43: Diagnosing our brokenness with Dr. Nijay Gupta

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
So, if I wanted to kind of communicate to people the essence of discipleship, it's saying, choosing to follow this crucified and risen man, God, Jesus, and not anyone else.
And I think we're good at saying follow Jesus.
I think we're kind of bad at saying, okay, we're going to need to do a serious audit and analysis of where your footprints have gone down other paths of false gods and false lords.

(00:31):
This is the Made to Advance podcast.
I'm your host, Brian Aulick.
We're here to inspire and equip you for your best future.
Well, welcome, everybody.
It is so very good to be with you today.

(00:52):
And I want to ask you a favor before we get to our conversation.
If you have enjoyed, appreciated, benefited from Made to Advance, please rate and review us.
That helps us get the word out about the podcast.
And it also helps us bring on more incredible guests like the one we have today.
Because today with me is Dr. Nijay Gupta, who is a New Testament professor at Northern Seminary.

(01:13):
Nijay has written or edited more than 20 books, including Tell Her Story, How Women Led, Taught, and Ministered in the Early Church.
And more recently, Strange Religion, How the First Christians Were Weird, Dangerous, and Compelling.
I love that title.
And I love that we can call Christians weird.
Nijay also hosts a great podcast called Slow Theology that I highly, highly recommend.

(01:38):
But on a more personal level, Nijay is my brother-in-law.
And so today's conversation gives us a great chance to catch up on all things life and maybe a little bit of theology even.
So welcome to the show, Nijay.
Thanks, Brian.
I joke with you sometimes that my daughter put your contact information in my phone and she put it from her perspective.

(01:58):
So you'll forever be Uncle Brian.
So I don't know you as Pastor Brian, I know you as Uncle Brian.
It's funny, in certain cultures, they'll refer to people as unk.
So if you want to just give me that title, I'll take it.
The Great Unk.
Unk.
Well, you've got...
This has been a memorable first semester because you've had one daughter at college.

(02:20):
What's it been like having only two kids at home and having one at a distance?
You know, the biggest thing we noticed since we have three kids, one at college, is they don't fight in the back seat because there aren't three of them back there.
Oh, that makes sense.
The biggest issue when our oldest is back home for fall break or whatever is who sits in the middle.

(02:41):
That old demon comes back to haunt us.
But, you know, what's funny is I had all these dreams like, oh, we're going to talk every day and we're going to eat out all this stuff and life happens, that sort of thing.
So I guess sentimentally, I've learned the lesson that I got to be really, really intentional.
They're not just going to come home and crash on the couch and I just cozy up and say, how was your day?

(03:02):
I got to be super intentional.
Who called who more?
Maybe it's who called whom?
I don't know.
But you or her?
She calls, not infrequently, mostly to ask for money.
Or because she needs some documentation or, you know, I'm kind of the guy to, you know, send screenshots of things that she needs for, you know, doctor's visits or whatnot.

(03:24):
But Amy does, my wife does a really good job, you know, engaging with our daughter.
But I would say, yes, someone calls me more than I call her.
Yeah.
Gotcha.
Well, it is a weird thing when you've got one or, in our case at times, more than one in college or now moving away.

(03:45):
It's a funny thing because life just happens and you think, oh, we'll just stay in touch.
And then you realize it's actually got to be a plan.
Jared and I, I think we realized we're not talking as much nearly as we used to when he finished college, got married, and then started living in Grand Rapids a half an hour away.
And so we just made a lunch date where once a month we catch lunch.

(04:06):
It has been so good.
It's much more expensive than just hanging out in the living room, as it turns out.
But it's been a good practice for us to stay caught up.
And we get to see you here just in a few weeks.
By the time this episode ends up airing, this will be past history.
But my daughter, Kaylin, our second child, is getting married in January.
And your whole crew is coming from Portland.

(04:27):
Come on.
Yep.
We prioritize this, prioritize family.
Going to the Midwest in winter is not an ideal scenario.
Me being a born and raised Ohioan, I'm not critiquing.
But I am saying we're looking forward to seeing you guys and just praying for the best of weather.

(04:48):
Yeah.
Hopefully travel at least will be smooth because it feels like it's a bit of a gamble when you're traveling at that time of the year.
But we're excited to have you.
It's going to be fun to catch up.
And really, I was thinking about our conversation today.
And it's funny thinking about you being out here because a lot of times when you're in the Midwest, we'll end up sitting in some living room or something and just start nerding out on some subject.

(05:12):
And most of the family is like, thankfully, we don't have to be part of this.
But I really enjoy those conversations a lot.
And I do think some of our family appreciates them.
But I thought it would be cool rather than have a more formal sort of, I'm asking you questions about a specific book you've written or whatever.
I thought, man, it'd be cool just to have a conversation and invite all of our made to advance audience into what it's like when you and I are just chilling on the holiday and talking about whatever.

(05:38):
So, we're going to do our best to somewhat nerd out, but also keep it accessible and applicable for everyday people.
But the subject I want to talk about is really discipleship, what it means to follow Jesus.
And the reason why I thought it'd be fun, I've been thinking about this a lot because at our church, we have a lot of people who start attending and becoming part of our church family who come from little or no church background.

(06:03):
In fact, we took a survey last year and it said about half the people who are newer to Engedi had either no church background whatsoever or very, very little.
And so, and similarly, and not that it's one and the same, but faith-wise, I mean, lots of people either not yet believers when they jump into Engedi or come to Christ here.

(06:24):
And so, we've been just thinking a lot about that whole subject of discipleship.
You're in Portland, so obviously, you've got even more extreme spiritual dynamics as far as people being distant from God, not rooted in Christian worldview or background, that kind of thing. So, I thought it'd be fun to just talk for a little bit about discipleship. So, those who are listening just know this is going to feel like a little bit of a different format, but I hope it's really good. We'll find out. Let's first jump in on this whole subject of just like what discipleship is and specifically, let's talk about what a disciple is. Like when you hear that word, a disciple of Jesus, what are the kinds of things that come to your mind?

(07:01):
Yeah, Brian, the problem is it's kind of a buzzword, isn't it? And it's, you know, we can talk about discipleship programs, discipleship curriculum, discipleship literature.
If you went on Amazon and you typed in disciple, discipleship, you're going to come up with a million books of various organizations. And I think a lot of it is good intentioned, but I think sometimes we're betrayed by these buzzwords because we just kind of throw them out, you know, and we lose maybe some of the biblical nature of them because we form them around personalities or organizations. So, let me just give an example. I was involved with the Navigators in college, which I love, by the way, if I have any pro Navigators listeners out there. I learned a lot about scripture memory. I learned a lot about evangelism. But, and maybe this was just me and maybe my immature, you know, 18, 19 year old. But I thought discipleship was about doing certain things. Being a part of a program of discipline, spiritual practices, spiritual habits. And those things are good. They're great and you should do them. But when we add a ship to something, discipleship, we often turn it into a program and we forget the origins of it. What is it actually?

(08:26):
So, you know, I appreciate that you asked the question. What is it? I'm feeling a little nostalgic these days about, well, yeah, with my daughter going to college, but my first experience of teaching was actually at Seattle Pacific University early in my career. And actually, that's when I first encountered the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer was a big deal at SPU, Seattle Pacific, and I kind of, we were using it as readings for students. And I tell you what, Brian, as I thought about what I would want to hand to an 18-year-old in terms of how they see Christianity, how they see the Bible, how they see Jesus Christ, how they see their own formation or discipleship. Bonhoeffer's life story, for those of you that don't know, and I'm sure many people are familiar with the name, you know, early 20th century pastor, theologian, was part of the resistance movement against Hitler, and eventually was executed as part of the resistance. But wrote a famous book called Discipleship. And what I love about what Bonhoeffer really wanted to do in that book is get people decked down to the roots of reading the Gospels and thinking about what it means to follow Jesus. You know, even when I think you asked me the question, Brian, you said, follow Jesus, follow, what does that actually mean? What does it mean to follow Jesus? You know, he walks with me, he talks with me, what does that actually mean? And I'm afraid that we turn it into quote-unquote spiritual practices, like go to church, read your Bible.

(10:06):
But Bonhoeffer, if you go back and read that book, and actually my son, I'm so excited, I've always waited for this moment in life. My son's reading a Bonhoeffer biography, you know, he's 15 years old.
Which one's he reading?
He's reading the one with cartoons in it, it's called Dietrich Bonhoeffer for Armchair Theologians.
Ah, yes.
And it's like a couple hundred pages, easy to read. If any of you out there have teens or college students, this would be a great read for them. But we went to see the Bonhoeffer movie, that's why I brought it up. We want to see the Bonhoeffer movie in the theater.

(10:35):
Yeah, we just saw it as well, it was really good.
You did? Oh, good. And gosh, I feel like in a day and age where Christianity is just getting a pounding United States for being hypocritical, for being vapid, for being narcissistic, you know, you have the stories of these kinds of people. So, when I think of discipleship, and I'm going to give you a definition later in the conversation, but I want to hear from you.

(10:57):
When I hear discipleship, first, I kind of shudder a little bit because I think we've turned it into sort of checklist stuff. And I want to capture in a bottle the vigor and the energy and the passion in things like Dietrich Bonhoeffer's knock volga, which means following after, which is a verb rather than a noun. And that was what became the title, discipleship. So, a couple things out of that I want to kind of ask you about is, do you have the same knee-jerk negative reaction?

(11:34):
Maybe you don't, but maybe as a pastor, you would all the more, to the term discipleship? It almost, I almost don't want to use the term discipleship because of how much it's misused. Am I alone in that or do you have similar baggage? You can kneel me if you don't.
Yeah, I think that for me, when I hear the word discipleship, my baggage is probably, I do, I think a couple of things. It's not so much negative, I would say. I think when I think of the word disciple or discipleship, the thing I don't like is just it feels churchy and it does feel kind of like, oh, it was a program, not in a negative way in the sense of the program was bad, but just sort of like, oh, it's a churchy program. And I think that my view of being a disciple and discipleship is bigger and more beautiful than that. So, just thinking like, oh, it's discipleship as a program feels a little less than. I don't think it's overly negative, probably just feels a bit limiting when I hear that word. I do think, though, that a lot of people, when they hear discipleship, depends on your background, think spiritual disciplines almost exclusively. Discipleship equals spiritual disciplines. And I think it's definitely more than that, though it oftentimes includes spiritual disciplines. So, I don't know if I have quite the negative kickback you do.

(12:50):
That's healthy. That's good. Do you have a definition that you like? I'm looking at one right now, but I want to compare.
Well, you know, because we were going for more of a free-flowing discussion here today, I did not sit here and draft something. So, I've got thoughts, but if I was really to like, go, okay, I want to put this out like I was going to write it or preach it, that would be different.

(13:10):
Sure, sure.
But whenever I think of what does it mean to be, I'll say, what does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus first? And I think of things like becoming who Jesus was on the inside and character and heart.
I think of thinking of the thoughts that Jesus thought, valuing the priorities that Jesus valued, and believing the things Jesus believed. And maybe I said that already, doing the things Jesus did.

(13:36):
So, I think of this kind of holistic, I mean, basically to really sum it up in a super elementary way, to truly holistically be like Jesus. I mean, be his disciple, his student, learn to do life the way he did. But I do think that even as we talk about discipleship and what a disciple does, it already, even that terminology, the way you used it, starts getting very, like starts to turn on verbs a lot in what you do. And I think that's super important.

(14:09):
I mean, Jesus really did say in John 14, you are going to be doing the things I did and even greater things than these. So, I want to absolutely weigh those things heavily. But I think there's a lot more going on than just that. There's heart stuff, there's belief stuff, there's a lot besides just do stuff Jesus did, you know? So, that's what comes to my mind. And then I think of discipleship as whatever the process is that produces that end goal of becoming a disciple or becoming like Jesus.

(14:34):
Now, you're the New Testament theologian here, so push me, man.
I'm going to test you. So, I'm putting you on the spot here. I'm going to read a definition, and I want you to guess where it comes from. And there are two or three guesses you could make, and all of them are actually correct. I think you'll probably get one of the three. All right.
And so, this actually resonates very much to what you said.

(14:56):
Okay.
To be with Jesus, to become like Jesus, and to do what Jesus did.
Who's the, and you're asking who's the writer or speaker that said that?
Where'd this come from? Yeah.
It sounds very John Mark Comer.
Yeah, it's pretty good. This is the mission, one of the mission statements of Bridgetown Church.
Okay, which he founded.
John Mark Comer. So, this would be Tyler Staten, if listeners want to look that up, this Bridgetown Church. And who would you say is the biggest influence on Comer and this definition in terms of Christian writers?

(15:34):
Hands down. Hands down. It would be ultimately Dallas Willard, although a lot of it gets channeled through John Ortberg, who I just had a conversation with a couple weeks ago that hasn't yet made to advance that's going to be coming up shortly here. But yeah, Ortberg and ultimately Dallas Willard.
You passed the orthodoxy test, Brian. I love this, because you want whatever you pass on to believers to be simple.

(16:00):
You want it to be as simple as possible. The more complex you make it, the more you're likely to get something wrong, and it's not going to resonate with people. And, you know, I visit Bridgetown from time to time, and they say this every week. And I think a good discipling, see, I didn't say discipleship, discipling motto should be something that the people of God hear a lot. And I can't tell you how much this resonates with a lot of Portlanders, including me, be with Jesus, which is that being, identity, relationship, becoming like Jesus, which is the formation, transformation, and to do what Jesus did, which is the action.

(16:37):
And it makes me think of a text, Luke 10, with the sending out of the 70. And so, Jesus chose 72 people, disciples, sent them out, et cetera, et cetera. And I love when they come back. This is chapter 10, verse 17. They joyfully reported to Jesus, Lord, even the demons obey us when we use your name.

(16:57):
And Jesus responds, yes, I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning. Look, I've given you authority over all the power of the enemy. And you could walk among snakes and scorpions and crush them.
I mean, gosh, talk about a discipleship statement.
Pete When is the last time you've crushed scorpions, DJ? Because I just am trying to test if you're living the stuff out or...

(17:20):
Pete You know, I'm slaying metaphorical scorpions left and right.
Pete You know, I...
Pete The thing that I think is so significant about...
When you invited me into a conversation about discipleship, the very first thing I thought of was...
Pete It's...

(17:43):
Pete You're being invited into a difficult choice.
A difficult choice that you have to make.
We make Christianity sound great.
We make it sound really attractive.
Come and your marriage will get better and you'll be blessed, all this stuff.
Pete I'm actually doing some writing on 2 Timothy right now for a book project.

(18:07):
So, I'm just slowly working through and reading over and over again 2 Timothy.
And I tell you what, I'm sure you've preached on 2 Timothy before, but I would say it's the most dystopian book in the Bible.
Pete Big statement.
Pete Yeah, and Timothy is posted almost like, you know, a sergeant or a commander in a city in turmoil in Ephesus or wherever he is, happens to be at that time.

(18:36):
And, you know, Paul is like, you know, the commanding officer, the captain or whatever.
And he catches wind that Timothy is discouraged and struggling.
And he sends this letter that's meant to be a letter of encouragement, but he basically says it's actually going to keep getting worse.

(18:56):
Pete Get ready to suffer, Timothy.
Pete He said, and he says this thing, I think it's chapter 4, I'll have to look up the verse, but he says, anyone who wants to live a godly life in this world will be persecuted.
And the verb there is dioko and it means hunted down.
Anyone who wants to live a godly, pious, spiritual, discipleship-filled life is going to be hunted down.

(19:26):
I mean, talk about the biggest bummer of a reader of all time.
Timothy opens this letter and he basically, the most common theme in 2 Timothy is suffering.
Suffering like a good soldier.
Pete Right.
So, if I wanted to kind of communicate to people the essence of discipleship, it's saying, choosing to follow this crucified and risen man, God, Jesus, and not anyone else.

(19:53):
And I think we're good at saying follow Jesus.
I think we're kind of bad at saying, okay, we're going to need to do a serious audit and analysis of where your footprints have gone.
Down other paths of false gods and false lords.
I'm coming across a little bit like a Debbie Downer, Brian, but I, you know, we've batted around kind of the conversation of what stops people or hinders people from true discipleship.

(20:26):
And gosh, you and I both saw that Bonhoeffer movie.
I encourage everyone out there, check it out or when it comes on streaming, check it out.
The one advantage Bonhoeffer had over us is he was put in a do or die situation.
Pete Yeah, that's it.
Very overtly.
And we're in more of the invisible kind.
And so, we're often being wooed into following false tracks, false masters, false teachers, false idols, and we just don't know it.

(20:58):
Pete Well, I love that Bonhoeffer quote, and I hope I won't mess this up, but basically, I think it goes, when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.
Pete Yeah, yeah.
Pete And it's a great Bonhoeffer quote.
Now, here's the thing that I struggle with.
And I, of course, and regularly talk about what it means to sacrifice for Jesus, to follow him and all that.
But ultimately, following Jesus is good news.

(21:22):
It ought to bring encouragement to the heart to hear what Jesus is about and what he's inviting us into.
His yoke is easy.
His burden is light.
Pete And so, it's a really weird thing.
How do we have this message of, how do we present?
I mean, it's basically the parable of the buried treasure.
Sell everything you have because you're going to get the best thing you could have ever imagined and beyond that.

(21:45):
Pete Yeah, yeah.
Pete Yeah.
Pete But it's really hard to do that in the message, to try to pair up those things that feel so dichotomous.
I don't know if that's a real word.
Is dichotomous a real word?
Pete Yes.
Pete Okay.
Pete It just feels like, hey, everybody, this is an awesome promise of what Jesus does in your life.
But if I paint the picture of what it's going to cost you, and maybe this is what we need you to do a better job of, it's going to cause a decent percent of you to go, yeah, maybe not so much.

(22:14):
What do you do with that tension?
How do we have it presented in such a good news, encouraging, I want that, it sounds amazing sort of way?
And not on just the other side of the grave, because Jesus does bring real joy on this side of the grave too.
So, it's not that it's, you know, there's a lot going to be on the side of eternity, but how do we present both those realities at the same time?

(22:35):
Pete That's a good question, and we don't want to undersell the gospel.
Pete At the same time, the priority, I know I'm saying this as a biblical scholar and not a preacher, but the priority is telling the truth and not, you know, getting to a certain number of conversions or baptisms.

(23:02):
Pete I want the most number of people to be saved, but I want it to be to the true gospel and not to, you know, what Bonhoeffer calls cheap grace, where it's an easy yes because you're making the bar super low.
Pete You know, you take like University of Phoenix and Princeton University and what makes, you know, they're both educational institutions.

(23:26):
What makes them different is one place is just saying, we're going to make this as easy as possible.
The other place is saying, this is very special for special people.
Pete And Christianity is for everybody, but this idea, I think we have to, the way I was thinking about it this morning when I was processing kind of what I'd want to say on the question of discipleship is, you know, let's say you're in a grocery store and you see somebody, you're a doctor, and you see somebody who is 300 pounds.

(24:02):
Pete They're clearly struggling to walk.
Pete You know, you go start a conversation with them, you find out they have diabetes, you find out they have back problems and knee problems and, you know, all this kind of stuff.
And you say, I can, I can solve all those problems.
And, you know, don't you want less knee problems?
Don't you want less back?
Oh, yeah, of course.
Okay, come to this address tomorrow.

(24:22):
And they come to that address the next day, you know, hoping for an easy solution.
And you say, you're going to have to train hard, lose weight, work hard, eat right, you know, work out three to five hours a day for the next couple of years.
And then after that, hour to two hours a day for the rest of your life.
They say, oh, my gosh, like, I didn't want to sign up for all this stuff.

(24:44):
And you're like, well, if you want to get better, this is the stuff to get you there.
I think when it comes down to it, Brian, it's going to have to be trust.
They have to trust the preachers of the gospel, the heralds of the gospel to say, we're going to heal you, we're going to help you, but it's not a quick fix.
Yeah, I think that's a great point.
To me, I guess that what we probably need to really make a distinction between is our doctrines relative salvation and then sanctification at some level.

(25:11):
Because I do feel like if you look at stories of people turning to Jesus, and I love, you know, Scott McKnight wrote a book a long time ago that might have been called Turning to Jesus or something like that.
Sure.

(25:49):
Work is done by Christ.
I've put my trust in Him as the Savior and leader of my life.
I'm recognizing I'm not going to do that perfectly, but my salvation turns on Jesus now.
For me to step into who God has called me to be, what He's made me for, all of that, I mean, that's where we train and we work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

(26:11):
So, I guess I wonder if that's some of it is just this kind of idea of what does it mean to fully become who we are in Christ, and that is going to take a ton of effort.
And effort, of course, as Dallas Willard would point out, the gospel is not opposed to effort, it's opposed to earning.
And I think that that's, you know, that's a good turn of phrase that he would say relative to the gospel versus relative to Christian growth.

(26:33):
How's that hit you?
Yeah, I agree.
And I think that's important.
I think because of the way salvation has been preached, especially in the West over the last several hundred years, I'm a little bit, I didn't hear you saying this, but I would worry that you could be misunderstood to say priority number one is getting people into heaven.

(26:57):
Priority number two, then, is we want them to grow in their faith.
And the way someone like the Apostle Paul talks about, I know you're not saying that, but I heard that so much.
Yeah, I hear you.
In my younger years that it's easy for me to mishear that from lots of different people.
But when you listen to somebody like the Apostle Paul talking or writing, he talks about people in a real sense as having been saved.

(27:23):
But he also talks about us as being saved.
He uses a kind of sense of...
And I almost collapse into one thing, this idea that our salvation is now and not yet.
And I remember when I was in high school, or maybe it was college, and I had a friend who was a really strong Christian and kind of was backsliding or falling away from their faith.

(27:51):
And I remember having all these, you probably remember this, all these college conversations about, can you lose your faith?
All this kind of stuff.
And I remember someone telling me, and I don't know how to exactly defend this from the Bible, but it resonates with me.
They said, you know, a living thing is never in neutral.
They're either growing or they're dying.
And so, from the minute we're born again, from the minute that we accept Christ, we're on a path of discipleship.

(28:20):
It's whether we're on the right path of discipleship or not.
It's not that we put pause on the button and then waiting till, oh, I have more time or, you know, I have a better job or whatever it is.
You know, I can, you know, take time to read the Bible more.
So, in terms of how I'd want to preach the gospel, whenever I try to communicate the gospel to people, I don't really make it about heaven and hell.

(28:52):
I believe in heaven and hell.
I think divine judgment is real.
I think it's important.
I really make it about who we're meant to be.
I go back to that Switchfoot song, I'm a child of the 80s and 90s.
This is your life.
Are you who you're meant to be?
I mean, to me, that's the essential question of the gospel is, you know, that's what I think what's really going to drive people to become true followers of Jesus.

(29:21):
You know, the reason I'm picking on this is when I was in high school, and I love my home church, but when I was in high school, we would do door-to-door evangelism.
I respect people to do that.
It's challenging.
It's convicting.
But we would ask them the question, do you know where you're going when you die?
And if they say, I'm going to heaven, we say, what percentage assurance do you have?

(29:45):
And if they say 100, then we say, God bless you, we're going to move on to the next house.
But if they say anything less than that, then we say, we would like to give you full assurance, you know.
And it's a great pitch, but it sells a not-important-for-right-now sort of gospel.
I just want to be careful that we don't do that, because then discipleship will always seem like advanced studies for advanced people, and we don't want to do that.

(30:12):
I could not agree with you more, absolutely.
But I would say, because the kind of narrative you're talking about there, I leaned into that, I would say, pretty strongly and arguably over-strongly for a number of years.
And I feel like to the extent that I lost some of still the gravity of eternity.

(30:34):
And there's no question that the second coming and judgment is a major theme.
I mean, you've written the commentary on Thessalonians, my goodness.
So it's like that idea of eternity and the future.
And even when it comes to how we live today, it all is shaped in light of that eternal view.

(30:55):
So I feel like so much of even the hope we have in terms of what God's doing right now and all that is you still need the eternal part of it sort of to make sense of the now anyway.
So I guess to me, I'm 100% with you.
I don't want it to seem like discipleship, becoming a disciple is a little add-on for the Navy SEAL Christians or it's ancillary.

(31:17):
But I also, I just really want people to feel the weight of eternity and also the call to become like Jesus.
Now let's talk about, you've referenced it here with some, and it's a good conversation, about practical approaches to discipling.
You've referenced a couple different, we'll call them programs, approaches, whatever.

(31:38):
And people and churches have different ways of getting after this.
What's really tough in the modern church, we see when Jesus is discipling his friends, it was so much extended time together, life on life.
I mean, they are really, you know, just kind of breathing the air he's breathing, and that's a powerful thing.

(31:59):
We live in such a different context.
And I think also, beyond just the context issue, if you are discipling or seeking to build into a lot of people, you have to start thinking in terms of some sort of approach or system or something.
My view.
Now, you could disagree with me on all this.

(32:21):
So, I would love to hear your thoughts and for us to wrap a little bit on, yeah, just like if you are a local church, if you're a Christian, what do you do?
What's the, I mean, ultimately, it's like, okay, I want to grow to become like Jesus.
And we're going to say, well, if you want to do that, then...
Take it away, AJ.

(32:42):
Read my book!
No, just kidding.
Yes.
Okay.
I'm more of the theoretician, but I will offer some advice.
So, let me go back a little bit and talk about how I would want to frame the conversation.
It's not avoidance.
I think this is important, but I will get to some practicalities.

(33:03):
So, last year, year and a half ago, I was invited, actually, to be a member of a workshop through the Dallas Willard Institute at Westmont University, Westmont College in Santa Barbara with John Ortberg and others.
And the question was, this is an interesting question, the crisis of Christian immaturity in our age.

(33:26):
And we were asked from our various disciplines on Bible, other people were philosophy or theology, history, to talk about...
Did they have any pastors there that have to live this out on the ground or was it all...
Actually, there was about 100 people and 50 of them were pastors.
Okay, cool.
And about 50 of them were scholars and a number of practitioners and charity work and discipleship ministry.

(33:50):
So, they did a really good job of...
That's great.
...across the gamut.
And they asked us the question from our discipline, how would we answer this question and how we got to where we are with Christian immaturity in the West?
I think this is a discipleship issue.
In my area is the Apostle Paul.
And what was really interesting is, as I started to study Paul, I realized Paul doesn't think in terms of discipleship.

(34:15):
He never actually ever uses the word disciple.
Did you know that?
I'm not surprised by it, but I didn't know it.
I just did today, I previewed all the uses of the word disciple and disciples in the New Testament.
I was like, I am not seeing stuff pop in Paul's letters here.
It doesn't occur in Hebrews.
It doesn't occur in Johannine epistles, in 1 Peter.
It's almost like there is an intentional shift away to other languages.

(34:38):
That doesn't mean we shouldn't use it, but I think we can use other languages as well.
And one of the terms that Paul is very fond of is maturity, which in Greek is teleos.
And I think he's actually drawing off of an ancient Roman image.
So, I'm going to give you a 30-second snapshot.
So, if you're part of a Roman family, a Roman citizenship family, you know, let's say you're a father and you have a son.

(35:03):
Let's call him, I don't know, Evan.
And you were discerning, you know, when Evan transitions to being an adult.
There wasn't a specific age like we have as 18 in the United States.
It would be, you know, 15, 16, 17.
It would be discerned by the father.
And once they reached that age, the father would actually give the son a new toga.

(35:25):
They wear the youth toga.
It's called the toga pretextus.
And they transitioned to a new piece of clothing called the manly toga, the toga virilis.
Some thought an oxymoron, but not in the ancient world.
The manly toga.
I love it.
The manly toga.
And this is really fascinating, and I just learned this over the last year.

(35:45):
The whole point of being a young person, you're actually a pre-human in a sense, is to grow up to do three things.
When you become an adult in the Roman world, which is the goal of being young, is to grow up and become an adult.
The three purposes of being an adult are, number one, to get married and contribute to the population through the family system.

(36:10):
Number two, to fight in war, to protect, you know, the sovereignty of your people.
And number three, to participate in the common good, the civic good.
Now, not all of that tracks onto Christianity, but this idea that you were not created just to do whatever you want, whenever you want.

(36:30):
The Roman view was, the whole point of being young is to go through paideia, an educational process, to grow in maturity, so that you may someday contribute in all the best ways to the community for the common good.
Now, Paul didn't pull all of this, but he does pull on some of this when he talks about the church becoming this new person.

(36:55):
He calls it the teleos anthropos, the final man, or the mature man.
And as I was writing this presentation for this conference, they asked me, how do I diagnose, how do I treat this problem of Christian immaturity, which is getting at your question of what do we do?
So, I'll tell you what my advice was.
My advice was, number one, we have to diagnose our own brokenness.

(37:20):
Number two, we need to tell every Christian, as soon as they become a Christian, baptized or whatever, say the sinner's prayer, you are here and you need to get to here.
Well, what's here?
Here is conforming to the image of Christ of the person you need to become that reflects Christ.
Now, you're asking for how-tos for that.

(37:44):
I think it really begins with the philosophy.
The philosophy is every Christian needs an individualized plan to say, you're here in the wrong place, and we all start there, and you need to get here in the right place.
We need to make a plan for your whole life to get you from here to there.

(38:04):
I don't know what my life would have turned out to be if someone actually did that for me when I was 16 and I was baptized.
If someone sat down and said, Nijay, you're in the family.
Nothing can jeopardize that.
Jesus loves you.
You're going to heaven.
It's going to be great.
But hey, you're here, and you need to get here in order to become the teleosanthropos, the final man, the final human, the final person, the person you're meant to be in Christ.

(38:29):
So, you're asking for practicalities, Brian.
I would love to hear what you have to say because you're awesome at this.
But what I would say is it's not a one-size-fits-all.
So, you can't just say we run 101, 201 classes every year.
I think those classes are great.
I think that's helpful.
But I think it needs to be personalized.
Some people have been malformed in very, very specific ways.

(38:54):
And they need to be reformed in very, very specific ways.
And other people, again, they're going to be very different.
People are at different levels of being so far away from Jesus that that needs to be addressed.
You know, drug problems or pornography or whatever you call it.
You know, narcissism, whatever it is, you got to figure it out.
So, what I don't want is just these generic books that are like, everybody do these 10 things and you'll be a better Christian.

(39:20):
I think there's some great general advice, but the advice I gave at this conference was, everybody needs actually a tailored plan to get from here to there.
What would you add to that?
Well, first, I'll give a shout out to myself because I did a series that's called Grow Up sometime, I think, last year.

(39:41):
And it was basically all of Paul's passages that specifically talk about growing up and maturity in Christ, where he uses that language.
That was a fun series.
And so, every week I would make people look at their neighbor and tell them, grow up, or it's time to grow up.
So, it got reinforced.
But in any case, so maybe we'll link to that in the show notes.
But, you know, I think that on the one hand, I'll start with where you started and then I'll kind of add to it.

(40:08):
On the one hand, I think we need to get to places where there is tailored growth, that people are able to identify areas where they have unique need for transformation.
And then we need to help walk with them or provide resources that can help them in those areas.
I think of resources that I experienced both when I was at a church in Chicago and also a different church.

(40:34):
They almost had like a sort of a self-assessment of all kinds of different areas of Christian life.
And then you could go through and kind of try to rate yourself.
And again, they're just trying to – all these tools are going to have limitations.
But sometimes I think, honestly, sometimes people will not use a tool or a process because it's going to have limitations.

(40:55):
And I probably am starting to swing more in the direction of if you don't have some plan or process with its limitations, it's going to be worse anyway.
So, you know, you assess yourself and then there would be ways you could grow and, you know, take steps as you need.
I do think, back to your point on 101, 201 stuff, I mean, it does feel like to me there are certain foundational things that if every Christian could start nailing some of the basics, I mean, that by itself would be remarkable.

(41:25):
So, even as you started, you said, hey, we need to figure out our places of brokenness.
Well, my mind goes to, how do I know where I'm broken?
At this point, if I asked random new Christian, where are you broken?
They're going to mostly define that by what they're picking up from the culture and maybe some semblance of a little bit of Bible or what they think might be in the Bible.
Pop psychology.
Yeah.
So, it's like right off the top, I feel like you're not even in a position to answer that question well until you're more rooted in the scriptures.

(41:54):
And you're aware of how to listen to the Holy Spirit a little bit, and He's starting to be able to speak to your heart.
So, I just feel like on the one hand, as we're talking here, and we do a little bit of this, we do use Alpha, which I think is a good, I don't know, have you done much with Alpha?
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's a good little intro to some just foundational doctrines of who God is, who Jesus is, who the Holy Spirit is, and practical spiritual disciplines.

(42:18):
So, I think having some kind of program or process that is defined, I think is helpful to get people rooted.
I think your point is good, though, on, I think for us, it gets real organic after that, like, you know, where people are in relationship and somebody says to somebody, hey, I've got this, you know, this challenge.
And then, oh, I heard this, you know, opportunity or I read this book.

(42:40):
And then stuff just kind of gets worked out.
And that part, I think we could probably be more intentional on.
But, so, I guess that's my answer is part of me goes, have a program, have a process.
And another part of me goes, there is a need for tailored growth.
And even then, how do you have, in a sense, a process for that?

(43:00):
Do you have any thoughts on that with the individual, with your emphasis on individuality, how that looks played out?
You know, I've talked before about spiritual direction, which is kind of like mentorship.
It's spiritual mentorship.
And, you know, I have a spiritual director.
And the ongoing joke slash reality is, you know, my wife or other people will say, you know, you shouldn't really have to pay for these things.

(43:25):
But we do.
You know, I do pay for it.
Because I want, you know, I want it and I want someone who's well-trained in it.
But the ideal is that this is happening organically in the church.
Not organically, it's happening in the church.
Intentionally.
And, you know, if people aren't familiar with these terms, spiritual direction, the idea of well-trained mentors offering mentorship in growing and maturity.

(43:50):
There's a quote from A.J.
Swoboda, my partner in crime in my podcast.
And I love it.
It's a little bit, you know, stereotyping.
But he said, you know, in the great divorce between Catholics and Protestants, Protestants got the Bible and Catholics got spirituality.
I think the true part of that is Catholics have been better at spiritual practices in general than Protestants have been.

(44:19):
But one thing that I want to go back, actually, the beginning of our conversation was the emphasis you placed on growing in our personal relationship with Jesus, which is going to have a natural effect of maturity for us.
Things like prayer, things like confession, honesty before God, meditation, reading the Bible for commuting with God rather than just for, you know.

(44:46):
Knowledge or whatever.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Acquiring information.
That's not a form of Christianity that I really understood until much later in life of kind of that deeper personal relationship.
I really thought it was go to church, go to Bible study, go to small group, do the stuff.
That's partly my personality.
It's partly what was taught to me.

(45:07):
So, you're saying, how do we do that?
Having mentors, having relationships, whether it's in a small group or something like that.
I think a key factor for me, Brian, in my own discipleship is having places in the church where I can be broken and honest.

(45:27):
Because if you come up to me on Sunday morning, you know, with everybody around and you say, how you doing?
I'm just going to say I'm fine.
Even if I'm doing terribly, I'll still say I'm fine because that's not the right context for that.
But if you and I are hanging out, you know, at a coffee shop or whatever, and we're having a deeper conversation, and you notice that I've been kind of down, you know, then it's going to come out more.

(45:50):
So, I think, I'm not, I hope you didn't hear me say I'm against programming or infrastructure that's going to support people's spirituality.
I think it's great.
I think it's necessary.
I teach Sunday school classes.
I love youth.
My wife and I volunteer in the youth group.
We love it.
We think it's so important.
I think we need to send a clear message that every Christian has to do deep inner work.

(46:14):
And that none of us have arrived.
None of us are advanced Christians in the sense that we're done.
None of us got the certificate that we're done.
And just like you said, we can't send the message that, you know, these classes are just for people that want to explore more, that they're really necessary.

(46:37):
In terms of practices, what would I say to people if they want to be a disciple?
I think about my kids, what I want for my kids.
I would say what you feed your mind with is a clear practice.
And, you know, how many of us can just zombie on TikTok or, you know, whatever old person version, Facebook Reels, whatever old person version there is of that.

(47:00):
I like MySpace.
I'm living on MySpace.
Uh-oh, MySpace.
While you're watching MTV.
That's right.
Yeah, I don't, you know, I, compared to how much we actually read the Bible or how much we read Christian literature, that sort of thing.
I'm trying to get my kids into kind of reading the Christian classics, that sort of thing.

(47:21):
I would say a priority is like, you know, you'd already said this, but spending time in the Word and amount of time, it's not a checklist, but amount of time matters.
It's what we think about.
So, I'm going to plug something.
I don't know how I feel about this.
I'm going to plug the Hallow app.
The Hallow app is a Catholic spirituality app with Bible readings.

(47:42):
If it makes you, if it makes it better or worse, Mark Wahlberg is on there.
Come on!
But, but it's, it's Bible readings, giving you time to reflect and meditate and pray.
There's devotionals.
I just do the Bible readings.
I can't tell you how nice it is just to hear the Bible and then they stop and say, now say a prayer to God or reflect on what God is saying to you, that sort of thing.

(48:07):
I say just amount of time in Scripture.
And then, investing in Christian relationships.
I don't like when Christians are only at church and only friends with other Christians.
There's an expectation and obligation to be in the world but not of the world.
But I see those Christians that are proud of not having any Christian friendships.

(48:29):
Or they say, I don't like Christians.
And I think there's something fundamentally concerning about that as well.
This idea of iron sharpening, iron growing together, that sort of thing.
I'll tell you what has, one of the things that's helped me the most in life is memorizing Scripture.
I did that in college through the Navigators.
I've done that some more afterwards.
I still remember almost all the verses I memorized.

(48:52):
And I memorized, I think you memorized maybe a couple hundred.
I remember almost all of them.
I can't tell you in my moments of need when I don't have a Bible on me, how much those have meant to me in terms of speaking to God, listening to God, that sort of thing.
What about you?

(49:12):
Are there practices that are kind of cornerstone practices for you?
Yeah, I think they're similar to the ones you mentioned.
And this is interesting to me because one of the things that I think Dallas Willard was one of the first folks to talk about this in his book, Spirit of the Disciplines.
I'm sure he's probably mentioned it in other places.
But he said, I was doing the sort of stereotypical Christian quiet time where I'm spending time in the Word and I'm praying.

(49:38):
And it wasn't doing everything for me that I needed when it came to transformation.
And that's what prompted him to go into this whole conversation about spiritual practices and whatnot.
Well, I think that's really good.
But I want to, on the one hand, realize I'm just one person and what is connected for me isn't going to be for everybody.

(50:01):
But those foundational practices like being in God's Word and both reading it broadly for the information.
This is the thing too.
And sometimes these days I feel like it's just sort of the knowledge part.
And I know you're not dismissing it, but sometimes just knowledge of the text is sort of dismissed.
No, Jesus cares about the fruit of the Spirit, not the information or whatever.

(50:22):
We're bifurcating where there shouldn't be a bifurcation here.
We've got to renew our minds with truth.
But then, like you said, meditating, really where your heart burns with it, that's a big deal for me.
It's a big deal every single day.
Prayer is a big deal every single day.
I fast once a week, and that's been super helpful.
Every year we enter a 21-day season with our church where we try to introduce that practice to the church.

(50:46):
So those are some core ones.
Community has hands down been a big deal for us over the years.
And just actually last week talked about part of the process of opposing pride and pursuing humility is the practice of confession of sin.
There's nothing like lowering yourself through being transparent about weakness.
So those are all some core disciplines.

(51:07):
What's interesting is we're coming back to the fundamentals here.
And I find this often happens, even though a lot of spiritual formation writers will sometimes want to make it a lot more complicated than that.
And there are more things we can do and deeper questions we can ask from a practice standpoint.
But this comes back to me what one of the big challenges is from a pastoral perspective of helping somebody step into greater growth, becoming a more vibrant disciple of Jesus, is if I could just get people to do the basics, it would be such a big deal.

(51:49):
I mean, just to read their Bible, to pray, and to be into community.
So when it comes to...
This is where I guess I'd be curious to hear your perspective.
When it comes to the obstacles, I feel like it's people are so busy.
Sports have taken over everything.
We're not sure we want to be in relationships.
We want to have a super individualized faith where it's just me and Jesus, and I'm not really going to open up.

(52:12):
And so, I don't know, part of me goes, if we could just get the absolute basics, it would be literally transformational.
How do you react to that?
That's huge.
I mean, we're in a distracted society.
You know, I remember, you know, this was a long time ago.
This was maybe 15 years ago, and I was leading a theology club at Seattle Pacific.

(52:39):
This was like 2010.
And we had three leaders, and those leaders, it was hard to get them to go to a meeting because they were also leaders of 20 other organizations.
And when I was in college, which was, you know, only, you know, 15 years before that, you were involved in one or two clubs.

(52:59):
And these, you know, 18-year-olds, you know, were the leaders of 10, 15 different clubs.
So, the expectations for involvement, for, you know, spreading yourself out thin, you know, is just much higher.
I mean, here in Portland, which I'm sure is a lot like other metro areas, is a big sports culture.

(53:21):
So, kids are in sports.
Little town I grew up in, you know, maybe 20, 30% of students were in sports in high school, and everybody else had other activities.
But here, I mean, everybody's doing three or four sports.
And so, you're constantly running here and there.
We could cry about that.

(53:41):
We can complain.
But there's a question there of adaptability.
How do we adapt to that?
How do we use our mealtimes?
How do we use our car time?
That sort of thing.
So, my wife and I were trying to figure out how do we build spirituality into places where we're just in the car driving somewhere.
We end up having a lot of those conversations about life in the car because we're stuck in traffic and we're going to be driving for, you know, 20, 30 minutes or an hour.

(54:06):
How we use our mornings.
How we use our evenings.
We say we're so busy and then we watch, you know, three movies or whatever.
On the weekend.
So, really helping people think about their priorities, think about what's influencing them, what they're listening to, what podcasts they're listening to, that sort of thing.
So, I am worried about the kind of busyness crisis that we're in.

(54:29):
But even within our busyness, we're all still consuming a lot of content somehow.
Many of us are.
And I would just want to steer people towards, okay, listen to a Bible app when you're in the car.
Or do this when you're exercising.
Or do this.
Try to figure out how can we get into the place in people's life where there are margins, where there is space.

(54:50):
I think let's start there.
Well, I think that's, you know, when it comes to podcasting, it's funny.
I remember when we were first praying about and feeling a burden to start this podcast.
And there are so many out there and you think, well, why even do a podcast?
But it is one more chance to connect with people and one more chance to give them something redemptive that you know is going to be shaping and formative in a certain way.

(55:12):
And that's what your podcast is so great at.
I'm really glad, actually, this conversation is going to air after I get done, hopefully, with the Ten Commandments series I'm launching in January because you did a series on the Ten Commandments.
Yeah.
And I plan on stealing from that with no attribution.
So, that would be great.
Uh-oh.
No, I'm kidding.
You'll be hearing from my lawyer.
But it's, you know, again, it's just great positive content.

(55:35):
I am curious, as we kind of near the end of our time, you've got another book project coming out here in February, The Affections of Christ Jesus.
You're looking at the Apostle Paul's Theology of Love.
How do you see, when you think about Paul's Theology of Love, how do you see that as potentially having any overlap or connections with the conversation of what it means to become a disciple of Jesus?

(55:56):
I think it's actually kind of baked into it because love is one of those terms that the Bible uses to talk about our, where our energy is.
And so, I do some work in the book on emotion theory.
I won't get into it now.
But when we deeply love something, it's like our soul, this is the way I did explain it, it's like our soul has tentacles.

(56:19):
Imagine your soul has tentacles.
And when you love something deeply, it wraps itself, those tentacles around that thing.
And that's how we're designed.
That's how we were created.
That's a good thing.
That's what God does for us.
However, the problem of sin really is wrapping those tentacles around the wrong things.

(56:41):
And the problem of being the wrong kind of disciple is also wrapping our love around the wrong things.
You could hear a great sermon, read a great book all day long, but if you haven't figured out love and where your love is directed or what it's wrapping itself around, then you're not really going, your life's not going to change.

(57:02):
You kind of got to figure out, what does my heart actually love?
Now, those really nerdy listeners may think, this sounds a lot like St. Augustine.
Yes, it does.
I stole a lot of this from St. Augustine.
So, if anyone is interested, go read Augustine's Confessions.
He'll sort you out.
But I have a burden, Brian, to talk about love in an age of righteous hatred.

(57:28):
Even Christians can experience righteous hatred if you go on social media and just look at how Christians treat one another.
I kind of want to take us back to the very beginning, back to Jesus and Paul, back to the Old Testament, the Shema, love the Lord your God, and say, let me end with this.

(57:48):
If you were to ask me, after all is said and done, what does a mature Christian look like?
When I did that paper, that presentation for the Dallas Willard Center, my conclusion was, the greatest diagnostic we have for a mature Christian is how much they're able to selflessly love the other.

(58:13):
That, when I look at my kids, what I want from them, the people in my church, for myself, is the greatest diagnostic, which is reflected in Jesus Christ, is service and love.
That's the whole ballgame.
Well, that's a great, it sounds like your book is just gonna be a great conversation.

(58:36):
I think you're right.
I mean, as you were starting to just talk a little bit about it, what you ended with is the first thing that came to my mind relative to the overall conversation about being a disciple and the process of discipleship.
No matter what we're doing, we've talked a lot about different spiritual disciplines, community, confession, spiritual, you name it, practices, programs, whatever.

(59:00):
And ultimately, the measure of the thing is if it's doing its job, you are becoming a more loving person.
I love what you said of the other, and obviously, you would say both the other in a human level, but also vertically.
Even today, many times I'll open my prayers almost every day with praying through the Lord's Prayer.

(59:20):
And even then, I found I have to remind myself with the scripture I'm reading that day and even praying the Lord's Prayer, ultimately, this is all about love.
I need to come out of this time feeling and experiencing the Father's love for me in a fresh way, just that warm sense of abiding.
I've been with the Father, and then likewise, I'm loving Him.

(59:40):
I really just am enjoying His presence.
It's so easy, and part of this is how the Bible's written.
It's so easy for me to start going into, this is what I'm supposed to do differently.
Oh, we hear the terminology like, I should work on that.
Oh, I need to grow in that.
It's all good.
I mean, and it's probably all legitimate, but I feel like sometimes for me, I get so quickly into the gear of, oh, I need to grow on that.

(01:00:04):
I need to work on that, that I forget, whoa, whoa, whoa, back it up.
This whole thing is first about He's loving me.
I'm loving Him.
When that's happening vertically, it's gonna start flowing out, and at least it does for me.
I'm more gracious towards people around me, more kind, more compassionate.
Even today, I was just, I had a great time with God, and I felt so deeply loved by Him and was so enjoying who He is and praising and worshiping.

(01:00:33):
And it was funny because I was coming out of that time and thinking about His compassion for me, and without even trying to enter into a time of confession.
Lord, is there anything in me?
Search my heart.
Without even trying.
All of a sudden, the Holy Spirit brought somebody to my mind that I know in my heart I've been too critical of too quickly, and I've not been an extender of grace.

(01:00:58):
I didn't even try to have a confession time.
It was because I just was so in touch with the compassion of God that suddenly this feeling and thought pattern that's in here and in here presented itself, and it's just like, that doesn't feel like it just organically bubbled up.

(01:01:19):
It doesn't feel like it belongs in the same heart that just dwelt in God's love.
So, anyway, I don't want to belabor the point, but I think that your book sounds amazing, and I think it's a great way to end the podcast today.
Any final words you want to have today, Nij?
I know you kind of wrapped on the book, but anything else you'd like to say about what it means encouraging people when it comes to becoming a disciple of Jesus?
I'd just say, you know, listen to the Spirit, listen to your heart, and if you're challenged, do something.

(01:01:45):
I mean, it's so often where we hear something and we say, oh, I should do that, and you don't do it.
So, just take time now, make a plan, and have someone keep you accountable and do it.
I mean, usually the early part of the year is when we start making resolutions, and sometimes they fade away, but this would be a good chance to say, go for it, change your life, look for God.

(01:02:10):
Yeah, and on that point, one step you take and you stay with is better than five you set out to and don't.
So, even if it's just keep it, I think way back to where we started this, when you were talking about let's keep it simple.
I think the more complex, the more demanding, the more we're likely to fall off the wagon.
So, even if it's just one simple thing, that's a win, that's moving forward.
If people want to look you up, we already talked about the podcast, Slow Theology.

(01:02:33):
It's on everywhere that streams podcasts.
You've got the new book coming out, so we'll keep our eyes for that.
Anything else as far as tracking you on social or what?
Where do we find you, Nijay?
I have a sub stack called Engaging Scripture.
I do kind of little Bible reflections.
I do book reviews.
You can kind of see what I've been up to.
So, check that out.
It's free for most posts, and so you can just sort of see what I've been up to.

(01:02:57):
Cool.
Well, this has been fun.
Thanks for letting me try out a new format of a little bit more just conversation, and it's been awesome hanging out with you today, and it just gets me excited for a few weeks from now when you're joining us in balmy, sunny, tropical-like Indiana weather and Michigan weather as we get together as families to celebrate some big stuff.

(01:03:19):
Travel safe, and we'll talk to you soon.
Okay, Nijay?
Thanks, Brian.
Well, I hope you enjoyed that conversation about discipleship, what it means to follow Jesus with my brother-in-law, Dr. Gupta.
I never call him that, Dr. Nijay Gupta.
But anyway, hey, I want you to just be encouraged today that that great parable that Jesus taught about discipleship, the kingdom of God being like a treasure that's been buried in a field.

(01:03:45):
It costs a man everything to buy the field, but he does so without even hardly thinking because the treasure is just so worth it.
And if you're contemplating right now reorganizing and reorienting your life around what it means to follow Jesus, it will be costly.
It will take effort, sacrifice, intentionality.
But the payoff of transformation in Christ so far exceeds the cost.

(01:04:08):
So whatever it is you feel like the Lord's putting on your heart to do, do it and know you will be glad you did.
If you enjoyed this conversation, please do rate and review us.
That helps us get the word out.
It helps people know, hey, this is a podcast worth listening to.
This has been a production of Engedi Church.
We've got some incredible conversations coming your way soon.
And so until next time, just know God made you to advance.

(01:04:31):
Engedi Church.
Engedi Church.
Thank you.

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