The Mystery of God's Word: Insights from Bible 101

The discussion presented in this episode revolves around the authorship and purpose of the book "Bible 101," co-authored by Dr. Peter Link and Dr. Edward Gravely. They articulate the necessity of this work in addressing the prevalent issue of biblical illiteracy within contemporary Christian communities. The authors aim to provide a comprehensive yet accessible overview of the Scriptures, facilitating a deeper understanding for both novices and seasoned readers alike. Additionally, the episode features an engaging "Bible Speed Round," where the guests succinctly respond to various questions related to biblical themes and interpretations. Through this dialogue, we are invited to explore the foundational aspects of the Bible that unite Christians across diverse traditions.

Dr. Peter Link and Dr. Edward Gravely engage in a compelling dialogue regarding their co-authored work, "Bible 101", which aims to equip readers with a foundational understanding of the biblical narrative. The authors assert the significance of presenting the Bible as a coherent story that reveals the character of God and His plan for humanity through Jesus Christ. They highlight the challenges posed by biblical illiteracy, particularly within contemporary church settings, and offer their book as a remedy for individuals seeking clarity and context in their scriptural engagement. The discussion elucidates how the Old Testament intricacies lead to and illuminate the New Testament, thereby reinforcing the continuity of God's message through the ages.

The hosts skillfully navigate the conversation, incorporating a dynamic segment known as the "Bible Speed Round", wherein the guests provide rapid-fire responses to questions about scripture. This format not only injects energy into the dialogue but also showcases the scholars' adeptness at articulating complex theological concepts succinctly. The episode culminates in a collective call for listeners to delve into scripture within community settings, fostering dialogue that bridges denominational divides and enhances mutual understanding among believers.

In essence, the episode serves as a clarion call for all Christians to engage with the Bible earnestly and collaboratively. The insights shared by Dr. Link and Dr. Gravely underscore the importance of approaching scripture with humility and a willingness to learn from one another. By encouraging a communal reading of the Bible, the authors advocate for a movement towards greater unity within the Church, inviting listeners to partake in the transformative journey of understanding God's Word.

Takeaways:

• In this episode, the authors of 'Bible 101' elucidate the necessity of contextualizing scripture for contemporary readers, thereby enhancing comprehension and engagement.
• Dr. Link and Dr. Gravely emphasize the profound connection between the Old and New Testaments, asserting that understanding this relationship is crucial for theological clarity.
• The podcast discusses the challenges of addressing biblical illiteracy within churches, advocating for resources that facilitate deeper engagement with scripture.
• A significant segment of the discussion revolves around the importance of prayer in understanding scripture, highlighting that communal reading fosters unity among different Christian traditions.
• The hosts and authors engage in a 'Bible Speed Round,' providing quick insights into various biblical topics, which serves as a dynamic method to stimulate interest in scripture.
• The episode concludes with a call to action, urging listeners to actively read the Bible together, promoting a shared understanding and appreciation of its teachings.

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Episode Transcript

(00:39):
Isaiah 55, verses 10 through13 in the New American Standard Bible
Read for as the rain and snowcame down from heaven, and do not
return there without wateringthe earth, and making it produce
and sprout, and providing seedto the sower and bread to the eater,
so will my word be, which goesout of my mouth. It will not return
to me empty, withoutaccomplishing what I desire, and

(01:00):
without succeeding in thepurpose for which I sent it. For
you will go out with joy andbe led in peace. The mountains and
the hills will break intoshouts of joy before you, and all
the trees of the field willclap their hands. Instead of the
thorn bush the juniper willcome up, and instead of the stingy
nettle the myrtle will come upand it will be a memorial to the
Lord, an everlasting signwhich will not be eliminated. In

(01:21):
this pericope the Lord isspeaking to The Prophet chapters
40 through 55 of Isaiah areoften referred to as the Book of
Comfort by some scholars whotry to kind of divide the book up
into sections forunderstanding the text better. Dr.
Peter Link if this is the endof the Book of Comfort, as they call
it, presumably written for theIsraelites as they are returning

(01:42):
from exile back to thePromised land, why might the author
have chosen to end thisadmonishing with this particular
set of similes about Scripture?
The short answer is that thisentire section, starting Isaiah 40,
began with give comfort, givecomfort. And the comfort comes in
the form of the arrival ofGod. And the arrival of God in the

(02:03):
book of Isaiah is aboutEmmanuel, God with us. And throughout
the book there's been thispicture of Immanuel creating a redeemed
and ransomed people, becausehis mere presence, his final presence
that Isaiah 53 is declaredwith his death will change the whole
creation by His Word. And sothe things that are broken are being

(02:24):
made right. And this is notjust for one generation of Israelites.
This is for whatever readerpicks it up, no matter where he is,
that the Word of God does notreturn void. The Word of God brings
life in dead places. The waythat God created by His Word and
Spirit is the way that heredeems by His Word and Spirit. And
it all depends uponrecognizing that we put to death

(02:45):
the one who makes all thispossible, and that in Isaiah 53 in
particular, you have not onlythe promise of the Messiah and his
atoning death and turning thewrath of God, but a group of people
who will be identified asthose who have repented and believed
and trusted in Him. This isthe picture of an Israel A people
of God from all the nations.And so this section is very important

(03:07):
because what follows it isreally a depiction of what the atoning
death of the cross creates inchapters 56 and following, and that
is a new heavens and a newearth. And this is a nice transition
point between the two. So ourcomfort is something that can't be
taken away. What God's wordhas started. He will be faithful.
Yeah, good stuff.

(03:28):
Good.
Hey, everybody. Welcome to theWhole Church podcast. Possibly your
favorite church unity podcast.But it's. It's fine if it's not,
you know, we're not incompetition with anybody because
that'd be weird. Be weird tobe the unity competition. Who's way
better than the other unitypodcast. And that doesn't work. So

(03:51):
we're here today. We're gonnahave a lot of fun. I am Joshua Noel.
I'm the one who's here toannounce the greatest podcaster of
all time, whose name used tobe Pod, but then after podcast got
created, he had to change hisname because it just got annoying.
The one and only T.J. tiberiusone Blackwell. How's it going?
Good.
Yeah.

(04:12):
Anyway, we are here. We'regonna have a fun one. We're talking
about a book today, Bible 101.We're here with the authors return
guest friend of the show. Youguys should know him. Dr. Peter Link
is an Old Testament scholarand a professor at Charleston Southern
University. New to our show,we haven't had him on before. Excited
to get to know him a littlebit better is Dr. Edward Gravely.

(04:33):
He is a New Testament expertand also Bible professor at the same
university, which is auniversity I attended for about two
years. I didn't graduatethere, so it doesn't feel right to
say alma mater, but like ish,you know?
Yeah, you know, like halfwaythere. That's Alma.
Yeah, yeah.
My motto was just at the ngu,but the Alma part was.

(04:53):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But that makes sense.
You mentioned Bible 101, andthat is if, you know, you're not
aware. Just part of the Adams101 media series. It's a collection
of books published by AdamsMedia. They cover various subjects
in accessible introductoryformats. So if you're interested
in a topic, then, you know,you're not versed enough in the subject

(05:15):
to pick up a big thick bookand figure some stuff out. As is
the case with much ofacademia, then Adam's media has you
covered. If you're listeningto this, check out the Odds out podcast
network website link is below.For shows that are like Ours, you
know, partnered with them,partner with us. You know, we like
what they do, they like whatwe do. We don't agree on everything,
but we're still part of thesame network. So check them out.

(05:36):
And if you want to justsupport us and forget about the other
guys, you can get the merch onour store ran through. Captivate.
It's comfy, it's fashionforward, it's understated. Get it
while it's hot.
Yeah.
And of course, you guys doknow before we do anything else,
we start with a holy sacramenton our show of silliness. Because
you can't be divided whenyou're being as silly as I like to

(06:00):
be. So today. Got a fun one.As always. The best part is when
I write these a little bitearlier and then forget that I wrote
them and then like, don't readover it. And I'm like, man, why did
my brain come up with this?And how do I answer? So today's is
one of those, if you had toride a horse horror novel featuring
a unicorn as the main monster,like a feature creature. How would

(06:25):
you go about making a unicornmore frightening? I'll let TJ go
first. He's better at thisthan me, I think. And then I'll go
give you guys plenty of timeto think.
Were you, like, aware thatthat's a thing that happened? Like
there's a. There's a bad scifi movie about.
I can think of at least threetimes I've seen this happen.
Yeah.

(06:45):
Because it happens inSupernatural too.
Yeah.
Oh, of course it does.
Yeah.
I mean, natural.
Yeah.
People love to.Supernaturally, people love to just,
you know, flip it on its head.Make unicorns just bad. I don't know.
It's.
At this point I feel like it'shard to make it interesting. But
I have an idea. The unicornwants to be the only horned beast.
So the horror is it killing,you know, all the steer, all the

(07:07):
steer, all the bucks. It'sjust taking out meat sources. If
nobody stops that unicorn,we're going.
To start just a really envious unicorn.
Yeah, well, it's taking ourfood supply.
I think I'm going to go withmore of a. I'm going to go like kind
of pull a page out of the GoodPlace series. For those who've seen
it, I think the unicorn isgoing to be majestic, beautiful.

(07:28):
You're going to think you'rebasically in paradise and the unicorn
is actually just causing youto hallucinate. You're actually in
like the worst place ever. YouAre being tormented and have no idea
because it's too late, thanksto the unicorns. Happy sunshine,
hallucinations. That's whereI'm going.
Yeah. Yeah.

(07:49):
Dr. Link, since I know you, Ifeel more comfortable putting you
through this first. So Dr.Gravely has plenty of time to think.
Where are you going with this?
Well, you may not haveremembered this, but my undergraduate
degree was in radio, tv, film.I actually took a whole class on
horror movies you mentioned.Yeah. I would probably say that the

(08:11):
best way to make the unicornterrifying is to make him as normal
as appearing as possible andto have his actual conquest occur
off screen with sounds andwith darkness. And that's probably
the best way to do it,because, to be honest, a killer horse
or a killer unicorn by nature,seeing that is never going to live
up to what it should be. So Ithink that's really your key. And

(08:33):
just like one of the things inStephen King's it that was terrifying
was it was a clown, which wassupposed to be this nice, safe kid
thing, the unicorn. Everylittle girl loves a unicorn, except
when she meets the unicorn. SoI think that's the direction I'd
go. And I guess we could fleshit out more, but we probably don't
have time for that.
Yeah.
My brain just can't help butthink of, like, the little girl from

(08:56):
the Minions movies, and I'mlike, I feel like no matter how horrible
we make this unicorn, she'sstill going to love it somehow.
Well, that's the whole point.Yeah. That's social media. Your unicorn
is an allegory with socialmedia. Right.
Yeah, of course. Intentionally.
Yeah.
Dr. Gravely, take us home.Give me a scary unicorn.

(09:19):
Well, if I remember correctly,the oldest historical reference to
the unicorn is Sunny theElder, the monochros. And when he
describes it, he's clearlydescribing a rhinoceros tail, like
a hog, feet, like elephantshead, like a butt, you know? And
so I would just. I would tellany normal children's story about

(09:41):
a unicorn and then replacethat unicorn with a charging rhinoceros,
which is definitely morefrightening. Carnage, trampled children,
destroys. You know, that'sprobably what I would do.
Yeah.
It would be pretty funny toget a call out to help with this
terrifying unicorn. And youget there, and it's a rhino. It's
a whole rhino.

(10:01):
Yeah.
Also, I just want to throwout. I'm slightly disappointed I
didn't think of this. Like, Icould just replace, like, the four
horsemen of the Apocalypse.And they're unicorns now. That's
just, like, an easy swap there.
Yeah. That would work.
The four Rhinoceros of the Apocalypse.
There we go. That's what Iwant to see.
Yeah, that's a good. That'sgood. They'll probably do that in

(10:23):
absolute Batman at some point.
The force of the apocalypse atabsolute Batman. Okay.
So sure.
Yeah.
To move on to something real.Oh, one thing we do here. Yeah, that's
what we do here. But one thingwe found that really helps engender
Christian unity is to hear oneanother's stories. So we have heard
Dr. Link's story once or twiceor four times, and we've talked about

(10:47):
his faith journey a littlebit. So, Dr. Gravely, would you mind
sharing with us some of yourstory before we get started?
Yeah. So I. A long story. Notthat old, but it's a long story.
But I was. I was sort ofraised. I think most people will
understand what I mean when Isay I was raised sort of Christian
adjacent. We had some. Again,long story, but I spent some time

(11:08):
living with my grandparentswhen I was elementary school age.
And my grandfather decidedthat now that there were kids back
in the house, we were allgoing back to church. And so that
was kind of my firstintroduction to, like, regular church
attendance. It was a Baptistchurch that we went to. I went to
a summer camp from that churchthe summer before I went into high

(11:28):
school. And that was where Ithink somebody really explained the
gospel to me in a way that mybrain could understand. And of course,
the Spirit was working and theWord was working. I understand all
that. But I really do believethat I was. Became a believer in
Jesus, a born again believerin Jesus that summer before I went
into high school. And my faithgrew a little in high school. It

(11:50):
was probably more struggle andconflict than anything. But it was
as long after my second yearin college was a physics major originally,
actually. And my second yearin college, the middle of that semester,
I kind of reached my. The endof my rope. I just. There were just
so many questions that I had.I was trying to reconcile my life

(12:10):
with faith and all of thosethings. And I was also, you know,
an arrogant, stupid 19 yearold. And I just decided that I was
going to put everything onhold until I found some of the answers
to these questions that Ihave. And we had a pastor at the
time who had gone to a smallBible college in western North Carolina.
And so he went there and heseemed pretty smart to me, so I went

(12:32):
there as well. And there itwas there that I think the Lord put
me on the track, the academictrack. I took Greek as my Foreign
language and loved it. Andthen from there and really felt like
God was calling me intoministry. An academic ministry of
some kind. And so, yeah, I. Istudied Greek in college and then

(12:52):
went to graduate school andstudied Greek some more and then
got a PhD studying Greek somemore. And I've always tried. I've
always tried to. It's alwaysmore. There's always more Greek to
study. I've always tried tosort of center my ministry around
serving a local church. I doconsider myself to be a churchman.
I've been a pastor, not fulltime consistently, but a pastor for

(13:16):
almost my entire career. Butyeah, so I think, you know, got.
Got married pretty young whenI was still in college and got two
kids. I don't know how much ofthat you want to hear, but yeah,
that's kind of my story.
Normal Bible college stuff.
Yeah. Yeah.
You know, I. Speaking ofGreek, I'm gonna out myself to my
Hebrew professor, much to hischagrin. I still have never really

(13:39):
got Hebrew. It's just so hardfor me. I try still every now and
then, I still try. I actually,weirdly enough, I have some note
cards I tried to make formyself. And after I did extremely
poorly on a test, Dr. Link waslike, hey, let me see how you're
studying, and helped me, like,fix my note. So I have my fixed note
cards still, but I used how hetold me to format those when I studied

(14:04):
Greek. And I'm probably stillnot great at Greek, but I do think
it makes more sense to me thanHebrew for some reason. But yeah,
even how I studied Greek,though, was just me copying how he
had me do note cards. Because,like, when you had me do it, it was
like, not just the word, butlike the preface, suffras, like the
gender of the word, all thatkind of stuff. So, like, I had details

(14:27):
for the word. And not justthis word means this because that's
a. That's not how lots oflanguages work.
Yeah. Yeah.
It sounds like your note cardswere bad.
They were. They were reallybad. I didn't pass that class. I
don't think so. I mean, theywere awful.
Yeah.
But anyway, moving on fromthat, from how bad I am at Ancient

(14:47):
Languages, I was wondering ifyou guys could help us just kind
of fill us in on what inspiredthis book and who you envision as
the intended audience forBible 101.
Yeah.
Dr. Link, do you want to go.Go first on this one?
Absolutely. To me, I waswalking down the hallway at Charleston
Southern University and mydean said to me, hey, I've got a

(15:11):
book assignment that I can'tdo. And he had written a book that
would, in essence, be acompetitor to Bible 101. So he couldn't
do this. And the person hadreached out to him and said, do you
know anybody who can do this?And it was Bible 101, which is. They
wanted to take basically athousand words for 60 chapters and

(15:31):
basically walk through thewhole Bible. And I sat there and
I said, wow, when do they needthis? And we were told. I was told
about, I don't know, six weeksfor the first draft. And I said,
all right, well, I'll do it ifEd will do it with me. Because there
was no way that quickly Icould have pulled together all my

(15:52):
stuff, the New Testament, doneand done a decent job. So we sat
down and we wrote initially acouple chapters of each, parts of
the book just to kind of showthem what we were capable of and
kind of our vision for it.And. And they liked it. But we were
dealing with a publisher whodidn't specialize in Christian or

(16:13):
Bible stuff. They specializedin other things. It's a division
of Simon and Schuster, a bunchof folks in New York who, to be honest,
had never really read theBible, which actually worked out
really well for us because wehad editors who were connected to
our target audience. And wesat down and we kind of mapped it
out. Well, if you're going toprioritize, because a thousand words

(16:34):
may sound like a lot to you,but, oh, man, it was difficult. So
we broke it down. We came upwith a couple different outlines
of how we would do thechapters of the book. We divided
up the work and we agreed todo it. We signed a contract. We had
a couple little battles overhow the book should be ordered. And
we wanted to do our own freetranslations. They wanted us to interact

(16:56):
with specifically King Jamestext, which is fine, but we said,
you know, we're capable oftranslating it on our own. And so
we worked through all that,and when all was said and done, we
had a few revisions. Itactually turned out as a book that
allowed somebody who's neverread the Bible or who's read the
Bible and doesn't understandhow it fits together, or who has

(17:18):
read the Bible and notunderstood how theology can emerge
in all the different parts ofthe Scriptures. And we reach that
person. And there's one otheraudience that I think we were tied
to, and that audience wasthose who have never taken the time
to try to connect the dotstheologically. And what I mean by

(17:38):
that is several churches havebeen able to use this book as part
of their discipleship becausethe problem of biblical illiteracy
is overwhelming in the church.And this is a way to do that. It
has a couple of uniquefeatures with the Old Testament,
and that goes back to how Iprocess things. But the editors,

(18:00):
publishers ended up being verysupportive. They gave us good feedback.
We didn't always agree oneverything, but that's true for any
project. But when it's allsaid and done, we looked back and
said, hey, pretty good. We canuse this. And I do believe it is
helping churches. It's helpingpeople who just want to know what
the Bible says and doing it ina way that gets to the point, I think,

(18:20):
effectively. And yet there'ssome pretty good theology showing
up, too.
So, Dr. Gravely, could you,like, tell us a little bit about
how you decided to structurethe book? Now, it's different from
a Bible commentary. Like, howdid that process go?
Yeah, so we only had a smallamount of say in the book's actual
structure because all of theBible or all of the 101 series, all

(18:41):
follow the same structure. Sothey told us how many chapters, and
they told us how long eachchapter would be. And each of the
chapters needs two sidebarsthat need to be exactly this many
words. And here's how thetitle goes, and here's what the.
You know, you need a tagline.And so they. It was. It was fill
in the blank in a lot of ways.And so what Dr. Link and I did was,

(19:02):
is we just sat down and justdivide. We had, okay, we got 60 chapters,
and we've got more than 60books of the New Testament, so clearly
not just one book per chapter.And we're going to need some prolonga.
We're going to need anintroduction, what is the Bible,
and how to read it, and someother things. And so we sat down
and we just mapped that allout. And we tried to give a couple
of chapters at the beginningand really geared to the person who,
like, has never picked up aBible before, like, explaining what

(19:23):
is a chapter, what is a verse,when someone says Romans 5, 3, what
is the 5, and what is the 3?And explaining things like what a
translation is and the chapterheadings that, you know, were not
written by Moses, didn't writethe chapter headings in Genesis,
for example, those sorts ofthings. And then we just sort of
divvied up. And I think. Ithink Link got about two thirds of

(19:44):
the book, which is fine. Idon't begrudge him that.
I mean, Old Testament, NewTestament. I feel like that makes
sense.
Yeah, yeah. And then. And thenhe had to sort of figure out how
he was going to squeeze thingsin, and I had to do less of that,
obviously. But, yeah, thingshad to get combined. I did end up
doing a whole chapter on justPaul to describe the missionary journeys

(20:06):
and how that fits into theBook of Acts and that sort of thing.
And so, yeah, it's not. Imean, with a thousand words basically,
for the book of Romans and athousand words for the book of Matthew,
and a thousand words for thebook of Revelation, it is definitely
not a commentary.
Yeah.
But what I, what we tried todo is just, just, just so that when
someone pick. I. I was reallythinking in terms of having this

(20:27):
as a. As a companion to yourBible reading. So you've never read
the book of Romans before?Okay, great. Before you sit down
and read the book of Romans,read the thousand words that I wrote
on the book of Romans, andit'll kind of give you just sort
of the gist of who wrote it,when it was written, what's it about,
and kind of how does it flow?What is the message of the book so

(20:47):
that you can sort of followalong as you read.
Yeah, that's.
Honestly, that sounds like apretty. Not nice. But I think that
would make it easier for me towrite a book if I had, like, a very
strict rubric. But for those,you know, who can't put that into,
you know, terms, I guess. Andthis won't help most of you, but
the outline we have for thisepisode is over a thousand words,

(21:11):
right? Yeah, it's 1200.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, and so that's. Right.Can you accomplish something useful
in a thousand words? And so wedid, like I said, we did have some
structural questions, like ifyou'll read the Old Testament part,
it's organized by the Hebreworder, or one of the Hebrew orders,
to be more precise. And so wehad to figure out, is this actually
going to help people? And Ithink the way it worked out, it does

(21:32):
that, and that gives it kindof a unique flavor. And so you're
right, it is not easy to do,to fit everything to a thousand words.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, it's what the Bible'salways needed. It's like trailers,
you know, you just wanted towatch a commercial for each book
of the Bible. This is it. But,you know, hearing a lot of this,
the two things that, like,immediately in my mind are like,

(21:54):
these seem like they'd bereally difficult to handle. Like,
one is that, like, limitedSpace, because I took a class on
Daniel with Dr. Link over asummer once, and let me just tell
you, eight weeks for the Bookof Daniel is nowhere near enough.
I was like, yeah, we need todo that like three times. We'll just
do the entire college careeras me studying Daniel, which I still

(22:15):
am. I'm still studying Daniel.And we're going to have a. We're
actually having a DanielScholar on soon. Ernest Lucas, who
writes one of the bigcommentaries on Daniel. And. Yeah,
because I'm just a nerd whenit comes to the Book of Daniel. And
I think it's particularlyrelevant right now. Anyway, the other
thing that I would find is areally big challenge. It's relevant
for us. You know, the ChurchUnity podcast is like, you mentioned

(22:36):
some theology because it'shard to do anything with the Bible
without doing some theology.In fact, I think it's probably impossible.
Does that ever come up in yourhead? Because, like, okay, so right
Now I'm Lutheran, TJ'sPentecostal, both of you are Southern
Baptist. If you'reinterpreting the Bible and you're
having to condense it andyou're including some stuff that's
obviously going to betheological in nature, there's probably

(22:57):
stuff that the three, youknow, us here wouldn't even see eye
to eye on. Is that, do you tryto interpret in such a way that it's
applicable for mostChristians, or do you just kind of
do like, here's what I believeand I'm going to roll with it because
I have a thousand words andthat's what I got.
So the short answer to thatis, yes, a little bit of both. And
let me give you an example.There's a chapter called how the

(23:19):
Old Testament and NewTestament Relate to each Other. And
in a thousand words, we wereable to map out two different models.
And these are big categorymodels. The most common way people
do it is the New Testamentprovides. The Old Testament is kind
of a foundation for the NewTestament. And the other one is that
the Old Testament proclaimsthe New Covenant. And that second
way of doing it is actuallythe way that we say, despite. After

(23:44):
giving all the other view, andit's clarifying how it works, we
then turn to what was going togovern, how we were going to try
to relate it together, thatthe Old Testament actually proclaims
the New Covenant. And so,yeah, I think you've got to do. You've
got to do both. But I mean,there, there is no way to, to take
a theological book and not doTheological analysis and interpretation.

(24:06):
Even if all you think you'redoing is translation, there's a.
There's an awful lot of. Ofinterpretation in any translation.
Yeah, Yeah.
I mean, Superman super issuper relevant right now. It. I could
see two translations of theSuperman store, if we're condensing
it, that both are technicallyaccurate that seem like wildly different

(24:27):
translations of, like, oneperson's maybe interpretation is.
It's a white male hero that'sshowing the dominance and superiority
to save others and, you know,represents the government and someone
else who goes, yeah, it's anillegal immigrant who came here and
is an alien, and he'ssupporting, you know. You know, like,
both of those things aretechnically true, but I don't think

(24:47):
that's really what Supermanis, you know, so that's. It's a challenge.
Yeah.
Yeah. The scholarly impulse isto make sure that your idiosyncrasies
don't leak out onto the pagein a book of this size. And so I
definitely. You ask, do wekeep that in mind? I certainly did.

(25:08):
I tried to keep it broad.There wasn't much time for any kind
of niche discussions thatmight reveal who's a Baptist or who's
an evangelical or who's aLutheran. Yeah, but I. But I definitely.
I definitely. It's definitelya Protestant reading of the New Testament.
There's no doubt about that.And I think it's also. I think, as
Dr. Link said, there's no wayto write about the Bible without

(25:32):
doing theology. But there's.Regardless if you have. If you have
any label of Christian at all,we obviously, all of us, hold a particular
set of theological truths incommon, and those are the kinds of
things that end up beingfocused on when you have to, say,
write about the book of Romansin a thousand words.
Yeah. Yeah.
So have you considered, like,making this an assignment in your

(25:54):
classes?
I do. Go ahead. Okay. Yeah, Ido. In my New Testament survey, Bible
101 is one of their requiredtextbooks. It's electronic. It's
very inexpensive, and thestudents. It's just helpful for them
when they get to the end ofthe studying for the exam and what
they know. One of thequestions is going to be, what is
Dr. Gravely's take on theColossian heresy? And they're like,
I didn't write any of thatdown. They can go to Bible 101 and.

(26:17):
And read it. Because that's my take.
Yeah. And I use it in mysurveys because we are dealing with
the need to cover a lot ofinformation very quickly and to put
it. And really to interactwith students in multiple ways, lecture,
reading, notes, whatever it isthat you need to do. And. And so
Bible 101 allows that andhelps that process. It really is

(26:40):
for me, just a lot of funbecause one of the reasons I fought
so hard to have the book inthe Hebrew order is because that's
the order I teach my class in.And so I use it in all my surveys.
For sure.
Yeah.
So have you considered justdown week in the syllabus and you're
just like, hey, summarizeRomans in a thousand words for me?

(27:04):
No, I have not done that. Butmy students do get a daily reading
quiz and they get quizzes fromBible 101, so.
Oh, man, fun.
Find out if they haven't readit. There's an audio version. They
may be listening, but eitherway I hope they're getting.
Yeah, I got the audio version.
Yeah.
I do most of my readingactually while I'm working, and it's
just because I can just haveearbuds in and chop as many vegetables

(27:26):
as I want, you know.
Yeah.
Doesn't take a lot ofconcentration for me at this point.
Yeah, we're not actuallyallowed to have earbuds in, so I
don't get to listen toanything at work.
Yeah, I'm a rebel. No, but the.
I'll tell you a funny story onthat. We didn't even know they were
going to do an audio versionof the book until I just got an email

(27:47):
from this production companyI'd never heard of. And the email
was just simply asking me howI pronounce my name. And I was like,
what the world? This is theweirdest spam I've ever gotten. And
so I started Googling. Andsure enough that we figured out that
was so gravely, not gravelly.That's all they need to know.
Wild.
So you guys mentioned thatthis was mostly for, you know, people

(28:09):
who haven't read the Biblebefore. Do you think if you had to
pinpoint just onemisconception that you think this
book might help clear up forpeople who are new to the Bible,
what would you say is justlike them pops in your head first?
And I'm sure there's plentyyou can think of. But Dr. Link.
So the thing that I wouldfocus on if somebody were to come

(28:32):
to this book, I think thething that would stand out is just
how messianic, how Messiah andJesus driven the Old Testament actually
is without having to do awhole lot of work. It's just all
over the pages. And I thinkthat that is one of the nice things
about Bible 101 is it allowssomebody to enter into one of the

(28:53):
largest and most importanttheological discussions, even though
they're just beginning to readthe Bible or just beginning to read
theologically or just. Or justdeciding to take it seriously for
the first time in their lives.For most Christians, the distance
between the Christian and theOld Testament is pretty big. And
so anything we can do to bringthat closer, I think that's what

(29:15):
I hope happens in the OldTestament part of Bible 101.
Yeah.
Dr. Gravely, anything to addto that?
Yeah, the thing I tried tofocus on the most was how the story
that's being told among thebooks of the New Testament. I see
it in my students. They, whenthey read the Bible, they tend to.

(29:37):
They'll read the book ofRomans, and they tend to think that
this is some sort ofmysterious, mystical spiritual text
that is this sort of randomcollection of sentences that somehow
has to be deciphered. And whenit's not, it's a, It's a letter.
And we know who wrote it, weknow who he wrote it to, we know
when he wrote it, and we havethe Book of Acts to sort of help
us triangulate that. And so Ithink people, I think people misunderstand

(30:02):
what the New Testamentdocuments actually are. And they,
to be fair, they come by thatmisunderstanding quite honestly because
that's often how the materialis actually treated in sermons and
in discipleship. But, butyeah, so I think the misconception.
I think, I hope that whenpeople read the New Testament portion
of Bible 101, they'll walkaway saying, oh, okay, so these first

(30:24):
four books are about the lifeof Jesus. And then here's the Book
of Acts that tells us aboutthese first couple of years and these
letters that were written asthe gospel spread. And here's what
these letters, here's theirwho to and what it's about. And,
and to give them some, Somecontext, they know at least know
on the map where they are whenthey start reading the Book of Philemon.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
In fact, your, your last, yourlast sentence in Bible 101, I think,

(30:47):
sums that up pretty well. Yousay it is a comprehensive guide talking
about the Bible. It is acomprehensive guide to knowing God
and knowing his son, JesusChrist, and informs the lives of
more people than any otherreligious text. And so it's not just
raw information. It's thisidea of actually knowing God and
knowing his son that is allover the New Testament. And I would

(31:07):
add the Old Testament But Ireally think the strength of Ed's
part of the book is that hereally is masterful at connecting
the various parts of the NewTestament into a coherent story about
knowing God and his son.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I know there's so much fun.And I do think there's going to be
some stuff theologically Iprobably don't agree with in the

(31:29):
book, but I think this isreally useful, especially for people
who haven't read the Biblebefore. And I really want to highlight
for me, I grew up, and itwasn't until I went to college that
I realized some things aboutthe Bible I had just. This is a collection
of books I always knew, but Ialways read them the same because
it's the Bible. And thencollege is when I found out, yeah,
they're a collection ofdifferent genres, too. And I'm like,

(31:50):
oh. And I'm still wrestlingwith that. That still messes with
me sometimes. I'm like, whatdo you mean? Daniel has multiple
genres in the book? That's nothow books work. And it's like, well,
turned out it is. Got to dealwith it.
All right.
Yeah. One of the things Ialways tell my students is that the.
The Bible uses the NewTestament, specifically the Old Testament

(32:11):
as well. But the Bible useslanguage the way everybody uses language.
The Bible is. Is written inrelatively plain wording. Now, there
are some clear exceptions.Daniel, Revelation, I get all that,
but. And so my students arejust sort of shocked to read the
Bible and find hyperbole andsarcasm and figures of speech and
parables and Jesus sayingthings purely to make people angry.

(32:37):
And I think that once you justtake a breath and relax and allow
the Bible to talk like anynormal person would talk, it tends
to make a lot more sense.
Yeah.
I mean, I know even there'sbeen a couple of times I tried to
walk away from my faith, and Ican't put the Bible down. Like, for
me, even, like, if I don'tbelieve it, it's just such a good

(32:57):
book. Like, I'm like, I don'tknow. Like, right now I'm at a point
where I'm like, yeah, I'mhere. I'm with it. You know, I believe
all this, but even when Idon't, I'm like, this is just a book
I can't get away from. It'sjust expertly done. And having something
like this to kind of helpguide people so they know what they're
reading. Pretty useful.
Yeah. Yeah.
So something we thought mightbe fun for this episode is to do

(33:19):
what we're gonna call theBible speed round. So get y' alls
opinions on a couple ofdifferent questions. There are rules.
You both have to answer in onesentence or less. You do both get
to answer or you can skip it.You don't want to answer a particular
one. We're not allowed to askyou follow up questions. We're not
going to do anything fancy.We're not going to alternate. We're

(33:41):
just going to go gravely linkfor every question. So are you guys
ready?
I'm ready, yes, sir.
All right, so what is yourpreferred Bible translation and why?
The esv English StandardVersion. And the why is? Because
it's the one I'm most familiar with.
I'll say the CSB because it isvery accessible and I still think

(34:05):
reasonably accurate. So yeah,that's when I'm not teaching from
the Hebrew, I often use the csb.
I agree. What would you say isthe most overlooked book in the Bible?
Jude Obadiah.
So what's one Bible story thatalways moves you?
The calling of Levi in theGospel. An amazing story and it's

(34:25):
told with such shockingbrevity that you can't help but be
moved by it.
I would have to say the Exodusstory. In particular the chapters
1 through 15. When andespecially the moment when Pharaoh
basically begs for Moses toshow give him a blessing. Suddenly

(34:46):
I see Pharaoh in myself or my.You know, how would that work?
So who is a character in theBible that you see yourself in?
Peter.
Often wrong, but never in doubt.
Well, I already said Pharaoh,so I think unfortunately that's true.
But I'll add another moment. Isee unfortunately a lot of Jacob

(35:06):
in me as well, although I onlyhave one wife.
Well, yeah, yeah.
So what do you thinkEvangelicals most commonly miss when
reading scripture?
They don't read enough of itto properly understand the sentence
that they're quoting.
Context, context, context andlarge volume reading is the key.
And yeah, that's, that's we'reon the same page there.

(35:28):
All right, so what's one orwhat might Catholic readers be most
surprised by with your readingof the Scripture?
I think it's the same answeras the last one, which is read, read,
read, read the Bible. I thinkpeople who grew. This is more than
one sentence.
Sorry.
People who grew up in atradition where they were sort of
authoritatively told what theBible means often don't think the

(35:52):
Bible is accessible. But Ihope this book would surprise my
Catholic neighbors. I gavethem a copy with just how readable
the Bible actually is. You canread it for yourself. And it is,
most of the time, relativelyclear in what it says.
I would echo that. And as aformer Catholic, I would say that
the greatest thing about whenI came to faith was I already had

(36:12):
a confidence in the Bible, butI had never been exposed to the Bible.
So I would always say tosomebody who's from a tradition where
you don't read the Bible alot, you start reading it a lot.
So what is one section ofScripture that people might be surprised
by? Its literary genre, Bookof Revelation.
I would say that the book ofRuth being set in the midst of a

(36:34):
bunch of wisdom books in theHebrew order is very significant
and surprising.
All right. And that willconclude the Bible speed round. You
both did a great job. It ain'teasy, and somebody has to do it,
and you both succeeded.
Specifically, you two had to do.
Yeah, yeah.
It's unfortunate.
Oh, man. Well, you know, Imentioned it before. Our podcast

(36:57):
is primarily about Christianunity, so got a couple questions
along those lines. We want toask you guys specifically, how do
you think people from Catholicor Orthodox traditions might receive
your book? You mentioned kindof what you thought might be most
surprising, but what do youthink their reactions to it would
be? Dr. Gravely, would youstart us off with that?
Yeah. I would assume that mostCatholics or Orthodox would agree

(37:21):
with most of what I wroteabout the New Testament. There are
some things in there probablyabout Mary they wouldn't necessarily
agree with. I identify Jamesand Jude as the brothers of Jesus.
They might. Some Catholicsmight disagree with that, but I don't.
I mean, it's. It'strinitarian. It's Jesus is the Savior.
It's substitutionaryatonement. I don't. I think that.

(37:41):
I think we'd all be on thesame page there for sure.
Yeah. I would say this, thatfor Catholic and Orthodox traditions,
my reading of the OldTestament will dovetail with those
traditions, just as I think itdoes with the Protestant. When it's
read. Well, the gospel focusreally brings everything together.
And just remember that ifyou're, for example, if you're from

(38:03):
the Catholic tradition, youthink, what about those other Old
Testament books that theyinclude in what they call the Deuterocanon?
And I just say, hey, yourDeuterocanon, we call them Apocrypha,
that's fine. If you call itsecond canon, that's fine. That's
what Deuterocanon means. Let'sjust focus on the first canon. And
the first canon is just laidout here in the Old Testament, and
we can find a lot to agree on.And you've got other resources where

(38:25):
you can dig into those otherbooks. Because we can't do everything
with a thousand words per section.
Yeah.
So if they reached out andthey were like, hey, let's do Apocrypha
101, would you both agree or.
Probably not, because I don'tthink I'm a good enough expert on
those books, just to be blunt.There's plenty of people who would
do a much better job than Iwould. But I feel like on the primary
canon, I can help. No matterwhat Christian tradition you're in,

(38:48):
you can even. It reallydoesn't matter at the end of the
day, the way that it'sordered, you're going to better understand
how the Old Testamentcommunicates the Gospel.
All right, so. And when weconsider believers of more progressive
traditions than SouthernBaptists who might not affirm biblical
inerrancy but still hold theBible as important and authoritative,

(39:12):
how do you think they mightreceive the book?
Yeah, I don't. Again, I don'tthink that. I don't think there would
be any issue. I tried not touse any theologically loaded terms.
So the term inerrancy, I don'tthink shows up in the book. Obviously,
we have a. The writers of thisbook have a very, very high regard
for scripture. And so youcould certainly infer things like

(39:34):
authority and inerrancy andclarity and all those sorts of things.
But, yeah, I mean, I. Dr. Linkwill be able to say more about this
because there were someunavoidable cultural landmines he
had to walk his way throughregarding sexual ethics. So I'll
let him talk about that. Butin the New Testament portion of.
I don't think it'd be an issue.

(39:55):
Yeah. For example, when wecame to Genesis 19 and we had to
deal with what was happeningthere, how do you describe that?
Well, no matter how you shapeit, it's homosexual rape. And they
had to think through whetheror not that was an appropriate description.
And ultimately, that's wherethe book comes down. But I would
say to progressives, anyprogressive who's willing to submit

(40:18):
to the Scriptures, because byyour definition, they find it to
be authoritative. If allthey're trying to do is sidetrack
those other questions aboutinerranc. Okay, let's talk. But I
think they're going to find inparticular, what we're doing is just
bringing them to theScriptures. It's not. I don't think
anyone who is in a differenttradition is going to put this down
and say I got to be a SouthernBaptist today, although I think you

(40:38):
should be. But I do thinksomeone is going to say, man, I got
to start thinking about theBible in bigger categories because
I got to start thinking aboutJesus in bigger categories because
I got to start thinking aboutthe Gospel in bigger categories.
So that's really the goal ofBible 101, which is to take what
you know of the scriptures andconnect it to the most essential
elements that all Christianshave agreed upon, Old and New Testament.

(41:00):
And I think the way it's setup, it allows for that and it doesn't
cut you off. Now, we obviouslydisagree. Like, they're going to
go if we had an extendeddiscussion outside of the book, like
we're doing here, eventuallymy commitment to inerrancy is going
to show up. My commitment to aparticular form of inspiration is
going to show up. But I don'tthink any of that is an imposition

(41:21):
that's going to get in the wayof somebody else reading it. But
I do think it's going to. It'sgoing to be very clear that the death
of Christ and the resurrectionof Christ are essential truths to
the Gospel in both the Old andNew Testament. So that's where your
definition of progressive, Ithink, is. Is gets a bit dicey. I'm
not sure that all modernprogressives would agree with that.
Some would, obviously, but notall would. And I think if, if, if

(41:45):
you disagree with thoseessential truths, you're going to
read Bible 101 and perhaps bechallenged that maybe, just maybe,
the. The Bible is arguingsomething different than your version
of progressive Christianity.
Well, I'll speak to this alittle bit because I'm probably the
most progressive person ofthis group. If it's like a, you know,
if you think of it as like,Like a scale, I guess.

(42:07):
Sure.
Oh, no. You know, for. Just,for example, I probably have a different
atonement theory that I wouldsubscribe to than you two. I still
don't feel like it was thatoffensive, you know, holding more
to, like a Christus Victormodel. I'm reading it and I'm like,
yeah, I mean, that's what theBible says, right? Like, there are
parts that, you know, that I'mlike, I probably would have said

(42:27):
that different. And then whenI think of it, I'm like, well, I
don't know how I would havesaid it. And I couldn't say what
I would want to say withoutincluding both sides having a whole
debate and, like, having awhole college dissertation. And that's
not what this book is.
So there's a reason we havethis show.
Yeah.
So that I can be long windedand TJ can complain about it on air.
Yeah.
When I try to walk my studentsthrough this issue at the beginning

(42:50):
of New Testament survey, I tryto avoid making them have to take
an. Have an opinion oninerrancy right away. And so the.
But. But I think anybody. AndI am an inheritance. But I think
anybody. The language I use inclass is this. The Gospels are a
reasonably accurate record ofthe things that Jesus said, did,

(43:12):
and the books of the NewTestament have been transmitted to
us through the ages withreasonable accur. Because if we agree,
regardless of what your othertheological commitments are, if we
agree that the Gospels are areasonably accurate record of the
things that Jesus said anddid, then we can have a conversation.
And I think this my book, thismy part of the book, and I know Dr.
Links as well, certainly doesapproach it as if they are a reasonably

(43:36):
accurate record of the thingsthat Jesus said. If you want to.
You want to quibble around theedges about dates and times and places
and some other place namesand, you know, the kinds of things
that tend to get debatedabout. I just. Maybe I'm just a grumpy
old man, but I just don't careabout. Just don't care about those
things right now.
I get that.
Yeah. Do you believe whatJesus said about salvation? We can

(43:58):
argue about where he wasstanding when he said it later. Right.
Yeah.
Yeah, I know.
Now remember that Dr. Gravelyis a textual critic and he is an
expert in all those things. Sohe's not saying those things are
unimportant. What he's sayingis that we're always going to make
the main thing the main thing.And that's the commitment of Bible
101. It does make the mainthing the main thing. And it makes

(44:19):
Jesus either the foundation orthe stumbling block. And that's the
wisdom of the scriptures. Butit also is the opening up for the
conversations that cantransform everybody who's willing
to listen to the scriptures.
Yeah.
People usually are prettysurprised when you show them that.
Yeah.
Hey, everything that you guyssay you know about Julius Caesar,

(44:40):
there's actually moredocumentation of Jesus than him.
So nothing you to believe he'sGod, but to not believe in the historical
figure that is Jesus is on parwith not believing in Caesar. Just
crazy.
Yeah.
Which I could get behind that.
There was no Caesar. What areyou talking about?
There was no Caesar.
Just gaslight everybody.
Not Julius.
Sure.

(45:00):
Octavius Caesar. Yeah. He wasreal but so is there anything else
that you think our listenersmight want to know about either of
you or Bible 101 before theygo pick it up?
I would just add that it's a.For the devout believers who are
listening. It's a greatresource. And I'm not trying to sell
books here, I promise. If youknew what my cut was of each book

(45:21):
sold, you would realize I'mnot trying to sell books, but it's
a great book to have on handto give to people. I always keep
a bunch of them. And when I'mtalking to people and they find out
I'm a. My wife and I just gotback from a vacation in Europe, not
really as luxurious as itsounds, but. And once they found
out I was the. I was thecollege professor in religion, every

(45:43):
dinner I got questions, and itwas just good to have a couple of
Bible 101s on hand to say,hey, you know, you got lots of questions
about the Bible. You and I arenot going to see each other ever
again after about three days.And so here's a great little resource
that might help you read theBible, mostly hoping that it will
encourage them to read the Bible.
Right. It can accompany anevangelism strategy, a discipleship

(46:06):
strategy, which I think shouldalways be connected anyway, because
it's ultimately helping peopleput on the categories of the Bible
and language that is biblicalin the softest sense of the word.
Right. So it doesn't requireyou to argue over details. It does
require you to think about thebig picture. And so that really is,

(46:31):
I think, seeing churches andwe use it, schools and some schools
are starting to use it aswell. But seeing churches use it
as ways to help Christianswho've been Christians a long time,
but also new Christians, andhelp them relate to the Bible better.
Man, that's a home run. That'sthe goal. That's really the joy of

(46:52):
what we've tried toaccomplish. And hopefully, if you
want to hand out one here orthere like we do, that's fine. I
had to hand out one today, butI had to borrow my colleague because
I was out of them, so.
Nice.
Yeah.
Well, with that said, guys,you know, one thing we. We do always
like to do before we wrap upis to just ask our guests, if they

(47:15):
had to provide a single, justtangible action, something practical
people could do to better helpchurch unity, what it would be today,
I'm a little bit more specificbecause all believers that, you know,
Christians, for the most part,seem to agree on, like the Bible
being important in Some way,at the very least. So if you guys
had to provide just an actionthat would help us, I don't know,

(47:37):
better read the Bible forourselves or understand how other
people are coming toScripture, what would you say to
that? And I'll throw that toDr. Gravely first.
I would say one of the. One ofthe elements that's often missing
is that we read the Bible, butwe don't read the Bible with other
people. And I think that the.The Bible was in. Was given to the

(47:58):
church to be read by thechurch. And I think that you actually
learn a lot about the Bibleand about your own faith when you
read the Bible with otherpeople in community and in terms
of unity. I think it'd even begreat if, you know, Catholics and
Protestants and Orthodox allread the Bible together. I think.
I think that would. That wouldbe fantastic. Anything that gets

(48:19):
people to read the Bible more,I'm all for. I'm always here for
that.
Yeah.
I've always kind of imaginedbook clubs as a whole concept, Just
being someone who went to achurch and was like, man, what if
we read regular books likethat? And that's just how book clubs
started. They're just allbased on Bible studies. What if we
had an Edgar Allan Poe study?
I'd go to that, too, by the way.
Yeah.
So it sounds fun. Dr. Link,though, same. Same question. What

(48:43):
would you say?
The main thing I would focusfolks on is praying the Scriptures.
And in praying for theScriptures, learning to pray for
your enemies, pray those whopray for the. Praying for folks changes
your posture towards them, andtherefore it influences your posture
towards God. And part of whattaking the Bible seriously about

(49:04):
is adjusting our posturetoward God and others so that the
Great Commission and the GreatCommandments can become a more vibrant
part of our lives. Andsometimes myself, I struggle with
the praying part of scriptureand apparently the speaking in public
today. But the praying part ofscripture is in. Is very difficult

(49:24):
and yet very rewarding. Ithelps you when you don't know what
to pray. It helps you when yourecognize that your heart is very
distant from the God you knowwho loves you. And it lets those
ideas up Mount Gob that arestill very, very distant to come
very close. And that allowsyou, therefore, to recognize that

(49:46):
God really is the good fatherhe claims to be. And if you can approach
the Bible as God as a father,rather than God as a mere policeman,
it opens up more than just theintellectual part of your life. It
opens up all of it.
Yeah. So that's superimportant to us. We Always tell people
to share the episode withtheir enemies for much the same reason.

(50:08):
But what happens? What are therepercussions in the world if everyone
takes your advice link. Orbravely? Like, what if we start,
you know, praying, puttingemphasis on prayer, reading the Bible
together. I think like a multimass type thing would be cool. Everyone
goes and reads in the atriumand then splits off to do their sermon.
I think that would be reallyneat. Probably only possible on a
college campus, but it'd bereally neat.

(50:30):
Yeah.
Yeah. I think if you have morepeople reading the Bible level, then
we certainly have more of acommon language with which to discuss
our differences. Because itbecomes. I found this in my own classrooms.
It becomes less tribal. It'snot. Well, my people believe this.
Well, your people believethat. Well, your people believe that.
But look what your people did.If we can take those and just simply

(50:53):
reduce it down to. Yeah, butwhat do the words say? And, and that
way we lose all of thesuperfluous appeals to authority.
It's no longer. Well, yeah,but I've been a Christian for 20
years and so my reading iscorrect or I was praying and Lord
revealed to me that thisinterpretation was no, the, the,
the, the, the. The winner ofthe battle of ideas is the one who

(51:14):
can convince the most peoplethat this is what the words actually
say. And I think that wouldbe, I think that would be a. We would
have much more common groundto have our discussions and disagreements,
and we would certainly knowthe scripture a lot better. And that's
always a good thing.
Yeah. So let me, let me justbuild off of that. In addition to

(51:34):
teaching it at CharlestonSouthern, Ed and I are also pastors
at the same church. And wework in a ministry we call life groups,
which you can call them Biblestudies, call them whatever. But
fundamentally, theologically,what we believe is that the people
who love God, who are moved byGod's spirit, sitting around and
reading God's Word, Wordtogether, those are the conversations
that changes the creation. Sowhen you began Talking about Isaiah

(51:56):
55 and the power of God'sWord, that is the power of people
talking about and prayingthrough scriptures. And you, the
world, in a sense, can't dothat. It is the church that does
that. The people who arecalled by God's name, shaped by his
sacrifice and his son, who areallowing God's Word and God's Spirit
to move our hearts. That'swhere life is created. And really

(52:23):
there is no human kingdomthat's going to measure up to the
kingdom of God. But in everyHuman kingdom. We can delight in
the kingdom that's coming andlive according to it. We can take
our future hope and let itshape who we are today. And that's
going to happen in community.That's going to happen in people
who believe in the seriousnessof the scriptures and learn to love

(52:44):
through it. And therefore,they can connect the Great Commission
and the Great Commandments.That's what changes the world. And
it does it one heart at atime. And you have three steps forward,
two steps back, two stepsforward, three steps back. And that's
okay. If you look at thehistory of the church, it is not
a straight line. It is abumbling group of people who stumble

(53:07):
over themselves and thegospel, and God keeps picking us
back up. So you should nothave some lofty expectations. That
is, if everybody wouldsuddenly develop my particular theological
perspective, that there wouldbe great unity. Now, that would be
uniformity. And I thinkinstead, what I want you to do is
to recognize that if youbelieve this creates genuine unity,

(53:28):
the gospel, you walk on it andlet God shape you and others through
it. But don't hold off theidea that, man, if everybody just.
Just did it my way, thingswould be better maybe, but maybe
not rarely.
So.
So, gentlemen, thank you somuch for your time today. We got
a few things left, so bearwith us. Next, we're gonna get into
our God moment. We always dothis before we wrap up, and it's

(53:49):
just where we talk about whatGod's been doing in our lives recently.
We just take them all where wesaw God, whether that be a blessing,
moment of worship, achallenge. And I always make Josh
go first to give the rest ofus plenty of time to think. So, Josh,
do you have a God moment forus this week?
Yeah, I went to a conference acouple weeks ago with Dr. Tom Ord

(54:10):
and his group, which I don'ttheologically fit in with completely,
but I had a really good time,made a lot of good connections. People
kept buying me mules. So thatwas great. I think that was interesting
is even though I pretty Openlydisagree with Dr. Ordinary a lot

(54:31):
when it came to. There waslike, near the end of the conference,
he was doing, like, aworkshop. He once had someone talking
about publishing and sometalking about this. And he was a
lot of his doctorate students.He was like, yeah, I want you to
help lead. Like, how do we dopodcasts? And I was like, hey, I'm
gonna not agree with thesepeople. I do know how to run a podcast
and create a podcast. And thefact that he respected me enough
to say, hey, we disagree, butI know you know this well, and I

(54:52):
was able to be humble enoughto go. I might not agree with all
the podcasts that they'regonna create, but. But I'm here to
help, you know.
Which is a cool, cool Godmoment to have when, you know, Dr.
Link was what, our 15th gueston the show.
Yeah, he was on when thepodcast didn't sound very good.
Yeah.
And it was in person.

(55:13):
Yeah.
That was fun, though. I missthat. It was fun sometimes.
It was a lot of driving, sothis is a lot more economically stable.
That's.
But for me, my God moment, mygrandparents have reached that stage
of their life where they justwant more reasons to get the rest
of the family around because,you know, kids grow up and they decide
to start going to differentchurches and this and that. This

(55:36):
week they're just doing acelebration of life dinner. And it's
just fun to see what.
They come up with.
It's all kinds of thingsbecause now we've got all the standard
stuff that everyone expects.You know, Fourth of July, Christmas,
Thanksgiving. Got to go toMeemaw's house now every few weeks,
she's just like, hey, let'scome up. Everybody come over my house.
Yeah.
And I really love it. And theyare just such a great, God fearing

(55:58):
and God loving people that Ican't turn them down.
Although they could have madeit a Dino bash and that would have
been cooler.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, they're perfect.
They are human. But I'm supergrateful that they're still around
and still loving. Hard toexplain how grateful I am for that.

(56:18):
But. Dr. Link, do you have aGod moment for us this week?
Yeah. I was blessed. One of mychildren, who shall remain nameless
to protect the innocent,dedicated his life to mission work
after going on a mission tripwith our church. And I've known for
a long time that God could usehim in this way, but now it's a matter

(56:40):
of. Of giving him time andspace to let God be his father in
a more direct way than ever.And I'm excited for that and for
my other kids, too. They'reall growing in their own way. And
so as a father, as a Christianfather in particular, it's a bit
of a dicey game to figure outwhen you are stepping on the toes

(57:00):
of your heavenly father withyour children and when you are actually
leading them to his feet. Andso there's been a lot of ups and
downs, a lot of things I wouldgo back and have done differently,
but it's Nice to see thatdespite all the shortcomings, God
is greater than I. Anddefinitely this past week and a half,
pondering that it's been agreat, delightful Dr. Gravely.

(57:24):
God moment us the best for last.
Yeah. Two things immediatelycome to mind. Number one, on that
trip that my wife and I took,I was trying not to do any work at
all, not talk shop, so tospeak. But every time we would sit
down to dinner with othercouples that were on the tour, I
would always have somebody sitnext to me, and they'd be like. They'd
lean over, and they would say,so you're the religion professor,
right? I have a question. Andso I actually have to do quite a

(57:46):
bit of question answeringabout the Bible. Well, that was a
blessing. I was. To be honest,I was a little frustrated at first,
but. But it was. It was ablessing. And my. We have a daughter
who is currently serving forthe summer as a missionary in South
Asia in a very difficultplace. And we got to talk to her
this morning, and she's doingreally well. God's doing some amazing

(58:06):
things, and they've been.They've endured some hardships, let's
put it that way, but thingsare going really well.
Very pleased to hear about that.
That's awesome. Yeah.
That's a dangerous place to be.
Yeah.
That feeling of, like, oh,you're the religion professor. That
also happened a lot duringthat week. Primarily. I was at this
conference primarily because,like, we were doing, like, podcast

(58:28):
stuff at the end of thenights. And, like, the very first
day, someone came on and wastalking about how, like, you know,
they found the charismaticstuff that they encounter dangerous.
And of course, I had to followup with, like, oh, so is this a bad
time to mention I'm stillcharismatic? And.
Yeah.
So naturally, the entire restof the weeds, like you said, you
grew up Pentecostal. You werePentecostal. You're charismatic.
Let me ask you this. I'm like,look, I don't speak for all Pentecostals

(58:50):
or charismatic people or anyof that. I don't know. I don't know,
man. I got that a lot. Ishould have known better than to
say.
I do, in fact, speak for allBaptists. So if you ever need to
know what you think.
Perfect. What's the bestsuperhero movie? You know, Dr. Link
doesn't have an opinionanymore. So what do all Baptists

(59:11):
like for superheroes?
Oh, Netflix. Daredevil.
All right, good to know.That's their favorite. You know,
it's a good one. I. I canrespect it.
So, yeah, if you like this,please consider sharing with a friend.
Share with your enemies. Sharewith a cousin. Gotta love your cousins
and your enemies.
Especially your cousins. Yeah,cousins are better than enemies because

(59:33):
it can be both.
They can be both. Yeah, manyare. Yeah, yeah, sit on that. And
there are paid subscriptionsyou can use to support us. If you
just want to submit andforget. You can do that on Captivate,
Apple Podcast Patreon forextra content where you can support
our ministry. There are alsosingle time tip options on I think

(59:53):
all three of those.
Yeah, I know for sure.Captivate. I don't know for sure
the other ones.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure you cansingle time tip us on any of those
if you want to submit it andforget it and feel good once. If
we don't deserve $10 a month,but we might deserve $10 once, that's
okay with us.
Yeah, heck, I'll take a dollaronce. That's like, that's like most
of a cheeseburger. You shouldbe a whole cheeseburger.

(01:00:14):
Yeah.
Anyway, also guys, make sureyou check out the other shows on
the Amazon podcast network.You know, there will be a website,
the show links down below. Andhere let nothing move you. With Christian
Ashley going through theBible, you can hear the homily Pastor
Will Rose and SystematicEcology. You know you want here TJ
and I trying to think the mostrecent thing that we did on there

(01:00:35):
probably Duel of Fates. Wereviewed Star Wars Duel of the Fates
script.
Yeah.
If you want to hear that.
I don't know. That's whenanything comes out. So yeah, I have
to assume you're right.
I barely know and I produceit. So that's. That's bad.
But we hope you all enjoyedit. Once again, Dr. Link, Dr. Gravely,
thank you so much for your time.
Thank you.
Next week we're going to behaving another round table discussion.

(01:00:58):
It's roundtable time. Thistime we're going over how churches
can disciple people in a timewhere church members spend more time
with news and media than theydo in our churches, which is of course
rather poignant at the moment.Then we're going to be speaking with
Dr. Janet Ock. I think it'sOck. About her contribution to the
New Testament in Color, amulti ethnic Bible commentary. After
that, Russ Petrus and OliviaHaste from Catholic Moon Preach will

(01:01:21):
be returning to the show todiscuss what the new Pope might mean
to their ministry. And at theend of season one, Francis Chan will
be on the show.
Yeah, he doesn't know itthough, so someone has to tell him.
Yeah. Yeah.
Somebody's got to tell.
Don't ask, just tell. Just be.Okay, Francis. I saw you. Just want
to let you know you are goingto be on the show soon.
Yeah.
At Target. Stop him.

(01:01:43):
Tap on the shoulder. I hearyou're going to be on this podcast.
Can't wait.
Yeah.