Ep. 331 Zach Lambert - Better Ways to Read the Bible - Shifting Culture

Episode Transcript
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Zach Lambert (00:00):
You see Paul and Peter, you know, two of the

(00:04):
point leaders of the firstchurch after the resurrection of
Jesus, publicly arguing abouthow to interpret the Bible. And
so if the original audience whospent literal time with Jesus
did not have just an easyunderstanding that they knew
they were doing interpretation,they were bringing social
location and biases. How muchmore so are we? Hello and

(00:25):
welcome

Joshua Johnson (00:39):
to the shifting culture podcast in which we have
conversations about the culture.
Conversations about the culturewe create and the impact we can
make. We long to see the body ofChrist look like Jesus. I'm your
host. Joshua Johnson, in thisepisode, I sit down with Zach
Lambert, a pastor, a writer, afellow traveler who's asking
honest questions aboutscripture, about faith and what
it means to follow Jesus in theworld as it really is. Zach's

(01:00):
new book better ways to read theBible is deeply pastoral. It
doesn't offer easy answers orclever takes. It invites us to
pay attention to the lenses wecarry, the fruit our
interpretations bear, and theJesus at the center of it all we
talk about moving beyond flat orharmful readings of the Bible,
learning to hold mystery andreclaiming a faith that's rooted

(01:22):
in love, justice and the actuallife of Christ, not cultural war
slogans or inherited dogma. Ifyou've wrestled with how to read
Scripture with integrity, ifyou're looking for ways to
ground your life in Jesus ratherthan the noise, this
conversation is worth your time.
So join us as we discover betterways to read the Bible. Here is

(01:46):
my conversation with Zach.
Lambert, Zach, welcome toshifting culture. So excited to
have you on. Thanks for joiningme. Yeah, thanks

so much for having me. Joshua, I'm excited to talk.
Yeah. We're gonna

dive into better ways to read the Bible. Your new
book coming out. And so, youknow, just as an introduction
growing up, how were you exposedto the Bible? What were the
predominant ways that you werereading the Bible growing up?

Yeah, I joke that in the churches I grew up in the
Bible was really like the thirdmember of the Trinity replacing
the Holy Spirit. It was FatherSon Holy Bible. We I grew up
Southern Baptist. We did nothave a lot of engagement with
the Holy Spirit or kind of broadspiritual things. But man, did
we emphasize the Bible, but itwas certainly a very specific

(02:34):
reading of the Bible, a muchmore fundamentalist
understanding of it in thechurch that I grew up in,
specifically so it was veryblack and white. There was this
kind of mythos that it was easyto understand if you were just
really faithful, and if youwere, then you would come to the
same conclusion as the preacherthat we had, or the kind of
dominant circles that we ran in.
So the Bible was certainlypresented as univocal about

(02:56):
everything, and really just kindof one big unified word from God
directly to us. But then I thinkI started to experience the
Bible in ways that wereconfusing. I remember the first
time, one of the first timesthis happened, or one of the
most vivid times I was in ayouth group in sixth or seventh
grade middle school ministry,and it was Easter time, and I

(03:19):
remember the pastor was talkingabout how Jesus was on the
cross, and when Jesus was on thecross, that God turned away from
Jesus, because Jesus had all ofour sin on him, and God can't be
around sin. And so God kind ofabandoned Jesus, and there on
the cross. And I remember theweek before, we had had a lesson

(03:39):
on how God was a good fatherthat really like the greatest
father that ever lived. And Iremember thinking, that's not
what a good father does. A goodfather doesn't abandon his son
in the, you know, worst momentpossible. And then also, you
know, we'd had, I had heardmyriad sermons about how God

(04:01):
wanted to be close to me and Iwanted to be I should want to be
close to God. But then if Godcouldn't be around Jesus because
of my or our sin, and I stillhad that same kind of sin in me,
or I chose sin sometimes, thendoes God actually want to be
around me? And I really began tohave some struggles with how I
understood scripture. And thenobviously that affects how you

(04:25):
understand God and yourself andthe world.

And so as you're moving then maybe from a black
and white reading of the Bible,growing up and saying the you
know, the they're giving youthis black and white reading,
moving into man, you'requestioning things. You're
saying, Man, that doesn't reallymake sense, and you're having
these questions and moving intosome gray areas. What did that
start to look like for you? Whatwas a transition of having a

(04:52):
broader understanding of theBible? Well,

it certainly wasn't linear. The I actually
tell the story in the book Iended. Getting kicked out of
that youth group because I justkept asking these questions that
were deemed unacceptable aroundthe inconsistencies that I saw
or the the picture I had of Godthat seemed to be really
different than what had beentold to me. So yeah, they, like
my youth pastor, pulled myparents aside and said, Your son

(05:17):
is disrupting my Bible studiesand causing the other kids to
doubt their faith, and he can'tcome back anymore. And so at
that point, I really putChristianity in the Bible away.
I mean, I didn't engage withthem at all. I was I was pretty
much done, and part of me wasglad because I wasn't. I didn't
like love church. My parentsmade me go. But then part of me,

(05:38):
that I think I would discovermuch later is that I was pretty
devastated, because there was myparents were in ministry.
Everybody we knew was Christian,this thing that was the most
important thing for, like,basically my entire community
now was something that I didn'tfit in, and it was caused a lot
of dissonance. And it wasn'tuntil later on, probably 1718,

(05:59):
years old, where I picked theBible back up, just kind of
thinking, maybe I'vemisunderstood some things, and
maybe I should just read it formyself, you know, because I'd
mostly had it read to me orpreached for me. And thank God,
I just opened up to the theGospel accounts, and I started
reading about Jesus, and what Irealized Joshua, is that I knew
a lot about the beginning andthe end of the story, like, kind

(06:22):
of the first and last chaptersof Jesus's book, The the
Christmas story and the Easterstory. But I knew shockingly
little about the life andteachings of Jesus. I don't
remember, maybe it was, but I donot remember the Sermon on the
Mount being talked about in anyof my childhood churches. You
know, I don't remember. Iremember reading about Jesus

(06:43):
being accused of being a gluttonand a drunkard, you know,
because he was hanging out withthe the people of ill repute. So
much. I remember reading as likeMatthew 23 and him really like
dressing down these religiousleaders for being hypocrites and
stuff. And I just remember beinglike, I have never heard this
before. So it was like thisradical, revolutionary Jesus.

(07:03):
And I have, I remember themoment vividly. I'd like
finished reading the Gospel ofJohn, and I closed my Bible, and
I thought, if this is who Jesusactually is, and if following
this Jesus is what Christianityactually is, then I think I want
to do that. But it was justreally different from the
Christianity I'd been

exposed to so many people read the Bible in
different ways. You lay out someharmful ways that people read
the Bible. Why do you thinkthat, if you saw that and we
read the ways of Jesus and thewords of Jesus, we read the
Gospels, Jesus is the center ofour faith. We are the body of
Christ. We're the Bride ofChrist. We're so connected to

(07:46):
him, the goal is to grow up intoJesus, who is the head, so that
we can have maturity. Why do weforget that? Why do we forget
Jesus? What happens with ourways of reading the Bible that
removes some of the aspects ofJesus that we are uncomfortable
with.

Well, I don't know if there's one specific reason
for any given person, but like,people are not monolithic, I
think in the reason and how theyget to what you're talking
about, kind of a Christianitydevoid of Christ is what I call
it. But I do think that it doeshave something to do with the
fact that the kind of real Jesusand the true message of Jesus is

(08:25):
actually incredibly disruptivefor so many of us, and how we
kind of do life. You know,whether it's this consumerism,
this these toxic cycles ofacquisition and consumption, of
always bigger and better andnewer, Jesus is incredibly
disruptive to that. The way wethink about power and hierarchy,
you know, and Jesus wasconstantly kind of flattening

(08:47):
things. Jesus is incrediblydisruptive to that. I also think
just the idea of power ingeneral, I mean, the Incarnation
God, putting on flesh in theperson of Jesus, is the the
emptying of power, right? It'sthe giving up of power, is how
Paul describes it, that Jesusdid not think equality with God
something to be held on to, butthat gave it up in order to make

(09:12):
a home with us. And that messeswith our understanding of the
world and power and all of thatstuff. And so I think it ends up
being easier to just make ourChristianity based on some other
verses that are actually a lotmore palatable to the way that
we live and move in the worldalready, rather than allowing

(09:34):
the way of Jesus, the message ofJesus, to disrupt and transform.
I mean, like, I think about, youknow what Paul said, right?
Like, do not be conformed to thepattern of this world, but be
transformed by the renewing ofyour mind. I just think that
Jesus is the the catalyst fortransforming us and renewing our
minds, and that's hard, and so alot of us choose to just conform

(09:54):
to the patterns of the worldinstead, a

lot of times, when I'm teaching and we're
thinking about how to to.
Translate the message of Jesusto different places and
cultures. It seems pretty easyto say, Okay, I could
contextualize it one way so thatpeople can understand. It seems
very difficult for people toactually analyze the lenses and
the things that they readScripture with their own

(10:19):
worldview, the way that they seethe world, the way that they
were raised. What are some waysto help us start to identify
maybe these are the lenses I'musing to read the Bible, and
maybe it's not so helpful,

right? That's a great question. I'll start by
telling how it happened for me.
I remember being in a seminaryclass and my professor. So I did
a, did seminary at DallasTheological Seminary, you know,
very kind of traditionalconservative seminary. Right out
of college. I was, I was 22years I just turned 22 when I
started in seminary. And Iremember I did this, the masters

(10:53):
of theology, which is like 120hour masters program. And so we,
you know, that's what? 40something classes, five books a
class. Let's call it 200 books Iwas assigned, you know, and I
can count on one hand the numberof them that were not written by
straight white men. And that wasjust, that was just the lens.
And the vivid memory that sticksout is probably my fourth or

(11:18):
fifth semester. We were assigneda book by justo Gonzalez, who's
a theologian and historian,very, very famous, very
mainstream, you know, and but

my brother, my masters as well, yes, very
typical,

very typical book.
And, but my professor, when heassigned it, he said, just
remember that this book iswritten by a Latino theologian,
and so it's probably prettybiased. And I remember being
like, I've never heard a bookintroduced like that at seminary
before, and I just started tohave this realization that,
like, well, if, if just Gonzalezis biased. Like, aren't we all

(11:55):
biased, you know? But thereality is that a certain type
of theology was considered kindof normal, and then anything
outside of that was consideredaberrant, or at least needed a
disclaimer. And I mean, you cango to a Christian bookstore and
you can find sections for BlackTheology and feminist theology
and queer theology and all thesethings, right? But there's no

(12:18):
white theology section, youknow, there's no there's no
masculine theology section,there's no heterosexual theology
section. And really, that'sbecause those things are just
called theology a lot of times.
And that started to help merealize, like, Oh, wait. I think
that we are all bringing us oursocial location into this, some

(12:39):
combination of our background,beliefs, experiences, biases,
all of that. The other thingI'll say about trying to help
other people realize that is, Ithink it starts with
understanding that none of usare the the original audience of
the biblical books. Right? Theywere all written to other people
in different times, and at best,we read over the shoulder of the

(13:02):
original audience. And I'm not,I mean, I obviously love the
Bible. I think it transforms,you know, God used it to
transform us, and it's great allthe things. But we are not the
original audience. And you know,we're not ancient Israelites.
We're not first centuryPalestinians living under Roman
oppression. We are so farremoved from that. And the crazy

(13:24):
thing is, even the originalaudience argued over biblical
interpretation. You know, theywent back and forth. You see the
Hebrew prophets getting intodialog and arguing with each
other. You see Paul and Peter,you know, two of the point
leaders of the first churchafter the resurrection of Jesus,
publicly arguing about how tointerpret the Bible. And so if

(13:47):
the original audience who spentliteral time with Jesus did not
have just an easy understandingthat they knew they were doing
interpretation, they werebringing social location and
biases. How much more so are we?

So then, how do people get comfortable with
that? With mystery, and it'sdifficult, and it's not, there
isn't. So if you look at here,one of the the ways that you say
a lens that that actually doessome harm is the literal lens,
like literalism, and, you know,I've heard it say it's a flat
reading of Scripture. It's like,hey, what's on the page? This is

(14:22):
it. The context is gone. So ifwe're looking at that and going
in there, how do we go move fromsomething like that into a place
of being okay with mystery andnot understanding everything?
It's

a good question.
And I appreciate even yourdefinition of literalism, which
I do more in the book. It reallyis a kind of wooden literalism,
because I do want to say some ofthe Bible is absolutely meant to
be taken incredibly literally.
You know? I mean, they're 2000plus verses about caring for the
poor and oppressed. Jesus saidthe most important thing in the
world is to love God and loveyour neighbor as yourself like

(14:55):
that's literal. Jesus said, dothis. This is the most important
thing in the world. Whathappens? I think. Wooden
literalism is that we read everybiblical passage as if it's
meant to be historicallyscientifically literal, and
often missing any kind of nuanceor especially genre. We
intuitively get this now, right?
Like, one of my favorite genresof literature is, like, post

(15:15):
apocalyptic, you know,futuristic stuff, like I read
sci fi and things like that. Weread a book like that, and we
know this is not like a historyof the world, right? This is,
this is fiction. It's a specifickind of fiction. But the problem
is, a lot of us have beenexposed to like, let's say, the
reading of revelation as well.
This is a word for word,prediction of the future. You

(15:39):
know, when in reality, it's muchmore of like a science fiction
using pictures and word picturesto talk about what life was like
under the Roman Empire at thetime, rather than here's the
exact sequence of future events.
And so I think a big part ofhelping us get comfortable with
the mystery is just getting morefamiliar with the context genre,
authors, intent, audience, whatwas going on in the culture at

(16:04):
the time. I think that reallyhelps us understand. The last
thing I'll say about that is, Iam, I'm in a doctoral program
right now at Duke, and we tookan Old Testament class last
semester. It was kind of COtaught. At least a few sessions
were co taught by Ellen Davis,who's this amazing Christian
theologian, Old Testamenttheologian. And then Rabbi Shi
held, who is a Jewish rabbi, andwe had this amazing conversation

(16:27):
about, you know, when you thinkof biblical inspiration, what,
how do you know that the Bibleis inspired? Like, what do you
kind of hold on to and, or atleast, what have you been
taught? And so the Christians inthe class talked about how most
of us were taught that thereason we know God inspired the
Bible is because there's oneperfect meaning for every single
piece, you know, every verse,every passage, like there's one

(16:48):
truth, and it's about getting tothat one truth, and that's how
we know God inspired it. And Iremember Rabbi shihel like
laughing and saying, that's theexact opposite of why we think
the Bible is inspired by God. Wethink the Bible is inspired by
God because there are so manybeautiful truths that can come

(17:09):
out of any given passage. And hetalked about it like, you know,
holding up a crystal to a lightand just rotating it slowly and
seeing the beauty that wasrefracted in all these different
ways. And he kind of said, like,how, how limited would God be if
there could only be oneapplication for a modern day
person, an ancient person, oranything in between? When, in

(17:33):
reality, God is much moreinvolved and it's, it's much
more mysterious than I think alot of us are

comfortable with Yeah, it is. I love that, and I
love that picture of thiscrystal. And we're looking at
those things. It's why, as weread the same passage over and
over again, if we're reading theBible, different things come out
at us all the time, and we'relike, oh, there's a truth here.
I didn't see that before. Like,where? Why is that there? Like

(18:02):
God is speaking something new tome today. Now, like looking at
that, if there is a mystery inthat and that God is still
speaking through the Bible, now,how do we reckon with him still
speaking? That is not just okay.
There's this book, and Ibecause, like, if I just look at
all we've had great pieces ofliterature throughout the the

(18:25):
centuries, like and but nothinghas stood the test of time like
the Bible. And that people getsome it's, it's just amazing
what the Bible can do. So how dowe reckon with God is still
speaking through the Bible as weengage with the text. How does
how does that work? Yeah,

I'm not sure how it works, you know, but I do
think that the biblical authorsdescribe Scripture as living and
active, and the reason that it'sliving and active is not because
of some like magic formula ofwords that exist on the page.
It's because of God's presencein and through and it's because

(19:10):
of the subject matter. I thinkin the scriptures, I think it's
important to think that, youknow, to understand that we, we
don't. I have a whole chapter inthe book about this. We do not
have a text based faith. AsChristians, we really have a
person based faith in Jesus andan event based faith in the
life, death and resurrection ofChrist. And so that's a very

(19:32):
different thing. The reason theBible matters so much is because
it tells us about God, right?
The Bible doesn't like exist ina vacuum, you know, like it is
the subject matter that I thinkmakes it so substantial, and
God's ongoing involvement in andthrough that subject matter. I
also think that one of thereasons it's still so compelling

(19:54):
is because I think the best wayto think about the Bible is not
like. God's love letter to us,or God's instruction manual for
life, but really as a collectionof writings where people who
were deeply committed to tryingto understand and follow God
wrote down their experiences ofhow they did that, everything

(20:15):
from poetry to history tomythology to social issues and
sermons and everything inbetween. And so this, like
shared human experience that wehave with the biblical authors,
I think, is what deeplyresonates for so many people
when they read about these folkswho are trying to follow God,
trying to understand God, tryingto understand themselves,

(20:37):
humanity in light of God, thatthat transcendence is something
that we're deeply connected to,and that God is actually the one
that is helping breathe lifeback into that over and over and
over again.

So as we're walking through situations in
this world, and we're seeingsomething play out on the
political stage, and from theWhite House. We're getting Bible
verses from Isaiah that thatactually point to something that
they're not trying to say.
They're saying somethingopposite of what the Bible is
actually saying, but they'reusing the Bible as justification

(21:12):
to do harm to people. How do weroot ourselves and say, Okay, I
actually know the context andthe Scripture. I know that
that's not what it says. Insteadof going, Oh, it's a Bible
verse, it must be true. So howdo we start to actually be aware

(21:32):
of what is happening withinculture and the Bible?

That's such a great question, and honestly,
that that is the reason I wrotethe book, is because, as a local
church pastor, that's just aquestion I get all the time,
right is like, how do I know?
How do I make these interpretivedecisions? What are the criteria
I should be using? Like wetalked about this earlier, we're
all making interpretivedecisions, and we are using some
set of criteria. I think mythesis in the book is that some

(22:03):
criteria are significantlybetter than others when we're
making interpretive decisions.
And the the lens that one of thehealthy lenses that I talk
about, is this lens offruitfulness, and it's probably,
and I think it's probably themost practical of them all, and
it's how I would morespecifically answer your
question. You know Jesus saidthat you will know His followers

(22:26):
by our fruit. You know Galatianssays the fruit of the spirits,
love, joy, peace, patience,kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness andself control. And so we have to
be asking, Is this use of aBible verse, right? Like you
just alluded to is this use ofHere I am, send me in Isaiah,
and used in a way that justifiesviolence against immigrants and

(22:50):
incarceration and alligatorAlcatraz and all these horrific
things, is that actuallypromoting more love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, goodness,faithfulness, gentleness and
self control in the world. Thatis, I think, a very helpful
like, just kind of quick check,right to understand, is this
Bible? Is this Bible verse beingused appropriately or not?

(23:12):
Because if Jesus said, you'llknow my followers by their
fruit, and then you know theScriptures say this is what the
fruit of the Spirit is, thenit's and it's not the fruit of
like human intelligence or humaneffort. It's the fruit of the
Spirit of God at work. And so Iwould look at a usage like you
just alluded to with Isaiah, andsay there's no spirit of God in
that usage and that applicationand so, and we know that because

(23:33):
it's not producing love, joy,peace, etc.

I mean, that's a that's a helpful framework.
You'll know them by the fruit.
So you said, just before that,in one of your answers, you said
that our faith revolves around aperson, revolves around Jesus.
Jesus is the center of ourfaith. It's not just, you know,
random texts here and there. Soit's Jesus. So one of the things
that I was gonna walk with myparents, I was in the Seattle

(23:59):
area. I was on a walk, and I sawa church with the American flag
out there. I was like, okay,that's their, you know, like,
Hey, we're gonna celebrateempire. We're gonna celebrate
our country. Great, I'm I, I'mglad for patriotism. I love
patriotism, but it's a church,you know, it should revolve
around Jesus. And then I go toanother church right down the

(24:20):
road, and then they have a prideflag. I'm like, Yes, that's
good. Like, hey, we want to saywe love these people, but it's a
flag that is not Jesus. How dowe how do we say, hey, there are
some good ways. And we want someliberation theology. We want to
actually read the Scripturethrough a lens of liberation. We

(24:41):
want to say God loves everysingle person that we're all
made in the image of God. Buthow do we do that in a way where
justice or Empire is not theleading force, but Jesus is in.
And that then, because Jesus isjustice, like justice goes with

(25:02):
Jesus, and he's then againstempire. So I just want to I've
been trying to wrestle with,yeah, how do we especially
justice? I think I see behindyou. I think Circle of Hope.
Eliza Griswold book, I see thatbehind you and one of my
favorite books of last year, butit's the same thing I think

(25:23):
there, as they were wrestlingwith in Philadelphia, is, are we
letting Jesus like guide things,or letting justice issues take
center stage? How do we wrestlewith

that? That's such a good question. I would say the
thing that I talk about a lot inthe book and at our church here
in Austin, is that I believe inthe pursuit of justice. I
believe in radical inclusionbecause of Jesus in Scripture,
not in spite of them. And soJesus and scripture are the,
really the foundation for thosevalues. Those values are not the

(25:58):
foundation for how I engage withmy faith, right? And I think we
can flip those and it becomesunhelpful. So for me, like at
our church, we say all the time,we are unapologetically justice
oriented, we areunapologetically inclusive and
affirming, and we're alsounapologetically Christian, and
that the first two actually flowfrom the third one. The third
one is the reason that we arethose things because there are a

(26:21):
lot of really great groups inthe world who are doing justice
and inclusion work, and I lovethat. You know, there are groups
focused on diversity and equityand inclusion that I think are
doing fantastic work. But forme, the reason I care about
those things is not because theyare popular. It's not because
they are hip. It's not because,you know, they get extra funding

(26:44):
from the government or not. Itis because of my faith in Jesus.
It is because I am attempting,like I said the very beginning,
to orient my life aroundfollowing Jesus, to be
transformed by his teachings andhis example and his spirit
within me, and that leads me toa place of justice and
inclusion. And, you know, antiEmpire work, right? It leads me

(27:10):
to push back against Christiannationalism and all those kinds
of things. And I would, I buildpartnerships with people who do
those same things for differentreasons. And I that's totally
fine, like, you know, atheist,agnostics, people of other faith
do those things for differentreasons. I do a bunch of multi
faith work here in Austin withrabbis and Imams around, you
know, caring for immigrants andall kinds of stuff. So they have

(27:30):
different motivations. But mymotivation is because of Jesus
and because of my faith. And Ithink that if you are going to
be a Christian church, that hasto be the motivation too, like
it has to spring out of that. Itcan't

be reversed.
You're doing some some greatwork in this book, and I think
it's really helpful to actuallyhelp analyze our lens of how we
read the Bible. What are somehealthier ways and better ways
that we could actually read theBible? But as your work out in
public as a public theologian,as you're actually encountering
everyday issues withincommunities, whether it be

(28:06):
immigration or whatever theissue is, how does your view of
Scripture help inform how youpresent something to the world?
So that people can make informeddecisions on how they should act
and respond to publicsituations,

you know, there's a popular refrain that goes
something like, you know, justpreach the gospel. Don't get
political, you know. Or justtalk about Jesus. Stop talking
about social issues. And myresponse is always, what part of
our lives should the gospel notaffect? And I think the answer
is no parts of our lives, everypart of our lives should be

(28:49):
affected by the gospel. The wordChristian means little Christ.
It doesn't mean like churchgoer.
It doesn't mean checker ofdoctrinal boxes. It means little
Christ, which means every partof our lives should demonstrate
the the personal work andteachings of Jesus. That that
term was first used from whattheologians and historians

(29:09):
think, in a derogatory way forpeople who follow Jesus, they
would say, look at those littleChrists. You know, look at those
little Christians. They justlike. They look just like, just
like that, that guy that Romeexecuted. How ridiculous is
that? Like, Man, how much wouldour witness, public witness and
stuff transform if people lookedat us and thought they really
remind me of Jesus, you know,because so much of, specifically

(29:33):
the kind of American church,reminds nobody of Jesus, and
people are are leaving it indroves because of that, because
it's a Christ less Christianity.
So, yeah, I would say it has tobe. It has to affect every part
of our lives. And so what I'mdoing with, with any kind of
public theology stuff, is tosay, Okay, here's the thing

(29:55):
that's happening in the world.
You know, immigration, anelection, a protest. In your
city, whatever it is, or itcould just be like how you
interact with your friends andyour family, how you have hard
conversations, how you treatpeople you disagree with, how
you do, how you choose to notfight dehumanization with more
dehumanization. It's just allthese things about like our

(30:15):
everyday lives. I'm trying tosay, how does the message and
gospel of Jesus change how weshould be thinking and
interacting with these things.
Because to me, that's the again,because I'm a Christian and
because I am so committed tofollowing Jesus imperfectly in
every part of my life, that isjust, that's the question for

(30:36):
me. There aren't otherquestions. You know, it's not
like, it's not like, what would,you know so and so, think about
how I talk about this thing.
It's like, what does the gospelteach me about this? What does
following Jesus look like whenit comes to supporting the
vulnerable or speaking out onbehalf of the marginalized, or
whatever it is, or or likeparenting my boys, you know,

(30:57):
like it's, it's not even justall these, like, major social
issues, it's like everyday life,you know, like one thing that I
spend so much time talking withpeople about politics and stuff
like that, just like you'd thinkonline and at our church, but I
would say I also spend so muchtime right now talking with
people about what they areallowing their kids to do, from,

(31:17):
like, A tech, phone, socialmedia perspective, you know,
like that's just as much onpeople's minds as a lot of other
things. And again, like ourfollowing Jesus should affect
how we think about that too,right? And so I'm not just
saying it's only about politicsor it's only about social
issues. It's about every part ofour lives.

I agree. It's every part of our lives. And I
think these tech issues, one ofthe things that it helps us
reckon with and ask the questionis, we haven't we're starting to
ask the question, what does itmean to be human? Because we
have so many, so many thingshere that we're like we're
productive machines. We havemachines doing things for us. We

(31:58):
have billionaires that aretalking about transhumanism and
becoming more than human. Oftrying to stop the dying
process, like we're we'relooking at like, what does it
mean to be human? So if you lookat the the lens of Jesus, and
look at the life of Jesus, like,for us, how do we root
ourselves? What does it looklike to be human in this world

(32:19):
where we're not giving into thisculture that wants us to be
other than human, yeah. Oh,that's a

big question. I don't, I don't want to get too
nerdy theologically, but that'sokay. You get nerdy. Great.
Well, so you know, there, thereare a myriad of ways we
understand the life teachingsand specifically the death and
resurrection of Jesus that areoften called like atonement
theories, right? Basically, it'sasking what happened through

(32:49):
Jesus's death, burial andresurrection. How did that
change things, cosmologically,spiritually, in our personal
lives, in our communities, allthat kind of stuff. There are a
lot of helpful atonementtheories, and there's some
really unhelpful atonementtheories. One that I think is
underutilized and underdiscussed is what's called the
recapitulation theory. And whatthat is is basically saying, in

(33:12):
addition to being God in theflesh, in addition to the
forgiveness of sins or whatever,Jesus exists to show us what it
means to be a human. We got itwrong and get it wrong, and
that's just part of it. Jesusnot just shows us what God is
like, but shows us what we aresupposed to be like. And for
Jesus, that included sacrificiallove. It included service. It

(33:37):
also included getting sick. Italso included dying. I mean,
like he shows us the fullspectrum of what it means to be
human. It included weeping, youknow, when he met Mary and
Martha after Lazarus died. Itincluded laughing and making
jokes. It included all kinds ofthings. Like he shows us the
full spectrum. Hebrews says thatwe do not have a great high

(34:01):
priest talking about Jesus whois unable to empathize, but one
who is able to empathize withevery single part of being
human. But it wasn't just thatJesus was fully human and fully
God. It was that Jesus wasshowing us what full humanity
was supposed to be like, whatwhat a flourishing life looks
like. And you know, to put itbluntly, it is not becoming less

(34:25):
human. It's actually becomingmore human.

A conservative Christian counter to what they
say and what people say asfluidity. And there is that
empathy is toxic, or toxicempathy, and you just said that
Jesus empathized with us. Andwhat does it mean to identify as
human and be human? How, insteadof having a yelling match or an

(34:51):
argument like of toxic empathyand the good the empathy could
do, what's a way that we canlike? Enter into a dialog to
help people understand empathy,and how Jesus was empathetic,
and what that looks like for us.

Well, I just alluded, I just mentioned this,
but one of my favorite storiesin the life of Jesus is when he
arrives at Mary and Martha'shouse after Lazarus dies. And
you know, it's where theshortest verse in the Bible,
Jesus wept, has found a littletrivia for you, and I know you
know that, but trivia for yourlisteners. But here's the most
amazing thing about that storyfor me, what we see is Jesus

(35:32):
engaging with Mary and Martha asindividuals, and specifically in
the ways that they needed to beengaged with. So you have Mary,
who comes, who's much more kindof emotive and in pain and angry
and all of these things, youknow. And Jesus does not like
rebuke that he cries alongsideof her. He listens to her

(35:54):
express her anger. He empathizeswith her. Then he talks to
Martha. Martha has all thetheological kind of questions,
you know, like the intellectualstuff, like, Well, why did he
die? Like, and why didn't yousave him? It would probably
would have been different if youwere here. Martha is processing
it in totally different way thatthey're different people, and

(36:15):
Jesus answers her questions, hetalks her through it. It's a
much more kind of intellectualengagement, whereas with Mary,
it was much more emotional. Thereason Jesus can do that and
meet them where they are isbecause he empathizes, because
he knew them. He knew theirstories, he knew how God wired
them, and he met them exactlywhere they were. And that, that

(36:35):
those two pastoral moments inthe span of, you know, just a
couple of seconds there as hemeets them outside their home. I
think are a beautifuldemonstration of Jesus's
commitment to empathizing. Andagain, if we're supposed to be
little Christ, then we should besomebody who we should be people
who empathize as well.

So if Jesus is the center of our faith, and we
want to read the Bible through aJesus lens, and that's one of
the lenses you talk is the Jesuslens. You know, I lived in Korea
and worked at a school there,and it was a Christian school. I
walk up, there's a big oldstatue of Korean Jesus. He looks
very Korean. I go, I go to achurch in the States, and I'm
teaching a lesson. I look on thewall, there's a painting of a

(37:15):
blonde hair, blue eyed Jesus.
And so we're all trying to makeJesus a little bit into our own
image. How do we know if we'rereading through a Jesus lens
that we're not reading into aJesus of our own image lens, but
we're actually reading into aJesus lens of who Jesus really
is?

This is a vital question, and I unpack it quite
a bit in that chapter, and soI'll hit a couple of high
points. One question I think ishelpful to ask is, what did
Jesus care most about? And wecan understand that in a few
different ways. One is by thefrequency with which he talked
about something. So the thingJesus talked about more than
anything else is the kingdom ofGod, this place of mutual

(37:55):
flourishing, you know, equalityand all of that kind of stuff,
this place that is kind ofalready and not yet, this place
that we can kind of best seethrough the lens of the Garden
of Eden and Genesis and the newheaven and new earth and
revelation, this place where Godand humanity walk next to each
other. There's no divisionbetween people, between God,
between people and creation. SoJesus cared most about that.

(38:17):
That's what he talked aboutmost. That's what most of his
sermons went back to and so wecan say, well, we should care
most about that. If that's whatJesus cared most about, we
should care most about that. Andif our biblical interpretations
are leading us away from thekingdom of God, then they're
probably not great. We can alsoask, what made Jesus mad?
Because Jesus gets angry anumber of times in the Gospel

(38:39):
accounts Jesus, I think theeasiest way to sum it up is that
Jesus got the most mad whenpeople in, you know, political
or religious power positionsused those positions where they
were supposed to be caring forand serving people to actually
harm them or exploit theminstead. That's what made Jesus
more mad than anything else.
That's he gave his he reservedhis greatest rebukes for

(39:00):
religious and political leaderswho were hurting the people they
were supposed to be caring for.
And so we can learn a lot fromthat. If we want to interpret
Scripture like Jesus, if we wantto be like Jesus, then we should
kind of get mad about the samethings he got mad about. Then
the last one is, Did Jesus evertalk about kind of like, what's
most important in the world? Andhe did. He got asked the

(39:24):
question, what's the mostimportant thing, right? And they
phrased it as, what's the mostimportant law, 613, laws, what's
the most important one? Jesussays, Love the Lord your God
with all your heart, soul, mindand strength, love your neighbor
as yourself. And that, I don'tthink that would have been
initially, like, supercontroversial. That was in the
Shema. I mean, that was whatJewish folks, like, recited to

(39:46):
themselves already. What wasreally controversial were the
next two things he said. Thefirst one saying that all the
law and the prophets are, hangon this, like they're all summed
up in those two commands. Thatwas a huge statement, right?
Yeah. And then the secondstatement was the response to
when you know the guy says,well, who's my neighbor trying
to justify himself, the biblicalauthor says, an attempt to

(40:08):
justify himself. Who is myneighbor? And Jesus tells the
story of the Good Samaritan,where he basically says, the
neighbor is the person that youare the most different from the
person that you have the mostproblems with. Kind of the
person that you think is theickiest in the world, that's
your neighbor. That's who you'reresponsible for. Those two
things would have been and theywere massively controversial,

(40:29):
amen, I think ended up, youknow, starting to really, like,
turn some kind of powerstructure opinions against him
when he started talking aboutthat more and more. So all those
are clues to where, how we canunderstand what it really looks
like to not remake Jesus in ourimage, but actually allow
ourselves to be conformed to thelikeness of Christ,

even in Sermon on the Mount, Jesus calls us
love our enemies, meaning we'regoing to have enemies. And what
do we do with enemies that arecalled to love, and that is so
difficult in this day and age ofpolarization and division,
loving our enemies and like,let's work towards
reconciliation. How is thatpossible? Like, there's so many

(41:09):
I just see so many people. Like,okay, I can deconstruct and I
could do something, and I couldstep away, and then I just see
enemies. But then we're alsocalled to love enemies. So hard,
so hard. But it's amazing thatJesus is calling us to something
greater than we are, and showingus what it means to be human,

(41:33):
absolutely and to live a goodlife. You know, if you're
looking at ways as a pastor, andyou're pastoring restore Austin.
You're interacting with yourcongregants all the time and
people, what are the the majorquestions people are asking

right now, huh?
Well, I'm in Texas, and I mean,we're in a weird spot in that we
are right in the middle of kindof urban Austin, which is this,
you know, kind of progressivebastion in the South, in the
middle of one of, if not themost conservative state
governments in the world. So alot of people feel caught in
that and really not sure what todo, especially as they see

(42:10):
either themselves or people theydeeply love, feeling like
they're they're targeted. Sothat could be, you know,
immigrants, undocumented folks.
It could be LGBTQ folks, transfolks, specifically, I get a lot
of questions about, like, whatdo I do? You know, I just feel
so helpless. And it transcendsthose issues too. I mean, it go

(42:32):
like we just had this horribleflood here in Central Texas.
Yeah, really, not far at allfrom where I live, there handful
of people in our church who lostloved ones. And, I mean, it's it
hit everybody in this area. Andagain, people just asking, like,
Where is God in this and andwhat do I What do I do? Because
it just never feels like enough,especially in the age of social

(42:54):
media, especially when you seesomebody you know, posting or
protesting or whatever, andyou're like, I'm not doing
enough. You know, that'sprobably the biggest question,
those two questions, where isGod in this and what am I
supposed to be doing? Yeah, Idon't have easy answers to
either of those things. I thinkthat they are connected, though,
and that I believe we arescripture says the body of

(43:16):
Christ, the hands and feet ofJesus, and so we are supposed to
be the ones who are in thesespaces bringing grace and hope
and love and support and careand kindness to folks in need.
But I think that also looksreally different for different
folks, right? Paul talks about,you know, if you're a teacher,
then teach. Well, if you're aservant, then you know, serve

(43:37):
well. If you are intohospitality, make sure that you,
you know, are always ready to behospitable for someone who needs
it. And it's this whole it'slike seven or eight things, this
whole list of like, and itreminds me, Bernice King talks
all the time. Dr King's daughtertalks all the time about how the
work is in the streets and it'sin the classrooms and it's in

(43:58):
your home, and it's online andit's offline, and it's in
writing and podcasting and alsoart and music, and it's in rest
and joy and frustration and allthose things that we need, all
of those and so what is it? Itlooks like? I think, orienting
however God has made you, yourpassions, your gifts, your

(44:19):
talents and abilities, orientingthat toward the way of Jesus and
the kingdom of God, whateverthat might look like, is kind of
the if there was an answer,quote, unquote, to it, that's
how that's what I try to givepeople, at

least well well done. I think that hopefully
helps people walk the journey ofwhat it looks like to be the
hands and feet of Jesus ineveryday life. So what's your
hope for people who pick up yourbook better ways to read the
Bible? What do you hope thisbook will do for the for the
world?

It's a deeply pastoral book. I'm not comparing
myself to Dr King at all, buthe, he used to talk about how at
the end of the day, he's just aBaptist preacher, and at the end
of the. I'm just I'm a localchurch pastor, and that's to the
people here in Austin, but it'salso to a lot of people that I
get to talk with online and talkwith through my writing and

(45:08):
things like that. So my hope isdeeply pastoral. My hope really
is that it just helps peoplewherever they are on their
spiritual journey, whetherthey're someone who has not read
the Bible in a really long timebecause it's been so weaponized,
or it's so scary or it's sotriggering, that this would be a
helpful way of, you know, kindof re engaging you in the text.

(45:29):
If you're someone who reads theBible a lot, but kind of
struggles with, yeah, how tomake some of these interpretive
decisions, my hope is that itgives a framework for how to do
that. This is one I don't talkabout a lot, but it's a huge
hope. If you're someone who is amuch more kind of conservative
or fundamentalist type of aChristian, and who does not
understand how somebody couldsay they love God and Jesus in

(45:51):
the Bible, but they think sodifferently than you, my hope is
that you could pick up the book,and even if you don't agree with
it, understand where somebodyelse who loves Jesus and is
trying to follow scripture iscoming from and how they got to
this place, specifically,hopefully bridging some gaps
between like parents and kids,friends and friends, you know,
who maybe you were raised in thesame kind of churches, but now

(46:13):
you're in totally differentplaces with your faith. That's
really my my hope.

That's beautiful. Would love to see
this bridge the gap betweenpeople so that they could
actually talk again and see oneanother and see people's
perspectives and the lenses thatthey actually use and and then
empathize with. Yes, but Zach,if you could go back to your 21

(46:39):
year old self, what advice wouldyou give

in your anger, do not sin. I think in my early and
mid 20s, I felt very righteouslyangry. I'm not saying that it
wasn't that it was all wrong oranything, but man, I thought I
was supposed to be flipping allthe tables and burning all the

(47:02):
bridges and doing all thethings. And I remember, there's
this one time where I had leftthis denominational meeting that
I was in where there wassomebody arguing about, like,
whether a woman could be apastor, and I was just so angry
and, you know, yelling at themand whatever. And I walked out,
and I was feeling a like a, youknow, a tug of my spirit of like

(47:23):
that probably wasn't great, but,but I'm telling myself, you know
what? No, you're just, you'reflipping tables just like Jesus.
And I felt like there was thisstill small voice that said,
Yeah, you're all about flippingthe tables, but are you actually
willing to, like, lay down yourlife for the people who are
sitting at them? Because that'swhat I did, you know, and I was
like, oh, man, no, I'm not andso, yeah, that would be what I

(47:46):
would tell my early 20s self ismaybe that righteous anger.
Maybe that anger really isrighteous, but do not let that
anger lead you to a place ofhurting people or dehumanizing
people or burning everythingdown, because I think it's much
more important to buildsomething beautiful and helpful

(48:07):
and let that naturally critiqueall the all the stuff that's
wrong. But if all we do is worryabout tearing things down and
critiquing What's wrong, then Ithink we end up just looking for
something else to critique andyell about and deconstruct and
demolish and all of that. Ifthere's nothing on the other
side of it,

I'll take that for myself as well. So well
done. Anything you've beenreading or watching lately, you
could

recommend. I'm reading Richard rohr's new book
right now, called the tears ofthings. I think this is like,
you know, this is blasphemy inmost of my circles. I'm not
like, you know, Die Hard RichardRohr guy. Like, I like, I like
his stuff, but I'm not, like,hey, every new book that comes
out, like, I just gotta, I gottaput everything down until I read
it. But it's basically anengagement with the prophetic

(48:53):
people in Scripture. And, oh,I've just found it to be so, so
good and helpful, especially forthis moment. And it's a little
bit of what I just talked about,not allowing your prophetic
witness to lead you to a placeof hurting other people, but
actually allowing yourself tomove through he calls it order
disorder, and then reorder. Youcan't stay in disorder forever.

(49:17):
You know you have to move into areordering of things. And we see
that from the Hebrew prophets,and it's a model for us, too. So
that's been something that'sgreat. We just finished a new
season of the bear, which isfantastic. It's not religious at
all, although it's kind of areligious experience sometimes.
But yeah, the dynamics betweenthe characters and the

(49:38):
relationships and the familydynamics and the co worker
dynamics are just so beautifullydone. It's such a beautiful
human story. So, yeah, those arethe two things that come to

mind. Excellent.
That's great. Well, better waysto read. The Bible is available
anywhere books are sold, you goand get it, buy it for your
friends and pass it out. Maybejust buy boxes of them. Yeah,
it's a fantastic book. So Zach,this is great. Is there anywhere
you'd like to point people to,anywhere they could connect with
you?

Yeah, thank you so much for saying that. I hope
that the book is truly helpful.
If you want to connect with mein online spaces, I am really
active on substack. I startedthat about six or eight months
ago, and I write all the timelong form stuff on there. And
then I'm also on every social,Twitter and Instagram and those
kinds of places too. But yeah,I'm on substack. Zach W Lambert

(50:29):
at public doing public theology,or in any social media places.
Zach W Lambert as well.

Excellent. Well.
Zach, thank you for thisconversation. It was fantastic.
Thank you for diving deep intothe lenses that we use to read
the Bible, the lenses that havebeen harmful as we have been
growing up with them, and somehelpful, healthy lenses that
could reorient our way to engagewith the Bible, that we engage
with Jesus as the person ofJesus, the ways of Jesus, the
words of Jesus. And if we couldembody that, this world would be

(51:00):
a beautiful place. And so let'sembody the ways of Jesus. Let's
live like Jesus and help theworld look more like the way
Jesus wants the world to look.
And what is really real, whichis the kingdom of God, which is
the ways of Jesus, as Jesus isKing, so thank you. Well said.

(51:22):
Thanks for having me on. Iappreciate. Yeah, you.

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Ep. 331 Zach Lambert - Better Ways to Read the Bible

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