May 28, 2025 • 51 mins
What if the entire Bible tells one cohesive story—and you're invited to play a part in it? Dr. Michael Goheen, author of "The Drama of Scripture," unpacks how understanding Scripture as a unified narrative transforms our spiritual lives and missional purpose. This narrative understanding transforms our approach to Scripture, vocation, and our role in God's kingdom.
• The Missio Dei describes God's unfolding plan to renew creation that was broken in the fall
• God's mission moves from one family to all families, one nation to all nations, one place to the ends of the earth
• Understanding the Bible as one story gives proper meaning to individual biblical passages
• The church's role is to embody God's blessing and knowledge for the sake of all nations
• Luther's view of baptism as daily drowning the old self and rising to new life remains relevant today
• Luther's understanding of vocation challenges false divisions between sacred and secular work
• Sin fundamentally curves us inward when we were designed to be curved outward toward God and others
• The resurrection inaugurates the new creation where all aspects of creation will be restored and perfected
• Our final hope isn't escaping to heaven but resurrected bodies in a renewed creation
• The biblical story invites our participation as it continues to unfold until Christ returns
Through meaningful interviews and heartfelt conversations, Friar Time, hosted by Fr....
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to the Tim Allman Podcast.
Pray, the joy of Jesus isfueling you for a life of
learning and love.
As you carry the light and loveof Jesus out into a dark and
dying world.
It's a beautiful day to bealive.
I pray that you're excited manfor a conversation today.
I've been looking forward tohanging out with this brother
who has had an impact on one ofour actually more than one of
(00:25):
our students learners,bivocational, co-vocational
learners.
Most recently, though, ericMalden graduated from MTC, the
Mission Training Center, andwe'll get into some of the nuts
and bolts of that learningjourney.
But, reverend Dr Michael Goheen, if you've not heard of Michael
Goheen, he is one of.
I got to build you up here,brother.
(00:45):
You are well-respected in thewider church as one of the
preeminent missiologists aroundtoday, and he has a history of
teaching, preaching, but his twobooks, the Narrative of
Scripture and the Symphony ofMission, which is a follow-up
book, they need to be on yourreading list.
(01:05):
The drama of Scripture I saidnarrative, the drama of
Scripture is one of his mostwell-known books.
So, dr Goheen, how are youdoing today, brother?
Thanks for having aconversation with me.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Good to be here.
Thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Hey, all right, cool.
So just tell a little bit more.
You had some time in the parishand then you just were telling
me you were a professor ofpreaching.
So what kind of brought you towhere you are today?
Speaker 2 (01:25):
It's a long story.
I'm almost 70.
So how long do you have for anold man's story?
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Just a brief biography.
It's good.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
I was a church planter and then a pastor for
about seven years in Canada.
And of course Canada is a muchmore non-Christian, very
post-Christian country andchurch planting and pastoring
there is a very differentprocess in many ways than in
America.
And then I taught in theuniversity for I don't know 25
(01:53):
or 30 years.
I taught biblical studies, Itaught missiology, but my main
thing was worldview studies.
So I taught about two or threedifferent universities.
Since then I've taught inseminary Calvin Seminary,
covenant Seminary, regentCollege but most recently we
planted and started MissionalTraining Center in Phoenix,
(02:13):
arizona, which is an extensionsite of Calvin Seminary, where
we're training leaders for thePhoenix area.
So I've been, I've covered alot of areas.
I feel like I'm a jack of alltrades, master of nuns, in the
area of academics.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Well, that's not.
That's not true.
You know a lot as it relates toscripture and the way you
communicate.
I've sat in on a couple of yourclasses with some of our
students down there.
The way you communicate, youhave the gift of theological
hospitality which I think todayin our denominations and in the
wider American Christian church,the church in the West, from
(02:48):
Catholic to charismatic we needmore.
We need more theologicalhospitality and you understand,
because we got a lot oflisteners who are Lutheran.
You understand a lot of theLutheran distinctives and can be
kind of kind in thoseconversations with those who may
think we're kind of weird.
You know, and we may think backand forth, like you just said, a
really comfortable space fortalking about Jesus.
I praise God for that.
(03:08):
And what we should all agree on, dr Goheen, is the mission of
God and the kingdom of Godadvancing.
So let's start with that.
If someone asks you what is theMissio Dei, why do we even have
to use Latin for this, forgoodness sake?
You know what is the mission ofGod.
What do you start?
I know you start a lot of yourclasses, your conversations,
just giving a general summary ofthe mission of God.
(03:29):
So let's start there, dr.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Yeah, well, precisely because that terminology is so
difficult and also understood insuch contradictory ways, I
often find myself trying to useother language to describe it.
But I suppose Missio Dei simplyis a Latin word that means
mission of God and what it'strying to describe it.
But I suppose Missio Dei simplyis a Latin word that means
mission of God and what it'strying to describe is God's plan
(03:51):
and purpose, to use two wordsthat you'll find in the New
Testament God's plan and purposefor his creation.
That unfolds in the biblicalstory.
So the mission of God first ofall understands the Bible as one
unfolding story.
It begins in creation.
That God's plan and purpose forthe creation is messed up in
(04:11):
the fall of Adam and Eve and theremainder of the biblical story
, from Genesis 3 on, is God'splan and purpose to restore the
creation to be what it was meantto be in the beginning, and so
it begins with that narrative.
And that narrative at thecenter of that narrative is the
person of Jesus Christ, in whomis revealed and accomplished
(04:33):
God's plan and purpose to renewand restore the creation, which
will then be completed whenChrist returns.
But the Missio Dei is trying todescribe the fact that that
story has a missional trajectoryand what I mean by that is that
the story moves from one familyto all the families of the
(04:54):
earth, the family of Abraham toall the families of the earth.
It moves from one nation Israelto all the nations of the earth.
It moves from one placePalestine or Jerusalem to the
ends of the earth.
So there's a missionaltrajectory.
So it is trying to show thatGod's mission is an unfolding
(05:16):
story of the triune God, wherethe Father has a purpose.
He sends Christ in the middleof history to accomplish that
purpose and then the Father andthe Son then send the Spirit on
the church to make known thatgood news to the ends of the
earth.
But this unfolding of a storyof the triune God to renew the
(05:36):
creation has this trajectory andtakes a people up into that
trajectory and uses them tobring about his plan and his
purpose.
So if I was to very simplysummarize, the Missio Dei is
trying to stress that there's astory.
It's a story of the triune Godto renew the creation and that
God takes a people, chooses acovenant people and takes that
(05:59):
people up into his plan andpurpose to bring about what he
is accomplishing.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
That's so good.
There's a lot of folks wholament that biblical literacy is
on the decline, that in apost-Christian or you could say
even pre-Christian culture,those stories that used to
ground us in culture, just allthe Daniel, lyons and Jonah, I
mean all these kind of generalstories from the Old Testament
through the New Testament,they're just not readily
(06:24):
available and maybe one of the Ithink I'd love to get your take
on this.
One of the strategicevangelistic goals, purposes,
aims for us right now isconnecting smaller stories.
This is what a lot of ourpreaching tries to do in our
context our smaller stories,even biblical smaller stories,
to the grand story.
Because here's the way my brainworks.
(06:45):
Unless I understand why you'retelling me this and how it fits
in something larger, I'm goingto forget it.
But if I can place myself inthe smaller story, like, why did
Jesus come and touch and healthe leper?
It's because from the verybeginning of time, sin entered
in disease, entered in death,entered into our story.
And Jesus enters in as God inthe flesh to undo the impact of
(07:07):
sin, to bring healing andwholeness and restoration, not
just physically but relationally.
And this is why he touches theleper in anticipation of there
being no more leprosy on thatlast day when the goodness and
grace and the life of Jesus winsonce and for all.
So anything more to say abouthow we recapture biblical
imagination around the grandnarrative and then locate the
(07:29):
smaller, even biblical storiesin the grand story.
And let me land it here.
I think there was a season ofChristendom where we were not
taught, and maybe this is one ofthe reasons why culture changed
so much.
We were not taught and I don'tneed to get into the generations
and things like that was wewere not taught, and I don't
need to get into the generationsand things like that.
But we were not taught,especially here in the West, how
(07:49):
the smaller stories like why doI even need to know about Jonah
?
You know it's whatever, it hasno impact on my life, and maybe
there was a season in AmericanChristianity where we didn't
connect things to the widerMissio Dei as well as we could
have.
So I know there's a lot in thatquestion.
Any kind of response, though,to smaller stories needed to be
grounded in a larger story there.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Dr Goheen, yeah, any event or any particular story
will always be understood in abigger context.
It's not a matter of whether abigger context is needed.
You always have a biggercontext and that bigger context
gives meaning to the story.
And sometimes that biggercontext and that bigger context
gives meaning to the story, andsometimes that bigger context is
not articulated, it's assumed,and so often, when we tell the
story, we're assuming certainthings about the context, and
(08:37):
often, if that context is wrong,it will distort the meaning of
the story.
And so what we have in theBible is a canon, that is, 67
books, and those books give us astory that begins in creation
and ends in new creation, andevery single book is within the
context of that story it aroseout of.
(08:59):
The story, finds its meaningwithin that story, and every
event, every story, everystatement within any one of
those books have to beunderstood within the context of
that book and that book withinthe context of a story.
And so understanding the biggerstory of the Bible is essential
for proper understanding of anyparticular text.
(09:22):
I like to illustrate that inthis silly kind of way.
A fox says to a crow my, youhave a beautiful voice, won't
you sing me a song and I ask mystudents what's the meaning of
that event.
And I say and if they don'tknow the story, I get them to
guess.
And some will immediately say,well, the fox is trying to trick
the crow, it wants to eat thecrow.
And then, after I rebuke themfor being a little bit too
(09:47):
skeptical and saying, well, whatif it's a Christian fox?
Then they'll say, well, thisfox is trying to use his
spiritual gift of encouragementto encourage this poor crow.
And you can go on and on givingreasons why this fox is saying
this to the crow.
And the question is is he gotthe spiritual gift of
encouragement?
Does he want to eat the crow?
(10:07):
Is he trying to tease the crow?
Is he a tone-deaf choirdirector starting a choir in the
forest?
What in the world is going onwith this event?
The only way you can know themeaning of that event is knowing
the bigger story in which thatevent is found.
And, as it happens, it's anAesop's fable.
The crow has a piece of food inits mouth and it wants to get
(10:28):
that food, and so it flattersthe crow.
The ugly crow that has neverhad any kind of compliment about
its voice is flattered, opensits mouth to sing a song, the
food falls out, fox runs awaywith it, and the moral of the
story is don't be deceived byflattery.
There you've got the meaning ofthe event given to you by the
context of the story, but youcan make up any meaning you want
(10:51):
with that event without thecontext, and so I want to
suggest that the Bible has theexact same thing.
You gave an example of leprosy.
Why was God, why was Jesushealing the leper?
Well, you can say, because hewas trying to show he was God.
He was trying to give a big,powerful demonstration.
Well, that might be partiallytrue, but what this was was a
(11:11):
sign of the kingdom, the kingdomthat was coming, where disease
will be defeated once and forall, as the prophets had
promised.
The leper would be healed.
So when you have the biggerstory, it gives meaning to every
single event within that story,and you also mentioned that the
idea of losing the story.
There's a book that's called theEclipse of Biblical Narrative,
(11:33):
written in 1970s by a biblicalscholar, and his argument is
that Jews and Christians havealways understood the Bible as
one story that formed thecontext for understanding the
whole world and understood thatfrom the beginning.
But with the beginning of the18th century and the coming of
the Enlightenment and whereunderstanding was changed around
(11:56):
physics to understand bits andpieces without the bigger whole,
in other words the new sciencecoming in in the 16th century,
17th, 16th and 17th century,what happens is biblical studies
and the church begin tounderstand the Bible in that way
and there's an eclipse ofbiblical narrative over the last
200 years.
So sometimes people will cometo me after reading drama of
(12:19):
scripture and they'll say thatwas so exciting, a whole new way
of understanding scripture.
And I want to say no, it'sactually an old way of
understanding scripture.
It's the way the church hasunderstood the biblical, the
Christian faith for the most ofits history.
It's the way Jesus understoodwhat he was doing.
It's the way the Jewsunderstood the Bible.
So returning to the Bible isone story, is returning to what
(12:43):
the Bible actually is.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Love that, love it, love it.
What are the other ways?
This is where my mind I juststruggle full confession here.
I'm in a tribe that hasdichotomized confessional
Lutheranism from missionalLutheranism, which is very
strange thing to do.
We're a confessing people thatare on mission to make Jesus
(13:07):
known.
That seems to be something thatshould be a uniting force and
yet we've got these.
And I think at the heart oftribalism that can take place in
our denomination or anydenomination, is a juxtaposition
of story, and here's the wayI'm kind of starting to
formulate it is.
Jesus talks about the kingdom,the advancement of the kingdom.
(13:27):
The kingdom of heaven is here,but unfortunately we have put
the church as the locus of thekingdom rather than a conduit of
the kingdom, bringing, in ourcontext, word and sacrament out
to the world.
There's a catalytic effect inour gathering.
Sacrament out to the world,there's a catalytic effect in
our gathering, but unfortunatelya lot of the conversation in
(13:48):
our denomination I would saymany church bodies can move in
this direction.
We start to control what we cancontrol, which is the Sunday
hour of power, you know, beingkind of gathered together,
rather than this emphasis of thescattering into all of our, the
royal priesthood beingscattered into all of our places
, carrying the story of Jesusout into the world.
(14:09):
And so there's a counterhermeneutic is is the Bible
centering us in this is the waygood church people do it or is
it scattering us?
Is it sending us?
And I, as one who's I haven'tread as much as you have, but I
have for my doctorate a wholechapter was on the Missio Dei.
It's so evident to me that Godis on a mission to get all of
(14:31):
his kids back, and one of themeans I think it's a primary
means is the church on mission,but it's not the only means of
which God is at work out in theworld.
And when I say church, I'musing small church centered
around table and font, ratherthan the table and font
mobilizing us as the forgiven,the redeemed, out into the world
(14:51):
in all of our various vocations.
So I think there's acounter-hermeneutic that we're
just wrestling with today as weunderstand Scripture.
Anything more to say there, drGoheen?
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Well, you've raised about 25 issues there, tim, and
I'm not sure which one to jumpon.
One of the things I think thatprobably is true the Lutheran
Church is also true of my owntradition is that we've often
started with an understanding ofwho we are as church from
within our confessions andwithin our systematic theology
(15:22):
and our confessional tradition.
And at the time of theReformation, of course, there
was battles around ecclesiology,and those battles centered
around the preaching of the Wordand the sacrament.
And so we start defining thechurch because of the contextual
, the context of history at thattime, where the battles between
the Catholics and the Reformerswere around what the church is
(15:44):
word and sacrament and so on.
And so we start defining thechurch in terms of what it does
within those four walls.
In other words, what do we doon Sunday morning?
What we're doing?
Are we doing the preachingright?
Are we doing the sacramentsright?
Are we disciplining right?
Now, all those things are reallyimportant.
In fact, one of the things Ilove about Luther is his view of
(16:08):
baptism that the wholeChristian life is a daily
baptism, dying to the old andrising to the new.
These things are very important.
However, when you put the wordand sacrament and what we're
doing on Sunday morning withinthe bigger context of the story.
The story is about the comingof God's kingdom, and the church
is a kingdom people, and thatkingdom people gather for the
(16:31):
sake of being renewed as the newhumanity, so, as they are sent
out into the world, they canbear witness to what it means to
be fully human.
Put another way, adamichumanity was called in their
beginning to be a people thatglorify God in the entirety of
their lives, cultural, social,in every part of their lives.
(16:52):
It was the fall that ruinedthat, and the whole story is
about recovering a humanity tobe what Adamic humanity failed
to be Well.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
If you've been listening, you probably wondered
how did they change clothes sofast?
Well, dr Goheen and I had atechnical difficulty, and so
we're picking up theconversation with this question.
Dr Goheen, just to be honest,are you doing well?
Brother?
He's in Vancouver right now andit's rainy.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Yeah, it's rainy and it's cold, but at least my
family's here.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
There you go.
That's best.
All right, let's dig into this.
So I'm always curious about theMissio Dei, the mission of God,
and other hermeneutical lensesthrough which we can look at the
scriptures.
I am biased.
I've drank the mission of Godfrom Genesis through Revelation
Kool-Aid.
But some others who love Jesuslet's be honest and want to see
that God may not view it withthe same type of lens.
So what are two or three otherpopular hermeneutical approaches
(17:52):
that don't start with themission of God, dr Goheen?
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Well, I think, to put it another way around, instead
of asking what doesn't, askwhat's unique about it and then
realize that this has to beincorporated into other
hermeneutical approaches thatare stressing important things
Like, for example, mosthermeneutical approaches would
be deal with language, grammar,would deal with history, culture
(18:14):
, would deal with literaryconsiderations, theological
considerations, and that's allimportant.
Many more would go beyond thatI think rightly so and what we
would call redemptive historicalhermeneutic and say that we got
to realize that the Bible isone story and you've got to take
every section not only withinits bigger literary context but
(18:34):
also within the redemptive,historical, narrative context of
the whole of the Bible.
All of that is good, but what amissional hermeneutic is trying
to do is two things.
Number one, to acknowledge thatthe story of the Bible call it
the Missio Dei if you like, butthe story of the Bible is what
God is doing to restore andrenew and heal the creation.
(18:55):
And so the Missio Dei is thetriune God and the story of that
triune God as he restores andrenews and heals the creation.
And a missional hermeneuticwants to recognize that there is
a trajectory in that story,that is, that the story moves
from bringing blessing to onefamily and moving that to all
(19:17):
the families of the earth.
Or giving the knowledge of Godto one nation and that moves to
all the nations of the earth.
Or God setting his rule in oneplace Zion or Jerusalem and
moving that rule to the ends ofthe earth.
So there's this trajectory offrom the one to the many, from
one family to the many nations,one family to the many families,
(19:39):
from one nation to the manynations, from one place to the
ends of the earth.
And it recognizes where you'rewithin, where you are within
that story, in that missionaltrajectory.
But within that trajectory, thequestion is what is the
vocation of God's people?
What role does God's people have, what role do they play within
(19:59):
that story of moving theblessing from one family to all
families, knowledge of God fromone nation to all nations, and
so on?
And I would argue that what weare called to do is embody the
blessing of God, embody theknowledge of God, embody the
knowledge of God, embody thereign of God for the sake of the
nations, and that this vocationwe must be constantly asking in
(20:22):
our hermeneutic.
How is this particular sectionof the Bible forming God's
people to play their particularrole in this story.
So what our missionalhermeneutic is doing is taking
account of this trajectory, anaccount of what God's people are
called to be, and then askingthe question in the present how
(20:45):
is that text forming God'speople originally for their
particular role in the story,and how is that particular text
trying to form us today, to pickup our particular role in the
story?
So what I would want to justsay is that a missional
hermeneutic doesn't take oneverything in hermeneutics.
(21:05):
It's just saying there's thismissional dimension, this
missional trajectory of thestory, this missional vocation
of God's people that's oftenmissed when we're talking about
hermeneutics.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
So so good.
Are you paying attention?
I'm sure you are.
You're well-learned Some of thesecular psychologists and their
agreement on story being whatgrounds us that every human
being sees the world through astory, and for Christians,
obviously, this is a gateway andopen a wide open door, I think,
into a meta or grounding storythat's connected to the God of
(21:42):
the universe.
Have you done some listening towhat's going on in culture
right now and love to get yourtake on the use of story, dr
Goheen?
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Well, absolutely.
I think that what is happeningin our culture today is a
breakdown of the enlightenmentvision of the world that's been
basically the vision of Westernculture for 200 years, and that
enlightenment vision is a story.
It's a story of progressthrough science and technology.
(22:11):
But we have been fooled intothinking we're not living out of
a story, we're living out ofscience.
We're living out of thisscientific vision provided by
the Enlightenment and as that isbreaking down, we're realizing
no, that was a story and thatstory is breaking down.
And there are all these otherstories.
There's the Muslim story andthere's various modern stories.
(22:33):
And as post-modernity rejectsthe idea of a big story, they're
saying but there are smallerstories we're living out of.
There's the feminist story,there's the green story, there's
all these various stories, andso I think that's led at many
points in culture for are-examination of what's the
bigger context in which we liveand a recognition that that
(22:54):
bigger context is a story.
But the difference is they'retalking about stories in the
plural, that we all have our ownstory to live out of, and
there's all these many storiesin a pluralistic culture,
whereas the Bible is making apretty audacious claim to be the
true story, singular, of thewhole world and the whole of
(23:15):
human life.
But, yes, that is an option, anopening into talking about how
we are shaped by some narrative.
But the reality is we're beingshaped by some bigger narrative
which we believe to be the truestory of the world, and I would
even say, as a friend of minehas said about post-modernity,
(23:39):
when they say there is no truestory.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
They are telling a whopper of a story.
Yeah, it takes a lot of work todeny this grounding.
Well, we see the world throughstory and stories, but that
there's a grounding story.
It is a whopper to deny agrounding story.
So take the scriptures and theway the scriptures kind of came
into being from Genesis throughRevelation.
There's an open debate in someacademic theological circles
(24:04):
around open or closed canon.
Right, and I think on the onesense there's nothing else that
needs to be written Like weunderstand it.
But insofar as it's open, it'sopen for the age of the church
to advance the kingdom of God.
And I'm living and breathingthis living story in
anticipation of the ultimateconclusion, or you could say new
(24:27):
beginning, of Jesus coming backto make all things new
Revelation 20, 21.
So, yeah, talk about open,closed canon.
In the Lutheran story we'redefinitely like Bible, we're
like big time Bible.
So we're really kind of leeryabout this conversation.
But I think the role of thechurch active, participatory,
anticipation that's a shout outto Michael Gorman that I
(24:49):
actually interviewed hererecently Our work in the world
today not to earn God's gracebut to participate actively in
his mission Talk about open,closed text Dr Goheen, your
perspective.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Well, if we're talking about the canon, the
canon's clearly closed.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Yeah, obviously.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
The finality of the final revelation of God is Jesus
Christ.
That's the final revelation.
He's closed it, and the NewTestament is that witness to
Jesus Christ.
That's the final revelation.
He's closed it and the NewTestament is that witness to
Jesus Christ.
But to say that doesn't meanthat the story has ended.
It means the story iscontinuing.
As a matter of fact, I wouldargue that the way that Luke has
constructed the book of Acts isto invite us into the story
(25:28):
when he ends in Acts 28,.
He ends on this very strangenote.
You know you've been tracingPaul moving through all these
trials until he gets to Rome andyou're wondering what happens
to Paul.
But you're left with almostthis abrupt, shocking ending
where, well, abrupt ending,where he's sitting, where he's
(25:49):
housed, and he under housearrest.
He is preaching the kingdom ofGod and you kind of say he's
been telling such a good story.
Why does he end it on this noteof he's preaching the kingdom
of God?
What happened to Paul?
And you wonder.
It doesn't seem to bring thisto a close and yet I think what
Luke is doing there is givingthis abrupt ending and is using
(26:12):
a particular literary devicewhich is used by others,
incidentally, in the ancientworld, and that literary device
is this story is not ended.
Won't you come and join thisstory?
Because the movement of thegospel Jesus has said in Acts
1.8, is to the ends of the earth.
And Rome is not the ends of theearth.
It never was never consideredto be.
(26:33):
We have not reached the ends ofthe earth.
Come, become part, not the endsof the earth.
It never was never consideredto be.
We have not reached the ends ofthe earth.
Come, become part of this story.
So, even though the canon isclosed, the whole idea of the
story being an open story andbeing a story that's going to
continue until the consummation,a story into which we are
invited, is important.
I use the idea of a six-actstory creation, sin, israel,
(26:57):
christ, the mission of thechurch and consummation.
And so the fifth act is thechurch.
And I like to say there's twoscenes.
Scene one is the movement fromJerusalem to Rome, told in the
book of Acts.
Scene two are the rest of themovements within that story of
moving from Rome to the ends ofthe earth, of which we are a
(27:18):
part, and so we participate inthat story.
It remains an open story, whilethe canon itself has given a
definitive testimony and witnessto Jesus Christ as that final
revelation of God.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
So Acts is a type of suspended invitational story.
Yes, I would say, and get yourtake on this.
I've had some guests talkingabout Mark 16, and some
manuscripts don't have 9 through20.
Most of the guys that I'veactually interacted with think
that that is how late of anedition, but nonetheless, that
Mark is telling a story muchlike the Odyssey and the Iliad.
(27:54):
And now you said Luke in Actsthat invites people to put
themselves in the shoes of thewomen who leave the empty tomb
having heard the angelicproclamation with fear and great
trembling.
And they said no one to nobody,nothing to nobody is kind of
the Greek translation right.
And so the invitation is whatwe know.
They actually went and told theapostles, like we have the
(28:15):
other, but you're invited intoit.
You just you've not seen JesusBlessed.
Are you who have not seen andyet believed that the tomb is
empty?
What are you going to do aboutit?
Are you going to go and sharewith the women?
So yeah, there's all sorts ofthese literary devices that are
found in scripture that arequite fascinating.
What are your thoughts at theend of Mark there?
Am I okay?
Am I on good territory?
Speaker 2 (28:36):
I think that's true.
I've just been reading about it.
I read about that fairlyrecently and I think it could
well be that Mark leaves thissuspended ending as well and
asks what are you going to doabout the resurrection?
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Yeah, cool.
Hey, let's take a little pivot.
You've taught for many yearsand some of our students in the
Mission Training Center, MTC,and it is such a unique
experience.
I got to sit in on one of yourclasses and you've got well.
I'll just let you tell thestory of how it kind of came to
be, because it's a very unique,unique model that has maybe more
(29:10):
rabbinic type undertones thanmany of our higher ed models
today.
Tell the story, Dr Goheen.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
It's a hard, it'd be hard to tell this.
It's a long, long story.
In a nutshell, I was invited totrain leaders in the Phoenix
area and there was a few thingsgoing on.
Right now we're in we're in asituation where seminary
education is in deep, deeptrouble financially.
I think the whole enlightenmentmodel of education is breaking
deep, deep trouble financially.
I think the whole Enlightenmentmodel of education is breaking
(29:36):
down, where you kind of fillpeople with a lot of knowledge
and expect them to apply it, andthat whole model is breaking
down.
And I just heard yesterday thatthe Trinity Seminary, what's
been a huge and prominentseminary in the United States
for the evangelical tradition,is now moving to Trinity Western
prominent seminary in theUnited States for the
evangelical tradition is nowmoving to Trinity Western, which
(29:57):
is in my neck of the woods herein British Columbia and is
joining there because it justcan't sustain itself.
This is an ongoing problem,many, many places.
And so I was invited to comeand to partner with a network,
an ecumenical network ofchurches, to train leaders and
one of their primary concernswas to have a missional
(30:18):
curriculum, a missionalcurriculum which would nurture
missional churches in theirmissional identity but also
would enable them to understandthe cultural trends around about
them.
So I was primarily invited todesign a seminary with a
missional curriculum.
But it began to move out and itwas not simply a missional
(30:40):
curriculum but a missionalpedagogy, a missional structure,
a whole way of doing evaluationand assignments.
That would be different and, ina nutshell, what we are doing is
we take on small cohorts, nobigger than 15 to 17, and it's
for the purpose of disciplingthem, giving them more than
(31:02):
simply head knowledge.
And as we disciple them, webring them into our home.
So we have a home environment.
We eat a meal together, eithera hot breakfast early in the
morning or a hot supper late atnight into the evening.
And what we do is we discusstogether and we really get to
know one another well.
And it's a four-year cohortwhere they stick together and do
(31:23):
this missional curriculum overfour years and we've found it
powerfully transformative, notsimply in the mind, but also
transforming leaders to thinkabout their vocation.
What does it mean to be amissional church?
So, in a nutshell, that's whatit's all about.
It's a very different way ofdoing seminary, both
pedagogically as well ascurricularly, also structurally.
(31:45):
We're not a freestandingseminary, we're one that's woven
in in many ways to the churchesin Phoenix.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Yeah, it's pretty wonderful and there's great
benefit to studying with thosein your same tradition.
I went to Concordia Seminary inSt Louis four years residential
.
Third year is your internship,and you develop deep bonds.
This is some of the mainarguments for residential only
right.
You develop deep bonds withyour classmates and with your
(32:14):
professors, and there's aculture.
You're kind of enculturatedthere.
The opportunities today, though,is I think we are missing on
context and curation.
You get to kind of curate asmore the rabbinic type leader.
They sit with you for a longperiod of time and kind of
understand your view connectedto scripture obviously of the
(32:35):
world and how theology is notjust spoken but gets lived out.
You get to model that with yourwife.
It's pretty impressive, andthen the assignments are very
character centered and contextcentered.
Right, you're inviting theliving out of whatever the
teaching is, and, man, theverdict is in.
(32:56):
It's great.
It's great, man, the guys thatcame through.
Are they getting now more kindof the Lutheran, et cetera?
Yeah, fine, it's great.
I love our confession, but theygot to learn and they have an
openness and a sensitivityecumenically.
Let's get into the very strands, though, of Christianity.
What do you say to the studentwho says you know what, dr
Goheen, I don't want to be apart of any kind of denomination
(33:18):
or strand of theologicalthinking.
I just want to be a Christianconnected to a
non-denominational church,because I don't want any of
those labels or any of thatbaggage of history, etc.
How do you lovingly talk tothat brother or sister, dr
Goheen?
Speaker 2 (33:31):
I would say that you're very much in a tradition,
just like a Lutheran or aCalvinist or a Catholic or a
Mennonite or whatever.
You are very much in anevangelical tradition and that
tradition has shaped you deeplyand to call it
non-denominational is to foolyourself.
You're very much in a traditionand I can just ask you three,
(33:54):
four, five questions about whatyou believe and I can show you
where that comes from in termsof a historical development and
show you that in fact you've gota confession of faith.
In fact you have liturgicalpractices.
You've got a whole tradition atwork shaping and forming you,
but you're just calling itnon-denominational.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
Because everybody comes from somewhere right and I
think every guy's got, and soyou got to look like where did
those pastors go to learn?
Like that obviously shaped theway they view the world.
So let's talk.
There's a lot of Lutherans thatare listening to this.
Dr Goheen, I know you're kindand charitable in your take on
Luther.
I've heard that first andsecond hand from our students.
(34:35):
What ideas, teachings andpractices do you think of Martin
Luther should the wider churchtoday consider?
And maybe there's some readingthat goes along with it.
And you know, luther was notJesus by any stretch and there's
some parts of our story thatwere kind of rough too.
But let's hunt the good stufffirst and then we can offer a
kind critique to dear MartinLuther.
(34:55):
What's your take on Luther?
Speaker 2 (34:57):
Well, I draw on Luther quite often and I would
just mention a few things rightoff.
On Luther quite often, and Iwould just mention a few things
right off I really appreciatefrom the Catechism his views of
baptism, that the Christian lifeis a daily baptism of drowning
ourselves, drowning the old inourselves and rising to the new.
I think baptism is somethingthat's been lost in the broader
(35:19):
evangelical culture and thesignificance of it, and I
suspect if you look at manyLutherans, they're going to have
to go back to Luther and learnwhat Luther was saying as well.
We all need to learn ourtraditions again, but what he
said about baptism was excellent.
I think the importance of hiscomments and where he came from
and vocation is important.
(35:40):
During the Reformation he waschallenging the division of life
between a secular and sacredidea.
He says you know, being ashoemaker is just as important
as being a priest, and so theimportance of vocation is
important for, I think,significant.
I think also his understandingof prayer is significant, the
importance of prayer.
John Calvin was like that too.
I think there is among theReformers an understanding of
(36:04):
prayer that we need desperatelyto recover.
So those are the ones I thinkabout immediately.
And maybe there's one thing Ilike most it might seem like a
small thing, but I don't thinkit is in our culture and that is
his understanding of sin asbeing curved inward.
But we are created to be curvedoutward.
In other words, humanity iscreated to curve all we are and
(36:28):
everything we are, all ourresource, to be curved outward
to the glory of God and outwardto serve others sacrificially.
But what changes?
Is not the constituents of whowe are?
But now all those things arecurved inward on ourselves.
And that idea of sin beingcurved in on ourselves rather
than being curved out, I thinkin a narcissistic, self-centered
(36:49):
, self-absorbed culture.
I think we need to hear Lutheragain saying that's at the very
heart of what sin is, and theheart of the gospel is to call
us to serve others sacrificiallyand to live our lives outwardly
for the glory of God.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
Hey, thank you for that kind of overview on some of
the things you love most aboutLuther.
I'm going to make a connectionbetween so baptism, this
one-time event that has ongoingramifications, creating a new
man, a new woman in me, the oldbeing drowned, and I got this
new identity.
Now I am wrapped up in Christ.
The Holy Spirit now makes mehis dwelling place and for we as
(37:25):
Lutherans, this is not anythingI'm not accepted Like.
If it's me, I'm actually comingkicking and screaming because
there's a flesh that must bedrowned right.
So it's Christ's work for me,but then it always moves out.
I've been convicted of my sinand now I am motivated by the
Spirit, empowered, equipped,inspired whatever adjective you
(37:45):
want to use to be about God'smissional work in the world.
There's a cause that I'm a partof.
There's a debate in Lutherancircles about are you a
confessional or a missionalLutheran?
Right, and it's two sides ofthe same coin.
I confess I am a sinner,thought, word and deed by what
I've done and by goodnessgracious, as you look at sin,
there's no shortage of things Icould do that I don't do, sins
(38:08):
of omission.
So, oh, wretched man that I am,who will save me from this body
of death.
Then baptism comes and I getreminded of who I am.
And then I'm called up and outinto this marvelous mission,
empowered by the Holy Spirit,living a life of prayer and
dependence upon the presence ofGod, the power of God, the voice
and words of God to speak, theaudacity of the whole thing that
(38:30):
he would choose to work throughme.
And then I'm tethered to atradition of a family, a church,
a group of people who are onmission to make Jesus known, and
, oh, we gather consistently andwe've got all these rituals, et
cetera, but thereforerelationship God and then with
one another, and we get to besent out, like in all of our
different vocations.
This is, I think, thevocational piece that you bring
(38:50):
up.
We need a re understanding ofLuther's understanding of a
vocation.
I just did.
I got to talk for three hoursyesterday, dr Goheen, at on a
career day at Valley LutheranHigh School down the road here,
and about 150 students kind ofcame through.
There's probably, you know, 20or so is a high number of people
.
Young kids are thinking ofteaching or being a pastor or
(39:11):
something like that, you know.
And I asked what's church work,right?
Well, that's what the pastordoes and all this kind of stuff.
I was like, oh guys, come onnow, we're all into whatever the
Lord calls you into.
There is church work, and if Icould get rid of some vernacular
professional church work, oh mygoodness, what are we talking
about?
And then nonprofessional churchwork.
(39:31):
We get into these debates inLutheran circles about how
Lutheran they need to be, weneed at all of our universities
and things like that, and theybifurcate the kids between
professional church workers andnon.
Give me a break.
Some are going to be paid, someare not going to be paid, but
we're all about advancing thekingdom of God.
We need a new understanding ofvocation.
And it's not new, it's actuallyvery, very old.
And thank you, thank you,martin Luther.
(39:52):
Hey, this has been fun, drGoheen, let's close with this
question.
What will it be returns?
This is going to be aired inour Easter season of the church
year.
What makes you expectant andjoyful about that great and
glorious day?
Give us a little.
I can only imagine I've sangthat song.
I can only imagine, actually,dr Goheen, how many times.
(40:12):
But we don't have to just useour imagination.
Scripture gives us a great,great picture.
Paint that picture.
Tell that story, dr Goheen.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
Yeah, well, I think, first of all, it's interesting
that you mentioned Easter andresurrection, because if you
look at a lot of systematictheologies, people don't know
what to do with the resurrection.
The cross, yes, because thecross deals with our sin, but
the resurrection?
The resurrection is theinauguration of the new creation
.
The resurrection is a powerfulaffirmation of this world, of
(40:42):
this material, if you want touse that word creation.
We are bodily creatures made tolive in this world, and this
idea of living in heaven when wedie is false.
One of my grandsons, recentlywe were talking he said you know
, heaven is like a hotel.
We go there for a little whileto stay there, but really the
(41:03):
idea is to come back home.
And yeah, we go to heaven afterwe die the intermediate state
but after that we're coming backhome to live in these bodies,
on this new creation.
And so the resurrection is apowerful affirmation that the
new creation, the kingdom of God, the renewal of this world, has
been inaugurated.
And so what's this world goingto be like?
(41:24):
It's going to be likeeverything we're doing now, but
with sin gone, with the cursegone.
It's going to be the way Godintended the creation to be in
the very beginning when heconcluded that in Genesis 131,
and it was very good and thevery good changed to being under
a curse because of humanrebellion and the idea for the
(41:47):
biblical story was to removethat sin and remove that curse,
to restore the creation to whatit was meant to be in the
beginning, not to remove us fromthe creation.
There's a Lutheran theologian Iprobably shouldn't mention him
just because I don't knowsensitivities in the Lutheran
tradition but there's a Lutherantheologian that says if the
gospel is just about picking upa few splinters from the
(42:10):
creation, ie human beings, andtaking them to heaven, then he
says, then salvation is not goneas far as sin and the curse and
this is his words and it failsto be redemption.
In other words, redemption isonly if it goes as far as the
curse is found in that wonderfulhymn that the gospel is about
(42:33):
renewing everything that sin andthe curse has touched and
restoring the entire creation.
So I love sports, my wife lovesmusic.
I'll just take those two things.
We are going to enjoy sports onthe new creation watching and
playing but it's going to betotally all the curse and evil
will be removed from it.
Same thing with music and everyother part of the creation that
(42:56):
you love.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
That's going to be great.
I like sports too.
I was a football and baseballplayer in college a long time
ago, 27 years ago and I've oftenwondered if there was like
competition.
And I just think competition isfun.
And I don't think there's goingto be equality of gifts.
I think there's still going tobe diversity of gifts, right,
(43:18):
and I think I'm going toperfectly rejoice, because what
does sin do?
It leads me to compare andinappropriately compete, like I
want that gift.
No, you're going to beperfectly content with how God,
god made you to sing that song,shoot that, whatever the game
happens to be, to do that workRight, the work is pre-fall.
We'll just perfectly rejoice inthe work, perfectly rejoice in
(43:41):
the fun, and it will have.
It's not going to be boring,it's not going to be harps, it's
going to be embodied.
It's just a right relationshipforever with God.
I like these.
I talk about four quadrants atfunerals, right, bob or Sue, she
looks good, he looks good Nowyou haven't seen anything yet.
When he gets that, she getsthat resurrected body and
perfection is stored, restoredwith God, self, others and the
(44:01):
rest of creation.
You can say sin has damaged allfour of those quadrants and it
starts obviously with God, butthen at shame.
You know I'm actually lookingdown in shame at my sin.
No more shame, no more guilt,no more sin.
And then my eyes are up and outlooking at others living in
perfect harmony and relationshipwith others, and then I have no
(44:23):
desire for anything in creationto replace who God is, my
identity and how he's providedand sustained.
I'll be perfectly content in mydaily bread, rather than all of
the idols that we make today andthe ways we try to numb ourself
from the pain of existence.
No more addiction.
It's gonna be spectacular Godself, others, the rest of
creation.
(44:43):
Any more addiction.
It's going to be spectacularGod self, others, the rest of
creation.
Any thoughts on kind of thefour quadrants there, dr Goheen?
Speaker 2 (44:48):
I love those.
I speak of four relationships.
We have the relationship withGod.
That defines everything else.
We have many kinds ofrelationships with others, from
the most intimate in marriage tofriendships and beyond, and
they all are different inmarriage to friendships and
beyond and they all aredifferent, but we'll be restored
in all of those.
They will be restored in bothruling and stewarding God's good
(45:09):
creation.
I think cultural developmentwill continue and then we're
restored to ourselves, and theway I think about being restored
to ourselves is there's manydimensions emotional, rational,
historical, cultural, social,ethical and all of those will
find their proper place centeredin God and there will be
harmony.
But what happens right nowwithin ourselves is something
(45:31):
gets disjointed like idolatry,causes us to take other things
and make them too big in ourlives.
There's going to be harmonywithin ourselves.
There's going to be harmonywith others.
There's going to be harmonywith the non-human creation and
harmony with God, which is mostimportant, and I think that's
the way it was in the beginning.
And I think when you look atGenesis 3, it's precisely those
(45:52):
things that you see are brokenas a result of Adam's rebellion
and are going to be healed inthe new creation.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
Have you read Thomas Aquinas and his four idols?
Are you aware?
Power, money, pleasure and fame.
He wrote kind of and it's beenkind of matriculated into
different traditions.
But I've been doing a lot ofthinking about that.
All of those, all of thoseidols, a desire to control the
future based on my status andposition.
You see, jesus did not operateit.
(46:21):
He had every right to take thehigh place, took the low place.
I want the big idol in ourculture, I would say, is
pleasure intimately connectedwith money.
And then I want a good namebased on what I do, like I will
be perfectly content in myidentity in Jesus and you can
kind of take the invitation isyou probably can remove one of
those, maybe two of those prettyeasy Like.
(46:42):
For me it's fame and I didn'tgo into ministry for money, so
it's like easy come, easy go.
But then, okay, you get alittle bit closer to pleasure
and things like that.
But then mine, you know, is asa preacher podcast, when people
don't like me or say mean thingsabout me.
That's my idol, right, thatit's the fame or honor, that's
(47:02):
it, and I need to honestlyconfess that and bring it to the
cross of Jesus Christ.
Have you ever walked throughthat sort of a habit or
discipline of examining yourlife in that such way, dr Goheen
?
Speaker 2 (47:14):
In what way exactly, in examining with these four
lenses, or?
Speaker 1 (47:18):
Yeah, yeah, those four lenses, and even for
self-awareness.
I've walked through thatexercise with some folks on our
staff to kind of get if Satan'sgoing to come at me, it's going
to be called to be so forexample, in a world that is
consumed by consumption.
Speaker 2 (47:47):
We're called to be a people that are generous,
thankful, content and stewardly,and so I'm asking myself where
is it that I need to understandmy own weakness?
In a consumer culture, or ahedonistic culture, or
self-centered culture, or atechnicistic culture, or
whatever you mean?
And I think that each of us, aswe examine the various idols,
(48:08):
we're going to find out we'resusceptible to some more than
others and need to be aware ofour own weaknesses there.
But I usually think of it interms of the various cultural
idols and how those culturalidols are affecting us as a
congregation, as a people, andthen asking where am I most
susceptible?
Speaker 1 (48:26):
Yeah, so good.
This has been great.
Thanks for round two with me.
If people want to connect withyou and even some of your
writing, Dr Goheen, feel free toshare.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
Yeah, I don't.
Yeah, it's hard.
I don't know even where tobegin there.
Speaker 1 (48:39):
You've written a lot Drama of Scripture, right,
symphony of Mission, aren'tthose two?
Speaker 2 (48:44):
I'd say you know, for many the most introductory
books are the True Story of theWhole World, which tells the
biblical story fairly quickly.
It's a shortened version ofDrama of Scripture.
And then a book that's comingout in June that is designed for
discipleship in the church.
So it's another fairly popularbook.
It's what we call ourprolegomena at MTC.
(49:07):
In other words, it's thebeginning point.
It's what all students take forthe first four or six months at
MTC and that is what I think isit's called.
The title of the book is theCore of the Christian Faith
Living the Gospel for the Sakeof the World.
And we deal first of all withthe gospel.
What is the gospel?
Second, we deal with what isthe biblical story and why is it
(49:28):
urgent to live, to read it assuch?
Thirdly, we ask what does itmean to be a missional people at
the center of that story?
And then, finally, a missionaryencounter with culture.
How do we understand the idolsof our culture that are
constantly forcing us into waysand patterns of life that are
not worthy of the gospel?
So those would be maybe themost popular two starting points
(49:48):
for people if they'reinterested in books.
Speaker 1 (49:50):
Hey, dr Goheen, it's been a blessing, an honor, a
privilege.
You're a gift to me and thebody of Christ.
This is the Tim Allman Podcast.
Please like, subscribe, commentwherever it is you take in
these Jesus-centeredconversations and I pray, as
we're closing, that the love ofChrist and your role in the
story, by the Spirit's power, iscompelling you for a life of
(50:11):
meaning, purpose, significance,lived out of your identity in
Christ, all for the sake of theworld, for the days are too
short to live any other way.
Jesus is coming back very, verysoon.
It's a good day.
Go and make it a great day.
Thank you so much, dr Groheem.
Welcome to the Tim Allman Podcast.
Pray, the joy of Jesus isfueling you for a life of
learning and love.
As you carry the light and loveof Jesus out into a dark and
dying world.
It's a beautiful day to bealive.
I pray that you're excited manfor a conversation today.
I've been looking forward tohanging out with this brother
who has had an impact on one ofour actually more than one of
(00:25):
our students learners,bivocational, co-vocational
learners.
Most recently, though, ericMalden graduated from MTC, the
Mission Training Center, andwe'll get into some of the nuts
and bolts of that learningjourney.
But, reverend Dr Michael Goheen, if you've not heard of Michael
Goheen, he is one of.
I got to build you up here,brother.
(00:45):
You are well-respected in thewider church as one of the
preeminent missiologists aroundtoday, and he has a history of
teaching, preaching, but his twobooks, the Narrative of
Scripture and the Symphony ofMission, which is a follow-up
book, they need to be on yourreading list.
(01:05):
The drama of Scripture I saidnarrative, the drama of
Scripture is one of his mostwell-known books.
So, dr Goheen, how are youdoing today, brother?
Thanks for having aconversation with me.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Good to be here.
Thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Hey, all right, cool.
So just tell a little bit more.
You had some time in the parishand then you just were telling
me you were a professor ofpreaching.
So what kind of brought you towhere you are today?
Speaker 2 (01:25):
It's a long story.
I'm almost 70.
So how long do you have for anold man's story?
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Just a brief biography.
It's good.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
I was a church planter and then a pastor for
about seven years in Canada.
And of course Canada is a muchmore non-Christian, very
post-Christian country andchurch planting and pastoring
there is a very differentprocess in many ways than in
America.
And then I taught in theuniversity for I don't know 25
(01:53):
or 30 years.
I taught biblical studies, Itaught missiology, but my main
thing was worldview studies.
So I taught about two or threedifferent universities.
Since then I've taught inseminary Calvin Seminary,
covenant Seminary, regentCollege but most recently we
planted and started MissionalTraining Center in Phoenix,
(02:13):
arizona, which is an extensionsite of Calvin Seminary, where
we're training leaders for thePhoenix area.
So I've been, I've covered alot of areas.
I feel like I'm a jack of alltrades, master of nuns, in the
area of academics.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Well, that's not.
That's not true.
You know a lot as it relates toscripture and the way you
communicate.
I've sat in on a couple of yourclasses with some of our
students down there.
The way you communicate, youhave the gift of theological
hospitality which I think todayin our denominations and in the
wider American Christian church,the church in the West, from
(02:48):
Catholic to charismatic we needmore.
We need more theologicalhospitality and you understand,
because we got a lot oflisteners who are Lutheran.
You understand a lot of theLutheran distinctives and can be
kind of kind in thoseconversations with those who may
think we're kind of weird.
You know, and we may think backand forth, like you just said, a
really comfortable space fortalking about Jesus.
I praise God for that.
(03:08):
And what we should all agree on, dr Goheen, is the mission of
God and the kingdom of Godadvancing.
So let's start with that.
If someone asks you what is theMissio Dei, why do we even have
to use Latin for this, forgoodness sake?
You know what is the mission ofGod.
What do you start?
I know you start a lot of yourclasses, your conversations,
just giving a general summary ofthe mission of God.
(03:29):
So let's start there, dr.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Yeah, well, precisely because that terminology is so
difficult and also understood insuch contradictory ways, I
often find myself trying to useother language to describe it.
But I suppose Missio Dei simplyis a Latin word that means
mission of God and what it'strying to describe it.
But I suppose Missio Dei simplyis a Latin word that means
mission of God and what it'strying to describe is God's plan
(03:51):
and purpose, to use two wordsthat you'll find in the New
Testament God's plan and purposefor his creation.
That unfolds in the biblicalstory.
So the mission of God first ofall understands the Bible as one
unfolding story.
It begins in creation.
That God's plan and purpose forthe creation is messed up in
(04:11):
the fall of Adam and Eve and theremainder of the biblical story
, from Genesis 3 on, is God'splan and purpose to restore the
creation to be what it was meantto be in the beginning, and so
it begins with that narrative.
And that narrative at thecenter of that narrative is the
person of Jesus Christ, in whomis revealed and accomplished
(04:33):
God's plan and purpose to renewand restore the creation, which
will then be completed whenChrist returns.
But the Missio Dei is trying todescribe the fact that that
story has a missional trajectoryand what I mean by that is that
the story moves from one familyto all the families of the
(04:54):
earth, the family of Abraham toall the families of the earth.
It moves from one nation Israelto all the nations of the earth.
It moves from one placePalestine or Jerusalem to the
ends of the earth.
So there's a missionaltrajectory.
So it is trying to show thatGod's mission is an unfolding
(05:16):
story of the triune God, wherethe Father has a purpose.
He sends Christ in the middleof history to accomplish that
purpose and then the Father andthe Son then send the Spirit on
the church to make known thatgood news to the ends of the
earth.
But this unfolding of a storyof the triune God to renew the
(05:36):
creation has this trajectory andtakes a people up into that
trajectory and uses them tobring about his plan and his
purpose.
So if I was to very simplysummarize, the Missio Dei is
trying to stress that there's astory.
It's a story of the triune Godto renew the creation and that
God takes a people, chooses acovenant people and takes that
(05:59):
people up into his plan andpurpose to bring about what he
is accomplishing.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
That's so good.
There's a lot of folks wholament that biblical literacy is
on the decline, that in apost-Christian or you could say
even pre-Christian culture,those stories that used to
ground us in culture, just allthe Daniel, lyons and Jonah, I
mean all these kind of generalstories from the Old Testament
through the New Testament,they're just not readily
(06:24):
available and maybe one of the Ithink I'd love to get your take
on this.
One of the strategicevangelistic goals, purposes,
aims for us right now isconnecting smaller stories.
This is what a lot of ourpreaching tries to do in our
context our smaller stories,even biblical smaller stories,
to the grand story.
Because here's the way my brainworks.
(06:45):
Unless I understand why you'retelling me this and how it fits
in something larger, I'm goingto forget it.
But if I can place myself inthe smaller story, like, why did
Jesus come and touch and healthe leper?
It's because from the verybeginning of time, sin entered
in disease, entered in death,entered into our story.
And Jesus enters in as God inthe flesh to undo the impact of
(07:07):
sin, to bring healing andwholeness and restoration, not
just physically but relationally.
And this is why he touches theleper in anticipation of there
being no more leprosy on thatlast day when the goodness and
grace and the life of Jesus winsonce and for all.
So anything more to say abouthow we recapture biblical
imagination around the grandnarrative and then locate the
(07:29):
smaller, even biblical storiesin the grand story.
And let me land it here.
I think there was a season ofChristendom where we were not
taught, and maybe this is one ofthe reasons why culture changed
so much.
We were not taught and I don'tneed to get into the generations
and things like that was wewere not taught, and I don't
need to get into the generationsand things like that.
But we were not taught,especially here in the West, how
(07:49):
the smaller stories like why doI even need to know about Jonah
?
You know it's whatever, it hasno impact on my life, and maybe
there was a season in AmericanChristianity where we didn't
connect things to the widerMissio Dei as well as we could
have.
So I know there's a lot in thatquestion.
Any kind of response, though,to smaller stories needed to be
grounded in a larger story there.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Dr Goheen, yeah, any event or any particular story
will always be understood in abigger context.
It's not a matter of whether abigger context is needed.
You always have a biggercontext and that bigger context
gives meaning to the story.
And sometimes that biggercontext and that bigger context
gives meaning to the story, andsometimes that bigger context is
not articulated, it's assumed,and so often, when we tell the
story, we're assuming certainthings about the context, and
(08:37):
often, if that context is wrong,it will distort the meaning of
the story.
And so what we have in theBible is a canon, that is, 67
books, and those books give us astory that begins in creation
and ends in new creation, andevery single book is within the
context of that story it aroseout of.
(08:59):
The story, finds its meaningwithin that story, and every
event, every story, everystatement within any one of
those books have to beunderstood within the context of
that book and that book withinthe context of a story.
And so understanding the biggerstory of the Bible is essential
for proper understanding of anyparticular text.
(09:22):
I like to illustrate that inthis silly kind of way.
A fox says to a crow my, youhave a beautiful voice, won't
you sing me a song and I ask mystudents what's the meaning of
that event.
And I say and if they don'tknow the story, I get them to
guess.
And some will immediately say,well, the fox is trying to trick
the crow, it wants to eat thecrow.
And then, after I rebuke themfor being a little bit too
(09:47):
skeptical and saying, well, whatif it's a Christian fox?
Then they'll say, well, thisfox is trying to use his
spiritual gift of encouragementto encourage this poor crow.
And you can go on and on givingreasons why this fox is saying
this to the crow.
And the question is is he gotthe spiritual gift of
encouragement?
Does he want to eat the crow?
(10:07):
Is he trying to tease the crow?
Is he a tone-deaf choirdirector starting a choir in the
forest?
What in the world is going onwith this event?
The only way you can know themeaning of that event is knowing
the bigger story in which thatevent is found.
And, as it happens, it's anAesop's fable.
The crow has a piece of food inits mouth and it wants to get
(10:28):
that food, and so it flattersthe crow.
The ugly crow that has neverhad any kind of compliment about
its voice is flattered, opensits mouth to sing a song, the
food falls out, fox runs awaywith it, and the moral of the
story is don't be deceived byflattery.
There you've got the meaning ofthe event given to you by the
context of the story, but youcan make up any meaning you want
(10:51):
with that event without thecontext, and so I want to
suggest that the Bible has theexact same thing.
You gave an example of leprosy.
Why was God, why was Jesushealing the leper?
Well, you can say, because hewas trying to show he was God.
He was trying to give a big,powerful demonstration.
Well, that might be partiallytrue, but what this was was a
(11:11):
sign of the kingdom, the kingdomthat was coming, where disease
will be defeated once and forall, as the prophets had
promised.
The leper would be healed.
So when you have the biggerstory, it gives meaning to every
single event within that story,and you also mentioned that the
idea of losing the story.
There's a book that's called theEclipse of Biblical Narrative,
(11:33):
written in 1970s by a biblicalscholar, and his argument is
that Jews and Christians havealways understood the Bible as
one story that formed thecontext for understanding the
whole world and understood thatfrom the beginning.
But with the beginning of the18th century and the coming of
the Enlightenment and whereunderstanding was changed around
(11:56):
physics to understand bits andpieces without the bigger whole,
in other words the new sciencecoming in in the 16th century,
17th, 16th and 17th century,what happens is biblical studies
and the church begin tounderstand the Bible in that way
and there's an eclipse ofbiblical narrative over the last
200 years.
So sometimes people will cometo me after reading drama of
(12:19):
scripture and they'll say thatwas so exciting, a whole new way
of understanding scripture.
And I want to say no, it'sactually an old way of
understanding scripture.
It's the way the church hasunderstood the biblical, the
Christian faith for the most ofits history.
It's the way Jesus understoodwhat he was doing.
It's the way the Jewsunderstood the Bible.
So returning to the Bible isone story, is returning to what
(12:43):
the Bible actually is.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Love that, love it, love it.
What are the other ways?
This is where my mind I juststruggle full confession here.
I'm in a tribe that hasdichotomized confessional
Lutheranism from missionalLutheranism, which is very
strange thing to do.
We're a confessing people thatare on mission to make Jesus
(13:07):
known.
That seems to be something thatshould be a uniting force and
yet we've got these.
And I think at the heart oftribalism that can take place in
our denomination or anydenomination, is a juxtaposition
of story, and here's the wayI'm kind of starting to
formulate it is.
Jesus talks about the kingdom,the advancement of the kingdom.
(13:27):
The kingdom of heaven is here,but unfortunately we have put
the church as the locus of thekingdom rather than a conduit of
the kingdom, bringing, in ourcontext, word and sacrament out
to the world.
There's a catalytic effect inour gathering.
Sacrament out to the world,there's a catalytic effect in
our gathering, but unfortunatelya lot of the conversation in
(13:48):
our denomination I would saymany church bodies can move in
this direction.
We start to control what we cancontrol, which is the Sunday
hour of power, you know, beingkind of gathered together,
rather than this emphasis of thescattering into all of our, the
royal priesthood beingscattered into all of our places
, carrying the story of Jesusout into the world.
(14:09):
And so there's a counterhermeneutic is is the Bible
centering us in this is the waygood church people do it or is
it scattering us?
Is it sending us?
And I, as one who's I haven'tread as much as you have, but I
have for my doctorate a wholechapter was on the Missio Dei.
It's so evident to me that Godis on a mission to get all of
(14:31):
his kids back, and one of themeans I think it's a primary
means is the church on mission,but it's not the only means of
which God is at work out in theworld.
And when I say church, I'musing small church centered
around table and font, ratherthan the table and font
mobilizing us as the forgiven,the redeemed, out into the world
(14:51):
in all of our various vocations.
So I think there's acounter-hermeneutic that we're
just wrestling with today as weunderstand Scripture.
Anything more to say there, drGoheen?
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Well, you've raised about 25 issues there, tim, and
I'm not sure which one to jumpon.
One of the things I think thatprobably is true the Lutheran
Church is also true of my owntradition is that we've often
started with an understanding ofwho we are as church from
within our confessions andwithin our systematic theology
(15:22):
and our confessional tradition.
And at the time of theReformation, of course, there
was battles around ecclesiology,and those battles centered
around the preaching of the Wordand the sacrament.
And so we start defining thechurch because of the contextual
, the context of history at thattime, where the battles between
the Catholics and the Reformerswere around what the church is
(15:44):
word and sacrament and so on.
And so we start defining thechurch in terms of what it does
within those four walls.
In other words, what do we doon Sunday morning?
What we're doing?
Are we doing the preachingright?
Are we doing the sacramentsright?
Are we disciplining right?
Now, all those things are reallyimportant.
In fact, one of the things Ilove about Luther is his view of
(16:08):
baptism that the wholeChristian life is a daily
baptism, dying to the old andrising to the new.
These things are very important.
However, when you put the wordand sacrament and what we're
doing on Sunday morning withinthe bigger context of the story.
The story is about the comingof God's kingdom, and the church
is a kingdom people, and thatkingdom people gather for the
(16:31):
sake of being renewed as the newhumanity, so, as they are sent
out into the world, they canbear witness to what it means to
be fully human.
Put another way, adamichumanity was called in their
beginning to be a people thatglorify God in the entirety of
their lives, cultural, social,in every part of their lives.
(16:52):
It was the fall that ruinedthat, and the whole story is
about recovering a humanity tobe what Adamic humanity failed
to be Well.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
If you've been listening, you probably wondered
how did they change clothes sofast?
Well, dr Goheen and I had atechnical difficulty, and so
we're picking up theconversation with this question.
Dr Goheen, just to be honest,are you doing well?
Brother?
He's in Vancouver right now andit's rainy.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Yeah, it's rainy and it's cold, but at least my
family's here.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
There you go.
That's best.
All right, let's dig into this.
So I'm always curious about theMissio Dei, the mission of God,
and other hermeneutical lensesthrough which we can look at the
scriptures.
I am biased.
I've drank the mission of Godfrom Genesis through Revelation
Kool-Aid.
But some others who love Jesuslet's be honest and want to see
that God may not view it withthe same type of lens.
So what are two or three otherpopular hermeneutical approaches
(17:52):
that don't start with themission of God, dr Goheen?
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Well, I think, to put it another way around, instead
of asking what doesn't, askwhat's unique about it and then
realize that this has to beincorporated into other
hermeneutical approaches thatare stressing important things
Like, for example, mosthermeneutical approaches would
be deal with language, grammar,would deal with history, culture
(18:14):
, would deal with literaryconsiderations, theological
considerations, and that's allimportant.
Many more would go beyond thatI think rightly so and what we
would call redemptive historicalhermeneutic and say that we got
to realize that the Bible isone story and you've got to take
every section not only withinits bigger literary context but
(18:34):
also within the redemptive,historical, narrative context of
the whole of the Bible.
All of that is good, but what amissional hermeneutic is trying
to do is two things.
Number one, to acknowledge thatthe story of the Bible call it
the Missio Dei if you like, butthe story of the Bible is what
God is doing to restore andrenew and heal the creation.
(18:55):
And so the Missio Dei is thetriune God and the story of that
triune God as he restores andrenews and heals the creation.
And a missional hermeneuticwants to recognize that there is
a trajectory in that story,that is, that the story moves
from bringing blessing to onefamily and moving that to all
(19:17):
the families of the earth.
Or giving the knowledge of Godto one nation and that moves to
all the nations of the earth.
Or God setting his rule in oneplace Zion or Jerusalem and
moving that rule to the ends ofthe earth.
So there's this trajectory offrom the one to the many, from
one family to the many nations,one family to the many families,
(19:39):
from one nation to the manynations, from one place to the
ends of the earth.
And it recognizes where you'rewithin, where you are within
that story, in that missionaltrajectory.
But within that trajectory, thequestion is what is the
vocation of God's people?
What role does God's people have, what role do they play within
(19:59):
that story of moving theblessing from one family to all
families, knowledge of God fromone nation to all nations, and
so on?
And I would argue that what weare called to do is embody the
blessing of God, embody theknowledge of God, embody the
knowledge of God, embody thereign of God for the sake of the
nations, and that this vocationwe must be constantly asking in
(20:22):
our hermeneutic.
How is this particular sectionof the Bible forming God's
people to play their particularrole in this story.
So what our missionalhermeneutic is doing is taking
account of this trajectory, anaccount of what God's people are
called to be, and then askingthe question in the present how
(20:45):
is that text forming God'speople originally for their
particular role in the story,and how is that particular text
trying to form us today, to pickup our particular role in the
story?
So what I would want to justsay is that a missional
hermeneutic doesn't take oneverything in hermeneutics.
(21:05):
It's just saying there's thismissional dimension, this
missional trajectory of thestory, this missional vocation
of God's people that's oftenmissed when we're talking about
hermeneutics.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
So so good.
Are you paying attention?
I'm sure you are.
You're well-learned Some of thesecular psychologists and their
agreement on story being whatgrounds us that every human
being sees the world through astory, and for Christians,
obviously, this is a gateway andopen a wide open door, I think,
into a meta or grounding storythat's connected to the God of
(21:42):
the universe.
Have you done some listening towhat's going on in culture
right now and love to get yourtake on the use of story, dr
Goheen?
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Well, absolutely.
I think that what is happeningin our culture today is a
breakdown of the enlightenmentvision of the world that's been
basically the vision of Westernculture for 200 years, and that
enlightenment vision is a story.
It's a story of progressthrough science and technology.
(22:11):
But we have been fooled intothinking we're not living out of
a story, we're living out ofscience.
We're living out of thisscientific vision provided by
the Enlightenment and as that isbreaking down, we're realizing
no, that was a story and thatstory is breaking down.
And there are all these otherstories.
There's the Muslim story andthere's various modern stories.
(22:33):
And as post-modernity rejectsthe idea of a big story, they're
saying but there are smallerstories we're living out of.
There's the feminist story,there's the green story, there's
all these various stories, andso I think that's led at many
points in culture for are-examination of what's the
bigger context in which we liveand a recognition that that
(22:54):
bigger context is a story.
But the difference is they'retalking about stories in the
plural, that we all have our ownstory to live out of, and
there's all these many storiesin a pluralistic culture,
whereas the Bible is making apretty audacious claim to be the
true story, singular, of thewhole world and the whole of
(23:15):
human life.
But, yes, that is an option, anopening into talking about how
we are shaped by some narrative.
But the reality is we're beingshaped by some bigger narrative
which we believe to be the truestory of the world, and I would
even say, as a friend of minehas said about post-modernity,
(23:39):
when they say there is no truestory.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
They are telling a whopper of a story.
Yeah, it takes a lot of work todeny this grounding.
Well, we see the world throughstory and stories, but that
there's a grounding story.
It is a whopper to deny agrounding story.
So take the scriptures and theway the scriptures kind of came
into being from Genesis throughRevelation.
There's an open debate in someacademic theological circles
(24:04):
around open or closed canon.
Right, and I think on the onesense there's nothing else that
needs to be written Like weunderstand it.
But insofar as it's open, it'sopen for the age of the church
to advance the kingdom of God.
And I'm living and breathingthis living story in
anticipation of the ultimateconclusion, or you could say new
(24:27):
beginning, of Jesus coming backto make all things new
Revelation 20, 21.
So, yeah, talk about open,closed canon.
In the Lutheran story we'redefinitely like Bible, we're
like big time Bible.
So we're really kind of leeryabout this conversation.
But I think the role of thechurch active, participatory,
anticipation that's a shout outto Michael Gorman that I
(24:49):
actually interviewed hererecently Our work in the world
today not to earn God's gracebut to participate actively in
his mission Talk about open,closed text Dr Goheen, your
perspective.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Well, if we're talking about the canon, the
canon's clearly closed.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Yeah, obviously.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
The finality of the final revelation of God is Jesus
Christ.
That's the final revelation.
He's closed it, and the NewTestament is that witness to
Jesus Christ.
That's the final revelation.
He's closed it and the NewTestament is that witness to
Jesus Christ.
But to say that doesn't meanthat the story has ended.
It means the story iscontinuing.
As a matter of fact, I wouldargue that the way that Luke has
constructed the book of Acts isto invite us into the story
(25:28):
when he ends in Acts 28,.
He ends on this very strangenote.
You know you've been tracingPaul moving through all these
trials until he gets to Rome andyou're wondering what happens
to Paul.
But you're left with almostthis abrupt, shocking ending
where, well, abrupt ending,where he's sitting, where he's
(25:49):
housed, and he under housearrest.
He is preaching the kingdom ofGod and you kind of say he's
been telling such a good story.
Why does he end it on this noteof he's preaching the kingdom
of God?
What happened to Paul?
And you wonder.
It doesn't seem to bring thisto a close and yet I think what
Luke is doing there is givingthis abrupt ending and is using
(26:12):
a particular literary devicewhich is used by others,
incidentally, in the ancientworld, and that literary device
is this story is not ended.
Won't you come and join thisstory?
Because the movement of thegospel Jesus has said in Acts
1.8, is to the ends of the earth.
And Rome is not the ends of theearth.
It never was never consideredto be.
(26:33):
We have not reached the ends ofthe earth.
Come, become part, not the endsof the earth.
It never was never consideredto be.
We have not reached the ends ofthe earth.
Come, become part of this story.
So, even though the canon isclosed, the whole idea of the
story being an open story andbeing a story that's going to
continue until the consummation,a story into which we are
invited, is important.
I use the idea of a six-actstory creation, sin, israel,
(26:57):
christ, the mission of thechurch and consummation.
And so the fifth act is thechurch.
And I like to say there's twoscenes.
Scene one is the movement fromJerusalem to Rome, told in the
book of Acts.
Scene two are the rest of themovements within that story of
moving from Rome to the ends ofthe earth, of which we are a
(27:18):
part, and so we participate inthat story.
It remains an open story, whilethe canon itself has given a
definitive testimony and witnessto Jesus Christ as that final
revelation of God.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
So Acts is a type of suspended invitational story.
Yes, I would say, and get yourtake on this.
I've had some guests talkingabout Mark 16, and some
manuscripts don't have 9 through20.
Most of the guys that I'veactually interacted with think
that that is how late of anedition, but nonetheless, that
Mark is telling a story muchlike the Odyssey and the Iliad.
(27:54):
And now you said Luke in Actsthat invites people to put
themselves in the shoes of thewomen who leave the empty tomb
having heard the angelicproclamation with fear and great
trembling.
And they said no one to nobody,nothing to nobody is kind of
the Greek translation right.
And so the invitation is whatwe know.
They actually went and told theapostles, like we have the
(28:15):
other, but you're invited intoit.
You just you've not seen JesusBlessed.
Are you who have not seen andyet believed that the tomb is
empty?
What are you going to do aboutit?
Are you going to go and sharewith the women?
So yeah, there's all sorts ofthese literary devices that are
found in scripture that arequite fascinating.
What are your thoughts at theend of Mark there?
Am I okay?
Am I on good territory?
Speaker 2 (28:36):
I think that's true.
I've just been reading about it.
I read about that fairlyrecently and I think it could
well be that Mark leaves thissuspended ending as well and
asks what are you going to doabout the resurrection?
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Yeah, cool.
Hey, let's take a little pivot.
You've taught for many yearsand some of our students in the
Mission Training Center, MTC,and it is such a unique
experience.
I got to sit in on one of yourclasses and you've got well.
I'll just let you tell thestory of how it kind of came to
be, because it's a very unique,unique model that has maybe more
(29:10):
rabbinic type undertones thanmany of our higher ed models
today.
Tell the story, Dr Goheen.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
It's a hard, it'd be hard to tell this.
It's a long, long story.
In a nutshell, I was invited totrain leaders in the Phoenix
area and there was a few thingsgoing on.
Right now we're in we're in asituation where seminary
education is in deep, deeptrouble financially.
I think the whole enlightenmentmodel of education is breaking
deep, deep trouble financially.
I think the whole Enlightenmentmodel of education is breaking
(29:36):
down, where you kind of fillpeople with a lot of knowledge
and expect them to apply it, andthat whole model is breaking
down.
And I just heard yesterday thatthe Trinity Seminary, what's
been a huge and prominentseminary in the United States
for the evangelical tradition,is now moving to Trinity Western
prominent seminary in theUnited States for the
evangelical tradition is nowmoving to Trinity Western, which
(29:57):
is in my neck of the woods herein British Columbia and is
joining there because it justcan't sustain itself.
This is an ongoing problem,many, many places.
And so I was invited to comeand to partner with a network,
an ecumenical network ofchurches, to train leaders and
one of their primary concernswas to have a missional
(30:18):
curriculum, a missionalcurriculum which would nurture
missional churches in theirmissional identity but also
would enable them to understandthe cultural trends around about
them.
So I was primarily invited todesign a seminary with a
missional curriculum.
But it began to move out and itwas not simply a missional
(30:40):
curriculum but a missionalpedagogy, a missional structure,
a whole way of doing evaluationand assignments.
That would be different and, ina nutshell, what we are doing is
we take on small cohorts, nobigger than 15 to 17, and it's
for the purpose of disciplingthem, giving them more than
(31:02):
simply head knowledge.
And as we disciple them, webring them into our home.
So we have a home environment.
We eat a meal together, eithera hot breakfast early in the
morning or a hot supper late atnight into the evening.
And what we do is we discusstogether and we really get to
know one another well.
And it's a four-year cohortwhere they stick together and do
(31:23):
this missional curriculum overfour years and we've found it
powerfully transformative, notsimply in the mind, but also
transforming leaders to thinkabout their vocation.
What does it mean to be amissional church?
So, in a nutshell, that's whatit's all about.
It's a very different way ofdoing seminary, both
pedagogically as well ascurricularly, also structurally.
(31:45):
We're not a freestandingseminary, we're one that's woven
in in many ways to the churchesin Phoenix.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Yeah, it's pretty wonderful and there's great
benefit to studying with thosein your same tradition.
I went to Concordia Seminary inSt Louis four years residential
.
Third year is your internship,and you develop deep bonds.
This is some of the mainarguments for residential only
right.
You develop deep bonds withyour classmates and with your
(32:14):
professors, and there's aculture.
You're kind of enculturatedthere.
The opportunities today, though,is I think we are missing on
context and curation.
You get to kind of curate asmore the rabbinic type leader.
They sit with you for a longperiod of time and kind of
understand your view connectedto scripture obviously of the
(32:35):
world and how theology is notjust spoken but gets lived out.
You get to model that with yourwife.
It's pretty impressive, andthen the assignments are very
character centered and contextcentered.
Right, you're inviting theliving out of whatever the
teaching is, and, man, theverdict is in.
(32:56):
It's great.
It's great, man, the guys thatcame through.
Are they getting now more kindof the Lutheran, et cetera?
Yeah, fine, it's great.
I love our confession, but theygot to learn and they have an
openness and a sensitivityecumenically.
Let's get into the very strands, though, of Christianity.
What do you say to the studentwho says you know what, dr
Goheen, I don't want to be apart of any kind of denomination
(33:18):
or strand of theologicalthinking.
I just want to be a Christianconnected to a
non-denominational church,because I don't want any of
those labels or any of thatbaggage of history, etc.
How do you lovingly talk tothat brother or sister, dr
Goheen?
Speaker 2 (33:31):
I would say that you're very much in a tradition,
just like a Lutheran or aCalvinist or a Catholic or a
Mennonite or whatever.
You are very much in anevangelical tradition and that
tradition has shaped you deeplyand to call it
non-denominational is to foolyourself.
You're very much in a traditionand I can just ask you three,
(33:54):
four, five questions about whatyou believe and I can show you
where that comes from in termsof a historical development and
show you that in fact you've gota confession of faith.
In fact you have liturgicalpractices.
You've got a whole tradition atwork shaping and forming you,
but you're just calling itnon-denominational.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
Because everybody comes from somewhere right and I
think every guy's got, and soyou got to look like where did
those pastors go to learn?
Like that obviously shaped theway they view the world.
So let's talk.
There's a lot of Lutherans thatare listening to this.
Dr Goheen, I know you're kindand charitable in your take on
Luther.
I've heard that first andsecond hand from our students.
(34:35):
What ideas, teachings andpractices do you think of Martin
Luther should the wider churchtoday consider?
And maybe there's some readingthat goes along with it.
And you know, luther was notJesus by any stretch and there's
some parts of our story thatwere kind of rough too.
But let's hunt the good stufffirst and then we can offer a
kind critique to dear MartinLuther.
(34:55):
What's your take on Luther?
Speaker 2 (34:57):
Well, I draw on Luther quite often and I would
just mention a few things rightoff.
On Luther quite often, and Iwould just mention a few things
right off I really appreciatefrom the Catechism his views of
baptism, that the Christian lifeis a daily baptism of drowning
ourselves, drowning the old inourselves and rising to the new.
I think baptism is somethingthat's been lost in the broader
(35:19):
evangelical culture and thesignificance of it, and I
suspect if you look at manyLutherans, they're going to have
to go back to Luther and learnwhat Luther was saying as well.
We all need to learn ourtraditions again, but what he
said about baptism was excellent.
I think the importance of hiscomments and where he came from
and vocation is important.
(35:40):
During the Reformation he waschallenging the division of life
between a secular and sacredidea.
He says you know, being ashoemaker is just as important
as being a priest, and so theimportance of vocation is
important for, I think,significant.
I think also his understandingof prayer is significant, the
importance of prayer.
John Calvin was like that too.
I think there is among theReformers an understanding of
(36:04):
prayer that we need desperatelyto recover.
So those are the ones I thinkabout immediately.
And maybe there's one thing Ilike most it might seem like a
small thing, but I don't thinkit is in our culture and that is
his understanding of sin asbeing curved inward.
But we are created to be curvedoutward.
In other words, humanity iscreated to curve all we are and
(36:28):
everything we are, all ourresource, to be curved outward
to the glory of God and outwardto serve others sacrificially.
But what changes?
Is not the constituents of whowe are?
But now all those things arecurved inward on ourselves.
And that idea of sin beingcurved in on ourselves rather
than being curved out, I thinkin a narcissistic, self-centered
(36:49):
, self-absorbed culture.
I think we need to hear Lutheragain saying that's at the very
heart of what sin is, and theheart of the gospel is to call
us to serve others sacrificiallyand to live our lives outwardly
for the glory of God.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
Hey, thank you for that kind of overview on some of
the things you love most aboutLuther.
I'm going to make a connectionbetween so baptism, this
one-time event that has ongoingramifications, creating a new
man, a new woman in me, the oldbeing drowned, and I got this
new identity.
Now I am wrapped up in Christ.
The Holy Spirit now makes mehis dwelling place and for we as
(37:25):
Lutherans, this is not anythingI'm not accepted Like.
If it's me, I'm actually comingkicking and screaming because
there's a flesh that must bedrowned right.
So it's Christ's work for me,but then it always moves out.
I've been convicted of my sinand now I am motivated by the
Spirit, empowered, equipped,inspired whatever adjective you
(37:45):
want to use to be about God'smissional work in the world.
There's a cause that I'm a partof.
There's a debate in Lutherancircles about are you a
confessional or a missionalLutheran?
Right, and it's two sides ofthe same coin.
I confess I am a sinner,thought, word and deed by what
I've done and by goodnessgracious, as you look at sin,
there's no shortage of things Icould do that I don't do, sins
(38:08):
of omission.
So, oh, wretched man that I am,who will save me from this body
of death.
Then baptism comes and I getreminded of who I am.
And then I'm called up and outinto this marvelous mission,
empowered by the Holy Spirit,living a life of prayer and
dependence upon the presence ofGod, the power of God, the voice
and words of God to speak, theaudacity of the whole thing that
(38:30):
he would choose to work throughme.
And then I'm tethered to atradition of a family, a church,
a group of people who are onmission to make Jesus known, and
, oh, we gather consistently andwe've got all these rituals, et
cetera, but thereforerelationship God and then with
one another, and we get to besent out, like in all of our
different vocations.
This is, I think, thevocational piece that you bring
(38:50):
up.
We need a re understanding ofLuther's understanding of a
vocation.
I just did.
I got to talk for three hoursyesterday, dr Goheen, at on a
career day at Valley LutheranHigh School down the road here,
and about 150 students kind ofcame through.
There's probably, you know, 20or so is a high number of people
.
Young kids are thinking ofteaching or being a pastor or
(39:11):
something like that, you know.
And I asked what's church work,right?
Well, that's what the pastordoes and all this kind of stuff.
I was like, oh guys, come onnow, we're all into whatever the
Lord calls you into.
There is church work, and if Icould get rid of some vernacular
professional church work, oh mygoodness, what are we talking
about?
And then nonprofessional churchwork.
(39:31):
We get into these debates inLutheran circles about how
Lutheran they need to be, weneed at all of our universities
and things like that, and theybifurcate the kids between
professional church workers andnon.
Give me a break.
Some are going to be paid, someare not going to be paid, but
we're all about advancing thekingdom of God.
We need a new understanding ofvocation.
And it's not new, it's actuallyvery, very old.
And thank you, thank you,martin Luther.
(39:52):
Hey, this has been fun, drGoheen, let's close with this
question.
What will it be returns?
This is going to be aired inour Easter season of the church
year.
What makes you expectant andjoyful about that great and
glorious day?
Give us a little.
I can only imagine I've sangthat song.
I can only imagine, actually,dr Goheen, how many times.
(40:12):
But we don't have to just useour imagination.
Scripture gives us a great,great picture.
Paint that picture.
Tell that story, dr Goheen.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
Yeah, well, I think, first of all, it's interesting
that you mentioned Easter andresurrection, because if you
look at a lot of systematictheologies, people don't know
what to do with the resurrection.
The cross, yes, because thecross deals with our sin, but
the resurrection?
The resurrection is theinauguration of the new creation
.
The resurrection is a powerfulaffirmation of this world, of
(40:42):
this material, if you want touse that word creation.
We are bodily creatures made tolive in this world, and this
idea of living in heaven when wedie is false.
One of my grandsons, recentlywe were talking he said you know
, heaven is like a hotel.
We go there for a little whileto stay there, but really the
(41:03):
idea is to come back home.
And yeah, we go to heaven afterwe die the intermediate state
but after that we're coming backhome to live in these bodies,
on this new creation.
And so the resurrection is apowerful affirmation that the
new creation, the kingdom of God, the renewal of this world, has
been inaugurated.
And so what's this world goingto be like?
(41:24):
It's going to be likeeverything we're doing now, but
with sin gone, with the cursegone.
It's going to be the way Godintended the creation to be in
the very beginning when heconcluded that in Genesis 131,
and it was very good and thevery good changed to being under
a curse because of humanrebellion and the idea for the
(41:47):
biblical story was to removethat sin and remove that curse,
to restore the creation to whatit was meant to be in the
beginning, not to remove us fromthe creation.
There's a Lutheran theologian Iprobably shouldn't mention him
just because I don't knowsensitivities in the Lutheran
tradition but there's a Lutherantheologian that says if the
gospel is just about picking upa few splinters from the
(42:10):
creation, ie human beings, andtaking them to heaven, then he
says, then salvation is not goneas far as sin and the curse and
this is his words and it failsto be redemption.
In other words, redemption isonly if it goes as far as the
curse is found in that wonderfulhymn that the gospel is about
(42:33):
renewing everything that sin andthe curse has touched and
restoring the entire creation.
So I love sports, my wife lovesmusic.
I'll just take those two things.
We are going to enjoy sports onthe new creation watching and
playing but it's going to betotally all the curse and evil
will be removed from it.
Same thing with music and everyother part of the creation that
(42:56):
you love.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
That's going to be great.
I like sports too.
I was a football and baseballplayer in college a long time
ago, 27 years ago and I've oftenwondered if there was like
competition.
And I just think competition isfun.
And I don't think there's goingto be equality of gifts.
I think there's still going tobe diversity of gifts, right,
(43:18):
and I think I'm going toperfectly rejoice, because what
does sin do?
It leads me to compare andinappropriately compete, like I
want that gift.
No, you're going to beperfectly content with how God,
god made you to sing that song,shoot that, whatever the game
happens to be, to do that workRight, the work is pre-fall.
We'll just perfectly rejoice inthe work, perfectly rejoice in
(43:41):
the fun, and it will have.
It's not going to be boring,it's not going to be harps, it's
going to be embodied.
It's just a right relationshipforever with God.
I like these.
I talk about four quadrants atfunerals, right, bob or Sue, she
looks good, he looks good Nowyou haven't seen anything yet.
When he gets that, she getsthat resurrected body and
perfection is stored, restoredwith God, self, others and the
(44:01):
rest of creation.
You can say sin has damaged allfour of those quadrants and it
starts obviously with God, butthen at shame.
You know I'm actually lookingdown in shame at my sin.
No more shame, no more guilt,no more sin.
And then my eyes are up and outlooking at others living in
perfect harmony and relationshipwith others, and then I have no
(44:23):
desire for anything in creationto replace who God is, my
identity and how he's providedand sustained.
I'll be perfectly content in mydaily bread, rather than all of
the idols that we make today andthe ways we try to numb ourself
from the pain of existence.
No more addiction.
It's gonna be spectacular Godself, others, the rest of
creation.
(44:43):
Any more addiction.
It's going to be spectacularGod self, others, the rest of
creation.
Any thoughts on kind of thefour quadrants there, dr Goheen?
Speaker 2 (44:48):
I love those.
I speak of four relationships.
We have the relationship withGod.
That defines everything else.
We have many kinds ofrelationships with others, from
the most intimate in marriage tofriendships and beyond, and
they all are different inmarriage to friendships and
beyond and they all aredifferent, but we'll be restored
in all of those.
They will be restored in bothruling and stewarding God's good
(45:09):
creation.
I think cultural developmentwill continue and then we're
restored to ourselves, and theway I think about being restored
to ourselves is there's manydimensions emotional, rational,
historical, cultural, social,ethical and all of those will
find their proper place centeredin God and there will be
harmony.
But what happens right nowwithin ourselves is something
(45:31):
gets disjointed like idolatry,causes us to take other things
and make them too big in ourlives.
There's going to be harmonywithin ourselves.
There's going to be harmonywith others.
There's going to be harmonywith the non-human creation and
harmony with God, which is mostimportant, and I think that's
the way it was in the beginning.
And I think when you look atGenesis 3, it's precisely those
(45:52):
things that you see are brokenas a result of Adam's rebellion
and are going to be healed inthe new creation.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
Have you read Thomas Aquinas and his four idols?
Are you aware?
Power, money, pleasure and fame.
He wrote kind of and it's beenkind of matriculated into
different traditions.
But I've been doing a lot ofthinking about that.
All of those, all of thoseidols, a desire to control the
future based on my status andposition.
You see, jesus did not operateit.
(46:21):
He had every right to take thehigh place, took the low place.
I want the big idol in ourculture, I would say, is
pleasure intimately connectedwith money.
And then I want a good namebased on what I do, like I will
be perfectly content in myidentity in Jesus and you can
kind of take the invitation isyou probably can remove one of
those, maybe two of those prettyeasy Like.
(46:42):
For me it's fame and I didn'tgo into ministry for money, so
it's like easy come, easy go.
But then, okay, you get alittle bit closer to pleasure
and things like that.
But then mine, you know, is asa preacher podcast, when people
don't like me or say mean thingsabout me.
That's my idol, right, thatit's the fame or honor, that's
(47:02):
it, and I need to honestlyconfess that and bring it to the
cross of Jesus Christ.
Have you ever walked throughthat sort of a habit or
discipline of examining yourlife in that such way, dr Goheen
?
Speaker 2 (47:14):
In what way exactly, in examining with these four
lenses, or?
Speaker 1 (47:18):
Yeah, yeah, those four lenses, and even for
self-awareness.
I've walked through thatexercise with some folks on our
staff to kind of get if Satan'sgoing to come at me, it's going
to be called to be so forexample, in a world that is
consumed by consumption.
Speaker 2 (47:47):
We're called to be a people that are generous,
thankful, content and stewardly,and so I'm asking myself where
is it that I need to understandmy own weakness?
In a consumer culture, or ahedonistic culture, or
self-centered culture, or atechnicistic culture, or
whatever you mean?
And I think that each of us, aswe examine the various idols,
(48:08):
we're going to find out we'resusceptible to some more than
others and need to be aware ofour own weaknesses there.
But I usually think of it interms of the various cultural
idols and how those culturalidols are affecting us as a
congregation, as a people, andthen asking where am I most
susceptible?
Speaker 1 (48:26):
Yeah, so good.
This has been great.
Thanks for round two with me.
If people want to connect withyou and even some of your
writing, Dr Goheen, feel free toshare.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
Yeah, I don't.
Yeah, it's hard.
I don't know even where tobegin there.
Speaker 1 (48:39):
You've written a lot Drama of Scripture, right,
symphony of Mission, aren'tthose two?
Speaker 2 (48:44):
I'd say you know, for many the most introductory
books are the True Story of theWhole World, which tells the
biblical story fairly quickly.
It's a shortened version ofDrama of Scripture.
And then a book that's comingout in June that is designed for
discipleship in the church.
So it's another fairly popularbook.
It's what we call ourprolegomena at MTC.
(49:07):
In other words, it's thebeginning point.
It's what all students take forthe first four or six months at
MTC and that is what I think isit's called.
The title of the book is theCore of the Christian Faith
Living the Gospel for the Sakeof the World.
And we deal first of all withthe gospel.
What is the gospel?
Second, we deal with what isthe biblical story and why is it
(49:28):
urgent to live, to read it assuch?
Thirdly, we ask what does itmean to be a missional people at
the center of that story?
And then, finally, a missionaryencounter with culture.
How do we understand the idolsof our culture that are
constantly forcing us into waysand patterns of life that are
not worthy of the gospel?
So those would be maybe themost popular two starting points
(49:48):
for people if they'reinterested in books.
Speaker 1 (49:50):
Hey, dr Goheen, it's been a blessing, an honor, a
privilege.
You're a gift to me and thebody of Christ.
This is the Tim Allman Podcast.
Please like, subscribe, commentwherever it is you take in
these Jesus-centeredconversations and I pray, as
we're closing, that the love ofChrist and your role in the
story, by the Spirit's power, iscompelling you for a life of
(50:11):
meaning, purpose, significance,lived out of your identity in
Christ, all for the sake of theworld, for the days are too
short to live any other way.
Jesus is coming back very, verysoon.
It's a good day.
Go and make it a great day.
Thank you so much, dr Groheem.
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