Theology in the Raw - S2: Third Bonus Q&A for Patreon

Episode Date: March 29, 2023

If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe to my channel!  Support Theology in the Raw through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw 00:00 Introduction  3:00 What areas do you think Christian thinkers need to put more attention in the next five years? What would you like to see books and dissertations written on?  14:00 If God chose both Adam and Eve to rule the Garden. Why then would he say only men to rule the church?  20:30 What do “treasures in heaven” look like? It seems materialistic to do something motivated by treasures in earth or in heaven, but we’re told that’s our reward.  29:46 Why do so many Christians view decision-making in terms of “open doors” as a signal of God’s will or “feeling a peace about it”? Isn’t this a misapplication?  38:38 Thoughts on doctor assisted suicide for conscious, aware, terminally ill and suffering people whose lives are prolonged by medicine?  40:55 What is the optimal way to incorporate children (K-6th) into church services. Why Is this less a priority in many evangelical spaces? My kids don’t feel welcome.  50:17 If you’ve seen The Chosen, what are your thoughts on it? And what are your thoughts on some of the criticism that has been leveled against it?  56:03 Is there any info/data to refute the claim that a non-affirming theological position leads to suicidality/self-harm?  108:11 You said ESV wasn't biased to Gender Roles. 13 translators, 11 of them with a direct link to Grudem/on board of CBMW, complementarian, and 0 women- Thoughts?  122:00 Why does God seem so clear about some things in scripture (e.g. generosity, unity) but so unclear about other things (like women's roles in ministry and hell)?  1:26:47 What does scripture actually say about Communion? The texts in Luke 22:19 & 1 Cor 11:24 seem to simply say: whenever you have any meal at all, remember my death  1:31:13 When do you think a woman can preach/teach? If she’s the most qualified or available person in a certain situation, should she preach until a man is available?  1:34:22 Do you believe good and/or evil things can happen "randomly" in the world? Or can everything be traced back to the free will of humans and/or spiritual beings?

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. My name is Preston. I'm the host of today's show. And today is a Q&A podcast where I address several questions that were sent in from my Patreon supporters. Can't get to them all. So we voted up the ones that my Patreon supporters wanted me to get to. So we've got a whole slew of questions we are going to work through. Some of the ones we're going to address are, what are areas that I think Christian leaders need to put more thought and attention into that are coming up in the next five years? If God chose Adam and Eve to rule the garden, then why would only men rule the church? What do treasures in heaven look like?

Why do so many Christians view decision-making in terms of open doors? Is that a legitimate biblical concept? My thoughts on doctor-assisted suicide, my thoughts on the movie or the show The Chosen, does the traditional view of marriage lead to harm toward gay and lesbian people? Is the ESV biased against women in church leadership? And there are several other questions I'm going to get to, which I'm going to jump into in just a second. If you want to become part of the Patreon community and also become part of the

whole Q&A process, asking questions, voting on questions, you can go to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. All the info is in the show notes. And for those of you who are viewing this podcast on the line on the YouTube, you can notice that I'm wearing my nifty camo Newman family barbecue hat. This is some merch that my buddy Jay Newman gave me. Jay Newman is the co-founder of Newman family barbecue. If you want to check out some of the most amazing barbecue you can ever sink your teeth into, then go to Instagram and look up Newman family BBQ and you get all the info there and get pictures of some absolutely mouthwatering brisket and ribs and chicken and sausage. And just, I'm already getting hungry, so I need to stop. And by the way, Jay has no clue

that I'm advertising his barbecue company. I just, I don't know. I wore the hat and I'm looking at myself in the camera here and I'm like, hey, I probably should need to mention something about Newman Family Barbecue. So thanks, Jay, for cooking up some absolutely scrumptious food. Okay, let's dive in. So what we're going to do is we're going to get to all of you are going to be able to hear a few of these questions and then my Patreon supporters are going to hear the rest of these questions. So you're going to get a sneak. For those who aren't on Patreon, you're getting a sneak peek of a few of the first questions we're going to address. So let's jump in. My first question comes from John. He says, what are some areas that I think

Christian leaders need to put more attention into for the next five or so years? What would you like to see books and dissertations written on? This is a great question that I probably spent more time thinking about it than I really had time for because it just sent me into some fun spaces where I can kind of just sit back in my chair and think, you know, what are some areas that I think need a lot more research into areas that maybe haven't received as much research as they should have received. And, you know, at first I was like, I couldn't really think of too many because as I look around, I look at books and look at social media, what people are talking about. I'm like, it seems like everything think of too many because as I look around, I look at books and look at social media, what people are talking about.

I'm like, it seems like everything's kind of covered, you know. But then as I thought more, I'm like, no, no, no, there's definitely some areas that I think could definitely use more time, attention, maybe different approaches. So I'm primarily a, like, in terms of like, if I'm going to answer like the dissertation side of this, like, is there room for like an actual phd dissertation that that gets really particular and and you got to really know the field well before you answer that question we have to even distinguish between different fields of study like biblical studies theology uh philosophy history um ancient history modern history you know there's so many areas we can look at here. So I'm primarily, I'm in a biblical studies guy. And I, so in terms of like really hardcore, like dissertation type studies, that's going to be really probably the only area I'm going to be able to speak into.

The problem is I haven't kept up on a lot of that literature, you know, that was my first kind of initial thought. I'm like, well, I don't, I don't really even know the field in terms of like cutting edge scholarship coming out. I'm not going to a lot of like theological conferences where you can get kind of glimpses of what's coming down the pipeline. So I'm like, I don't know if I even have much thought on that. But then I thought, no, there is an area that I've been doing a lot of research on that I think would be really interesting to keep pursuing. And that is the relationship. Okay, so here's one kind of, I guess, dissertation-ish topic, or just even if somebody just wants to do a deep dive, but the relationship between

early Christian responses to the Roman imperial cult and its implication, or its implications for modern politics today. I mean, honestly, this is, I'm kind of, I'm writing a book on that. That's what I'm working on right now. The tentative title is called Exile. Subtitle is A Christian Political Identity. I call it my politics book, but I'm not really dealing with modern day politics. I'm dealing with how does the Bible shape a Christian view of living in what one might call the shadow of the empire? So much of the Bible is devoted to this kind of negotiating their allegiance to Yahweh vis-a-vis or against the backdrop of other political powers that they are living under the authority of. I mean, I would say from the exile onward, the rest of scripture is kind of written from that context. Well, that's a huge

chunk of scripture that is written from the context of followers of God trying to negotiate this really sometimes tense relationship between their allegiance to God and how they are to live as the community of God's people in the world, and how they are to live a submissive life to the governing authorities? How are they to seek the good of the city while not adopting the values of the city? How can they believe both Romans 13, which says submit to governing authorities and Revelation 13, which says, yeah, those governing authorities are also empowered by Satan. You see these tensions in scripture that I think are really interesting for contributing to how modern day Christians should view their relationship to governing authorities.

There's been a lot of work done on the ancient context, and obviously there's tons of books written on modern day politics, but to put those two in conversation, I think would be really fascinating. Again, I mean, you say, I'm kind of writing that book right now, but my book is not dissertation level. This would be kind of like just kind of diving into that conversation. But I'm already seeing just like several dissertation topics kind of coming up along the way. They can be more nitty gritty, like how does the book of Philippians or book of Ephesians or the book of Acts shape our political imagination for today? So there's a lot more deep dive studies that I'm coming across. I'm like, oh my gosh, there's a lot here. So that

would be one area in terms of a biblical studies kind of general area that I think could definitely use a few dissertations. I also think there's a lot of room for just a biblical theology of gender. And when I say gender, I don't mean sex, like biological sex. So, you know, in more recent years, people define gender as something different than sex. So sex is biological sex. Well, I mean, there's different ways to interpret that. But gender, when used in distinction from sex, refers to the psychological, social, and cultural aspects of being male and female. And there's different subcategories under that, gender identity, gender role, gender expression. And so when I say, what does the Bible say about gender? I'm not saying what does the Bible say about males and females as biological realities.

I'm talking about what does it say about gender when gender is defined as something somewhat different than sex. There's really only been, I mean, a few books on that conversation that I'm aware of. Again, tons of books written on men and women and gender roles or whatever. But in terms of, I think, understanding the relationship between gender and biological sex, how does the Bible contribute to this? You have male and female sex distinctions all throughout scripture written in Genesis 1. You also have people like the eunuch in Matthew 19, Book of Acts and in the Old Testament that might represent somebody with, you know, some kind of disorder of sex development or an intersex condition. You also have certain, so certain like, so when we talk about the psychological, social and cultural aspects of being male and female, like passages like 1 Corinthians 11, Paul does seem to endorse cultural norms surrounding expressions of biological sex with regard to hair length, head coverings. And there's debate about what Paul's even talking about there.

But even something like that, like how much of, what kind of cultural expectations for how men and women should act should be endorsed, abided by, followed by, you know, the believers in God? How much do we have room to be counter-cultural in our expressions of our male and female biological sexes? Are there any unique command? Well, this gets in an area where I think people have touched in, you know, are there, what kinds of gender role,

different gender roles are endorsed by scripture? So anyway, these are just some of the questions that come up. I mean, you know, I dealt with this to some extent in my book embodied and there's been other books being written on this. I know my friend Rachel Gilson is doing her PhD on this area. And I think Rachel will probably be

the first one to say, yeah, there's more work to be done here. So in terms of biblical studies, those are some stuff, those are some things that come to mind. I think on a more general level, I mean, I think we're obviously faced with the whole question of just sexual abuse in the church. In our post-MeToo, post-ChurchTube context, I think these questions around women in the church and sexual abuse in the church are hugely important. And I know there has been quite a bit of work done there, but I think there's always room for more work there. I think technology is a huge one. Yeah. I mean, Josh Smith is doing work on a theology of robots and he's busy. He's a busy guy because there's just so much coming out around AI, robots, guy because there's just so much coming out around AI, robots, and other advancements in technology and how Christians should think through that on a theological level. And I think that's an area that will always be, there will always be needs there because just technology just keeps

developing. So there's new questions being raised every single day. Here's a book that I think I would love to see written is basically a 2023 version of Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death. Neil Postman wrote this book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, back in, I believe, the mid-80s, was it? And everybody who reads this book today says this book feels like it could have been written yesterday. Even though Neil Postman is writing in the 80s, he's talking about how the screen form of communication, like instead of just like radio or newspaper, like getting information out there, now that we've become a screen-driven culture, and he's thinking of the television, how that has just completely reshaped how we process information, how the very medium shapes the message. This is kind of a famous idea.

The medium is the message. I think that comes from Postman. No, I don't think it comes from him. I think it's quoted in there. It's kind of, it's a big part of the book. But so, I mean, he's dealing with questions that we're dealing with today, only he's dealing with them back in the 80s. And it's so prophetic. And I just read the book recently. And almost every sentence, I'm like,

man, would love to explore this in terms of our post-internet world. Would love to think through this question in terms of social media, things that he wasn't even aware of back when he wrote that book. And I know that there has been, I think one of his students wrote a book back in like the mid 20 teens, like 2015 or something as kind of an update, kind of like what would Neil say today? I think I've not read that book, but even that, I mean, I think a lot of things have changed even since 2015. So yeah, those are some thoughts. I hope if some of you are, yeah, curious about chasing one of those down, then I think there's a lot there to consider. Next question comes from Alex. If God chose both Adam and Eve to rule the garden, then why would he say only men are able to rule the church?

I mean, this is a great question. It's kind of a loaded question because this is an argument from the egalitarian side of this debate. That, you know, when you look especially at Genesis 1, you see nothing but mutuality. God created them male and female and then commanded them both to rule over the earth. And there's no evidence in Genesis 1 in particular that one is to rule over the other, one is to lead the other, that there's any kind of differences in roles here in Genesis 1 is how the argument goes. Genesis 2 opens up a few more questions. Again, egalitarians are going to say, no, we still have, you know, both of them are

doing the same thing. Both of them are totally equal. Even that, I don't like framing it in terms of both of them are equal. Of course, they're both equal. But that doesn't mean you can have equality and role distinctions. Like, that's kind of a starting assumption. You know, if you say no, if there's any role distinctions, then that means there's no more equality. Then there's no more discussion. You've already ended the discussion. You have to be egalitarian because equality is something that's not debated. We have to, you

know, so I think starting with the assumption, that assumption that if we can show equality in Genesis 1 and 2, therefore that rules out any kind of role distinction in the church and in the home. I just think that logic starting off is not helpful or even sound. So anyway, so let me back up. I don't want to even word it in terms of like equality language. Does Genesis 2 talk about different role distinctions? That's getting a little bit more, there's a little bit more debate there. And then of course, in Genesis 3, then now we have

a lot more distinctions opened up, but then now we're dealing with a fallen world. So how many of these distinctions and roles are due to the fall? How many are part of God's intended design in creation? So these are the questions that come up. I would say that, you know, yes, of course, men and women are commanded to rule the earth in Genesis 1, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're both doing the exact same thing. I mean, think about it. You know, male and female, he created in the image of God, he created them, Genesis 1, 27. The very next verse says, be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth and rule

over the birds and the fishes in the sea and everything. And most people would say that part of ruling over the earth is procreating and filling the earth. That's part of our command to rule over the earth. But clearly in procreation, men and women are playing different roles. They're both commanded to rule, but that doesn't mean they're ruling in the exact same way. So even if you follow the logic of the argument, I don't think it would necessarily, just because both are commanded to rule doesn't mean both are also commanded to rule in the exact same way, because again, it's linked to the command to procreate. I'm also nervous about the language of ruling applied to church leadership. I did a bit of digging on some of the language used in Genesis 1, 128, when we're commanded to rule or subdue the earth and

rule over the earth. The two verbs here are katakiriou. Gosh, I can't even pronounce that. kata kyu kyu kata kyu gosh i can't even pronounce that and it's a really strong kind of like it's a really strong ruling word like it means to bring into subjection become master to gain dominion over it's used in acts 19 16 where the man in whom was the evil spirit he leaped on them and he mastered all of them and overpowered them so that they fled out of the house naked and wounded. That doesn't feel like the language Paul and the whole New Testament uses to describe how servant leaders should lead the church. Like it's the exact opposite. This is the kind of like Gentiles lorded over them, you know, Matthew 20 kind of rule that Jesus says, don't do it that way. Whatever kind of rule is conceived there in Genesis 127, humans ruling over the earth, we have a kind of a linguistic

distinction in how leaders are commanded to lead the church in the New Testament. The second, there's another word here, arco, which is a really common word, just means to rule or to govern. Yeah, so this is one word used to describe how humans are to govern or rule the earth. But again, this is the word that's used in Mark 10, 42 to describe Gentile rule, not Christian, like Gentile, like pagan rule, not Christian rule. And again, that doesn't mean we're supposed to rule the earth as pagans rule. I'm not mapping the direct meaning on it. I'm just saying these are the kinds of ruling type words that are deliberately avoided when the New Testament talks about leadership in the church. And this is something that Andrew Clark and others have pointed out, that it is really curious that the common, just the really basic words for ruling,

for leading, for occupying a position of high power, high status, that these common words in the New Testament that are used to describe ruling in general in the New Testament are avoided when Paul and others want to describe leadership in the church, which I think, again, is just, I think Paul and others go out of their way to stress the idea that leadership in the church should not look like how people rule in different ways in the broader society. So yeah, so I would be nervous. society. So yeah, so I would be nervous. Yeah, again, so just to summarize, I don't think, I think male and female can both rule over the earth without them both doing the exact same thing. I think there can be role distinctions within equal rule. And I also get nervous about drawing too straight of a line between the command to exercise rule over creation and the framework through which certain believers should lead the church. Okay, next question. What do treasures in heaven look like? It seems

materialistic to do something motivated by treasures in heaven or on earth, but we're told that's our reward. Davis, a great question. And I was both nervous to answer this question and excited because I don't have an answer. I was like, I've always wondered this. Treasures in heaven. And this is similar to, well, let me just look at a few passages here. First of all, so we know that we're dealing with actual texts and scripture. Matthew 6.20, Jesus, you know, we're told to, by Jesus, to store up for ourselves treasures in heaven. Matthew 10.41 mentions rewards that await believers who serve the Lord faithfully. Great is the reward promised to those who are persecuted for Jesus's sake. 2 Timothy, well, in 2 Timothy 2, 2, 8,

or sorry, 2 Timothy 4, 8, various crowns are mentioned, crowns that await us. Jesus says that when he returns in Revelation 22, 12, he'll bring with him his reward. And let's see, Colossians 3, 23 to 24, serve the Lord wholeheartedly because if we do so, we'll receive an inheritance from the

Lord as a reward. Matthew 10, 42, anyone who gives a cup of cold water to one of these little ones, who's my disciple, will not lose their reward. So you have reward and treasures in heaven kind of language. It's pretty common in the New Testament and I'm embarrassed to say. language. It's pretty common in the New Testament, and I head over to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw to join theology in the raw's Patreon community. That's patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.