Theology in the Raw - S2 Ep1057: God's Multiethnic Temple: Dr. Joel Muddamalle

Episode Date: March 9, 2023

Joel and I discuss the topic of his Ph.D. dissertation, which examines the multiethnic nature of "household" imagery, especially Ephesians 2:19-22. We look at the Genesis 10-11 and Deuteronomy 32 background to this passage, along with how Acts 2 relates to Babel. We then talk about contemporary challenges to continuing building God's multiethnic temple in American society. Joel serves as the Director of Theology and Research for Proverbs 31 Ministries and Lysa TerKeurst, and is a part of the preaching team at Transformation Church with Pastor Derwin Gray. Joel earned a PhD in Theology under Drs. Patrick Schreiner (NT) and Michael Heiser (OT) with an emphasis on Paul's household language in Ephesians as it relates to the Old Testament. He loves studying and teaching the brilliant truths found in Scripture and unpacking how they relate to our everyday lives.

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the ROM. My guest today is Dr. Joel Mudamale, who is the Director of Theology and Research for Proverbs 31 Ministries. He also has a PhD in the New Testament under Drs. Patrick Schreiner and Michael Heiser, with an emphasis on Paul's household language in Ephesians, which is the foundation of our conversation today. We begin talking about the end of Ephesians, where Paul uses household language to describe the multi-ethnic kingdom of God that he is forming. And we go back into the Old Testament roots of that passage, and that spills over into a conversation about what it means to be a multi-ethnic church. And then we end with a conversation about who is the better all-time basketball player, Michael Jordan or LeBron James.

So come for the theology, stay for the basketball. Please welcome to the show for the first time, Dr. Joel Mutamad. Joel, we've been connecting offline for a bit now, and finally, we are here on the podcast. So thanks for coming on Theology on Your Own. Thanks, Preston. Super excited to be on here. Give us just a quick background of who you are, how you got into scholarship, your journey, and kind of what you're up to these days.

For me, my journey, if you can hear me, you might not be able to tell, but if you see me, I'm Indian. And so my grandparents are missionaries in India. Some of my earliest memories are of my grandfather preaching the gospel in India in rural villages with a class of people called Untouchables. So really, I think blessed to be able to have a strong heritage in the faith and seeing the gospel at play, you know, in my life. And so part of just my journey has been trying to figure out what God wants of me and how I relate in different places.

I've always felt like I never really quite fit in. I have a joke when I came, I was born in the Chicagoland area. So I grew up watching Michael Jordan win the three-peat, repeat the three-peat, So I grew up watching Michael Jordan win the three-peat, repeat the three-peat, an incredible time to grow up in the city of Chicago. And I found that the church really was the place where I felt welcomed. It was the place where I was seen in some ways. There were parts of me that were seen. It's real complicated. Parts of me were seen.

Other parts of me were not seen. And it just kind of led me down a road of what does the Bible actually say about my ethnicity? What does the Bible say about Joel as an Indian who is a child of an immigrant that was born in the States but lived the first two and a half years in India and then came back? All of those questions. And so I ended up going to Bible college. I'm a theological mutt. I did an undergraduate degree at a Pentecostal charismatic Bible college in Sacramento, California. I went to go work for Logos Bible Software. And while I was working for them, I ended up going to seminary at Knox Theological Seminary, which is a Presbyterian spot. I have done the gamut of the theological world.

I think I just need to go the Anglican route, and then I will have hit everything. world. I think I just need to go the Anglican route and then I'll have hit everything. PhD was at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. And so underneath Dr. Patrick Schreiner, who's my first reader. And then my second reader is Dr. Michael Heiser, who's an Old Testament scholar. And I did my dissertation, kind of my journey. My dissertation was on Paul's household themes in Ephesians. As I was taking a look at Ephesians 2, 18 through 22, and kind of Paul's language of the foreigners coming in and this construction of this living temple, I kind of was like, man, where is he drawing this imagery, this architectural imagery, the language? Where is this coming from? A lot of commentaries when we're reading, initially, it's all talking about a

Greco-Roman kind of background. Interestingly, I think it was Marcus Barth was like the only person I found in my lit review that has this like little passing sentence, you know, it's like, and Paul's got Babel as a background, and then he moves right on from it, you know. And I was like, wait a minute, I think there's more to this, you know, when did there first become a Jew-Gentile distinction? What is the actual roots of this text? And for me, I really found it in Genesis 11. And I looked at Genesis 10, the Table of Nations, Genesis 11, the Tower of Babel, and then Genesis 12, which is obviously the Abrahamic covenant. And really, Dr. Heiser really helped me kind of fill in some gaps because

typically like we're reading Genesis 10, 11, and 12, and kind of just moving on. But the aftermath of the consequence of Genesis 11, the tongues are diversified, all the people kind of spread out. It actually has Deuteronomy 32, eight through nine, the sons of God that were allotted to the nations. There's a disinheritance of Yahweh of the nations, and then he keeps Jacob as his allotment. And so really, Deuteronomy 32, 8 through 9 is the aftermath of Genesis 11, and this is the Jew-Gentile distinction. This is where we get the gods of the nations in the Old Testament. And so for me, it was kind of like, wait a minute, I actually think Paul is drawing from Babel as a background text. And he's got this Deuteronomy 32, 8 through 9 worldview that's in play because he's got the language of the powers and the

principalities and the authorities. So there's this cosmic reality that's taking place that involves both God's human family, as well as these supernatural beings that are present. And so these are interrelated and interconnected, not separated and demarcated, which I think often, at least in my context, we try to keep those in their tight, neat little corners. The supernatural beings, it makes me think of Ephesians 3.10, that kind of climactic moment where Paul's been talking about Judentileentile stuff now for two chapters at least. I would even go back at the end of chapter one, the fullness of God. But chapter two, for sure.

And then in chapter three, Paul talking about his specific mission to the Gentiles. And it comes as a climactic moment so that the wisdom of God might be manifested to the people. Yeah, the multifaceted wisdom of God. Yeah, yeah. And the word multifaceted is the same word that's used in the Septuagint of Joseph's robe of many colors. It's got this concept of the ethnicities of the world. It's a multi-flowered kind of ideology that's present there as well. I mean, it's all over the place, Preston. It's in Ephesians 1, like 1, let's see, 20 through 21. This is the ascension. This is a lot of Shriner's work, you know. It says that Christ was raised far above every ruler, authority, power, and dominion over every title given, not only in this age, but also in the age to come.

And he subjected everything under his feet. And then in 2.1, according to the ruler of the power of the air. So before we even get into the building of this beautiful temple in Ephesians 2, we get the scene that's being established of this cosmic reality. And what are these supernatural beings aimed at? They're aimed at disrupting and creating chaos and division, They're aimed at disrupting and creating chaos and division and disunity and keeping the people of God away from each other and apart. And so when you have the ascension of Christ that brings all of the powers subjected underneath Christ and really disarms the evil powers, then in Ephesians 2, 18 through 22, it's talking about how we are no longer foreigners and strangers. We're fellow citizens. We're members of the oikos tateo, the household of God. And it's really interesting because it's like, okay, what's happening in Babel in Genesis 11?

So Genesis 10, everybody's got lands, languages, and cultures. You've got the table of nations that's present there. This is kind of like my train of thought as everything was going. Then we get to Genesis 11 and it's like, and then there's one language. Well, wait a minute. Do you have many languages or do you have one language? Like how is this possible? So I'm Indian. In India, the main language is Hindi. There's this concept called the lingua franca, you know? And it's like, I'm a Tolkien fan, so it's like the one language to rule them all, the one ring to rule them all. So it's like, you can speak Hindi and you can really get around anywhere. But if you go from village to village, they'll have their own dialect.

Like, they're going to have their own language. And it's very intimate. It's very personal to them. And so I think it's very possible that you have the presence of both diversity and unique cultural expression in Genesis chapter 10, but you also have one common language that's actually knitting all the people together so they can talk and they can go out about their work and what they're trying to do and what they're trying to achieve. The problem with Genesis 11 is that they go into full-on rebellion.

The commission out of Eden is to go out into the ends of the earth, spread the image of God to the ends of the earth. And instead, what they do is they try to build a ziggurat temple tower, you know? And in building this temple tower at the very top, and we've got archaeological evidence of this, at the very top of the temple would have been a chamber, a room for the deity to come down. And so instead of going out into the world to spread the image of God into the ends of the earth, the people try to force God's hand and force him to come down. It's an act of total rebellion, and they use bricks and mortar, and they try to use human creativity and ingenuity in order to accomplish this task. And as a result, Yahweh is like, nah, this is not going to happen. And then He comes down, and He diversifies their tongues. Now, here's what's interesting. Then where do they go?

They go back to what they knew in Genesis 10. They all had a common language and a common tongue. they go back to what they knew in Genesis 10. They all had a common language and a common tongue. It's like, well, if I can't speak Spanish, if I can't speak Russian, and that was the language that connected all of us, well, I'm going to go back to Hindi. That's the only language. So I'm going to find the other people that speak Hindi. And then that's how they all kind of connect back together. And so there's this diversification that took place. We've got this reversal, but I don't think it's purely a reversal. I actually think it's a redemptive reinstitution at Pentecost in Acts chapter 2, because what happens is when the Spirit of God comes down, which again is interesting, right? In Genesis 11, they're trying to force God to come down

by their own means. Here in Acts chapter 2 at Pentecost, the Spirit of God does come down. It's the aim and the ambition, but it's being done as an empowerment, as a fulfillment of prophecy. And when the Spirit comes down, I think it's wild that you've got the list of nations in Acts 2. Well, if you laid them out geographically, this is the same geographical locations that are present in Genesis 10, in the table of nations. So you've got this throwback that's happening. And then on top of it, it's like, man, if I were the Holy Spirit, I really feel like I would be after efficiency and being like quick, you know, being productive.

It's a good thing that I'm not the Holy Spirit. It's like, why doesn't the Holy Spirit just use Greek or Aramaic as the language that translates out to everything else? Why is the text so specific in Acts 2 that everybody wondered, they're marveled because they heard the gospel in a beautiful way the very first time intimately in their own native tongues, you know? And for me, it was like, man, God cares about their culture. God cares about their ethnicity. He cares about their background. Your ethnicity is not obliterated. When you walk into the family of God, it's actually celebrated. How kind and how gracious of Yahweh to actually see the very first time you would hear the good news of the gospel, it would be in that familial,

native, comfortable language that brings back all of these great memories. It's like, my wife is white. I'm Indian. Whenever we watch Bollywood videos or movies and something funny happens, and I have the unfortunate task of translating the joke from one language to another, the second I try to, it's not funny. It's not funny anymore, you know? And so you have that taking place. And then you get to Ephesians 2, 18 through 22. And this is what Paul's talking about. The dividing wall of hostility is broken down, that we're no longer foreigners and strangers, we're fellow citizens. And now I think it's fascinating, instead of the temple being built by bricks and

mortars, here in Ephesians 2, 18 through 22, the temple is actually being built. It's a living and growing temple. And this living and growing temple is being built, the building blocks are the nations of the world, the ethnos of the world. And I just thought that, man, that is such a beautiful reflection of what's taking place at Babel and seeing it being reversed, but also redeemed and reinstituted, of going back to the ideal of God of saying, yes, we have many cultures, we have many nations, we've got many ethnicities, and these things should be celebrated, you know, when you walk into the family of God, not obliterated. So really, this is a grand story of God having his family back together. So when you say it's not a reversal of Babel, it is a reinstitution of Babel by integrating

the different ethnic expressions and languages rather than those ethnic expressions and languages being a result of the sin of Babel. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I want to see Babel in light of Genesis 10 and saying like all these people migrate to the plains of Shinar and they want to build the Ziggurat Temple, but they already had the diversity of languages, but they had one common language. And so the consequence of rebellion at Babel

is the loss of the one common language. In Acts 2, you almost regain that connectivity. The Holy Spirit does it, but the Holy Spirit does it through knitting their multi-languages together through an understanding, through common understanding. And then in Ephesians 2, you've got the same architectural kind of language that's taking place. The foreigners, those who are on the outside, come together, and they're building the temple. And instead of it being bricks and mortars, it's the nations of the world that are coming together to, to build this temple. And so you've got this sense that, um, it's not a doing away, um, but it's actually like a returning to the ideal of how God intended for the nations to live and interact and,

and to be in a relationship with each other, which is messy. It's not clean, you know, and we want it to be clean. Yeah. I want to get some of the practical stuff because I know you're heavily in the leadership of one of the largest multi-ethnic churches in America, I believe. A really good one. Well, I'm curious about the image of Babel in particular, because Babel does take on, you know, Babel becomes the place of Babylon and Babylon is code for Rome and this kind of negative empire. Is that kind of a different conversation from what you're exploring in your dissertation? Or does that relate, the kind of negative image that Babel in particular takes on?

Yeah, actually. So then you get to Genesis 12. You get to Genesis 12 with Abraham. Abraham is from Ur of the Chaldeans. He makes a pit stop in Haran, you know, and it's like, well, where is he? So it's like out of the epicenter, this is the same geographical locations of Babel, you know. So out of the epicenter of rebellion, these people have gone into rebellion. Out of the epicenter of rebellion in Genesis 12,

God, in His kindness, He actually picks a family out of the rebellious, this place, and calls them to Himself, calls Abram to Himself, and then gives the Abrahamic covenant that all the nations of the world will be blessed through him. And so Babel is the archetype of the enemy, of rebellion, of sin. And yet God steps in and redeems something out of that to be a vision of what the family of God ought to look like. Okay. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. the family of God ought to look like. Okay. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. It almost has, it almost, I don't know, just thinking out loud here, it almost relates to the idea in the New Testament of, you know, the church as a multi-ethnic community being almost an alternative

polis, an alternative community, an alternative kingdom to, you know, the Babel of the day, the Babylon of the day, namely um, kind of like embodying what babble is supposed to be all along, but failed to do. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's like, um, I think it was N.T. Wright uses the language of signposts, you know, um, it's like missional outposts and it's like, it's, it's that same idea. It's, we're a visible witness to the already but not yet kingdom of God that gives people a vision of how we ought to live in relationship to each other as image bearers of God. And so like, you know, I know this is a lot of the work that you've done, Preston, but it's like, how do we live as sojourners and strangers in a land that is not our own. And yet, 2 Corinthians 5, we're faithful ambassadors

of the kingdom without buying into Babel as being our home and our hope. And so, that requires a lot of work and intentionality around that. So, yeah, I think all of that is taking place. You sound like Derwin there. I love, yeah, his view on kind of the kingdom of God and politics is just so spot on, I think. Well, tell us about, so you've done a lot of theological, biblical spade work on God's heart for a multi, for a multi-ethnic kingdom. You're also been heavily involved in a church that's trying to live that out. How does that work? I mean, what are some of the, the messy, what's the messiness? What are some of the huge wins when you pursue a multi-ethnic kind of kingdom? Well, a multi-ethnic church is an

expression of the kingdom. Yeah. Yeah. What does it look like on the ground? It's hard. It's hard. You know, like I think sometimes on the outside, it's like, oh man, it must be so much fun. Like this is thriving multi-ethnic church and y'all are crushing it. And Derwin's doing phenomenal work and he's writing these books. And I get to be a part of the teaching team and it's a lot of fun. But it's a lot of grind in the sense of, I think it would be nice if it's

just like, I don't know, we just woke up one day and everything was perfect. Everything was growing, that we didn't have challenges, which I think a lot of people would feel like that. But actually, I'm working on a book that releases in 2024. And in it, I have this section where I talk about the George Floyd kind of situation and as racial injustice has just skyrocketed. Actually, three years ago on Thanksgiving, right around Thanksgiving, one of my cousins was on campus at UIC and she was assaulted and murdered in the parking garage. Um, and I remember, I remember that day, uh, I actually called Derwin and I was like, just in depth, like just devastated. She had left, um, campus. She was off campus that night, helping high school students that wanted to go into like a pre-med program that she was a part of. Um, so she was dressed up in a, in a nice dress. And so she got off at the bus stop and, um, she walked by a bus stop and there's a

guy there and he just kind of cat called her. Now I've got a sister, I've got a little girl who turned three actually today, pressing on Valentine's day. And so it's like, what do you do when a guy cat calls you? It's like, you ignore him and you just move on. You know, that's kind of like the common, the common idea there. And she did that. She ignored him, moved on. And he took that really negatively and followed her into a parking garage. And it just like our world changed. You know, it actually made the news. It was pretty bad.

But I remember calling Derwin and just sobbing. And he was just pastoring me through it. And then the thing that I said to him was one of the most, the other tragic aspect of it is the man that murdered her was black. And so a lot of times racism or racial kind of tension is left in the conversation between black and white. And I, as an Indian, I'm just going to say, well, that's not true. There's actually racial tension between the black and Indian communities, between the Latino and black communities. And so for Indians, the way that it's kind of played out, and I'm not going to say it for everybody, I can just say for my experience personally, the way that it played out is like,

man, we don't want to get into the racial discussion, the racial talk, because then we might be implicit in it. We might get caught up in this mess. So it's better to just keep quiet, you know, and let them figure out their stuff. And I just remember talking to Derwin that day about this and just talking about how this type of situation reinforces that ideology, you know, and that horror. And so sitting in a small group at TC where we've got multiple ethnicities, multiple people that are mixed race. My kids are half Indian and half white, and having to navigate through that. What does that look like? How do we move past this? And how is it possible for the good news of the gospel of Jesus the

Messiah, who, you know, we talked about Ephesians 2, who broke down the dividing wall of hostility for us to overcome something like this and to move past it. And not really that we move past it, but we move forward into the hope that Jesus can knit us still together. And so it's been messy. It's been messy as we've navigated that. Another example is sitting in a small group. And I remember one of my friends, he's black and he was like, man, I had to have the talk the other day and we're all in a big group. Right.

And, and it was just kind of funny. And I was like, I kind of instantly knew what he was talking about. And a couple of the white dads were like, oh no, like, how'd you guys do like the, the birds and the bees? You know, like that's, that's, that's a lot. And, uh, and my buddy was like, what? He was like, nah, bro. Nah, bro. Like we already had that long time ago. I'm talking about when the cops pull you over and they were like, why were you? And it, and this is messy, you know, this is, this is the part of discipleship. And I think Paul's language of one another, there's a reciprocity of relationship that says, listen, I have to, my responsibility as a lover of Jesus and as a brother or sister in Christ is to invite you into my story. So that as I invite you into my story,

my story actually takes root into your life so that you can relate to it in a way that if I didn't invite you, it would be foreign to you, you know? And so he kind of walked through like why it's so important for him to teach his son, like, what do you do when a police officer pulls you over? And what are the things you want to be thinking about? And what are the things you don't want to do? And just the realities of that. And then I explained to them, you know, I've got three boys that are all different shades of brown. You know, my oldest is super light. My middle son is, is darker. And my youngest son, my mom calls her, um, her Indian baby, you know, cause he's super dark like me. And I'm like, man, in, in that situation, each of them have different responses and different ways to kind of think

about that. It just gets more complex. And it was one of the most beautiful scenes. These two dads who are white, they were just in tears, absolute tears. And we're like, hey, is everything okay? Like, what's going on? And they go, we finally realized that we have to have the talk. And I was like, what are you talking about? You have to have the talk. Like, that's kind of odd.

You know, I wasn't even thinking through the implication. And he goes, like, our sons are friends with your sons. What if they're in the car with them? Like, how should they? And I was just like, wow, this is the family of God working through some really messy and difficult conversations. But the power of one another. If I can invite you into the reality of my story and allow you to see where are the things that are really painful, but also hopeful, and then hear from you as you process through it, I think it's a really, really beautiful thing that builds out of it. And that's the journey that I've had at TC. That's the journey I think that we're walking through is it's not quick by any means, but like in the words of Eugene

Peterson, it's really a long obedience. It's an endurance towards the direction of Jesus that we want to partner with our brothers and sisters of different ethnicities, including gender. You know, this isn't just of ethnic or culture. I'm talking about even women as well and the challenges in our society that have come up in regard to that. And so it's been a journey for sure. This episode is sponsored by Faithful Counseling. Look, life can be super challenging, filled with ups and downs, times of joy and times of sorrow. And so it's important for us to be spiritually and mentally healthy. Faithful Counseling will assess your needs and match you with your own licensed professional therapist who's a practicing Christian.

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to help you improve your mental health. So visit faithfulcounseling.com forward slash theology and get the professional faith-based counseling that you deserve. Theology Neural listeners will get 10% off your first month by going to faithfulcounseling.com forward slash theology. I've got about three teenage daughters and I feel like it's been such a learning curve for me just just taking for granted I mean this is similar to some of the race conversations you're talking about like taking for granted my individual experience in society and not recognizing that

not everybody has the same liberties or freedoms or privileges or whatever term you want to use by virtue of, you know, my identity as a white man. For instance, you know, I've never thought about my safety going on a long run. You know, it's a hot day out. I'll go out, take my shirt off, just got, you know, my shorts on. I'll run anywhere. I remember running in, this might not have been the wisest, but in downtown Kathmandu in Nepal, I was on jet lag, got up at four in the morning, pitch blackout as running through the town. It was brilliant, brilliant. You know, it was so much fun. And like you talk to women, they're like, no, every time I go on a run, I'm deeply thinking about my safety. Don't,

I can't run there. I can't wear this. Can't do that. Can't, can't run there i can't wear this can't do that i can't can't there's so many like so many things to think about before i just go on a run because i i don't have the freedom of just going out my shirt aubrey sports bra and yoga pants whatever like i yeah i couldn't go in a dark city like in the middle of more late morning is going a long run without i mean just with my headphones in like no i can't do that right it's not a thing just that's just that's a minor example but just if you if you just live in an echo chamber people just look and act like you or just don't even ask good questions you don't recognize the the beautiful complexity of the diverse experiences that people have this is kind of how i'm processing it i'm curious for you with the race conversation, what, what as an Indian

American, what are some unique forms of, I don't know, prejudice or even racism that you experienced that maybe even people of other ethnicities don't experience? I don't think I've ever asked anybody that. Yeah. You know, I have, I have some of this stuff. Actually, it's funny that you asked that. I'm writing some of this stuff down. And part of this, like, Preston, I realized, like, I was traumatized as a kid. I didn't even know that it was trauma, you know? Like, I was like, I'm going through therapy right now. Like, I've been going through therapy for a while.

I get to do this podcast series called Therapy and Theology with a licensed therapist, and it's super fun. And halfway through, I'm like, man, I need to really unpack these parts of my childhood that I didn't realize were so significant. So here's one of them. I grew up in Chicago. I love playing basketball. And all of my friends were either black or Latino at this time. We lived in this area that was closer to the hood. area that was, um, like closer to the hood, you know? Um, and so I went out and it's like, I'm Indian. Like I'm short, dude, I've got everything going against me at this point. So I got to have mad handles. So I'm like, listen, I'm going to perfect this behind the back, like crossover thing. And, uh, and the worst feelings to be the last one picked on the court. And it happened to me all this. I'm like, I've got to figure this out. So I remember going out there and I perfected this behind the back

crossover and these kids were out there and I crossed this kid over and it was awesome. It was like slow motion, you know, and you just feel like you're Michael Jordan, just crushing it. And all of a sudden I heard to the side, like just, it was almost like slow motion too. I heard the scream yell and somebody yelled, yo, the Hindu crossed you over. And I was like, who's the Hindu? And I kind of looked around trying to figure out who, and then I realized like, they're talking about me, you know? So there's no, there's no understanding that Hinduism is a religion, that all Indians are not Hindu, that there's actually different types of Indians that have different types of like, like I literally just got labeled. And the thing is, is at that point, I was just like, I didn't know what to say.

And if I tried to defend myself, I might get beat up. So I'm not trying to get beat up out here. So what do you do? You go with it. You just go with it. For the rest of that year, my nickname was Hindu. I wore it like a badge around, you know, without realizing that deep inside that it actually was a traumatic kind

of experience for me because I'm not Hindu. I'm a Christian, you know? And so, like, that's just one example. The other one is like The Simpsons. The Simpsons was like a really challenging show, I think, for a lot indians because it's like well everybody if you're like i used to get asked all the time hey uh joel can we go to your 7-eleven and get some free slurpees and i was like what are you what why and then i realized and they'd be like a poo like a poo owns a 7-eleven and all indians work at a 7-eleven and you know and so i had to figure out how to like, how to recover from that. So I used to make fun of people or joke around it. I'd be like, Hey,

just to let you know, the guy who's working at the 7-Eleven right now, the Indian guy, he's actually a pre-med student. He was a doctor in India and he's trying to bring his family over here. So he's actually, um, a medical doctor working at 7-Eleven. You might want to be careful because when you have a heart attack, he's going to be the guy that's doing open heart surgery on you, you know? But it's like, those are the types of things that I kind of personally just experienced growing up that I just, that was challenging. It was a type of racism. It was a type of prejudice, kind of, you know, ideology that for me, it was just like, I gotta get over it. I gotta get through it, you know? And so, which also, honestly, as a, as a, as a

confession, Preston, it also made me a bit complicit through a mission. Uh, when I saw other issues of racism, you know, they were taking place. Cause I remember we talked earlier of like this, this fear in, I think the Indian community, like keep quiet or it's going to, it's going to come back on us, you know? Um, and it was some of that, like, man, as long as they're making fun of the Latino kid, or if they're, they're being, you know, mean towards this other group of people, if I'm in the clear, then it's okay. You know? And that, that was challenging. And I bet, yeah, because so many of the race conversations don't and don't really involve specifically indian people unless you're under the broad

umbrella of like people of color or something so they're the unique cultural slash ethnic things that uh indian americans bring to the table i would imagine would be kind of just left out of the discussion often you know which which i bet that difficult you know or the assumption that you know well they're all you know higher socioeconomic status you know generally so they're probably fine or whatever but like that doesn't i don't know i'm thinking out loud like that that i could see where maybe your unique experience would be kind of left behind in the race conversations, which, which is unfortunate. And you, you actually nailed it even there. Like, I think with a lot of,

a lot of different conversations, there's place for middle ground, you know, but you just described it. You're either like a doctor and an engineer and you're crushing it or you work at the seven 11. Right. Like there's, you know, you own a gas station, you know, and it's like, there's no, there's no like, like middle, middle ground or, or nuance to the conversation. I remember I was, I was asked to be a host of this kind of conversation on, on racial kind of injustice stuff. And I went out to dinner with these guys that were speaking. that were speaking. And in the conversation, somebody had just said, because it was like a black and white situation, you know, about, I think we were talking about reparation. I mean, all kinds of stuff that night. And at one point, one of the guys looked at me and goes, yeah, but this doesn't involve you, Joel. Like, in fact, it's like, we got to keep the Latinos and Indians out of this conversation because it's not their issues. You know, I just remember thinking like, oof, that's tough. That's a tough statement for

somebody to make or even to make to me because I'm like, I wrote a dissertation that like on a scholarly level, but really at a practical level of saying, listen, the heartbeat of God's ideal for his family is reunification, is reunion without the loss of your ethnic distinctives, you know? And it's like, I'm trying to champion and be here and be a supporting voice. But then when you're like, yeah, it doesn't involve you. Like, it's better for you to just be quiet and not be involved in this discussion. It's almost like, man, that's a tough pill to swallow, you know? Because like, I just got uninvited from a discussion that if it's not dealing with me today, it could deal with me tomorrow, you know? Like a simple, here's another simple one, Preston. When I was traveling a lot in the

airport, you know? And I get like, don't do this often, but I was traveling a lot. And at this point I didn't have TSA pre-check, which I do now, thank God. I love TSA PreCheck. But I could tell you, and I have my beard out pretty good right now, if my beard was out, and if I made the intentional decision not to talk, if I was just quiet and sitting in line, I could almost tell you when the random check was going to come my way. And then I would test it, and I'd be like, well, I'm going to have like a nice beard that's like trimmed down and I'm going to be really intentional of talking in line so that the gate, like TSA agents, they can all hear me, you know? And it was just, it was amazing how the random checks were much less, and this is around the time, you know, post 9-11, all of that taking

place. And so there's, there's all kinds of complexity with that, but even that, that's a unique kind of, that was a, that was an experience of, of walking through that. That was, that was challenging. Oh, that's it. Yeah. I was going to ask, I was wondering about your, when you mentioned earlier about traveling so much, you know, if that has been, if that's been an issue at all, you should, you should just grow it out really long and wear a turban or something and just mess with people. Eat some spicy food, get all sweaty, you know, just see how many times. See what happens. Yeah. Oh, man.

That's super helpful, man. Yeah. What are some – so being part of a multi – well, actually, here's one more question along those lines. As a mixed-race couple, you and your wife, is that – does that also present what are there any unique uh challenges oh my god this is like i know it's becoming more common i'm so thankful for that yeah i think i can't wait to see what america looks like in 30 40 years you know um yeah there what are some challenges there i mean i mean my goodness that's like a whole different podcast that's a whole different episode uh conversation of itself My wife has a funny, it's not even funny, it's just legitimate now,

is an Instagram handle called Almost Indian Wife. And so she just jokes, like, you know, it's like she's almost Indian. She's working her way towards full acceptance there. But some of the things have just been cultural acceptance on her part. What is accepted or expected of her as a, as a white woman who mirrored into an Indian family and kind of the culture there. But some of it is just like, and I think you've probably heard this a lot of places. It's like the way that she gets looked at sometimes when she's with the kids in target, it's like,

are you the nanny? You know? Um, Oh, those kids are so cute. You know? Um, are they yours? Like, did you adopt like, like just stuff like that? We're like, no, I birthed all, all four of these, these, these children are, you know, are mine and I, and I birthed them. And, um, and so that's been challenging, but honestly, the, the one that has been the most difficult, which we didn't expect is, um, for my children, my boys, we've got three boys, 12, 10 and eight. And then a little girl who's three. Um, it's how they identify themselves. So I remember one day, my, uh, my youngest son comes into the house and he's mad. He's frustrated. And I'm like, Luke, what's going on? Is everything okay? And he just looked at me and he goes,

if anybody asks, I'm Indian. And I was like, what? Like, dude, what's going on? And I guess like he got tired of like beginning of school, always having to say, I'm half Indian, I'm half white, I'm half Indian, I'm half. And so finally he, and he's darker skinned. So for him, it was just like, it caused way too many questions to say, well, you know, my mom's white and my dad's like all of that. So he's just like, I'm Indian. That's, that's, you know, and for my wife, it kind of made her feel a certain way. Cause she's like, well, wait a minute. You're also like half white, you know? And for me, like, I was like, yeah, that's, and my oldest son is much lighter and he's got a different experience with that. And so, um, of navigating like their mixed identity and seeing both things as these beautiful aspects of what makes them unique and special and still fully in the image of God and to be able to have the language, to be able to dialogue that with their friends that are at these age groups is, you know, there's no parenting class that got us ready for any of this. So,

those are kind of things that we've just been walking through. But again, one of the greatest things for us is that we're part of a community like at TC, you know, where this is not unique, this is not novel to us. Like one of our closest friends, you know, she's Latina and her husband's Black. And so, even with their daughter's hair and navigating through that and expressions of that, like we've got a community that's around us where we just feel like, man, we're not at this alone. We're in this together. And our kids have found that solidarity, which I think is super special to be able to have that within the family of God and say, like, this is how it ought to be, which sets the trajectory for how they relate to the world. And it's a witness of invitation. These are things that I think the world longs for, and we just want to present it to them so they can see that they're invited to

take part of the beauty of what it means to be part of the multi-ethnic family of God. I love that you, your family, your kids all have your Christian identity is rooted in the community. It's very multi-ethnic. I think it'd be extra hard, right? If, if the Christian community was, you know, very mono, uh, mono-ethnic, monochromatic, but that, that's, that's, that's a, yeah, that's gotta be at a really encouraging piece. Can you, we've mentioned your church, you know, Transformation Church. Can you, for those who don't know the church, tell us how, how big it big it is and maybe how many, not that that's the only question we need to ask, but just to get a picture of the community and how many different ethnicities are represented there? Oh my gosh. I don't even know what the current numbers are, but I mean,

it's like, I just, what Britt and I often say is when we walk into church on Sunday, it feels like the kingdom of God. Literally, it feels like revelation, like every tribe, tongue, and nation. And so we've got multiple, and then it's also multigenerational present. That's another massive part of this discussion that we don't often talk about as much, but it's like, not only is it multi-ethnic, but it's multigenerational. It's the wisdom of the saints that is present in discipleship that is so important for us. My wife and I as young parents, so that's taking place. TC is, gosh, I think I have to get the current numbers from Derwin, but we're over 3,500

in attendance, three services. It's growing. We're looking at multiple campuses at this point to see where we might be able to plant next. Derwin has an incredible conference called the round, actually, it's called the multi-ethnic table. It used to be called the round table, but it's excellent where he kind of brings in, and if you're a church pastor, a planter, and you want to kind of see how does this happen? You know, like how do we intentionally build not only a church pastor, a planter, and you want to kind of see how does this happen? How do we intentionally build not only a church culture, but a staff? And from a ministry methodology standpoint, how does this look to have multi-ethnic theology played and fleshed out on the ground?

It's a really great time where our staff actually comes in and does the teaching and we get to kind of walk through it. I think worship is some of the best. We have multi-ethnic worship that's included in that. And so it's a lot of fun. It's been fun to see Derwin be able to, you know, Derwin's wife is white. He's a former NFL football player. And he's just a sharp dude, a doctoral student from Northern Seminary underneath Scott McKnight. I mean, just he's a sharp, sharp guy. And he's, yeah, I've got some reformed roots and he's consistently trying to

convince me to buy into corporate elections. So that's an ongoing discussion in our chats. I'll be out there in a few months, April, May, i think last sunday in april or first sunday in may so um super excited been a bit of fan from a distance and i mean derwin's been uh kind of like you said you know just kind of a mentor well at first a mentor from a from a distance a pastor from a distance and now he gets to be you get to be actually under him but um yeah just such a gosh i just can't speak more highly of the guy. He came out, spoke at our conference last year at the Exiles in Babylon. And just, oh, man, him and his wife came out. It was good seeing both of them.

And golly, just an incredible man of God. I mean, one of those guys that he'll make time if I remember. I mean, last summer, we were just going through stuff as a family, as a wife and I. And, you know, just, yeah, asked for some advice on some things. And just immediately, just him, both him and his wife made time for us. And just, yeah, incredible. So the thing I say about Derwin, and also my boss, Lisa Turkers, who I work for, they're both better people offstage than they are onstage. They truly are better people off stage than they are even on stage, which is just a refreshing thing. And Derwin, that's the testimony of him. He's just a call away and lots of tears

together and lots of debates, because he keeps trying to tell me that LeBron James is the greatest basketball player of all time. And I'm like, dude. Really? More than Jordan. Oh, yeah. Yeah. He, but then he'll be like, why do we have to, this is what he'll say, man, why do we have to even compare the two? Why can't we let greatness live as greatness? And I usually respond. That's what people who can't make the argument that LeBron is the greatest you typically say, you know? But it's just a fun little thing. He's also an Android guy. I'm an iPhone guy. You know, it's like our relationship itself is the remarkable grace of God that we can

be knit together the way that we are. So what? Okay. I don't follow basketball at all. I follow baseball. It's kind of the only sport I follow. So no, hardly anything about basketball. But I grew up like you, you know, 80s, 90s.

Jordan was king of the universe. and and i you know i just recently watched a documentary which which was incredible um and um so i just i mean i just you know obviously lebron just broke the all-time scoring record yeah cream's record uh yeah and he played i mean he played long i think jordan still has the most points per game. Is that right? If you take the average? Yeah. I mean, this is where all the debate comes in. It's like, you know, LeBron comes straight from high school in their Jordan Place College. LeBron's longevity is absolutely unmatched, you know? And I'm going to try to be like, I do not want to be dishonest in any way, Preston. I want my theology to be honest. I want my scholarship to be honest. I want my passion of basketball and MJ to be honest.

And so here's the one thing that I'm going to say, honestly, that might push LeBron over MJ in my view. If LeBron actually plays with Bronny in the NBA together, with his son in the NBA together, and he's still even half of the output of what he's producing, that is spectacular. That might do it for me. But in terms of pure stats, I mean, MJ, six championships. pure stats. I mean, you know, MJ six championships. Um, I mean, it's just two, three Pete's never saw game six in his entire career. Never had to leave. We don't talk about the wizards, um, situation. That's just, um, that's like, uh, not canonical in my mind. Um, but you know, it's like, it's LeBron had to leave Cleveland to go win his first chip and be with the all-star team. So anyways, but LeBron's a great basketball player.

I mean, just just it's hard to measure. But again, it is way outside my area. But just the sheer dominance that Jordan had in his hey, to just take the 90s or something or even I mean, late 80s. the 90s or something or even I mean late 80s but like just in in terms of being a player that was kind of head and shoulders all around better than anybody else at the time um and maybe would LeBron have the same or or is it just is that where it kind of differs where Michael Jordan was just this kind of almost superhuman player when you take him at his best yeah just just absolutely dominating and again I don't I don't does LeBron have that same, and is this where the argument is like, well, yes, but just not to the same magnitude as MJ. Yeah. I think LeBron, I think LeBron built on

the foundation of MJ and he does it's, but also the rules are totally different. You have the hand check rule for MJ homeboys scoring a hundred points a game, you know, like off the free throw, like it's, it's insane. MJ had the brutality of playing basketball. The physicality of it was mad, totally different from what it is today. So, I mean, you might even argue, I would make the argument that longevity played a part of MJ's career. He just took a beating, you know, the bad boys pissed, Bad Boy Pistons just destroyed him in his body, which is why he had to bulk up towards that first three-peat. But the other thing too is take a look at who Jordan dethrones. Larry Bird, Magic Johnson.

I mean, the only reason Hakeem Olajuwon ever wins a chip is because Jordan retired for two years. That was like the only option for those guys, you know? Patrick Ewing, like you take a look at these behemoths that in any other era by themselves, they're winning, they're legitimately competing and winning championships. But for those seasons, Jordan not only like knocked them out, but didn't even allow them to play in the same playground as him. Versus LeBron, you just never know what's going to happen, if he's going to show up or not. Is he a clutch player or not? I think it's difficult to compare the two, but yeah, the time period that MJ played in was unique. What's, what's Derwin's argument that LeBron is it's at the longevity.

I mean, he's got the, he's got the record. He's yeah. Longevity stats. He's got the record, which obviously stats can be interpreted any way you want. And it's on your side when you play for, you know, as many years as he had. But also I think just, he's a, I think from a physicality standpoint, I would give this to LeBron physicality. I mean, he is unmatched, you know,

like he's downhill finisher, the best all time without a doubt, you know? Um, so all of that. And I mean, if we were to go, if we were to get ethical as well in, in this conversation, like if we're going to go on court, off court, I mean, you can't compete with what LeBron is doing off court and his philanthropy and the schools and, you know, all the things that he's kind of doing in that era. Some would make the argument though, that in the time and season that MJ was in, it wasn't possible. Like those weren't even realities for him, you know? And so actually him with Nike and the Superbowl commercial, like there's going to be a movie that comes out about his shoe basically basically, with Phil Knight, which looks amazing.

But those become the foundations of what LeBron is able to build off of today. Yeah, Jordan was a cultural icon that, I don't know, any athlete ever. Global. Oh, my gosh, yeah. Did you like the documentary? Last Dance, I loved it. Loved it. It was so good. I was sad when it ended. It was so good.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was excellent. Well, we kind of went different directions. But Joel, man, it was great getting to know you a bit more and hearing about your work. And we didn't even get into, maybe I'll have you back on. And we didn't even get into, maybe I'll be back on, you know, both of us are kind of in a journey researching what we think about women in church leadership. I think we come from very similar perspectives and are asking kind of a lot of the same questions, but we'll have to table that for another day.

Just love your, your honesty and your, your commitment to doing sound acts of Jesus. So yeah, man, thanks for your work, man. And thanks for coming on Theology in Iran. I appreciate it and honor. Thanks dude. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network. Hey friends, have you been blessed or encouraged or challenged by Theology in the Raw? If so, would you consider joining Theology in the Raw's Patreon community? For as little as five bucks a month, you can gain access to a diverse group of Jesus followers who are committed to thinking deeply, loving widely, and having curious conversations with

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