Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Kanye West, Jesus is King, & the Christian Response | Keith and Patrick

Episode Date: November 6, 2019

Since its recent release, “Jesus is King,” the newest album from Kanye West, has gained both positive and negative reviews from a wide-ranging audience. In this episode, Keith and Patrick discuss the Christian response to the album and examine how, controversy aside, it points to a central truth of the Gospel. Want to learn more about how Jesus’ kingship is at the heart of the Gospel? Check out some of the books that have helped shape Keith & Patrick’s thinking: Gospel Allegiance by Matthew Bates:https://www.amazon.com/Gospel-Allegiance-Matthew-W-Bates/dp/1587434539 ( https://www.amazon.com/Gospel-Allegiance-Matthew-W-Bates/dp/1587434539) How God Became King by N.T. Wright: https://www.amazon.com/How-God-Became-King-Forgotten/dp/0061730602 (https://www.amazon.com/How-God-Became-King-Forgotten/dp/0061730602) The King Jesus Gospel by Scot Mcknight: https://www.amazon.com/King-Jesus-Gospel-Original-Revisited/dp/0310531454 (https://www.amazon.com/King-Jesus-Gospel-Original-Revisited/dp/0310531454) For a deeper dive into Kanye West’s past and present lyrics, check out this episode of Quick to Listen: https://overcast.fm/+GR2d9vAxU (https://overcast.fm/+GR2d9vAxU) To learn more, visit our https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/ (website) and follow us on https://www.facebook.com/TheCrossingCOMO (Facebook), https://www.facebook.com/TheCrossingCOMO (Instagram), and https://twitter.com/thecrossingcomo (Twitter) @TheCrossingCOMO. Links Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheCrossingCOMO (https://www.facebook.com/TheCrossingCOMO) Instagram: https://www.facebook.com/TheCrossingCOMO (https://www.facebook.com/TheCrossingCOMO) Twitter: https://twitter.com/thecrossingcomo (https://twitter.com/thecrossingcomo) Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now.

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to drive across town. I'm Keith Simon. And I'm Patrick Miller. We're going to spend an episode doing something pretty unusual, and to be honest, something that makes me kind of uncomfortable, and that is discussing Kanye West's new album, Jesus is King. I am not competent to talk much about Kanye. Patrick may know more about it than me. We both love this album and have listened to it. Two of my boys, four kids, two, my oldest and my youngest are big Kanye fans. And so I've listened to some of the songs over the years as I've driven them around town.

And we've had some really interesting conversations in the last couple of days about this album and Kanye's life story. And I've learned a lot from them and looked at some other resources. But what we're mainly going to talk about today is, at least in the first half of our episode, is how Christians are responding to the, this phenomena, you might call it. Right now in Times Square is a big lighted billboard with written on it, Jesus is King. That's the title, of course, of Kanye's album, but how cool is that that Jesus is king is sitting in the cultural capital of the United States? So Patrick, what are your thoughts about how Christians are responding to this? Yeah, well, let me start just by reading what you said. I am not a Kanye expert. I can say I've not listened to all of his albums, and I'm

definitely very far away from being a rap or hip-hop expert. And so we're not trying to talk about those specific things, but again, the cultural phenomenon that we're experiencing. And I do think it's interesting when you see guys like James Corden, Jimmy Kimmel, interviewing Conna, and trying to make sense of what he's describing happening in his life. There's this funny moment in his interview with James Corden where James kind of says, well, how do you know? How can you be sure that you've really experienced a change in your life? And Kanye asks him, well, do you know the difference? between being awake and sleeping? And James is like, yeah, I do. And he goes, well, that's exactly what's happened to me. I was asleep and now I'm awake. That's the level of difference that I've

experienced in my life. And perhaps it's no surprise then that among Christian communities, there have been two, I think, major responses. The one I've probably heard most loudly is some judgmentalism about Kanye. We know a lot of his past. We know a lot of his past music and history. And it seems like, really, is a guy like this going to change in this way? But on the flip side of the that you hear people who are all in. Kanye's the new Paul. He's going to be missionary to the world. Everybody's going to hear Kanye and come to Jesus. Those seem like the two different options that I see most Christians gravitating towards. Who was it that Kanye was on with Jimmy Kimmel where he asked him if he was a Christian artist now? And Kanye said, well, I think

I'm just a Christian everything. I love that line. I mean, the things that Kanye is saying right now, you can't help but be excited about, mainly to just be excited about. Mainly to just be excited about for him and his family and what this could mean in his life. But I agree that Christians are kind of polarized on this topic. And I find myself in disagreement with both sides. So let's start with those people who are being judgmental and skeptical, critical, saying things like, well, he's just doing this to make money. It's a show. None of this is sincere. And I guess one of the things I'd say to that group of people is, why be so skeptical? Why not root for Kanye? Why not be excited for him? Why not have some sense of hope that this is where God's taking him? Is it that you don't

have a category that somebody like Kanye can become a Christian? Isn't the Bible full of people who are unlikely believers? If you just kind of go through the people in the Bible who follow hard after God, which one did you predict was going to be a believer? Was it Saul who was persecuting the Christians? Was it King Manasseh who was offering children as sacrifices to foreign gods but became a believer? The Bible's full of stories like that. In fact, that's the story of our life. Anybody who is a Christian, it's a miracle that they're a Christian.

So it's no more miracle that somebody like Kanye would become a Christian than me. So why don't we root for him and root for his faith? even if we're unsure of exactly where he is. God's grace has no limits. And I think when we get judgmental of people, when they say that they've experienced God's power in their life, sometimes it shows that what we really think about ourselves is, I had my life together.

I wasn't a perfect person. I didn't get everything right. But generally speaking, I was a pretty good person. So, of course, it's no surprise. The God would pick a guy like me to be on his team. That makes perfect sense. But the truth is, however bad you think or I think Kanye's life was, his life really is no worse before God than my life was before God before I started following Jesus.

One of the cool things I think about Christianity is that we don't have to walk into our office or school or neighborhood and ask ourselves, who do we think is likely to become a Christ follower? Because nobody's likely apart from God's grace. We can just love people and tell them about Jesus and see what happens. And then that is in God's hands. But it's no more difficult for God to reach the pagan and what that person might look like or believe than it is for God to reach the kind of conservative family that seems to have it all together. Yeah. What I love about this is it reminds me that the gospel, the good news that Jesus is king,

actually has the power to change lives. That hasn't changed. Sometimes I hear Christians talking, it seems like they think, well, we've lost the culture war. Everything's going downhill. No one's minds, hearts, lives can change. But this reminds us that that's not true. The gospel is a life-changing message. So if you're a person out there who tends to be skeptical, overly skeptical, critical, quick to say this is all about money, you might just want to check yourself and say, let's root for everybody to grow in their faith and their love for Jesus, including Kanye. But Patrick, what do you think about the people who are on the other end? What would you say to them, those who are super excited and confident, like you said, that Kanye is the new missionary to the world? Well, I think we have to own the fact that we live in a celebrity culture. We love celebrities. We love celebrity gossip. And personally, that's not something I've found myself super interested in the past, but lots of people I care about and love. They're very into celebrity. And it happens in

Christianity, too. We have celebrity pastors, celebrity worship leaders, people that everybody knows about. And the risk, I think, that happens in the Christian world is that we kind of attach our faith. We hinge our faith to someone who's a follower of Jesus who we look up to in some way, whether that's Kanye or Justin Bieber or Matt Chandler or Tim Keller, it doesn't really matter. And I think the risk that we run into whenever we hinge our faith to these celebrity type people is that if they have a fall, let's say they walk away from Jesus or they make a really bad moral decision, it can have the power to wreck our own faith, to make us question our own faith. And I think God would say, well, why was your faith ever hinged to these people to begin with? They're just normal people like you.

I agree. I think for sure we live in a celebrity. culture and that has affected how Christians think as well. And I think part of why we are drawn to stories like Kanye, some people are really drawn to that and are so excited is because they want to say, hey, look, we're not weird. Christians aren't weird. We're cool. And we've got something to offer and see cool people can love Jesus. And I get that. I mean, I want cool people to want to follow Jesus too. But it seems like we're just following the cultural narrative that says, that celebrities are the people that we should look up to in our life. But if you look at Jesus, he was pretty anti-celebrity.

I mean, just think about. The Bible says that there was nothing about his appearance that would have made us be attracted to him. When people tried to make him king, what did he do? He withdrew from them because he knew their motives were not good. He didn't stay around and try to build his church through himself. Instead, he had a sacrificial death, a humiliating, shameful death, and delegated the building of his church to us, his disciples, his followers.

So there's a lot about Jesus's life that is kind of an anti-celebrity approach. But like you said, the celebrity approach to faith is not just about pop culture, it's about the church. And people have their pastors they look up to, the ones that they think have kind of a special charisma or something. And I can't help but think of First Corinthians that says that the Corinthians fell into the trap of saying, I'm of Apollus, I'm of Paul, I'm of Peter. And I think Paul's whole point there is, no, we need to be about Jesus. We need to be about grace.

We need to be about the fruit of the spirit, not a person's gift and cool factor and charisma and that kind of things. How do people treat those in their family that are close to? Are they humble? Are they gracious? Are they kind? are they self-sacrificing? Those are the things that matter to God more than that you have some spectacular gifts that draw a lot of attention or fame. So I think that transitions nicely to asking the question, what should we do? How should Christians be responding to Kanye? And I think a great

place to go. Just to name my own temptation, I probably fall into the judgmental category. That was my initial reaction to all of this. Was a little bit of skepticism. I'm like, really? Is this for real? But I actually listened through the album in a song called Hands. on. I really like what Kanye says. He says, I deserve all the criticism you got. If that's all the love you have, that's all you got. To sing of change, you think I'm joking. To praise his name, you ask what I'm smoking. Yes, I understand your reluctancy. Yeah, but I have a request. You see, don't throw me out, lay your hands on me. And he goes on to cry out. I mean, the tone of his voice is literally crying out, please pray for me. Please pray for me. And I thought, yeah, that's what I should have done the

minute I heard about Kanye, I should have prayed and said, God change his heart. God be with him. God use him to reach people because he is going to be on Jimmy Kimmel and James Corden and Times Square, all these places. And there's going to be a huge platform and opportunity to lift up the gospel and so that people will know who Jesus is. So yeah, Christians should be rooting for Kanye, just like they would root for the faith of anybody, their friend, family, co-worker themselves, and praying for Kanye, just like we would pray for any of us and hope that his faith is, genuine. One more thought on that note. Anytime someone goes through a conversion experience, if you're like Keith or I and you've been walking with people walking with Jesus for a long time,

you know this simple fact. Some people are going to have an experience of conversion and a few years later, they're going to walk away and it's going to be like nothing happened. Other people, they're going to go through a radical life change and it's going to stick for the rest of their life. That's what we should be praying for, but we shouldn't be surprised when the other thing happens. And so my hope with Kanye is 20 years down the road, he's still going to be following Jesus. But if he's not, here's the worst thing that happens. One of the best artists of our time has made an album praising Jesus. And if he walks away, we still have that album. We still have this amazing art that is glorifying his name. Well, you say that's the worst thing that could happen, but I think you're

assuming some things. Because the worst thing that could happen in a person's life is that they attach their faith too much to Kanye. So if he walks away, now they say, oh, look, none of this is real. And that is a danger even in the broader culture. If Christians are too much of, oh, yeah, look, Kanye changed. He's the man. He's the missionary. Then all of a sudden, if his faith doesn't last or however you want to say it, then we're stuck trying to explain to a culture why Christianity is true,

even though the person that we championed walked away from it. So I think we've got to be careful. But again, not just Kanye, even in our own churches. When people attach themselves to Mark Driscoll and the people, the Mark Driscoll falls, all of a sudden we're having to explain to the broader culture why Christianity is still true, even though our great champion, and maybe it's Darren Patrick, maybe it's any number of these pastors who are famous and have these big followings and get national news media that they are built up and then they fall. And we have to explain

why the gospel is still real and changes lives while those who we've championed are falling away from Christ. So I think Christians have to walk this narrow line, this fine line. line of rooting for Kanye, but letting time play out. Why do we have to come up with any kind of verdict right now on him? Why can't we just say we're hoping the best for him? We're praying for him. We're excited about where we are right now, but we don't know how this plays out in anyone's life. I just know this. If you put people on a pedestal, you will be let down. We've even structured the crossing in a way where we have a lot of shared leadership, shared preaching, because your faith should not be in a pastor or whether that's at the crossing or somewhere else. It shouldn't be in

Kanye. It shouldn't be in any person because people will always let you down. People are always more frail than you realize. And so it's just a reminder that the Bible is not a book of heroes. The Bible tells you over and over and over to put your faith in Jesus, to build your life on His Word, to depend on His grace. And while you can learn from people, you should never. ever, ever make them the foundation of your faith. If they fall, Jesus remains. So one of the interesting things this album brings up is the topic of conversion. Depending on what religious tradition you come out of within Christianity, conversion, and when I say conversion, I mean kind of this radical decision moment where someone says,

Amazing Grace, I once was lost, but now I'm found. I've turned from my old way of living to this new way of living and everything's changed. That's kind of what we mean when we say conversion. And so this is bringing up some interesting conversations about what conversion really is. I say that because a lot of people who are big followers of Kanye will point out that spiritual lyrics are really nothing new to his albums. From what I understand, and this is from talking to my boys, more than anything, is that he's always had spiritual lyrics. From the very beginning, his first album, I believe, again, I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it's college dropout, and he's got songs on there. But there's like one song. It's not a whole album of them. But when you looked at those lyrics of some of his past quote-unquote religious songs,

what did you notice different between those and Jesus' King? I think the biggest difference that I've noticed is even starting back with Jesus walks. It's clear that Kanye has an interest in spiritual things, and it's clear that he thinks that they're relevant for daily life in some way. But none of those early lyrics and then throughout the rest of his albums strike me as being, I don't on a frame of something saying particularly Christian. What I mean when I say that isn't that he's not talking about Jesus, because he certainly talks about Jesus. What I mean is that they sound like the kind of folk religion I see a lot of people buying into today. A famous sociologist, Christian Smith, he works at Notre Dame. He coined a term to describe this kind of folk religion that's common among

millennials. And the term he calls it is moral therapeutic deism. And the basic idea of moral therapeutic deism is that God is essentially a God who wants me to be moral, be a good person. He's there to be my therapist. There's a therapeutic relationship. He helps me feel good about myself. He helps me work through my suffering and my pain. And it's deism. Deism was an idea that God kind of started the universe and then he pulled out. He disappeared. And that's kind of their perspective on God is, yeah, there's a God, but he's not really actively involved. That's what I feel like I saw with Kanye's old albums. Some of his spiritual songs were around the time of the death of his mother. And it seems like he's got God the therapist there to help him through his grief, which certainly

God does want to do, but that's his vision of God. Yeah, be a good person. God's going to be there to be your therapist, and he's not going to tell you how to change your life. He's going to let you do you because it's kind of a deist God. He's far away. I have one more question before we get into the lyrics of Jesus's King. And this has to do with just Kanye's personal history. Again, not somebody who is a Kanye expert by any stretch, but there are some things that we all know. For example, he had that incident where he ran up on stage and took the Taylor Swift microphone away from her. There's his own personal struggle with mental illness. There are some of his more recent comments about slavery that were pretty controversial. He has some similar controversial statements about President

Trump. And then he has that song, I am a God. And he calls himself Yeezus, a combination of his nickname and Jesus. He's got the Rolling Stone cover, which I think is in that same phase of his life, where he has a crown of thorns on his head. And he's kind of, looks like he's comparing himself to Jesus or he's a modern Jesus. I'm not exactly sure. And what I just said is not in chronological order. I'm just saying that these events in his life say something about him. And to me a little bit, it might say that he is a volatile person or he's a person who enjoys being a contrarian, I think. How do you process his life story? And maybe you could go back even further. He was raised in the church. He comes from a very educated family. He went to Chicago State. I think he's

dropped out of that, didn't graduate, but how do you take his life story and how does that affect your understanding of this album or does it not at all? I mean, I think in one sense, we always have to say, well, the future will tell. I don't know what's going to happen in Kanye's future, and that will obviously interpret how we think about this particular moment when he releases this album. But this goes back to the whole conversation of conversion. One of the things we would say here at the crossing is that walking with Jesus and coming to know Jesus is a process. It happens over time. God is doing things in your life that you may or may not be aware of that are drawing you nearer to him. And it's pretty rare that people have these night and day moments where they make a decision for

Jesus and everything changes. It's not to say that those moments don't happen, right? That's Paul on the Damascus Road, right? He's going to go kill Christians and Jesus shows up and he's blinded and his whole life changes at that point. And maybe that's what's happened with Kanye. On one level, I want to let someone the expert on their own experience. So if he's saying, I was in the darkness and now I'm in the light, then great. Let's trust him and see what happens. But on the flip side of that, I think we can look at his past and say, yeah, he's a messy person, but maybe those things, which are not good things in many ways, are things that God was using in his process of drawing him near to himself. Yeah, I like that. The process part of it and also the idea that time will tell. We root for

him. Our faith isn't in them, but time will tell, and we hope for the best. Again, there's a lyric in the album, and he doesn't say it. It's a rapper, I think his name's No Malice. But I think it seems to me to be expressing some of what Kanye himself was thought. He says, a lot of damaged souls. I done damaged those, and in my arrogance took a camera pose. And that's kind of a summary of what we've seen from Kanye's past. He has said and wrapped a lot of things that have hurt people and made it into a moment of pride and vanity, took a camera pose. And so again, I want to let Kanye be able to say that's who I was and I'm going to try to change because I've come into a relationship with the living God that's changing me from the inside out. I know one thing's for sure is that celebrity

Christians, if it's a genuine faith, they have it a lot harder than I do because I sure wouldn't want my life, my growth and my backsliding, my inconsistencies played out in public in front of everyone. So to every person out there that has a big platform and is genuinely trying to follow Jesus, they have my sympathy. Yeah, and as Christians, I think we need to show them a lot of grace. Because my guess is, Kanye is going to say some things that offend a lot of Christians. It'll probably happen to the next month. And I hope Christians will have the grace to say, you know what, if he is a Christian, he's a baby Christian and he's trying to figure it out the same way I did. And thank God, I didn't have to do it in public. So let's talk for a second about

the album. We've spent a lot of time talking about what's happening in culture, so maybe we won't spend too much time here. But I think one of the things that has drawn both of us to this album starts right with the title, Jesus is King. And this is something you and I have been learning more about. You might not realize that pastors are trying to learn all the time. And we've been trying to deepen our own understanding of what the gospel is. And one of the themes that we've seen in our reading and as we've read the Gospels in the Bible again and again is this idea that at the part of the gospel is a message about Jesus's kingship, that Jesus is Lord, and that part of the proper response to the gospel is submission to him as a king. So maybe let's start here. I just

want to ask you, when I say that's what the gospel is, how is that maybe different than how you've been framing the gospel in the past? I think for a good chunk of my life, and this is going to oversimplify it a little bit, but for a good chunk of my life, I thought of the gospel only in terms of God is holy, people are sinful, Jesus died to rescue us from that sin, ask him to be your savior, and then one day you'll go to heaven. And while there is a lot of truth and what I just said, maybe all of it's true, depending on how you frame it, I don't think that is the core of what the Bible talks about being the gospel. In 2 Timothy 2, 8 to 10, in both of those passage, Paul is talking about the gospel, and what he talks about is the kingship of Jesus, being the gospel.

a descendant of David. We see that play out in Matthew 1 and the genealogy and the way it's opened up, that Jesus has come to fulfill this promise that God was going to reestablish his kingdom on earth through a descendant of David. And so what I've been learning, I think what we've been learning, is that the kingship of Jesus is a really significant part of the gospel, and therefore it changes our response. Because now what it means to believe in Jesus, is to give our allegiance to this king. And if you think about what Jesus does, how Jesus talks in the Gospels, is he doesn't go around and say,

ask me into your heart or pray a prayer or even just believe in me. His normal way of talking, especially in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, is to say, follow me. And so when we give our allegiance to Jesus, we are putting our faith in him as our Savior and our Lord, that we are learning to follow him, with our whole life. Yeah, I remember, it was probably around the time I came on staff. I never read the Gospels. I can't tell you why. I just kind of stopped reading them. I was mostly reading Paul,

or maybe I'd go to the Old Testament a little bit. And I had a friend in my life who challenged me to start reading the Gospels more. And I took them up on the challenge. And one of the things that struck me was I thought, man, I don't see the gospel in the Gospels. I don't see this clear message of God being holy and he's forgiving our sins. I mean, I could find it in small places, but it wasn't prevalent. The theme that I kept seeing come up again and again and again, though, was Jesus saying that he had come to proclaim the gospel, the good news of the kingdom, and that he was coming to establish, like he said, God's kingdom on earth as in heaven. And what I kind of realized to reframe what you're saying was that I had mistaken the doorway to the gospel,

which is the forgiveness of sins. I had mistaken it for the whole gospel. The gospel is, of course, the good news that Jesus forgives our sins, but that's not an end in of itself. And what's fascinating for me about the Kanye album is there's certainly things in here about God forgiving sins. He hasn't left that part of the gospel out. But the thing that he seems to be just laser focused on again and again is the fact that Jesus is a king and that because he's a king, it requires me to lay my whole life before him, to give him my whole life's allegiance. And I wonder if we had Kanye in the room and we asked him about this. There's part of me I'd say, well, yeah, for years I thought Jesus forgave him my sins. That was great. He was my therapist. He did everything. He forgave him. No big deal. And I've just

been living my life. It seems to me that when he uses the language of conversion, he's actually describing a change, probably not in terms of, did Jesus die for my sins? He probably always believe that. It's a change in terms of, is Jesus my Lord? Is Jesus my king? Am I going to give him my allegiance? So in this song, Salah, he mentions the verse John 833. And it says, they answered him. So this is out of the NIV. They answered him being Jesus. We are Abraham's descendants and have never been slaves of anyone, how can you say that we shall be set free? Which is crazy, because if you know anything about the story of Israel, it is that they were often slaves. That was the whole defining narrative of their life. They had been slaves in Egypt

and that God had come to rescue them from slavery. So I think this Jesus's king idea is that Jesus is the Messiah, the king who is coming to rescue his people from slavery. slavery to sin, slavery to oppression, slavery to injustice. And that's one thing I appreciate about this song and about this album is it puts us in our place as being oppressed by sin and that Jesus the king is coming to rescue us and establish his kingdom here on earth. And it's not just that he's freed us. Kanye also sees that like a good king, he gives us everything that we need. One of my favorite lyrics in the entire album comes from the song. calling everything we need, and I'll read it. What if Eve made apple juice? Are you going to do what

Adam do? Or say, baby, let's put it back on the tree because we've got everything we need. Now, I love that lyric, one, because it's just really creative, but I also love it because it's saying exactly the point that Genesis 3, which is what that's from, is trying to say, Adam and Eve aren't trusting God as their king who can provide everything for them. And as a result, that's why they take the fruit from the tree. That's why they rebel against him. And we all have that exact same temptation in our heart. But what I love is that he's saying, if you know that Jesus is king, then you know that you've got everything you need. So you don't have to take the fruit. You don't have to give into temptation. So another example is the song Jesus is Lord. And I think that's the

last song on the album. But anyway, it's really short and simple. Every knee shall bow, every tongue confess, Jesus is Lord, Jesus is Lord. And it is a playoff, I guess, almost a direct quotation of Romans 1411 and Philippians 2, 10 and 11. And both of those are referring back to Isaiah 4523. So what I love about it is that the way I understand it ending the album with that song is that Kanye is saying that he's emphasizing self-sacrifice. He's emphasizing the upside down of the world, that when we humble ourselves that Jesus is Lord, that one day we will all bow our knee to Jesus. And instead of waiting to the end of our life or instead of waiting until we meet him, we can

bow our need now. And that the way to define real life is to lose yourself, to be last, to be the servant. And that's a message that goes with the kingship of Jesus that I think is lost. It's not Jesus is king and so we exalt ourselves. It's Jesus is king. So we humble ourselves and we give up our power and we give up our position for the sake of Christ and others. I think another aspect that gets lost if our gospel doesn't have Jesus is king is the element, and I've said this word again and again, of submission. We're living in a cultural context where we put a high premium on personal liberty. I have the freedom to do whatever I want to do. I know better than anybody else what's best for me. And that runs right against what the Bible has to say about Jesus being our king. Because if you say someone's your king, you're admitting the fact that I don't get the last say-so on my life. I may not always know. what's best for me. And there's going to be times where I have to trust someone else. And again,

that theme, I could just quote lyric after lyric because it runs through the album. One of my favorite ones, though, comes from closed on Sunday. He says this. He says, follow Jesus, listen and obey. No more living for the culture where nobody's slave. And then later on in the song, he says, I bow down to the king upon the throne. My life is his. I'm no longer my own. I pray to God that he'll strengthen my hand. With the presumed meaning being that God will strengthen me to actually obey him. The idea of people out in the world singing along with this song, probably not entirely realizing what they're singing, is pretty amazing. But beyond that, I think this is something that most Christians need to sing in their lives, something I need to sing

in my life, that, yeah, Jesus, you're my king, I bow before you. I give you authority over my life. I give you authority over my choices over everything. You think we'll start singing these at the crossing on Sunday morning? Well, I've been begging David to do Jesus' Lord. Every time I see him, I say, hey, when are you going to do a little Jesus' Lord in service? And what's he say? I think he's open to it. Well, I mean, these lyrics are theologically rich. I agree.

We may not know where Kanye's faith will come out. Like we said, we're rooting for him, praying for him. But regardless of where his faith comes out, these lyrics are rich and can help point us toward Jesus and surrender to him and looking to him to meet our needs. So we could keep going on about lyrics. There's probably better podcasts that are going to do a better job of dissecting all this and telling you what it all means. where I would love to end is with a truth that I think this particular album really highlights, at least for me. And it's the notion that when we bow to Jesus as king, something new happens in our life.

Again, in the song Selah, which you've already mentioned, there's this great part where he's just quoting from the Bible, but he says, everything old shall become new, the leaves will be green, bearing the fruit. And he goes on to describe the results of loving your neighbor when you worship Jesus as your king. And I thought, that's exactly what I would love to see happen as a real. result of this album, that people would realize Jesus is a good king and that if I give him my life, it turns me into a new creation, so that I can be a life-giving tree that has fruit for my community so that other people are blessed and cared for. So I think every Christian can be excited about what

this album teaches, the lyrics and the way it points us to Jesus and the way it can even encourage us to be better Christians, more faithful to Jesus. How you respond to Kanye and this stuff, that's happening in his life probably says as much about you or me as it does about him. It tells us if we're cynical and skeptical or if we are maybe too much into the celebrity culture, or maybe it tells us that we've kind of got a right mix of praying for him and rooting for him, but not building our faith on his faith. Maybe Kanye turns out to be an apostle Paul, somebody who went from persecuting the church to planting churches. Maybe in his own way, that is who Kanye ends up being and he follows Jesus sincerely for the rest of his life. Or maybe it doesn't. Maybe Kanye's life

plays out completely differently. Maybe he's more like the Old Testament prophet Balam, who didn't know God, but was used by God for a season to bring blessing to his people. We're not sure. It's not our story. It's Kanye's story. It's mainly God's story. But what we can do right now is just enjoy these songs, enjoy how they point us to Jesus, let them help us be more faithful in our own relationship with God, and maybe use them as a bridge to talk to a friend, a neighbor about them. I think of the Ethiopian eunuch, and I think it's Acts 8, and Philip comes upon him, and the eunuch is reading out of Isaiah, and he doesn't quite even know what he's reading. But Philip uses that opportunity to talk to him about that story and how that story points to Jesus,

So maybe there are friends of yours who are listening to these songs by Kanye and you can just say, hey, let's talk about it because these songs do a great job of pointing me to Jesus. And do you know about this Jesus you're singing in your car about? I don't know how it plays out. But I think there's a good way to use this in our life and in other people's life. So we'll close up right there. On our show notes, we will put a link to a few things, maybe some other podcasts that do a great job of dissecting some of these lyrics.

Also, I want to link to some of the books that have been shaping Keith and I's theology about the gospel. What does it mean that Jesus is king? These have been books, many of them that I've actually read multiple times at this point. And I think anybody who read them, they're all pretty accessible. You're going to have a great experience. It's going to challenge you to think differently about Jesus. Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps others find this podcast more easily. Also ask yourself who you could share this podcast with, texting an episode to a friend or family member is a great way to help them grow spiritually. If you want to go deeper, check out our show notes for book recommendations.