Theology in the Raw - Are Podcasts Good for The Church? With Dr. John Whittaker

Episode Date: May 14, 2026

Get your copy of Paul for the World by Dr. Nijay Gupta here: https://bit.ly/3PyGddRDr. John Whittaker is a former pastor, church planter, and Bible College professor, who now teaches the Bible through his amazing podcast The Listeners Commentary (listenerscommentary.com), which provides clear, down-to-earth teaching through the books of the New Testament. John has recently completed teaching through the entire New Testament for his podcast and has moved on to the Old Testament. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

If you have never been a pastor in a church with all that pastors have to do, and then you listen to podcasters all week in their Bible teaching, and then you go to listen to your pastor, and then you are critical and look down on your pastor. Your pastors do a whole lot more than have the opportunity to study and stand up and preach on Sunday. To evaluate your pastor on the basis of guys that are the Michael Jordans, you know, the George Brett's, the Bible study and Bible teaching world,

it's not fair to your pastor. Hey, friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology Rom. My guest today is my friend Dr. John Whitaker local here in the Boise area, although we still did this via Riverside on Zoom. Could have just hung out in person and hit record, but we decided to do it virtually. John is a former pastor, church planner and Bible college professor who now teaches the Bible through his amazing podcast, the listeners commentary. Listenerscom.com or go to your Apple podcast app and type in the listener's commentary. It's an audio commentary which provides clear down-to-earth teaching through the books of the New Testament.

John has recently completed teaching through the entire New Testament for his podcast. Took him six years to do that. And he has now moved on to the Old Testament somewhere in the middle of the book of Exodus. I cannot more highly recommend this resource. It is used by seminary professors, as you'll hear about in this episode. It is also used by people in majority of resources. countries who's, you know, where English is like the third language. Okay. So a wide range of people that are benefiting from this. If you check it out, you'll see why it's incredibly

thorough, clear, and down to earth and in-depth, but also simple and accessible. It's so good. So we talk about his podcast. We talk about studying the Bible. We also talk about the role of podcasting in relation to the church. Is it a good thing? Is it a neutral thing? It's a bad thing? And we talked about why people are feeling more disconnected than ever from healthy, deep, in-depth relationships in the community of God's people. So, yeah, I really enjoy this conversation. And John is an amazing person and Bible teacher, as you will see. So please welcome back to the show, the one and only Dr. John Whitaker. John Whitaker, welcome back to the Aljad's been a minute.

Not since we've seen each other. Sorry to the last weekend, but it's been a minute since we've been. had you on the show. That is true. Yeah. So I, last time I had you on, we were talking about your listeners' commentary.

And you were, you might have been a third of the way, maybe halfway through the New Testament. And this, you somewhat recently have finished the entire New Testament, which is an absolute accomplishment. I mean, that blows my mind that you work through the entire New Testament. Let's back up for those who don't know, what is the listener's commentary?

What was your heart behind it? And then we'll get into some particulars about it. This is really a unique and absolutely amazing resource. Yeah. So the listener's commentary is, if you're familiar what a paper commentary is on the Bible that guides you through a book of the Bible. That's exactly what it is except in audio fashion. So it is sort of verse by verse paragraph. by paragraph study through all the books of the New Testament.

I started working on the Old Testament, but the New Testament is complete. And just really trying to guide people through what these books are really about. What's the original meaning? So they're not sermons. They're usually, I give a little theological reflection at the end, but mostly it's just historical background,

literary context, word studies, and trying to help in short, clear, concise, a down-to-earth fashion, help people understand what this book of the Bible, whatever one we're studying is about. And so that's what it is. It was originally driven by a very simple, well, I don't know if that's quite the right way to say. The last place I was preaching regularly, we were having all sorts of brand-new believers who were like, they didn't grow up going to church, they weren't familiar with their Bible at all. They were brand-new to Jesus. And we had no real good mechanism for helping these new followers of Jesus learn the faith and learn how to

live out their faith. And I just started recognizing that everyone's kind of on their phone. I mean, that's just a reality, right? Like, this is where people live. So why don't we put some resources online to help people learn the Bible, learn their faith, and learn how to live out the Bible. And when I transitioned on that ministry, I just like, I want to keep doing that. You know, Going to all the world and make disciples. Well, where's the world? It's online. And so that was sort of the catalyst behind it and just started brainstorming what that

would look like and started with stuff I taught for years at a local Bible college and just kept building it out from there. So it was about a big year project. What's that? Six years? It took you six years to do the new test. It took about six years to go from lining out the first material. to first recordings to finishing the whole thing, about six years.

You didn't start with math. You didn't just go chronologically, right? No, because I wanted to, I thought, well, let's start with some little hanging fruit. Stuff I already had material on. So I started with a lot of the books I taught. I mean, I taught full time for 19 years of Boise Bible College. So I started with material that I had, you know, for my Bible classes there. So I think the first one I recorded was the book of Philippians.

Okay. So, and I did finish with Revelation. So I ended in the right place, you know. Yeah. Have you taught Revelation before? Was that, was that all new study for you? I mean, I hadn't taught it at the college level. I had preached through it before. Okay. I had done some teaching on the Book of Revelation in New Zealand in the late 90s. Okay. But I had never actually taught a college course on it before. So it wasn't like all brand new study.

In fact, interestingly enough, my very first paper I ever wrote as a freshman Bible college student was in English class on Revelation 20. Really? On the millennium. Yeah, so I'm a freshman in Bible college in 1987. And he has a list of topics and he went alphabetically and let you choose your topic. Well, my last name is Whitaker. I'm at the end of the alphabet. So when we got down to the end, there was Revelation 20 in the millennium.

10 page paper, freshman first semester Bible college. students. So that was when I first started studying Revelation was as a freshman student in Bible college. Do you remember what you said about the millennium? I don't because that was a long time ago. And I probably was way more certain and confident then than I should have been. Because as an 18 year old kid, you're pretty confident about a lot of things you probably shouldn't be. Yeah. Oh, man. I think back when I was, I feel like every stage of education when I got done with one stage, when I finished undergrad, I was like, all right, I basically know all the right answers. Now I just need to go to seminary because they tell me I need to do that.

And I just, but seminary to confirm that I already know everything. And then, of course, you just realize you don't know anything. And then you get done to seminary and like, all right, now you go on. I guess I need to do a PhD or whatever. But I already have all the right answers and then you realize you. Yeah. So it's interesting how that works. The older you get, the more you study, the more you realize how much you don't know. Yes. Yeah. So how, what's your preparation like that were you, you're producing these episodes is like once a week or once every couple weeks or is it just whatever you're done studying the passage? Yeah. When I was going through the New Testament, I was, I was pretty, I didn't achieve it all the time,

but I was pretty committed to getting two episodes out a week. Oh, that's a lot. So it was a grind. Yeah. So there was times where I had to, you know, how to slow down. And I would usually take a few weeks, like if I finished one book before I started the next one, I would take a few weeks just to kind of make sure I was ready to go for the next one. But usually I would be recording, you know, whichever book I'm on recording while doing that,

studying and writing and for the for the next book i'm going to record after that so so there would be you know just just a lot of reading writing recording and uploading yeah yeah plus i plus i was keeping up with my other podcasts my bible and life podcast while doing that so it was most weeks it was three three uploads a week three podcasts i was uploading a week and recording and pretty pretty brutal grind at times to be honest where you're you're covering like how big of a passage in general. I would imagine like narratives might be a bigger chunk rather than the epistles. Is that, is that right? Yeah, yeah. Narratives usually are a bigger chunk than in the pistols. So usually like if I'm going through a letter, it most of the time it'd be like a

paragraph at a time. Okay. For the, you know, the narratives, it's okay, what's a, what's a literary unit for this narrative piece or whatever, you know? Old Testament that I'd just started. Genesis is done. Exodus is mostly done. I'm doing bigger chunks for the Old Testament largely because I don't feel the need to go in as much detail. I want to just more help people read these books wisely and well and demystify them a bit. I think there's a lot more confusion about some of the old Testament books. They feel so foreign in so many ways. So doing bigger chunks with those. But with the New Testament, it was mostly paragraph by paragraph, chunk by chunk. Okay.

There's well over 300 finished hours, audio hours of teaching to the New Testament. Wow. Wow. That's insane. Do you have it? Do you write out your notes too? Is this something you could produce like a series of short commentaries? I could.

Well, the notes, I mean, they're more in like note fashion, bulleted list. You know, the way I tend to teach through things like this is kind of what I describe as tour guide through the text. So what I mean by that is, you know, read and comment on words or phrases, you know, rather than read a whole big chunk and then comment, I'll kind of point out things as I go, notice that, take a look at this. And so that's the way the notes are written. You know, here's a bold face of the verse and then some bullets underneath it. So it's probably 75 or 80% of what I said is written. And the reason I did that is because I wanted to be really precise and really concise in the recording. So most of the recordings are between 20 and 30 minutes long so that they're

kind of really focused, really bite-sized chunks rather than me stumbling and fumbling my way around. That's what I love about. Yeah, it's not too long. It's not too short. It's not too in-depth, but in-depth enough. It's not just devotional thoughts on a passage. It's not just a quick summary. You're going into the text verse by verse, but you're not getting so bogged down that you kind of lost sight of, you know, the passage as a whole. So yeah, yeah, in my opinion, I think it's a perfect balance. I've been, when I started doing it, I didn't, what I didn't anticipate was how many preachers would use it for sermon prep. Really? I was aiming more towards the, the serious Christian who wants to learn their Bible. Yeah.

But I have a lot of preachers just have, and they use it every week as part of their sermon. prep. They say it speeds up their sermon prep because they can listen while they're driving around. They can listen multiple times. Same sort of thing that it's like I've weeded out a bunch of the, you know, scholars talking to scholars about scholar things and commentaries, you know, and focused on what's the core stuff out of this text you need to know to understand it. So that was that was a surprising thing.

You know, like even preachers around the world. I mean, I've got an email from Sweden, I think the guy was in, you know, where he's like me and another guy started a church. Neither one of us are like scholars or academics. And this has helped us so much in our sermon prep and all that, you know. And there's a guy in Kenya who every time I send out an email, he always replies. He'll send me pictures of himself, his church, his elders. And he's just so thankful for your advanced study. it helps me out so much.

That kind of stuff's amazing. That's amazing. It is amazing. You never could have imagined that that's... And a couple of years ago, I was at your theology in the raw conference here, and you had Joey Dotson speaking. Yeah. And I went in and introduced myself to Joey.

And he said, wait, wait, what's your name again? And I said, John Whitaker. He said, what is it you do? And I said, well, the main thing I'm working on is this thing called the listeners commentary. He says, that's why your voice sounds. familiar. I listen to you every morning when I'm running. You're helping me prepare for my course on First Corinthians. No way. And I was shocked because, I mean, again, I wasn't writing for graduate

students at Denver Seminary. I was writing for the, you know, what was amazing about that was two weeks later. I'm at a conference with alumni at Boise Bible College and a gal comes up to me who's working in Zimbabwe, rural Zimbabwe. And she says, I just want you to know, I have my women in Zimbabwe. for whom English is their second or third language, and most of them only have a fifth grade education, listening to your commentary every week as we studied the Bible together, and they find it so valuable. That was incredibly moving to me. Because that was in two weeks span where I was like, so graduate students at Denver Seminary are learning from my commentary. And women in rural Zimbabwe, who barely know English are learning from my commentary.

That was pretty amazing. That's a broad audience. Yeah, and I don't know how that's possible, but somehow a little bit. that off. A couple months ago, we had the one and only Nijey Gupta on the show to talk about his new book, Paul for the world. If you caught that conversation, you know that it was a good one. This week, the book is officially out, and I want to take a minute to celebrate the release of Nijay's new book and make sure you know about it.

Here's the thing about Nijay's book that I love. A lot of us have been reading Paul's letters as if he's primarily talking about like the afterlife heaven and eternity and what happens when we die. But Nijey makes a really compelling case that Paul was just as concerned with this life as he was with the afterlife. You know, he talks about friendship and work and money, mental health, justice. Paul had something to say about all of it. So Nijay's book, Paul for the world, brings Paul's theology down to earth in the best possible way. It's super accessible, it's hopeful, and it will impact the way you actually live day to day. So if you've been wanted to go deeper with Paul, but you're not an academic. This is your book. Pick it up this week.

The link is in the show notes. And again, congrats to Nijay on the release. Over the last couple years, I've gotten more and more interested in foods and supplements that are not only good for my body, but also my brain. Between writing and podcasting and speaking, I can take all the help I can get, which is why I'm so glad that I found mosh. Each mosh bar is made with ingredients that support brain health like Oshuaganda, Lions Main, collagen, and omega-3s. And mosh bars actually taste great. They come in nine mouth-watering flavors, including my personal favorite peanut chocolate chip. And the best part is that they donate a portion of all sales to gender-based Alzheimer's research.

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there's still large chunks of the New Testament that I've never looked at. look, you know, deeply into. And, you know, 30, 40, 30, 25 minutes of your commentary is going to give you a lot more than what I already know about probably 80% of the New Testament, even though, you know, about area of expertise. But so, yeah, that makes sense. And your presentation is super clear. I mean, you're able to, what I love is when you're discussing like a word, if it's a passage I'm familiar with, I can, like, I'm like, oh, yeah, he's, John is totally understood the kind of different ways this Greek word can be conveyed. And yet you're not even, it's like, if somebody doesn't know that, they wouldn't even realize you're wrestling with the Greek word or teasing out

nuances because you're not talking about, this is an heiress perfect, you know, like, you're, but, but I can tell like, oh, but he has actually worked through that, but you're not talking about it in such scholarly garb, you know. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And that's, Yeah, totally. Yeah, yeah. What's your prep like? So you come to a path. So you have to record an episode, say, on Friday, it's Monday morning. It's a passage you're not familiar with. How do you study the passage and prepare to present it? Yeah. I mean, a lot of it. I mean, now, like when I'm working through the New Testament, it was, you got the Greek text in front of me. So yes, there is Greek involved. I would have the Greek text, I have English, English text. I had a lot of reading of that. Usually, like I said, I'd be working on a particular book while recording another one. So I spend a lot of time just,

reading through that, looking at either commentaries, articles, doing word studies with some of the resources I have on the library behind me and then writing the notes and making sure I understand that stuff, historical background. I find that really valuable, the cultural context, historical background, not only to understanding the text, but making the text a little more three-dimensional, bringing it to life. And so trying to bring that out for people. So I've just spent, particular with the New Testament, I spent, I spent so long, so many years studying and teaching the New Testament that a lot of that was already in there. So it was a matter of applying it to these individual texts or studying, you know, looking at some of these key words. And so,

so yeah, a lot of, a lot of commentary work, a lot of Bible dictionary work, a lot of word study work, writing down and making sure I'm grasping the key things of, there's a lot of, there. There's a component that I think often gets missed both in a lot of Bible study as well as in a lot of teaching basic hermeneutics. And that's the component of you do all that breakdown of keywords and background and key ideas and all that. And you tear the text apart, but you forget to put it back together. Right. And I know when I had basic hermeneics when I was a Bible college student, you know, no one ever told me about putting it back together. We learned how to break a text apart.

So when I started teaching harmonetics, I always. Before we ever go towards, okay, now let's start talking about what it means. We got to put it back together. So that's, I always spend a lot of time kind of been reading back over the text after all that work, reading back through it. And it's like, okay, so what is, what's the dominant question this text is asking and answering? And what's the answer it gives to that? So that we have sort of a central idea. So that as I walk down to the text and point things out, it coheres around a single main theme that seems to be dominant.

in the text. Yeah. So your main passionate drive is to teach the Bible to all kinds of people. And yet, like anybody, you have your theological

biases, presuppositions, whatever, like, how do you, does that come out in your commentary, or do you try to avoid like, like, nodding in a certain theological direction that you, hold but is maybe more debated in the passage? How do you avoid making this, you know,

John Whitaker's theological interpretation of scripture rather than, I don't think, here's what this passage means or is that impossible to separate this? I mean, I don't think it's 100%. I mean, it's like obviously I'm John Whitaker. So what I'm teaching is going to be what John Whitaker thanks, right? Yeah. So there's always going to be some of that. And we have to be honest about that. I feel like I have worked really hard to be able to be able to say, okay, here's what seems pretty evident and clear in the text. On the debate, if there's anything debated in the text or some of those passages where it's, I've tried to be honest about that. Some scholars think this. Some people think that. It seems like this makes the most sense to me and here's

why. I don't do a whole lot of that because, again, I don't want to clutter up the commentary. There's places where you just have to do that. Right. Right. Right. Like, you know, when it comes to things where it's like, well, let's, let's be honest. Scholars reach conclusions, but none of us are 100% certain. Yeah.

Well, let's hold that loosely and be honest about that. Yeah. First Corinthians 11 for the sake of the angels, right? Like passages like that where it's like, we don't really know exactly what no one really knows. So let's not get too caught up in that and be too definitive about some of these. things and there's there's places like that where it's like you know there's other places where okay there's some scholarly debates but the overall meaning of the text is pretty clear in spite of those scholarly debates and so let's emphasize the main the main thing and so that's that's how

I've tried to approach that in this so you know there's there's places where I'm sure people you know from different backgrounds could listen to and think I don't know that I buy that right but but I had a listener who I don't know. I don't even remember where they're at. Just say one of the things I appreciate, you know, I listen to a lot of Bible stuff online. One of the things I appreciate about you is I don't have to pick as many bones out of my food.

So I'm like, I guess that's good, right? Like there's not as much extra stuff or that's what he meant was there's not a lot of stuff that's kind of extra or tendential or, you know, unique to you that's not just really rooted in what the, the basic meaning of the text. So I've tried to focus on that. Be honest when there is difference of opinions about some of these things. So how did you approach like the book of Revelation? Because that whole book has

some very different interpretive approaches from the very beginning. I mean, how did you handle that? And what approach did you take? Yeah. It does. And again, we have to be honest about that. You know, and I tried to. I talked about different views up front, different approaches to the book. I actually have on the landing page on my website for Revelation, I have a whole free downloadable PDF, kind of a study guide to Revelation that goes through the historical setting of Revelation, kind of an overview of the content, not like a chronological flow, but just a breakdown in

chart form of the content of the book, as well as various approaches to the book of Revelation. So try to lay some of that out and be honest about that. get to, for example, Revelation 20 in the millennium, well, here's the two oldest views in the church, right? Like you can go back to the beginning and you can find fairly early on, you know, some that take some sort of premillennial approach to Revelation 20 in the millennium. And fairly early on, you can find some version of a millennium in the church right now. You know, okay, those are two of the older views in the church. So, you know, we should respect that. Right. So I tried to be honest in those, particularly those points. I also tried to just say, look, the fact is it's apocalyptic literature. And so we need to read it in respect to its genre, right? And it's the way it's designed to be read. And some of the debates we have today simply disregard historical setting and the nature of the literature. So let's try to handle the text the way the text is meant to be handled and then work out some of the debatable.

parts from there. Right. So you're not pre-millennial, right? You don't hold to that, that view. No, I, yeah. And if I were to be pre-millennial, I would be like a historic premillennial, sort of like a Craig Blomberg style of pre-millennial, you know, I mean. Which is what? He's a historic premillennial. What does that mean? What's the difference between historic pre-millennial versus modern dispensational? Oh, yeah. So historic premillennial, so the two categories are historic premillennial and then modern dispensational premillennial. Modern dispensational pre-millennial is the whole left-behind series with all kind of the extra components to the timeline, multiple returns of Jesus for the coming of the church and then coming back in judgment.

Whereas historic pre-millennial is just that Jesus will return and usher in the millennium, but you don't have some of the other distinct components that you find in the left-behind series. So I find a lot of modern dispensation. Now, what I appreciate is, I have a lot of friends in that camp, and so if they listen to this, you know, they know who they are. But what I appreciate is, there is this move in modern dispensational theology to get rid of some of the excesses of sort of like classical, you know, and Jay Dwight Pentecost, dispensational primalism, you know, and some of the old school, more classic, there's been a little bit more, yeah, some of that stuff was a little overstating the case. Right. I grew up with, in the debates I grew up with along those lines, it was classic dispensationalism versus progressive dispensationalism. And Dallas Seminary was known for having these progressive dispensationalists. Yeah. I forgot even the distinctions now. Progressive dispensationalists seemed to be, their posture was a bit more like, yeah, things aren't as ironed out here. Whereas classic, classic dispensationalists, they seem to be a little more militant about their views. Yes, they are.

Even to the point of it, if you don't think like they think, then you clearly don't know how to read the Bible. Yeah. I've heard that said before. I've heard, yes, definitely said before. And now I don't mean, I don't talk to anybody that is really interested in those specific debates for, so I think people do wonder, you know, omelennial versus pre-millennial, what's a difference?

Why should I care? you know, but I just, the urgency is just not there like it used to be. At least, I don't know, it's anecdotal. Maybe I'm swimming in different circles now. Yeah. Well, and I related to the question that started that whole conversation, I've just always tried to focus on what does the text actually say? So like I just wrote an article on the Antichrist for Renew.org.

They asked me to write this article on the Antichrist. And again, it was, I'm focused on, well, what does the text actually say about that? Not all our configurations of the text. Let's just let the text speak on its own. So, you know, we have this picture of the Antichrist. Well, but the only place the word shows up in the Bibles is in 1st John, second John. And there it talks about, you've heard that Antichrist is coming,

but many Antichrist already are. And here's the spirit of the Antichrist. It's the one who denies that Jesus is, you know, come in the flesh and the son of God. So with the commentary, I've tried to approach it very much that way, where it's like, well, let's let the text stand on its own terms and not necessarily get too caught up in all our modern debates and all of that. That's interesting. Most people don't realize Antichrist, the word Antichrist doesn't occur

in the book of Revelation. And Revelation 13 is one of the key texts for it, but it's not, the beast of Revelation 13 is never called Antichrist. Man of Lawlessness. Secondsson, Chapter 2 is also usually associated with Antichrist, but it's a different title. So is the man of law and Antichrist? Yes. Is the beast of Revelation and Antichrist? Yes. But should we be looking forward with one great Antichrist at the end? The Bible's not 100% clear. It's more like a spiritual category of a kind of opposition to the kingdom of God, right? That many people could fit into. And could there be one great one at the end? Maybe. The Bible doesn't make a definitive for us, I don't think. And so, you know, again, I think the Bible's main teaching, whether Revelation 13,

second pestilions to 1st John. The main thing is to encourage God's people to faithfulness to Jesus in view of antichrist type people and forces. It's more about don't be looking for an antichrist, be faithful to Jesus in spite of antichrist that might come. Right, right, right, that's good. I'm curious, a broader question, because I think you're the right person to wrestle with this.

You've been a pastor for a number of years. You've been a Bible College professor. Now you're a full-time podcaster. And this is a question I often ask myself, and I don't know the exact answer to it. But the relationship between podcasts and the rhythm or teaching in the church, it's such an open-ended question. But I just, I think, you know,

I think about how. most rhythms of the church, you know, are centered on Sunday morning, in particular in Protestant Church is the pulpit. This is the kind of primary way in which leaders of the church are teaching their people. And that, you know, that's been going on, I think, since the Reformation. And obviously, it's been in various forms before that. But then the this thing called the internet came along with which challenge disrupted in hand i mean i yeah it just added a whole new uh we'll put it positively set of opportunities to for leaders of the church to teach their people one of which is uh the possibility of like like podcasting you know

um and you know i think about people that are faithfully listen to your podcast they're hearing you teach the Bible if they listen to, you know, an episode of, let's say five episodes a day, you know, that's an hour and a half of Bible teaching from John Whitaker during the week. That's rivaling, if not surpassing the influence that their pastor might have on them, especially if people go to church on average, you know, once or twice a month. What does that mean? I don't, like, should churches tell people not to listen to the podcast, should they do their own podcast? How can podcasting, and not just podcasting, but these other ways in which people have access to Bible teaching for the purpose of spiritual formation, how should this be integrated into the ecclesiological,

rhythm of the church. Have you thought about this? I mean, yeah, I have thought about it and I've wrestled with it. I mean, obviously I think that this can be a huge blessing for the people of God to have people online who faithfully teach the text and help them learn and grow. It can enhance the teaching ministry of the church. I actually love the fact that pastors are using this to help my, using my commentary to help prepare their sermons because, you know, that's still rooted in a local church. It's a resource for the church serving the church.

I love that. I also recognize that there are people, I got an email a year or two ago from a gal who lives in super rural Alabama. her and her husband were fairly young believers listening to my stuff. And she's like, the closest church to us that I know of is like 40, 45 minutes away. If I'm going to do this thing called following Jesus right, do I need to be involved in a church? Oh, wow. What'd you say?

And she was listening to me. And she sent the email through the contact form on my website, which also collected her phone number. So I called her. I figured I can't answer this question super well just by virtue of email. So I just randomly called this gal out of the blue. Didn't know where she lived at the time. And then we had this phone conversation. And my encouragement to her was, well, here's the thing.

Whether you're formally involved in, you know, church as we know it or not, you really can't be part of the people of God without being part of people, right? You can't practice the one another's without the one another's. How can you love one another, serve one another, pray for one another, bear one other's burdens when there's no one another's in your spiritual experience,

your Christian law. So somehow you need to have, if at all possible, some sort of one another experience. It's not always possible, right? think of people who, you know, are older and are somewhat housebound. Like, how do they want another, right? Those things are challenging. But if possible, we need some one another's to be able to live out our Christian life, you know.

And so that's what I encouraged her. And she was actually working on a master's degree in pharmacy, this gal was. And she said, well, I know there's some sort of like campus ministry where I where I'm doing my master's program. Maybe my husband and I could get involved in that to at least start as we figure things out. Great. Do that.

You need to be with other people where you can one another, you know? And so I don't think online stuff has to be at odds with the church. Unfortunately, sometimes it is. I know I know people who could go to church It's not like it would be impossible for them to do that But they have chosen to not go to church

And And just You know Listen to whoever they want to throughout the week Maybe on Sunday if they feel like it You know Plug in a John Mark Comer sermon or somebody else's sermon You know

And watch that And it's like Yeah but that's not the same You know And again, the preaching online might be better. The guys you're listening to online that you really like might be better than your preacher at church. True enough, right? Like, there's a lot of guys better than you and me, right?

You know, so they might be better. They might be more insightful. But we're still missing something. I think both of the rhythm, there's a benefit to, there's a benefit to, you know, having a rhythm where it's like we, we get up, we go gather with a group of people. We, even if we don't really know them and don't have much of relationship, we sing some songs with them, we hear some teaching from the Bible, we take communion with them. There's a benefit just to that rhythm for our, it marks us out as different from the world.

They all sleep in both Saturday and Sunday. They camp all weekend, you know, but we're the people of God. You know, there's a benefit for us personally, for us as the people of God. Again, I don't know that it's a right, wrong thing. Yeah. But I do think there's some wisdom in there, you know, for us to think that stuff through. How can we experience the one another's of the New Testament, which is a key part of our discipleship, both informing us in Christ and expressing our Christ-likeness?

how do we do that without one another's? Yeah. Yeah, no, I agree. I totally agree at that. I'm curious, is it a problem that for some, maybe even many Christians, that they are being more shaped theologically, spiritually by influencers slash leaders slash teachers outside their local church context, you know? because of the stuff they consume.

I mean, this is not, and maybe this is always an issue. And before the internet, there were things called books, you know, and people would read, you know, and they had their, you know, favorite pastors, preachers, they would listen to and cassette tapes, you know, like, so, I mean, it's not brand new right now. It just seems much more pervasive now that people are just absorbing so much stuff. And not to mention news and political pundits and stuff that shit, you know, but like people are being. so formed. Let's just, let's just limit it to like Christian specific formation, theology.

People listen to Theology and Raw listeners commentary, whatever. And like they, whether they admit it or not, whether the pastor likes it or not, like people are being formed six days a week. And inevitably, I think, will probably measure whether or not what their pastor is saying is true or not based on the stuff that's forming them six days a week. Yeah. Is, Is that a problem? This is something that I constantly ask myself. Am I contributing? It's theology to rock contributing to people's low view of church.

God forbid, but. Yeah. Is it a problem? I don't know. Can it be a problem? Definitely. Yeah. It can be a problem.

If it makes us proud, if it makes us arrogant, if it makes us arrogant, if it makes us critical. Yeah. You know, if you have never been a pastor in a church with all that pastors have to do. Yeah. And then you listen to podcasters all week and their Bible teaching. And then you go to listen to your pastor. And then you are critical and look down on your pastor.

Your pastors do a whole lot more than have the opportunity to study and stand up and preach on Sunday. You know, they just got the phone call on Thursday morning. that this family from their church, their 21-year-old son just committed suicide, and now they're sitting with that family on Thursday and grieving with them. Right. And then preparing a funeral on top of that for this family. You know what I mean?

They have troubled marriage in their congregation and they're meeting with this couple. And it's like they're doing a whole lot more things than standing up and giving you the best 30 minutes of Bible teaching they can on Sunday morning. Right? So to be, you know, to evaluate your pastor on the basis of guys that, that, you know, are the Michael Jordan's, you know, the George Brett's of, you know, the Bible study and Bible teaching world, it's just, it's not fair to your pastor for one. Yeah. Right. So I have a sympathy for that because I've lived that role, right?

I've done that. I know what it's like. week in, week out to care for people and pastor people. So can it be a problem? It can be a problem if it makes us arrogant, proud, critical, look down on our pastor. It can be a problem if it separates us from a local church. I keep telling myself, you know, like people listen to my stuff all over the world, but some of the best stuff that matters to me is just to go local, you know?

So sitting on Wednesday afternoons with the group of people I sit with at Calvary Boise, which now any, you know, any week could be anywhere from 8 to 15 people, most of whom now are lay pastors, volunteers, and I'm helping them learn how to teach the Bible. I just got a text last night from Jessica Guadalupe, whom you know, who was like, hey, I taught the first session at the women's retreat this weekend. and my husband encouraged me to record it and send you the recording so maybe you could give me some feedback. Like, that's good ministry, like equipping the saints for the work of ministry, right? Yeah, yeah. So I get thousands of download from all around the world that I'm super grateful for on the

commentary, but being able to sit with people and help them think through the text of Scripture and then how to communicate the text of Scripture effectively to others, I wouldn't want to just sit here in my office and not have that. Right, right, right. If that's true for me, I think it should be true for all of us as believers, that we should go local. Who's our people that we help grow in their faith and they help us grow in their faith? I just think that's so important.

Yeah. Yeah, no, you can't, yeah, any kind of online discipleship teaching, learning, you know, that people are engaged in can be helpful, can be immensely helpful, but it, it's always going to be insufficient, right? It's not, it doesn't equate to our place in a local community of believers. I think for some people, again, maybe many, hopefully just some, their entire church experience, the rhythm of church, what, you know, big, just broadly speaking, is attending a service on Sunday morning,

where there's maybe minimal one another in happening, I'm coming because I'm listening to a message, worshiping, maybe talk to some people, chit-chat, but there's not any deep connection there. That's true. Yeah. And it's unfortunate. It is. It is.

And I don't, you know, that's a whole other rabbit trail. What, why is that? I think it's too, I think it's too, I think it's wrong to just blame the people. And I think it's wrong just to blame the church, you know, the blame the people. Well, you need to get involved. You get a small group. You need to, uh, without understanding, um, maybe the layers and layers and layers of reasons why they're just doing that, you know?

And it's, I think it'd be wrong to blame. And to be honest, most of our small groups aren't really great one anothering. They're not. Okay. They're not. They're forced attempt to cram people together because we know what's supposed to be doing one and we struggle with that. Well, we can chase that one down.

You're a pastor who is a big advocate of small group, so that's interesting to hear you say that. But I felt that for a while. But so to the person that is simply the much of their church experience, church rhythm is the Sunday service, is listening to a 35-minute sermon. And then if that same person is listening to, yeah, John Mark Homer and, you know, other commentaries and getting kind of fed with good stuff

throughout the week, I can see where they might end up saying like, do I even need to go to church this morning, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Like, I've got it. I've got, I'm filled with all the stuff that I used to rely on Sunday morning for. Yeah. Yeah.

No, I get that. And I totally understand that, actually. And, and I just, I just think even, I mean, like, you know, where I attend on Sunday mornings, this last Sunday morning when I was there, there was probably 1,200 people in the room. I didn't do a whole lot of one anothering. Right. And yet being there, just the sheer fact of being there. And having that rhythm, because I love Jesus, I'm going to be there. That's important.

And I spent the whole week studying Exodus and Leviticus. And you're right. And I'm learning a tonne every week, right? But being there. And then singing songs and celebrating. And then culminating service with our little chicklet of. bread and our little cup of juice, right? And remembering what Jesus did for me and how much he loves me. I just think, yeah, is it everything it could be? No. Is it everything it's supposed to be? No.

But is it still good for me? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. There's something almost it's symbolic, but more than just symbolic, but spiritually significant of individual believers gathering together as a group of people, especially, I mean, you mentioned it, observing the saccharacterial, or, you know, baptism, Lord's Supper, like, like there's spiritual significance in the mere fact of that, even if you walk away feeling empty, you know, or when people ask, like, how was church today? Oh, it was, it was fine. Oh, yeah, it wasn't that good. And we use almost similar terminology. We use, like, going to a sporting event or a concert, you know, which, I mean, sometimes services can replicate that, unfortunately. But yeah, there is something spiritual.

significant whether you emotionally feel it or not about the objective fact of believers gathering together in a room. And we know that from 2020. We know that from 2020. When we weren't together. Right. Right. And the difficulty that was for not just the church experience, the human, the human experience and how isolated and separated we feel. And you were six years out from 2020 and we still have people talking about how isolated they were. We're still recovering from some of, you know, kids are recovering from their experience of being isolated from their peers at school. So 2020 should have been instructive to us that, guess what, just being together is,

even if it's not all that good, it's still good to be together. I mean, I would say that's true objectively. That just has a fact. Experientially, though, there's a number of people, right, that 2020 hit. and like, oh, I don't have to go to church now. And then when they could go back, they didn't because they're like, yeah, I didn't, nothing was missing in my life because what was there before was not very meaningful. It was insubstantial.

I get that. And I, again, I, you know, I understand. I mean, I'm very sympathetic to all of this. And I just, I'm also a firm believer that when we talk about discipleship to Jesus, I think two of the major reasons why the church struggles so much with effective discipleship is we don't have a clear path and we don't do the one another as well. And we can't...

I mean, Colossians chapter 3 versus 12 through 17, therefore, my beloved, as those chosen of God, holy and dearly loved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another and forgiving each other, whoever's a complaint against anyone. How can you do that without being in significant relationship with other believers? Somehow. How can you grow and how can you become a quicker forgiver when you don't have to deal with believers who say stupid things or, you know, act badly and now you have to forgive them?

How can you get better at putting up with people who are different from you and learn how to give grace and space, you know, bearing with one another when you're just not around other believers? It's like our own growth in discipleship is going to be stunted if we're not around other believers, as well as our ability to help other people grow, and their discipleship is going to be stunted. So we just, we somehow, you know, somehow. And I mean, I think it goes beyond obviously just the church as event. I mean, that's part of our problem in the modern American way of doing church is we've turned church into event. Right? It's an event you go to on Sunday rather than church is a people you belong to.

Those are two totally different frameworks, two totally different ways of doing things. I don't know how to fix all those problems. I don't know how to get away from church as an event, right? There's always going to be a gathering of some sort of event. There has to be, I think. But we have elevated churches as an event. And churches, unfortunately, budget, staff, plan, their whole weekly rhythm, goes towards putting on an event rather than forming people.

So, I mean, we've got a lot of problems as the church. Let's just be honest about that, right? Shortcomings. Nevertheless, I just, somehow we need each other. We need one anothering and we need the opportunity to be together, like sitting in front of a TV during 2020, trying to sing worship songs by myself, it sucked. And it wasn't good.

didn't sing. I'll just be honest. And sitting there with my wife and taking communion, it was nice. But in a room of other believers who it's like, we're in this thing together. Yeah. And Jesus did this, not just for me and my salvation, he did this for us and for the world, right? There's something beautiful and good about that, even though we got a lot of problems. That's a good word. Oh, man, singing in front. It's hard enough for me to sing in church, let alone in front of my TV. We tried that as a family. And you know a little bit about, you know, my kids. I mean, we're a very honest.

Yeah, Josie's question at your book launch party, man. I appreciated that question. Ooh, Josie. Which, by the way, I didn't, my wife and I were a black bear diner the other day. And for breakfast. And I thought, I think that's Preston's daughter over there. And then when she turned around, sure enough. So apparently she's working there, black bear diner.

all the old people love her. She sits down and talks with these old men that come in every day. And they, oh, yeah, she's, that's great. Yeah, I know she's thinking on a really deep level challenges me like crazy. Yeah, anyway, yeah, the COVID singing in front of the TV thing was, was, we had some funny moments as a family where I'm like, come on, all right, let's sing, you know, trying to be the leader to the household and everything. And like kids just crack it up by, you know, halfway through a worship song. They're just rolling, wrestling on the floor and throwing stuff. It's just, yeah, it didn't work for our family.

Yeah. What do you? I mean, you've been a pastor, teacher, discipleer for a few decades. Have you seen people become more disconnected, like less doing the things you're talking about, the one another and being involved in rich relationships, all these things?

Have you seen more? seeing more and more of that or is it always been an issue? Yeah. I'm going to assume it's been more, but just because things like internet, social media are making people more lonely and isolated individualistic. I mean, again, it's just anecdotal. It's just my experience, but it sure seems that way. It seems people are more isolated now.

We have all these means of mass connection and communication, and yet it seems like we're more isolated. You know, we don't have and we don't seem to know how to have real conversations. We don't know how to work through differences, you know, because we can just tell you people off from a distance on our social media and never actually have to have real conversations. So it seems like people are more isolated. I think young people, you know, who have grown up with digital technology where they're always scrolling and always texting. I mean, you know, I was sitting at the coffee shop and McCall a few years ago, you know, and here comes this group of four teenagers all walking down the street together, but they're all looking at their phone as they're walking down the street, you know, and I'm like, I think it has hindered us and, you know, interrupt at our life. and, you know, you can look just, I mean, you can just do a quick Google search of loneliness,

and you can find all the stats about loneliness and how. So somehow all these means of connection have actually driven us apart and we're more lonely, and I think that's a huge problem. I think you add to it just some sociological factors. Like, we have a rare phenomenon in my family that, and we know it's rare because people are, they tell us. Like, my daughter and her three of her four kids. kids are downstairs right now.

She lives 10 minutes away. My son and his three kids, we're going to have dinner with them tonight. They live 15 minutes away. And we have a family four or five doors down the street who moved here from Southern California a little over a year ago. They were at our house for Christmas Eve

because they have no family here. We've gotten to know them, you know, we've moved into this house a year and a half ago and gotten to know them. And they now have said, if we ever need help with our kids, we think we can trust you, right? Like, because they don't have family to help them that. But we, we have our kids and our grandkids always around us. Families are just, people move for a job. People move because they want to live in a different area. And so families are split apart and, and it's rare to have, you know,

your adult kids and your grandkids all around, you know, we have this rare thing in our family. And that doesn't help our isolation and our loneliness, you know. And so I think there's huge cultural and sociological factors that have driven people apart in a lot of different ways. And it's not good for our humanness. There was a book written years ago, I think around the turn of the century, around 2000, I think Robert Putnam, Bowling. No, not Robert Putnam. Anyway, the book is called Bowling Alone. And it talked about this very phenomenon. But he was looking at from like 1950 to 2000. Yeah. So he's ready to saying like before the internet was really taken off. But it was talking about all the sociological factors leading to people bowling alone. Like just being isolated and lonely. And you read that thing now. And it's like, gosh, 25 years later, it's only gotten worse. So to bring us full circle, then we can close us out.

So there's these things in society, technological developments that have hindered our discipleship, making us more lonely, isolated, disconnecting people. And yet both you and I are kind of in a smell, kind of using those same technologies to hopefully produce good for the church. And, you know, in general, I can just say, well, you know, technology is a neutral tool that can be used for good or bad. And so just because it's used in negative ways or is causing negative things in some circles doesn't mean

there's not positive uses of it. And I agree with that, I think. And I do too. I agree with that too. I mean, it's not all bad. There's positive uses of it as well. Right. Yeah.

I just, I at least want to open the door for a challenge on that, you know, because that's, broadly speaking, I think that's true, but I don't know. Yeah. I love it when I hear about people like using some of my resources and they're using it together. Yeah. Like, okay, even if they don't live in the same area, you know, they're, they're, I'm reading

through Ephesians, someone might tell me, you know, with a group of guys, we all live in different parts of the world and, and we will read this, you know, whatever passages, you know, in the breakdown of the commentary, and then we will listen to what you have to say, and we'll text each other, you know, what struck us out of Ephesians and from your commentary. You know, that's taking our separation and our digital, you know, in our distance and using digital stuff

to try to at least create some sort of, you know, bringing us together digitally for the sake of studying scripture and learning together. I think there's benefit that. There's ways you can try to do some of that. But yeah, we have to recognize that just listening to the listeners commentary, listening to Theology in the Raw, just listen to whatever, is not, while it can be good and it can be valuable and it can be helpful, there's more to following Jesus and growing in Christ

than just that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's good. That's good. I guess I get mixed feelings when I get feedback from people that it's 100% positive. Not that all the feedback is. Definitely not. but the feedback I'm thinking of when they're like, thank you so much for your podcast. You know, we'll say it's helped them immensely with their faith and spirituality, blah, blah, blah. But then sometimes there's also like,

your podcast has been such a help because, or there's some kind of like, I wish my church was like this. I wish I could ask these questions. I wish we could talk about these things at my church. I wish I could ask questions about my church. I wish we can go deep into the, these, you know, the text and talk, you know, in the church. And it's almost like this, my podcast,

and I'm sure this is true of many other podcasts, is almost like furthering their negative view of the church. Now, I wrestle with that because I'm like, well, I don't want to be, on the one hand, I'm like, I don't want to be part of the problem. On the other hand, part of me wants to say, step up churches. Yeah, yeah. If people, if people, if people, that your shepherd and say, I can't ask that question in church, then that's on you. That's on me. Yeah. Is that right? Yeah. Back to what we said. We have more sanctification needed for the church as a total, right? Like there's more progress needed for the church. We're not all we're not all we're supposed to be. Yeah. As as the church. You know, one of the things,

one of the books I end up spending a lot of time with on the commentary was second Corinthians. I volunteered to teach it at the college about two and a half years before I started recording it on the commentary. I was teaching it at BBC so I could spend a lot of time. I just hadn't spent a whole lot of time. So I wanted to give a lot of time and attention to it. And, you know, Paul's self-description of his apostolic ministry in second

Corinthians and the Christ and cross-shaped nature of his ministry, you know, that the criteria for evaluating his ministry is not how great it is, how impressive it is, how but how weak it is, and how unimpressive it is, and how cross-shaped it is. And all of us, individually and collectively, we're a far cry from where we need to be in our Christ-likeness, you know? So churches, we have, Churches have issues too because it's full of a bunch of us that have issues too and pastors. And I don't want to minimize that.

I don't want to minimize the pain that has caused people. You know, I don't think we should. And so we can be honest about that. Step up churches. Let's keep growing. Let's keep trying to be more. Let's keep trying to embody Christ. Let's try being humble, growing in our character, right?

Collectively as well as individually. Let's keep doing that. Let's keep trying to figure out how we can be better venues for disciple making. And let's do that. But at the same time, when someone gives you that kind of feedback, if we step back and say, but Capital C Church, theology in the raw is part of the capital C church. The listener's commentary is part of Capital C Church. And so there's a tension there that needs to be managed, I think.

But these are ministries, our online ministries, are also, part of the capital C church at this point in time in history. And in the mercy, grace of God, God can use that, I think, for his glory and our good. And even this is not a direct one-to-one correlation, but maybe more of an analogy, you know, in the first century church, you had established local kinds of leaders. You also had people like prophets and apostles and people who you don't get the sense that they were, I don't want to say, well, maybe they were decided. disciplining, you know, but they were, they were speaking, their primary influence was to the Big C. Church going around establishing, you know.

The letters of the New Testament are very much that. Taking a technology of their day and deploying it for the good of the gospel. And being, you know, the letters of the New Testament, right there, they have similarities to ancient Greco-Roman letters, and they have some differences. Sure. One of which is the sheer size. Romans is a big letter. It's a huge.

So it's much bigger than other letters, you know, from the Greco-Roman time period. Why? Because they're adapting a technology of their day for the sake of the church in total. That's, oh, man. Waited this whole hour to bring that up. That New Testament letters, the first ancient podcast. Wow. Yeah.

So, I mean, yeah, go ahead. You know, again, we've raised a lot of questions. I don't think we have a lot of solutions. I, you know, but I do think, I don't think podcasts and modern technology is bad. I just think both distributors of it and users of it need to recognize there's more to our church experience and our falling of Jesus than listening to you and me. Well, John, this is but a fun conversation. We're a few miles from each other right now. We could have done this in person, but I would appoint people again to your listeners, the listeners commentary and the Bible in real life podcasts. Listeners commentary is absolutely outstanding. And if you have the means to support John, he is a listener-supported podcaster. He did not ask me to say that. He didn't even ask him on the show. But I'll throw that out. out there if you enjoy his work. So anything else?

Where else can people find you? You got the two podcasts and you have a website. Yeah. So the listeners commentary, you can find it online at listenerscombe. The easiest way to actually access it is it has its own app. So if you download the app from Google Play, the app store or wherever,

it's broken down by books. I don't have to scroll through a podcast feed to find it. If you want to study Romans, well, there's Romans. Not only that, the app is localized. We've got it duplicated into Spanish. So if you want to listen in Spanish,

and your phone is set to Spanish, then the Spanish version of the app will download on your phone. That's amazing. So that's the easiest way to access is just by finding the app, but you can also find on podcast players or online website. Thanks, Sean. Appreciate you, man. We'll catch up later.

Okay, man. Take care. See you.