BibleProject - The Jesus Creed - Feat. Dr. Scot McKnight

Episode Date: June 20, 2019

In part one (0:00-12:00), the guys discuss Scot’s academic background and writing habits. In part two (12:00-27:10), Tim shares how important Scot’s book, Interpreting The Synoptic Gospels, has been to him. In part three (27:10-39:30), the guys talk about Scot's most well-known book, Jesus Creed. In part four (39:30-54:10), Tim shares his thoughts on Scot’s book, A Community Called Atonement. In part five (54:10-end), Tim shares how impactful Scott's book, A Fellowship of Differents, has been to him Show Resources: Scot's Wikipedia page with links to all his books: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scot_McKnight Scot's bio: https://www.seminary.edu/faculty/scot-mcknight/ Scot's podcast, Kingdom Roots: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/kingdom-roots-with-scot-mcknight/id1078739516 Show Produced by: Dan Gummel Show music: Defender Instrumental, Tents The Truth about Flight, Love, and BB Guns, Foreknown Bird in Hand, Foreknown Excellent, Beautiful Eulogy Scream Pilots, Moby Powered and distributed by Simplecast.

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it in, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds, and please transcribe your question when you email it. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

Welcome to this midweek episode of the Bible Project podcast where we do interviews with scholars that have been influential to the work that we're doing here at the Bible Project. Yeah, every video that we make at the Bible Project has been in the works for a long time and usually involves a large stack of books upstream of the biblical scholars that I actually have been reading and learning from pretty much since the beginning, all the way back since my first year to taking classes in biblical studies, is a scholar Scott McKnight, a scholar of New Testament studies, but also really interested in the Greek and Roman backgrounds, cultural setting of the New Testament, Jewish setting, he's a scholar of everything. He's amazing. You might know him from his Testament, Jewish setting. He's a scholar of everything. He's amazing. You might know him from his book, Jesus Creed.

Yes, that's right. But he's written a lot of stuff. Yeah, he's one of those authors who, once you're over, like 15 to 20 books. You're doing it differently. He's well over that. I've actually had a chance to meet him at a time or two conferences or different things.

But he ended up in town in Portland for an event and so when I found out I asked him if he would come into the Bialyst project studio and if I could sit down with him. So what I did actually was I went to my library and found every book of his that I own and that I've read. And then I put them all in chronological order and spent an hour retracing my learning journey from that stack of books. And what this interview is is me sharing going through each book. What I learned from it. But then I get to ask him why he wrote the book and what he cared about most in writing that book. And it's kind of, it was a really fun conversation.

It was, you get into the mind of an author in a way that we don't typically get to talk about. And Scott's just a really great humble and smart guy. It was a pleasure talking with him. And so here's our conversation with Scott McKnight. All right, Scott, welcome. Good to be with you. So yes, we get to interview scholars that I'm reading

and that I'm learning from time to time. This is only the second time we've had somebody be able to come here, so we're grateful. Oh, good. You're here in town for some other things too, but we're glad to be here. we're glad to be back in Portland. It's raining. That's what Portland should be.

That's right. It was snowing earlier. I don't call that snow. We know what we're, that's right. We know what we're going to snow for us. Yeah, that's right. I've talked about you on the podcast or your work. We've said a bit about you to intro this episode,

but your professor at Northern Seminary now, Illinois, you've been there for a number of years now. Seven, this is finishing, well, yeah, seven years. Yep. And you teach, of course, it's on New Testament. Yeah, I teach a Master of Arts in New Testament program, where we have a lot of live students. One of my students lives in the Netherlands. I have two D-men groups, called the Doctor of Ministry. Doctor of Ministry.

Yeah, those are the, and then I do some other courses. Sure. When the schedule permits, but, Yeah, and you write a lot. I do. I get headaches when I don't write. Oh wow, when you don't write, you get it.

So I normally, I teach on Mondays. And Tuesday through Friday I'm home, unless I'm traveling like this. Oh, I got it. And I'm usually at my computer by 730 sometimes 7. And I can usually work until about two o'clock and then I can't write anymore. Then I read the juice, the energies.

That's a lot spent for the day. That's a seven hour chunk of your day. No wonder he's so prolific. But I've been doing it for a long time. For 35 years. Yeah. You've formed a habit in terms of like it's a way of life for you, reading, taking notes and writing.

But you love it. I don't look at it. Some people say you must really be disciplined. I think my response to that is no. I don't know what else to do with my time. Because this is what I do. I get up in the morning, expecting to write. And I'll take breaks from a book or something.

All right, now I'm translating the New Testament for University to match John Golden Gays' first testament. Oh yeah, yeah. I'm standing. It's called the second testament. Huh. So I'll finish a book, you know, I'm right now in the middle of Mark. When I finish Mark, I have to write a Festrific article for a professor. So I'll do that and then I'll go back to translating.

That's what I do. That's what I do. You've been doing it for a long time. Yeah, well, that's great. I and lots of people have benefited from your whether it's your habit discipline or joy. It seems like it's kind of all of them Yeah, there's lots of people who are grateful and You've helped a lot of people. Well, thanks a lot lot of people through your, it's a ministry of writing. It is. I've heard you talk about it. Yeah, at one time it was more academic.

But when I wrote Jesus Creed in 2004, my life changed. Yeah, yes. I'm gonna save that. Okay, let's say, I want to talk about that when you had that experience, but I, knowing that you were coming, I kind of reconstructed my encounter with

your work throughout my education. So I have a handful of books in person, I have a number of Kindle books, and then the first time I came across your work was actually I was in, I think I finished second year Greek, and I was in a class on Hebrews in English, but I was forcing myself to read it in Greek because I wanted to get better. That was challenging. And the warning passages that terrify many people when they read them, warning followers of Jesus about fiery judgment and these kinds of things. Anyway, so I asked my professor, you know, what do you recommend? So he recommended this article. It was just, I was just figuring out what articles are.

So I go to Trinity Journal. That's right. And here it is. I actually have a PDF of my original copy. And Scott, I just want to remind you, some pages have only three lines of text and the whole thing is footnotes. Uh, 90% footnotes. Yeah, this one's half and half. That's good.

Oh, good. But this academic rating, I spent a whole summer. I was vexed on this problem. Yeah. I wanted to work it and I found a formal approach to the passages. There's four elements in each one of the warning questions. Which passage of a timeout? So, yeah, there's a network of passages that repeat throughout Hebrews warning of really stringent warnings of divine judgment for turning away from Jesus. And it causes theological problems for lots of traditions.

People can be terrified by it. I mean, Tim, over the years, I've gotten dozens of letters from people who are convinced that they've committed the unpardonable. And they find out about just because of my article and I think, oh, I wish you don't, I don't want you to read that one now. You've obviously felt the terror. We don't need to worry about that right now. Yeah, sure. So, yes, sure. Yeah, that was, I spent a whole summer working on that. And then I taught it. Had you been teaching, it was just personally, it was a question you needed to do. I taught a course at Trinity called, we called it the leftovers. Hebrews, general pistols, Johanian literature and revelation. So there was the synoptic gospels, axon, Paul, and then the leftovers.

And that's not what I said in the syllabus. Well, it said, I don't know the number. I can't remember that. MT603, I don't like that. MT603. And it was, it called it Hebrews, general epistles, and Johanine literature. I think it was the official title. But I taught it.

And this is a seminary, pretty full of Calvinists. At the midterm, almost every student in the class was convinced of my view. And I remember thinking, I'm in trouble. I'm officially now in trouble with the Calvinist professors. I mean, it was fair. I wasn't bothered by it. I mean, this is what Trinity was like. Yeah. Yeah. That was fun. Yeah. And that's become a little e-book called

a long faithfulness. Oh, no. Oh, yeah. I saw it. I wrote it so it's more readable. Oh, really? Took out all those long footnotes that you got. Okay.

Did you rewrite it just to be less technical for a wider audience? Yeah. Oh, that's good to know. Yeah. Oh, that's great to know. Yeah. I wanted to call it a long faithfulness in the same direction. But it's not a too much like another book. That's right to know. That's great to know. I wanted to call it a long faithfulness in the same direction. But it's not a two much like another one.

Do you get into the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit? Sure. Well, blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is from the Gospels. This one is, I call the sin apostasy. So you're actually consciously, intentionally, turning your back on faith in Christ. But do you think that's what that's about, too, do you think they're all connected to you? Okay.

Yeah, I think that's what the sin is. And the judgment is eternal, is eternal judgment. So I'm Arminian in that, is I think that there are people who can walk away from the faith and lose what redemption they had. That's sort of the argument. Well, that's the heaviness you feel when you read it. He reads it. Yeah, that's the answeriness you feel when you read it. He reads it.

Yeah, yeah. It sure does. It scares you. I remember as a high school student, I read it the first time. But I was so sure of assurance of faith that I knew it didn't have anything to do with me. But in college, I started reading it. And then when I was in seminary, I went,

whoa, this is some pretty serious stuff here. But I didn't have to work it out until I had to teach it. And then I couldn't live with the way I talked about it. So I was thinking about it. So I had to, I spent the whole summer preparing that one lecture. Wow. I also remember that this essay was a good model for me just in reading, how to read New Testament epistles. And you know And I had other classes in it, but I think because the New Testament epistles, the way they communicate, make their points, mount arguments, use illustration, is different. Yes.

Then how we think about communicating, and it takes a while to acclimate to how the apostles make arguments and so on. And so this approach also was a good model for me in reading the epistles as whole lines of thought, and you can't just abstract a paragraph out here there, but view every paragraph as a networked within all of it. So your point here is there's lots of warning passages,

they all illuminate each other. Yes. You can't treat one. That's the point. Different from how you treat it, not there. Yeah, I'm gonna think. Yeah. Well, thank you for another. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, thank you for that. Yeah. Not many people have thanked me for that one. Oh. So it was helpful. Well, you know, it's almost, it's almost an education in itself is when you work through one passage really carefully, let's just say you give a student an entire week to do nothing but read that.

Yeah. Work through everything, every question. That's how you get educated. You know, we've got to cover the big picture. No one knows how to do that better than you. We've got to cover the big picture. But you have to dig down at times to figure out how this work is actually done at the deeper level.

Yeah, that's right. And so, I think it's been helpful for that. But that was a long time ago. That was a long time ago. That was a long time ago. It had to be in the 80s, wasn't it? I think it was published in 92. 92. I tried to gain the lectures in the late 80s before I went.

Okay. Publication was good. So those are some years you were teaching at Trinity in Illinois. Yep. Yeah. Was that your first teaching position? Okay. and Illinois. So is that your first teaching position? First teaching position. Okay.

Okay. Okay. So next step in this journey of me discovering something nice, the next one was a volume in a series called Guides to New Testament Exegesis. It's a handbook. It's a handbook called interpreting the synoptic gospels, actually the Mark and Luke.

Scott, I mean, again, I took some classes at Multnomah, but for me, this was the next level. So you were one of my first tutors in teaching me to read the synoptic gospels. Thank you so much. Well, thank you. That's me. That's me. No, really, I've come back to this so many times.

There were many things that were interesting to me. So I think I had only been following Jesus and reading the gospels for a couple years before I enrolled for classes. It was all still pretty fresh. And I would still so remember might be wilderness at reading anything in the Bible. It was so still pretty fresh. And I still, so remember, might be Wildermant at reading anything in the Bible. It was so strange to me.

But Jesus was awesome. I was compelled by him and that he was amazing. So I read the gospels a lot, but I just constantly had this sense of like, I don't really have a clue what's going on here on any good page, about how to follow a narrative argument, how the portrait of Jesus is advancing and developing, building, and so it was actually in the same series,

Tom Schreiner as a volume on how to read the epistles that I found really helpful. And so I then I saw in the library, I was like, oh, this is a series. Oh, it's got to make a night. Hey, I read him on the warning letters, the warning passage in Hebrews. And so there you go. And so this helped me immensely, especially the latter half about how each

Matthew, Mark, and Luke are developing distinct motifs that are unique and how to trace a motif through repeated words and themes and ideas, as well as how to compare the synoptics. I was helped immensely, so thank you. Yeah, well, for that. That was my first book. Yes, tell me about the Genesis of this book.

My PhD supervisor, Jimmy Dunn, and my external examiner, Graham Stanton, wanted me to publish my dissertation. I was teaching synopterygospels. So I sat down to write, start my dissertation and revise it. I worked one day and I said to my wife, I'm never gonna do this again. I'm not touching this, Matthew 10 again. I did my work on that.

I don't wanna revise it. I wanna write something for my students. So I'd been building notes. I was helped by Murray Harris and Richard Longinecker and Walt Leifield, who had taught synoptics at Trinity and there were notes that were passing around. I got permission from Walt Leifield to use a little bit of what he had said.

And so I started building my own lecture notes on the synoptic gospels and I had just gotten an Apple Macintosh 512k. Are you old enough to remember that? That's the processing power 512? I don't know. It was small though I could type about 20. It wasn't one of the neon ones. Oh no, right before. This was a little square box. No. It was, I could type about 25 pages, and I had to change discs. Oh.

Oh, okay. So then it was 512 KE, you got an extra old drive. You got an extra old drive. You got an extra old drive. Then you could go 100 pages or so. What an amazing. I still have all my discs.

Oh. I have a whole drawer full of nothing, but these little discs. I'm sure they don't work any. I'm sure they've done matter. I don't have the computer either. But I started building and I would write it out. And because our lectures were a little bit more formal,

I would write it all out. And the next thing I realized, I had something like a book. So at an SBL meeting, I talked to an editor, Alan Fisher, and then his colleague Jim Kinney at Baker. And they said, why don't you be the editor for a series? So I wrote the synoptics and then I asked some friends to do the other ones and we did a little introduction to a new test-minics.

Yeah, it was like five or six volumes. Yeah, yeah. And it worked, and it was fun. Ramsay Michaels did a revelation. Yeah, totally. Drew Toddler did Hebrews, a very good book. Yeah, the whole series I ended up getting. Yeah. There's lots of books on the synoptic problem. Yes. The historical question of

the relation. But just like reading next level depth reading tools, maybe it exists, but I haven't had it. Well, what happened? Equal. Is when I was doing synoptic gospel studies, reduction criticism, and literary, and sometimes called composition criticism were the thing. And so people were studying how does Matthew present the disciples, how does Mark present the disciples, Luke, some people got into John as well, but the synoptics are distinct. Well, that almost, and the synoptic problem was always involved. So that's what I was teaching. And all of a sudden, it all died. And it became historical Jesus studies.

And it SBL, the Matthew seminar, SBL is a society-bidic literature. So did the literature shrunk from 125 people to 20. And the historical Jesus seminar we're talking the glory days of Tom right Paul Frederickson John Dominic Cross and Mark Borg. Yeah, I was in sessions where there were over a thousand professors in one session listening to other professors now professors have big enough egos that you can't get a thousand of them together to listen to one person or anything. And they took over. And all of a sudden, the historical Jesus studies took over gospel studies.

And that lasted for almost a decade. The first time I heard that phrase was just a week ago. Someone told me the historical Jesus. Historical Jesus studies. But it was a thing. And I was like, I don't even know what that is. I still don't know what it is. What it means is, now here's, this is critical,

because I define this very carefully. I get into arguments with someone named N.T. right about this. It's not, historical Jesus is not what Jesus was like. So it's not baptizing Jesus in his historical context. It's looking at the gospels with a skeptical eye, saying not all this stuff was said and done. You're talking about the agenda of the academic program.

Yes, what it does. Yes. And they try to find what Jesus was really like over against what the church believes. Yeah. And when I asked the guy, I was telling him this, I said, well, where else but the gospels do we have any information about Jesus? Well, other than our gospels, there are some other gospels. You do the other gospels, right?

Yeah, and there would be Jewish information from the Dead Sea Scrolls and stuff that would be, that would filter in, but Jesus isn't there. Okay. You've got to use the gospels. You don't use the gospels, you're not going to get anywhere. But some people are very generous with non-canonical gospels. The gospels not in our Bible and very critical of the canonical. Yeah, right. So that's what historical Jesus studies does.

Okay. Yeah, yeah. So, well, that's a great transition for our next stop on the tour. Yes. So there were two books. I'm looking, book you wrote, a new vision for Israel. Yes. The teachings of Jesus in national context. You wrote it, published 99. I was late to the game.

I read it in 2006. But I actually discovered this and Jesus creed around the same time. And I think... Yeah, about the same time. It was probably about 2001 when I encountered Tom Wright's big book on Jesus and the Victory of God.

And then that just began a big rabbit trail for me. And so I had just started reading everybody in his footnotes and figuring out historical Jesus stuff. It was my first time diving into that. And Tom Wright's book was so fun to read. Oh, it was amazing to read. It was, that was unreal. You're totally.

Which one? Yeah. Jesus and the victory of God. I read that one. Whoa. It was just new world. Enjoyable to read. 96 or 97. You're totally which one yeah Jesus in the Greek got here was I read that one whoa yeah It was just a new world enjoyable to read 90 yeah six or Yeah, yeah, that's right 600 pages and it could have been a thousand. Yeah, that's right But it was it's an enjoy it's a it's a work of literary art even just how it's organized anyway

He's a good writer so are? So this one is not well written. Here's what was helpful for me about it. And as I was looking through, looking through my notes, so maybe this represents I'm in year 11 now of reading the Bible in 2006. And I was beginning to make this turn of understanding Jesus that to understand his cosmic significance, I needed to understand how the gospels are presenting his historical mission to the Israel of his time. Yes. And that his message about the kingdom, his calls to repentance, his warnings of judgment. Are they're not bound to the first century, but I have to first understand what they meant in that moment. And while Tom Wright's book did that, this was shorter.

And there are number of points that I felt like you clarified for me that we're left hanging after. After Tom Wright. So I'm curious, yeah, tell me what the genesis of this book and what interested you about these ideas. Well, Bruce Chilton and Craig Evans were editing a series and Craig came to me and asked me if I wanted to write one and I said I will but I kind of want to do just a book on the teachings of Jesus in his historical context. Craig said go for it. So that's what I wrote. And I wanted to show that the message of Jesus about the kingdom, about ethics, about God were all connected to the Old Testament, to the Jewish world, and that Jesus was calling

the people of Israel to repent in light of the coming judgment on Jerusalem for its waywardness. So like Deuteronomy type stuff, you know? Yes, yeah. That's what I did. I did not go into how Matthew presented, Mark presented, Luke presented. I didn't do that. I wanted to kind of focus on the teachings of Jesus and still, in some ways, be relevant for my classes who were studying Jesus.

I found when I got to North Park University in Chicago that that book was too heavy for my college students. In fact, I wrote it when I was there. And it was disappointing to me that the book I wrote that I thought they could understand was too dense. So I was not able to use it as a textbook. I had too many unbelievers in my class to... That's right, you had a spiritually diverse... Yes, you didn't buy it. ...55th probably. That's right. So that book was a little too much for the non-believers, so I went in other directions. Yeah, yeah. I use more basic stuff.

So in terms of, this has come up in John and I's conversations a lot, and I still think I am still reckoning with this because the four gospel portraits of Jesus are claiming universal significance for this story. They're presenting Jesus as a figure of universal significance for the whole world. But the person they're presenting is very much grounded in the dust, the grit, is very much grounded in the dust, the grit, and politics, and religious controversies of its day. You know, that's just something to wrap your mind around. Many people are introduced to Jesus' teachings, especially completely taken out of that context.

And more like Jesus is a moral philosopher. Is how a lot of people encounter the teaching of Jesus. Good guy. Yeah. It complicated how I related to Jesus' teachings in the gospel, but it also made them come alive in a new way too. And John, I've talked about these things some, but this book really helped me with that. I'm not, I think I would minimize the gospel authors

thinking that they're writing for a universal audience. They're writing for their audience, believing that what they have to say is valuable to other people too. But universal is pretty big, you know? Yes. They're not writing the difference between the universal audience,

but universal significance, all authority and heaven and earth. Oh, in terms of the cosmic significance. I believe that. That's what I mean. Yeah, I think that they believe that this Jesus that they believed in, who was crucified, who taught all these things, told these stories,

did these marvelous deeds, who was crucified and raised and ascended is the true is the world's true Lord. They believe that. But you're dealing with in the first century when Matt let's say Mark is writing in the mid 60s. He's in Rome let's say no one knows for sure but scholars like to think they know those things. So let's just say 65, he's sitting there writing this book. You know, there's maybe 200 Christians in Rome, maybe 150.

Tom Wright thinks 100, when Paul writes the letter, 57 AD, so not many. So they are nobody, they have no power. So they really do believe that Jesus is the Lord and that he's coming back. But things don't look like they're in their favor and Nero, you know, by the time a mark is writing, Nero is whacking people and he's maybe Mark writes after Nero, but maybe it's right in the middle of it when he's killing people. Maybe set the city on fire so he could rebuild the inner part of Rome. That's one of the stories that has gone on since the first century. So I think that there was a level of imagination

on the part of those early Christians, on the significance of Jesus that is bubbling. I mean, they thought they really thought this Jewish guy who was crucified way out there, you know, on the far end You know Nevada or something like that where a new Mexico or hardly buddy lives. Yeah, and they think he's he's the Lord Yeah, that takes courage and imagination. Yes, and they had that imagination Mm-hmm And then the size of like a neighborhood association Yeah, and now that they're in poor areas. Okay, they probably lived in what's called the avanteen, some of them.

If they're in the avanteen, the senators are moving out of the Roman forum era and moving south into this. So there'd be some Christians there, there could be some mixture with some upper class people. But by and large, there were all the poor people are in Rome. And they haven't, there's all the poor people are in Rome. And there's no rights, they're not citizens, they have no chance, they just keep their mouth shut and they wanna do what's right.

There was a great movie about Paul last year by James Faulkner, did you watch it? And then, oh, I didn't. I heard that. It's really worth watching. And I think it has great depictions of what it was like to be a first century Christian in Rome.

I think it's really, I think I thought, wow, it's good. Yeah, Faulkner became a Christian doing the movie. No joke, he did. Wow. Okay, wow. It's quite a story. I just heard about it again this year. Yeah. So let's talk about that imagination and about how the early Christians and the apostolic

witness came into writing through the gospels. You wrote a version that wasn't accessible to your students, you discovered how to present Jesus. College students. So then Jesus' creed enters your mind and heart, somewhere in there. 2004 it was published. Okay. So actually I just discovered, I remembered today looking for it,

that I loaned my copy that I first read, and note that whoever I've ever given back to me. So man Scott thank you for the Jesus Creed. Tell us. That book, it impacted my life. I did. It changed a lot of people's lives. All right. So I'm sitting at Rollo Creek one day. Bill Heivils is preaching and he says something about the Pharisees and I'm sitting there and I just shake my head thinking, we have known better than this since 1977, when EP Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, I thought, oh, he thinks all Jews are legalists.

Come on, we can do better than this. Read the Bible, you know? So I decided right then and there, because I was listening to more and more pastors. The pastors are reading John Ortberg and Andy Stanley and they're not reading Jimmy Don and NT right and I thought okay well then I'm gonna write for that group of people. So I thought I need to write something at that level about Jesus because that's what I was writing about and studying. But I also knew this, this was the big moment for me.

It had to be spiritually engaging for ordinary people. So I wanted to write a book about Jesus for ordinary people that would have... ordinary meaning they don't like to read books all day. Yeah, not academics, not pastors. People that church. Normal people. Yeah, yeah.

You might not even like to read. And I wanted them to understand Jesus in his Jewish world. So the first chapter started, I was having lunch with a pastor at Willow Creek named John Ortberg. I said to John, are you going to preach at Christmas this year? He said, yeah. I said, what are you going to preach about? This is in November. I have no idea. He said, do you have an idea? I said, yeah, I think you should preach about Joseph. He said, well, why don't you send me some stuff about Joseph?

So that day I went home and I wrote 15 pages on Joseph. And I sent it to him. The next morning, I get a three line letter, typical John Orpberg letter. This is great. Send me one on Mary. I wrote back, John, I am not your graduate assistant. So I wrote that and then this is no kidding. That became the template, the chapter on Joseph. But I wrote it 19 different times, till I found a template. It grew to 35 pages.

Which would have been... The chapter on Joseph. John Joseph, it would have been way too. I mean, that's, that's probably eight times bigger than the chapters. I discovered that the right pace was about 2,200 words and it had to have at least one story, maybe two. And I had to avoid my editor wrote me and said, quit, I some chapters quit trying to prove things your audience believes you just tell us what you think I'm not used to this I want to build a case. She says no case. Just give me the conclusion to move on So she was amazing editor a little copat and she pushed me and ripped chapters apart. One chapter she wrote a great, big green ex on it. She said, this whole chapter sucks. So I worked on it, and originally it was going to be something like seven habits of Jesus

followers or something. And we went back and forth on titles, and I wanted to call the book then the Jesus Creed, and they did not like that title. They wanted the Creed of Jesus. Well, my editor sent it back to me with no approval for Jesus Creed. It had to be the Creed of Jesus. And I didn't like it.

So I knew the next layer would go to a different editor, so I just changed it and put it the Jesus Creed. Send it to the next editor. And when my original editor got it again, she had no problem with it. And that book put me in all kinds of churches all over. I spoke to pastors. And that was the book that changed my life toward writing for the church and for lay people.

But the other side of it is I learned how to write in a different way. Yeah. I mean, 19 times on Joseph, there was a reason for that, is because I did not know how to write for that audience. It's writing for a popular audience. Yeah, yeah. I call it, my wife calls that I have two kinds of books. She calls them readable books and unreadable books. I had to move it to a readable book. Yes, yeah. That was the process. The passion that comes through in that book is the Jewish heritage of Jesus and the early Jesus movement is not some cultural set of shackles that the early Christians were

freed from. It was the biblical heritage that shaped Jesus, and that is actually still shaping us, his followers through him. It's a Jewish heritage. And it's beautiful. Well, and hit me square, square between the eyes. I was teaching two classes back to back. Jesus of Nazareth, eight o'clock in the morning, 50 students in the classroom. Then I would walk across the hallway

to a senior seminar on the Christian spiritual formation. And we were reading a book on Christian spiritual formation. And as I would walk from the Jesus class to this other class, I would say, the person that we're going to be talking about now has nothing to do with what Jesus was talking about. And it happened so long that I said to myself, wait, sorry, I wasn't following. The person who wrote the book. Okay, so we are writing, we're reading a book by Richard Foster called Streams of Living Water. Okay. And it goes through six spiritual formation traditions in the church. Okay. And each one of them focuses on one person.

Okay. So I'd, I'd start thinking about that person. I think, well, that's really good stuff, but has nothing to do with Jesus in his Jewish world. So it started working backwards, I kept thinking, so how would Jesus have framed spiritual formation? Yes. And one day I was sitting there thinking, well, he's Jewish every morning, every night,

he says, Shema. So I'm gonna start with this. So I decided to explore Shema. He says, Shema. So I'm going to start with this. So I decided to explore Shema in the Gospels. And I was shocked at how often if you're looking for it, you can see it. And I don't think it's artificial to see it in certain contexts. For instance, the Lord's Prayer starts out with God and then it's others. That pattern is not in the Kadesh, the Jewish prayer that's like it. There's nothing about others. It's only about God. So he had to add the second part. And when you look

at the Jesus Creed, hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God starts it off from Deuteronomy 6. But Jesus adds, love your neighbor as yourself from Leviticus 19. So he's added that in two different locations that are very important liturgically, religiously for Jews in the first century. So I began to trace this theme. And then the other thing that happened to me, I decided I was going to try to do this the way Jesus did. That every morning when I put my feet on the ground and every night when I took my feet off the ground, I would say that Jesus creed and I learned it in Hebrew so that I felt superior to it. And I would say it every day, then I made a commitment. I did this for maybe a month, then I made a commitment that every time it came to mind, I would repeat it again.

And I found myself saying it 40, 50 times a day. And to this day, I say it all the time. And I think that's the secret to it, is that you repeat this over and over, not as a form of vain repetition or recitation, but as a reminder. And if you say this often enough, before long you find yourself interacting with someone,

saying, okay, I need to, I need to be like Jesus here. I need to love my neighbor as myself. It makes a difference. What is it? Not in Hebrew in English. Hero is real, the Lord of God. Oh, so it's a schmaw. Yeah, a schmaw. And is it Jesus' version of it with? I, if you use Mark, Hero is real, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul, and all your strength. The second is this, love your neighbors yourself. There is no commandment greater than these. Cool. And that second half is from Leviticus 19. I found this in Paul. I find it in John.

That's right. I find it in James. Totally. It's everywhere. It's tipped off when they're quoting Leviticus 19. Yeah, that's right. I find it in James. Totally. It's everywhere. It's tipped off when they're quoting Leviticus 19. Yeah. That's right. Quoting Deuteronomy 6 is very Jewish. Yes. Quoting Leviticus 19 in connection with Leviticus with Deuteronomy 6 or the Shemaah is pretty distinct. Yeah. So, yes. I mean, John is obsessed with the word love. Yeah. He didn't get that on his own. That's right. And Paul says, a couple times, if you love your neighbors yourself, you fulfill the law. That's a big stuff.

That's not small. What you're saying is this was so foundational for Jesus. This is a later apostolic writing, stone even need to quote it as such. It's in the deep structure of their thought and way of talking. Yeah. That's... I mean, sometimes the most formative ideas on us, we don't need to talk about the it's in the deep structure of their thought and way of talking. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, sometimes the most formative ideas on us, we don't need to talk about them explicitly. Yeah.

They just form our vocabulary and our thinking. Yeah. And that's what you're saying about the Jesus Creed. That was a novel thing for Jesus to mix up Leviticus. What is it, 19? I say that, yeah. I say that Jesus' combination of Deuteronomy 6 with Leviticus 19 is distinct to Jesus.

No one else combines those two texts. The testament of the 12 patriarchs does combine loving God and loving others, but no one quotes Leviticus 19 in combination with Deuteronomy 6 before Jesus that I'm aware of. And I don't think we were out of Jesus. Because he's the first one to say it. Yeah, that's right. But I think he is the first one to do it. Yeah, probably of all of your writings, that one has had the longest after life and transformations.

There's a children's book based on it. There's study guides. Oh, for days. And we're coming out with a 15 year edition this year. Awesome. I wrote a new chapter for it. Yeah, wow. Wow.

New cover. How many times did you write that chapter? I just had to write this one one. Oh, but I mean, I had to edit it over and over. Yeah, but my editor read it and said, I love this. It's approved. Mm-hmm. So that's what happens when you're 40 years into a writing career.

When you're done. Do you think, I mean, having looked back on your career and ministry of writing, does that kind of stand out as like a gem moment in terms of your journey? Unquestionable. I mean, it's number one. I always like when people say what's your favorite book, it's always the last one I wrote. But that one was a life-changing book for me spiritually and for my ministry and teaching. I mean, I was speaking at a place about the Jesus Creed and a bookstore manager said, is this your first book? I said, well, I said, it's actually my 18th. Obviously you've never heard of me.

He said, that's right, I've never heard of you till today. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, what a journey. Well, again, thank you. My favorite story is, yes, please, Johnny Wooden, the great basketball coach at UCLA, had a copy of Jesus Creed. He reached out to you. My favorite story is, yes, please Johnny Wooden the great basketball coach at UCLA had a copy of Jesus Creed. Hmm. He reached out to you. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, okay, continuing the journey. This is really enjoyable.

I think the next book of yours, as far as I can reconstruct, because I write the little dates inside, was a book called On the Atonement. A community called Atonement. I was just beginning to come on staff at the church that we had been attending for a couple of years, and I was beginning to be asked to teach classes and occasionally preach. And so I, there was a sermon, it was in a Gospel of John series, I got assigned a passage

in John about the son of man dying and being exalted. And so I wanted to read up on a tonement in my language about the cross. I got a four-views book that I realized like, oh my gosh, this is like a really hot topic. You're probably a Tomi horse. Totally. And then this volume, I got a four-views book and then I got this volume. And what was formative for me, there's a lot of things that were helpful here, but what

was formative was this chapter called, which is the fairest of them all. Yeah. So you've gone through the whole book saying, you can talk about the apostles represent the cross as a victory, as a sacrifice, as an example of love, different ways that they frame it, and then it was your way of addressing, do we have to privilege one over the other,

or is there some deep underlying common denominator that's true of all of them? And so you have this phrase that the atonement is Jesus identifying with us so that we can be incorporated into him. Yeah. And then you build on that. Yeah. But that was very helpful for me. Yeah. And formative. So tell me about the genesis of this book and what you what your ideas were in it. Okay. This book was a total accident. I was asked by Tom Wright for the Nashville SBL, a Society of Biblical Literature Meeting, for the historical Jesus Seminar to give a five-minute introduction to the death of Jesus so that the other main scholars would do the talks and I was just going to give a five-minute

introduction. In June or July, Tom writes me a letter and says, and you'll give the first paper. And I wrote back to him, I said, Tom, I thought I was giving a brief introduction. He says, no, in my notes, I'm going to do that and you're going to get the first answer. So I said, well, I better get busy. So I spent that until SBL, working on a taxonomy of how different Jesus scholars understood his death. And how Jesus understood his own death according to scholars. And at the end of it, I came to a conclusion

that Jesus thought his death was a toning. And I told another, I told a historical Jesus scholar this, and she said to me, that's impossible. That's too theological. I remember thinking, so Jesus can't be theological. What's the point? So I decided to write a book on my sabbatical to prove that Jesus thought his death was atoning.

That was a big, I wrote a big academic monograph. And as I was working on that, I was asked to do a more popular version of a different kind of book. So this book came out because Tom Wright took bad notes and I would never have done that. I was going to work on on on prophecy. Yeah. I was this in the mix then when Tom wrote a book on a tellment? Or is that my reason? He wrote his book after that. That little book on the evil of Jesus and evil or something like that. No, it's just on a tellment. Oh, that's just

real news. That's real news. Yeah. That's two years ago. Yeah. Talk about how writing and presenting this was it just distilling convictions you already had, or was there some discovery process for you? Oh, no, I had to expand it, because the other one was very much a historical Jesus book with New Testament theology, but very academic and trying to not get involved too much in the theological debates. But I wanted to put this together, and I was convinced, number one, that the battle that was going on was very unhealthy that people had locked down that there was a central metaphor that everything else was secondary, that the primary. And I remember Tom Schreiner, a friend of mine, saying, the central metaphor is penal substitution. I'm here to think it. No, it's not. You know, you got to have, you got, if you start reading

different authors, not everybody talks about death of Jesus that way. By authors, you mean the New Testament authors? Not everybody talks about it that way. Yeah. So let's let them talk the way they do. So as I was teaching you this one day, I told a story about playing golf with a guy who only had one golf club. And I thought this was blasphemous. I thought this guy is so lazy, he doesn't wanna carry a bag of golf clubs. So he just took this thing and he adjusted it. Oh, like he took the head off? Yeah, no, the head adjusted.

He'd go to iron four iron six iron. Oh, I see. That's smart. And all the way at the top is a driver, you know, a one or whatever. And I thought, that's wrong. I was teaching and I said, some people think that you can carry one golf club and get to all the Atonement Theory with one.

And I said, I carry a bag of clubs and sometimes I need a wedge. Sometimes I need a five iron. Sometimes I need a three wood. Sometimes I always need a putter, you know. So I said, the atonement is like that. We need a full bag of clubs to know which image to use for which audience at which time. Because every image of atonement, whether it's the victory of God, whether it's Jesus bearing our children, our sin, our burden, our guilt, whether it is reconciliation, whether it's Jesus bearing our children, our sin, our burden, our guilt, whether it is reconciliation,

whether it's forgiveness, redemption is a different term. That's to purchase, justification. Every one of those actually has a different solution to a different problem. So we need all of those. And the New Testament authors, this is one of their greatest acts of imagination. They could not find enough ways to talk about the achievement of Jesus' death. That's what I tried to bring out in the book. But I do think it can be reduced to, I call it identification for the sake of incorporation. He identified

with us to bring us into life with him. I mean, in a way that's trying to get underneath all the metaphors, like to a deep structure underneath it. Why do you think penal substitution became the primary metaphor in the modern church? Because of this. This is the way we preach the gospel. We preach the gospel. But why, but why the mad? The mad is mad at us. It evokes the response that we're looking for. We've learned to preach the gospel to achieve the most decisions, and we learn the most decisions could be achieved if we run it all through this theory of penal substitution. Now, most evangelists don't know that that's what they're doing, but that's the evangelistic

method. Well, but that's the that's the evangelistic method. Well good You just pointed to the next book on the stack here the King Jesus gospel was the next book of your I read So let's just make this a clean You're skipping a lot of books. I know I know I know I Haven't read all your My favorite so the King Jesus gospel tell us about this I wanted to call it in the beginning was the gospel, but my editor hadn't, he went in no part of it.

And I still think it's a better title, but because I think in the beginning was the gospel, we don't have any new testament to the first there's the gospel. Yeah, what problem? When I was in high school, I got involved in evangelism, and I became convinced that what we were doing in evangelism was not right. I was just high school. I got involved in evangelism, and I became convinced that what we were doing in evangelism was not right. I was just unsettled.

And I was unsettled even more. When as a college student, I encountered Dietrich Bonhoeffer's cost to discipleship. I thought, this guy gets it. Jesus calls us to be disciples. He's not calling us to make decisions. But what I wanted to do then was preach a gospel that called people to be disciples, but I didn't know how to do it. Then I was unsettled with how we frame the gospel, and I was asked to give lectures in South Africa at the University of Stelumbash on the gospel of the Apostles in the book of Acts.

And when I- The speeches, the speeches. Peter and Paul, and I said, They never quite say it the way I hear it in church. That's right. And I said, there's the gospel. And when I read that, I looked at 1 Corinthians 15, which is an outline of the same thing

that Peter and Paul are preaching. And then I thought, well, the gospels themselves are the gospel. Yes. So I am, how did we get into a scenario where the gospel summary bears little resemblance to the books called gospels. Yeah, that's amazing.

And I've had people tell me that the gospels are not the gospel. We don't know the gospel till after a penicost. I'm going, ooh boy, you put Jesus in a tough spot. And my, Jesus was in the dark. My sarcastic line for this is poor Jesus born on the wrong side of the cross, didn't get to preach the gospel.

And unfortunately, there's some truth in that. So it might be sarcastic, but it's because I'm telling you something, I think it's pretty important here. So in the second edition of this, this is the first edition, in the second edition, which is a paperback, I added a chapter because I knew something, but I wasn't, I wasn't completely convinced. So I needed to do more work. And so I gave a lecture in Canada.

And at that lecture, I traced the history of gospel preaching. So I spent an entire year reading evangelistic sermons. Fascinating. You know, you're not going to find any until America and the Great Awakening, well, Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, George Whitfield, Finney and D.L. Moody and Billy Sunday, and then to Billy Graham. Prior to that, people

were catagized into the church. They had national churches. So they grew up in the gospel. So I studied this history of evangelistic preaching and Tim, I was amazed. Finney would preach sermon sometimes had 37 points. I mean, there's no four pointers. And of course, Jonathan may come a long way. We've reduced it. Jonathan Edwards is never going to preach a four sermon, no four points sermon. Not like that. And Whitfield, and so I started studying this and I realized that what they preached for I think you could say was regeneration

And a total transformation of a person's life as they surrender to God in Christ So then I got into moody and moody preached the same thing both moody and billy Sunday Basically were almost Social transformation this they were trying to get, especially males, to get their life back together, quit drinking alcohol all the time, quit getting drunk, quit visiting women who you shouldn't be visiting, and give your life to God. And that will make America better nation. So both Moody and Sunday were very much a national message. Then I saw a huge difference with Billy Graham. And I love Billy Graham. But Billy Graham and campus crusade and Henrietta Mears, she gave

away, Billy Graham crusade gave away six million copies of her book. And at the end of that book, she has this outline of the four spiritual laws. So I spent a year, I got a librarian, a professional librarian to work with. What's the Bible's all about? What's the Bible's all about? I got a librarian to work with me and we got back to the original documents of Henrietta Miris. She did not have this. Oh, there's four points. She got it from Billy Graham and from Bill Bright. Bill Brighton in Campus Crusade. Yeah, yeah.

And that's where we got our four point sermon. Prior to that, no one knew that. The four spiritual laws. The four spiritual laws. No one knew that gospel. And is that like you're a sinner? Yeah, God loves you. You're a sinner.

Jesus died for you, except him into your heart. Yeah, yeah. That four point evangelistic sermon. It comes out of mid 20th century. You're saying? Yeah, probably, that four point that a pre evangelistic sermon becomes a mid 20th century You're saying yeah probably the forties and forties and fifty. Yeah, that's where it begins to grow Wow, and this is this was remarkable. Yeah, yeah, because if you talk even mainliners think that's the gospel Sure, because they've all heard it from Billy Graham Yeah, and he's changed the lives of many many people and I'm grateful for that. He's not saying some wrong

Yeah, but what you're observing how what the word gospel refers to in generations minds has shifted dramatically shifted over the original Gospel was to tell the story of Jesus and If you listen to that story the spirit of God works and calls people to repentance and to baptism. So what's your one liner, what is the hospital? See, that's the problem, right? There is no one, the one liner is Jesus is Lord. Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, can you use that?

Well, this is, yeah, an observation you make is different, even in the New Testament, the different summaries, different details, based on audience, the animation. But it's all about Jesus. It's telling people about Jesus. It's telling, that's it. And Tim, you know, you've probably heard me say this.

I taught 17 years Jesus of Nazareth to college students. I saw hundreds, at least a hundred, of college students give their life to Jesus because they love Jesus of the gospel. And so our friend Dan Kimball writes a book, they love Jesus but not the church. That is so true. I found that with students all the time.

They wanted to hear about Jesus. So tell them. So tell them about Jesus. How many books do you have, Tim? Well, there's this one and then another, Kimmel one. Two more. Yeah, let's do it. The next book of years that came across was I was assigned a number of sermons in a preaching series through 1 Corinthians.

So then I'm just deep dive into Paul. That was a great season of learning for me. And it was around the same time period that you published a fellowship of difference. And it's exploring in a practical, funny way. Essentially Paul's vision of the beloved community of the unified body of Christ. So in terms of my years of reading Paul, my perception of Paul was like the heavy-duty theologian.

And don't sleep around and be holy and love each other. That was my baseline perception. And over the years, it becomes so clear to me how for Paul the unity and commitment of love and mutual support of diverse communities wasn't just an add-on for Paul. It was central to the expression of the gospel in his mind and heart. And so that's what you're after in a fellowship of difference. Tell me more about this book. I wrote this book for my seminary students and the first I started writing this as soon as I hit norther in seminary. I wanted to write a book on the Christian

life for my Paul class. So I started working on this. But so I loved it when you said it's his vision of the beloved community because for me it was a vision of the Christian life which is a vision of church life. So the original title was Life in a Salad Ball. Oh right, you're made metaphor. Yeah, that's right. In my inner book, hate salad. So I can't work with this.

I said, oh, come on. It's good. It's clever. It's clever. So I wanted to show how everything Paul teaches about the Christian life is actually teaching how people are to live with one another. It's not about how you can relate to God personally all the time.

It's not about in that sense of how you can go practice solitude. I think Paul believed in all those things. His fundamental category that he operated with is what kind of virtues do we need to have to be able to live together when we are as different as we are. So that's where Paul started and then the private, the personal things come into play. So it's not an either or, but the starting point for Paul is how to get people who are different, ENTS, living together and liking it. That was the challenge.

And this was, I think, a challenge unlike anything that we ever saw in the Jewish world. And certainly that we saw in Athens or Rome because they did not mix like this. Yeah, you had in the opening chapters, I remember looking back through my notes, you talked through, I forget what back through my notes, you talked through I forget what Scholar who's work you were quoting you were profiling Peter Oaks probably Peter Oaks

Yeah, and just you know an average house church in Rome. Yeah, who shows up? Yeah, because 1520 people yeah who's sitting there? Yeah, and it was so imaginative Yeah, so the slaves some Macedonians thereonians, there's some Jews, there's some people, some like Greeks who had been going to synagogue. Homeless people. Some homeless people, there's- Workers in the house. That's right.

Slaves. Yeah. That's a house church. Yeah. And he studied this by, he got access to a major villa in Pompeii. And he went through all the archaeological records of what was there, what they could find, even DNA stuff. And they came to the conclusion of who would have been involved in that, then he knew it would be slightly bigger in Rome. So he expanded it to a few more people.

But we have a totally sanitized view of what church is like, because we come to church and we come supposedly ready to worship and sing and listen. This is at someone's home. They are in an atrium. It's the only place probably they could meet. And they could, if it wasn't a very large group, they could meet in a room. And in the atrium, that would have been open,

ceiling, water, if it's raining, coming down in a pool in the middle. And they're gathered around this pool in the middle and they're talking and someone's, and it's people, coming down in a pool in the middle, and they're gathered around this pool in the middle, and they're talking, and it's people who live there. And maybe some homeless people who are staying there, or maybe some converts who live in another house, who could get free for that time of worshiping together. It's unlike anything, I know I've been

in one church like this in Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, and I thought to myself this is a first century church. Yeah, the pastor didn't even have a membership He said anybody who puts their name in our address book is a part of our church. I said Jews and Christians. Oh, yeah, Jews and Christians Yeah, they come here. They're part of us. Yeah, yeah. And it was a total free for all homeless people. They fed 400 people a week. Those people came to church. It was, it was, it was, it was, it was in some ways I, it was scary. Yeah. Yeah. Because they were, I thought, I don't know what's going to happen. Yeah, sure. You can't control that. Yeah. So, yeah. Thank you. I mean, you, you were among a number of scholars that helped me begin to imagine that and it is scary Like what it's not safe. It's that's right and how Roman neighbors would perceive this like you know

There's guilds for the blacksmiths to get together and people get together at the Zeus temple This is unlike any thing that's appeared in my neighborhood. And so I'm maybe curious, if I'm a Roman omeliker, what, I'm scandalized because slaves and upper class people are eating together. It's a very, Jews, there's no, there's no, it doesn't fit on my mat. No.

And think about this, unless this is, I mean, almost any day of the week, anybody's villa, if it's a normal home, saying Pompeii or Rome, is also the business. So people would come in during business. This is why Paul says to the Corinthians, if someone comes in and you're speaking in tongues, you're gonna think you're nuts.

All right, well, that's because visitors walked in because this is a business. It's not just, it's not a church building. Oh, yeah. It's a house. A house is a business. Yes, yes. So your atrium is your storefront. It's your marketplace.

That's interesting. I hadn't heard that before. That's fascinating. We could talk at length about all of these things more. Just the last thing to name. I have a number of other books on Kindle. We could talk about the Blue Parakeet and the other one about the blue parakeet and

The other one about the phrase the Kingdom of God Kingdom conspiracy Kingdom conspiracy. However, what I'd like to talk about last all that you pick Kingdom conspiracy Or your commentary on the sermon on the mount which seemed like a culminating work of a lot of years of reflection on the Sermon on the mount you pick Kingdom conspiracy Or your controversy is controversial I't even tell if he was controversial. I talked about it one time. So I'll do a sermon on the mount. Turn on the mount. And here's, I remember,

because you have a blog that you've been very active on for many years, and you did a series many years ago. I think after I just went to your books, long series of posts on the sermon on the mount, I actually printed them out to collect them because you would do different. And then at the end, I was like, that's kind of like a small commentary

on the sermon on the Mount. And it was very helpful for me over the years and it was an active resource. And then when you published a commentary, I read all that, I was like, oh, this is, he just put together like a culminating work, at least a reflection on that. Oh, yeah. The passage.

So tell me about the servant on the mountain in your life. I grew up in a church that did not preach from the Gospels. My pastor only preached from the Pauline letters, accepted Easter and Christmas, he bring in a gospel passage. Yeah, it sounds like my holy tradition. Yeah. So when I got to college,

I was told by someone I have no idea I am eternally grateful for this to read Dietrich Bonhofer. And as a college junior, it's kind of a college author to discover. Oh, I read some of the songs I just read. Oh man, that was, he blew me. When I looked back at it later, I thought I have no idea what I understood when I read that. But it was, I read it, I just drank, and he had that long section on the sermon on the mountain.

So when I got to seminary, and I started, I didn't have classes in the summer. One of the first summers, I spent doing nothing but working through the Greek text of the sermon on the mountain. And studying, I really studied hard the meaning of Macarioss' blessing, went through the whole Septuagit, didn't know Hebrew, so I couldn't do Hebrew at that time. I studied that and I began like a file of information in my head and I loved the sermon on the Mount. When I began to teach, I taught a course on Jesus and discipleship

that had a big section on the sermon on the Mount. And I taught a course on Jesus and discipleship that had a big section on the Sermon on the Mount. And I taught a couple courses over the years on the Sermon on the Mount. So I was thrilled when the story of God Bible commentary came out and they asked me which book of the New Testament that I wanted to write a commentary on. I said the Sermon on the Mount and the editor at Zoderman says, that's not a book, Scott. That is a part of a book. I said, I'm an anabaptist, and that's a book. She said, okay, you can do it.

So they made a supplemental volume. Yes. Yeah. So I just couldn't wait to work through the whole thing and put stuff together. Yeah. The only other experience about this is at some point when I was teaching in seminary, Dallas Willard came out with a

divine conspiracy. And I began to read the book, and I had to put it down, because it was the book I wanted to write. Yes, sure. And I couldn't read it. And I told Dallas this one day, he said, you're not the first person who told me this.

Interesting. But later, when I did my sermon on the monocourse, I read through it again. Yes, yes. And I resonate with a lot of Dallas. I differ with him on some things on what Kingdom means and stuff like that. But I think he puts the religious theme

of the Kingdom of God together well. So it's sort of like you're exactly right. It's a culmination of my years of teaching Jesus in the gospel, so I'm going to put it all together. Yeah. As you mentioned that, I forget, you've referenced Dallas Willard multiple contexts. There may have been a blog or a book,

but I learned about the divine conspiracy from a reference you made to him somewhere. And I agree, that exposition of the Sermon on the Mount is what keeps that book on myself. I keep going back to it. And yeah, there you go. This was a unique privilege for me. Oh, thank myself. I keep going back to it. And yeah. There you go. This was a unique privilege for me. Oh, thank you, I'm really.

You've written way more books than even the ones I've named. That's, well, I've been in a flow since 1980. Yeah, that's right. And you start at seven every day. Yeah. So yeah, thank you so much. I also wanted to mention Scott's podcast.

So just to start. Oh, yeah, that's great. Yep. You've been doing it for years. Kingdom Roots. 123 episodes. I also wanted to mention Scott's podcast. So just to scare the person. Oh yeah, that's great. Yep. You've been doing it for years. Kingdom Roots. 123 episodes. I do? Podcast.

That's what it says here. Yeah. Which one should I listen to if I could just listen to one episode? Oh, I don't know. You've got one. Everything you need to know about the new perspective in 30 minutes. Really? Everything I need to know about the new perspective. I was there when, everything I need to know about the new perspective.

I was there when it happened. I was, I mean, the new perspective, I was studying with Jimmy Don, when he gave that lecture. Famous lecture, the new perspective on Paul. And E.P. Sanders came and lectured to our PhD seminar. Unique time and place to be for Bible nerds. You go to the ones that have the most page views.

The ones that have the most views, well let's see if we go back. Let's see, atomic questions. Bart one and two have a pretty popular. Oh, the one at the bottom is big. Yeah, your first one, and what is the kingdom? Yeah. Was 2016. Yeah.

So yeah, I'm gonna check that out. I'm excited to listen to that. Yeah, yeah. Well again, does the unique check that out. I'm excited to listen to that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, again, does unique privilege to get to talk with some of you as influenced me so much. You had a big influence on the Bible project through these works over the years. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. I love the Bible project. I think it's awesome what you're doing. Yeah. Thank you. And I feel comfortable here the whole time we're looking out a window and there's a little snow. It's snowing. I know. Is this real snow? For Midwestern. It's not sticking. Do you need a shovel? No. It's not real till you need a snowblower.

Alright, thanks for that. It was coming down. Yeah, well thanks. Yeah, thank you, Scott. You're good. Yeah, thank you for taking the time. Thank you Scott. We're good. Yeah, thank you for taking the time. All right, that was really cool. Yes. That was a great experience. That was fun to watch you just go through the stack of books, right at the time.

Yeah, it's a pretty short list of scholars that I can say that I've been reading their work for the 20 years that I've been like a student of biblical studies. His work has been with me for a long time and so that was a unique opportunity to interview him about all of that work. So there's plenty to chase down there, his books, his podcast, and we are again really thankful that he spent time with us. Yeah, yeah, totally. And we're thankful to all of you for listening, for your encouragement, and support, the Bible project, podcast, along with all the other videos and resources we create, we can do all of this because of you all.

And thank you for being so enthusiastic about what we're doing. We love getting to talk with people like Scott and then getting to create everything that we do. So thank you for being behind us and encouraging us. We believe the Bible and the unified story that leads to Jesus. We are a crowdfunded project by people like me. Find free videos, study notes and more at thebibelproject.com. you