June 4, 2025 • 53 mins
Have you ever wondered how different cultures approach spiritual truth?
Noks Shabalala shares her journey from ancestral worship in South Africa to Christian faith, offering fresh cultural perspectives on boldly communicating gospel truth with love rather than diplomatic politeness. Her multicultural background and direct communication style challenge listeners to prioritize mission over tradition and make the gospel accessible to everyone.
• South African culture values direct, straightforward communication compared to American diplomatic politeness
• Ancestral worship creates mediators between people and God, requiring sacrifices and rituals that keep people in spiritual bondage
• Jesus modeled bold truth-telling with love, not prioritizing human approval over God's mission
• Colonization damaged gospel reception when those introducing Jesus also perpetrated abuse
• Churches risk becoming gatekeepers rather than gateways when they hoard theological resources instead of sharing them widely
• The gospel must transcend cultural barriers while maintaining its transformative truth
• Heaven will contain people from every nation, tribe and tongue - not just those who match our cultural or theological profile
Through meaningful interviews and heartfelt conversations, Friar Time, hosted by Fr....
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to the Tim Allman Podcast.
It's a beautiful day to bealive.
I pray the joy of Jesus is yourstrength as you buckle up for a
Jesus-filled, HolySpirit-filled conversation today
with my sister in Christ.
Her name is Knox.
Let me tell you a little bitabout her.
She worked in China as anEnglish and a German teacher.
(00:25):
How many languages do you speak, Max?
Quite a few.
Quite a few.
Oh, I'm so envious of that.
That's so good.
She's worked in South Africa ata Lutheran boarding school as a
campus manager during COVIDtime and then, pretty recently,
she moved out with her husband,John, and her eight-month-now
old son, John Loom III, JT.
They came to CUI and she's thedirector of small groups and
(00:49):
connections at ConcordiaUniversity in Irvine, California
.
Knox, how are you doing, sister?
What a joy to be with you today.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
I am so blessed.
What a joy to be here.
This is the day that the Lordhas made, we will rejoice and be
glad in it.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Amen.
So it's a privilege.
So I was so impressed with thepassion that you spoke with when
I first heard you at agathering in Ann Arbor close to
a year ago or so now.
How have you developed thatpassion for bold declaration
about Jesus and his gospel?
Just share a little bit of yourstory there, Nox.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
I wish I could take credit for all of it, but I
think maybe coming from Africa,where the culture is very direct
, you know, people arestraightforward that kind of
helps.
But also, I think, every timewhen I'm meant to speak of the
things of the kingdom, it is nodoubt that the Holy Spirit
(01:46):
emboldens me to speak the truth,but with love and tenderness
and consideration for those whoare around me.
From a life where I was notwalking with Jesus right, and
having been saved later in mylife, it also gives me that
(02:12):
burden, a beautiful burden, toboldly confess and to boldly
speak the gospel of Christ,because it's his gospel.
I'm just a mouthpiece to thepeople so that they too may come
to the knowledge of Jesus, justlike I did when there were bold
missionaries in South Africaproclaiming the gospel to me,
(02:35):
right?
So what I receive I'm passingon, tim.
That's the way it works.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Definitely the trajectory of this whole thing
from Christ to us, to the world.
So you mentioned somethingthat's interesting culturally
around African and direct, morefrank speech.
Could you compare?
Now you've been in the US for awhile, can you compare the
speech, the direct kind of frankspeech, and even some of your
general summaries of why we'renot maybe in your estimation as
(03:03):
direct here in the US?
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Well, first of all, I've gotten into quite a lot of
trouble by just being beingdirect, because for me.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
I'm like, hey, it's, it's honest truth.
You ask me how you look.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
I'm going to tell you how you look, americans are
maybe more polite and more intune with people's feelings and
walking on eggshells andrelationships.
I think maybe the culture isvery diplomatic here, where
people would rather say whatthey think will please the
(03:40):
person and preserve therelationship, as opposed to
maybe sharing the truth and,have you know, ruffle on a few
feathers but maybe give theperson the opportunity to
receive the truth and chew on itand have a conversation that
stems out of that opportunityand which also becomes hard too
(04:03):
sometimes when you share thegospel.
And also maybe this is myobservation, it may not me
anything you know, I know what Iknow and you keep your thoughts
(04:27):
to yourself and things likethat.
But back home, truly, you couldbe on a bus and someone will
meet your team and be like hey,how many children do you have?
Where do you work?
What's your salary?
Like, we get so personal waytoo quick that we don't let
anything become the barrier forbuilding intimate relationships
(04:47):
with the people.
If that answers the question.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Well, it does, and I think we're wrestling as a
church and a church body in theLCMS because now you're a part
of our community with maybe adiscomfort with confronting
harder truths, and I actuallyhave research to prove this
(05:12):
using the Harrison behavioralassessment tool.
It's a secular tool and I'vetalked about it on a lot of a
lot of my podcasts, but thesummary of the research is that
we have welcomed passive,aggressive behavior and our
pastors, unfortunately, becausewe like people and we like
people to like us Right.
(05:33):
That when harder truth comes.
You know we don't necessarilyhandle it well.
We could be overly to use yourphrase diplomatic.
We could be overly diplomaticand what that does for us
culturally is we prioritize ourown source of identity and
protecting my identity with thisgroup of people.
(05:56):
It becomes an idol for us overspeaking the truth with a spirit
of love and receiving it, andgrowing up into Jesus, who is
the head.
I mean Jesus always spoke thetruth with a spirit of love and
receiving it.
And growing up into Jesus, whois the head.
I mean Jesus always spoke thetruth in love.
Jesus is way more concernedabout how the father views him,
the mission that the father hascalled him to the.
Pharisees tendency, and I thinkin our, in our tribe, we have a
(06:18):
pharisaical trend and tendencyfrom time to time to prioritize
things that are neithercommanded nor forbidden to
define our righteousness, ouridentity and I'm talking about
worship here and doing worshipthe right way, yes, and then
prioritizing maybe therelationship with the individual
over the relationship thatflows from God, because I think,
(06:41):
while your culture may beslightly overly frank and you,
there's a line and you can, youcan definitely cross it here in
America.
I couldn't agree more.
We're, and especially in theChristian church and in the LCMS
specifically we go, we'reoverly, overly diplomatic and
that hurts us in addressing whatis obviously a struggle in the
room.
Any observations there?
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Knox as you're entering into our tribe.
Yeah, I mean, even now, as Iserve in ministry here, I mentor
a lot of college students andthey will come to my office for
spiritual care, for mentorshipand discipleship.
And there'll be times when I gohome and I call my husband.
I'm like man.
I had such a stern conversationwith so-and-so and I don't know
(07:23):
if they'll ever come back to myoffice.
But I have learned that youngpeople appreciate that more in
ministry, just a directconversation of saying, hey,
like what, would it help you togain the whole world while
losing your soul in the process?
Right, like, let's come back.
What is the Lord saying aboutthese things in His process?
(07:44):
Right, like, let's come back.
What is the Lord saying aboutthese things in his word?
Right, what are we being called?
As opposed to just saying, oh,hey, I'm struggling with sin,
but hey, where sin abounds,grace abounds all the more.
No, that is a lie that the enemyhas made us buy into so that we
stay in bondage, tim, and wenever actually accept or leave
(08:08):
out the truth.
Right, the gospel that isworthy of the calling that we
have received.
We don't get that opportunitybecause we are focused on
ourselves.
I always tell my students I'mlike, hey, once you start
looking within, your eyes are nolonger on the cross, it's all
you.
Then the spirit of the Lord hasno room there to shape and mold
(08:30):
and sanctify you into theperson that the Lord is calling
you to become, so that he canuse you as his vessel, because
we're all his conduits.
At the end of the day, we arehere to do the work of the Lord.
Of course, we leave and we aremarried to the glory of God,
right, but it's all for the sakeof the gospel team yes, and so,
(08:51):
yeah, so that's what I'velearned.
I'm just like, hey, I'm justgoing to speak the truth, I'll
be direct, hey, it's better to.
I have found that it's betterto ask for forgiveness right
Than to withhold the truth butthen go home with a heavy heart
of saying man, I didn't tellthat person the truth because I
was trying to save face.
(09:11):
Do you get what I'm saying?
So it's better to tell thetruth and let the spirit of the
Lord move in the way that heintends and help you find favor
in the people whom you aredelivering the truth to.
It's all about Jesus.
It's all about Jesus.
It's all about his gospel.
There is truth that penetratesall hearts, that calls us out,
calls us on.
It's just the gospel.
(09:37):
If we speak the gospel withhumbleness and we are out of the
way, right, without judgment.
Because sometimes I should alsosay that, just because Africans
are direct and straightforward,that just because Africans are
direct and straightforward,sometimes we also err in sitting
in the judgment seat and we arepointing fingers at our
brothers and sisters, forgettingthat the rest of the fingers
are pointing back at us, right,it's easy for us to take the
speck out of our brother's eyeand forget our own speck too
(10:01):
right.
And so, with humbleness andgentleness, and putting yourself
in the shoes of hey, how wouldI receive this gospel of Christ
if it was spoken to me?
Then it helps you to be able todeliver that with gentleness,
because even Jesus, Jesus was sobold, but everything that he
(10:22):
did, he did it with so much love.
So bold, but everything that hedid, he did it with so much
love, a touch, an embrace, alooking into people and
listening in a leaning forwardteam and not just sitting up
there making decisions andpointing fingers and thinking he
runs the world.
We didn't learn that from Jesus.
It's from our own sinfulness assons of Adam right.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Facts we need the second Adam Knox, and the height
of his power was shown in aRoman Adam right.
Facts we need the second AdamKnox and the height of his power
was shown in a Roman crossright.
And we're hanging in.
So self-consciousness andselfishness.
Is sin?
A man or woman right turned inor on themselves?
How am I going to be receivedright now?
No, no, no.
The call of Jesus is up and out, it's upward, it's toward the
(11:06):
cross and it's living in theresurrection power which allows
us to speak words that, yeah,that can be law, can be hard,
but that draw people near thatwe pray for repentance and
confession.
Luther says that the Christianlife is always a life of
repenting.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
So when a?
Speaker 1 (11:21):
hard word.
When I give a hard word or ahard word comes to me, I'm not
surprised.
I know I'm riddled with sin andI know I've been called up and
out of that sin by the mercy andgrace of God.
So I'm praying, I'm right therewith you and I'm a fellow fast
talker, recovering.
I'm still working, just likeyou, man, you get on this kind
of role.
But yeah, I think and as aparent I've come to know this
(11:42):
and as your young jt, as hestarts to grow like we, we don't
.
One of my favorite lines fromuh, we don't allow things that
we don't like to take place inour kids.
Why would?
Why would?
you do that on your team withgod's kids at cy why would I do
that?
Yeah, if there's inappropriatebehavior in a room like let just
let's just call it out rightnow in love, and I send a lot of
(12:05):
those emails for me.
I send corrective emails.
This happened in this space,it's not necessarily just at you
.
There may have been a person ora group that was trying to
bring division or whatever, butthis sort of behavior is not
welcomed here.
Don't let your kids do thingsthat make you dislike them.
That's right.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
So this is going to be helpful.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
This is going to be helpful for you and the Lord.
It's all the Lord's work.
The Lord calls to repentancethose whom he loves.
Yeah, Right.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
The Lord disciplines those whom he loves, so anyhow,
this is a great conversation.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Let's get into your deeper story.
That's right, and some of ourguests may wonder why I didn't
say your last name.
It's because it's Shabalala.
Am I saying that?
Speaker 2 (12:49):
right, you said it perfectly Shabalala, yeah,
shabalala.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
And your full name.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
My full name is Nogukanya Shabalala.
Shabalala is my maiden name andI'm married to a loom.
So now I'm Nogukanya loom, butShabalala is my maiden name and
I'm married to a loom.
So now I'm Nogukanya loom, butShabalala means to disappear and
Nogukanya means the one whocarries light.
So I'm glad I married into aloom, right Like loom loom.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
To illuminate.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
Yep, so that we get rid of that disappear, because
we don't want the light todisappear.
No, we don't.
No, we don't.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
We wanted to we get rid of that.
Disappear, because we don'twant the light to disappear.
No, we don't.
No, we don't, we want it toilluminate the world in Jesus
name.
So tell us your backgroundconnected to ancestral worship.
This is fascinating Ancestralworship in South Africa and I'd
also love to hear, then, howthat journey led you from China.
You were in East St Louis forjust a short time as well, and
then to Concordia, irvine.
But let's talk about ancestralworship.
This is a topic that I havenever dealt with on my podcast,
(13:49):
so thanks for getting us behindthe curtain of that cultural
religious tendency.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Oh yeah.
So this is a culture that'sactually prevalent in a lot of
other cultures, tim, even inAsia, where we venerate the dead
people.
But the way maybe let me justbuild a picture right.
(14:12):
So in Christianity we have gotthe Father, got the Son, who is
the mediator between us and theFather, and then the Holy Spirit
.
But in the ancestral worship inSouth Africa we have God and we
have the ancestors who are ourmediator.
Right, and that's where it kindof stops, right, and we believe
(14:36):
that the people that havepassed on, right, these
ancestors, have the power.
They have the power to bringgood fortune and misfortune to
the people.
It's all about just playing bythe rules.
There's not much grace there.
It's really a religion of justworks.
(14:56):
You do this so that God, thecreator he's not necessarily
Yahweh, the God that we havecome to know who's the creator
of all things and who has madepeople in his image, right, but
we have a creator who we believehas made the earth and all the
things that are in there, butwho has power but is not as
(15:20):
powerful as the ancestors.
I think the paradigm there is alittle toppled, where the
ancestors now kind of seem tohave more power than the God of
our religion, because they caninfluence the way that he thinks
and the way that he treats hispeople.
Where else the line gets alsojust blurry, because the focus
(15:44):
becomes so honed in on theancestors and what they demand,
right?
So there's a lot of animalsacrifices, there's a lot of
rituals that take place, tim, sothat we figure out why this
person is sick, why there'scalamities in the family, and if
(16:06):
we slaughter a cow, there's abelief that we appease them,
right, so that they bring aboutgood fortune in the family and
things like that.
So that's basically in anutshell.
I'm just speaking fromexperience, so, never having
read any books that I read inwhere people are able to explain
(16:26):
it sophisticatedly, but fromour experience and what I grew
up with at home, that has beenthe life.
It's a life of fear, tim,because you are walking on
eggshells.
There is also a human mediator,because the ancestors are dead,
so there's no way that we canhear from them.
So there are people in ourlives, in our community, who
(16:50):
receive the gift to be seers,right, who can see in the
underworld.
So then they are the ones whospeak to the ancestors on our
behalf, right.
Sometimes the ancestors willcome to us.
The belief is that they willcome to us in dreams and all of
that.
But we need the overseer tointerpret the dream, to inquire
(17:13):
as to why we received the dreamand what needs to happen thereof
.
So then there's always a bloodsacrifice either cow or goat,
right, they like candy, theylike cool drinks, soda, cool
drinks, you know.
So those things are put there.
(17:33):
Every homestead has a hut right,so it's a little house, right,
they're designated to theancestors and the rituals.
So whatever has to happen, theritual happens right there, at
the corner of the heart, rightwhen the incense are burnt, and
we believe that the fragrance ofthe incense then appeases the
(17:56):
ancestors.
It's almost like the OldTestament, right, where the
enemy uses something that wasintended for good right To
confuse us so that we becomefurther and further away from
salvation.
And thanks be to God that theSpirit of the Lord came to me
(18:16):
through the missionaries whowere sharing the gospel and the
shackles fell off my eyes and Icould see and I could receive
the truth and I could be saved.
But my heart is still burdenedfor the many people, tim who,
who are back home, the wholecontinent, actually, where
there's churches, churches thatare worshiping Jesus and the
(18:39):
ancestors.
Because it is so hard to do thatseparation?
It's difficult because, firstly, remember these are the people
that we know, they lived amongus, so it is so easy for us to
trust that what they say is true, as opposed to believing Jesus
the foreign ancestor.
(19:00):
Do you get what I'm saying?
Even though some churchesbelieve that Jesus himself is an
ancestor, a special kind though, because we know him not to be
dead.
He is alive and living and hesits at the right hand of God,
the Father Almighty.
He is no ancestor at all.
He's alive and living.
But there's still a confusionthere, as people are trying to
(19:21):
dabble between the things thatthey know, because we want to
hold on to the familiar right,because it's so easy to faith in
the familiar than to faith inthe unknown right.
Faith is the.
You believe in the unseen asthough it is real.
That's so hard.
But for me to know oh hey, youknow what I believe in my
(19:41):
grandfather he lived in thishomestead, he was alive and
living and he supported thisfamily oh, that's easy for me to
do than to believe in the Jesuswhom I have never seen right
and to trust in the Jesus whom Ihave never seen right and to
trust in the Jesus whom I havenever seen.
(20:04):
But also speaking of thesethings, tim, there is also
another component that makes itso difficult for the many people
in countries that werecolonized right To embrace
Yahweh, to embrace Jesus, theson of God, to embrace the Holy
Spirit, the Comforter, becauseof the behavior of the people
who came and introduced him.
You know my sweet dad up to hispassing he never accepted the
(20:27):
gospel team because the peoplewho introduced him to Jesus
would also abuse him, would beathim up and all of.
And I didn't know that becausewhen I became a Christian he had
never spoken about these things, he had disowned me.
But it was later in the years,during the COVID times, and I
(20:48):
know the COVID times were such apain and a tragedy for many
families and nations.
But it allowed me anopportunity to sit with my dad
and ask these questions and thenI learned that no, no, no, no,
it wasn't because he didn't wantJesus, but it is because his
experience tied to theintroduction of Jesus was
(21:10):
through a man who would beat himup, not give him food, but then
also force them to sit fordevotion.
Do you get what I'm saying?
So then there's a distort,there's a disconnection right
there to say well, how is thisGod, the God of love, whose
mercy endures forever?
Speaker 3 (21:32):
How does he take it to the cross to die for me, for
my sins, so that if and when Icome to believe that?
Speaker 2 (21:40):
he is the Savior, the author and the finisher of my
faith.
How is he such love?
When the people who are hisvessel are full of hate and
malice and are divisive andthings like that right.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
We have taken the gospel of the Lord and have made
it what it is not.
We have made it what it is not.
Jesus is love and he wantseverybody to come to him,
whether they are theologicallyinformed and theologically sound
or not.
He wants all of us to be savedand I believe with my own heart
(22:21):
that if I sit in heaven therewill be no theology class.
He will not be asking mewhether I understood all the
heresies.
Do I know what is Adiaphora?
What is adiaphora and all ofthose things?
Speaker 2 (22:40):
All he will want is to know whether I believe that
Jesus is the son of God, whodied for the sins of the world,
the author and the finisher ofour fate.
It is by grace that we havebeen saved like nothing else,
right?
So that's one of the issues.
Back at home, even though thegospel is prevailing and the
churches are booming, there'sstill a distort and a confusion
(23:04):
where the theology is not assound and as pure as we have
come to have it here in America.
Because we are blessed Maybenot just America both the East
and the West.
You guys are blessed withseminaries, with Greek and
Hebrew, with the languages tounderstand the origin of things.
In other countries, people haveno Bible written in their own
(23:29):
language.
Do you know what a gift it wasfor me to read the Word of God
in my own language, even thoughI received it in English?
Okay, to receive a Zulu Bibleand read in my language what the
Lord has to say about life,about me and about so many
(23:56):
things that I wrestle with.
What a gift, what a gift.
And we are wasting time wastingtime, if I may be so bold.
We are wasting time trying tofigure out what kind of organ do
we need in the church, insteadof maybe coming together as the
brethren and and getting theword out there?
The word need to be cast, theseed needs to go out out there.
We need to plant it for thepeople of the lord to come to
the knowledge of jesus.
Jesus needs to be lifted up,just just as Moses lifted up
(24:18):
that serpent in the wildernessand those who look to it were
delivered from the venom of thesnake.
Like we need to be liftingJesus up so that Jesus draws his
people to himself, not to thedenomination.
It is well and good.
Oh my gosh.
Oh yes, of course.
Course we can use denominationsas a pathway to filter people
(24:39):
into the kingdom of God.
That is okay.
But then, once we start usingit as a hindrance to filtering
people into the kingdom, then wehave opened a gateway for the
enemy to disrupt us so that theLord doesn't get his will to
come to pass through us, todisrupt us, so that the Lord
doesn't get his will to come topass through us, you're amazing.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
The Holy Spirit that rests upon you is extra ordinary
.
Praise be to God, and that isgrounded in your story.
And what are some of the?
I just overwhelmed with thegoodness of God, and listen to
you share your story.
What are some ways that you'veseen are helpful?
(25:21):
Obviously, a way of power, theway of power, the way of might,
the way of shame.
These are not the way of fear,these are not the ways of Jesus,
nor the way of our God, whoseprimary disposition toward us is
love.
But how have you seen winsomeways in for those that are
(25:45):
wrestling with ancestral worship?
Because I think still today,while it may be more behind the
scenes, it still is, you know,mediating through.
I think we have direct access.
I love that, that the veil hasbeen torn, we now have direct
access to the love of God in theperson and work of.
Jesus and now we have the HolySpirit.
But what are the helpful ways,the kind ways that you've
(26:06):
experienced and are seeking tolive out, for those who may be
more prone to worship theirancestors rather than the Triune
God their ancestors?
Speaker 2 (26:15):
rather than the Triune God, some of the ways
that I've seen, because alsoI've come afar with being an
evangelist in my family, if Imay put it that way, where I've
been sharing the gospel but theties are so strong.
(26:36):
But I believe that the HolySpirit has the power to break
these chains, to free peoplefrom the bondage and usher them
into the kingdom of Christ.
But patience and boldlyproclaiming at all times, but
also team, the greatest and thesad part is some people won't
(26:56):
get to open the Bible.
They read us right.
So our behavior, the way wewalk into these situations, the
way I'm taking it out of theancestral context now, but even
here in the US, the way weinteract with our neighbors that
don't look like us, right, theway we interact with our
neighbors that don't look likeus right, the way that we
(27:22):
interact with people of otherdenominations that don't profess
the creeds that we profess,right, how are we a true
representation of Christ?
How do we allow the Holy Spiritto use us, even in our weakness
, team, to use us to draw thepeople of Christ to Jesus?
Right, so persistent, boldlyprofessing.
(27:43):
But also the thing that we doless, that we should do more, is
praying behind the scenes,right, we don't pray as much.
We plan.
We are very programmatic.
We put a lot of programs whichare great, and and the Lord is
able to use these programs to,to, to, to, to get to his people
(28:06):
.
And thanks be to God because hedoesn't look at our weakness,
right, and just sits there andtoss his hands up in the.
I'm like, what do I do withthese humans?
But he uses all of those thingsbut maybe pray.
We need to be a church thatprays for its people.
We need to be a church thatprays for the salvation of the
(28:28):
people, the church that praysfor the gospel of the Lord to
penetrate the hearts of men sothat men can hear the word and
come to the knowledge of Jesus.
We need to pray instead ofwriting programs.
We need to bring people into acommunity of prayer, a community
of worship, a community that isembracing, a community that is
(28:50):
not afraid.
The enemy has planted a seed offear that we are so afraid for
anything that doesn't smell,that doesn't sound LCMS, that
doesn't look LCMS, as if thekingdom of God is dependent upon
those things.
No, the kingdom of God ismovable and shakable.
It is not held by our theologyand I'm saying this with so much
(29:13):
sensitivity and so much loveand so much grace but it's not
dependent upon these things.
It is alive and living.
It's who it is.
We are the people of the gospel.
It's who we be.
We just share the gospel.
Share the gospel and stopfocusing on these building
blocks.
Don't hear me wrong.
(29:34):
Now I'm not saying obliteratethe building blocks.
All right, keep the buildingblocks, but do not focus on them
, because they have derailed usfor so long.
Our churches are getting oldand some of them are dying and
some of them are shutting down.
We are losing the buildingswhere we could be inviting
(29:56):
people into.
Okay, fine, jesus doesn't sitin the building.
He is omnipotent, omnipresent,omniscient.
Okay, we could gather here inmy office and the Spirit of the
Lord will just be as presenthere and the gospel will just be
as alive and living and assharper as the double-edged
sword.
Right, but no, let's not beafraid.
(30:18):
Why are we so afraid?
Because I'm talking to you, butalso my heart is shaking.
But why are we so afraid tolose the very thing that we
believe is true?
Right, because if you are oneperson who has the cure, why do
(30:39):
you hoarder on the cure right?
Everyone is dying around you.
No, share the cure right.
Share it If we believe that wehave found the truth in the
creeds and in the confessionsand in the scriptures.
Open the gates, wide open.
(31:00):
Open up the gates.
You know, to quote Frozen, havethe people come so that people
can find the truth.
But if we're doing this, tim,if we're hiding the truth, no
one gets it and by the time werealize it may be too late.
And I hope that we don't get tothe too late.
(31:21):
I hope that the spirit of theLord may cultivate our hearts
and give us a burden that evenwhen we are sleeping he comes
and he keeps us awake, beingburdened by the fear.
The Lord did not give us thespirit of fear, right, but of
power and a sound mind and oflove.
(31:41):
Okay, so that's yeah.
Let me reel it in.
Let me reel it in brother, comeon in Chime, in Chime in.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
So I'll add that anytime we become wet, it seems
like this is what Jesus is doingwith the Pharisees.
Why do your disciples not washtheir hands?
Don't you know that the goodJew washes their hands?
And Jesus, obviously because heknows the heart which we don't
(32:13):
always know, the heart of ourbrother or sister, jesus.
Jesus knows the heart which wedon't always know, the heart of
our brother or sister, jesusknows the heart.
He's concerned about our heart.
You turn the traditions of meninto the commandments of God.
We turn rituals and the way wedo it as a distinguisher that
we're more righteous and for us,as Lutherans, more Lutheran or
(32:36):
even the right type of Lutheran,and I don't know why we can't
see this is the Pharisaicaltendency.
And to move out with, becauseJesus says this is what defiles
a man right, not what comes intohim, but what comes out of him
and he's concerned about a heartwhere there's envy, dissension,
(32:58):
slandering, adultery.
All of these things come out ofthe heart and Jesus is in the
business of cleansing our hearts, which gives us great freedom.
Like I've been, the shackles,the burden, the heaviness, the
slavery of my sin has beennailed to the cross.
With Jesus Christ, I no longerlive, he lives within me.
Slavery of my sin has beennailed to the cross with Jesus
Christ.
I no longer live, he liveswithin me.
And so then I move out into theworld looking at some of the
(33:19):
rituals that we have, and if itisn't serving as a means toward
the end, which is the end, isthe advancement of the kingdom
of God, if the ritual doesn'tserve as an advancement toward,
then the ritual is wrong.
Luther.
So this was audacious.
There's some things I justlearned recently.
I'm always learning thingsabout.
Luther had quite a story.
Do you know that corporatesinging in the Western church
(33:41):
wasn't a thing until MartinLuther gave permission for
people to sing, which is prayingtwice?
All it was was chanting andthen choir pieces.
But Luther turned us into asinging church, a joy-filled
church.
Confession and absolution hasradically evolved its role.
It has its origin actually inpenance and then satisfying a
(34:04):
God through our works, which isobviously not by grace.
And then it used to be thatpeople were coming for private
confession and absolution inpreparation for the Lord's
Supper.
We turned it into a liturgy.
One of the ways that and thisis not bad one of the ways that
we confess our sins corporately,but unfortunately the private
care and prayer and forgivenessfor the individual or for the
(34:27):
family that largely has beentaken out of our culture.
And so all of the ways in whichthe best part of our rituals it
is God serving us.
This is why I'm a Lutheran right.
It's the divine service, it'sGod serving us.
I'm passive in this wholeendeavor.
He's the one that has to showup, work, speak and I have to be
(34:48):
killed so that the new man orwoman can be raised up.
I'm a man, by the way, anyway.
The new woman for you in Christcan be raised up and then I can
be sent out, connected to thegrand love story.
This is the part of the divineservice.
I'm loved, I have a newidentity.
In my invocation I'm remindedwho I am, apart from Christ.
With Christ I'm a new creation.
I'm a saint in the kingdom ofGod, I'm moving out into the
(35:10):
world as one who hears the wordof God and one who is forgiven
of all of my sins.
The two services in the earlychurch we know this historically
to be true is the service ofthe word and the service of the
table Service of the word,service of the table.
And so if you're adding allthese other things, you can add
them, just don't miss it.
(35:31):
They're a means toward the end,which is the supremacy, the
power, the presence of God andhis mission out into the world.
I'll land this this way.
Anytime we put the church andthe way we do things ahead of it
can be a hindrance to theadvancement of the gospel.
Now this is my podcast.
I don't normally touch on LCMSstuff, but you're in our tribe
(35:54):
right now and you brought it up,so I'm going to piggyback
Anytime we make.
This is the way we raise upleaders, the primary way when
Jesus didn't tell, the way theearly church didn't tell, the
way the Lutheran confessionsdon't tell the way.
That's right.
Right, we've turned somethingthat is very much adiaphora,
potentially residential ed orany way that we do ministry in
(36:15):
the local church.
We can turn it into an idol andwe miss the mission.
And it's obviously that thebook, the Bible, is obviously
about the mission to get thegospel into the ears and hearts
of as many people as possible.
Go and make disciples In yourgoing, make disciples.
How do we do it?
We baptize and we teach.
We baptize and we teach.
So yeah, I think we've made itfar too complicated and narrow
(36:39):
when our God is advancing andhe's wide.
Any take on that kind ofresponse, knox?
Speaker 2 (36:46):
No, no, you are right .
Like at the top of my mind, I'mthinking you know where the
Lord is moving his people in theright direction.
The enemy comes in with allspiritual attacks.
Right, I am a diehard LCMS atheart.
I went to the seminary, I workin ministry and I believe that,
(37:11):
truly, the Lord always comesdown to us and we don't do
anything.
It is by grace that we aresaved.
It is the Lord always comesdown to us and we don't do
anything.
It is by grace that we aresaved.
It is the Lord's work and I'mjust a receiver and thanks be to
God for that.
But also I believe that thereis a spiritual attack on all of
us in our synod, where we arejust so blinded and are focusing
(37:36):
on different things so that thegospel doesn't get to be moving
and getting to the people.
So may the Lord resurrect.
May the Lord arouse bold LCMS,brethren, men and women together
, to be praying and intercedingfor the church and the heart of
(37:58):
the church, so that there isroom open for the spirit of the
Lord to come and redirect us towhere he is calling us, not
where our minds and our heartare calling us, because we are
sinful people.
And the focus the journey islong, brother.
The journey is long people, andthe focus the journey is long,
brother, the journey is long,and so during the journey,
(38:18):
there's trees, there's oceans,there's things that are
distracting, but we are calledto look to the cross.
So may we be ushered, throughthe power of the Holy Spirit, to
look to the cross and do theright things.
I wasn't an LCMS.
I'm coming from South Africaand I have become a member of
this church because I reallyhave come to appreciate the
(38:43):
tools that we are using as theexposition of the scripture.
Right, the scripture trumps allthings, but the exposition
tools that we are using to makethe scripture come alive and
contextual for the people,that's what I resonate with.
I recite the creed.
I believe in it because itprofesses the truth.
(39:04):
Right, but?
But it's the Lord's word andit's for all his people.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Yes, Amen you in your talk at Ann Arbor.
You know where do you see?
There are some areas where wecould be collectively greedy
(39:35):
with the gospel knocks.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
Almost in all platforms that are outside of
the church building, we boldlyprofess and confess the word of
God every Sunday.
Uh, but the life of, of of aChristian, of, of a follower of
Christ, of, of a man and a womanwho is enamored by Jesus does
(40:02):
not end Sunday morning afterservice.
Um, we need to be well, I, Icannot say we need.
I would love to see may theLord help us that we become the
people who leave out church fromMonday through Sunday.
Come back Monday, that's one.
(40:22):
We order the gospel by notinviting other people who are
not part of our theology, peoplewho are not a part of us,
neighbors who don't look like us.
Heaven will be shocking for themany of us.
(40:44):
I tell you, brother, there'llbe many who do not look
Anglo-Saxon, typical LCMS, if Imay be so bold.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
No, you can Forgive me saints.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
Forgive me, brethren.
No no but.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
Every nation, tribe and tongue Every nation tribe
and tongue that is the vision.
That is what's going to happen,amen.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Like, hey, we have the Bibles, we have the
catechism, hey, let's sharethese things, let us not limit
them to our schools, our people,our this it's the Lord's, it's
the Lord's people, the Lord'sschools, the Lord's church, so
let us dispense it.
(41:26):
So, to answer your question, Ithink we limit the gospel, or we
hoarder on the gospel in theplaces where we feel
uncomfortable to sit, in theplaces where we are, have fought
so hard to keep pure, clean andholy, as it should be.
But also we can share it from aplace of love and a place of
(42:01):
tenderness, and maybe we need tobe praying that the Lord
burdens us for his people.
Do you get what I'm saying?
Us for His people?
Do you get what I'm saying?
Because maybe we are soconcerned about material things?
Right, our burden is for thematerial and please forgive me,
(42:28):
I'm not trying to trivialize thework that has happened
historically in the LCMS church.
But also, may the Lord burdenus for the people, right,
because it's it's the people whoare the beneficiaries of of
these things and and not thebuildings or the organization.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
And we have some beautiful buildings.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
You know, we do, we do and we.
You know the United States isalmost like the whole world.
Everybody is in this country,but sometimes we are so focused
on oh hey, we got to do amission trip to Africa, a
mission trip to Asia, you knowwhy?
Because when we are there, thenwe know that people will
(43:07):
receive the gospel, because weare coming with something that
they need.
No, we need to be emboldened.
Charity begins at home.
May the Lord embolden us to domissionaries in our backyard,
missionaries at the grocerystore.
Can we maybe start collectingfunds for Costco missionary
trips, ok, or I don't know Rightthat we just go there and be
(43:30):
the gospel.
Go there and be the hands andfeet of Christ.
Right, wherever there is a need, let's get the gospel out there
.
We have the theology, we havethe creeds, we have the
confessions.
They have been passed down tous.
Why is it stopping at us?
If it was passed down, weshouldn't be gatekeepers.
(43:52):
Let's pass it on down.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
Man, this has been so much fun.
Knox, I love the way the Lordmade you.
I want to talk about CUI alittle bit and the heart of
Concordia, and I would say theheart of all of our Concordias
and all of our schools.
You know, lutheran schools areby nature like the heart of our
(44:15):
mission.
Our school here I'm looking atour preschool we know that over
50 of the families don't have achurch home, like that's low
hanging fruit for us to reachwith the gospel.
We have more in our K-8 school.
But Lutheran schools have beentraditionally historically
different because they'remission schools, they're not
covenant schools and one of thetendencies I hear of some is
(44:39):
that our schools are forLutherans by Lutherans.
My goodness, that is not.
That's not the heart of Jesus,let alone the heart of the
Reformation moving the gospel ofgrace forward.
So CUI is a mission firstschool, you know.
So just yeah, just talk aboutwhat God's doing.
Michael Thomas, the president,thomas is a good friend and just
(45:00):
just brag on in the Holy Spirita little bit what God is doing
at CUI.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
I'm gonna start way back when was a student here?
I came from South Africa, 2013,freshman year at Concordia.
And man, what a place.
What a place for me to see thegospel come alive.
(45:24):
The professors, the staff, theylive the gospel.
You know what I mean.
You are not just a face right,you are not just a number.
You are Knox Shabalala Loom,who is a child of God, who is
received, who is known, who isequipped and encouraged and sent
(45:46):
out.
May, even here in our campusministry Abbey West University
Discipleship.
It's your community ofdiscipleship.
We are, by God's grace, shapingand forming students in the
discipleship of Jesus so thatthey go out and leave the Great
Commission in the communities,wherever the Spirit of the Lord
(46:08):
will take them.
I cannot brag enough about thisschool and about the Lord's
mercy in how he orchestrated allthings For me.
Selfishly, right now I'm justgoing to throw myself in the
Jesus story.
It's Jesus's glory all the way,not Knox's.
But I'm so thankful to havebeen called to serve alongside
(46:32):
my brothers and sisters whosepalates are so wet for the Lord
and his word and whose heart areso tender for the people of the
Lord.
To hear the word At chapel, tohear the word in the dorms, at
the cofter, everywhere, man.
In the dorms at the cafeteria,everywhere man.
(46:52):
I feel like, yes, in the mosttender, tenderest.
If there's a word like that ofways you get to hear the gospel
here at Concordia, and sometimesyou don't hear it, brother, you
see it, you see it through theprofessor standing right on the
breezeway and saying hi to youand asking how you doing and
actually waiting to hear,because the tendency is we like
(47:16):
to be people of hey, hi, how areyou doing, but we don't stick
around to hear how the peopleare really doing.
But in this place people stickaround to hear how you're doing
and they come in with an embraceand a prayer and an
encouragement.
What a joy, what a gift.
With an embrace and a prayerand an encouragement, what a joy
, what a gift.
May God continue to beglorified here at CUI as we
(47:37):
faithfully serve in his missionfield.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
Hey, communication department at CUI calling you
out, you can take that clip fromKnox and spread it out, because
who doesn't want to send theirkid to come and hear about Jesus
and to be shaped by professors,presidents, just everyday
followers of Jesus there, byKnox Shabbalala, you are a gift
sister.
I love the way the spirit ofthe risen Jesus rests upon you.
(48:08):
You know.
It says in Ephesians, chapterfour, that he gave the apostles,
prophets, evangelists andpreachers and teachers.
You have a prophetic voice forus right now.
Praise, yeah, praise, god.
You come from outside.
We're welcoming you in, I pray.
We're welcoming many, manyothers that don't look and sound
exactly like us, because thekingdom of God is advancing here
(48:30):
in the United States of America, knox, you know this that don't
look and sound exactly like us,because the kingdom of God is
advancing here in the UnitedStates of America, knox, you
know this.
I think it's between 2040 and2050, the majority of people are
going to be multicultural inthe United States of America.
Like that is a shift.
Are we going to welcome it andall of the different expressions
and the tapestry that's goingto come?
(48:52):
Is it going to be messy for us?
It already is in the LCMSB,we're just trying to figure it
out together, but I pray.
What wins the day is love,courage, peace and the mission
of God advancing, and we get tobe a small part of that big, big
story.
And there has to be what I hearfrom you as well and I share the
same burden there has to be agreater sense of urgency from
(49:14):
leaders at every certain levelto keep the main thing, the main
thing, which is the gospel ofJesus Christ, for the days are
too short and will he come andfind because I take this very
seriously, you know, in the, inthe realm of influence that I
have from my home, all of myvocations as a husband and a
father for you, wife, mother,and then also as a leader within
(49:36):
the church.
Like Jesus says very, very hardthings, it is law that will be
held more accountable for thoseyou know, and far be it from us
to lead little ones or largerones away from the heart and the
foundation which is.
He is a God of love who's madehimself known in Jesus Christ.
Knox, how can people connectwith you, sister, if they desire
(49:57):
to do so?
Speaker 2 (50:00):
Facebook that I seldomly check, but I do check
it.
And email, yes, you can use mypersonal email, which is the
first letter of my name and mylast name at AmericanOnlinecom.
That's my private email.
(50:22):
I will be sure to answer, be itprayer and encouragement or a
conversation or clarification.
Conversation or clarificationit is always my prayer that the
Lord helps me to stay ready, inseason and out of season, to
profess the hope that I have inhim, which is alive and living
and fails us not.
Speaker 1 (50:40):
Thank you, brother, for having me, so I didn't hear.
How many languages do youactually know and speak?
Speaker 2 (50:47):
Well, I come from a country that has 11 official
languages and we learn most ofthem at school.
So in South Africa alone Ispeak nine languages.
Right, but most of them arerelated.
And then I have been blessed toknow German.
I've been blessed to knowMandarin, because I couldn't
(51:08):
survive China without Mandarin.
I've been blessed to knowKorean.
I was once a Sunday schoolteacher at a Korean Lutheran
church.
So, thanks be to God, I'mtrying to learn Spanish.
Speaker 3 (51:25):
I think everybody always asks me here in
California if I know Spanish,and it puts me to shame.
Speaker 2 (51:30):
So maybe that will be the next language.
Speaker 1 (51:34):
You know, like 30 languages.
I mean there should be no shame.
I've never met someone thatknows as many languages as you
do.
So yeah, you're wild Well yeah,well, go to Africa.
Speaker 3 (51:44):
I think many people there speak multiple languages.
We've been blessed with thegift of language.
Speaker 1 (51:50):
Yeah, Thanks to God, the arrogance of the American,
the US culture in particular.
Learn English.
Learn English and people arecoming over like okay, I'll
learn it, I'll learn it sure.
It'll be one of my 15 languages.
You're amazing.
This is the Tim Allman Podcast.
We pray the joy of Jesus, theurgency of Jesus to get all of
(52:11):
God's kids back.
The days are too short to doanything otherwise.
Please like, subscribe, comment.
Wherever it is you take inpodcasts this was actually Knox.
First I told her it won't bethe last, the first podcast
she's ever been on, and I wasexcited for it.
And the Holy Spirit did notdisappoint.
This was a lot of fun.
It's a good day.
Go make it a great day.
Thanks so much, knox.
(52:31):
Amen, Praise God, brother.
Welcome to the Tim Allman Podcast.
It's a beautiful day to bealive.
I pray the joy of Jesus is yourstrength as you buckle up for a
Jesus-filled, HolySpirit-filled conversation today
with my sister in Christ.
Her name is Knox.
Let me tell you a little bitabout her.
She worked in China as anEnglish and a German teacher.
(00:25):
How many languages do you speak, Max?
Quite a few.
Quite a few.
Oh, I'm so envious of that.
That's so good.
She's worked in South Africa ata Lutheran boarding school as a
campus manager during COVIDtime and then, pretty recently,
she moved out with her husband,John, and her eight-month-now
old son, John Loom III, JT.
They came to CUI and she's thedirector of small groups and
(00:49):
connections at ConcordiaUniversity in Irvine, California
.
Knox, how are you doing, sister?
What a joy to be with you today.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
I am so blessed.
What a joy to be here.
This is the day that the Lordhas made, we will rejoice and be
glad in it.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Amen.
So it's a privilege.
So I was so impressed with thepassion that you spoke with when
I first heard you at agathering in Ann Arbor close to
a year ago or so now.
How have you developed thatpassion for bold declaration
about Jesus and his gospel?
Just share a little bit of yourstory there, Nox.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
I wish I could take credit for all of it, but I
think maybe coming from Africa,where the culture is very direct
, you know, people arestraightforward that kind of
helps.
But also, I think, every timewhen I'm meant to speak of the
things of the kingdom, it is nodoubt that the Holy Spirit
(01:46):
emboldens me to speak the truth,but with love and tenderness
and consideration for those whoare around me.
From a life where I was notwalking with Jesus right, and
having been saved later in mylife, it also gives me that
(02:12):
burden, a beautiful burden, toboldly confess and to boldly
speak the gospel of Christ,because it's his gospel.
I'm just a mouthpiece to thepeople so that they too may come
to the knowledge of Jesus, justlike I did when there were bold
missionaries in South Africaproclaiming the gospel to me,
(02:35):
right?
So what I receive I'm passingon, tim.
That's the way it works.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Definitely the trajectory of this whole thing
from Christ to us, to the world.
So you mentioned somethingthat's interesting culturally
around African and direct, morefrank speech.
Could you compare?
Now you've been in the US for awhile, can you compare the
speech, the direct kind of frankspeech, and even some of your
general summaries of why we'renot maybe in your estimation as
(03:03):
direct here in the US?
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Well, first of all, I've gotten into quite a lot of
trouble by just being beingdirect, because for me.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
I'm like, hey, it's, it's honest truth.
You ask me how you look.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
I'm going to tell you how you look, americans are
maybe more polite and more intune with people's feelings and
walking on eggshells andrelationships.
I think maybe the culture isvery diplomatic here, where
people would rather say whatthey think will please the
(03:40):
person and preserve therelationship, as opposed to
maybe sharing the truth and,have you know, ruffle on a few
feathers but maybe give theperson the opportunity to
receive the truth and chew on itand have a conversation that
stems out of that opportunityand which also becomes hard too
(04:03):
sometimes when you share thegospel.
And also maybe this is myobservation, it may not me
anything you know, I know what Iknow and you keep your thoughts
(04:27):
to yourself and things likethat.
But back home, truly, you couldbe on a bus and someone will
meet your team and be like hey,how many children do you have?
Where do you work?
What's your salary?
Like, we get so personal waytoo quick that we don't let
anything become the barrier forbuilding intimate relationships
(04:47):
with the people.
If that answers the question.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Well, it does, and I think we're wrestling as a
church and a church body in theLCMS because now you're a part
of our community with maybe adiscomfort with confronting
harder truths, and I actuallyhave research to prove this
(05:12):
using the Harrison behavioralassessment tool.
It's a secular tool and I'vetalked about it on a lot of a
lot of my podcasts, but thesummary of the research is that
we have welcomed passive,aggressive behavior and our
pastors, unfortunately, becausewe like people and we like
people to like us Right.
(05:33):
That when harder truth comes.
You know we don't necessarilyhandle it well.
We could be overly to use yourphrase diplomatic.
We could be overly diplomaticand what that does for us
culturally is we prioritize ourown source of identity and
protecting my identity with thisgroup of people.
(05:56):
It becomes an idol for us overspeaking the truth with a spirit
of love and receiving it, andgrowing up into Jesus, who is
the head.
I mean Jesus always spoke thetruth with a spirit of love and
receiving it.
And growing up into Jesus, whois the head.
I mean Jesus always spoke thetruth in love.
Jesus is way more concernedabout how the father views him,
the mission that the father hascalled him to the.
Pharisees tendency, and I thinkin our, in our tribe, we have a
(06:18):
pharisaical trend and tendencyfrom time to time to prioritize
things that are neithercommanded nor forbidden to
define our righteousness, ouridentity and I'm talking about
worship here and doing worshipthe right way, yes, and then
prioritizing maybe therelationship with the individual
over the relationship thatflows from God, because I think,
(06:41):
while your culture may beslightly overly frank and you,
there's a line and you can, youcan definitely cross it here in
America.
I couldn't agree more.
We're, and especially in theChristian church and in the LCMS
specifically we go, we'reoverly, overly diplomatic and
that hurts us in addressing whatis obviously a struggle in the
room.
Any observations there?
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Knox as you're entering into our tribe.
Yeah, I mean, even now, as Iserve in ministry here, I mentor
a lot of college students andthey will come to my office for
spiritual care, for mentorshipand discipleship.
And there'll be times when I gohome and I call my husband.
I'm like man.
I had such a stern conversationwith so-and-so and I don't know
(07:23):
if they'll ever come back to myoffice.
But I have learned that youngpeople appreciate that more in
ministry, just a directconversation of saying, hey,
like what, would it help you togain the whole world while
losing your soul in the process?
Right, like, let's come back.
What is the Lord saying aboutthese things in His process?
(07:44):
Right, like, let's come back.
What is the Lord saying aboutthese things in his word?
Right, what are we being called?
As opposed to just saying, oh,hey, I'm struggling with sin,
but hey, where sin abounds,grace abounds all the more.
No, that is a lie that the enemyhas made us buy into so that we
stay in bondage, tim, and wenever actually accept or leave
(08:08):
out the truth.
Right, the gospel that isworthy of the calling that we
have received.
We don't get that opportunitybecause we are focused on
ourselves.
I always tell my students I'mlike, hey, once you start
looking within, your eyes are nolonger on the cross, it's all
you.
Then the spirit of the Lord hasno room there to shape and mold
(08:30):
and sanctify you into theperson that the Lord is calling
you to become, so that he canuse you as his vessel, because
we're all his conduits.
At the end of the day, we arehere to do the work of the Lord.
Of course, we leave and we aremarried to the glory of God,
right, but it's all for the sakeof the gospel team yes, and so,
(08:51):
yeah, so that's what I'velearned.
I'm just like, hey, I'm justgoing to speak the truth, I'll
be direct, hey, it's better to.
I have found that it's betterto ask for forgiveness right
Than to withhold the truth butthen go home with a heavy heart
of saying man, I didn't tellthat person the truth because I
was trying to save face.
(09:11):
Do you get what I'm saying?
So it's better to tell thetruth and let the spirit of the
Lord move in the way that heintends and help you find favor
in the people whom you aredelivering the truth to.
It's all about Jesus.
It's all about Jesus.
It's all about his gospel.
There is truth that penetratesall hearts, that calls us out,
calls us on.
It's just the gospel.
(09:37):
If we speak the gospel withhumbleness and we are out of the
way, right, without judgment.
Because sometimes I should alsosay that, just because Africans
are direct and straightforward,that just because Africans are
direct and straightforward,sometimes we also err in sitting
in the judgment seat and we arepointing fingers at our
brothers and sisters, forgettingthat the rest of the fingers
are pointing back at us, right,it's easy for us to take the
speck out of our brother's eyeand forget our own speck too
(10:01):
right.
And so, with humbleness andgentleness, and putting yourself
in the shoes of hey, how wouldI receive this gospel of Christ
if it was spoken to me?
Then it helps you to be able todeliver that with gentleness,
because even Jesus, Jesus was sobold, but everything that he
(10:22):
did, he did it with so much love.
So bold, but everything that hedid, he did it with so much
love, a touch, an embrace, alooking into people and
listening in a leaning forwardteam and not just sitting up
there making decisions andpointing fingers and thinking he
runs the world.
We didn't learn that from Jesus.
It's from our own sinfulness assons of Adam right.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Facts we need the second Adam Knox, and the height
of his power was shown in aRoman Adam right.
Facts we need the second AdamKnox and the height of his power
was shown in a Roman crossright.
And we're hanging in.
So self-consciousness andselfishness.
Is sin?
A man or woman right turned inor on themselves?
How am I going to be receivedright now?
No, no, no.
The call of Jesus is up and out, it's upward, it's toward the
(11:06):
cross and it's living in theresurrection power which allows
us to speak words that, yeah,that can be law, can be hard,
but that draw people near thatwe pray for repentance and
confession.
Luther says that the Christianlife is always a life of
repenting.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
So when a?
Speaker 1 (11:21):
hard word.
When I give a hard word or ahard word comes to me, I'm not
surprised.
I know I'm riddled with sin andI know I've been called up and
out of that sin by the mercy andgrace of God.
So I'm praying, I'm right therewith you and I'm a fellow fast
talker, recovering.
I'm still working, just likeyou, man, you get on this kind
of role.
But yeah, I think and as aparent I've come to know this
(11:42):
and as your young jt, as hestarts to grow like we, we don't
.
One of my favorite lines fromuh, we don't allow things that
we don't like to take place inour kids.
Why would?
Why would?
you do that on your team withgod's kids at cy why would I do
that?
Yeah, if there's inappropriatebehavior in a room like let just
let's just call it out rightnow in love, and I send a lot of
(12:05):
those emails for me.
I send corrective emails.
This happened in this space,it's not necessarily just at you
.
There may have been a person ora group that was trying to
bring division or whatever, butthis sort of behavior is not
welcomed here.
Don't let your kids do thingsthat make you dislike them.
That's right.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
So this is going to be helpful.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
This is going to be helpful for you and the Lord.
It's all the Lord's work.
The Lord calls to repentancethose whom he loves.
Yeah, Right.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
The Lord disciplines those whom he loves, so anyhow,
this is a great conversation.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Let's get into your deeper story.
That's right, and some of ourguests may wonder why I didn't
say your last name.
It's because it's Shabalala.
Am I saying that?
Speaker 2 (12:49):
right, you said it perfectly Shabalala, yeah,
shabalala.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
And your full name.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
My full name is Nogukanya Shabalala.
Shabalala is my maiden name andI'm married to a loom.
So now I'm Nogukanya loom, butShabalala is my maiden name and
I'm married to a loom.
So now I'm Nogukanya loom, butShabalala means to disappear and
Nogukanya means the one whocarries light.
So I'm glad I married into aloom, right Like loom loom.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
To illuminate.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
Yep, so that we get rid of that disappear, because
we don't want the light todisappear.
No, we don't.
No, we don't.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
We wanted to we get rid of that.
Disappear, because we don'twant the light to disappear.
No, we don't.
No, we don't, we want it toilluminate the world in Jesus
name.
So tell us your backgroundconnected to ancestral worship.
This is fascinating Ancestralworship in South Africa and I'd
also love to hear, then, howthat journey led you from China.
You were in East St Louis forjust a short time as well, and
then to Concordia, irvine.
But let's talk about ancestralworship.
This is a topic that I havenever dealt with on my podcast,
(13:49):
so thanks for getting us behindthe curtain of that cultural
religious tendency.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Oh yeah.
So this is a culture that'sactually prevalent in a lot of
other cultures, tim, even inAsia, where we venerate the dead
people.
But the way maybe let me justbuild a picture right.
(14:12):
So in Christianity we have gotthe Father, got the Son, who is
the mediator between us and theFather, and then the Holy Spirit
.
But in the ancestral worship inSouth Africa we have God and we
have the ancestors who are ourmediator.
Right, and that's where it kindof stops, right, and we believe
(14:36):
that the people that havepassed on, right, these
ancestors, have the power.
They have the power to bringgood fortune and misfortune to
the people.
It's all about just playing bythe rules.
There's not much grace there.
It's really a religion of justworks.
(14:56):
You do this so that God, thecreator he's not necessarily
Yahweh, the God that we havecome to know who's the creator
of all things and who has madepeople in his image, right, but
we have a creator who we believehas made the earth and all the
things that are in there, butwho has power but is not as
(15:20):
powerful as the ancestors.
I think the paradigm there is alittle toppled, where the
ancestors now kind of seem tohave more power than the God of
our religion, because they caninfluence the way that he thinks
and the way that he treats hispeople.
Where else the line gets alsojust blurry, because the focus
(15:44):
becomes so honed in on theancestors and what they demand,
right?
So there's a lot of animalsacrifices, there's a lot of
rituals that take place, tim, sothat we figure out why this
person is sick, why there'scalamities in the family, and if
(16:06):
we slaughter a cow, there's abelief that we appease them,
right, so that they bring aboutgood fortune in the family and
things like that.
So that's basically in anutshell.
I'm just speaking fromexperience, so, never having
read any books that I read inwhere people are able to explain
(16:26):
it sophisticatedly, but fromour experience and what I grew
up with at home, that has beenthe life.
It's a life of fear, tim,because you are walking on
eggshells.
There is also a human mediator,because the ancestors are dead,
so there's no way that we canhear from them.
So there are people in ourlives, in our community, who
(16:50):
receive the gift to be seers,right, who can see in the
underworld.
So then they are the ones whospeak to the ancestors on our
behalf, right.
Sometimes the ancestors willcome to us.
The belief is that they willcome to us in dreams and all of
that.
But we need the overseer tointerpret the dream, to inquire
(17:13):
as to why we received the dreamand what needs to happen thereof
.
So then there's always a bloodsacrifice either cow or goat,
right, they like candy, theylike cool drinks, soda, cool
drinks, you know.
So those things are put there.
(17:33):
Every homestead has a hut right,so it's a little house, right,
they're designated to theancestors and the rituals.
So whatever has to happen, theritual happens right there, at
the corner of the heart, rightwhen the incense are burnt, and
we believe that the fragrance ofthe incense then appeases the
(17:56):
ancestors.
It's almost like the OldTestament, right, where the
enemy uses something that wasintended for good right To
confuse us so that we becomefurther and further away from
salvation.
And thanks be to God that theSpirit of the Lord came to me
(18:16):
through the missionaries whowere sharing the gospel and the
shackles fell off my eyes and Icould see and I could receive
the truth and I could be saved.
But my heart is still burdenedfor the many people, tim who,
who are back home, the wholecontinent, actually, where
there's churches, churches thatare worshiping Jesus and the
(18:39):
ancestors.
Because it is so hard to do thatseparation?
It's difficult because, firstly, remember these are the people
that we know, they lived amongus, so it is so easy for us to
trust that what they say is true, as opposed to believing Jesus
the foreign ancestor.
(19:00):
Do you get what I'm saying?
Even though some churchesbelieve that Jesus himself is an
ancestor, a special kind though, because we know him not to be
dead.
He is alive and living and hesits at the right hand of God,
the Father Almighty.
He is no ancestor at all.
He's alive and living.
But there's still a confusionthere, as people are trying to
(19:21):
dabble between the things thatthey know, because we want to
hold on to the familiar right,because it's so easy to faith in
the familiar than to faith inthe unknown right.
Faith is the.
You believe in the unseen asthough it is real.
That's so hard.
But for me to know oh hey, youknow what I believe in my
(19:41):
grandfather he lived in thishomestead, he was alive and
living and he supported thisfamily oh, that's easy for me to
do than to believe in the Jesuswhom I have never seen right
and to trust in the Jesus whom Ihave never seen right and to
trust in the Jesus whom I havenever seen.
(20:04):
But also speaking of thesethings, tim, there is also
another component that makes itso difficult for the many people
in countries that werecolonized right To embrace
Yahweh, to embrace Jesus, theson of God, to embrace the Holy
Spirit, the Comforter, becauseof the behavior of the people
who came and introduced him.
You know my sweet dad up to hispassing he never accepted the
(20:27):
gospel team because the peoplewho introduced him to Jesus
would also abuse him, would beathim up and all of.
And I didn't know that becausewhen I became a Christian he had
never spoken about these things, he had disowned me.
But it was later in the years,during the COVID times, and I
(20:48):
know the COVID times were such apain and a tragedy for many
families and nations.
But it allowed me anopportunity to sit with my dad
and ask these questions and thenI learned that no, no, no, no,
it wasn't because he didn't wantJesus, but it is because his
experience tied to theintroduction of Jesus was
(21:10):
through a man who would beat himup, not give him food, but then
also force them to sit fordevotion.
Do you get what I'm saying?
So then there's a distort,there's a disconnection right
there to say well, how is thisGod, the God of love, whose
mercy endures forever?
Speaker 3 (21:32):
How does he take it to the cross to die for me, for
my sins, so that if and when Icome to believe that?
Speaker 2 (21:40):
he is the Savior, the author and the finisher of my
faith.
How is he such love?
When the people who are hisvessel are full of hate and
malice and are divisive andthings like that right.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
We have taken the gospel of the Lord and have made
it what it is not.
We have made it what it is not.
Jesus is love and he wantseverybody to come to him,
whether they are theologicallyinformed and theologically sound
or not.
He wants all of us to be savedand I believe with my own heart
(22:21):
that if I sit in heaven therewill be no theology class.
He will not be asking mewhether I understood all the
heresies.
Do I know what is Adiaphora?
What is adiaphora and all ofthose things?
Speaker 2 (22:40):
All he will want is to know whether I believe that
Jesus is the son of God, whodied for the sins of the world,
the author and the finisher ofour fate.
It is by grace that we havebeen saved like nothing else,
right?
So that's one of the issues.
Back at home, even though thegospel is prevailing and the
churches are booming, there'sstill a distort and a confusion
(23:04):
where the theology is not assound and as pure as we have
come to have it here in America.
Because we are blessed Maybenot just America both the East
and the West.
You guys are blessed withseminaries, with Greek and
Hebrew, with the languages tounderstand the origin of things.
In other countries, people haveno Bible written in their own
(23:29):
language.
Do you know what a gift it wasfor me to read the Word of God
in my own language, even thoughI received it in English?
Okay, to receive a Zulu Bibleand read in my language what the
Lord has to say about life,about me and about so many
(23:56):
things that I wrestle with.
What a gift, what a gift.
And we are wasting time wastingtime, if I may be so bold.
We are wasting time trying tofigure out what kind of organ do
we need in the church, insteadof maybe coming together as the
brethren and and getting theword out there?
The word need to be cast, theseed needs to go out out there.
We need to plant it for thepeople of the lord to come to
the knowledge of jesus.
Jesus needs to be lifted up,just just as Moses lifted up
(24:18):
that serpent in the wildernessand those who look to it were
delivered from the venom of thesnake.
Like we need to be liftingJesus up so that Jesus draws his
people to himself, not to thedenomination.
It is well and good.
Oh my gosh.
Oh yes, of course.
Course we can use denominationsas a pathway to filter people
(24:39):
into the kingdom of God.
That is okay.
But then, once we start usingit as a hindrance to filtering
people into the kingdom, then wehave opened a gateway for the
enemy to disrupt us so that theLord doesn't get his will to
come to pass through us, todisrupt us, so that the Lord
doesn't get his will to come topass through us, you're amazing.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
The Holy Spirit that rests upon you is extra ordinary
.
Praise be to God, and that isgrounded in your story.
And what are some of the?
I just overwhelmed with thegoodness of God, and listen to
you share your story.
What are some ways that you'veseen are helpful?
(25:21):
Obviously, a way of power, theway of power, the way of might,
the way of shame.
These are not the way of fear,these are not the ways of Jesus,
nor the way of our God, whoseprimary disposition toward us is
love.
But how have you seen winsomeways in for those that are
(25:45):
wrestling with ancestral worship?
Because I think still today,while it may be more behind the
scenes, it still is, you know,mediating through.
I think we have direct access.
I love that, that the veil hasbeen torn, we now have direct
access to the love of God in theperson and work of.
Jesus and now we have the HolySpirit.
But what are the helpful ways,the kind ways that you've
(26:06):
experienced and are seeking tolive out, for those who may be
more prone to worship theirancestors rather than the Triune
God their ancestors?
Speaker 2 (26:15):
rather than the Triune God, some of the ways
that I've seen, because alsoI've come afar with being an
evangelist in my family, if Imay put it that way, where I've
been sharing the gospel but theties are so strong.
(26:36):
But I believe that the HolySpirit has the power to break
these chains, to free peoplefrom the bondage and usher them
into the kingdom of Christ.
But patience and boldlyproclaiming at all times, but
also team, the greatest and thesad part is some people won't
(26:56):
get to open the Bible.
They read us right.
So our behavior, the way wewalk into these situations, the
way I'm taking it out of theancestral context now, but even
here in the US, the way weinteract with our neighbors that
don't look like us, right, theway we interact with our
neighbors that don't look likeus right, the way that we
(27:22):
interact with people of otherdenominations that don't profess
the creeds that we profess,right, how are we a true
representation of Christ?
How do we allow the Holy Spiritto use us, even in our weakness
, team, to use us to draw thepeople of Christ to Jesus?
Right, so persistent, boldlyprofessing.
(27:43):
But also the thing that we doless, that we should do more, is
praying behind the scenes,right, we don't pray as much.
We plan.
We are very programmatic.
We put a lot of programs whichare great, and and the Lord is
able to use these programs to,to, to, to, to get to his people
(28:06):
.
And thanks be to God because hedoesn't look at our weakness,
right, and just sits there andtoss his hands up in the.
I'm like, what do I do withthese humans?
But he uses all of those thingsbut maybe pray.
We need to be a church thatprays for its people.
We need to be a church thatprays for the salvation of the
(28:28):
people, the church that praysfor the gospel of the Lord to
penetrate the hearts of men sothat men can hear the word and
come to the knowledge of Jesus.
We need to pray instead ofwriting programs.
We need to bring people into acommunity of prayer, a community
of worship, a community that isembracing, a community that is
(28:50):
not afraid.
The enemy has planted a seed offear that we are so afraid for
anything that doesn't smell,that doesn't sound LCMS, that
doesn't look LCMS, as if thekingdom of God is dependent upon
those things.
No, the kingdom of God ismovable and shakable.
It is not held by our theologyand I'm saying this with so much
(29:13):
sensitivity and so much loveand so much grace but it's not
dependent upon these things.
It is alive and living.
It's who it is.
We are the people of the gospel.
It's who we be.
We just share the gospel.
Share the gospel and stopfocusing on these building
blocks.
Don't hear me wrong.
(29:34):
Now I'm not saying obliteratethe building blocks.
All right, keep the buildingblocks, but do not focus on them
, because they have derailed usfor so long.
Our churches are getting oldand some of them are dying and
some of them are shutting down.
We are losing the buildingswhere we could be inviting
(29:56):
people into.
Okay, fine, jesus doesn't sitin the building.
He is omnipotent, omnipresent,omniscient.
Okay, we could gather here inmy office and the Spirit of the
Lord will just be as presenthere and the gospel will just be
as alive and living and assharper as the double-edged
sword.
Right, but no, let's not beafraid.
(30:18):
Why are we so afraid?
Because I'm talking to you, butalso my heart is shaking.
But why are we so afraid tolose the very thing that we
believe is true?
Right, because if you are oneperson who has the cure, why do
(30:39):
you hoarder on the cure right?
Everyone is dying around you.
No, share the cure right.
Share it If we believe that wehave found the truth in the
creeds and in the confessionsand in the scriptures.
Open the gates, wide open.
(31:00):
Open up the gates.
You know, to quote Frozen, havethe people come so that people
can find the truth.
But if we're doing this, tim,if we're hiding the truth, no
one gets it and by the time werealize it may be too late.
And I hope that we don't get tothe too late.
(31:21):
I hope that the spirit of theLord may cultivate our hearts
and give us a burden that evenwhen we are sleeping he comes
and he keeps us awake, beingburdened by the fear.
The Lord did not give us thespirit of fear, right, but of
power and a sound mind and oflove.
(31:41):
Okay, so that's yeah.
Let me reel it in.
Let me reel it in brother, comeon in Chime, in Chime in.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
So I'll add that anytime we become wet, it seems
like this is what Jesus is doingwith the Pharisees.
Why do your disciples not washtheir hands?
Don't you know that the goodJew washes their hands?
And Jesus, obviously because heknows the heart which we don't
(32:13):
always know, the heart of ourbrother or sister, jesus.
Jesus knows the heart which wedon't always know, the heart of
our brother or sister, jesusknows the heart.
He's concerned about our heart.
You turn the traditions of meninto the commandments of God.
We turn rituals and the way wedo it as a distinguisher that
we're more righteous and for us,as Lutherans, more Lutheran or
(32:36):
even the right type of Lutheran,and I don't know why we can't
see this is the Pharisaicaltendency.
And to move out with, becauseJesus says this is what defiles
a man right, not what comes intohim, but what comes out of him
and he's concerned about a heartwhere there's envy, dissension,
(32:58):
slandering, adultery.
All of these things come out ofthe heart and Jesus is in the
business of cleansing our hearts, which gives us great freedom.
Like I've been, the shackles,the burden, the heaviness, the
slavery of my sin has beennailed to the cross.
With Jesus Christ, I no longerlive, he lives within me.
Slavery of my sin has beennailed to the cross with Jesus
Christ.
I no longer live, he liveswithin me.
And so then I move out into theworld looking at some of the
(33:19):
rituals that we have, and if itisn't serving as a means toward
the end, which is the end, isthe advancement of the kingdom
of God, if the ritual doesn'tserve as an advancement toward,
then the ritual is wrong.
Luther.
So this was audacious.
There's some things I justlearned recently.
I'm always learning thingsabout.
Luther had quite a story.
Do you know that corporatesinging in the Western church
(33:41):
wasn't a thing until MartinLuther gave permission for
people to sing, which is prayingtwice?
All it was was chanting andthen choir pieces.
But Luther turned us into asinging church, a joy-filled
church.
Confession and absolution hasradically evolved its role.
It has its origin actually inpenance and then satisfying a
(34:04):
God through our works, which isobviously not by grace.
And then it used to be thatpeople were coming for private
confession and absolution inpreparation for the Lord's
Supper.
We turned it into a liturgy.
One of the ways that and thisis not bad one of the ways that
we confess our sins corporately,but unfortunately the private
care and prayer and forgivenessfor the individual or for the
(34:27):
family that largely has beentaken out of our culture.
And so all of the ways in whichthe best part of our rituals it
is God serving us.
This is why I'm a Lutheran right.
It's the divine service, it'sGod serving us.
I'm passive in this wholeendeavor.
He's the one that has to showup, work, speak and I have to be
(34:48):
killed so that the new man orwoman can be raised up.
I'm a man, by the way, anyway.
The new woman for you in Christcan be raised up and then I can
be sent out, connected to thegrand love story.
This is the part of the divineservice.
I'm loved, I have a newidentity.
In my invocation I'm remindedwho I am, apart from Christ.
With Christ I'm a new creation.
I'm a saint in the kingdom ofGod, I'm moving out into the
(35:10):
world as one who hears the wordof God and one who is forgiven
of all of my sins.
The two services in the earlychurch we know this historically
to be true is the service ofthe word and the service of the
table Service of the word,service of the table.
And so if you're adding allthese other things, you can add
them, just don't miss it.
(35:31):
They're a means toward the end,which is the supremacy, the
power, the presence of God andhis mission out into the world.
I'll land this this way.
Anytime we put the church andthe way we do things ahead of it
can be a hindrance to theadvancement of the gospel.
Now this is my podcast.
I don't normally touch on LCMSstuff, but you're in our tribe
(35:54):
right now and you brought it up,so I'm going to piggyback
Anytime we make.
This is the way we raise upleaders, the primary way when
Jesus didn't tell, the way theearly church didn't tell, the
way the Lutheran confessionsdon't tell the way.
That's right.
Right, we've turned somethingthat is very much adiaphora,
potentially residential ed orany way that we do ministry in
(36:15):
the local church.
We can turn it into an idol andwe miss the mission.
And it's obviously that thebook, the Bible, is obviously
about the mission to get thegospel into the ears and hearts
of as many people as possible.
Go and make disciples In yourgoing, make disciples.
How do we do it?
We baptize and we teach.
We baptize and we teach.
So yeah, I think we've made itfar too complicated and narrow
(36:39):
when our God is advancing andhe's wide.
Any take on that kind ofresponse, knox?
Speaker 2 (36:46):
No, no, you are right .
Like at the top of my mind, I'mthinking you know where the
Lord is moving his people in theright direction.
The enemy comes in with allspiritual attacks.
Right, I am a diehard LCMS atheart.
I went to the seminary, I workin ministry and I believe that,
(37:11):
truly, the Lord always comesdown to us and we don't do
anything.
It is by grace that we aresaved.
It is the Lord always comesdown to us and we don't do
anything.
It is by grace that we aresaved.
It is the Lord's work and I'mjust a receiver and thanks be to
God for that.
But also I believe that thereis a spiritual attack on all of
us in our synod, where we arejust so blinded and are focusing
(37:36):
on different things so that thegospel doesn't get to be moving
and getting to the people.
So may the Lord resurrect.
May the Lord arouse bold LCMS,brethren, men and women together
, to be praying and intercedingfor the church and the heart of
(37:58):
the church, so that there isroom open for the spirit of the
Lord to come and redirect us towhere he is calling us, not
where our minds and our heartare calling us, because we are
sinful people.
And the focus the journey islong, brother.
The journey is long people, andthe focus the journey is long,
brother, the journey is long,and so during the journey,
(38:18):
there's trees, there's oceans,there's things that are
distracting, but we are calledto look to the cross.
So may we be ushered, throughthe power of the Holy Spirit, to
look to the cross and do theright things.
I wasn't an LCMS.
I'm coming from South Africaand I have become a member of
this church because I reallyhave come to appreciate the
(38:43):
tools that we are using as theexposition of the scripture.
Right, the scripture trumps allthings, but the exposition
tools that we are using to makethe scripture come alive and
contextual for the people,that's what I resonate with.
I recite the creed.
I believe in it because itprofesses the truth.
(39:04):
Right, but?
But it's the Lord's word andit's for all his people.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Yes, Amen you in your talk at Ann Arbor.
You know where do you see?
There are some areas where wecould be collectively greedy
(39:35):
with the gospel knocks.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
Almost in all platforms that are outside of
the church building, we boldlyprofess and confess the word of
God every Sunday.
Uh, but the life of, of of aChristian, of, of a follower of
Christ, of, of a man and a womanwho is enamored by Jesus does
(40:02):
not end Sunday morning afterservice.
Um, we need to be well, I, Icannot say we need.
I would love to see may theLord help us that we become the
people who leave out church fromMonday through Sunday.
Come back Monday, that's one.
(40:22):
We order the gospel by notinviting other people who are
not part of our theology, peoplewho are not a part of us,
neighbors who don't look like us.
Heaven will be shocking for themany of us.
(40:44):
I tell you, brother, there'llbe many who do not look
Anglo-Saxon, typical LCMS, if Imay be so bold.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
No, you can Forgive me saints.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
Forgive me, brethren.
No no but.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
Every nation, tribe and tongue Every nation tribe
and tongue that is the vision.
That is what's going to happen,amen.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Like, hey, we have the Bibles, we have the
catechism, hey, let's sharethese things, let us not limit
them to our schools, our people,our this it's the Lord's, it's
the Lord's people, the Lord'sschools, the Lord's church, so
let us dispense it.
(41:26):
So, to answer your question, Ithink we limit the gospel, or we
hoarder on the gospel in theplaces where we feel
uncomfortable to sit, in theplaces where we are, have fought
so hard to keep pure, clean andholy, as it should be.
But also we can share it from aplace of love and a place of
(42:01):
tenderness, and maybe we need tobe praying that the Lord
burdens us for his people.
Do you get what I'm saying?
Us for His people?
Do you get what I'm saying?
Because maybe we are soconcerned about material things?
Right, our burden is for thematerial and please forgive me,
(42:28):
I'm not trying to trivialize thework that has happened
historically in the LCMS church.
But also, may the Lord burdenus for the people, right,
because it's it's the people whoare the beneficiaries of of
these things and and not thebuildings or the organization.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
And we have some beautiful buildings.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
You know, we do, we do and we.
You know the United States isalmost like the whole world.
Everybody is in this country,but sometimes we are so focused
on oh hey, we got to do amission trip to Africa, a
mission trip to Asia, you knowwhy?
Because when we are there, thenwe know that people will
(43:07):
receive the gospel, because weare coming with something that
they need.
No, we need to be emboldened.
Charity begins at home.
May the Lord embolden us to domissionaries in our backyard,
missionaries at the grocerystore.
Can we maybe start collectingfunds for Costco missionary
trips, ok, or I don't know Rightthat we just go there and be
(43:30):
the gospel.
Go there and be the hands andfeet of Christ.
Right, wherever there is a need, let's get the gospel out there
.
We have the theology, we havethe creeds, we have the
confessions.
They have been passed down tous.
Why is it stopping at us?
If it was passed down, weshouldn't be gatekeepers.
(43:52):
Let's pass it on down.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
Man, this has been so much fun.
Knox, I love the way the Lordmade you.
I want to talk about CUI alittle bit and the heart of
Concordia, and I would say theheart of all of our Concordias
and all of our schools.
You know, lutheran schools areby nature like the heart of our
(44:15):
mission.
Our school here I'm looking atour preschool we know that over
50 of the families don't have achurch home, like that's low
hanging fruit for us to reachwith the gospel.
We have more in our K-8 school.
But Lutheran schools have beentraditionally historically
different because they'remission schools, they're not
covenant schools and one of thetendencies I hear of some is
(44:39):
that our schools are forLutherans by Lutherans.
My goodness, that is not.
That's not the heart of Jesus,let alone the heart of the
Reformation moving the gospel ofgrace forward.
So CUI is a mission firstschool, you know.
So just yeah, just talk aboutwhat God's doing.
Michael Thomas, the president,thomas is a good friend and just
(45:00):
just brag on in the Holy Spirita little bit what God is doing
at CUI.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
I'm gonna start way back when was a student here?
I came from South Africa, 2013,freshman year at Concordia.
And man, what a place.
What a place for me to see thegospel come alive.
(45:24):
The professors, the staff, theylive the gospel.
You know what I mean.
You are not just a face right,you are not just a number.
You are Knox Shabalala Loom,who is a child of God, who is
received, who is known, who isequipped and encouraged and sent
(45:46):
out.
May, even here in our campusministry Abbey West University
Discipleship.
It's your community ofdiscipleship.
We are, by God's grace, shapingand forming students in the
discipleship of Jesus so thatthey go out and leave the Great
Commission in the communities,wherever the Spirit of the Lord
(46:08):
will take them.
I cannot brag enough about thisschool and about the Lord's
mercy in how he orchestrated allthings For me.
Selfishly, right now I'm justgoing to throw myself in the
Jesus story.
It's Jesus's glory all the way,not Knox's.
But I'm so thankful to havebeen called to serve alongside
(46:32):
my brothers and sisters whosepalates are so wet for the Lord
and his word and whose heart areso tender for the people of the
Lord.
To hear the word At chapel, tohear the word in the dorms, at
the cofter, everywhere, man.
In the dorms at the cafeteria,everywhere man.
(46:52):
I feel like, yes, in the mosttender, tenderest.
If there's a word like that ofways you get to hear the gospel
here at Concordia, and sometimesyou don't hear it, brother, you
see it, you see it through theprofessor standing right on the
breezeway and saying hi to youand asking how you doing and
actually waiting to hear,because the tendency is we like
(47:16):
to be people of hey, hi, how areyou doing, but we don't stick
around to hear how the peopleare really doing.
But in this place people stickaround to hear how you're doing
and they come in with an embraceand a prayer and an
encouragement.
What a joy, what a gift.
With an embrace and a prayerand an encouragement, what a joy
, what a gift.
May God continue to beglorified here at CUI as we
(47:37):
faithfully serve in his missionfield.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
Hey, communication department at CUI calling you
out, you can take that clip fromKnox and spread it out, because
who doesn't want to send theirkid to come and hear about Jesus
and to be shaped by professors,presidents, just everyday
followers of Jesus there, byKnox Shabbalala, you are a gift
sister.
I love the way the spirit ofthe risen Jesus rests upon you.
(48:08):
You know.
It says in Ephesians, chapterfour, that he gave the apostles,
prophets, evangelists andpreachers and teachers.
You have a prophetic voice forus right now.
Praise, yeah, praise, god.
You come from outside.
We're welcoming you in, I pray.
We're welcoming many, manyothers that don't look and sound
exactly like us, because thekingdom of God is advancing here
(48:30):
in the United States of America, knox, you know this that don't
look and sound exactly like us,because the kingdom of God is
advancing here in the UnitedStates of America, knox, you
know this.
I think it's between 2040 and2050, the majority of people are
going to be multicultural inthe United States of America.
Like that is a shift.
Are we going to welcome it andall of the different expressions
and the tapestry that's goingto come?
(48:52):
Is it going to be messy for us?
It already is in the LCMSB,we're just trying to figure it
out together, but I pray.
What wins the day is love,courage, peace and the mission
of God advancing, and we get tobe a small part of that big, big
story.
And there has to be what I hearfrom you as well and I share the
same burden there has to be agreater sense of urgency from
(49:14):
leaders at every certain levelto keep the main thing, the main
thing, which is the gospel ofJesus Christ, for the days are
too short and will he come andfind because I take this very
seriously, you know, in the, inthe realm of influence that I
have from my home, all of myvocations as a husband and a
father for you, wife, mother,and then also as a leader within
(49:36):
the church.
Like Jesus says very, very hardthings, it is law that will be
held more accountable for thoseyou know, and far be it from us
to lead little ones or largerones away from the heart and the
foundation which is.
He is a God of love who's madehimself known in Jesus Christ.
Knox, how can people connectwith you, sister, if they desire
(49:57):
to do so?
Speaker 2 (50:00):
Facebook that I seldomly check, but I do check
it.
And email, yes, you can use mypersonal email, which is the
first letter of my name and mylast name at AmericanOnlinecom.
That's my private email.
(50:22):
I will be sure to answer, be itprayer and encouragement or a
conversation or clarification.
Conversation or clarificationit is always my prayer that the
Lord helps me to stay ready, inseason and out of season, to
profess the hope that I have inhim, which is alive and living
and fails us not.
Speaker 1 (50:40):
Thank you, brother, for having me, so I didn't hear.
How many languages do youactually know and speak?
Speaker 2 (50:47):
Well, I come from a country that has 11 official
languages and we learn most ofthem at school.
So in South Africa alone Ispeak nine languages.
Right, but most of them arerelated.
And then I have been blessed toknow German.
I've been blessed to knowMandarin, because I couldn't
(51:08):
survive China without Mandarin.
I've been blessed to knowKorean.
I was once a Sunday schoolteacher at a Korean Lutheran
church.
So, thanks be to God, I'mtrying to learn Spanish.
Speaker 3 (51:25):
I think everybody always asks me here in
California if I know Spanish,and it puts me to shame.
Speaker 2 (51:30):
So maybe that will be the next language.
Speaker 1 (51:34):
You know, like 30 languages.
I mean there should be no shame.
I've never met someone thatknows as many languages as you
do.
So yeah, you're wild Well yeah,well, go to Africa.
Speaker 3 (51:44):
I think many people there speak multiple languages.
We've been blessed with thegift of language.
Speaker 1 (51:50):
Yeah, Thanks to God, the arrogance of the American,
the US culture in particular.
Learn English.
Learn English and people arecoming over like okay, I'll
learn it, I'll learn it sure.
It'll be one of my 15 languages.
You're amazing.
This is the Tim Allman Podcast.
We pray the joy of Jesus, theurgency of Jesus to get all of
(52:11):
God's kids back.
The days are too short to doanything otherwise.
Please like, subscribe, comment.
Wherever it is you take inpodcasts this was actually Knox.
First I told her it won't bethe last, the first podcast
she's ever been on, and I wasexcited for it.
And the Holy Spirit did notdisappoint.
This was a lot of fun.
It's a good day.
Go make it a great day.
Thanks so much, knox.
(52:31):
Amen, Praise God, brother.
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