Theology in the Raw - S2 Ep1159: The Politics of Exile: A Raw Narrative

Episode Date: March 7, 2024

This unique episode covers the release of Preston's book 'Exiles, The Church and the Shadow of Empire', the journey of Theology in the Raw podcast, the planning and execution of the Exiles in Babylon conference, and the concept of living as exiles in the modern world. The conversation emphasizes the importance of embracing a Christian political identity and living out the principles of God in a world that may be hostile or indifferent to the faith. It explores the themes of faithfulness, living as exiles, and the intersection of politics and Christian identity. The episode also gives advice for living as exiles in a foreign land and the importance of emptying ourselves of political affiliations. Donate to Jason & Jenna Weigner https://southamericamission.org/donate/missionaries/jason-jenna-weigner/ Support Theology in the Raw through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw

Hey friends, my book, Exiles, The Church and the Shadow of Empire is out now. I am so excited and a bit nervous about the release of this book. This is a topic I've been thinking about for many, many years and finally put pen to paper to write out all my thoughts. Specifically, I'm addressing the question, what is a Christian political identity? As members of Christ's global, multi-ethnic, upside-down kingdom scattered across the nations? How should we as members of that kingdom think through and interact with the various nations that we are living under?

So the book is basically a biblical theology of a Christian political identity. We look at the nation of Israel. We look at the exile of Israel. We look at several parts of the New Testament, the life and teaching of Jesus, several passages in the book of Acts, the letters of Paul, do a deep dive into 1 Peter and the book of Revelation, and then explore some contemporary points of application. So I would highly encourage you to check out my book, Exiles, and would love to hear what you think. Whether you hate the book, love it, or still thinking through it, would love to hear what you think by dropping a review on Amazon or, I don't know, post a blog, just, you know, ripping it to shreds. I don't really care. I would love for you to just wrestle with this really important topic in this really volatile political season that we're living in. Hey, friends, welcome back to another episode of

Theology in the Raw. This is going to be a very, very different Theology in the Raw episode. This is something that's never been done before. So let me give you a little bit of backstory. We've got a buddy, Travis McCool, who has been an avid listener of Theology in Raw for many years and has attended both Exiles conferences. He's coming back this year. And he brings a lot of people from his community to the conference.

And it's always so exciting to see them all show up. They're so excited to be here. Anyway, after last year's conference, he asked me, hey, I would love to sort of document your journey in Theology in the Raw and why you created the Exiles Conference. And I said, yeah, go for it, whatever, you know, no skin off my back, you know. he sent me this final version of this narrative based, highly creative and imaginative story of my own journey in the All-General and the Exiles Conference in particular. And I was, it was above and beyond what I was expecting. So I said, dude, would you mind if I release this as a podcast episode? I think this is such a, you've just done something so awesome with how you're telling this story. So I'm going to leave it at that. I'm not going to give any more spoiler alerts. I really want you to enjoy this story.

So I don't know if we're welcoming. Well, yeah, let's just go ahead and welcome Travis to the show. Please welcome to the show for the first time, sort of, the one and only Travis McCool, as he produces a narrative of theology in Iraq and the Exiles in Babylon conference. Discipleship by prioritizing principles. Table Gathering. Check everything. Yep. Okay, mic check. Here we go.

One, two. Sound good. Everything looking good. Let's get it all set up. And we're about ready to go. All right. Okay, I think we're ready. And we're in.

And we're back at Table Gathering with episode number two. I'm hanging out in the podcast booth with my trusty audio engineering sidekick, Josiah Rollins. I'm here. What's up? What up? So, Josiah, you've felt like an outsider, I'm assuming, at some point in your life. Of course I felt like an outsider. I think everybody does. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if you've noticed this, but all around us, people are kind of feeling like

things are a little bit out of whack. Absolutely. Especially today in society as of right now, that's an absolute fact. People are tripping. I also think that in church circles, this is even more pronounced recently. Lots of infighting, lots of disagreements, lots of alienation. You notice that? Yes, it's alarming. So today we are going to dive into the concept of being an exile and how being an outsider can actually be a healthy thing. And then later on in the

series, we're going to look at maybe how that's not so healthy and how we can execute it better. Sounds like a plan to me. All right, let's go. Fire. Have you guys gone through your entire packing list to get everything ready? Do you have underwear? Do you have a toothbrush? We're going to be gone for six days. Are you actually ready to go? Yes. You had some stimulus the other day.

I got a couple books. You got a couple books. You're going to go to the conference and bring books to the conference where you're gonna get a bunch of books okay um well okay then zip up here it's march 21st 2023 and it's been a cold dark winter in seattle washington okay some students of mine and i have just finished packing up and we're getting in the car to drive nine hours from north of seattle to boise idaho we're going to a conference to drive nine hours from north of Seattle to Boise, Idaho. We're going to a conference called Exiles in Babylon, held by a man who is known for a podcast called Theology in the Raw that he started back in 2014.

So we're on a road trip and we'll arrive in Boise soon enough, but we'll get there by taking a detour through Bolivia. All right, ready to roll? Let's go. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce to you our first guest today. Jason and Jenna Wigner, missionaries in Bolivia, South America. Yeah, so after being in Mexico a little bit, I went, hey, Spanish is useful.

Maybe I should try harder in class in high school. So I learned a little bit there. So by the time I got to college, I knew I wanted to minor in Spanish. So I did. Took me a little while, but landed on sociology for my undergrad degree. Actually, we went to Messiah College,

which is a Christian university. Sounds like it, right? And so they have Bible requirements there too. And so one of my first classes there was just super fascinating. And so I ended up minoring in Bible as well, which I really enjoyed. It was very formative. My Christian walk through all of that. And so doing a lot of deconstruction of my faith in college and then putting it back

together again, which was really important moving forward. We went to a Christian high school and a Christian home from church. And then in college, the professors, I swear they enjoyed doing this, really, truly enjoyed kind of pulling that apart. And we always joke, but it was semi serious too. We saw kind of three reactions to that. One being like, la la la la, I'm not going to listen to anything. Like, I don't want to care about that. And like, stay in your own little bubble. And then we saw kids who were like, oh goodness now what do I and just kind of float off into nothing because they had nothing to like ground themselves on and then there were some two I like to count myself in this category but some two who like took it in examined it picked it apart and then kind of

walked away with something else that looked different but still faith-based, if that makes sense. Next up is a man trying to help people through that deconstruction process. A man who started a podcast back in 2015, a man named Preston Sprinkle, author, teacher, podcast host. hello friends welcome back to another episode of theology in the raw my guest today today today yeah theology in the raw actually started originally as a christian talk radio program in boise idaho um it was in let's see I moved here in 2014 and I moved here to plant an extension campus for Eternity Bible College. And in my efforts to plant the campus, basically the first year I just spent just getting to know as many people as I could, kind of just get the word out.

I was meeting with pastors, meeting with ministry leaders, campus ministry leaders, like anybody I can think of. And so somebody connected me with the Christian radio station. And so I went in, just introduced myself, hung out with them for a little bit. And they seemed really cool. We hit it off really quickly. And I think it was on the spot. They said, hey, we actually have an opening for a radio show Monday through Fridays from, I think it was 2 p.m. to 2.15.

So just a 15-minute daily radio program. Would you be interested in filling it? Like, what would you want to do? And I think I immediately said, you know, I've always wanted to do something like, what does the Bible actually say? So that's what we called it. That was the name of the radio show. what does the Bible actually say?

So that's what we called it. That was the name of the radio show. Who's listening to Christian talk radio at 2 p.m. in the afternoon of the weekday in Boise, Idaho? Let's just say that's probably not the audience that's going to resonate with me. So yeah, before my show kind of got disbanded or whatever, the audio engineers I was working with said,

hey, is it cool if I release these as a podcast along with the radio show? This is probably late, late 2014, maybe early 2015. I was like, what's a podcast? And he explained to me what a podcast was. I'm like, there's no extra work on my part. He's like, no, no, I'll just, I'll just release this as a podcast. And I'm like, yeah, sure. Go ahead. So at that time, I also had a blog on, I think it was on Pathios, that hub where a lot of Christian blogs are hosted. And the blog was called Theology in Iran. So I just realized this other day that Theology in Iran was originally the name of the blog. So I needed to rename the podcast since it was no longer a radio show.

So I said, yeah, let's just call it Theology in Iran. So that was really the birth of Theology in the Raw. I don't know when that, that might've been 2015 when the podcast was actually renamed Theology in the Raw. You know, it started as 20, 25 minute programs. I think I was doing one, one a week. I still kept doing the theme of, you know, talking about different passages and themes and stuff. And then I started doing more Q&A, like I'd have people send in questions and answer the questions. And then I would say it might've been like four or five years ago when I started to do a lot more interviews and do longer interviews doing, you know, started a half hour, 40 minutes, 45 minutes,

hour, 40 minutes, 45 minutes, hour. So the current form of Theology in the Raw as it is now, I would say that that's maybe about four or five years old. So what's changed the past five years for Theology in the Raw? Well, namely, streams. 5.6 million in 2023 to be exact. The Theology in the raw audience has grown to such a degree due to the fact there's a lot of Christians out there curious. They're asking tough questions. And Preston platforms those questions. He doesn't shy away from them. In fact, he intentionally engages with the topics that he feels are necessary in order to be missional to the society that we live in. But as everyone knows, it's not just what you talk about, it's how you do it. A lot of people comment on not just the content of Theology Raw,

which, you know, a lot of people like, some people don't like, but the manner in which I'm going about conversations. That's probably the most consistent consistent positive feedback I get is like show, liked content, like this guest, didn't like that guest, whatever. But at the end of the day, you know, I love the way you model curiosity, humility, and, and, you know, even when you disagree with somebody or something, you dignify them in the process. Preston Sprinkle operates in the world a little bit like a missionary. And every missionary has a backstory, sort of like a superhero. Just ask one, and they'll tell you how they got to the mission field.

So let's transition now back to Jason and Jenna Wigner in Bolivia and hear their backstory. Well, my story to mission actually starts really early. Little did I know from my childhood being interested in every living thing. I spent my childhood out in the woods and streams and ponds, just fascinated with nature. And I had no idea at the time that would be my gateway into missions. Fast forward to my high school years, my interest in mission kind of grew there as well, similar to Jenna's. I grew up in a church that was very mission-minded. We used to have amazing missions conferences there. Missions would come, and they would deck out a room and have food from their culture, and like a week-long missions fair.

It was amazing. So I was always fascinated with missions, but didn't really think that was my calling at that point. Honestly, I was pretty scared of a lot of things at that point. The following year's missions conference, our church, there was some guy talking about this internship with the Jesus Film Project based out of Orlando, where the young guys out of college go on these crazy adventures all over the world, dubbing the Jesus Film in different languages. And I just looked at him, whoa, that is, that looks awesome. And so I got an exception to go join that project for a year and a half. I usually don't take guys out of college, but they let me join out of high school, between high school and college.

So I did a gap year before gap year was a thing. And that took me all over the world. And I was really torn. With each trip that I did with them, I was really kind of feeling that call towards mission work. of call towards mission work, but I was feeling like I had to either give up my, I had to give my passion for nature to become a pastor or, you know, a typical classic missionary. And it was on my last trip for the Jesus film to Togo, West Africa, where we were going through kind of the classic scene. There's a lot of poverty, malnourishment, diseases, things like that. And we got to this village that was living in a similar style, but people were healthy.

They had clean water. They had a higher standard of living, even though financially they were the same place. They had a much higher standard of living. And I started asking around, why was this different? And they said, oh, these missionaries came and we worked with clean water systems, with better food, land management to produce more food and that's where it dawned on me that I had my interest in nature and the environment was God given for a reason was to use in mission work to help communities not just spiritually but physically

as well I just saw what the doors that opened in that community. So I came back from that trip very excited that I had a connection point from I called the missions and passions from a little kid. So I came back studied environmental science at Messiah College with the intention of using on the mission field eventually somewhere. There was one class that we took called the service learning class and part of the requirement of that class was to spend the summer doing service somewhere. It was a very open ended, whatever. And then in the fall, you came back and reviewed. And so I knew I wanted to look in Latin America because I was learning Spanish. I found an organization that offered internships in Peru.

I opted to do that for eight weeks. And then long story short, I'll let Jason kind of tell his part of it. He ended up going along with me in that trip too. It was pretty formative in terms of looking at the day-to-day life of missionaries that we were staying with and living with and working with for two months going, hey, like this is sustainable and I could do this.

We'd kind of decided, all right, let's pick somewhere, pray about it, go two years, and then we can reevaluate and see where the Lord wants us after that. And so we landed in Bolivia. We had both finished our undergrad prior to my master's. And then it wasn't actually until I was on the field here in Bolivia that I felt called into midwifery, which if you ask my college roommates, they are like totally shocked that I landed as a midwife because they were all nursing majors.

And whenever they studied, I was like super grossed out by the material that they were talking about. And I picked a specialty that's kind of messy. My job can be messy. We do two years in Bolivia. We find out right before we go to Bolivia that we're expecting our first child. We went deep in terms of learning more about pregnancy a little bit. And then it was very fascinating for me. Like nobody ever taught me these things in science class. In my own personal choices, I knew I didn't really want an obstetrician. I was like, I would prefer a midwife. Of course, there weren't any here in Bolivia. So you say, of course, why do you say, of course, why isn't there midwives in Bolivia? The city where we were at the time, there just weren't options. Maybe where we were at the time, there just weren't options.

Your personal situation brought an awareness of these cultural realities in Central and South America that maybe you weren't really aware because it wasn't part of your reality to that same degree. I think emotionally, hearing stories of other women, and particularly the way that they had been treated by the medical system because they were non-Spanish speakers. My heart just went out to that more than anything of like, this is really unjust. And I feel like the injustice of the treatment that people were receiving really was my final straw.

This should be better and I can do something about it. All right, let's get this truck opened up so we can start unpacking everything. All right. I got merchandise over here and books over here. We've arrived a few days early to the conference because we're helping to unpack the U-Haul and get things set up and ready to go. According to our trusty Google search, a conference is a formal meeting where individuals or members of one or several organizations gather to discuss matters of common interest. This can definitely be said of the theology in the raw audience.

But how do you pull together a conference of that size? Let's go back to Preston Sprinkle for the answer. I think it was summer of 2021 when my wife and I were up at the mountain lake we rented a canoe we're kind of canoeing around and kind of just dreaming thinking you know what do we want to do and we had mentioned kind of in passing doing the theology in our conference but we never really took it seriously and then it was really in that canoe and like yeah let's do it I think we have some people that might show up you know maybe a couple hundred and if i do a conference i don't want to follow any predetermined script of what a christian conference must look like i'm like i don't want to do it all the things i wish i

saw in conferences or church services or wish i didn't have church services or conferences i said i want to do that long story short yeah we just started planning we got the venue they said yeah you can use the church and then we started emailing people. Do you want to come speak? People agreed to speak. And then we started inviting people and opening up registration. And just kind of figured it out as we went along. And we were just really blown away at how many people were signing up.

So that first conference, 2022 Exiles in Babylon, we had about 1,100 people that came. And I think about 1,000 of them flew out from out of state to come to the conference. And we were absolutely blown away. People were just like, I feel like this is a space where I belong, and I don't feel like I belong in whatever community or churches that I'm in. So that's where Exiles of Babylon started. So let's recap. By 2022, Theology in the Raw had garnered millions of downloads per year. And it was time to gather together all of the theological misfits of the world.

The people that had questions that they couldn't seem to get answers to through the normal channels. So Preston gathers everyone together at a conference. And what does he title it? Exiles in Babylon. But what does that mean? What does it mean to be an exile in Babylon? In just a moment, we're going to attempt to answer that question by diving into some theology and some biblical teaching. But on the other side, we're going to go back and we're going to end our time together in this episode with Jason and Jenna Wigner. So until then, listen closely.

Remember like, yeah, that's a great point, Travis. Let me speak to the fact that Daniel was reading Jeremiah. Yeah, so here's... That's a great point. Yeah, it's a great point, Travis. The connection between Jeremiah and Daniel and Daniel being aware that Jeremiah is writing to the exiles in Babylon of how to live. And Daniel understands that. And we get to see how he lives that out in the beginning of Daniel. And how we know this is because in Daniel 9,

it says this, in the first year of Darius, I, Daniel, understood from the books, according to the word of the Lord, to the prophet Jeremiah, that the number of years for the desolation of Jerusalem would be 70. So I turned my attention. Now think about this. This is the time of Darius. So it's after Nebuchadnezzar. This is my buddy Nathan. He really, really likes the Bible. A lot. Specifically, the book of Daniel changed the trajectory of his life. My name is Nathan Cookston, and I ended up attending Prairie Bible College and getting

my bachelor's of religious education, youth ministries degree. I felt the Lord leading me to ministry as a junior higher through studying the book of Daniel. Daniel was the first inductive study that I did that got me fired up about God. That's why Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Lamentations, the whole crew, there's all the contemporaries, all the books that are kind of centered in the Babylonian exile period, for me, it's really interesting. So the biblical narrative helps us see the ebb and flow of conquering nations, how they function, how they leveraged armies, their strategies. practical strategy for maintaining a broad group of diverse people without a lot of boots on the ground control. And so, yeah, that's what you do. You go and take all the strong people, leave the weak just enough actually to manage the crops. If you look in the accounts in 2 Kings 24

and 25, and you read in Jeremiah and you read in Daniel, you'll see that's exactly what they do. So then the next question is, why is ancient Babylon concerned with this little strip of land known as Israel? What's the point in taking their land and making them exiles in Babylon? If Babylon and Egypt are vying for world power at the time, which they were, you've got Israel as a whole kind of functioning as this land bridge to traverse. You can traverse both sides, but the other side is a peninsula. That land bridge is what connects the northern portion of Babylon and Egypt. You're not going to go around in a big sea and into the peninsula and try to go up, back,

and around with some of the hills and everything. You want to be next to the water, the Mediterranean, and you just want to go straight down into Egypt. So for Babylon, it's really connecting this small country that separates their empire from the Egyptian empire. We're not talking about a different political party here, one that we might disagree with or agree with. We're talking about a nation that came in and subjugated, oppressed, and enslaved an entire people, murdering, raping, pillaging, taking everything for their own. And how does Jeremiah tell Daniel to respond as a man who has been taken into slavery in another land called Babylon.

He is saying in Jeremiah 29, 4 and the following verses, This is what the Lord of the armies, the God of Israel says to all the exiles. I deported from Jerusalem to Babylon. Build houses and live in them. Plant gardens, eat their produce, find wives for yourself and have sons and daughters. Find wives for your sons and give your daughters to men in marriage. Multi-generational. Not just one generation.

He's saying multiple generations. Multiply there. Do not decrease. My perspective, and we talk about this in church as I'm leading small groups, we talk about the hold on Christian that we can often hear about in North America now, which is Jesus is coming back soon, just hold on. You know, you got to make it till he gets back. What I love here is that's not what Jeremiah is saying. And what Jeremiah is saying is he's saying, no, don't hold on, dig in, thrive,

No, don't hold on. Dig in. Thrive. Multiply. Don't decrease, is what he says in verse 6. Pursue, in verse 7, the well-being of the city I have deported you to, Babylon, the center of sin in the known world at the time up there. I love how verse 7 finishes. Pray to the Lord on his behalf, for when it thrives, you will thrive.

What an interesting perspective as an exile to be directed on. I welcome anyone to read on chapter 29, because there's a couple of letters to false prophets that are saying, hey, saddle up Jeremiah, you know, take care of him because he's not saying right things. And he's accused of in verse 28 of, in a letter that he's talking through, he says, For he, speaking of Jeremiah, has sent word to us in Babylon, claiming the exile will be long, build houses and settle down, plant gardens and eat their produce. So clearly, it's not a one-time message that Jeremiah has for the exiles.

He, as the Lord's prophet in Jerusalem, has a continual message. And he's sending this encouragement to the exiles in Babylon. Here is how you are to live. Jeremiah is pretty clear. He really shows that there's two ways to live, either rebellious in opposition to your oppressor or in full acceptance. And he's kind of saying there's this separate way. There's this way of living in and among, but unique. As exiles, what Jeremiah was calling them to do was to live nonviolently visible. Yeah, I get what Jeremiah might be saying

to the people in Babylon as exiles, but we don't live in Babylon. This isn't the Old Testament. We live after Jesus. What about us? What are we supposed to do? Peter's doing that in 1 Peter when he's saying, hey, you're foreigners, you're sojourners, you are exiles as believers. And he's not talking to people in Babylon. He's talking to people in Rome. He's talking to Jewish and Gentile believers that are under the oppression of a Roman empire, right? We see that continually. We see Jesus speak

to that. The Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, Luke 6, when he talks about love your enemies, and he walks through what loving your enemies looks like. Jesus is saying, Peter also says this, it's no good if you do the right thing at the right time for the right person. What does it look like when you do the right thing for the wrong person in the toughest time? That's what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount as he talks about loving your enemies. You can look at Jeremiah and say it's a book about the beginning, the exile, and the future, and the hope at the end for the Jewish people. you can look at the Bible and say the same thing for us. Genesis 1 through 3, pre-exile.

We're living in the land of milk and honey. Genesis 3, we go into exile. The Bible says that the world groans. We're longing for something different. Romans 8, 19 through 23. You also have in Jeremiah 12, 4, as Jeremiah is describing it, he talks about how the lands mourn, the fields wither under the exile. That's a description of the earth. And then what happens? You've got going into exile, Genesis 3, the beginning of the Bible, and at the end of the

Bible, Revelation 20, final judgment, 21, 22, the new Jerusalem, the new earth. Now we have the hope and the victory. There's like two levels of exile. You've got the description and how God calls us through Jeremiah, how the Jewish people were to live in exile in Babylon, middle of the Bible. But then the broader total Bible is how are we to live as exiles, taking these truths that are a string of continuity between Jesus, between Peter, between Jeremiah, between Daniel, between Paul. It's all there. Preston Sprinkle has spent the last several years writing a book entitled Exiles, The Church in the Shadow of Empire. The book release is set for March 5th, 2024.

You may want to pick up a copy. In the book, he articulates some very similar concepts to what Nathan has been talking about when it comes to exiles in Babylon. And what is Preston's concern in the book? How are Christians supposed to embody the ethic of an exile in Babylon in our day and age? What did that look like in the New Testament? of an exile in Babylon in our day and age. What did that look like in the New Testament? And what should that look like for us? Politically, they're still under the Roman Empire. They're still paying taxes to Rome.

They're in a very similar situation as the Jewish exiles were when they were living under Babylon's rule. You see glimpses of this. 1 Peter is a classic example. In 1.1, he's writing to the elect exiles. In chapter 2, verse 11, you're strangers and aliens, strangers and exiles, basically. 1 Peter 5.13, I think, he refers to Rome as Babylon. All throughout Revelation, Rome is referred to as Babylon. That's a common thing in first century Jewish literature. They often refer to Rome as Babylon. I've got a footnote citing all the references on that. I have a couple chapters in the book on the New Testament's interaction with the imperial

cult, where people would deify and worship the emperor. What's fascinating, and this is something I've kind of known for a while, but it was fun putting all the pieces together. Most of the quote-unquote theological language surrounding Jesus and the gospel, kingdom, you know, the New Testament, most of that language is also used to describe the Roman Empire. So one of the classic passages is Acts 17, the world upside down passage, when Paul goes in Thessalonica and he's preaching the good news that Jesus is king. It throws the whole city in an uproar. And they say,

this guy came in and he's teaching us to disobey our laws and customs because he's telling us that there's another king named Jesus. Meaning the preacher of the gospel, Jesus, had massive political implications. If Jesus is king, Caesar is not, is how they understood it. And I think they understood it rightly. The more you embrace the kingship of Jesus, the more distance you will have between you and the empire. Once you start peeling back the layers of it, you begin to see that, as New Testament scholar Warren Carter says, the Roman Empire isn't just in the background of the New Testament, it's actually in the foreground. The very way in which the book of Revelation in particular talks about the Roman Empire, it talks about the empire being Babylon, but it uses the Babylon as kind of a word to refer to the Roman Empire, yes, but also more than the

Roman Empire. John has deliberately used the concept of Babylon to be able to apply to more than just Rome, but all Roman-like empires in the world. Some people like to say, well, it's a tension and, you know, we're supposed to submit. We also have subversive values and a subversive political perspective, and they kind of ride on to rails on a train track or whatever. But I kind of want to push a little farther and say, this isn't just some two sides of the coin or attention but i think by submitting we are subverting the empire and i get this from the book of revelation where the lion exercises his lion-like rule over the world by being a lamb by conquering rome through sacrifice by conquering rome through his death. Death, death, death, death, death. Daniel, chapter 6, starting in verse 1.

It pleased Darius to appoint 120 satraps to rule throughout the kingdom, with three administrators over them, one of whom was Daniel. The satraps were made accountable to them so that the king might not suffer loss. Now Daniel so distinguished himself among the administrators and the satraps by his exceptional qualities that the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom. You have two options. You have the zealots. You can say, I rebel.

I can't attend the king. He's usurping and he puts himself in the position of God. And there could be that position that Daniel could take, which is to say, I'll fight against it. I won't serve the king. I can't serve the king. And then there's the other side which says, I'm going to just do it all. Just blend right in, follow the system.

But I won't filter my choices and my experiences and how I live my life through the tenets and the principles of God that I've been trained and learned on. I won't wrestle with the tension that comes with those principles and the system the king has in place. There's this way of living in and among, but unique. There's this way of living in and among, but unique. At this, the administrators and the satraps tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel and his conduct of government affairs, but they were unable to do so. They could find no corruption in him because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent. trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent. Finally, these men said, we will never find any basis for charges against this man, Daniel, unless it has something to do with the law of his God.

So these administrators and satraps went as a group to the king and said, may King Darius live forever. The royal administrators, prefects, satraps, advisors, and governors have all agreed that the king should issue an edict and enforce the decree that anyone who prays to any God or human being during the next 30 days, except to you, your majesty, shall be thrown into the lion's den. Now, your majesty, issue the decree and put it in writing so that it cannot be altered in accordance with the law of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be repealed. So I just had a buddy visit my house and he happens to be an avid Diyal General listener

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In Daniel 6, when King Darius gets bamboozled by his magistrate to enact an irreversible law, Babylonian code. The word of the king was God and it was spoken and it was. You couldn't back it out. That's why their code was so crazy. They would just put a law on top of a law on top of a law on top of a law. So King Darius put the decree in writing. When Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day, he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before. Then these men went as a group and found Daniel praying and asking God for help.

So they went to the king and spoke to him about his royal decree. Did you not publish a decree that during the next 30 days, anyone who prays to any God or human being except to you, your majesty, would be thrown into the lion's den? The king answered, The decree stands in accordance with the law of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be repealed. Then they said to the king,

Daniel, who is one of the exiles from Judah, pays no attention to you, your majesty, or to the decree you put in writing. He still prays three times a day. When the king heard this, he was greatly distressed. He was determined to rescue Daniel and made every effort unto sundown to save him. If you read in Daniel 6, where it talks about King Darius,

spent the day trying to figure out a way to save Daniel. It's not him sitting in his bedroom going like, oh gosh, what should I do? No, he's got to figure out the code to lay over that law. If he does another law, there's this whole thing like he's just got to follow this rule. And that's why the advisors say, nope, you can't back it out. He's trying to figure out the way to kind of find the loophole that his legal code doesn't apply. Think about Daniel was in such a place. He's the advisor to Nebuchadnezzar, then Belshazzar. Because of his reputation, King Darius takes him on, brings him on,

gets to a point in a relationship with him that he's willing to personally work the system to figure out how to save his life. Then he realizes he can't. Then the men went as a group to King Darius and said to him, Remember, your majesty, that according to the law of the Medes and Persians, no decree or edict that the king issues can be changed. So the king gave the order and they brought Daniel and threw him into the lion's den. The king said to Daniel, May your God whom you serve continually rescue you.

A stone was brought and placed over the mouth of the den and the king sealed it with his own signet ring and with the rings of his nobles so that Daniel's situation might not be changed. Then the king returned to his palace and spent the night without eating and without any entertainment being brought to him, and he could not sleep. At the first light of dawn, the king got up and hurried to the lion's den. When he came near the den, he called to Daniel in an anguished voice. Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to rescue you from the lions?

Daniel answered, may the king live forever. You'll see this in Daniel 6, 21, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in Daniel 3. They reference the king with respect and honor. They say, may the king live forever. And that's in the Bible. And that's an interesting thing where I like to say it this way. Daniel and these young men, they served Nebuchadnezzar as king, but not as Lord. My God sent his angel and he shut the mouths of the lions. They have not hurt me because I was found innocent in his sight, nor have I ever done anything wrong before you, your majesty.

The king was overjoyed and gave orders to lift Daniel out of the den. When Daniel was lifted from the den, no wound was found on him because he had trusted in his God. At the king's command, the men who had falsely accused Daniel were brought in and thrown into the lion's den along with their wives and children. And before they reached the floor of the den, the lions overpowered them and crushed all their bones. Then King Darius wrote to all the nations and peoples of every language and all the earth, forever. His kingdom will not be destroyed. His dominion will never end. He rescues and he saves. He performs signs and wonders in the heavens and on the earth. He has rescued Daniel from the power of the lions. So Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus the Persian. I'm a prophet in Jerusalem. I'm not really in exile. I'm telling the exiles, this is how you should

live. You're missing half of it. The living out is Daniel and what he's doing and how he's living it. Our natural inclination as Christians in our context is we're much more comfortable being Jeremiah than we are Daniel. being Jeremiah than we are Daniel. Okay, Josiah, we've come about 90% of the way through the podcast, but before we went on, I thought you and I should check in. Sounds good to me. If Daniel living in Babylon had still acted as if he was living back in Jerusalem with Jeremiah, how do you think it would have gone for Daniel? What if he tried through his influence to force the non-Jewish people in Babylon to act as though they were Jewish?

How would that go? I think at the very least, if Daniel would have tried to convince the Babylonians of his culture through failure to obey the king's rule, he would have been cast out. Yeah, I agree. I don't think it would go very well. I thought we ought to check in really quick and see how you were tracking along with this. Right. I mean, I hope I'm tracking. I've spent countless hours working on this. So I hope I'm retaining some of the information.

Let's head to the conclusion of our episode today and listen to Jason and Jenna as they give us a few things to chew on from Bolivia in regard to their context and also some advice for all of us outside of Bolivia as we go about our ministry context. I feel like that's a good idea. Let's do that. as we go about our ministry context. I feel like that's a good idea. Let's do that.

What would you say to people who look at the job of a missionary? They might say something like, it's really good that you're helping out with mothers and the birthing process in Bolivia and you're meeting these felt needs and stuff. But aren't missionaries there to save souls? How many people have you led to the Lord?

Have you planted a church? Are you baptizing people along with this? Because I get that you're doing all these really good things with women. Isn't your goal to bring eternal life and not just temporal births? How would you respond to maybe that line of inquiry? You are asking the question, Travis, that we actually get a lot very subtly. Usually not that direct. Not that direct, but people definitely over the years have brought up that exact question basically. And it's something that is like

the classic missionary guilt. I at least am like, I have no numbers for you. But at the same time, I go back to what has God called me to do? I think that God cares very deeply about our relationship with Him. But I think He also cares very deeply about the physical needs that people have, the mental needs that people have, the emotional needs that people have. And I think it's very easy to like spiritualize things and make it all about winning souls. But again, it's very intertwined. Why do we have to separate it so much? I mean, we see Jesus meeting physical needs of people too. He's healing people.

Did he have to do that? No, he could have just saved their soul and called it good at that. But no, he cares about bringing wholeness to the whole person. Sometimes rubbing somebody's back in labor, handing somebody a tissue when they're in tears because they feel like they can't nurse their baby is bringing the comfort that God brings us when we are in really hard spots. And so, I don't know, it's not the like, pray this prayer with me kind of mission, but I still think that there's value in calling in it. There's so much to that guilt.

What if my whole calling to come here was just to love one person that God was working on their heart, just showing them a little bit of God's love. That was the nudge that moved them closer to God. I think about my life, like this one person had no idea I was in such a dark time and sat down and just was present with me. And that was enough to start my journey back to God in a lot of ways. And then she had no idea. She just was doing what God called her to do in that moment. What if my calling to come here was just to raise my boys well, so they go on to reach people here better than I ever could because I didn't grow up here and speak the language as good as them. Maybe I'm never going to really do a whole lot other than raise my boys well. Is that really any less than tallying up a

bunch of salvation marks? There is a lot of political infighting that goes on over there between different factions and parties and people feel like they are not heard and their interests are not being addressed. And that's why this upheaval keeps happening from not just one party's perspective, but all kinds of different people are demonstrating or blockading or whatever all the time, right? Pretty common. I mean, it can be anything from, there was one, it was about the price of cement. We do something pretty small, do much bigger things. There was a big nationwide one about the census, which surprised us, but there was so many political ramifications I didn't even recognize until I learned more about it. And you guys participate in these blockades, yeah? No, we do not. We take sides. Oh, no. Why is that? Why don't you take sides?

This podcast about being strangers in a strange. That is that is part of it. Like it is recognizing we are outsiders. I do not understand all the nuances. I on a surface level can go, oh, I agree with that. There's been certain issues where they've located. And I'm like, man, I wish I could be out there with them because I totally agree with this. But not recognize some nuance there because it's not my culture and it's not really my fight. I'm not here to try to change cement prices.

I don't understand all the ins and outs of that in this context. I mean, I will love my brothers and sisters here who feel strongly about one side or the other. You've been sent by this organization to go in and be present to share the values of the kingdom of God with this country. And if you take sides one way or another and demonstrate politically, what would that do for your ability to speak into the lives of a certain segment of the population? Everybody knows who we are. We stand out and we would really stand out if we joined one of these political protests. And we do work with very diverse communities. Being a missionary, they see the church tightly associated with me. You're a missionary, you represent the church, you represent Jesus. And then suddenly I'm taking a political

side. Then they see that as, oh, the church stands with this political side without fully recognizing the ramifications of like, what does that mean for certain subsects of the population? I might agree from my perspective of where I live in the country, but I don't, I don't fully understand other people's perspectives on the issue and how it affects them. Being in Bolivia and being separate from the States for a long period of time, you guys obviously see the kind of political discussions that go on up here. While we're not blockading towns off and cutting off commerce, we have this really weird relationship between religion and government where we have been traditionally very, at

least culturally religious. There's been a lot of things tied into our DNA as a country. A lot of things here get tied into our politics. So being that you've kind of been separate from that for a long time, do you see some of the same dangers in your political identity in Bolivia? Do you see the danger in that up here in the States? I've got a foot in two different countries, two different citizenships, and I've seen each country go to two different political extremes and be blinded by the dangers of each extreme because they've become so tied to a political party

and then get pulled by the party, no matter how extreme it gets one way or another. What would you say to people in the States? Would you warn us against having too much identity in our political affiliation and too much involvement or not? What do we do with our political identity here and the effect that it has on our ability to be the kingdom of God? Remember what kingdom your first allegiance is to. I would just, I guess,

kind of remind people too that like no political party anywhere represents in its entirety the kingdom that we should first be representing. And so in that sense, I think critically, people are going to inevitably have tendencies towards one side or the other. We have this tendency, right, as humans to want to like, this is us and the other side is bad. I think as Christians, that's not our role to hook, line and sinker a political platform. And then we start interpreting our faith through the lens of our political party. That scares me so much now seeing that whatever the party says, then I'll find some way in the Bible to justify it. Or you can't possibly be a Christian.

And not agree with our party. I feel like there's nothing like cross-cultural living to just make you step outside of yourself a little bit and go, wow, there are other ways of thinking than the way that I think. And it's hard to remember that. Taking the time to get to know people who are really different than yourself, which helps me when I feel foreign. Because here in Bolivia, I feel foreign. I feel foreign and American.

But now when I go back to America, I feel foreign, which isn't a bad thing. It's just an odd thing. I'm really not completely part of any earthly kingdom. I have some pride for Bolivia. I have lived here long enough. Three of my kids were born here. I'm a citizen now, so I've got some country pride. I like showing the Bolivia colors,

and yet my roots are from the States, and so I've got a lot of pride there, the red, white, and blue as well. There's this overarching kingdom that transcends both of those other identities that allows you to move fluidly, and because you find your identity in this other thing, there is a flag that is the kingdom of God that you are under, whether you're in the States or in Bolivia or in West Africa or whatever, you're still under that flag. And being out of this context and down there long enough to feel at home in both places, but also you have this third other that you found yourself grounded in. And that's the beauty of that kingdom is when you find God's kingdom anywhere in the world. There's your home. You found your home, your people.

It's evening of Thursday, the first day of the conference. We've been packing, planning, setting up for two days. And now Preston Sprinkle steps to the microphone for his opening monologue. Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of Exiles in Babylon. My name is Preston Sprinkle. I'll be your host for this crazy event. My wife and I and the Theology in Raw team have been spending pretty much 12 months into this conference My name is Preston Sprinkle. I'll be your host for this crazy event. My wife and I and the Theology in the Rock team have been spending pretty much 12 months into this conference to make it not just a passionate experience, not just an emotional experience, but a meaningful experience that will have massive influence for your walk with King Jesus and the Kingdom of God. We also have a bunch of virtual attendees.

We have 48 states represented, which that's awesome. I'm kind of wondering who are the two states that are. Alaska, where are you? Seven countries are tuning in. Canada, US, obviously UK, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, and Malaysia. Thank you for those of you who are tuning in from around the world. Whatever country you're living in, before you email me after the conference and say, Preston, I didn't like what that one speaker said. I know, I didn't either. That's why I invited him.

I'm like, hey, I don't think I agree with that. Hey, do you want to go speak at my conference? I want a healthy, uncomfortable disruption to happen here. I want to be challenged in my thinking. I just, I don't want to sit in some echo chamber where we all sit around just saying the same thing, agreeing with each other. I want to mix it up. Theology of the Rock exists to help believers to think Christianly about theological and cultural issues by engaging in curious conversations with a diverse range of thoughtful people.

And so there's, again, there's going to be some theological diversity here, denominational diversity here. You're going to hear some things, you're like, man, that is spot on. You're going to hear some other things, you're like, man, I'm not sure about that. That is intentional. That is the design of this conference. intentional. That is the design of this conference. And the goal is to be molded more into the radicality of Christ-likeness. So I want to welcome all you Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Anarchists, Gay people, Trans people, Straight people, Reformed, Wesleyans, Catholics and Protestants, Frozen Chosen Presbyterians, KJV-only fundies.

Did the KJV-only fundies go, woo? That's a first. Charismatics, Calvinists, Arminians, egalitarians, complementarians, the church, the de-churched, the unchurched, and the over-churched, you are all welcome at Exiles. The only goal for all of us is to leave here thinking more deeply, loving more widely. If all we do is think deeply, that's not enough. We need to love more widely, but if all we do is try to love without thinking deeply, that's insufficient too.

Especially when we're talking about some very complex topics that we are going to engage in. It's no secret that the last couple of years in the church, we've faced some serious challenges in the church. We had to deal with the vitriolic, divisive responses to various things. It wasn't just the racial tensions. divisive responses to various things. It wasn't just the racial tensions. It was the politicized way in which we were being told to respond to racial tensions. Questions about sexuality and gender and politics and even things like masks and vaccines. These have become so divisive in our culture, but also in the church so that almost everybody I talk to, any Christian leader will

say, we are facing a discipleship crisis in the church today. And I wonder if part of it is I think we've lost touch with our Christian identity as exiles in Babylon. It's a phrase I use. I mean, I didn't invent it. I mean, God did, but it's a helpful lens to reclaim our Christian identity in the midst of political polarization. I wonder if we've been giving way too much allegiance to a Babylonian political party and all the propaganda that comes with that when we should be giving our sole allegiance to Jesus. While being good citizens, don't revolt, pay your taxes, honor the king, pray for your leaders. Jeremiah says that, the New Testament embodies that, submitmit to your governing authorities, okay? Just to be clear.

But when you give your sole allegiance to Jesus, this has massive political implications in how you view Babylon's attempt to rule the world. You wanna vote for the Republican Babylonian? Go for it, it's awesome. You wanna vote Democrat Babylonian, okay? You wanna not vote at all because you think it's a sin to vote?

Hey, okay, I can see that. Vote for Kanye. But if the rhetoric of a certain Babylonian party causes you to love your neighbor less, then you might be giving more of your allegiance to Babylon's Messiah than you realize. What does Jesus command of us? Are we instructed to go and convince people to attend a church service? Are we told to go and wage a culture war, forcibly making sure that our nation acts like Jesus' followers, even if they're not? I'd like to suggest, no. Jesus said, go and make disciples of all nations.

And while we help everyone across all nations to follow Jesus, we are to teach and baptize as his representatives. Making disciples and teaching others how to follow Jesus is hard work. It's not a quick process, nor is it efficient. Helping people to first see and then follow Jesus is a long and complicated exercise in relationship building. It's the sort of relationship building that requires time and love. The people God has entrusted us to love need us to give grace and space to think through their faith. They need places to ask questions and to challenge us and to even outright disagree. necessary to empty ourselves of loaded labels like Republican or Democrat, Anarchist or Communist or Libertarian or even American or Bolivian.

Any title really that runs the risk of blocking a direct line of sight to the love of Jesus. Consider the implications of forcing people to conform to our definition of things like patriotism, party support, or ideological convictions. What happens if we make adherence to the values or beliefs of those types of groups a prerequisite to following Jesus? How could that hurt our witness? to following Jesus. How could that hurt our witness? In the life of Daniel, dedication to serving God caused him to serve Babylon and King Darius in submission and love. And it was by his posture of submission and service that he gained influence in Babylon. If Daniel had tried to force his Jewish customs on King Darius, he may never have had the time or relationship to earn the king's heart. In Bolivia, Jenna and Jason are walking out the same values as Daniel

by serving their people first and foremost. They choose love and relationships over forcing people to adhere to their perspective on the world politically. As they stated, they may actually want to join in in the public demonstrations, but they don't. They choose not to join because they know it could immediately alienate a potential people group they may otherwise have had the opportunity to share the love of Jesus with. They know that if they adopt the posture of a particular political party, the other side will see that affiliation first and may never give Jason and Jenna the relational bandwidth to hear the good news that they've come to share. As missionaries, they've adopted the title of exile so that they can love people in Bolivia passionately no matter what

ideological party they align with. Can the same be true for us here in the United States? Can we learn to love more widely across boundaries, borders, and political parties? Isn't that what the kingdom of God requires? When Preston Sprinkle started the Exiles in Babylon conference, he did so to transcend boundaries. He told us as much in his opening monologue that we've just heard. But then he goes on to demonstrate the concept in practical ways by platforming speakers on his stage at the conference. Speakers that disagree with each other theologically, biblically, doctrinally, politically, ideologically. Biblically, doctrinally, politically, ideologically.

At this conference, we stand as one united group under the banner of Jesus. Is it because we agree on everything? Absolutely not. It is because we all recognize that we serve one King, and we recognize that we are united in one mission to live as exiles, as travelers, as strangers in strange lands, serving, healing, feeding, seeking, and saving, and loving across boundaries the people who live around us in our version of Babylon. That is what it means for each individual Jesus follower to be in exile. Join us. Adopt exile as your own.

And if you can jump on a plane or in a car and meet us in Boise this coming April, we will see you at the conference. In the next episode, we will look at another type of exile, one that is forced into exile due to rejection, fear, and corrupt power dynamics. As this episode ends, please continue to listen as some people will express their thanks to Preston for the difference this conference has made in their lives. for the difference this conference has made in their lives. Until next time, I want to thank Preston and Chris Sprinkle for the interview, the hard work, and the willingness to let us tell this story. Special thanks to Josiah Rollins as our audio engineer, Kristen McCool for the reading, Nathan Cookston as our Bible commentator, Jason and Jenna for their story and service, as well as Ethan,

Connor, Tim, Levi, Josh, Joah, and everyone at the Exiles in Babylon conference for all of your hard work. I've been your host, Pastor Travis McCool, reminding you to make sure to live as a radical exile by slowing down this week. Try to see people for who they are and love them properly. Eat a good meal with your fellow travelers, share valuable discussion, and continue in the ways of Jesus. My name is Joab, and I attended the conference, and I would like to say to those who brought the conference about that I really appreciate it. And it brought a lot of change in my life.

Like it was revolutionary because I have been mistreated by the church quite a bit. And it's just like it's really nice to see a gathering of people who can communicate with different perspectives and different views and get along in a Christlike way. And it was just beautiful. And I enjoyed all the speakers there. I enjoyed serving. It was amazing. And I enjoyed all the speakers there. I enjoyed serving. It was amazing. And I'd just like to say thank you. Hey, Kristen.

So I just want to thank you so much for the conference. You know, as you talk about, you know, we're all exiles in Babylon. But for a lot of us, as you very well know, we're also exiles within the church. And just to find this place that's being moderate, frankly, within the evangelical world, where I'm almost ready to give up that term with all the craziness that's happened. It just felt really good to be at a place where I didn't have to worry about what I was saying or kind of lower my voice to say certain things. Not because I thought everyone would agree with me, but because I knew that if they're going to disagree, it's going to be charitably charitable. And it's just, if, you

know, it's been a while since I felt like I've had a tribe, like a very long time. So just thank you so much for I know I can only guess how much work the conference has put on. And I'm very grateful for it. So I'm hopefully looking forward to next year. I know that it's a huge amount of work. So hey, Preston, I'm Josiah Rollins. I really appreciated this conference that you held. Like, it was insane. All I can say is where we come from, there's so much division among the churches. And I'm sure that's how things are everywhere. But this conference was a life-changing, eye-opening experience for me. It kind of got me to realize that not everyone is, like, so closed with everything. Not everyone is like so closed with everything that there are actually people out there who can function in a group setting that don't all agree with the same thing.

So anyway, yeah, I just really, really appreciated what you were able to pull off and what we were all able to pull off together as a group this year. So, yeah, I mean, thank you so much. Hey, Preston. I want to say thank you to the entire venue. It was a great job. I absolutely enjoyed every little bit of it. It was honestly such a great experience. I've never been to anything like this, and I felt like I was supposed to be there, and I'm excited to see what the future holds. Hey, Preston. My name's Tim Taft. I met you briefly at your house. I can't tell you how much this conference has meant to me.

I came with Travis and Krista and Ethan and the rest of the gang and they're not lying when they say that it's a desert. It's a theological desert. There is so much sectarianism and um darpatism within the church and being able to find a place where it when you can feel comfortable enough to discuss these

different controversial topics and be challenged to think it's just something that is unheard of there and it's it's it's amazing to be able to have that breath of fresh air. It, I, I can't tell you the impact it has had on me and the rest of my crew. Um, and I just, I just want you to know that, you know, this, what you're doing has directly impacted my life and, and the lives of my entire church family here and i i just hope i get to see more near of this around the country and around around the world really in the coming years and i really think you're this show is part of the converge podcast network