October 20, 2025 • 51 mins
What if God really looks like Jesus? Not partly loving and partly wrathful, but fully revealed in the crucified Christ. In this conversation, Greg Boyd helps us reimagine everything - our picture of God, how we read Scripture, and how we live in the world. We talk about what it means to see the cross as the center of revelation, how to wrestle with violence in the Bible, and how the way of Jesus invites us into nonviolence, humility, and love for our enemies. Greg also reflects on what it means to be kingdom people within an empire, to follow the Lamb instead of the sword, and to build communities that look more like Jesus.
Greg Boyd is the Founder and Senior Pastor of Woodland Hills Church, Maplewood MN. Former professor of theology at Bethel University (St. Paul, MN) and Northern Seminary (Chicago, iL). Author or co-author of 22 books and numerous articles. He and his wife Shelley have been married for 44 years. They have three adult children, six grandchildren, and an adorable though highly eccentric dog. His hobby is drumming in a rock band.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Greg Boyd (00:00):
Loving your enemy is the only way to keep from
(00:01):
getting caught in the undertowof evil. If you if you
retaliate, well, then the enemyhas now defined you.
Joshua Johnson (00:20):
Hello and welcome to the shifting culture
podcast in which we haveconversations about the culture
we create and the impact we canmake. We long to see the body of
Christ look like Jesus. I'm yourhost. Joshua Johnson, when we
say God looks like Jesus, it'seasy to nod in agreement. But
what if we actually lived asthough that were true? What if
our image of God wasn't a mix oflight and shadow, part loving
(00:42):
Savior, part wrathful judge, butwas fully revealed in the
crucified Christ. Greg Boyd hasspent decades helping the church
reimagine God through the lensof the cross. In this
conversation, we explore how aJesus shaped picture of God
changes everything, how we readscripture, how we think about
violence and power and how welive as a people of love in a
(01:02):
world addicted to retribution.
Greg helps us wrestle with thehard questions, how do we
reconcile Old Testament violencewith self giving love of Jesus?
How do we resist the pull ofempire and live as citizens of a
different kind of kingdom, andhow do we cultivate lives that
reflect the humility service andnonviolent love of the Lamb. So
join us for a conversation thatlooks more like Jesus,
(01:23):
compassionate, cruciform andcourageous. Here is my
conversation with Greg Boyd.
Greg, welcome to shiftingculture. Thanks for joining me.
Excited to have you on. Thanksfor having me. I'm honored to be
here. Yeah, before we jump intoGod. Looks like Jesus. You know,
I'd love to just start maybewith your own story. In your own
(01:45):
story, where what firstunsettled your picture of God
that made you really start tocenter everything around Jesus.
Greg Boyd (01:53):
You know, I think the beginning of it was way back the
second I became a Christian whenI was 17 years old. Just turned
17, but it was in thisPentecostal church that had all
these I mean, it was a holinessPentecostal church that had so
many rules, and I could neverlive up to all those rules. I
was able to get off of the drugsI was on and clean up my act in
(02:16):
all that ways. But my dad wasalways very free. He had a lot
of porn, pornography, and he andI were living alone together,
and he traveled for weeks at atime, and he didn't care if I
looked at his porn. And livingin that house, as a 19 year old
with access to porn, I could goa day or two or three without
looking at it, but eventuallyI'd fall and in this church,
(02:38):
you're only as saved as yourlast sinless moment. Every sin
you're getting unsaved. So I wasgetting saved and unsaved daily,
a couple times a day. And aftertwo years, I was finally sick of
it. And then I was I was gonnaquit. I was talking to a friend
up parking lot after this Sundaynight service church, and I was
just saying, I can't live thisway. And I often got mad at God.
(02:59):
I started like, just reeling atGod. I talked about this in the
book God to play Jesus. And onepoint through my Bible on the
trunk of his truck, and floppedopen. I started reading it
sarcastically, because he wassaying, we must be missing
something. And I was like, Whatare we missing? I read this
whole book, and what is it? Ithrew it down, and it flock open
(03:20):
to Romans eight, and he startedreading it, there's therefore no
condemnation to them overChrist, Jesus. I said it
mockingly. It's something caughtme, and I read it again. It's
like, what does that even mean?
I kept on, started going downthe passage. I got the point
where, if God before us, whocould be against us, you know,
who can lay any charge. And myeyes just were opened. And for
the first time in my life, I gotit. God loves me. His love for
(03:41):
me is greater than hisdisappointment of my behavior,
but it's a love that's going tocorrect me from the behavior.
Behavior improvement isn't aprecondition for his love. I
always thought God was just abehaviorist, and so if you have
good behavior, well then heloves you. But if you but if you
have bad behavior, well thenhe's gonna send you to hell. So
(04:02):
he doesn't really love you. He'sloves behavior. That was my
model, but for the first time, Igot it that I'm loved for free,
and that changed everything. Itchanged the way I viewed myself.
I'm a king's kid. I'm betterthan this stupid stuff, and this
is beneath me. And for the firsttime, I really wanted to get rid
of it. See, before I wassupposed to get rid of it, but I
(04:23):
didn't want to. But now I didn'twant to, and it was disgusting
to me, and it was beneath me.
And that was the beginning ofbreakthrough, of getting out of
that behavioralistic God anddiscovering God loves me for
free. That was a long time tillI really became, you know, over
years. It was in the 90s, Ireally began to discover the
centrality of Jesus foreverything, for how you read the
(04:45):
Bible, for how you think aboutGod, for all of that. But the
beginning of it was, I thinkthat experience when I was 18
years
Joshua Johnson (04:51):
old. I think a lot of people, when they look at
the title of your book and youknow something that you're
distilling a lot of your stuffthat you've written in other
places. That you've, you know,you've spoken about, that you
think about, all in this one,it's a small, impactful, little
tome that you have written hereabout what God actually looks
(05:12):
like Jesus and what what you'rethinking a lot of people,
they'll read that title, they'llnod their head. They'll say,
Yeah, God looks like Jesus.
Yeah, it's about Jesus, okay?
But they won't really feel theweight of it. They won't
actually feel what for theramifications of God actually
looking like Jesus beingcruciform. What do we miss if we
don't actually see the weight ofwhat that really means?
Greg Boyd (05:34):
What happens, I think, is that Christians will
say, of course, God looks likeJesus, but they have a whole lot
of other things that God lookslike. God looks like Jesus, but
he also looks like the God whocommanded genocide and
Deuteronomy, and he looks likethe God declared war god, you
know. And so most people have asmorgasbord conception of God,
(05:55):
and all of our feelings andemotions about God are
associated to how we representGod in our mind. You know all
our emotions are associated withimages in our mind. So your love
for God and your passion for Godwill never outrun the beauty of
your picture of God. And sincewe always take out the semblance
of the God that we worship, thebeauty of our life will never
outrun the beauty of our mentalconception of God. And so I
(06:17):
think our mental conception ofGod is the most important thing
in the world. It's like the mostimportant fact between my ears.
How do you view God? And mostpeople don't think about that.
They just sort of inheritsomething from the church
tradition, or from a song theyheard, or a sermon they heard,
or their own Bible reading, andit all gets smushed in there.
And so they have a compositeimage of God, which is in some
(06:39):
respects beautiful. And whenthey think about that, they're
feeling, yo, I love God, butthen there's all this baggage
that goes with it, and thatcan't help but compromise your
love for God, your passion forGod, because God's got this
ominous, ugly side to him. Jesusis the nice side of God, but
there's this dark side God, theFather, God of wrath and all
that. But see Jesus in the wholeNew Testament, He says, if you
(07:01):
see me, you see the father. Whydidn't you ask? Show us the
Father in John 14, nine Gen ifyou want to know what the
father's like, what thecharacter of God is like, don't
look to the right or the left ofJesus, behind or in front. Keep
your eye. Focus on Jesus,because He is the WAY, the TRUTH
and the LIFE. He is the one wordof God they tell where God so
he's not one of the pictures ofGod in the Bible. He is the
(07:23):
picture of God through which wemisinterpret all the other
pictures of God.
Joshua Johnson (07:27):
So I think one of the things that I 100% agree
this is the problem, as yousaid, we have a smorgasbord idea
of who God is, and so wesometimes make Jesus into our
own image, and we're like, Okay,I'm going to view scripture
through the lens of Jesus, butit's going to be through the
lens of my own image of Jesus,and not what Jesus has actually
(07:51):
portrayed of who He truly is.
Right? How do we make a shift toknow that we're actually reading
the Bible through the lens ofwho Jesus is and not through who
we have made him to be.
Greg Boyd (08:04):
That's very good question. It's a very question,
important question, because weall can be guilty of projecting
our own ideas and carrying ourown assumptions to the text. I
make the case. I think I make itpretty compellingly, that the
center of what Jesus is about isthe cross. His whole ministry
(08:26):
leads up to the cross, and itsays, for this hour, I've come
into the world. And he refers tothe cross as the hour in which
he's going to glorify theFather. He was always glorifying
the Father, if you've seen heused to the Father. That was
true all the time, but theFather's character is most
perfectly put on display whenJesus offers up his life freely,
goes dies a hellish death, Godforsaken. This out of love for
(08:47):
us and the whole creation. Andthat reveals what God is really
like. In Hebrews one, it saysthat in the past, people got
glimpses of the truth. It saysin the Philips translation, they
had glimpses of truth. God spokein various ways to the prophets,
but now, in the last days, hesays, got spoken through His
Son. And by that, it means God'scome down in person, no more
mediated through prophets,whatever God in person. Now the
(09:09):
word has become flesh. And thenthe author says, the sun, in
contrast to what they had in thepast, the sun is the radiance of
God's glory and the exactlikeness of his very essence.
Hupostasis is the word he uses.
So here we get exactly whatGod's like to his very essence,
and it's all centered on thecross. So a cross culminates. I
don't think of the cross asseparate from the ministry and
(09:32):
teachings of Jesus. Itculminates the message in the
teachings of Jesus. Everythingabout the Gospels is oriented
towards Jesus is travelingtowards the cross. That's the
culinary point, and then theresurrection confirms that. So I
argue that we have to read thelens, or read the Bible, and
even understand Jesus's ownlight through the lens of the
Cross, which culminates thewhole thing. And that puts
(09:54):
really good, strong guardrailsaround how much projection you
can get away with. You. It. Butyou know, if I know some authors
who believe they're maintaininga crystal centric reading of the
Bible, but they start with Jesuscleansing the temple, and they
say, see, look, Jesus is capableof violence. I cleanse the
temple, and he told hissoldiers, his disciples, to get
swords. So clearly, God's okaywith violence, and so we don't
(10:18):
have to reinterpret the OldTestament. But if you look at
those passages, it's never saysJesus harmed any animals or
people. He made a whip and hecracked the web, which is a way
of startling animals to run, oneto cause a stampede. And in
Luke, when Jesus says, Hey, goout by so she had buy two swords
or no, they say, Well, we havetwo swords. And Jesus says,
(10:38):
Okay, that's enough. But hetells us why. It wasn't said
they're supposed to use them. Infact, when Peter tried to use
when he rebuked him, he says,because it is written, He will
be counted among thetransgressors, quoting Isaiah 53
So Jesus had to appear like atransgressor to justify the
guard resting him and then bringhim to trial. If they had no
(10:59):
weapons, they wouldn't have anygrounds. So there's no basis
there for saying that Jesus isokay with violence. I just think
it's a weak argument. You know,I think we have to interpret
everything through the lens ofthe Cross, which culminates
everything Jesus was about.
Joshua Johnson (11:13):
That's good. I think, you know, the temple is
he's clear in the temple. Hesays, you know, the temple, I'm
gonna rebuild the temple inthree days. I mean, he's really
talking about the death andresurrection of himself as well,
of him going to the cross. Andso I think there's so many of
those signs in the book of Johnthat is really about His death
and resurrection, is about thecross, is about New Covenant. Is
(11:37):
the kingdom that's coming. It'sso amazing that it's all right
there, and we've interpreted itin ways where it's really not
about the cross and resurrectionand new life, it's actually
about something else. Yeah, andso I think we're doing that
constantly.
Unknown (11:52):
You make it about a whole lot of things you know,
about who political party shouldwin, and what nation's best and
all the rest.
Joshua Johnson (11:58):
Then can you help me reconcile this, and help
me reconcile genocide in the OldTestament with God. And you
write about this, and I thinkthere's a few things that you've
said in that section abouttalking about Canaan and, you
know, wiping out the Canaanitesas the Israelites are going into
the land. It really helped me tothink about what God said
(12:19):
previously, before and way hewanted them out and over time,
and not just wipe them out andkill them all, because let's
talk about that. And if God iscruciform, and if the cross is
Central, and if God is likeJesus, then what does that mean
(12:39):
for us? How can we interpret
Greg Boyd (12:41):
Scripture like that?
Okay, excellent question. Ithink it's important to remember
that the Bible is not atheological textbook. It's a
story, and we forget that it's astory, and the story has
movement in it. There's aprogression of Revelation. You
know, God a lot, you know,accommodates some things early
on, but then he does it lateron, and so he meets people where
they're at you have to rememberand rank the case for this that
(13:05):
God is never coerced. When Godinspires people or breathes
through the authors of theBible, he doesn't take away
their personality. He doesn'ttake away their free will. He
doesn't all said and take overtheir brains. He works with them
as they are. Paul, he writes,and this is divinely inspired in
First Corinthians one. He'stalking about this dispute in
current when the Corinthian whobaptized to and Paul says, oh,
(13:28):
boy, I'm glad I didn't baptizeany of you. Then he goes, Well,
I didn't buy a house. Baptizethe house of Stephens. And then
he says, he goes, actually, Idon't remember who I baptized
ever again, but the point is notbeing provided. Okay? So God
doesn't perfect Paul's memorywhile he breathes through him.
And so we find throughout thebiblical authors that you can
(13:48):
find their own worldview, theirperspective, their beliefs, are
all intact. God influencespeople in the direction of truth
as much as possible. But therecomes a point where to go any
further would be coercive, andso then God has to accept them
as they are. So we come uponDeuteronomy seven, which says,
Show no mercy, slaughter. Youknow, the seven groups of
(14:10):
Canaanites that I have given youfor their land. It says in
Deuteronomy, 22 slider, killeverything that breathes,
specifically mentioned, men,women, children, infants, even
the animals. They says, sparethe trees because they're not
soldiers. And you would thinkthat maybe that should apply to
babies and children too, but itdidn't okay. So your choice
(14:32):
Either you accept that that'sstraightforward. That was
exactly right. And so God hasthis genocidal part to him, and
now Good luck trying toreconcile it with Jesus, who
says, Love Your and vesselsappears to you do good to those
who despitefully use you tunethe other cheek never. How do
you fix that? I, for years,tried to defend the behavior
(14:53):
that's ascribed to God in theOld Testament, trying to find
excuses for God and. You know,and I respect the folks who knew
that. I understand it. Youbelieve the Bible is inspired,
so God said it. I believe thatsolves it for me. But we often
have to look deeper and pushback on something, especially
you're coming at this from acrucified perspective. So I, at
one point started writing a bookthat was going to defend God's
(15:17):
behavior. I got about 50 pagesinto it, and thought, this is
not convincing. It doesn't I'mnot convinced by it, so I can't
expect others to be convinced byit. And I realized that even if
I was successful and making Godlook a little less nasty, I
looked maybe more justified inthis. The Canaanites deserve
really, really bad, you know.
(15:37):
And he had to kill the babybecause of some reason earlier,
at some point, the explanationsgrow thin. So I keep up on that
book, and for several months, Ijust sat in this tension. I on
Jesus authority. I have tobelieve the whole Old Testament
is divinely inspired because hedid, and I call him Lord. But
(15:57):
then at the same time, I can'taccept that Jesus would ever
command genocide, killingbabies. I just sat in that
conundrum Origen, who's thesecond century theologians
advise us. He goes to the bike.
He thought the Holy Spiritintentionally puts impossible
things in the Bible to force usto dig deeper to find the deeper
truth. He thought that theburied treasure underneath the
impossibilities is what Godwants us to dig for. So I sat
(16:20):
with this conundrum, and then Ibegan to about three months
later, into this cognitivedissonance, began to see how the
genocidal portraits of God bearwitness to the cross, because
Jesus says all scriptures aboutme, right? John five and Luke 23
everything was written to showthat the Son of Man must suffer
(16:42):
before he's glorified two times.
We find that in Luke 24 here.
And so how does just our pictureactually point to Jesus Christ,
whose life of the ministry issummarized on the cross, and
Tucker claims divineinspiration. It could be Greg
Boyd projecting what he wants tobelieve on to the screen of the
(17:03):
Bible. I'm open to that theChurch will determine whether
this is an acceptableinterpretation or not. Let's
see. But what I noticed was thatwhen I look at the cross, I
asked this question, and I thinkit's such an important the
ultimate question, though I'venever heard anyone ask it, and
that is, how does this crucifiedJewish man appearing guilty
criminal who's crucified in thefirst century? How does he
(17:28):
reveal God to me, I look atthat, I say that is the
revelation of God's character.
Because if you look at it in thenatural eye, like Paul said, we
once considered Christ fromnatural point of view, but we
consider from the national pointof view, all you see is a
hideous, ugly, torturous pictureof a guy he tortured on the
cross. But what turns that intoa revelation of God for us is
(17:52):
that we, by faith, see somethingdeeper. We look beyond it and
believe what Paul calls themessage of the cross, which he
identifies with the gospel. Heuses message of the cross and
gospel interchangeably. Themessage of the cross is that God
was in Christ, reconciling theworld to Himself, not counting
our trespasses against us. It'sa god would condescend. God
(18:14):
would stoop this distance crossand an infinite distance, to
become a human being and thendie a death on the cross. We
suffers the antithesis of who heis. He suffers experiencing
separation from God, which wouldbe the most horrifying thing in
the world. And the distance Godcrosses out of love for us
reveals the the unsurpassabledistance he crosses to save us
(18:38):
reveals the unsurpassableperfection of His love. His love
is revealed in his stooping downto need us where we're at and
doing what is necessary. So Godis and this reveals what God is.
Always like. God didn't becomeChrist like when, when we was
incurred. God's always been likethis. And so we should read the
Bible knowing that sometimes Godstoops, he'll reveal himself not
(19:01):
on the surface of the text,because it's not the surface of
the cross that reveals whatGod's like. It's his stepping
into it. He thinks us wherewe're at. So when you read the
Bible, knowing that sometimesGod will stoop to meet people
where they're at, and noticethat when God steps into our
sin, he takes on an appearancethat reveals the ugliness of
that sin. That's why the crossis so ugly. So the cross is
(19:22):
simultaneously hideously uglyand unfathomably beautiful,
because the surface reveals theugliness of the sin that God
bears, but he's stepping into itreveals the unsurpassable love
of the love that he is. And sowhen I read passages like
Deuteronomy seven, show nomercy. You might be tempted to
show mercy, but don't you got tokill those babies. What reveals
(19:45):
the surface reflects, I think,the sin that God bears, just as
he does on the cross. This iswhere the Israelites were at.
This is what the Israelitesthought about God. Because this
is what all ancient nationpeople thought about God, right?
God doesn't going to give youthe land. What they hear is.
We're supposed to slaughtereveryone there, and God's going
to help us slaughter no one everdreamed of a guy who would
actually fight for you so youwould not to fight. But that's
(20:08):
what the Lord told them. Ifyou're faithful, I'll deliver
you. Just what delivered you outof Egypt. You won't have to lift
anything. I'll fight. I'll go onand fight before you. In fact,
there's two passages, actuallynine, but the two that are most
impressive, but the Lord sharessome plans he has on how he's
going to fight for them, to getthem into Canaan. He says in
Luke 18 that they have defiledthe land, so the land will
(20:32):
become dried up and they'llmigrate off. But he says, I'm
not going to go quickly,otherwise the place will be
overgrown with wild animals andwild bush. So I'll slowly
migrate them out and migrate youin another place. He says, I'll
send pests. I'll make it pesty.
And so they'll want to migrateoff, and then I'll migrate you
in whatever happened to thoseplants? They're a lot less
(20:53):
violent than this whole, youknow, goat slaughter them all.
Either God, mood changed. Orwhat I think is happening is
we're giving little snippets ofwhat God would have liked to
have happen, but because of theIsraelites, hardness of heart,
which is emphasized throughoutthe narrative, could not trust
God to that degree. The veryfact that they used swords and
(21:13):
killed people to get Lamb ofKing, it shows you that they
were out of God's will. Becausehe said, If you trust me, you
won't have to pay it where allthe pictures of God in the Bible
that are sub Christ, like thatcome beneath it. Let's see. I
think the Holy Spirit is alwaysinfluencing the direction of
truth, and so you have manymagnificent pictures of God in
the Old Testament, the spiritbreaks through and always tell
because it looks like Christ,and it's totally against what
(21:37):
everyone else in the ancientNear Eastern believe. Okay, the
idea that Yahweh is our husbandand that we're the bride, it's
unheard of ancient Near East,and all the love and all that,
it's unheard of. And then youhave other pictures of God in
the Old Testament that are verymuch like what you find in the
ancient news. In fact, some ofthem are they just take the hymn
that Sung, the cob hymn thatsung to Baal, and they swift
(22:00):
about and put in Yahweh. And theancient race ascribing violence
to your God was seen as a formof worship. They delight in
saying, it's like our God willslay you. Well, our God will
slay your children and drinktheir blood. Well, our God will
roast you. And that's how youexalt God, whereas, in truth,
God is exalted by his humblenessand humility and servant, nature
(22:23):
and self, sacrificial love. Ittakes, you know, God doesn't
course. So it takes centuries ofwooing people, working with
people, and the picture getsdirt and clearer and clearer,
and finally, people are readyfor the absolute truth of his
pulmonary
Joshua Johnson (22:37):
Christ, I think that's so good for us to be able
to say that, and even in thePsalms, if I'm looking at, you
know, as David, David is saying,Hey, God, you've slayed my
enemies, who've killedeverybody, like it's the same
type of honor and worship thatthey're giving. So we're seeing
that in the Psalms, and thatactually, then would start to
reframe the way that I can seethat, and I could see what David
(23:01):
is trying to do. What he'sascribing to God is not the
violent nature of God, but it isabout how mighty and powerful
God is. He is more powerful andawe inspiring than others, and I
think that could help me lookback on the Psalms where I'm
like, do I really want to singabout God slaying and killing
(23:22):
all of the people around
Greg Boyd (23:23):
me, I don't really so he says, you know, you'll make
my enemies dry up like a slugout in the sun. At one point, he
says, you know, may they beburied alive. So his heart is to
glorify God, but the way he doesit is very ancient grief and so
it but then, of course, you haveother Psalms where the Spirit of
God breaks through andwonderful, you know, The Lord is
(23:43):
my shepherd. I shall not want.
And so you have a mixed bagthere, and it's the lens of the
Cross I submit that canseparate. You know, what is the
Holy Spirit breaking throughversus what is where's God
stooping because, yeah, peopleare too hard and not yet ready
to change.
Joshua Johnson (24:00):
If our perception of God is different,
and it is cruciform and is likeJesus, there, it then moves us
into a place of living in thisworld differently than our
perception of God was before.
Now it's more of a cruciformGod, one that looks like Jesus.
How does that impact the waythat we live in the world? How
do we embody this way of Jesus?
(24:22):
Yeah, we'll
Greg Boyd (24:23):
see that that's that is the that is the all important
question, and it has to do withdiscipleship. How do we become
more Christ like that? So if youunderstand that, you know God is
the is that the slain lamb inthe book of Revelation stands,
stands on the throne of God, atthe center of the throne
Genesis, because the same lambdefines everything that God's
(24:44):
about. This untranscended, allpowerful God has got the
character of a slain little lambwho would have thought and our
job, we find this throughout thebook of Revelation, is to follow
the Lamb wherever he goes, toadopt the mindset of the Lamb,
the behaviors of the Lamb, totake on the humility. The Lamb,
the other oriented nature of theLamb, to get out of our self
centeredness, to live modestly,so that you can have a surplus
(25:08):
of time and energy to invest inothers and to do Kingdom work,
because that's when your timeand money takes on eternal
value. He says, you're investingin Love's the only thing that
survives the judgments andenters into the eternal new
kingdom. Our jobs purgeourselves of everything now
that's inconsistent with thehumble character of Christ and
(25:29):
and to cultivate the characterthat is consistent with Christ,
the Holy Spirit's there. Helpus. We're gonna be doing it in
community with others. This isnot meant to be a solo project.
It's a community project.
Joshua Johnson (25:40):
I have a hard time see women and children and
men being massacred and killedin Gaza, and who see a genocide,
I see some Christians justifyingthis and using some of the same
language that they did inDeuteronomy, of like, hey,
there's people that need to goaway because they're evil, but
(26:03):
Jesus calls us to love ourenemies. He calls us something
different. How do I hold thatspace as a follower of Jesus?
And how do I help, maybe evencall people to a different way,
the way of Jesus, and showpeople that a Jesus is calling
us to something different here,and not the way that we think is
going to bring about somethingor another. I don't know what
(26:25):
people, people justify it, but
Greg Boyd (26:27):
Well, again, you're asking a very good question, and
it's, it's a very toughquestion. It's interesting to
note that so the Israelitesinvade Canaan, and they do it
violently, and it even says todo it right, that war, that war
continued, that it was ongoing.
It never worked. They thoughtthat you only exterminated the
evil people will then will havepeace. It never works. Violence
(26:48):
only begets more. Violence, fullstop it. You may delay it, 1010,
20, 100 years, but it will comeback. You bomb the house of your
enemy. You just recruited alltheir neighbors to bomb you when
they get a chance. So just goesrunning around. And so that
(27:09):
area, Palestine, has always beena point of conflict, and what
we're seeing today is acontinuation of what started in
Deuteronomy. So violence begetting more violence, and it is
horrific. It's terrible. It'sgut wrenching. I would grieve. I
haven't heard anyone say, Well,this is, you know what? God's
continuation of what God said,told him in Deuteronomy seven,
(27:31):
that's just, that's justhorrific. There's tons of study
that show when you have aviolent conception of God, it
inclines you towards violence.
Think it's so important that wehave a non violent conception of
God that will incline us towardsnon violence and and. And I find
that more I internalize theshalom of God, and the more I
(27:54):
walk with cultivating lovetowards all people at all times,
in all situations, no if andbuts, maybes or exceptions, the
more I do, the more I detestviolence. I got to the point
about 15 years ago where I wasjust so grieved by the violence
that permeates our world that Ijust made a commitment that I am
going to purge all violence inmy thoughts and my words and my
(28:17):
deeds. And it has been amarvelous when you when you
commit to doing that, it changesyou. It changes what you see it,
yeah, it just begins to purgeyou. Don't realize how many
thoughts you have that areviolent, how many judgmental you
(28:37):
know, and I define violence asanything that violates the worth
of another and some people, theone thing we know about those
strangers out there is that theyhave unsurpassable worth because
Jesus died for them and paid anunsurpassable price. And so look
at them that way. Don't evennotice how fat they are, how
drunk, how gay they are, or howwicked they are, how whatever.
Notice that they are a personfor whom Jesus died, and many
(29:01):
folks can love for you, love inyou. I encourage all folks to do
that, and one way to keep goingis to Jesus says, Pray for your
enemies. That's the only groupthat he ever said, Pray for. He
doesn't pray for the Samaritans.
Pray for whatever. Pray for yourenemies. And I encourage anyone
who will listen to my voice todo that daily. Choose the top
three people or groups that youhave the hardest time loving you
(29:24):
feel justified hating, and nowpray for them and and that's
mean you agree with them. Itdoesn't mean maybe what they're
doing is hideous, horrendous,terrible, demonic, but you pray
that they get freed from that,and pray you know that that God
limits the harm that they cando. God changes their heart.
They pray blessing on theirloved ones and whatever. And
(29:45):
that changes your heart. I thinkit's not for their sake that
we're supposed to love them.
It's for our sake. Loving yourenemy is the only way to keep
from getting caught in theundertow of evil. If you if you
retaliate, well, then theenemies now define you. You.
Being at all times, not theaggressor who's threatening us.
Joshua Johnson (30:03):
You know, John on the scene, he said, you know,
the first thing you said is, thekingdom of God has come near,
right? Repent, the kingdom ofGod is near. If we think of God
that looks like Jesus, we think,then the kingdom of God is a
Jesus shaped kingdom, right? Andit's going to look like that. We
have a lot of people who want totake something like a kingdom
(30:25):
and coerce people through powerand have power structures
actually bring about moreearthly power for men. But what
then would Jesus's Kingdom looklike? What does the kingdom of
God. That is Jesus shaped tolook like. And how can we help
usher that into the world?
Greg Boyd (30:47):
Jesus says, like you said, The kingdom of God is
near, and that's because he wasnear. He was the embodiment of
the kingdom of God. So he's thewalking, talking dome over which
God is King. And that's what thekingdom of God is defined by.
It's the dome over which God isKing, and so insofar as anyone's
life aligns with the characterof the king, as it's revealed in
Christ, they are in that dome.
Insofar as we're outside of it,we're outside of that dome. But
(31:09):
the criteria is looking likelike Jesus, who gives his life
for the world, for his enemies,who loves his enemies, even as
They're crucifying Him Jesus,who said, don't forbid the
little children to come unto me,the Jesus that was always loving
the unlovable and touching theuntouchable and relating to the
people that were the least insociety, and feeding the hungry
(31:31):
and all of that. That's what thechurch is supposed to look like.
We are the body of Christ, sowe're supposed to be doing
exactly what Jesus did in hisfirst body, and that includes
healing people and deliveringpeople and teaching, but also
acting in service to others. Andso if that's the criteria of the
kingdom, and the church issupposed to be the embodiment of
(31:53):
the kingdom, then the churchought to be a corporate version
of the physical Jesus or and andcaring about the outcast and for
the least of these and visitingthe prisoner and showing
hospitality to the homeless anddoing whatever you to improve
their life, because that's whatmanifests the character of God.
That's our testimony. You know,we're the two witnesses in the
(32:15):
Revelation, the two lampstands.
We're supposed to shine in thedarkness, will be a city set on
the hill, but also has thiseffect. There is a growing
movement out there that ofpeople who are waking up on
their own. There's it's like theHoly Spirit's doing stuff,
because people are coming tothis on their own, as I did in
the 90s, and they're discoveringa Jesus looking God who's
(32:37):
raising up a people, a Jesuslooking people, could change the
world in the Jesus kind of way.
The Jesus collective, which isan organization, it's kind of a
hub for parts of this movement,but the movement's much bigger
than that, and it's a grassrootsmovement. There's no one who's
was in charge of this. It'sstill off most people's radar
screen, but, but I only knowabout it because we get
contacted by him. But if thecross is the criteria, then, if
(32:59):
you look at the landscape inAmerica and ask, to what degree
does the church in America, theEvangelical Church, the liberal
church, the fundamentalistchurch, whatever you want to,
what degree does it look likeJesus serving the least of these
dying for people, sacrificing ofthemselves, not insisting on
their own way, because that'snot what love does. But the
(33:22):
first, if you're honest aboutit, the church is not in very
good shape. If the criteria isthe cross, I can't fix that, but
the only thing I can do isarrange my own life. And so I
dedicate myself to being part ofa community that is striving,
our slogan is learning to lovetogether. We're striving to be
(33:43):
Christ like and version of that,I hopefully that's a model like
it begins to catch on. One ofthe things we do is we have
program where we build tinyhomes for homeless people, and
we find churches that haveproperty and that it's available
because a lot of churches, sincecovid do have property. They
don't need all that parkingspace, and they create tiny home
communities, and they bring thewhole church community around
(34:06):
these folks. And usually they'llhave one person who's living
there intentionally to help,because lock James is mental
health issues and all sorts ofother issues. And today it's
beautiful. We've got now threeof these sprung up. We build
them in our church, but our areais not safe, so we ship them out
to other churches that are opento it. And, oh, it's a beautiful
it's called several sacred civilcommunity thing that that
(34:27):
catches down the churches beginto do this. Wouldn't it be
beautiful if there's a movementacross America and to go beyond
that of churches who actuallyare making a difference to the
poor by bringing them into theircommunity, it would just be so
little. It's what it's a Jesuslooking kind of thing.
Joshua Johnson (34:44):
I pray every day that the church looks more like
Jesus, that we actually embodythe ways of Jesus, and we look
more like him. You know, asyou're following Jesus and the
ways of Jesus and trying to bemore like Jesus, what kind of
pushback. Do you get things thatreally rub people people? How
(35:04):
does Jesus rub people the wrongway?
Greg Boyd (35:06):
But you know, back in I think it was 2000 and and
four, 2005 I preached the sermonseries explaining why, in our
church, we don't celebrate theFourth of July. We don't have
flags in the church. We don'tweigh in on politics. We don't
try to steer candidates. And Idid that because I was getting
so much unprecedented pressurefrom my own congregation of
(35:27):
people saying you should tellthe flock, your job is to lead
the flock and tell them, youknow, who the god the candidate
is. And of course, the candidateis. And so I you know, they're
influenced by what they watch ontelevision or whatnot. And so I
thought this is the time toclarify why we're never going to
do that and and so I laid it allout there to be like Jesus.
(35:49):
Jesus was not here givingpolitical advice on how to run
the Roman Empire. He was talkingto Kingdom people on how to live
within the Roman Empire,unfortunately, and now it's even
worse with it was it was in 2004people are getting politicized,
and their ideologies is they'regetting caught in these chambers
on the internet where everythingjust agrees with them. And so
(36:11):
they hear things in politicalterms. And so when I say, Love
your enemies, I preach thesermon in a series that I did
explain why our church doesn'thave a flag and all the rest.
And I talked about loving yourenemies, and a lady came up and
said, If you preach one moreanti Bush sermon, I'm going to
leave this church. And I said,What do you mean anti Bush
(36:33):
sermon? Because George Bush wasa candidate, and as he said, Oh,
when you say Love your enemies,we know who you're talking
about, because this is rightafter the invasion of it's like
I'm not trying to run thecountry here, ma'am, I'm talking
to you. It's kingdom. Peoplehere. This is our call. But
people, to this day, our job isto love the immigrant, to
(36:53):
welcome them in. That's a themethat runs throughout the whole
Bible. But it's, of course, thetestament on foreigner, the
alien. And people think I'm, I'mtrying to give these policy Oh,
you think we should open up ourborders and let everyone in, and
that would cause chaos. It'slike I'm not trying to. I'm not
anyone's political advisor here.
All right, I the country that'sabove my pay grade. You know, I
don't know how type of shouldbe, whatever, but I do know that
(37:14):
here's a he's a person who'sliving in fear because they are
might get deported any moment,and so what can I do to help
them? You know, my command isthe same, whatever Caesar
commands these, if they're niceto immigrants, my commands the
same, if mean to immigrants, mycommands the same. It may cost
more when they're mean, butthat's the call of the gospel,
(37:35):
but it's we got to avoid lettingour thoughts get politicized and
polarized and the ideologytaking over the Gospel we really
have to Jesus.
Joshua Johnson (37:47):
Was saying a I didn't come to tell you how to
run the Roman Empire reallywell, but I came to talk about
Kingdom people living in thekingdom inside the Empire. Right
now, if you know you and I areboth in United States of
America. We're in the we're inan empire. At the moment, what
we're doing, and so if we'refollowers of Jesus, we want to
(38:10):
be Kingdom people. Jesus,Kingdom people. Within the
empire living like Jesus,Kingdom people, there's a lot of
Christendom that have like amesh themselves with the Empire,
help us discern whether we'reJesus Kingdom people, or whether
we've decided we're going to amesh ourselves with the Empire
(38:32):
as Christians. And how can westay out of the empire but
actually live faithfully toJesus within it?
Greg Boyd (38:41):
That's That's an excellent question. I wrote a
book on it's called the myth ofa Christian nation. It just goes
after this idea that America waswhat time a Christian nation,
and we got to take it back forGod, I've always wondered, when
was that time when we were aChristian nation? Was that
before or after we imported allthe slaves from Africa and got
rich off the blood of theirbacks and or was that before we
(39:03):
massacred the Native Americans?
When were we Christian? When didAmerica ever look at all like
Christ or any nation? For thatmatter, any nation is going to
have to have some violence tokeep murder in the in their
kingdom and to protect againstoutsider. Our job is to manifest
a totally different kingdom. Theproblem pouring out is one that
has been there since the fourthcentury. The first three
centuries, the church was apersecuted minority, and they
(39:25):
stayed pretty faithful. Then we,in the fourth century,
Constantine gets this allegedvision and decides that Jesus is
going to fight his battles underthe banner of Christ, which was
the first time Christ was everassociated with violence. And he
gets this goes to war to thebanner of Christ, and he's
victorious. So he Christianityto be legal, and then in time,
it becomes the official religionof the empire. And the church is
(39:46):
now invited, as the church growsand influence was invited to
help run the Roman Empire. Thedevil offered Jesus all this,
you know, he said, Hey, I'llgive you all the authority of
the kingdoms of the world. AndJesus said, Thank. Thanks. I'll
win them the kingdom way, whichis by dying, not by conquering,
but the Church lost sense it andbe good thing that we're
supposed to literally conquerthe world in Jesus name. So it's
(40:09):
a pagan mindset like and like,you fight in the name of God.
The God was in your favor. We'llfight with you. And he was just
unique for our God was namedJesus, even though that now
didn't look like Jesus, itlooked like the Roman Empire.
But with, you know, the churchthere to do the blessing of
(40:29):
battles and blessing of alldoing the religious functions,
that's what so all are going toadmit people who would say,
that's not the kingdom, that'snot the kingdom, and usually
they're put to death, butthere's always been a minority
of people. But in the AnnaBaptist really came out in
acting. Neither they got Lutheris a Calvin, Calvin, Kelvin,
Catholics, Anglicans, they'reall associated with their state,
(40:51):
their state religions. Youbelong to this the religion
because you're born in thatstate. And the Baptists were the
ones that said, women, you haveto choose. You have to believe
in Him, and you have to pledgeto walk in his ways. It's not
just about what you believe.
It's about how you live. And itgot really clear about how
(41:12):
distinct Our job is to put ondisplay a unique kingdom that is
different from all versions ofthe kingdom of this world, and
the way it should be unique isby our humility and our service
and our sacrifice to others, ourselflessness. Are not buying
into the ways of Emperor,chasing after more and more, you
know, not buying into that, butrather living, being content
(41:33):
with what we have and and then,if we have surplus, then we can
invest it in the service ofothers. That is the that is the
that is that is Jesus, and thatis the
Joshua Johnson (41:44):
church. As you wrote this book, God looks like
Jesus. What hope do you havepeople that pick up this book
and read it? What do you hopethis book does for people?
Greg Boyd (41:54):
I'm really hoping that it sets people free, that
the coin drops in the slot.
There's a lot of folks who maybethey are what we're used to
thinking and so you've alwaysbeen used to thinking about God
in certain ways. So you don'teven notice how you think about
God, but you believe that whatyou're believing is true, and
you probably believe what you'rebelieving is dirt. But I make
the case as succinctly but aspowerfully as I can that Jesus
(42:17):
defines the whole of God'scharacter full stop. And my hope
is that that will help peoplepurge out of their minds all
these sub Christ likeconceptions of God, that they
have the baggage that they'veinherited, that smorgasbord of
different pictures of Godfloating around. No, I pray it
would be singular. The characterof God's completely defined by
(42:39):
the cross when the coin drops inthe slot, that you're in love
this way, and that everyperson's love this way. And our
call is to replicate theFather's love, who causes his
rain to fall on the just and theunjust and the sun to shine the
righteous and the unrighteous.
His love is indiscriminate, andso our distinctiveness should
be. We love like he loves. Infact, Jesus says that in John
(43:00):
545 he goes, love like thefather loves, like the rain
falls, like the sun shines, thatyou may be children of your
Father in heaven, that's thecriteria he gives for being a
child of God. When we reflectthe Father's character by our
indiscriminate love, we're aknock off. We're a chip off the
old block. We show that we'reborn from above. We've got the
father's DNA in us with all thatlove. It's not manifest. You
(43:24):
couldn't have a more importantteaching than that.
Joshua Johnson (43:27):
Well, God looks like Jesus is available anywhere
books are sold. Is thereanywhere you'd like to point
people to either connect withyou or to get this book in a
specific place?
Greg Boyd (43:37):
I have a ministry called renew, R, E, K, N, E, W,
rethink everything you thoughtyou knew and renew.org and if
you buy the books through there,we get a little kickback from
Amazon, but you buy me anywherethat books are sold. Greg,
Joshua Johnson (43:53):
I have a couple quick questions at the end that
I like to ask. If you could goback to your 21 year old self.
What advice would you give? Iwent back to my
Unknown (44:01):
21 year old so Whoa.
What advice would I get? Itmajor in the
Greg Boyd (44:10):
majors and minor in the minors. Don't sweat the
small stuff. And most of it'ssmall stuff, you know, PQR and
the prize, yeah, I would havehad more focus on that less
anxiety over stuff that really Icould have just let pass. I
think that that would have beenit.
Joshua Johnson (44:26):
That's good.
Anything you've been reading orwatching lately, you could
recommend,
Greg Boyd (44:29):
I have been watching a podcast called the great
simplification. I wouldn'tadvise people watching that if
you're struggling with mentalhealth issues, because it's
pretty heavy, heavy, but theytalk about that, the meta crisis
that the world is facing. And Italk about this as well in the
last chapter in my book, that weare facing some serious
(44:50):
ecological and geopolitical riskcrises, and the future is going
to be interesting. It's all.
Already getting veryinteresting. It's changing so
fast. The planet is warming upand the Antarctic is melting
like crazy. Last three years,it's just shock scientists. It's
all sudden. Just so what does itmean to have hope in Jesus in a
(45:11):
time like that? And I think it'sall the more important. There
was anchor. As we go in thefuture, I'm convinced that more
and more people wake up to justhow serious a problem we're
facing. And people tend tohoard. When they get frayed,
they tend to get, you know,build a fortress and compound
and whatever, and a call of thegospel is to go in the other
direction. The worse it gets,the more we just keep on serving
(45:32):
and shining with this otheroriented love. And we don't, we
don't cling to this life. Wealways know this was stepping
stone. So it shouldn't, itshouldn't freak us
Joshua Johnson (45:41):
out the God does win in the that was on my list
of things. I wanted to talk toyou about the poly crisis, this
meta crisis that we're facing,and how to live faithfully.
Jesus could go, say, go watchthe great simplification, just
so that we could know what'sgoing on in this world, and then
we could figure out, what doesit look like to live faithfully
while this future is happening,right?
Greg Boyd (46:03):
He has guests on and they look at the simplification
is his word for collapse. Allthings tend to simplify.
Complexity always simplifies.
And we have a very, very complexglobal society that he was
convinced. It's already in theprocess of simplifying. It's
kind of fragmenting down. It hasmajor implications for for
everybody, but for believers.
(46:24):
You know, we're told that. Idon't know if we're coming to
the end times or not, you know,but certainly, kind of looks
like it. I have an easier timemaintaining the attitude of the
New Testament. In the NewTestament, everybody is
expecting the Lord to come intheir lifetime and and that it's
pervasive. Most of my ministry,I totally neglected that. I
didn't I burned on aneschatology in my first two
(46:46):
years, I had rapsitritis, getraptured out of here. I have no
idea now what it looks like. Idon't think we're going to get
sectioned out of here, becausethe call is not to run away from
suffering. Is to move towardsit. God's people don't like yay.
We get to get out of here whileyou suffer. No move towards
suffering, because God movedtowards us, and it constant
suffering. So be grounded inthat hope, confident that
(47:07):
however bad it looks, love wins.
In the end, the cross is thevictory over evil, and in time,
it will be manifest some kind ofcataclysmic way. I know not how,
but I'm confident of it, and sothat you have a piece about you
and don't have to during theanxious human race, anxiety is
already anxiety and lonelinessis epidemic. Yep, yeah.
Joshua Johnson (47:29):
Well, that's beautiful. Greg, thank you for
this conversation station. Ilove talking to you. I love
talking to you about a God wholooks like jeez, and that we
could actually help have thisconception of who got in mind,
so that we could live faithfullyto Jesus here and now in this
world, that we could look likeJesus embodied the ways of him,
(47:50):
and that, you know, we do followand serve this cruciform king.
And so thank you for this. Itwas a fantastic
Greg Boyd (47:57):
conversation. It's the best news in the world, and
I love to share it Amen. You.
Loving your enemy is the only way to keep from
(00:01):
getting caught in the undertowof evil. If you if you
retaliate, well, then the enemyhas now defined you.
Joshua Johnson (00:20):
Hello and welcome to the shifting culture
podcast in which we haveconversations about the culture
we create and the impact we canmake. We long to see the body of
Christ look like Jesus. I'm yourhost. Joshua Johnson, when we
say God looks like Jesus, it'seasy to nod in agreement. But
what if we actually lived asthough that were true? What if
our image of God wasn't a mix oflight and shadow, part loving
(00:42):
Savior, part wrathful judge, butwas fully revealed in the
crucified Christ. Greg Boyd hasspent decades helping the church
reimagine God through the lensof the cross. In this
conversation, we explore how aJesus shaped picture of God
changes everything, how we readscripture, how we think about
violence and power and how welive as a people of love in a
(01:02):
world addicted to retribution.
Greg helps us wrestle with thehard questions, how do we
reconcile Old Testament violencewith self giving love of Jesus?
How do we resist the pull ofempire and live as citizens of a
different kind of kingdom, andhow do we cultivate lives that
reflect the humility service andnonviolent love of the Lamb. So
join us for a conversation thatlooks more like Jesus,
(01:23):
compassionate, cruciform andcourageous. Here is my
conversation with Greg Boyd.
Greg, welcome to shiftingculture. Thanks for joining me.
Excited to have you on. Thanksfor having me. I'm honored to be
here. Yeah, before we jump intoGod. Looks like Jesus. You know,
I'd love to just start maybewith your own story. In your own
(01:45):
story, where what firstunsettled your picture of God
that made you really start tocenter everything around Jesus.
Greg Boyd (01:53):
You know, I think the beginning of it was way back the
second I became a Christian whenI was 17 years old. Just turned
17, but it was in thisPentecostal church that had all
these I mean, it was a holinessPentecostal church that had so
many rules, and I could neverlive up to all those rules. I
was able to get off of the drugsI was on and clean up my act in
(02:16):
all that ways. But my dad wasalways very free. He had a lot
of porn, pornography, and he andI were living alone together,
and he traveled for weeks at atime, and he didn't care if I
looked at his porn. And livingin that house, as a 19 year old
with access to porn, I could goa day or two or three without
looking at it, but eventuallyI'd fall and in this church,
(02:38):
you're only as saved as yourlast sinless moment. Every sin
you're getting unsaved. So I wasgetting saved and unsaved daily,
a couple times a day. And aftertwo years, I was finally sick of
it. And then I was I was gonnaquit. I was talking to a friend
up parking lot after this Sundaynight service church, and I was
just saying, I can't live thisway. And I often got mad at God.
(02:59):
I started like, just reeling atGod. I talked about this in the
book God to play Jesus. And onepoint through my Bible on the
trunk of his truck, and floppedopen. I started reading it
sarcastically, because he wassaying, we must be missing
something. And I was like, Whatare we missing? I read this
whole book, and what is it? Ithrew it down, and it flock open
(03:20):
to Romans eight, and he startedreading it, there's therefore no
condemnation to them overChrist, Jesus. I said it
mockingly. It's something caughtme, and I read it again. It's
like, what does that even mean?
I kept on, started going downthe passage. I got the point
where, if God before us, whocould be against us, you know,
who can lay any charge. And myeyes just were opened. And for
the first time in my life, I gotit. God loves me. His love for
(03:41):
me is greater than hisdisappointment of my behavior,
but it's a love that's going tocorrect me from the behavior.
Behavior improvement isn't aprecondition for his love. I
always thought God was just abehaviorist, and so if you have
good behavior, well then heloves you. But if you but if you
have bad behavior, well thenhe's gonna send you to hell. So
(04:02):
he doesn't really love you. He'sloves behavior. That was my
model, but for the first time, Igot it that I'm loved for free,
and that changed everything. Itchanged the way I viewed myself.
I'm a king's kid. I'm betterthan this stupid stuff, and this
is beneath me. And for the firsttime, I really wanted to get rid
of it. See, before I wassupposed to get rid of it, but I
(04:23):
didn't want to. But now I didn'twant to, and it was disgusting
to me, and it was beneath me.
And that was the beginning ofbreakthrough, of getting out of
that behavioralistic God anddiscovering God loves me for
free. That was a long time tillI really became, you know, over
years. It was in the 90s, Ireally began to discover the
centrality of Jesus foreverything, for how you read the
(04:45):
Bible, for how you think aboutGod, for all of that. But the
beginning of it was, I thinkthat experience when I was 18
years
Joshua Johnson (04:51):
old. I think a lot of people, when they look at
the title of your book and youknow something that you're
distilling a lot of your stuffthat you've written in other
places. That you've, you know,you've spoken about, that you
think about, all in this one,it's a small, impactful, little
tome that you have written hereabout what God actually looks
(05:12):
like Jesus and what what you'rethinking a lot of people,
they'll read that title, they'llnod their head. They'll say,
Yeah, God looks like Jesus.
Yeah, it's about Jesus, okay?
But they won't really feel theweight of it. They won't
actually feel what for theramifications of God actually
looking like Jesus beingcruciform. What do we miss if we
don't actually see the weight ofwhat that really means?
Greg Boyd (05:34):
What happens, I think, is that Christians will
say, of course, God looks likeJesus, but they have a whole lot
of other things that God lookslike. God looks like Jesus, but
he also looks like the God whocommanded genocide and
Deuteronomy, and he looks likethe God declared war god, you
know. And so most people have asmorgasbord conception of God,
(05:55):
and all of our feelings andemotions about God are
associated to how we representGod in our mind. You know all
our emotions are associated withimages in our mind. So your love
for God and your passion for Godwill never outrun the beauty of
your picture of God. And sincewe always take out the semblance
of the God that we worship, thebeauty of our life will never
outrun the beauty of our mentalconception of God. And so I
(06:17):
think our mental conception ofGod is the most important thing
in the world. It's like the mostimportant fact between my ears.
How do you view God? And mostpeople don't think about that.
They just sort of inheritsomething from the church
tradition, or from a song theyheard, or a sermon they heard,
or their own Bible reading, andit all gets smushed in there.
And so they have a compositeimage of God, which is in some
(06:39):
respects beautiful. And whenthey think about that, they're
feeling, yo, I love God, butthen there's all this baggage
that goes with it, and thatcan't help but compromise your
love for God, your passion forGod, because God's got this
ominous, ugly side to him. Jesusis the nice side of God, but
there's this dark side God, theFather, God of wrath and all
that. But see Jesus in the wholeNew Testament, He says, if you
(07:01):
see me, you see the father. Whydidn't you ask? Show us the
Father in John 14, nine Gen ifyou want to know what the
father's like, what thecharacter of God is like, don't
look to the right or the left ofJesus, behind or in front. Keep
your eye. Focus on Jesus,because He is the WAY, the TRUTH
and the LIFE. He is the one wordof God they tell where God so
he's not one of the pictures ofGod in the Bible. He is the
(07:23):
picture of God through which wemisinterpret all the other
pictures of God.
Joshua Johnson (07:27):
So I think one of the things that I 100% agree
this is the problem, as yousaid, we have a smorgasbord idea
of who God is, and so wesometimes make Jesus into our
own image, and we're like, Okay,I'm going to view scripture
through the lens of Jesus, butit's going to be through the
lens of my own image of Jesus,and not what Jesus has actually
(07:51):
portrayed of who He truly is.
Right? How do we make a shift toknow that we're actually reading
the Bible through the lens ofwho Jesus is and not through who
we have made him to be.
Greg Boyd (08:04):
That's very good question. It's a very question,
important question, because weall can be guilty of projecting
our own ideas and carrying ourown assumptions to the text. I
make the case. I think I make itpretty compellingly, that the
center of what Jesus is about isthe cross. His whole ministry
(08:26):
leads up to the cross, and itsays, for this hour, I've come
into the world. And he refers tothe cross as the hour in which
he's going to glorify theFather. He was always glorifying
the Father, if you've seen heused to the Father. That was
true all the time, but theFather's character is most
perfectly put on display whenJesus offers up his life freely,
goes dies a hellish death, Godforsaken. This out of love for
(08:47):
us and the whole creation. Andthat reveals what God is really
like. In Hebrews one, it saysthat in the past, people got
glimpses of the truth. It saysin the Philips translation, they
had glimpses of truth. God spokein various ways to the prophets,
but now, in the last days, hesays, got spoken through His
Son. And by that, it means God'scome down in person, no more
mediated through prophets,whatever God in person. Now the
(09:09):
word has become flesh. And thenthe author says, the sun, in
contrast to what they had in thepast, the sun is the radiance of
God's glory and the exactlikeness of his very essence.
Hupostasis is the word he uses.
So here we get exactly whatGod's like to his very essence,
and it's all centered on thecross. So a cross culminates. I
don't think of the cross asseparate from the ministry and
(09:32):
teachings of Jesus. Itculminates the message in the
teachings of Jesus. Everythingabout the Gospels is oriented
towards Jesus is travelingtowards the cross. That's the
culinary point, and then theresurrection confirms that. So I
argue that we have to read thelens, or read the Bible, and
even understand Jesus's ownlight through the lens of the
Cross, which culminates thewhole thing. And that puts
(09:54):
really good, strong guardrailsaround how much projection you
can get away with. You. It. Butyou know, if I know some authors
who believe they're maintaininga crystal centric reading of the
Bible, but they start with Jesuscleansing the temple, and they
say, see, look, Jesus is capableof violence. I cleanse the
temple, and he told hissoldiers, his disciples, to get
swords. So clearly, God's okaywith violence, and so we don't
(10:18):
have to reinterpret the OldTestament. But if you look at
those passages, it's never saysJesus harmed any animals or
people. He made a whip and hecracked the web, which is a way
of startling animals to run, oneto cause a stampede. And in
Luke, when Jesus says, Hey, goout by so she had buy two swords
or no, they say, Well, we havetwo swords. And Jesus says,
(10:38):
Okay, that's enough. But hetells us why. It wasn't said
they're supposed to use them. Infact, when Peter tried to use
when he rebuked him, he says,because it is written, He will
be counted among thetransgressors, quoting Isaiah 53
So Jesus had to appear like atransgressor to justify the
guard resting him and then bringhim to trial. If they had no
(10:59):
weapons, they wouldn't have anygrounds. So there's no basis
there for saying that Jesus isokay with violence. I just think
it's a weak argument. You know,I think we have to interpret
everything through the lens ofthe Cross, which culminates
everything Jesus was about.
Joshua Johnson (11:13):
That's good. I think, you know, the temple is
he's clear in the temple. Hesays, you know, the temple, I'm
gonna rebuild the temple inthree days. I mean, he's really
talking about the death andresurrection of himself as well,
of him going to the cross. Andso I think there's so many of
those signs in the book of Johnthat is really about His death
and resurrection, is about thecross, is about New Covenant. Is
(11:37):
the kingdom that's coming. It'sso amazing that it's all right
there, and we've interpreted itin ways where it's really not
about the cross and resurrectionand new life, it's actually
about something else. Yeah, andso I think we're doing that
constantly.
Unknown (11:52):
You make it about a whole lot of things you know,
about who political party shouldwin, and what nation's best and
all the rest.
Joshua Johnson (11:58):
Then can you help me reconcile this, and help
me reconcile genocide in the OldTestament with God. And you
write about this, and I thinkthere's a few things that you've
said in that section abouttalking about Canaan and, you
know, wiping out the Canaanitesas the Israelites are going into
the land. It really helped me tothink about what God said
(12:19):
previously, before and way hewanted them out and over time,
and not just wipe them out andkill them all, because let's
talk about that. And if God iscruciform, and if the cross is
Central, and if God is likeJesus, then what does that mean
(12:39):
for us? How can we interpret
Greg Boyd (12:41):
Scripture like that?
Okay, excellent question. Ithink it's important to remember
that the Bible is not atheological textbook. It's a
story, and we forget that it's astory, and the story has
movement in it. There's aprogression of Revelation. You
know, God a lot, you know,accommodates some things early
on, but then he does it lateron, and so he meets people where
they're at you have to rememberand rank the case for this that
(13:05):
God is never coerced. When Godinspires people or breathes
through the authors of theBible, he doesn't take away
their personality. He doesn'ttake away their free will. He
doesn't all said and take overtheir brains. He works with them
as they are. Paul, he writes,and this is divinely inspired in
First Corinthians one. He'stalking about this dispute in
current when the Corinthian whobaptized to and Paul says, oh,
(13:28):
boy, I'm glad I didn't baptizeany of you. Then he goes, Well,
I didn't buy a house. Baptizethe house of Stephens. And then
he says, he goes, actually, Idon't remember who I baptized
ever again, but the point is notbeing provided. Okay? So God
doesn't perfect Paul's memorywhile he breathes through him.
And so we find throughout thebiblical authors that you can
(13:48):
find their own worldview, theirperspective, their beliefs, are
all intact. God influencespeople in the direction of truth
as much as possible. But therecomes a point where to go any
further would be coercive, andso then God has to accept them
as they are. So we come uponDeuteronomy seven, which says,
Show no mercy, slaughter. Youknow, the seven groups of
(14:10):
Canaanites that I have given youfor their land. It says in
Deuteronomy, 22 slider, killeverything that breathes,
specifically mentioned, men,women, children, infants, even
the animals. They says, sparethe trees because they're not
soldiers. And you would thinkthat maybe that should apply to
babies and children too, but itdidn't okay. So your choice
(14:32):
Either you accept that that'sstraightforward. That was
exactly right. And so God hasthis genocidal part to him, and
now Good luck trying toreconcile it with Jesus, who
says, Love Your and vesselsappears to you do good to those
who despitefully use you tunethe other cheek never. How do
you fix that? I, for years,tried to defend the behavior
(14:53):
that's ascribed to God in theOld Testament, trying to find
excuses for God and. You know,and I respect the folks who knew
that. I understand it. Youbelieve the Bible is inspired,
so God said it. I believe thatsolves it for me. But we often
have to look deeper and pushback on something, especially
you're coming at this from acrucified perspective. So I, at
one point started writing a bookthat was going to defend God's
(15:17):
behavior. I got about 50 pagesinto it, and thought, this is
not convincing. It doesn't I'mnot convinced by it, so I can't
expect others to be convinced byit. And I realized that even if
I was successful and making Godlook a little less nasty, I
looked maybe more justified inthis. The Canaanites deserve
really, really bad, you know.
(15:37):
And he had to kill the babybecause of some reason earlier,
at some point, the explanationsgrow thin. So I keep up on that
book, and for several months, Ijust sat in this tension. I on
Jesus authority. I have tobelieve the whole Old Testament
is divinely inspired because hedid, and I call him Lord. But
(15:57):
then at the same time, I can'taccept that Jesus would ever
command genocide, killingbabies. I just sat in that
conundrum Origen, who's thesecond century theologians
advise us. He goes to the bike.
He thought the Holy Spiritintentionally puts impossible
things in the Bible to force usto dig deeper to find the deeper
truth. He thought that theburied treasure underneath the
impossibilities is what Godwants us to dig for. So I sat
(16:20):
with this conundrum, and then Ibegan to about three months
later, into this cognitivedissonance, began to see how the
genocidal portraits of God bearwitness to the cross, because
Jesus says all scriptures aboutme, right? John five and Luke 23
everything was written to showthat the Son of Man must suffer
(16:42):
before he's glorified two times.
We find that in Luke 24 here.
And so how does just our pictureactually point to Jesus Christ,
whose life of the ministry issummarized on the cross, and
Tucker claims divineinspiration. It could be Greg
Boyd projecting what he wants tobelieve on to the screen of the
(17:03):
Bible. I'm open to that theChurch will determine whether
this is an acceptableinterpretation or not. Let's
see. But what I noticed was thatwhen I look at the cross, I
asked this question, and I thinkit's such an important the
ultimate question, though I'venever heard anyone ask it, and
that is, how does this crucifiedJewish man appearing guilty
criminal who's crucified in thefirst century? How does he
(17:28):
reveal God to me, I look atthat, I say that is the
revelation of God's character.
Because if you look at it in thenatural eye, like Paul said, we
once considered Christ fromnatural point of view, but we
consider from the national pointof view, all you see is a
hideous, ugly, torturous pictureof a guy he tortured on the
cross. But what turns that intoa revelation of God for us is
(17:52):
that we, by faith, see somethingdeeper. We look beyond it and
believe what Paul calls themessage of the cross, which he
identifies with the gospel. Heuses message of the cross and
gospel interchangeably. Themessage of the cross is that God
was in Christ, reconciling theworld to Himself, not counting
our trespasses against us. It'sa god would condescend. God
(18:14):
would stoop this distance crossand an infinite distance, to
become a human being and thendie a death on the cross. We
suffers the antithesis of who heis. He suffers experiencing
separation from God, which wouldbe the most horrifying thing in
the world. And the distance Godcrosses out of love for us
reveals the the unsurpassabledistance he crosses to save us
(18:38):
reveals the unsurpassableperfection of His love. His love
is revealed in his stooping downto need us where we're at and
doing what is necessary. So Godis and this reveals what God is.
Always like. God didn't becomeChrist like when, when we was
incurred. God's always been likethis. And so we should read the
Bible knowing that sometimes Godstoops, he'll reveal himself not
(19:01):
on the surface of the text,because it's not the surface of
the cross that reveals whatGod's like. It's his stepping
into it. He thinks us wherewe're at. So when you read the
Bible, knowing that sometimesGod will stoop to meet people
where they're at, and noticethat when God steps into our
sin, he takes on an appearancethat reveals the ugliness of
that sin. That's why the crossis so ugly. So the cross is
(19:22):
simultaneously hideously uglyand unfathomably beautiful,
because the surface reveals theugliness of the sin that God
bears, but he's stepping into itreveals the unsurpassable love
of the love that he is. And sowhen I read passages like
Deuteronomy seven, show nomercy. You might be tempted to
show mercy, but don't you got tokill those babies. What reveals
(19:45):
the surface reflects, I think,the sin that God bears, just as
he does on the cross. This iswhere the Israelites were at.
This is what the Israelitesthought about God. Because this
is what all ancient nationpeople thought about God, right?
God doesn't going to give youthe land. What they hear is.
We're supposed to slaughtereveryone there, and God's going
to help us slaughter no one everdreamed of a guy who would
actually fight for you so youwould not to fight. But that's
(20:08):
what the Lord told them. Ifyou're faithful, I'll deliver
you. Just what delivered you outof Egypt. You won't have to lift
anything. I'll fight. I'll go onand fight before you. In fact,
there's two passages, actuallynine, but the two that are most
impressive, but the Lord sharessome plans he has on how he's
going to fight for them, to getthem into Canaan. He says in
Luke 18 that they have defiledthe land, so the land will
(20:32):
become dried up and they'llmigrate off. But he says, I'm
not going to go quickly,otherwise the place will be
overgrown with wild animals andwild bush. So I'll slowly
migrate them out and migrate youin another place. He says, I'll
send pests. I'll make it pesty.
And so they'll want to migrateoff, and then I'll migrate you
in whatever happened to thoseplants? They're a lot less
(20:53):
violent than this whole, youknow, goat slaughter them all.
Either God, mood changed. Orwhat I think is happening is
we're giving little snippets ofwhat God would have liked to
have happen, but because of theIsraelites, hardness of heart,
which is emphasized throughoutthe narrative, could not trust
God to that degree. The veryfact that they used swords and
(21:13):
killed people to get Lamb ofKing, it shows you that they
were out of God's will. Becausehe said, If you trust me, you
won't have to pay it where allthe pictures of God in the Bible
that are sub Christ, like thatcome beneath it. Let's see. I
think the Holy Spirit is alwaysinfluencing the direction of
truth, and so you have manymagnificent pictures of God in
the Old Testament, the spiritbreaks through and always tell
because it looks like Christ,and it's totally against what
(21:37):
everyone else in the ancientNear Eastern believe. Okay, the
idea that Yahweh is our husbandand that we're the bride, it's
unheard of ancient Near East,and all the love and all that,
it's unheard of. And then youhave other pictures of God in
the Old Testament that are verymuch like what you find in the
ancient news. In fact, some ofthem are they just take the hymn
that Sung, the cob hymn thatsung to Baal, and they swift
(22:00):
about and put in Yahweh. And theancient race ascribing violence
to your God was seen as a formof worship. They delight in
saying, it's like our God willslay you. Well, our God will
slay your children and drinktheir blood. Well, our God will
roast you. And that's how youexalt God, whereas, in truth,
God is exalted by his humblenessand humility and servant, nature
(22:23):
and self, sacrificial love. Ittakes, you know, God doesn't
course. So it takes centuries ofwooing people, working with
people, and the picture getsdirt and clearer and clearer,
and finally, people are readyfor the absolute truth of his
pulmonary
Joshua Johnson (22:37):
Christ, I think that's so good for us to be able
to say that, and even in thePsalms, if I'm looking at, you
know, as David, David is saying,Hey, God, you've slayed my
enemies, who've killedeverybody, like it's the same
type of honor and worship thatthey're giving. So we're seeing
that in the Psalms, and thatactually, then would start to
reframe the way that I can seethat, and I could see what David
(23:01):
is trying to do. What he'sascribing to God is not the
violent nature of God, but it isabout how mighty and powerful
God is. He is more powerful andawe inspiring than others, and I
think that could help me lookback on the Psalms where I'm
like, do I really want to singabout God slaying and killing
(23:22):
all of the people around
Greg Boyd (23:23):
me, I don't really so he says, you know, you'll make
my enemies dry up like a slugout in the sun. At one point, he
says, you know, may they beburied alive. So his heart is to
glorify God, but the way he doesit is very ancient grief and so
it but then, of course, you haveother Psalms where the Spirit of
God breaks through andwonderful, you know, The Lord is
(23:43):
my shepherd. I shall not want.
And so you have a mixed bagthere, and it's the lens of the
Cross I submit that canseparate. You know, what is the
Holy Spirit breaking throughversus what is where's God
stooping because, yeah, peopleare too hard and not yet ready
to change.
Joshua Johnson (24:00):
If our perception of God is different,
and it is cruciform and is likeJesus, there, it then moves us
into a place of living in thisworld differently than our
perception of God was before.
Now it's more of a cruciformGod, one that looks like Jesus.
How does that impact the waythat we live in the world? How
do we embody this way of Jesus?
(24:22):
Yeah, we'll
Greg Boyd (24:23):
see that that's that is the that is the all important
question, and it has to do withdiscipleship. How do we become
more Christ like that? So if youunderstand that, you know God is
the is that the slain lamb inthe book of Revelation stands,
stands on the throne of God, atthe center of the throne
Genesis, because the same lambdefines everything that God's
(24:44):
about. This untranscended, allpowerful God has got the
character of a slain little lambwho would have thought and our
job, we find this throughout thebook of Revelation, is to follow
the Lamb wherever he goes, toadopt the mindset of the Lamb,
the behaviors of the Lamb, totake on the humility. The Lamb,
the other oriented nature of theLamb, to get out of our self
centeredness, to live modestly,so that you can have a surplus
(25:08):
of time and energy to invest inothers and to do Kingdom work,
because that's when your timeand money takes on eternal
value. He says, you're investingin Love's the only thing that
survives the judgments andenters into the eternal new
kingdom. Our jobs purgeourselves of everything now
that's inconsistent with thehumble character of Christ and
(25:29):
and to cultivate the characterthat is consistent with Christ,
the Holy Spirit's there. Helpus. We're gonna be doing it in
community with others. This isnot meant to be a solo project.
It's a community project.
Joshua Johnson (25:40):
I have a hard time see women and children and
men being massacred and killedin Gaza, and who see a genocide,
I see some Christians justifyingthis and using some of the same
language that they did inDeuteronomy, of like, hey,
there's people that need to goaway because they're evil, but
(26:03):
Jesus calls us to love ourenemies. He calls us something
different. How do I hold thatspace as a follower of Jesus?
And how do I help, maybe evencall people to a different way,
the way of Jesus, and showpeople that a Jesus is calling
us to something different here,and not the way that we think is
going to bring about somethingor another. I don't know what
(26:25):
people, people justify it, but
Greg Boyd (26:27):
Well, again, you're asking a very good question, and
it's, it's a very toughquestion. It's interesting to
note that so the Israelitesinvade Canaan, and they do it
violently, and it even says todo it right, that war, that war
continued, that it was ongoing.
It never worked. They thoughtthat you only exterminated the
evil people will then will havepeace. It never works. Violence
(26:48):
only begets more. Violence, fullstop it. You may delay it, 1010,
20, 100 years, but it will comeback. You bomb the house of your
enemy. You just recruited alltheir neighbors to bomb you when
they get a chance. So just goesrunning around. And so that
(27:09):
area, Palestine, has always beena point of conflict, and what
we're seeing today is acontinuation of what started in
Deuteronomy. So violence begetting more violence, and it is
horrific. It's terrible. It'sgut wrenching. I would grieve. I
haven't heard anyone say, Well,this is, you know what? God's
continuation of what God said,told him in Deuteronomy seven,
(27:31):
that's just, that's justhorrific. There's tons of study
that show when you have aviolent conception of God, it
inclines you towards violence.
Think it's so important that wehave a non violent conception of
God that will incline us towardsnon violence and and. And I find
that more I internalize theshalom of God, and the more I
(27:54):
walk with cultivating lovetowards all people at all times,
in all situations, no if andbuts, maybes or exceptions, the
more I do, the more I detestviolence. I got to the point
about 15 years ago where I wasjust so grieved by the violence
that permeates our world that Ijust made a commitment that I am
going to purge all violence inmy thoughts and my words and my
(28:17):
deeds. And it has been amarvelous when you when you
commit to doing that, it changesyou. It changes what you see it,
yeah, it just begins to purgeyou. Don't realize how many
thoughts you have that areviolent, how many judgmental you
(28:37):
know, and I define violence asanything that violates the worth
of another and some people, theone thing we know about those
strangers out there is that theyhave unsurpassable worth because
Jesus died for them and paid anunsurpassable price. And so look
at them that way. Don't evennotice how fat they are, how
drunk, how gay they are, or howwicked they are, how whatever.
Notice that they are a personfor whom Jesus died, and many
(29:01):
folks can love for you, love inyou. I encourage all folks to do
that, and one way to keep goingis to Jesus says, Pray for your
enemies. That's the only groupthat he ever said, Pray for. He
doesn't pray for the Samaritans.
Pray for whatever. Pray for yourenemies. And I encourage anyone
who will listen to my voice todo that daily. Choose the top
three people or groups that youhave the hardest time loving you
(29:24):
feel justified hating, and nowpray for them and and that's
mean you agree with them. Itdoesn't mean maybe what they're
doing is hideous, horrendous,terrible, demonic, but you pray
that they get freed from that,and pray you know that that God
limits the harm that they cando. God changes their heart.
They pray blessing on theirloved ones and whatever. And
(29:45):
that changes your heart. I thinkit's not for their sake that
we're supposed to love them.
It's for our sake. Loving yourenemy is the only way to keep
from getting caught in theundertow of evil. If you if you
retaliate, well, then theenemies now define you. You.
Being at all times, not theaggressor who's threatening us.
Joshua Johnson (30:03):
You know, John on the scene, he said, you know,
the first thing you said is, thekingdom of God has come near,
right? Repent, the kingdom ofGod is near. If we think of God
that looks like Jesus, we think,then the kingdom of God is a
Jesus shaped kingdom, right? Andit's going to look like that. We
have a lot of people who want totake something like a kingdom
(30:25):
and coerce people through powerand have power structures
actually bring about moreearthly power for men. But what
then would Jesus's Kingdom looklike? What does the kingdom of
God. That is Jesus shaped tolook like. And how can we help
usher that into the world?
Greg Boyd (30:47):
Jesus says, like you said, The kingdom of God is
near, and that's because he wasnear. He was the embodiment of
the kingdom of God. So he's thewalking, talking dome over which
God is King. And that's what thekingdom of God is defined by.
It's the dome over which God isKing, and so insofar as anyone's
life aligns with the characterof the king, as it's revealed in
Christ, they are in that dome.
Insofar as we're outside of it,we're outside of that dome. But
(31:09):
the criteria is looking likelike Jesus, who gives his life
for the world, for his enemies,who loves his enemies, even as
They're crucifying Him Jesus,who said, don't forbid the
little children to come unto me,the Jesus that was always loving
the unlovable and touching theuntouchable and relating to the
people that were the least insociety, and feeding the hungry
(31:31):
and all of that. That's what thechurch is supposed to look like.
We are the body of Christ, sowe're supposed to be doing
exactly what Jesus did in hisfirst body, and that includes
healing people and deliveringpeople and teaching, but also
acting in service to others. Andso if that's the criteria of the
kingdom, and the church issupposed to be the embodiment of
(31:53):
the kingdom, then the churchought to be a corporate version
of the physical Jesus or and andcaring about the outcast and for
the least of these and visitingthe prisoner and showing
hospitality to the homeless anddoing whatever you to improve
their life, because that's whatmanifests the character of God.
That's our testimony. You know,we're the two witnesses in the
(32:15):
Revelation, the two lampstands.
We're supposed to shine in thedarkness, will be a city set on
the hill, but also has thiseffect. There is a growing
movement out there that ofpeople who are waking up on
their own. There's it's like theHoly Spirit's doing stuff,
because people are coming tothis on their own, as I did in
the 90s, and they're discoveringa Jesus looking God who's
(32:37):
raising up a people, a Jesuslooking people, could change the
world in the Jesus kind of way.
The Jesus collective, which isan organization, it's kind of a
hub for parts of this movement,but the movement's much bigger
than that, and it's a grassrootsmovement. There's no one who's
was in charge of this. It'sstill off most people's radar
screen, but, but I only knowabout it because we get
contacted by him. But if thecross is the criteria, then, if
(32:59):
you look at the landscape inAmerica and ask, to what degree
does the church in America, theEvangelical Church, the liberal
church, the fundamentalistchurch, whatever you want to,
what degree does it look likeJesus serving the least of these
dying for people, sacrificing ofthemselves, not insisting on
their own way, because that'snot what love does. But the
(33:22):
first, if you're honest aboutit, the church is not in very
good shape. If the criteria isthe cross, I can't fix that, but
the only thing I can do isarrange my own life. And so I
dedicate myself to being part ofa community that is striving,
our slogan is learning to lovetogether. We're striving to be
(33:43):
Christ like and version of that,I hopefully that's a model like
it begins to catch on. One ofthe things we do is we have
program where we build tinyhomes for homeless people, and
we find churches that haveproperty and that it's available
because a lot of churches, sincecovid do have property. They
don't need all that parkingspace, and they create tiny home
communities, and they bring thewhole church community around
(34:06):
these folks. And usually they'llhave one person who's living
there intentionally to help,because lock James is mental
health issues and all sorts ofother issues. And today it's
beautiful. We've got now threeof these sprung up. We build
them in our church, but our areais not safe, so we ship them out
to other churches that are opento it. And, oh, it's a beautiful
it's called several sacred civilcommunity thing that that
(34:27):
catches down the churches beginto do this. Wouldn't it be
beautiful if there's a movementacross America and to go beyond
that of churches who actuallyare making a difference to the
poor by bringing them into theircommunity, it would just be so
little. It's what it's a Jesuslooking kind of thing.
Joshua Johnson (34:44):
I pray every day that the church looks more like
Jesus, that we actually embodythe ways of Jesus, and we look
more like him. You know, asyou're following Jesus and the
ways of Jesus and trying to bemore like Jesus, what kind of
pushback. Do you get things thatreally rub people people? How
(35:04):
does Jesus rub people the wrongway?
Greg Boyd (35:06):
But you know, back in I think it was 2000 and and
four, 2005 I preached the sermonseries explaining why, in our
church, we don't celebrate theFourth of July. We don't have
flags in the church. We don'tweigh in on politics. We don't
try to steer candidates. And Idid that because I was getting
so much unprecedented pressurefrom my own congregation of
(35:27):
people saying you should tellthe flock, your job is to lead
the flock and tell them, youknow, who the god the candidate
is. And of course, the candidateis. And so I you know, they're
influenced by what they watch ontelevision or whatnot. And so I
thought this is the time toclarify why we're never going to
do that and and so I laid it allout there to be like Jesus.
(35:49):
Jesus was not here givingpolitical advice on how to run
the Roman Empire. He was talkingto Kingdom people on how to live
within the Roman Empire,unfortunately, and now it's even
worse with it was it was in 2004people are getting politicized,
and their ideologies is they'regetting caught in these chambers
on the internet where everythingjust agrees with them. And so
(36:11):
they hear things in politicalterms. And so when I say, Love
your enemies, I preach thesermon in a series that I did
explain why our church doesn'thave a flag and all the rest.
And I talked about loving yourenemies, and a lady came up and
said, If you preach one moreanti Bush sermon, I'm going to
leave this church. And I said,What do you mean anti Bush
(36:33):
sermon? Because George Bush wasa candidate, and as he said, Oh,
when you say Love your enemies,we know who you're talking
about, because this is rightafter the invasion of it's like
I'm not trying to run thecountry here, ma'am, I'm talking
to you. It's kingdom. Peoplehere. This is our call. But
people, to this day, our job isto love the immigrant, to
(36:53):
welcome them in. That's a themethat runs throughout the whole
Bible. But it's, of course, thetestament on foreigner, the
alien. And people think I'm, I'mtrying to give these policy Oh,
you think we should open up ourborders and let everyone in, and
that would cause chaos. It'slike I'm not trying to. I'm not
anyone's political advisor here.
All right, I the country that'sabove my pay grade. You know, I
don't know how type of shouldbe, whatever, but I do know that
(37:14):
here's a he's a person who'sliving in fear because they are
might get deported any moment,and so what can I do to help
them? You know, my command isthe same, whatever Caesar
commands these, if they're niceto immigrants, my commands the
same, if mean to immigrants, mycommands the same. It may cost
more when they're mean, butthat's the call of the gospel,
(37:35):
but it's we got to avoid lettingour thoughts get politicized and
polarized and the ideologytaking over the Gospel we really
have to Jesus.
Joshua Johnson (37:47):
Was saying a I didn't come to tell you how to
run the Roman Empire reallywell, but I came to talk about
Kingdom people living in thekingdom inside the Empire. Right
now, if you know you and I areboth in United States of
America. We're in the we're inan empire. At the moment, what
we're doing, and so if we'refollowers of Jesus, we want to
(38:10):
be Kingdom people. Jesus,Kingdom people. Within the
empire living like Jesus,Kingdom people, there's a lot of
Christendom that have like amesh themselves with the Empire,
help us discern whether we'reJesus Kingdom people, or whether
we've decided we're going to amesh ourselves with the Empire
(38:32):
as Christians. And how can westay out of the empire but
actually live faithfully toJesus within it?
Greg Boyd (38:41):
That's That's an excellent question. I wrote a
book on it's called the myth ofa Christian nation. It just goes
after this idea that America waswhat time a Christian nation,
and we got to take it back forGod, I've always wondered, when
was that time when we were aChristian nation? Was that
before or after we imported allthe slaves from Africa and got
rich off the blood of theirbacks and or was that before we
(39:03):
massacred the Native Americans?
When were we Christian? When didAmerica ever look at all like
Christ or any nation? For thatmatter, any nation is going to
have to have some violence tokeep murder in the in their
kingdom and to protect againstoutsider. Our job is to manifest
a totally different kingdom. Theproblem pouring out is one that
has been there since the fourthcentury. The first three
centuries, the church was apersecuted minority, and they
(39:25):
stayed pretty faithful. Then we,in the fourth century,
Constantine gets this allegedvision and decides that Jesus is
going to fight his battles underthe banner of Christ, which was
the first time Christ was everassociated with violence. And he
gets this goes to war to thebanner of Christ, and he's
victorious. So he Christianityto be legal, and then in time,
it becomes the official religionof the empire. And the church is
(39:46):
now invited, as the church growsand influence was invited to
help run the Roman Empire. Thedevil offered Jesus all this,
you know, he said, Hey, I'llgive you all the authority of
the kingdoms of the world. AndJesus said, Thank. Thanks. I'll
win them the kingdom way, whichis by dying, not by conquering,
but the Church lost sense it andbe good thing that we're
supposed to literally conquerthe world in Jesus name. So it's
(40:09):
a pagan mindset like and like,you fight in the name of God.
The God was in your favor. We'llfight with you. And he was just
unique for our God was namedJesus, even though that now
didn't look like Jesus, itlooked like the Roman Empire.
But with, you know, the churchthere to do the blessing of
(40:29):
battles and blessing of alldoing the religious functions,
that's what so all are going toadmit people who would say,
that's not the kingdom, that'snot the kingdom, and usually
they're put to death, butthere's always been a minority
of people. But in the AnnaBaptist really came out in
acting. Neither they got Lutheris a Calvin, Calvin, Kelvin,
Catholics, Anglicans, they'reall associated with their state,
(40:51):
their state religions. Youbelong to this the religion
because you're born in thatstate. And the Baptists were the
ones that said, women, you haveto choose. You have to believe
in Him, and you have to pledgeto walk in his ways. It's not
just about what you believe.
It's about how you live. And itgot really clear about how
(41:12):
distinct Our job is to put ondisplay a unique kingdom that is
different from all versions ofthe kingdom of this world, and
the way it should be unique isby our humility and our service
and our sacrifice to others, ourselflessness. Are not buying
into the ways of Emperor,chasing after more and more, you
know, not buying into that, butrather living, being content
(41:33):
with what we have and and then,if we have surplus, then we can
invest it in the service ofothers. That is the that is the
that is that is Jesus, and thatis the
Joshua Johnson (41:44):
church. As you wrote this book, God looks like
Jesus. What hope do you havepeople that pick up this book
and read it? What do you hopethis book does for people?
Greg Boyd (41:54):
I'm really hoping that it sets people free, that
the coin drops in the slot.
There's a lot of folks who maybethey are what we're used to
thinking and so you've alwaysbeen used to thinking about God
in certain ways. So you don'teven notice how you think about
God, but you believe that whatyou're believing is true, and
you probably believe what you'rebelieving is dirt. But I make
the case as succinctly but aspowerfully as I can that Jesus
(42:17):
defines the whole of God'scharacter full stop. And my hope
is that that will help peoplepurge out of their minds all
these sub Christ likeconceptions of God, that they
have the baggage that they'veinherited, that smorgasbord of
different pictures of Godfloating around. No, I pray it
would be singular. The characterof God's completely defined by
(42:39):
the cross when the coin drops inthe slot, that you're in love
this way, and that everyperson's love this way. And our
call is to replicate theFather's love, who causes his
rain to fall on the just and theunjust and the sun to shine the
righteous and the unrighteous.
His love is indiscriminate, andso our distinctiveness should
be. We love like he loves. Infact, Jesus says that in John
(43:00):
545 he goes, love like thefather loves, like the rain
falls, like the sun shines, thatyou may be children of your
Father in heaven, that's thecriteria he gives for being a
child of God. When we reflectthe Father's character by our
indiscriminate love, we're aknock off. We're a chip off the
old block. We show that we'reborn from above. We've got the
father's DNA in us with all thatlove. It's not manifest. You
(43:24):
couldn't have a more importantteaching than that.
Joshua Johnson (43:27):
Well, God looks like Jesus is available anywhere
books are sold. Is thereanywhere you'd like to point
people to either connect withyou or to get this book in a
specific place?
Greg Boyd (43:37):
I have a ministry called renew, R, E, K, N, E, W,
rethink everything you thoughtyou knew and renew.org and if
you buy the books through there,we get a little kickback from
Amazon, but you buy me anywherethat books are sold. Greg,
Joshua Johnson (43:53):
I have a couple quick questions at the end that
I like to ask. If you could goback to your 21 year old self.
What advice would you give? Iwent back to my
Unknown (44:01):
21 year old so Whoa.
What advice would I get? Itmajor in the
Greg Boyd (44:10):
majors and minor in the minors. Don't sweat the
small stuff. And most of it'ssmall stuff, you know, PQR and
the prize, yeah, I would havehad more focus on that less
anxiety over stuff that really Icould have just let pass. I
think that that would have beenit.
Joshua Johnson (44:26):
That's good.
Anything you've been reading orwatching lately, you could
recommend,
Greg Boyd (44:29):
I have been watching a podcast called the great
simplification. I wouldn'tadvise people watching that if
you're struggling with mentalhealth issues, because it's
pretty heavy, heavy, but theytalk about that, the meta crisis
that the world is facing. And Italk about this as well in the
last chapter in my book, that weare facing some serious
(44:50):
ecological and geopolitical riskcrises, and the future is going
to be interesting. It's all.
Already getting veryinteresting. It's changing so
fast. The planet is warming upand the Antarctic is melting
like crazy. Last three years,it's just shock scientists. It's
all sudden. Just so what does itmean to have hope in Jesus in a
(45:11):
time like that? And I think it'sall the more important. There
was anchor. As we go in thefuture, I'm convinced that more
and more people wake up to justhow serious a problem we're
facing. And people tend tohoard. When they get frayed,
they tend to get, you know,build a fortress and compound
and whatever, and a call of thegospel is to go in the other
direction. The worse it gets,the more we just keep on serving
(45:32):
and shining with this otheroriented love. And we don't, we
don't cling to this life. Wealways know this was stepping
stone. So it shouldn't, itshouldn't freak us
Joshua Johnson (45:41):
out the God does win in the that was on my list
of things. I wanted to talk toyou about the poly crisis, this
meta crisis that we're facing,and how to live faithfully.
Jesus could go, say, go watchthe great simplification, just
so that we could know what'sgoing on in this world, and then
we could figure out, what doesit look like to live faithfully
while this future is happening,right?
Greg Boyd (46:03):
He has guests on and they look at the simplification
is his word for collapse. Allthings tend to simplify.
Complexity always simplifies.
And we have a very, very complexglobal society that he was
convinced. It's already in theprocess of simplifying. It's
kind of fragmenting down. It hasmajor implications for for
everybody, but for believers.
(46:24):
You know, we're told that. Idon't know if we're coming to
the end times or not, you know,but certainly, kind of looks
like it. I have an easier timemaintaining the attitude of the
New Testament. In the NewTestament, everybody is
expecting the Lord to come intheir lifetime and and that it's
pervasive. Most of my ministry,I totally neglected that. I
didn't I burned on aneschatology in my first two
(46:46):
years, I had rapsitritis, getraptured out of here. I have no
idea now what it looks like. Idon't think we're going to get
sectioned out of here, becausethe call is not to run away from
suffering. Is to move towardsit. God's people don't like yay.
We get to get out of here whileyou suffer. No move towards
suffering, because God movedtowards us, and it constant
suffering. So be grounded inthat hope, confident that
(47:07):
however bad it looks, love wins.
In the end, the cross is thevictory over evil, and in time,
it will be manifest some kind ofcataclysmic way. I know not how,
but I'm confident of it, and sothat you have a piece about you
and don't have to during theanxious human race, anxiety is
already anxiety and lonelinessis epidemic. Yep, yeah.
Joshua Johnson (47:29):
Well, that's beautiful. Greg, thank you for
this conversation station. Ilove talking to you. I love
talking to you about a God wholooks like jeez, and that we
could actually help have thisconception of who got in mind,
so that we could live faithfullyto Jesus here and now in this
world, that we could look likeJesus embodied the ways of him,
(47:50):
and that, you know, we do followand serve this cruciform king.
And so thank you for this. Itwas a fantastic
Greg Boyd (47:57):
conversation. It's the best news in the world, and
I love to share it Amen. You.
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