April 29, 2025 • 49 mins
A.J. Swoboda is back on the podcast for the third time. This time we are sitting down to talk about A Teachable Spirit. He hit on something that I think is sorely missing in this world today: being teachable. In a world often drawn sharply into polarized camps, where dialogue seems overshadowed by ideological extremes, cultivating a teachable spirit becomes more than a virtue, it becomes an act of quiet revolution. But what exactly does it mean to approach life, faith, and community with genuine humility and openness, even when our convictions run deep? Our conversation explores what it truly means to possess a teachable spirit, how to stand firmly in our beliefs while also actively listening to, honoring, and learning from those who are different than us. We’ll explore themes of humility, empathy, wisdom, discernment and the careful balancing act of maintaining convictions while remaining open to growth and change. This is an important conversation, so join us as we unpack the practice of discerning truth in a fragmented world, and how holding our beliefs can transform both our inner and outer worlds and enable us to have a teachable spirit.
Rev. A. J. Swoboda (Ph.D., Birmingham) is the associate professor of Bible and Theology at Bushnell University. He served as a college pastor on the University of Oregon campus for nearly ten years. For another decade, he planted and pastored an urban church in Portland, Oregon, called Theophilus, which continues to worship today. He leads a Doctor of Ministry program around Spiritual Formation and Soul Care at Friends University. He has taught at the London School of Theology, LIFE Pacific, Southeastern University, and Multnomah University. He is the author of over ten books, including Redeeming How We Talk (Moody), After Doubt (Brazos), and the award-winning Subversive Sabbath (Brazos). He hosts the Slow Theology podcast (w. Dr. Nijay Gupta) and writes the widely read Low-Level Theologian Substack. A.J. lives and works on an urban farm with his wife and son in Eugene, Oregon.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
A.J. Swoboda (00:00):
It is actually because of those deep
(00:01):
convictions that allows me tohave conversations with people
that I disagree with, because Ican be confident in what I know
and I know what is an in or outissue. For me, I don't have to
be afraid because I have deepconvictions that that shape
hospitality. You cannot havetrue hospitality without deep
convictions.
Joshua Johnson (00:36):
AJ, welcome back to shifting culture. So excited
to have you back again.
A.J. Swoboda (00:40):
Gosh, I this is three times. We should just
build it in that we do this likeall the time. That's right. It's
great.
Joshua Johnson (00:51):
You have something coming up with me, Jay
Gupta, in the fall, right? Yes,have you you both on at the same
time, which would be fantastic.
And then you both would be onfour times because I've had DJ
on three times. So wow,
A.J. Swoboda (01:05):
this is crazy. All the forces of the universe
aligning at once. Be careful. Idon't know if zencaster can
handle all of this power.
Joshua Johnson (01:13):
Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know, but
it's good. I think your new booka teachable spirit is one thing
that we're kind of missing inthis world today, like you hit
on something, you hit on a nervethat I think is really important
in today's age. And I don'tthink people are are talking
about it. I don't think peopleare opening themselves up to
(01:36):
learning from strangers andenemies and other people and
knowing that they could actuallybe humble and open themselves up
to others. Why? Why this book?
Why a teachable spirit? Why isit important for you? Yeah,
yeah,
A.J. Swoboda (01:52):
there's, there's a story. Not too long ago, about
about a year and a half ago, Iwas watching the news, which I
don't know if I'd recommendanybody do anymore, but I was
doing that, and there was astory of a woman who had kind of
(02:13):
gotten caught up in kind of apolitical scandal, sort of sort
of situation. She had kind ofpartnered herself with some
fairly kind of nefariousindividuals, and she got caught,
and she realized that she hadmade a big mistake and that she
was wrong, and she was on thisshe was in the courtroom, being
(02:37):
essentially she was She was inher trial, and she is standing
before the judge, she has anopportunity to speak to the
court, and she in just realtears. And these were, you can
tell when somebody's, you know,crocodile tears versus real
tears. They were real tears. Andshe was publicly saying to
people, I'm sorry I messed thisup, and I'm going to learn from
(03:01):
this, and I'm not going to dothis again, and I ask for grace
and forgiveness. It was a verymoving moment, actually, to
watch this woman recognize herown mistake. And that evening, I
made the double mistake ofgetting on social media. So I
watched it, and then I got onsocial media, and I was sort of
hoping that this would be amoment where people recognize
(03:23):
like nobody was hurt. She didn'tdo anything that harmed people,
but that people would recognizethis is a humble image of
somebody recognizing that theymade a mistake. And I watched
for the better part of one houras pretty much everybody just
dunked on this poor woman. And Imean dunked, I mean just shamed,
tarred feathered, and I I was sodistraught by this experience,
(03:46):
because it Joshua basicallyshowed me what our culture has
descended into, and that is thatwe've become a culture that
demands that people repent, butthe minute that they do, they
are tarred and feathered, whichbasically means that we've
created a culture where we arenow weaponizing people that are
willing to learn, people thatare willing to actually be
(04:07):
humble enough to learnsomething. We do everything in
our power to shame them, whichbasically means it is not safe
to be a learner in our worldanymore. You use the word
humble, and I'm the more I talkabout this book, the more
uncomfortable I am with thatword. In some sense, humility is
a very important virtue, butthere is a form of humility that
(04:30):
is a dangerous humility, andit's a form of humility that
says to the Christian, you know,you shouldn't have any
convictions, just receiveeverything that everybody has to
tell you that is not the kind ofhumility. Scripture invites us
into we are called to haveconvictions, a compass of
thought. We're supposed to, youknow, have deep rooted
convictions, but in thatcontinuously being open to
learning more and more and more.
So I That's the heart of thebook. Is that Christians should
(04:52):
be the most teachable people inthe world. And, well, that's a
scandalous concept, because alot of the people that we know
as Christians, you. Who have themics are not showing us that it
Joshua Johnson (05:02):
seems to me like what a disciple of Jesus looks
like. Being a disciple meansthat you're learning from this
rabbi, this this teacher that isgoing to teach you it's a
teachable spirit is being adisciple
A.J. Swoboda (05:17):
even the word by the way, even the word disciple
in the New Testament methods, isoften translated as simply a
learner. To be a disciple is tobe a learner, right? Imagine,
imagine that. I mean, imagine ifthat shaped our identity as
Christians. Yes, our primaryteacher is Jesus but he has a
lot of TAS you know, he uses alot of people to teach us.
Joshua Johnson (05:39):
Yes, so is learning then just about
acquiring knowledge when wereally have knowledge at our
fingertips right now, so is thatwhat it means to be a learner to
be teaching
A.J. Swoboda (05:51):
yeah so so I have this weird this this weird
experience now being an educatorat our moment in time when chat
GPT has come to us all. I am onthe forefront of seeing what
chatgpt is doing to a whole newcohort of students. And
basically what it's doing is, itis, it is giving students the
(06:12):
right answers without teachingthem how to think. And the
result of this is, by the way,when I can read, when I can read
a paper, I can tell within 12milliseconds if the student
actually wrote this, because noundergraduate student would ever
begin a phrase or a sentencewith the phrase upon reflection
that this is, I mean, this isclearly not a human that's
(06:35):
written this. I'm actually, forthe first time, desiring my
students to write really badpapers. Joshua, because at least
bad, badly written papers arewritten by a student. I do not
believe that having all theright answers is in the end the
whole bit of learning. And Ithink we can draw that from
letters like Paul, like likeJames, the letter of James that
(06:57):
says, you know who has all theright answers the demons do. And
the demons know who God is, andthey know you know all about God
yet they're not formed into theimage of Christ. So no, there's
a huge difference betweeninformation and being formed by
the person of so
Joshua Johnson (07:12):
what do you think is a couple of these
differences? What does theformation then look like, or
learning look like, if it's notjust acquiring knowledge of
knowing the right answer. Well,
A.J. Swoboda (07:22):
certainly, certainly part, part of the
answer to that question is, isthat there is some knowledge
that is only available throughrelationship. There is a there
was a guy a number, a number ofyears ago by the name of Michael
Polanyi. He was a scientist backin the 1920s I want to say, and
he wrote about what he calledpersonal knowledge. And personal
(07:44):
knowledge is, for him, the kindof knowledge that only comes
through real deep personalexperience with somebody. If I
asked you Joshua to tell meabout my wife, you could do a
Google search and find out abunch of things about her. You
could find out where she wasborn, what her birthday is, you
could, you could tell me, youknow, probably what her son, our
(08:06):
son's name is, how many chickensshe has, all these sorts of
things. You wouldn't be able totell me about her. Character you
wouldn't be able to tell meabout the kind of person she is.
You wouldn't be able to tell mewhat her favorite desserts are
and and why those desserts areconnected to her story. And, you
know, a Google search couldpermit you to go and find just
(08:26):
about anything you want to findabout the biographical details
of Jesus Christ. You could findout where he was born, when he
was born, you know, what hewould have looked like, these
sorts of things. Those are allimportant biographical details.
But you and I both know there'sa huge difference between
abstract knowledge and personalknowledge. To know Jesus is not
the same as to know about Jesusalthough it is important that
(08:49):
those two are connected becauseif, if I don't know about Jesus
then I have a much greaterchance to misrepresent who he
is. So I do think there's anintimate connection about
information and personalknowledge, but they are not the
same, and learning from themaster, entails not just
receiving his information, butactually becoming like him. You
Joshua Johnson (09:09):
mentioned when you were talking about humility,
that we have convictions asbelievers, that we we usually
stand on them, and a lot ofthose convictions I think in
some pockets of Christianitycreates a spirit of pride or
arrogance of saying I have myconvictions and you don't really
(09:34):
have anything to teach me so Ineed to make sure that I don't
Have heresy or bring insomething that is not
scriptural. What then is the theposture and how do we like stand
in our conviction but be open tolearning and continue to move
with other people?
A.J. Swoboda (09:53):
Yeah, well, two sides to that answer, it is, by
the way we're recording thisjust after Holy Week, and I.
Yesterday, our my pastor at mychurch preached on the Emmaus
road road experience. These twodisciples, you know, encounter
Jesus. They don't know it'sJesus. They don't recognize him.
And they basically say to Jesus,Hey, what are you doing here?
(10:15):
And and Jesus has a conversationwith them, and Jesus says, What
things have happened inJerusalem? And they tell him.
What's so funny about thisstory, and many commentators
have pointed this out, is thatJesus knows the answers of
what's been going on inJerusalem because he was the one
being crucified in Jerusalem. Heis plain dumb. He meaning he is
(10:35):
letting them preach the gospelto him, and he knows the gospel,
and he knows what happened tohim the couple days before.
What's interesting is, you'vegot the guy who knows everything
willingly listening to twodisciples who know almost
nothing. What's cool to me aboutthat, as Jesus plays dumb there,
he's not dumb. He's playingdumb. He's, he's, he's drawing
(10:57):
out what's inside of them is ifthe God of the universe, who
knows everything? Can be thathumble to learn and listen from
other people. How much more canwe and should we to have all the
knowledge and information is notthe end of being a teachable
person. You can still listen toother individuals even if you
know it all. This is, this isChrist likeness in my in my
(11:21):
opinion, the second point tothat is you're absolutely right.
I'm anti heresy. I think heresyis not good when we I'm I am pro
orthodoxy. I think that badtheology, in the end, deeply
harms people. It really hurts itsets up the possibility for
spiritual abuse, itmisrepresents the way of Jesus,
(11:43):
and in the end, is a pathway toHell. I believe 100% that
orthodoxy matters.
Unfortunately, commitment toOrthodoxy for many of us, tends
to play itself out as a kind ofclosed mindedness, and I'm not
convinced that believing inOrthodoxy means I don't have
permission to learn from expertsor culture or my enemies or
friends or children or myparents. So what we need is what
(12:05):
John Wesley called a compass forthought and for Wesley, who was
a voracious reader, people havestudied Wesley, you know, he
spent 25 you know, 250,000 hourson horseback riding between
towns, preaching the gospeleverywhere he went, and when he
would go, he would be readingall these books, biographies,
biology, chemistry, science. Imean, he was into history, and
(12:26):
he'd preach on this stuff. Imean, all this stuff would come
out in his sermons. But he said,even for the most voracious
learner, in one of his sermons,he says, we still need a compass
for thought, and that is theboundaries of good thinking, the
boundaries of good things. Thisis why scripture and in
Christian tradition and historyare so important, because they
(12:46):
establish for us the boundariesof what are in or out ideas. You
know it. I actually think theonly way to have diversity of
thought is that you have to haveactual convictions. Because with
convictions, it creates spacefor differentiation if, if I'm
committed to my deepestconvictions, for example,
Joshua, I'm very conservativewhen it comes to topics of
(13:10):
things like sexuality andgender, very conservative. And I
someone say that I'm stuck inthe mud, you know, I'm stuck in
the ancient world, and that'sfine. You can say all sort of
things you want, but it isactually because of those deep
convictions that allows me tohave conversations with people
that I disagree with, because Ican be confident in what I know
and I know what is an in or outissue. For me, I don't have to
(13:30):
be afraid because I have deepconvictions that that shape
hospitality. You cannot havetrue hospitality without deep
convictions. Yeah. Interesting.
The only, the only way that youcan actually be a missional
hospitable Christian in thisworld is to have a few things
that are dying, the hill issuesfor you. So
Joshua Johnson (13:51):
then, what does hospitality look like? If like I
have these convictions, but I'mstill going to invite and listen
and be be open. How does how isthat hospitality?
A.J. Swoboda (14:04):
Isn't it interesting that God in the
Garden of Eden in Genesis three?
Isn't it interesting that out ofnowhere, in a good, holy Tove
world, that is good out ofnowhere, there's the snake that
comes to deceive who let thesnake in. Why didn't God kick
the snake out? Why is the snakeallowed to be in the Garden of
(14:25):
Eden? Is God all powerful? Hejust got done creating the whole
universe in seven days. This isa very powerful God who can do
anything in all things, and yetGod allows a serpent into the
Garden of Eden. I think thatthat is an image of God's power.
God's power. You know what? Youknow what a weak person would
do. A weak person would end allthe enemies would just like,
(14:46):
there wouldn't be anythingother. And a weak person would
say, there's nothing else thatcan exist other than people that
obey perfectly everything I'msaying. The God of the universe
creates an environment. It,where the rebellious can live,
where a snake can wander throughGod's good garden, where, after
Genesis three, the humans arenot immediately killed because
(15:09):
of their disobedience. That istrue power. True Power is God
allowing rebels to live and becared for. It was actually, I
think it was Stanley Harris, Idon't remember who it was, but
who said that actually thedoctrine of hell, hell is God's
most extreme expression ofhospitality, that it is God
permitting those that eternallywant to rebel to actually have a
(15:33):
place to themselves. My Joshua,my point, my point is it is not
strength to end the voices andthe existence of people that
disagree with you. It's actuallya sign of strength. And because
we as Christians can have deeprooted convictions about who God
is about, what truth is about,the human body about these
(15:57):
things, it is because of thosethings that we are allowed to
create space for people thatdisagree with us. All around
Joshua Johnson (16:06):
us, I love that we have convictions, we're
confident, so that then we couldactually stand in a place where
we could invite people to otherthan
A.J. Swoboda (16:14):
that. We all just, I mean, we could all become
Amish and go live out, you know,away from culture. And I guess
that's an option, and one I'vebeen tempted by to want to do.
But the minute you approach theworld that way, and the minute
that you pull yourself away fromculture, you're no longer salt
in the world. I mean, you're nolonger existing as a missional
(16:37):
agent in a world where Christ iscommunicating his love to a
world that has rebelled. So,yeah, I mean, in the end, I
don't remember who it was whosaid it, but only false gods
demand forced homage. And theidea is it takes a weak God to
force everybody to love him. Ittakes a powerful God to invite
people to love him, but createspace for people to rebel. That
(17:00):
is true. Power.
Joshua Johnson (17:01):
So good. I want to go back and say with the
Emmaus road story for for just abit, when Jesus was introduced
to the disciples, this thisperson, they didn't know who he
was. They called him foreigner,stranger. So as we're thinking
about learning from strangers inthis moment, Jesus wasn't known
(17:22):
to them. He was stranger. Hewasn't a part of what they
thought a person should be. Butthen, after Jesus received them,
listened to them. Jesus thenunfolded the scripture, and they
were learning from the stranger,this foreigner, and their hearts
were burning. They were like, Ohyes, oh, I see that. I see that.
(17:46):
Is there a place, even in thatstory, as you reflect on it,
where they're open to learningfrom a stranger, they're open to
the foreigner that they can showus something, Yep,
A.J. Swoboda (18:00):
yeah, Mike, you know, you bring up learning from
strangers. I'll come to theEmmaus road story in just a
moment. You know, my generationwas shaped. I still remember as
a kid drinking or eating mycereal in the mornings and
looking at the back of, this isthe 1980s looking at the back of
the milk carton. And there werethe images of kids that had been
kidnapped. You know, that's ledto a whole culture of Stranger
(18:20):
danger. Strangers are terrible,terrifying, scary people. You
should stay away from them. Isthere some truth to that?
Absolutely, we need to becautious about strangers. You
know, my son kids have got itsuch a weird gig right now,
because we tell them, Don't,don't, take candy from
strangers, and then we doHalloween, and they've got to be
so confused. They've got to beso good poor kids. They don't
what strangers do I listen to.
But all that to say, you know,as a kid, I was taught strangers
(18:45):
are bad. You know that strangersare and that's shaped a whole
generation of people. You know,my parents grandparents talked
about living in small townswhere everybody knew each other,
that every stranger was afriend, and you wouldn't lock
your doors at night and andthese sorts of things. So there
is, there are some culturalelements to this to get in the
way of us learning from, frompeople that we we don't know, to
(19:08):
the image road story. It'sinteresting for ancient Jews, in
large part, it was a scary placeto be a stranger, to be a
foreigner. Um, there. There hasbeen a good deal written about
how an ancient Canaaniteculture, Babylonian cultures,
these sorts of spaces, strangerswere, in large part, ostracized.
They were in many cases killed.
(19:32):
And then the Jews come along andlive a very different ethic.
They have all these laws aroundcaring for the stranger, the
widow, the orphan, theforeigner, all these sorts of
things. So if you were a Jew,you would have looked very weird
to the world, because you madespace for the foreigner, the
stranger. In fact, there's clearconnections in like the Seder
meal, the Passover meal, thatyou're always supposed to make
(19:53):
room for the foreigner to cometo the table. And that's so
interesting. And so when Jesusis walking along, they think he.
Stranger. So what do they do?
They don't know who he is. Whatdo they do? They do what they've
been reading their whole life.
They let the stranger in, and asthey let the stranger in, it
turns out, in Luke's Gospel, theword epigenosco is an
(20:15):
interesting Greek word. Itbasically is. It means to
recognize somebody. It'sconnected to the word genosco to
No, but epigenos goes to aboveno to recognize or to remember
again. And in Luke's Gospel, theword recognize is always
connected to a meal. So theyalways recognize Jesus as they
eat together, okay? And theyrecognize that it's Jesus and
(20:38):
and for many of the early churchfathers, this was intended to
set up an ethic that when youmake room for the stranger, you
may actually be making room forJesus Himself. And you see a
little bit of this in the bookof Hebrews, that by entertaining
strangers, that you may beentertaining an angel, you know,
by loving a stranger, you may becaring for an angel unknown to
you in a world where tribalismand political and ideological
(21:02):
fragmentation is happening,where we see the other team as
evil and our team is awesome.
Basically what happens is wenever listen to the person that
is on the other side, thestranger does not get any
doesn't get any voice in ourlife. And I think the way of
Jesus invites us to a deeper waythan that. Some of the greatest
discoveries in the world havehappened because somebody
listened to somebody, theydidn't know that we had a
conversation with somebody on abus that we didn't know. We can
(21:25):
learn from strangers, and wedon't have to treat them like
they're possibly all kidnappers,like we all thought as kids.
Actually, strangers can offer usepiphanies and lessons and and
in some instances, can be anepiphany of the living God.
Joshua Johnson (21:43):
Well, some of these, these strangers that we
have, we don't know them. So wewere afraid of strangers. We're
afraid of our we. We see them asenemies. We see them as somebody
the other because we're notclose to them. We don't know
them. We have no proximity.
A.J. Swoboda (22:00):
What's weird about that, though, Joshua is my
generation was told, don't talkto strangers. Okay, today's
generation of kids are all giveniPhones and strangers live in
their pockets. We have a verylike. It was like, don't talk to
strangers. Now it's like, webelieve everything strangers
that aren't around us say. So wespend our time like reading and
(22:23):
listening to podcasts of peoplewho will never meet, and we base
our life now on the voice of thestranger. I am not suggesting by
any stretch of the imaginationthat we just believe everything
the stranger says. I actuallyargue in the book, our problem
is not that we don't listen tostrangers, it's that we listen
to strangers that we're not inthe room with and we don't
listen to strangers that are infront of us. So we'll listen to
(22:45):
a podcast by somebody we don'tknow, but the guy in the bus.
I'm gonna put my earbuds in so Idon't have to talk to
Joshua Johnson (22:50):
him. Yeah.
Interesting. Interesting. Sothen, if we're listening to
people that we don't know, andwe're listening to strangers,
and we'll shape our lives fromit, where does discernment come
in? How do we discern how weare? Are teachable? What is the
boundaries of our good thinking?
A.J. Swoboda (23:09):
Yeah, certainly, certainly number one. Certainly
number one would be for a goodProtestant like like myself, I
would have to say that numberone an endless hunger to have
one's life shaped by the word ofGod. I mean, that is with
without that we become peoplewithout compasses for thought,
(23:29):
and we will just acceptuncritically every last thing.
My son said to me when he firstgot into elementary school, one
of the things he heard was,well, how do you know if
something's true? And he said,Well, if it rhymes, it's true.
You It's true. If it rhymes,it's true. And I said, wasn't
interesting, that doesn't rhyme.
And he had to think about that.
(23:50):
He's like, Oh, wait, that'strue. Maybe it's not true. I
said it's not true. To say, Doyou believe everything on the
internet? You know, if it's onthe internet, is it true? Lord
have mercy. If we believedeverything on the internet, you
and I would be we'd be in aheap, heap of trouble. Number
one, Joshua, is there has to befor anybody that wants to be a
good learner and follow Jesus atthe same time, our heads and our
(24:10):
hearts must be saturated inGod's word all the time. And
that is non negotiable. I think.
Number two, this is where therelations, our relationship to
church is really important,because the community in which
we find ourselves is going tohelp us discern. You know, for
example, in my church, we've gota number of doctors, a couple
(24:30):
scientists. We have a abrilliant person in our church
who is doing their PhD in in inEnglish, Chinese literature. You
know, what's awesome about beingin a community with people like
this is that I could, I couldtake any of these people out for
coffee and wrestle out with themstuff I've been hearing all week
in the news, or things I've beenreading people who know more
(24:53):
than I do. We do tend to becomeour communities. And I think our
communities are discernment,are. Are one of the main ways
that we can discern up fromdown, right from left.
Otherwise, we are going tobelieve everything that we read
on the internet, or we are goingto believe everything we listen
to in a podcast. I think acommunity is very, very
important for shaping, forshaping discernment. And I would
(25:14):
say, I would say thirdly, thisis going to be the good
charismatic in me. Joshua, Ithink that if you're following
Jesus, you have the Holy Spiritinside of you. And what that
means is, I think the HolySpirit's really good at
communicating and and poking atour at our hearts, to say that
there's something off aboutthat. And I'll that'll happen to
me often. I'll be reading abook, and I'll read a paragraph,
(25:35):
and there will be just thisweird sense of, like, I can't
even name it, that's just off.
There's an attitude or a spiritin that that is not the way of
Jesus. And, you know, I think inthe past, I would just say, ah,
that's just me being a, youknow, X, Y and Z, whatever.
That's No, I actually think tobe a good learner, you got to
lean into the work of the HolySpirit. What did Jesus say? The
(25:58):
Spirit would come and lead youinto all truth. The teacher is
inside of you, right? And theSpirit wants to guide and
correct and teach or form us. Ithink Scripture, community and
the indwelling work of the HolySpirit teaches us how to be good
Joshua Johnson (26:14):
learners. Yeah, the teacher is among us. I think
sometimes here in some Christiancircles, that the power dynamic
is in such a place where, if thepastor actually just goes
astray, oh, people will, will,will follow and say, Yes, that
is that is truth, and that's theplace that I'm going to go. I'm
(26:35):
going to follow that, thatpowerful person, whoever it is,
what's the dynamic then within acommunity where we're all just
either saying yes or there'sdivision and strife, like, how
do how do we work things outwhen there's power dynamics at
play?
A.J. Swoboda (26:53):
Yeah, so interesting that you you bring
this up. I just finished readingMalcolm Gladwell his outliers.
It's a book about success,really interesting book. He has
this pair chapter in there,chapter seven. I'm thinking on
the spot here. I think it'sseven or eight, but it's a
chapter about plane crashes. Andhe makes an observation that one
of universal attributes of planecrashes in commercial jet,
(27:18):
airliner plane crashes, is thatin almost every instance, the
most experienced pilot is theone who is flying the plane at
the time of the plane crash. Andthere's all this research on why
this is the case, it turns outthat that often what happens in
planes where you have the mostexperienced pilot flying the
plane in the first seat, thesecond pilot will not speak
(27:40):
truthfully about something thatthey see because they are
deferring to the authority ofthe first pilot, and they are
doing what's called mitigatedspeech. They don't say, Hey,
we're running out of fuel, hey,there's something wrong. Hey, so
they don't say it because theyassume the first pilot knows it.
And this a really importantconcept, because it means that
sometimes power actually gets inthe way of truthfulness, that we
(28:04):
don't speak truth because weassume that the senior pastor
knows everything. We assume thesenior pastor or the leader
leaders have the right interestin mind, that they are acting
due diligently, which I think weshould assume, but the fact that
we are Protestants, a Protestanthas a view of Scripture that's
(28:25):
really unique, because tobelieve in Scripture as sola
scriptura, the idea thatscripture alone is the
mitigating factor of theChristian faith doesn't mean we
don't listen to other voices. Tobelieve in Scripture means that
the other voices now have aframework upon which to be
understood. The fact that webelieve that Scripture is the
very thing that should hold thechurch to Jesus means that every
(28:50):
Christian in the church that hasa Bible in their hands, all of a
sudden, is required to holdpeople in power to what
scripture has to say. I thinkchurches that have a high view
of Scripture should be places itdoesn't always work itself out,
but should be places wherepeople in power are held to
(29:11):
account and not in a mean sortof way. I'm saying that if a
pastor started teaching reallywonky things about the Trinity
or sexuality or something likethis, the people in the
congregation who have theirBibles in their hands should be
asking good questions. Hey, theBible says this, what are we
going to do about that? Hey, theBible says this, what are we
going to do about that? TheScripture becomes the the
(29:32):
prophetic book in our midst thatholds people in power to to
Christ. That's the way it shouldwork. And this, of course, why
the privacy reformation happenedwas because Luther saw that
scripture was not being heard inits time, and he said, we aren't
listening to the Bible. Soscripture is you'll notice I
(29:53):
started with that the number onething in being a good learner is
not that you put your head inthe sand and you ignore culture.
Scripture. It's that you gotyour head in Scripture so that
you can rightly read culture. Sothen
Joshua Johnson (30:05):
let's read culture now, how are we learning
then from secular culture of theculture around us, and how do we
bring those things in as we'reframing things through
Scripture? And you know, ourboundaries of good thinking.
What does it look like whenwe're looking at and reading
(30:25):
culture Yeah,
A.J. Swoboda (30:27):
I remember years ago, this this I used to be a I
still am, but I used to I usedto listen to every sermon Tim
Keller would ever preach I wouldI would just devour I mean, it
would it would be published I'dlisten to it like 12 seconds I
just was enamored with hispreaching and and he's a good
teacher. No, he was great. Yeah,one of the one of the things I
(30:47):
noticed most about hispreaching. There were a lot of
things I noticed, but one of thethings I noticed the most was
how often he would quote The NewYork Times. I would always quote
The New York Times. He wasconstantly quoting the New York
Times. Now, underneath that is apreacher who knows his audience
Keller knows the authorities ofthe everyday New Yorker. The New
(31:08):
Yorker reads, they get up, theyread the New York Times. That is
their authority. So he meetspeople where they're at. You
know he is, he is doing the workof preaching the gospel through
the lens of the average NewYorker who is, it's
incarnational, really. I mean,he's, he's, he's meeting people
where they're at. How often inChristian spaces do we expect
(31:28):
the world to be the missionarywhere we expect the world to
come and speak our languagerather than us doing the work of
speaking its language I don'tthink it's possible for us to be
effective missionaries unless wehave our heads and our minds in
the culture of the people thatChrist is seeking to save. Going
back to John Wesley, one of thethings John Wesley would do when
He would go into a city thiswas, you know, 1700s when he
(31:51):
1800s when he would go into acity one of the first things he
would do, great revivalistpreacher missionary, is that he
would first go to the locallibrary. And he would go to the
library because, for one reason,he very often, would first go to
library because he wanted to seewhat books people were reading,
because he believed, unless youknew the questions people were
(32:12):
asking, you could not bring themthe answers that their hearts
needed. And that brings me fullcircle to Tim Keller. Why was
Tim Keller such an incredibleteacher. Why? Why was Jesus
Christ such an incredibleteacher? Listen to His parables.
He tells 38 parables. Everysingle one of those parables
reveals a Messiah who had hishead in culture he knew people's
(32:35):
worlds. He knew what peoplethought. He knew what people
assumed. He knew what drovepeople, what got people up in
the morning. His ministry wasbuilt on the fact that he was
aware he was in the world payingattention. In fact, in at the
book of Acts, the third timethat Paul, this is interesting,
the third time that Paulrecounts his conversion story.
(32:55):
He comments that Jesus had toldhim on the road to Emmaus or on
the road to Damascus. Saul.
Saul, why do you kick againstthe goad the goats? This weird
comment. And when you trace outthat line, Saul Saul, why do you
kick against the goads? It's aline from a Greek play 200 years
earlier. And what's going on isJesus is quoting something from
popular culture to Saul to reachhim with the good news name one
(33:17):
other god that would be likeJesus quoting Taylor Swift to
get to get a point across whathe's trying to say. It is
impossible for us to beeffective missionaries without
having our heads in the culturearound us. So this is not just
about being learners. This is asmuch about being learners as it
(33:38):
is about being missionaries.
Joshua Johnson (33:41):
Other than that means we need to be good.
Listeners we have to ask goodquestions
A.J. Swoboda (33:47):
cautiously. Again, I want to be I'm not saying
everything you pick up onTwitter you you you believe. But
here's the thing, we have got todistinguish that learning
something is not the same asagreeing with it. To learn
something is to just hold it insuspension and say, I just
learned that. That'sinteresting. That doesn't mean
(34:07):
you've matriculated it into yourlife and you've accepted it.
You're just holding it just aswashing feet doesn't mean you
agree with somebody Jesus washedJudas feet, no knowing exactly
what he's going to do to learnfrom somebody if I see, here's
the thing, Joshua, should mystudents at the undergraduate
level talk about enemies? Shouldmy students read Mein Kampf by
(34:31):
Adolf Hitler? This is a hugedebate, like, Should we read it
or burn it? And the debate is,do we listen to our enemies or
do we cancel them? The minuteyou cancel your enemies, I
argue, I would argue, the minuteyou cancel your enemies, you
actually give them more power,and their ideas go underground
and become more and more powerpowerful. The only way in which
we can defeat the evil,diabolical, diabolical claims of
(34:53):
Hitler's Mein Kampf is we needto know what he's arguing. I
need to learn his arguments todismantle them. There's a.
Missional component, even tolearning from our enemies, and
to be able to say, you know, Iknow what my enemies think, and
it's only because I know whatthey think that I'm able to
actually stand strong againstwhat they claim. This. This
(35:13):
changes this. This changes theconversation, because learning
then becomes a missionalactivity for a missional church
that is called by God to live inin the world. And when you read
the earliest Christian ChurchFathers, all of them are quoting
the heretics all the time. Andthe fact that they're quoting
the heretics is enough evidencefor us to know they actually are
(35:35):
reading the heretics. They knowwhat they think. And the only
way to defeat the heretics isyou got to know their their
silliness,
Joshua Johnson (35:41):
so we shouldn't just burn all the books. Lord,
no,
A.J. Swoboda (35:44):
you that actually the when you can that's
basically a way of cancelingsomebody. We've been canceling
people for a long time. Cancelculture is nothing new, but to
when you burn people's books andyou, you know, you you cancel
somebody whose ideas you don'tlike, what you end up doing is
you end up sending that personaway with their ideas to make
(36:06):
those ideas stronger in thedark, and you end the
possibility of true relationshiphaving an impact. The guy who
taught me this is Daryl Davis.
And you can go, anybody who'slistening to this can go read
about Daryl Davis or an AfricanAmerican man. He has one of the
most watched TED Talk videos onthe webs. Daryl Davis, African
American man, decided thatrather than ostracizing and
(36:29):
canceling all of his friendsthat were racists, he started
befriending KKK members, and hebegan becoming their friends.
And through becoming theirfriends, he tells a story, and
he has this moment in his talkwhere he opens up this closet
full of KKK robes, of peoplethat left their ideology because
(36:50):
in the relationship with DarylDavis, to me, that is that is
the most incarnational form ofactivity. Jesus Christ comes to
the world while we were sinners.
Christ died for us. Christ doesnot come into the world to
cancel the world. He befriendseach person in the world as a
(37:12):
means of changing their heart.
So burning a book makessomebody's ideas get worse and
harder over time, butbefriending somebody who may
have ideas that are very, verycontrary to the way of Jesus.
You may actually be the onethrough whom God is going to
reach, that person that's
Joshua Johnson (37:26):
good, you know, yesterday, Easter Sunday, we
talked about how Jesus made usnew, where He reconciled us to
God. And through that, in SecondCorinthians, five talks that
then we are now ambassadors,Christ, comers. We are now
reconcilers ourselves, that Godis working for us to reconcile
(37:46):
people, which is crazy that weget to participate. Now it's our
job to participate. So what youwere just talking about? Dale
Davis, I think that's theparticipating work of
reconciling as a learner ofbeing with people that have
ideological views that areopposed to you, yep, but you
(38:09):
could be with them and reconcilethem back to a place,
A.J. Swoboda (38:13):
yeah. Inversion.
Prophecy has been inverted thisI have really wrestled Joshua
with this phenomenon of thesetwo parties, the, you know, the
Democrats and the Republicans,who are just now increasingly, I
mean, further and further goingapart. And it's, you know, why
is that happening? And I thinkone of the reasons that that is
(38:34):
happening is that what should bethe right, the right use of the
prophetic voice is has becomeinverted. And what I mean by
that is, when you read theprophets of the Hebrew Bible,
the Old Testament, prophets, theprophets in the Old Testament do
something that none of theprophets of other nations did.
Every other nation had prophets.
(38:56):
They were false prophets, butthey were prophets nonetheless.
And when you look at all theprophets of the other nations
around Israel, the prophetswould always prophesy Doom on
the other nations. You guys aregoing down. You guys are gonna
be judged. You guys are gonnafall. And then you read the
Hebrew prophets, and then dosomething weird. They are the
ones who are willing to self aimtheir prophecy on their own
(39:22):
people. They critique Israel. Itis this the true prophet. One of
the marks of the False Prophetis that the other side is always
the wrong one. One of the marksof a true prophet is we are
needing to repent. And I thinkwhat's happened in this
ideological age is we have lostthe gift of being critical of
(39:45):
our own side, and everything iswrong with the other side, and
in so doing, we're just movingfurther and further apart. When
what should happen? If I'm aRepublican, I should be offering
very, very strong critiques inmy party, and if I'm a Democrat,
I'm all. Offering very strongcritiques of my party, but
instead, what we're doing isjust lobbing on the other side,
(40:05):
and this, it's a breakdown ofunderstanding how you should be
harshest, hardest on your ownpeople, that that is a profit. A
profit embodies that. And thatsounds really harsh, but that's
what you do with a family thatyou love, is that you're hard on
your family because you believein your family and you believe
in what you're doing. So we now,we don't want the prophetic
(40:28):
voice, we want power, and soit's killing us, and it's I fear
is not going to end. Well,
Joshua Johnson (40:35):
no, it's not.
How does that practically work?
A.J. Swoboda (40:38):
Start, start in your church, and in your church
become subversive learners. WhatI mean by that is in your
church, rather than focusing onhow the culture around you is
horrible, stop preaching sermonsabout how secular culture around
you stinks. Of course, itstinks. It doesn't know Jesus,
but your job isn't to holdsecular culture to the ways of
Jesus. Your job is to hold thechurch to Jesus and ask yourself
(41:01):
the questions, how are we notdoing what God has called us to
do? Turn the prophecy inward andstop spending all of your time
looking at how wokeism isdestroying the church, how
secular culture is destroyingthe church. Friend the enemy to
us. Being faithful to Jesus, isnot wokeism or secular culture,
it is that we are not carryingour cross, turn it inward. We
(41:25):
have to hold ourselves to theway of Jesus, rather than
expecting secular culture to doit on our behalf. And that's not
enjoyable to hear, brother, Idon't I don't relish saying that
Joshua Johnson (41:36):
it's what we need at the moment, as what we
need in every moment, actuallylike, what is it? What does it
look like? Because, you know,
A.J. Swoboda (41:44):
Joshua, can I tell you something really cool
before? Before I this, thisimage of teachability, and this
word teachability is a reallyinteresting word to me. I
remember the first time I wasintroduced to the idea of being
a teachable person. It was JayOswald Sanders book spiritual
leadership years ago, and he hada chapter in there on being a
teachable leader, that every aChristian leader needs to be a
teachable person. And thatalways stuck with me. After
(42:07):
reading that. In the last fiveyears or so, I've done a deep
dive. I cannot find anybodythat's written on that in a full
length way. This is like, Ithink this is the first time the
idea of teachability as aChristian virtue has been
except, except, I found it inone place. John Calvin. John
Calvin preached a sermon onDeuteronomy chapter 10, where
(42:28):
God tells Moses to come up themountain with two blank tablets,
and Moses carries these twoblank tablets up to Gog. And
we're told that God writes onthe tablets. And John Wesley, or
John Calvin, argued that this iswhat a Christian's life is to be
about, is that we are constantlybringing to God empty slates
(42:52):
upon which God can reign. Thatis. And he had a word for this.
You know what? He called it ateachable spirit. That is such a
poignant image that our task asChristians is to cultivate the
space, to allow God to teach us.
And we don't have space. We'rebusy. We're doing stuff, but the
Christian life is dragging upthe mountain the blank slates of
(43:13):
our life, so that God can dosome work on the blank slates.
And indeed, to be a follower ofJesus is to be teachable.
Because unless you're teachableby Jesus, it doesn't matter. You
got to come up with someentries, empty slabs, amazing.
Joshua Johnson (43:30):
I love it.
That's fantastic. I think wecould, yeah, we could end there,
because that's what you're justsummed it all up beautifully, as
I was going to ask you to do,and you did it. It was great.
I'd love to end then with arecommendation or two, anything
that you've been reading orwatching that you could
recommend.
A.J. Swoboda (43:50):
Oh, yeah, great question. One thing you can do,
by the way, is, is I do a weeklydevotional called a low level
the low level theologian. AndI'm actually writing on all
these themes of teachability. Soif anybody that wants to read,
go subscribe to that. Buthonestly, you know who I'd
recommend is pretty mucheverything Dallas Willard ever
wrote. He he was anintellectual, a PhD in
(44:13):
philosophy, and he saw it as hisrole in life to teach Christians
how to think. Well, just spendthe next 20 years reading Dallas
Ford, that is a goodrecommendation.
Joshua Johnson (44:24):
I recommend Dallas Willard as well. That's
good AJ, how can people get ateachable spirit? Where would
you like to point people to
A.J. Swoboda (44:31):
anywhere that books are sold? Obviously, I
always tell people, if you got alocal bookstore, mompa books or
get it there if you can yourlocal city. But if not, the
interwebs is a great place toget it. And, yeah, and it'll be
in, you know, all the places,Barnes and Noble and all this
stuff. So yeah, thanks toZondervan for the great, great
work on this project. I'm sograteful for that.
Joshua Johnson (44:51):
Well, AJ, thank you for this conversation. It
was fantastic. And I really hopeand I pray that people can start
to understand what thisteachable speech. Is all about
that this day and age where thewe have polar opposites, the
polarization of culture, willactually then move into a
different direction and comeback together, so that we can
(45:14):
stand firm in our convictions,be confident in who we are, to
know Scripture well, to say thisis the boundaries of good
thinking, but then give voice topeople so that we can be
reconcilers. And we could saythat we could come together
again and stand firm in what weknow from the Lord. And we could
(45:35):
learn from him that we couldjust open up our hands and say,
here are my blank tablets. Yesplease, right, and I'm going to
learn from you. Thank
A.J. Swoboda (45:43):
you, Joshua, it's a gift as always, to be with
Unknown (46:00):
you. You.
It is actually because of those deep
(00:01):
convictions that allows me tohave conversations with people
that I disagree with, because Ican be confident in what I know
and I know what is an in or outissue. For me, I don't have to
be afraid because I have deepconvictions that that shape
hospitality. You cannot havetrue hospitality without deep
convictions.
Joshua Johnson (00:36):
AJ, welcome back to shifting culture. So excited
to have you back again.
A.J. Swoboda (00:40):
Gosh, I this is three times. We should just
build it in that we do this likeall the time. That's right. It's
great.
Joshua Johnson (00:51):
You have something coming up with me, Jay
Gupta, in the fall, right? Yes,have you you both on at the same
time, which would be fantastic.
And then you both would be onfour times because I've had DJ
on three times. So wow,
A.J. Swoboda (01:05):
this is crazy. All the forces of the universe
aligning at once. Be careful. Idon't know if zencaster can
handle all of this power.
Joshua Johnson (01:13):
Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know, but
it's good. I think your new booka teachable spirit is one thing
that we're kind of missing inthis world today, like you hit
on something, you hit on a nervethat I think is really important
in today's age. And I don'tthink people are are talking
about it. I don't think peopleare opening themselves up to
(01:36):
learning from strangers andenemies and other people and
knowing that they could actuallybe humble and open themselves up
to others. Why? Why this book?
Why a teachable spirit? Why isit important for you? Yeah,
yeah,
A.J. Swoboda (01:52):
there's, there's a story. Not too long ago, about
about a year and a half ago, Iwas watching the news, which I
don't know if I'd recommendanybody do anymore, but I was
doing that, and there was astory of a woman who had kind of
(02:13):
gotten caught up in kind of apolitical scandal, sort of sort
of situation. She had kind ofpartnered herself with some
fairly kind of nefariousindividuals, and she got caught,
and she realized that she hadmade a big mistake and that she
was wrong, and she was on thisshe was in the courtroom, being
(02:37):
essentially she was She was inher trial, and she is standing
before the judge, she has anopportunity to speak to the
court, and she in just realtears. And these were, you can
tell when somebody's, you know,crocodile tears versus real
tears. They were real tears. Andshe was publicly saying to
people, I'm sorry I messed thisup, and I'm going to learn from
(03:01):
this, and I'm not going to dothis again, and I ask for grace
and forgiveness. It was a verymoving moment, actually, to
watch this woman recognize herown mistake. And that evening, I
made the double mistake ofgetting on social media. So I
watched it, and then I got onsocial media, and I was sort of
hoping that this would be amoment where people recognize
(03:23):
like nobody was hurt. She didn'tdo anything that harmed people,
but that people would recognizethis is a humble image of
somebody recognizing that theymade a mistake. And I watched
for the better part of one houras pretty much everybody just
dunked on this poor woman. And Imean dunked, I mean just shamed,
tarred feathered, and I I was sodistraught by this experience,
(03:46):
because it Joshua basicallyshowed me what our culture has
descended into, and that is thatwe've become a culture that
demands that people repent, butthe minute that they do, they
are tarred and feathered, whichbasically means that we've
created a culture where we arenow weaponizing people that are
willing to learn, people thatare willing to actually be
(04:07):
humble enough to learnsomething. We do everything in
our power to shame them, whichbasically means it is not safe
to be a learner in our worldanymore. You use the word
humble, and I'm the more I talkabout this book, the more
uncomfortable I am with thatword. In some sense, humility is
a very important virtue, butthere is a form of humility that
(04:30):
is a dangerous humility, andit's a form of humility that
says to the Christian, you know,you shouldn't have any
convictions, just receiveeverything that everybody has to
tell you that is not the kind ofhumility. Scripture invites us
into we are called to haveconvictions, a compass of
thought. We're supposed to, youknow, have deep rooted
convictions, but in thatcontinuously being open to
learning more and more and more.
So I That's the heart of thebook. Is that Christians should
(04:52):
be the most teachable people inthe world. And, well, that's a
scandalous concept, because alot of the people that we know
as Christians, you. Who have themics are not showing us that it
Joshua Johnson (05:02):
seems to me like what a disciple of Jesus looks
like. Being a disciple meansthat you're learning from this
rabbi, this this teacher that isgoing to teach you it's a
teachable spirit is being adisciple
A.J. Swoboda (05:17):
even the word by the way, even the word disciple
in the New Testament methods, isoften translated as simply a
learner. To be a disciple is tobe a learner, right? Imagine,
imagine that. I mean, imagine ifthat shaped our identity as
Christians. Yes, our primaryteacher is Jesus but he has a
lot of TAS you know, he uses alot of people to teach us.
Joshua Johnson (05:39):
Yes, so is learning then just about
acquiring knowledge when wereally have knowledge at our
fingertips right now, so is thatwhat it means to be a learner to
be teaching
A.J. Swoboda (05:51):
yeah so so I have this weird this this weird
experience now being an educatorat our moment in time when chat
GPT has come to us all. I am onthe forefront of seeing what
chatgpt is doing to a whole newcohort of students. And
basically what it's doing is, itis, it is giving students the
(06:12):
right answers without teachingthem how to think. And the
result of this is, by the way,when I can read, when I can read
a paper, I can tell within 12milliseconds if the student
actually wrote this, because noundergraduate student would ever
begin a phrase or a sentencewith the phrase upon reflection
that this is, I mean, this isclearly not a human that's
(06:35):
written this. I'm actually, forthe first time, desiring my
students to write really badpapers. Joshua, because at least
bad, badly written papers arewritten by a student. I do not
believe that having all theright answers is in the end the
whole bit of learning. And Ithink we can draw that from
letters like Paul, like likeJames, the letter of James that
(06:57):
says, you know who has all theright answers the demons do. And
the demons know who God is, andthey know you know all about God
yet they're not formed into theimage of Christ. So no, there's
a huge difference betweeninformation and being formed by
the person of so
Joshua Johnson (07:12):
what do you think is a couple of these
differences? What does theformation then look like, or
learning look like, if it's notjust acquiring knowledge of
knowing the right answer. Well,
A.J. Swoboda (07:22):
certainly, certainly part, part of the
answer to that question is, isthat there is some knowledge
that is only available throughrelationship. There is a there
was a guy a number, a number ofyears ago by the name of Michael
Polanyi. He was a scientist backin the 1920s I want to say, and
he wrote about what he calledpersonal knowledge. And personal
(07:44):
knowledge is, for him, the kindof knowledge that only comes
through real deep personalexperience with somebody. If I
asked you Joshua to tell meabout my wife, you could do a
Google search and find out abunch of things about her. You
could find out where she wasborn, what her birthday is, you
could, you could tell me, youknow, probably what her son, our
(08:06):
son's name is, how many chickensshe has, all these sorts of
things. You wouldn't be able totell me about her. Character you
wouldn't be able to tell meabout the kind of person she is.
You wouldn't be able to tell mewhat her favorite desserts are
and and why those desserts areconnected to her story. And, you
know, a Google search couldpermit you to go and find just
(08:26):
about anything you want to findabout the biographical details
of Jesus Christ. You could findout where he was born, when he
was born, you know, what hewould have looked like, these
sorts of things. Those are allimportant biographical details.
But you and I both know there'sa huge difference between
abstract knowledge and personalknowledge. To know Jesus is not
the same as to know about Jesusalthough it is important that
(08:49):
those two are connected becauseif, if I don't know about Jesus
then I have a much greaterchance to misrepresent who he
is. So I do think there's anintimate connection about
information and personalknowledge, but they are not the
same, and learning from themaster, entails not just
receiving his information, butactually becoming like him. You
Joshua Johnson (09:09):
mentioned when you were talking about humility,
that we have convictions asbelievers, that we we usually
stand on them, and a lot ofthose convictions I think in
some pockets of Christianitycreates a spirit of pride or
arrogance of saying I have myconvictions and you don't really
(09:34):
have anything to teach me so Ineed to make sure that I don't
Have heresy or bring insomething that is not
scriptural. What then is the theposture and how do we like stand
in our conviction but be open tolearning and continue to move
with other people?
A.J. Swoboda (09:53):
Yeah, well, two sides to that answer, it is, by
the way we're recording thisjust after Holy Week, and I.
Yesterday, our my pastor at mychurch preached on the Emmaus
road road experience. These twodisciples, you know, encounter
Jesus. They don't know it'sJesus. They don't recognize him.
And they basically say to Jesus,Hey, what are you doing here?
(10:15):
And and Jesus has a conversationwith them, and Jesus says, What
things have happened inJerusalem? And they tell him.
What's so funny about thisstory, and many commentators
have pointed this out, is thatJesus knows the answers of
what's been going on inJerusalem because he was the one
being crucified in Jerusalem. Heis plain dumb. He meaning he is
(10:35):
letting them preach the gospelto him, and he knows the gospel,
and he knows what happened tohim the couple days before.
What's interesting is, you'vegot the guy who knows everything
willingly listening to twodisciples who know almost
nothing. What's cool to me aboutthat, as Jesus plays dumb there,
he's not dumb. He's playingdumb. He's, he's, he's drawing
(10:57):
out what's inside of them is ifthe God of the universe, who
knows everything? Can be thathumble to learn and listen from
other people. How much more canwe and should we to have all the
knowledge and information is notthe end of being a teachable
person. You can still listen toother individuals even if you
know it all. This is, this isChrist likeness in my in my
(11:21):
opinion, the second point tothat is you're absolutely right.
I'm anti heresy. I think heresyis not good when we I'm I am pro
orthodoxy. I think that badtheology, in the end, deeply
harms people. It really hurts itsets up the possibility for
spiritual abuse, itmisrepresents the way of Jesus,
(11:43):
and in the end, is a pathway toHell. I believe 100% that
orthodoxy matters.
Unfortunately, commitment toOrthodoxy for many of us, tends
to play itself out as a kind ofclosed mindedness, and I'm not
convinced that believing inOrthodoxy means I don't have
permission to learn from expertsor culture or my enemies or
friends or children or myparents. So what we need is what
(12:05):
John Wesley called a compass forthought and for Wesley, who was
a voracious reader, people havestudied Wesley, you know, he
spent 25 you know, 250,000 hourson horseback riding between
towns, preaching the gospeleverywhere he went, and when he
would go, he would be readingall these books, biographies,
biology, chemistry, science. Imean, he was into history, and
(12:26):
he'd preach on this stuff. Imean, all this stuff would come
out in his sermons. But he said,even for the most voracious
learner, in one of his sermons,he says, we still need a compass
for thought, and that is theboundaries of good thinking, the
boundaries of good things. Thisis why scripture and in
Christian tradition and historyare so important, because they
(12:46):
establish for us the boundariesof what are in or out ideas. You
know it. I actually think theonly way to have diversity of
thought is that you have to haveactual convictions. Because with
convictions, it creates spacefor differentiation if, if I'm
committed to my deepestconvictions, for example,
Joshua, I'm very conservativewhen it comes to topics of
(13:10):
things like sexuality andgender, very conservative. And I
someone say that I'm stuck inthe mud, you know, I'm stuck in
the ancient world, and that'sfine. You can say all sort of
things you want, but it isactually because of those deep
convictions that allows me tohave conversations with people
that I disagree with, because Ican be confident in what I know
and I know what is an in or outissue. For me, I don't have to
(13:30):
be afraid because I have deepconvictions that that shape
hospitality. You cannot havetrue hospitality without deep
convictions. Yeah. Interesting.
The only, the only way that youcan actually be a missional
hospitable Christian in thisworld is to have a few things
that are dying, the hill issuesfor you. So
Joshua Johnson (13:51):
then, what does hospitality look like? If like I
have these convictions, but I'mstill going to invite and listen
and be be open. How does how isthat hospitality?
A.J. Swoboda (14:04):
Isn't it interesting that God in the
Garden of Eden in Genesis three?
Isn't it interesting that out ofnowhere, in a good, holy Tove
world, that is good out ofnowhere, there's the snake that
comes to deceive who let thesnake in. Why didn't God kick
the snake out? Why is the snakeallowed to be in the Garden of
(14:25):
Eden? Is God all powerful? Hejust got done creating the whole
universe in seven days. This isa very powerful God who can do
anything in all things, and yetGod allows a serpent into the
Garden of Eden. I think thatthat is an image of God's power.
God's power. You know what? Youknow what a weak person would
do. A weak person would end allthe enemies would just like,
(14:46):
there wouldn't be anythingother. And a weak person would
say, there's nothing else thatcan exist other than people that
obey perfectly everything I'msaying. The God of the universe
creates an environment. It,where the rebellious can live,
where a snake can wander throughGod's good garden, where, after
Genesis three, the humans arenot immediately killed because
(15:09):
of their disobedience. That istrue power. True Power is God
allowing rebels to live and becared for. It was actually, I
think it was Stanley Harris, Idon't remember who it was, but
who said that actually thedoctrine of hell, hell is God's
most extreme expression ofhospitality, that it is God
permitting those that eternallywant to rebel to actually have a
(15:33):
place to themselves. My Joshua,my point, my point is it is not
strength to end the voices andthe existence of people that
disagree with you. It's actuallya sign of strength. And because
we as Christians can have deeprooted convictions about who God
is about, what truth is about,the human body about these
(15:57):
things, it is because of thosethings that we are allowed to
create space for people thatdisagree with us. All around
Joshua Johnson (16:06):
us, I love that we have convictions, we're
confident, so that then we couldactually stand in a place where
we could invite people to otherthan
A.J. Swoboda (16:14):
that. We all just, I mean, we could all become
Amish and go live out, you know,away from culture. And I guess
that's an option, and one I'vebeen tempted by to want to do.
But the minute you approach theworld that way, and the minute
that you pull yourself away fromculture, you're no longer salt
in the world. I mean, you're nolonger existing as a missional
(16:37):
agent in a world where Christ iscommunicating his love to a
world that has rebelled. So,yeah, I mean, in the end, I
don't remember who it was whosaid it, but only false gods
demand forced homage. And theidea is it takes a weak God to
force everybody to love him. Ittakes a powerful God to invite
people to love him, but createspace for people to rebel. That
(17:00):
is true. Power.
Joshua Johnson (17:01):
So good. I want to go back and say with the
Emmaus road story for for just abit, when Jesus was introduced
to the disciples, this thisperson, they didn't know who he
was. They called him foreigner,stranger. So as we're thinking
about learning from strangers inthis moment, Jesus wasn't known
(17:22):
to them. He was stranger. Hewasn't a part of what they
thought a person should be. Butthen, after Jesus received them,
listened to them. Jesus thenunfolded the scripture, and they
were learning from the stranger,this foreigner, and their hearts
were burning. They were like, Ohyes, oh, I see that. I see that.
(17:46):
Is there a place, even in thatstory, as you reflect on it,
where they're open to learningfrom a stranger, they're open to
the foreigner that they can showus something, Yep,
A.J. Swoboda (18:00):
yeah, Mike, you know, you bring up learning from
strangers. I'll come to theEmmaus road story in just a
moment. You know, my generationwas shaped. I still remember as
a kid drinking or eating mycereal in the mornings and
looking at the back of, this isthe 1980s looking at the back of
the milk carton. And there werethe images of kids that had been
kidnapped. You know, that's ledto a whole culture of Stranger
(18:20):
danger. Strangers are terrible,terrifying, scary people. You
should stay away from them. Isthere some truth to that?
Absolutely, we need to becautious about strangers. You
know, my son kids have got itsuch a weird gig right now,
because we tell them, Don't,don't, take candy from
strangers, and then we doHalloween, and they've got to be
so confused. They've got to beso good poor kids. They don't
what strangers do I listen to.
But all that to say, you know,as a kid, I was taught strangers
(18:45):
are bad. You know that strangersare and that's shaped a whole
generation of people. You know,my parents grandparents talked
about living in small townswhere everybody knew each other,
that every stranger was afriend, and you wouldn't lock
your doors at night and andthese sorts of things. So there
is, there are some culturalelements to this to get in the
way of us learning from, frompeople that we we don't know, to
(19:08):
the image road story. It'sinteresting for ancient Jews, in
large part, it was a scary placeto be a stranger, to be a
foreigner. Um, there. There hasbeen a good deal written about
how an ancient Canaaniteculture, Babylonian cultures,
these sorts of spaces, strangerswere, in large part, ostracized.
They were in many cases killed.
(19:32):
And then the Jews come along andlive a very different ethic.
They have all these laws aroundcaring for the stranger, the
widow, the orphan, theforeigner, all these sorts of
things. So if you were a Jew,you would have looked very weird
to the world, because you madespace for the foreigner, the
stranger. In fact, there's clearconnections in like the Seder
meal, the Passover meal, thatyou're always supposed to make
(19:53):
room for the foreigner to cometo the table. And that's so
interesting. And so when Jesusis walking along, they think he.
Stranger. So what do they do?
They don't know who he is. Whatdo they do? They do what they've
been reading their whole life.
They let the stranger in, and asthey let the stranger in, it
turns out, in Luke's Gospel, theword epigenosco is an
(20:15):
interesting Greek word. Itbasically is. It means to
recognize somebody. It'sconnected to the word genosco to
No, but epigenos goes to aboveno to recognize or to remember
again. And in Luke's Gospel, theword recognize is always
connected to a meal. So theyalways recognize Jesus as they
eat together, okay? And theyrecognize that it's Jesus and
(20:38):
and for many of the early churchfathers, this was intended to
set up an ethic that when youmake room for the stranger, you
may actually be making room forJesus Himself. And you see a
little bit of this in the bookof Hebrews, that by entertaining
strangers, that you may beentertaining an angel, you know,
by loving a stranger, you may becaring for an angel unknown to
you in a world where tribalismand political and ideological
(21:02):
fragmentation is happening,where we see the other team as
evil and our team is awesome.
Basically what happens is wenever listen to the person that
is on the other side, thestranger does not get any
doesn't get any voice in ourlife. And I think the way of
Jesus invites us to a deeper waythan that. Some of the greatest
discoveries in the world havehappened because somebody
listened to somebody, theydidn't know that we had a
conversation with somebody on abus that we didn't know. We can
(21:25):
learn from strangers, and wedon't have to treat them like
they're possibly all kidnappers,like we all thought as kids.
Actually, strangers can offer usepiphanies and lessons and and
in some instances, can be anepiphany of the living God.
Joshua Johnson (21:43):
Well, some of these, these strangers that we
have, we don't know them. So wewere afraid of strangers. We're
afraid of our we. We see them asenemies. We see them as somebody
the other because we're notclose to them. We don't know
them. We have no proximity.
A.J. Swoboda (22:00):
What's weird about that, though, Joshua is my
generation was told, don't talkto strangers. Okay, today's
generation of kids are all giveniPhones and strangers live in
their pockets. We have a verylike. It was like, don't talk to
strangers. Now it's like, webelieve everything strangers
that aren't around us say. So wespend our time like reading and
(22:23):
listening to podcasts of peoplewho will never meet, and we base
our life now on the voice of thestranger. I am not suggesting by
any stretch of the imaginationthat we just believe everything
the stranger says. I actuallyargue in the book, our problem
is not that we don't listen tostrangers, it's that we listen
to strangers that we're not inthe room with and we don't
listen to strangers that are infront of us. So we'll listen to
(22:45):
a podcast by somebody we don'tknow, but the guy in the bus.
I'm gonna put my earbuds in so Idon't have to talk to
Joshua Johnson (22:50):
him. Yeah.
Interesting. Interesting. Sothen, if we're listening to
people that we don't know, andwe're listening to strangers,
and we'll shape our lives fromit, where does discernment come
in? How do we discern how weare? Are teachable? What is the
boundaries of our good thinking?
A.J. Swoboda (23:09):
Yeah, certainly, certainly number one. Certainly
number one would be for a goodProtestant like like myself, I
would have to say that numberone an endless hunger to have
one's life shaped by the word ofGod. I mean, that is with
without that we become peoplewithout compasses for thought,
(23:29):
and we will just acceptuncritically every last thing.
My son said to me when he firstgot into elementary school, one
of the things he heard was,well, how do you know if
something's true? And he said,Well, if it rhymes, it's true.
You It's true. If it rhymes,it's true. And I said, wasn't
interesting, that doesn't rhyme.
And he had to think about that.
(23:50):
He's like, Oh, wait, that'strue. Maybe it's not true. I
said it's not true. To say, Doyou believe everything on the
internet? You know, if it's onthe internet, is it true? Lord
have mercy. If we believedeverything on the internet, you
and I would be we'd be in aheap, heap of trouble. Number
one, Joshua, is there has to befor anybody that wants to be a
good learner and follow Jesus atthe same time, our heads and our
(24:10):
hearts must be saturated inGod's word all the time. And
that is non negotiable. I think.
Number two, this is where therelations, our relationship to
church is really important,because the community in which
we find ourselves is going tohelp us discern. You know, for
example, in my church, we've gota number of doctors, a couple
(24:30):
scientists. We have a abrilliant person in our church
who is doing their PhD in in inEnglish, Chinese literature. You
know, what's awesome about beingin a community with people like
this is that I could, I couldtake any of these people out for
coffee and wrestle out with themstuff I've been hearing all week
in the news, or things I've beenreading people who know more
(24:53):
than I do. We do tend to becomeour communities. And I think our
communities are discernment,are. Are one of the main ways
that we can discern up fromdown, right from left.
Otherwise, we are going tobelieve everything that we read
on the internet, or we are goingto believe everything we listen
to in a podcast. I think acommunity is very, very
important for shaping, forshaping discernment. And I would
(25:14):
say, I would say thirdly, thisis going to be the good
charismatic in me. Joshua, Ithink that if you're following
Jesus, you have the Holy Spiritinside of you. And what that
means is, I think the HolySpirit's really good at
communicating and and poking atour at our hearts, to say that
there's something off aboutthat. And I'll that'll happen to
me often. I'll be reading abook, and I'll read a paragraph,
(25:35):
and there will be just thisweird sense of, like, I can't
even name it, that's just off.
There's an attitude or a spiritin that that is not the way of
Jesus. And, you know, I think inthe past, I would just say, ah,
that's just me being a, youknow, X, Y and Z, whatever.
That's No, I actually think tobe a good learner, you got to
lean into the work of the HolySpirit. What did Jesus say? The
(25:58):
Spirit would come and lead youinto all truth. The teacher is
inside of you, right? And theSpirit wants to guide and
correct and teach or form us. Ithink Scripture, community and
the indwelling work of the HolySpirit teaches us how to be good
Joshua Johnson (26:14):
learners. Yeah, the teacher is among us. I think
sometimes here in some Christiancircles, that the power dynamic
is in such a place where, if thepastor actually just goes
astray, oh, people will, will,will follow and say, Yes, that
is that is truth, and that's theplace that I'm going to go. I'm
(26:35):
going to follow that, thatpowerful person, whoever it is,
what's the dynamic then within acommunity where we're all just
either saying yes or there'sdivision and strife, like, how
do how do we work things outwhen there's power dynamics at
play?
A.J. Swoboda (26:53):
Yeah, so interesting that you you bring
this up. I just finished readingMalcolm Gladwell his outliers.
It's a book about success,really interesting book. He has
this pair chapter in there,chapter seven. I'm thinking on
the spot here. I think it'sseven or eight, but it's a
chapter about plane crashes. Andhe makes an observation that one
of universal attributes of planecrashes in commercial jet,
(27:18):
airliner plane crashes, is thatin almost every instance, the
most experienced pilot is theone who is flying the plane at
the time of the plane crash. Andthere's all this research on why
this is the case, it turns outthat that often what happens in
planes where you have the mostexperienced pilot flying the
plane in the first seat, thesecond pilot will not speak
(27:40):
truthfully about something thatthey see because they are
deferring to the authority ofthe first pilot, and they are
doing what's called mitigatedspeech. They don't say, Hey,
we're running out of fuel, hey,there's something wrong. Hey, so
they don't say it because theyassume the first pilot knows it.
And this a really importantconcept, because it means that
sometimes power actually gets inthe way of truthfulness, that we
(28:04):
don't speak truth because weassume that the senior pastor
knows everything. We assume thesenior pastor or the leader
leaders have the right interestin mind, that they are acting
due diligently, which I think weshould assume, but the fact that
we are Protestants, a Protestanthas a view of Scripture that's
(28:25):
really unique, because tobelieve in Scripture as sola
scriptura, the idea thatscripture alone is the
mitigating factor of theChristian faith doesn't mean we
don't listen to other voices. Tobelieve in Scripture means that
the other voices now have aframework upon which to be
understood. The fact that webelieve that Scripture is the
very thing that should hold thechurch to Jesus means that every
(28:50):
Christian in the church that hasa Bible in their hands, all of a
sudden, is required to holdpeople in power to what
scripture has to say. I thinkchurches that have a high view
of Scripture should be places itdoesn't always work itself out,
but should be places wherepeople in power are held to
(29:11):
account and not in a mean sortof way. I'm saying that if a
pastor started teaching reallywonky things about the Trinity
or sexuality or something likethis, the people in the
congregation who have theirBibles in their hands should be
asking good questions. Hey, theBible says this, what are we
going to do about that? Hey, theBible says this, what are we
going to do about that? TheScripture becomes the the
(29:32):
prophetic book in our midst thatholds people in power to to
Christ. That's the way it shouldwork. And this, of course, why
the privacy reformation happenedwas because Luther saw that
scripture was not being heard inits time, and he said, we aren't
listening to the Bible. Soscripture is you'll notice I
(29:53):
started with that the number onething in being a good learner is
not that you put your head inthe sand and you ignore culture.
Scripture. It's that you gotyour head in Scripture so that
you can rightly read culture. Sothen
Joshua Johnson (30:05):
let's read culture now, how are we learning
then from secular culture of theculture around us, and how do we
bring those things in as we'reframing things through
Scripture? And you know, ourboundaries of good thinking.
What does it look like whenwe're looking at and reading
(30:25):
culture Yeah,
A.J. Swoboda (30:27):
I remember years ago, this this I used to be a I
still am, but I used to I usedto listen to every sermon Tim
Keller would ever preach I wouldI would just devour I mean, it
would it would be published I'dlisten to it like 12 seconds I
just was enamored with hispreaching and and he's a good
teacher. No, he was great. Yeah,one of the one of the things I
(30:47):
noticed most about hispreaching. There were a lot of
things I noticed, but one of thethings I noticed the most was
how often he would quote The NewYork Times. I would always quote
The New York Times. He wasconstantly quoting the New York
Times. Now, underneath that is apreacher who knows his audience
Keller knows the authorities ofthe everyday New Yorker. The New
(31:08):
Yorker reads, they get up, theyread the New York Times. That is
their authority. So he meetspeople where they're at. You
know he is, he is doing the workof preaching the gospel through
the lens of the average NewYorker who is, it's
incarnational, really. I mean,he's, he's, he's meeting people
where they're at. How often inChristian spaces do we expect
(31:28):
the world to be the missionarywhere we expect the world to
come and speak our languagerather than us doing the work of
speaking its language I don'tthink it's possible for us to be
effective missionaries unless wehave our heads and our minds in
the culture of the people thatChrist is seeking to save. Going
back to John Wesley, one of thethings John Wesley would do when
He would go into a city thiswas, you know, 1700s when he
(31:51):
1800s when he would go into acity one of the first things he
would do, great revivalistpreacher missionary, is that he
would first go to the locallibrary. And he would go to the
library because, for one reason,he very often, would first go to
library because he wanted to seewhat books people were reading,
because he believed, unless youknew the questions people were
(32:12):
asking, you could not bring themthe answers that their hearts
needed. And that brings me fullcircle to Tim Keller. Why was
Tim Keller such an incredibleteacher. Why? Why was Jesus
Christ such an incredibleteacher? Listen to His parables.
He tells 38 parables. Everysingle one of those parables
reveals a Messiah who had hishead in culture he knew people's
(32:35):
worlds. He knew what peoplethought. He knew what people
assumed. He knew what drovepeople, what got people up in
the morning. His ministry wasbuilt on the fact that he was
aware he was in the world payingattention. In fact, in at the
book of Acts, the third timethat Paul, this is interesting,
the third time that Paulrecounts his conversion story.
(32:55):
He comments that Jesus had toldhim on the road to Emmaus or on
the road to Damascus. Saul.
Saul, why do you kick againstthe goad the goats? This weird
comment. And when you trace outthat line, Saul Saul, why do you
kick against the goads? It's aline from a Greek play 200 years
earlier. And what's going on isJesus is quoting something from
popular culture to Saul to reachhim with the good news name one
(33:17):
other god that would be likeJesus quoting Taylor Swift to
get to get a point across whathe's trying to say. It is
impossible for us to beeffective missionaries without
having our heads in the culturearound us. So this is not just
about being learners. This is asmuch about being learners as it
(33:38):
is about being missionaries.
Joshua Johnson (33:41):
Other than that means we need to be good.
Listeners we have to ask goodquestions
A.J. Swoboda (33:47):
cautiously. Again, I want to be I'm not saying
everything you pick up onTwitter you you you believe. But
here's the thing, we have got todistinguish that learning
something is not the same asagreeing with it. To learn
something is to just hold it insuspension and say, I just
learned that. That'sinteresting. That doesn't mean
(34:07):
you've matriculated it into yourlife and you've accepted it.
You're just holding it just aswashing feet doesn't mean you
agree with somebody Jesus washedJudas feet, no knowing exactly
what he's going to do to learnfrom somebody if I see, here's
the thing, Joshua, should mystudents at the undergraduate
level talk about enemies? Shouldmy students read Mein Kampf by
(34:31):
Adolf Hitler? This is a hugedebate, like, Should we read it
or burn it? And the debate is,do we listen to our enemies or
do we cancel them? The minuteyou cancel your enemies, I
argue, I would argue, the minuteyou cancel your enemies, you
actually give them more power,and their ideas go underground
and become more and more powerpowerful. The only way in which
we can defeat the evil,diabolical, diabolical claims of
(34:53):
Hitler's Mein Kampf is we needto know what he's arguing. I
need to learn his arguments todismantle them. There's a.
Missional component, even tolearning from our enemies, and
to be able to say, you know, Iknow what my enemies think, and
it's only because I know whatthey think that I'm able to
actually stand strong againstwhat they claim. This. This
(35:13):
changes this. This changes theconversation, because learning
then becomes a missionalactivity for a missional church
that is called by God to live inin the world. And when you read
the earliest Christian ChurchFathers, all of them are quoting
the heretics all the time. Andthe fact that they're quoting
the heretics is enough evidencefor us to know they actually are
(35:35):
reading the heretics. They knowwhat they think. And the only
way to defeat the heretics isyou got to know their their
silliness,
Joshua Johnson (35:41):
so we shouldn't just burn all the books. Lord,
no,
A.J. Swoboda (35:44):
you that actually the when you can that's
basically a way of cancelingsomebody. We've been canceling
people for a long time. Cancelculture is nothing new, but to
when you burn people's books andyou, you know, you you cancel
somebody whose ideas you don'tlike, what you end up doing is
you end up sending that personaway with their ideas to make
(36:06):
those ideas stronger in thedark, and you end the
possibility of true relationshiphaving an impact. The guy who
taught me this is Daryl Davis.
And you can go, anybody who'slistening to this can go read
about Daryl Davis or an AfricanAmerican man. He has one of the
most watched TED Talk videos onthe webs. Daryl Davis, African
American man, decided thatrather than ostracizing and
(36:29):
canceling all of his friendsthat were racists, he started
befriending KKK members, and hebegan becoming their friends.
And through becoming theirfriends, he tells a story, and
he has this moment in his talkwhere he opens up this closet
full of KKK robes, of peoplethat left their ideology because
(36:50):
in the relationship with DarylDavis, to me, that is that is
the most incarnational form ofactivity. Jesus Christ comes to
the world while we were sinners.
Christ died for us. Christ doesnot come into the world to
cancel the world. He befriendseach person in the world as a
(37:12):
means of changing their heart.
So burning a book makessomebody's ideas get worse and
harder over time, butbefriending somebody who may
have ideas that are very, verycontrary to the way of Jesus.
You may actually be the onethrough whom God is going to
reach, that person that's
Joshua Johnson (37:26):
good, you know, yesterday, Easter Sunday, we
talked about how Jesus made usnew, where He reconciled us to
God. And through that, in SecondCorinthians, five talks that
then we are now ambassadors,Christ, comers. We are now
reconcilers ourselves, that Godis working for us to reconcile
(37:46):
people, which is crazy that weget to participate. Now it's our
job to participate. So what youwere just talking about? Dale
Davis, I think that's theparticipating work of
reconciling as a learner ofbeing with people that have
ideological views that areopposed to you, yep, but you
(38:09):
could be with them and reconcilethem back to a place,
A.J. Swoboda (38:13):
yeah. Inversion.
Prophecy has been inverted thisI have really wrestled Joshua
with this phenomenon of thesetwo parties, the, you know, the
Democrats and the Republicans,who are just now increasingly, I
mean, further and further goingapart. And it's, you know, why
is that happening? And I thinkone of the reasons that that is
(38:34):
happening is that what should bethe right, the right use of the
prophetic voice is has becomeinverted. And what I mean by
that is, when you read theprophets of the Hebrew Bible,
the Old Testament, prophets, theprophets in the Old Testament do
something that none of theprophets of other nations did.
Every other nation had prophets.
(38:56):
They were false prophets, butthey were prophets nonetheless.
And when you look at all theprophets of the other nations
around Israel, the prophetswould always prophesy Doom on
the other nations. You guys aregoing down. You guys are gonna
be judged. You guys are gonnafall. And then you read the
Hebrew prophets, and then dosomething weird. They are the
ones who are willing to self aimtheir prophecy on their own
(39:22):
people. They critique Israel. Itis this the true prophet. One of
the marks of the False Prophetis that the other side is always
the wrong one. One of the marksof a true prophet is we are
needing to repent. And I thinkwhat's happened in this
ideological age is we have lostthe gift of being critical of
(39:45):
our own side, and everything iswrong with the other side, and
in so doing, we're just movingfurther and further apart. When
what should happen? If I'm aRepublican, I should be offering
very, very strong critiques inmy party, and if I'm a Democrat,
I'm all. Offering very strongcritiques of my party, but
instead, what we're doing isjust lobbing on the other side,
(40:05):
and this, it's a breakdown ofunderstanding how you should be
harshest, hardest on your ownpeople, that that is a profit. A
profit embodies that. And thatsounds really harsh, but that's
what you do with a family thatyou love, is that you're hard on
your family because you believein your family and you believe
in what you're doing. So we now,we don't want the prophetic
(40:28):
voice, we want power, and soit's killing us, and it's I fear
is not going to end. Well,
Joshua Johnson (40:35):
no, it's not.
How does that practically work?
A.J. Swoboda (40:38):
Start, start in your church, and in your church
become subversive learners. WhatI mean by that is in your
church, rather than focusing onhow the culture around you is
horrible, stop preaching sermonsabout how secular culture around
you stinks. Of course, itstinks. It doesn't know Jesus,
but your job isn't to holdsecular culture to the ways of
Jesus. Your job is to hold thechurch to Jesus and ask yourself
(41:01):
the questions, how are we notdoing what God has called us to
do? Turn the prophecy inward andstop spending all of your time
looking at how wokeism isdestroying the church, how
secular culture is destroyingthe church. Friend the enemy to
us. Being faithful to Jesus, isnot wokeism or secular culture,
it is that we are not carryingour cross, turn it inward. We
(41:25):
have to hold ourselves to theway of Jesus, rather than
expecting secular culture to doit on our behalf. And that's not
enjoyable to hear, brother, Idon't I don't relish saying that
Joshua Johnson (41:36):
it's what we need at the moment, as what we
need in every moment, actuallylike, what is it? What does it
look like? Because, you know,
A.J. Swoboda (41:44):
Joshua, can I tell you something really cool
before? Before I this, thisimage of teachability, and this
word teachability is a reallyinteresting word to me. I
remember the first time I wasintroduced to the idea of being
a teachable person. It was JayOswald Sanders book spiritual
leadership years ago, and he hada chapter in there on being a
teachable leader, that every aChristian leader needs to be a
teachable person. And thatalways stuck with me. After
(42:07):
reading that. In the last fiveyears or so, I've done a deep
dive. I cannot find anybodythat's written on that in a full
length way. This is like, Ithink this is the first time the
idea of teachability as aChristian virtue has been
except, except, I found it inone place. John Calvin. John
Calvin preached a sermon onDeuteronomy chapter 10, where
(42:28):
God tells Moses to come up themountain with two blank tablets,
and Moses carries these twoblank tablets up to Gog. And
we're told that God writes onthe tablets. And John Wesley, or
John Calvin, argued that this iswhat a Christian's life is to be
about, is that we are constantlybringing to God empty slates
(42:52):
upon which God can reign. Thatis. And he had a word for this.
You know what? He called it ateachable spirit. That is such a
poignant image that our task asChristians is to cultivate the
space, to allow God to teach us.
And we don't have space. We'rebusy. We're doing stuff, but the
Christian life is dragging upthe mountain the blank slates of
(43:13):
our life, so that God can dosome work on the blank slates.
And indeed, to be a follower ofJesus is to be teachable.
Because unless you're teachableby Jesus, it doesn't matter. You
got to come up with someentries, empty slabs, amazing.
Joshua Johnson (43:30):
I love it.
That's fantastic. I think wecould, yeah, we could end there,
because that's what you're justsummed it all up beautifully, as
I was going to ask you to do,and you did it. It was great.
I'd love to end then with arecommendation or two, anything
that you've been reading orwatching that you could
recommend.
A.J. Swoboda (43:50):
Oh, yeah, great question. One thing you can do,
by the way, is, is I do a weeklydevotional called a low level
the low level theologian. AndI'm actually writing on all
these themes of teachability. Soif anybody that wants to read,
go subscribe to that. Buthonestly, you know who I'd
recommend is pretty mucheverything Dallas Willard ever
wrote. He he was anintellectual, a PhD in
(44:13):
philosophy, and he saw it as hisrole in life to teach Christians
how to think. Well, just spendthe next 20 years reading Dallas
Ford, that is a goodrecommendation.
Joshua Johnson (44:24):
I recommend Dallas Willard as well. That's
good AJ, how can people get ateachable spirit? Where would
you like to point people to
A.J. Swoboda (44:31):
anywhere that books are sold? Obviously, I
always tell people, if you got alocal bookstore, mompa books or
get it there if you can yourlocal city. But if not, the
interwebs is a great place toget it. And, yeah, and it'll be
in, you know, all the places,Barnes and Noble and all this
stuff. So yeah, thanks toZondervan for the great, great
work on this project. I'm sograteful for that.
Joshua Johnson (44:51):
Well, AJ, thank you for this conversation. It
was fantastic. And I really hopeand I pray that people can start
to understand what thisteachable speech. Is all about
that this day and age where thewe have polar opposites, the
polarization of culture, willactually then move into a
different direction and comeback together, so that we can
(45:14):
stand firm in our convictions,be confident in who we are, to
know Scripture well, to say thisis the boundaries of good
thinking, but then give voice topeople so that we can be
reconcilers. And we could saythat we could come together
again and stand firm in what weknow from the Lord. And we could
(45:35):
learn from him that we couldjust open up our hands and say,
here are my blank tablets. Yesplease, right, and I'm going to
learn from you. Thank
A.J. Swoboda (45:43):
you, Joshua, it's a gift as always, to be with
Unknown (46:00):
you. You.
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