about proofs. It's often about comprehensive explanation. It's about analysis. It's often about apologetics. There's a place for all those things I just listed. But when that's the only thing that's in the bucket, when that's the only thing that's on the table, it does something. And part of why this is important to me is because we have placed our confidence in our system of belief. Like, we put our faith in our theology. We don't put it in God. We say we're putting it in God. But when push comes to shove, like when you really start to press in and look at it and pull it apart, what our confidence is anchored in is not the dynamic person of God. It's not this member or figure of the Godhead. It's not the Creator of the universe. It's not a person. It's a system. It's not a person. It's a set of beliefs that we've put our confidence in and that. That should be critiqued. Theology should not be a substitute for God. Theology should not be a substitute for revelation. Our systems of belief should not be those things. Theology is something that we do for what we might call meaning making or making meaning. I first heard that phrase in a book by Karen Swallow Prior, who endorsed our last book and actually did a little substack post on our book. If you found it, you could put that in the show notes.

A

Okay.

B

Karen Swallow Pryor is a evangelical author, and she wrote the book the Evangelical Imagination. And I quoted a few times in our the Gospel of Being Human. But she talks about meaning making. How do you make meaning? Which, when I first heard it, I thought it was her phrase, and I thought it was both. It made me uncomfortable and I thought it was genius. And then in my grad program and the next few months that followed, I actually discovered that that phrase predates Karen Swallow Pryor quite a bit and is used by other people. And I was like, oh, wow, who knew? Theology is something that helps us make meaning. It bridges the gap between revelation. Not the book of Revelation, but divine revelation, the Scriptures, and faithfulness. It bridges the gap between Orthodoxy and orthopraxy. Theology is the thing that helps us do faith. Doing theology is taking our beliefs and starting to build something robust practice. Not spiritual practices, not necessarily spiritual disciplines, but a life of faithfulness is what I mean by that. Practice is the point, not correct thinking. It's not a test that we're going to pass. It's a life that we're going to live. It's not a test that we're going to pass when we die later. It's a life that we're going to live now. Our theology matters because it helps us understand and find meaning in what we do every day as we partner with God. However, and I would maybe just kind of conclude this session, this little section of my monologue here, my little rant with this. An obsession with certainty cuts the legs out of good theology because theology is not the problem. Good theology and bad theology. Bad theology is the problem, but theology is not the problem. An obsession with certainty cuts the legs out of good theology. When you can't think critically, when you are not allowed to ask questions, when you aren't open to the wonder and mystery of all that we haven't understood and explained. Like, how much have we never even considered? What are all the things that we don't know? Brent, I haven't talked to you since Artemis 2 has returned. Oh, did you geek out a little bit over that? That feels like a Brent Billings type thing.

A

Yeah, I followed it pretty closely.

B

And like, we've been out there before and yet it still is, like, golly, all the things that we don't know, all the things that we've never considered. Yeah, perspective. Geez. Jeepers.

A

Yeah. We have been there before and we just went a little bit farther. And it's just a totally different perspective.

B

Yeah, absolutely. So it's just one of those, like, physical, material, scientific experiences and reminders. Like, when you're not open to all of the wonder and the mystery of everything that's beyond our belief systems, all the things we haven't put in a creed. When we are discouraged or punished for asking questions and thinking big, then we'll never find a God that's any bigger than our theology. Our God will always be limited and as small as our theology can contain. And that feels bad. That feels like a bad thing.

A

You know, I saw this sketch the other day that was imagining of Pontius Pilate and somebody is running the Apostles Creed by him, and it's like, suffered under Pontius Pilate, crucified, dead, buried.

B

Oh, I saw this. That's Right.

A

I don't know if I can find it, but if I can find it, I'll put it in the show notes. But he's like, so are you guys going to mention Herod at all or maybe the Jews Chief priest? Yeah, I can't remember what he said. I want to say chief priest, but I was like, is that a behemoth perspective that I'm shoving into this sketch anyway? Yeah, sometimes the creeds oversimplify things. It's like there's a little more going on here. If this is all we have, we're in trouble.

B

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I mentioned this just in passing a moment ago and we've mentioned it along the way because it's the season. It's the season right now as we record this. Reid and I wrote a book that just came out a couple weeks ago. By the time you hear this, it will have long been out because you're

A

busy doing your book tour. So we can record a little bit ahead.

B

We are recording ahead right now. But the Gospel of Being Human is the new book that Reid and I wrote. There's a story in there I wanted to go back to for our conversation about wrestling. I wrote the book in Scotland. And, you know, I usually get away for these seven or eight day writing retreats. And I have kind of a schedule that I keep. It's about a six, a six and a half day schedule. And if everything stays on schedule, then that means that by the time I'm done, I kind of get to reward myself with like an extra day, kind of a Sabbath, if you will, of just kind of enjoying wherever it is that I usually go somewhere to write. In this instance, I was in Scotland. If I get behind schedule, I have a little bit of margin. Maybe I can still finish up if I'm running a little behind and a little late. But I was on schedule for this book and I got done a day early. And so my host, David said, you know, let's. If you're on schedule, let's get out and let's just get out of the. I mean, it was February in Scotland. I wasn't there in July. I was there in like the rainy, dreary cold. Nobody else is there who wants to be there in February. And he said, let's just get out of the. Out of the little cabin that you have there and let's go to Aberfeldy. And so we took off for the day. We went to Aberfeldy. We drove by one of J.K. rowling's five estates that she has there, apparently. I was told this is the one that has the exact replica of Hagrid's cottage there on property.

A

So I don't know what that means.

B

Well, hardly.

A

Me either.

B

My family listened to it on a car ride. So I think I've heard the Harry Potter series more than I've actually read it, but okay.

A

All right.

B

Anyway, so we were in Aberfeldy. We did a couple things, and we were just kind of running behind. Time slipped away. And there was a cathedral there. Its name was Dunkeld. Dunkeld Cathedral used to be the seat of Christianity in Scotland. When the cathedral was built about 800 years ago, just under 800 years ago. And the seat of Christianity eventually moved to St Giles in Edinburgh. That's the Church of John Knox there in Edinburgh. But it was this Dunkild Cathedral. And we wanted to go see it, but it closed at 4. Well, we got done with our last stop and walking out to the parking lot about, like, 4:10, 4:12. We're like, oh, no, we're late. We're not going to get to see it. And he said, let's go. Drive by and at least you'll be able to, like, see the cathedral from the gate. And there's a couple signs there. You can read it. At least you'll be able to see it. So we get over there and the gate's still open. So we let go in and Reverend Frazier is there. Frazier is the first name, if I remember correctly. And he's giving, like, he's finishing up with a group that was there at just, like, the end of the day, just a few people. So they're on their way out the door, and we're like, oh, we don't need to, like, stay. We know that it's past closing time. He's like, no, no, no. Let's like, I'll give you 10, 15, 20 minutes, like, hang out, stay here. And so he let us kind of like walk around the grounds. And I write about the book. It was an incredible experience, like a very emotional experience for me, kind of inside the main meeting space that they have today. But what I wanted to talk about today was outside the cathedral. They started renovations in 2019. The historical society of Scotland, if I remember the name correctly. And Covid happened and funding dried up, and so everything kind of stalled. And if I've read the Internet correctly, they've kind of started back up, but they're still not complete. So Dunk held still kind of under renovations. And so when you were walking around the outside, there was a whole bunch of the building that was closed off and roped off and fenced off. There's scaffolding kind of all around the cathedral. And as it was explained to me, the Reverend said that when this cathedral was built centuries and centuries ago, the whole thing is kind of. It's a stone building, but it's reinforced with iron. And I'm not an engineer, so I don't know any of this stuff or how to talk about it. But he said the iron from whatever, five, 600 years ago, 800 years ago, it's aging and expanding and essentially pushing the building apart. If they don't do something to Dunkild Cathedral, the building will literally destroy itself. The building itself is destroying itself. So if they want to save the building, they will have to pull it apart, some might say deconstruct it. The purpose of that deconstruction is to save the building. So they're taking it apart stone by stone, removing the parts of the building that were once helpful but now no longer helpful. And then they are putting in new things that will help the build, and they're going to put the building back together in order to save the building. And it became this, like, beautiful picture for me of why we wrestle. Because if we don't ask questions and if we don't wrestle, if we don't surround our faith with some scaffolding and pull it apart a little bit and check in on some things that were helpful for us. Brent Billings, 400 years ago. There are some things in our faith that were helpful for us all the way back, and they're just not. They're just not helpful today. Not because they're bad, but because the world has changed and things and the iron expands and it wasn't built for what it's doing today. And you get. I'm abusing the metaphor, but, you know, I think. I think it's good.

A

I think it's helpful.

B

Yeah, we're going to wrestle with stuff. We're going to pull it apart so that we can save the things that need to be saved. And we're going to reexamine some stuff. We're going to find some things that need to be replaced or discarded. We're going to repurpose some stuff. And because we wrestle, our faith will remain vibrant, standing. It will be a beautiful cathedral of faithfulness. So I just think of that picture all the time.

A

Well, maybe I can give you a counterexample that some other people might like.

B

Okay, I like counter examples.

A

So the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, it burned down. Not down, but it caught on fire a few years ago. And thankfully, there was a lot of stuff that had been taken out for restoration and renovation previously. So a lot of stuff was already, like, safe. The whole roof was a problem. But they're like, well, we gotta forget about that, because if we don't save this other part, then this is gonna collapse, and then that'll make this collapse.

B

Sure.

A

So they had to save the bell towers. So anyway, they're sitting there at this point and they're like, well, we gotta rebuild it. How are we going to do it? And they made the decision to get wood from the same places where the original wood came from hundreds of years ago. And they made the decision to find anybody they could find who knew the techniques that they used when they were originally building it. And they went back to these traditions, completely different from the way we build anything today. But they wanted to restore it to what it was before. So sometimes you have this crisis of faith and you're like, oh, we actually need to go back to our traditions to build things up to the way it was. And we didn't even realize. We didn't appreciate what we had.

B

Yes.

A

And we just kind of, like, let it go. So sometimes, and that's happening a lot today, where people are like, oh, these liturgies and these older practices of the church that we kind of threw out in our modern society, it's like, oh, there's actually some value to those.

B

Absolutely.

A

And that's part of the wrestling, too. It's like, well, what do we need to return to? And what do we need to rebuild in a different way so that we don't destroy ourselves? So there's the tension. I assume we're going to talk more about tension. Wrestling is all tension, because there's almost never a point where this is completely resolved.

B

Yeah, absolutely. 100%. That's a great build onto the same concept and. And metaphor there. I do love that there was some stuff that got pulled out of the book when I went to write it that I've loved kind of using on book tour. There's a quote from Leonardo da Vinci that says this. I came to the entrance of a great cavern in front of which I stood some time, astonished and unaware of such a thing. Bending my back into an arch, I rested my left hand on my knee and held my right hand over my downcast and contracted eyebrows, often bending first one way and then the other to see whether I could discover anything inside. And this being forbidden by the deep darkness within. And after having remained there some time, two contrary emotions arose in me. Fear and desire. Fear of the threatening dark cavern. Desire to see whether there were any marvelous thing within it. Da Vinci has this discussion about, I'm assuming, a real lived experience, A cave he finds one day and it becomes this metaphor for what it means to be human, what it means to be alive. You live in what you just called tension. Like you live in between these two things of I don't know what lies behind this darkness. I also have this innate human curiosity to know what lies behind the darkness. I know that what lies behind the darkness could be dangerous, could be a drop off, could be a bear, could be something in this cavern. I also really want to know what's behind the darkness of this cavern. And we live in that. Ian Leslie, which is actually where I got that quote from Da Vinci. He had a book called Curious. The subtitle was something like the desire to know and why your life depends on it, or something like that. He said this. This is what being human entails. We spend our entire lives at the entrance of a cave, caught between the safety of the familiar and the yearning for novelty. The peace of home and the thrill of travel. The tonic and dominant chords. We have this need to wrestle. To wrestle is to be human and to be human in a healthy way. And so part of what wrestling means to me in the last year or two, as I've been doing some of these projects, is I've become aware of puzzles and mystery. Puzzles are problems. We love to create puzzles. Like our whole world is about puzzles. The Western world loves puzzles. We create a puzzle, we give you a solution. We create a puzzle, we give you a solution. Think about watching your most favorite little episodic. You watching anything these days? Brent Billions. You watch anything on any episodic? Binging, Netflix, Hulu? You got anything going on you can mention on the podcast?

A

Maggie and I are going through Shrinking.

B

Oh, yes. Oh, I love that show. My wife and I are doing that too. Absolutely. Which is a perfect example. These little whatever they are, 4050 minute episodes where you've got a little arc, you got a little plot, it's an episodic puzzle that finds a solution. And all the puzzles are a part of a larger arc. But you definitely have this episodic engagement with puzzle solution, puzzle solution, puzzle solution, which is fine, but we often have done that with theology. Like we create little puzzles and we're ready to offer you the solution. This is like what advertising does. This is what marketing does this is what the car salesman does. Well, here's the puzzle. I'm going to create the puzzle for you. I also am ready with a solution. And so a lot of what I was trained with in theology is, well, here's the puzzle of humanity, and we have the answer convenient, which is good. And there's lots of those puzzles that are actually very appropriate, very accurate, and that's fine. Behind it all is mystery. And the difference between mystery is mystery is not something that you find a solution to. Mystery is not an episodic puzzle. Mystery is this bigger thing that you walk through one door and four more doors lie behind it. I've been trying to stay awake to all the ways that my world and my theology offers me puzzles. They're not always bad. I'm not saying puzzles are bad. Problems need to be solved. I get it. But where do I settle for puzzles when the greater reward is found in mystery? One of the other things that Karen Swallow Pryor talked about in that book I referenced earlier is the idea of hypocognition. This idea that there are things that we assume so readily, metaphors that are no longer even spoken, metaphors, symbols that we live with that are no longer directly in our language. They're so assumed that no language actually references them, and yet we are all assuming them and completely unaware of it. That's hypocognition. If that's true, it lends incentive towards curiosity. It tells us why wrestling would be so important, so that I become more aware of my own hypocognition so that I can engage it. We talk about curiosity, attention, and wonder. And the story we use to talk about that is Exodus 3 and the burning bush. So, Brent, can you read me the first six verses of Exodus 3?

A

Now, Moses was tending the flock of Jethro, his father in law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire, it did not burn up. So Moses thought, I will go over and see this strange sight why the bush does not burn up. When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush. Moses. Moses. And Moses said, here I am. Do not come any closer. God said, take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground. Then he said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. At this, Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God.

B

So Moses has this, like, divine encounter. He has this encounter with mystery. He finds himself reacting to this divine encounter. The whole encounter is opened by this idea of a burning bush. And I think most of us have grown up with like, oh, wow, the bush was burning. That's the thing, is that there's a bush on fire. And the rabbi said, yeah, yeah, yeah. But a bush on fire is not that big of a deal. The thing that actually opens the door to this holy moment with God and Moses is the fact that Moses notices that the bush is not being consumed. It says it twice. It's like the thing that's repeated. And the rabbis noted it. They said, okay, the bush is on fire. That's fine. But what gets Moses attention is he says, wait a minute. That bush isn't. Brent, have you ever been somewhere in a really, really nice home or some hotel or something that has a fireplace that is actually so well designed that you're not sure if it's gas or not?

A

Yeah, a couple times.

B

Yeah. And you walk over and you, like, the only way you can tell. How do you tell? Well, there's a couple ways, maybe, but how do you tell?

A

Well, like, you're looking for a little pipe coming from somewhere. Or maybe once you get close enough, then the wood.

B

Yeah.

A

You know, you can start to tell, like, oh, that's not. That's not normal wood.

B

Yeah, the wood's not being consumed. It's like, you watch the wood and it's like, okay, that wood is not actually burning. And some of that stuff that's really designed. Well, you can't. Like, it kind of glows and it kind of pulses. You're not even sure if the wood's actually burning, but you're looking and you're realizing that the wood is not being consumed. It's like Moses was out in the middle of the desert in Israel and he saw a gas burning bush. It's like, wait a minute. That bush isn't being consumed. That looks. And the whole point that the rabbis kind of get the get at in the larger midrashic conversation is this is the character of Moses. It takes a certain level of curiosity. First of all, it takes a certain level of attention. It takes you a while to sit there and look at a bush on fire in the middle of the Negev and realize, like, Brent, you were in the Negev. A burning bush would have been something. But would your first assumption have been like, oh, that bush is not being consumed.

A

Right? Yeah.

B

No, absolutely not. Moses has to give enough attention to this moment that he realizes that there's something else going on here. He has to be curious enough to give it attention, and then he has to be open enough to the fact that there could be something he doesn't understand. So that whole curiosity, attention and wonder,

A

and it must have been something special if he was willing to turn away from his flock.

B

Yes, totally.

A

Shepherd doesn't wander away from his flock.

B

Yeah, absolutely. 110%. So I thought we could dance with one more scripture passage here before we give some concluding comments. So I want to go over to Acts 10. Brent, if you'll go to Acts 10. I want to read this story of Cornelius and Peter has a vision. And I just kind of want to want to unpack this for just a moment. I'm going to interrupt you as I do. It's the Bama way, but yes, I'm just going to have you start reading Acts chapter 10.

A

I think your dance term is very appropriate for this.

B

Absolutely.

A

At Caesarea, there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion in what was known as the Italian regiment. He and all his family were devout and God fearing. He gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly. One day at about 3 in the afternoon, he had a vision. He distinctly saw an angel of God who came to him and said, cornelius.

B

All right. So Cornelius is an outsider. He's a Gentile. He's not a Jew. He's not an insider to God's story. We are told that he's a God. We've talked before in season four about God fearers. So he's a God fearer. He's somebody who worships the God of Israel. He honors the God of Torah and the God of the Bible. But he's not a Jew. He's not circumcised. He has any kosher he admires. He might even worship and love the God of Israel, but he doesn't follow Torah. He is on an observant level, he is definitely an outsider. Yet he loves God. And this God shows up and gives him a vision like this. God meets him in his very non Torah observant space and he has an encounter. Go ahead.

A

Cornelius stared at him in fear. What is it, Lord? He asked. The angel answered. Your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God. Now send men to Joppa to bring back a man named Simon who is called Peter. He is staying with Simon the Tanner. Whose house is by the sea. When the angel who spoke to him had gone, Cornelius called two of his servants and a devout soldier who was one of his attendants. He told them everything that had happened and sent them to Joppa.

B

All right, so Cornelius has this vision. He has this experience. God tells him he needs to send for Simon, that there's this encounter that's going to happen. So he sends, he listens, he trusts the story. He sends some of his people, some of his men, and a soldier, probably. It says a devout soldier. Doesn't say a devout soldier. Let's see here. Two of his servants and. Yeah, and a devout soldier, which I would assume that devout refers to, again, like some kind of God fearer. Not committed to his military assignment, but committed to faith. But you could argue that, I suppose. But he sends them down to Simon, Simon who is in Joppa now. In the meantime, this is what's happening with Simon. Go ahead.

A

About noon the following day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. He became hungry and wanted something to eat. And while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. It contained all kinds of four footed animals, as well as reptiles and birds. Then a voice told him, get up, Peter. Kill and eat. Surely not, Lord. Peter replied, I have never eaten anything impure or unclean. The voice spoke to him a second time. Do not call anything impure that God has made clean. This happened three times, and immediately the sheet was taken back to heaven.

B

So they're on their way. Peter doesn't know that. Peter's just having his normal day. He's a little hungry, needs himself a little snack, goes up on the roof, ends up having a vision. I have all kinds of crazy feelings when I'm hungry, you know. Feels like a Snickers commercial, you know?

A

Yeah.

B

So he has this vision and he sees this sheet and it's full of unclean animals, reptiles, we're told. Maybe it's got some rabbit in there or some shellfish. Maybe it's got a wonderful prepared lobster in that sheet. It's got some alligator. Brent. I returned from Louisiana, and the Bayma group there had sent me with gator because I can't eat any prepackaged alligator jerky, right? And so they said, well, take it home to Brent. Yeah, maybe there was some alligator jerky in the sheet, I don't know. But the voice says, peter, you're hungry. Get up and eat. And Peter's like, no, I don't eat unclean things. And the voice says, okay, but don't call things that I've called clean unclean. Peter's like, okay, that's fine, but I've read my book of Leviticus. That is unclean. So no, thank you. So the sheet goes up, and this happens three times. Sheet comes back down. Rise, kill, and eat. I'm not going to. It's unkosher. It's not clean. Don't call unclean what I've called clean. Okay, I heard you the first time, but you called that unclean, so, no, thank you. Sheet goes up. Sheet goes back down.

A

This is a test.

B

That's right. It's a test. And he won't eat. And the voice keeps saying, okay, that's fine, but don't call unclean what I've called clean. Peter's like, yeah, no, that's fine, but that lobster is unclean. I can't eat the alligator. Like, I can't. I'm sorry.

A

He's like, mark, give me that Leviticus scroll. I got to double check something.

B

That's right. That's right.

A

He's like, nope, it's there. Unclean.

B

He saw the pint of bacon from session four. That's right. Can I. No, I can't. So he says, no. So then there's a knock at the door. Go ahead and keep reading.

A

While Peter was wondering about the meaning of the vision, the men sent by Cornelius found out where Simon's house was and stopped at the gate. They called out, asking if Simon, who was known as Peter, was staying there. While Peter was still thinking about the vision, the spirit said to him, simon, three men are looking for you. So get up and go downstairs. Do not hesitate to go with them, for I have sent them. Peter went down and said to the men, I'm the one you're looking for. Why have you come? The men replied, we have come from Cornelius the centurion. He is a righteous and God fearing man who is respected by all the Jewish people. A holy angel told him to ask you to come to his house so that he could hear what you have to say. Then Peter invited the men into the house to be his guests.

B

All right, so Peter now has a few pieces of information. He's got this vision. He's got this experience that he's had. He also has. What does it say here? It says the spirit said to him. So he's got the spirit telling him, like, there's some people here for you. Don't be afraid to go with them. So he's got a vision, he's got some instruction, he now has some context. He's heard that they're here from Cornelius, and he's a centurion and he's a God fearer. So now he's got all these pieces. Peter also has, by the way, before we finish the story, Peter has a tradition. He doesn't know this yet, but all of this is going to collide with his tradition in his world. The Jews said, God doesn't want us to be unclean. He doesn't want us to eat things that are unclean. He doesn't want us to engage in impure things, to touch impure things, to be an impure people. And so there are a lot of things that we can eat. And Gentiles. The problem is, I don't know what a gentile ate that morning. I don't know what they've touched. They don't follow Torah. They don't have the same cleanliness laws. They're not following the same purity code. So it made logical biblical sense. This is a biblical argument, a logical one, but seems like a really good one. They said, if we want to follow God and be devoted to what God's asked us, we're not going to eat with Gentiles. We can be with Gentiles. We can even to this day. Brett Billings if I go to meet with an Orthodox Jewish friend of mine, that they won't eat with me. If I go to meet with them, they will not eat with me, they will not dine with me, they'll have a beverage with me, they'll have a coffee. We can go to a coffee shop. I know that they can invite me over for Sabbath. So I don't know what the loophole is there, what the Sabbath observance, how that changes things. But generally speaking, they will not eat because that presumes some level of fellowship. And they're just assuming, like, I don't know, are you clean today? Are you not clean today? You don't even follow Calinius law. You're probably unclean. I'm just not going to. So I don't eat with. This is Peter's tradition. It's not some crazy practice of exclusion. It's a biblically based tradition and practice. It makes biblical sense. Go ahead and keep reading.

A

The next day, Peter started out with them and some of the believers from Joppa went along. The following day, he arrived in Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and Close friends. As Peter entered the house, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet in reverence. But Peter made him get up, stand up. He said, I am only a man myself. While talking with him, Peter went inside and found a large gathering of people. He said to them, you are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile.

B

Let me interrupt you there in the middle of that sentence. This idea of associate with or visit a Gentile that kind of feels funny in the English. Obviously, Jews can interact with Gentiles. It's happening all around them in the story. That idea of associating and visiting, what happens in the Middle east every time you go into somebody's house, Brent, it's going to happen every time.

A

They're going to serve you.

B

They're going to be hospitable. They're going to serve you a meal. This idea of associating and visiting comes with a certain level of fellowship. So he's now entered. It's all coming together for Peter. He's like, oh, I have this tradition. I have a biblically based practice within my Judaism that doesn't let me go into and dine with a Gentile. But I just had a vision and I had some instruction, and the Spirit told me not to be afraid to come here. And they got a vision that I was going to come. He's putting all the pieces together and he's going, oh, wait a minute. The Bible called pork unclean. It never called the Gentile unclean. The Bible called eating camel impure, but the Bible never called the Roman impure. Nowhere does the Bible ever say that. Nowhere does Torah ever say that. They had made a biblically based practice and tradition that was based on their understanding of Scripture. And it was a tradition that Peter is now being confronted in light of the Gospel. And God's saying to him. Jesus is saying to him. The Spirit is saying to him, peter, I'm going to need you to break down all these walls. If the Gospel is going to do its work, go ahead and finish off this little bit that we have.

A

You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without raising any objection. May I ask why you sent for me?

B

All right. Did you hear his reasoning there? He had an experience about food. There was a sheet with food in it. Rise, kill and eat. I'm not going to Eat. Don't call anything impure that I've called pure. Okay? And notice Peter's explanation. He doesn't say food. He doesn't say anything about food. He says, now I know. I know what that vision was about. It wasn't about the lobster or the pint of bacon. It was about my new friend Cornelius. Now I know he says that I should not call anyone. It's about people. It's not about food. That whole experience, that vision of the sheet in the four corners of the sheet being lowered down, that's about people, not about kosher eating. Here's what I'm trying to get at. We're working towards a closing here. Peter has a collision of three Scripture, tradition, and experience. And these three things are always in relationship. I heard Richard Rohr once describe these three things as a tricycle. My grad program right now is describing them as a triangle. They're all equal. In my grad work, scripture, tradition, experience are all on equal footing when it comes to divine revelation. I'm really enjoying learning from them. I'm not sure where I land on that whole idea. Rohr described it as a tricycle. I kind of like that. It means there's a big wheel up front steering and two small wheels in the back. And for me, I want the big wheel to be scripture and tradition and experience to be my two back wheels that I'm riding on. I like that.

A

Did you have a big wheel as a kid?

B

My neighbors did, and I got to ride on them, but I never got to ride on. I mean, I got to ride on, but I never owned one because I

A

think a bicycle is generally like that, where the front wheel is bigger, but the big wheel's like, let's take this to an extreme.

B

The front wheel is big, and then you got a couple. And that's the Protestantism. I was raised with the big wheel of scripture on the front, and that's what I want. Rohr, when he actually did the tricycle, he put experience on the front, which that makes me. Who? That makes me. Breathe deep. I don't know. I don't know if I like that, but I like the idea of a tricycle. This collision of three things, scripture, tradition and experience, they are all a part of our wrestling. They're all a part of what we wrestle with. We will have all these moments in our faith where we have a scripture and we have a tradition. Even if we come from a non denominational movement or we still have a tradition that we are anchored to, that we come out of even if we're a brand new convert, we still have different traditions that we exist in now currently, and different things that have shaped us in the past. And we have our experiences, not just visions and dreams like are in this story, but other experiences as well. I talk about it another place as the world, the word and the work. There's the world we live in, the word we live by, and the work we're called to. There are always these collisions that cause us to wrestle. And in my grad work, we've been studying what we call constructive theology. It's a class called Theological Imagination, which if that makes you like, oh, I don't like those words, theological imagination. Those two things shouldn't go together. I understand. But we're engaging in what's called constructive theologies. We're looking at different constructive theologies. Notice Brent, I said constructive theologies, not deconstructive theologies. I said constructive. And there's all kinds of different ways to engage in constructive theology. One of my favorites that I've looked at is the method of critique retrieval, construction. You hold something up and you think critically about it. You go back into the thing to retrieve all the things that are right and good. And now I'm back to the cathedral at Dunkeld. Like, what are all the good things? I got to go back in and retrieve it. And then I'm going to construct something out of all the good things that I have retrieved. Critique, retrieval, and construction. I see Peter doing something very similar here. He gets pushed into a corner where he has to critique, he has to think critically. He's not going to jettison his Judaism. He doesn't walk away from his Torah observance. He stands his ground in the middle of the vision. Is like, no, I'm not going to eat that stuff. I'm not supposed to. But he is going to think critically enough that he goes back in to retrieve. Okay, well, what does the scripture say? What are the parts I'm supposed to be doing? What are the parts that I'm supposed to. What doesn't the scripture say? And now using the scripture, tradition and experience, Peter's going to be able to construct the worldview of the Gospel. And I just love that.

A

Oh, there's all sorts of experiences that Peter's getting called back to as well.

B

Sure, absolutely.

A

The Spirit refers to him as Simon. Luke keeps writing about him as Peter, but the Spirit calls him Simon.

B

Sure.

A

He's getting the vision three times. Like, there's just all kinds of.

B

I didn't even think about that totally. 100%. That's good.

A

He's like, I know my text. What is going on here?

B

Yeah, absolutely.

A

I'm clearly missing something, right?

B

All right, well, let me give you some closing thoughts here. Not many, but I have just a few. This is what makes sure that we're following God. This idea of wrestling, this idea of critique and retrieval and construction, this idea of letting the moment of scripture and tradition and experience, or the world we live in and the Word we live by and the work we're called to, letting these things collide and being in the middle of all that stuff. Wrestling. This is what makes sure that we are following God, not our theology, not our belief systems. We're not following our theology. We haven't sworn our allegiance to our belief systems. We're following God. Like Peter had a biblically based worldview. He had a theology and he had belief systems. But he decided he was following the God of those belief systems, not the belief systems himself. And it allowed him to go down the path that God wanted him to go down. Our theology and our belief systems should facilitate a vibrant and robust experience of partnering with God. We're not supposed to get rid of our theology. We're not going to be able to get rid of our belief systems. But those things should facilitate a vibrant and robust experience of a life of faithfulness lived with God. And some have often suggested, as we come to the end of this whole Four Pillars series, some have suggested that I'm missing a pillar. Some have said, I think that's supposed to be a fifth pillar. Morning. One of the things I've heard is the Holy Spirit's nowhere in there. And I would argue, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. The Holy Spirit is. Take up the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Word of God. This is my text. Pillar. Let's see. The Holy Spirit dwells in us as the temple of God, us being the

A

community where two or more are gathered.

B

Ooh, I like it. Holy Spirit and discipleship. That one might be. I mean, I don't know. Jesus looks at his disciples, he breathes on them and says, receive the Holy Spirit. He great commissions them, telling them to teach and to baptize them. One of the things is in the Holy Spirit. That's probably there. Maybe a little bit harder, too. But this whole idea of wrestling. I think of Acts 15, when the church is going to get together and they're going to wrestle with this whole idea. Wait a minute. Cornelius has come in now. All these Gentiles are coming in and who was present at that whole Jerusalem council with the people of God, but the Holy Spirit.

A

It seemed good to the Holy Spirit,

B

seemed good to the Holy Spirit. I think the Holy Spirit infuses these four pillars, and we have a good friend that says, what about prayer, Marty? What about prayer? And in a lot of ways, my hope would be that this fourth pillar, that prayer, like the Holy Spirit, kind of infuses that. One of the things I'm going to be trying to do is I'm going to try to pray the text. I'm assuming that prayer is going to be a part of a community, a life lived in community with God's people. I'm going to engage in discipleship by teaching my disciples how to pray, just like Jesus did. And I would hope that you would never engage in wrestling without a very strong posture. Commitment to a prayerful approach, the practice of prayer, the need for discernment. I'm going to write in the future about everything I'm learning from my grad program with the Jesuits and just how the Ignatian spiritual tradition, what it can teach us about discernment. And that's going to be a huge piece of what it means to wrestle. So that's coming in the future. Who knows? Maybe that's. I don't know, session 11, session 10, I don't know, session 12. Who knows? We'll talk some more about that. But good thoughts. Prayer and Holy Spirit. I hope that that's just kind of the water that these four. I don't know. Do pillars swim in water? That's a bad metaphor. But it's just the foundation on which the pillars stand. Other than Jesus, I don't know. But I better get out of here before I give a heretical metaphor. But there you go.

A

We're not here to establish any new creeds, don't we?

B

About that. That's right. That's right.

A

All right. Well, you can find more details about our show@bamandiscipleship.com this should be episode 508. So you can do 508 to jump right to the show notes if they're not already in your podcast app. Quite a few links for this episode, I think, as it came down to it. And I just want to say that everything we do is made possible by listeners like you. I just want to continue to be thankful for you guys giving us the space in sessions 10 to slow down and have this kind of different pace of what we do as we continue to think about Josh, continue to walk the labyrinth in his memory. And our community and you guys as our listeners, is just incredible in that way. So I want to thank you for that and thank you for joining us on the Bayma podcast today. We'll talk to you again soon.

B

Sam.