Theology in the Raw - S9 Ep972: Seeing God’s Common Grace in a Broken World: Dr. Tim Muehlhoff

Episode Date: May 16, 2022

Dr. Tim Muehlhoff (Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) is a Professor of Communication at Biola University in La Mirada, California where he teaches classes in conflict resolution, apologetics, gender, and family communication. He is co-director of Biola’s Winsome Conviction Project that seeks to reintroduce compassion and civility into our disagreements. He’s the co-host of the Winsome Conviction Podcast where people with differing viewpoints are brought on for engaging dialogue. Tim has written extensively in the area of cultural engagement and conflict resolution including Winsome Conviction: Disagreeing without Dividing the Church and Winsome Persuasion: Christian Influence in a Post Christian World (with Biola professor Rick Langer) each having received a merit award from Christianity Today’s Book of the Year Awards. Tim’s most recent book is Eyes to See: Recognizing God’s Common Grace in an Unsettled World, which is the topic of our conversation.  https://timmuehlhoff.com –––––– PROMOS Save 10% on courses with Kairos Classroom using code TITR at kairosclassroom.com! –––––– Sign up with Faithful Counseling today to save 10% off of your first month at the link:  faithfulcounseling.com/titr or use code TITR at faithfulcounseling.com –––––– Save 30% at SeminaryNow.com by using code TITR –––––– Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | Preston Sprinkle Check out Dr. Sprinkle’s website prestonsprinkle.com Stay Up to Date with the Podcast Twitter | @RawTheology Instagram | @TheologyintheRaw If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review. www.theologyintheraw.com

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I am so excited to announce that the video version of the Exiles of Babylon conference is officially done. At least I hope it is. I'm pre-recording this intro and they told me it'd be done by May 16th. So if indeed this podcast is released on May 16th, then unless something crazy happened, the videos should be available on the Theology and Rot website, theologianrot.com. Go check it out. We spent a lot of time and money hiring a really good video crew with tons of great different angles, and they're amazing editors.

So we really wanted to produce a video version of the conference that came as close as we could to being there live. Like, it's not just one camera. Like, it does take you up close and gives you some extra perks and everything. So please check out the Theology in Raw website if you would like to watch for the first time or re-watch for the second or 10th time of the Exiles in Babylon conference. My guest today is Dr. Tim Muehlhoff. Tim has been on the show before and is an expert in helping Christians communicate with each other better. He's the author and founder and director of the Winsome Conviction Project at Biola University. Tim has a PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

He's a professor of communications at Biola University in California, and he's the author of the most recent book, Eyes to See, Recognizing God's Common Grace in an Unsettled World, which is the focus of our conversation today. So please welcome back to the show, the one and only Dr. Tim Muehlhoff. All right. Hey, friends, I'm back with Dr. Tim Muehlhoff. You might remember Tim from last year's podcast. Tim, I think it was about this time last year. It was spring in 2021, I think, when you came on. I think it was.

Yeah. I think it was this early too. A little bit of a bone to pick with you, but yes. Well, I started podcasting at 7.30 a.m. this morning. I just got off with, do you know Beth Allison Barr? Yes. Just did a podcast with her. Oh, that's great.

So you're number two and I got number three. I don't know who I, let me see. No, this is good. This is fun. Let me see who I got coming on next. Oh, the next one's on Intersex. So I got a kid who, kid, a guy who did his PhD on Intersex and then an Intersex friend of mine talking about Intersex. So that's a diverse morning for me, man. It's a diverse morning. Well, I mean, last time you were on, we talked about your, your winsome conviction book and project. I feel like that's probably going to be the overarching umbrella of everything you do is going to reflect that. Can you just give us a snapshot of what the Winsome Conviction project is? And then I want to dive into your latest book, Eyes to See, because I think it's obviously super, super relevant in the times we're living in. the times we're living in. Yeah, well, you know, it's weird, Preston, in a time in which Americans don't agree on much. 98% of Americans agree that incivility is a major threat to our country.

Wow. And 65% believe that incivility is already at crisis levels. And a whopping 87% of Americans say, I do not feel safe sharing my perspective publicly. 87? When it comes to race. 87%. This is a group that's been doing this survey for the past 20 years, and incivility is really on the rise. And people are concerned about that. So the Winsome Conviction Project is asking the questions, what can Christians bring to the dialogue? Not just in content, but in speaking, in how we address a topic. Can we really speak truth and love? And we want to say in today's argument culture, we're very short on love, compassion, civility, perspective-taking, empathy. And so the Winsome Conviction Project is attempting to teach

Christians how to talk to non-Christians, but even how to talk to Christians. So the first book we wrote was called Winsome Persuasion, and that is how to talk to non-Christians. But as we were on the book tour, pastors were coming up to us saying, hey, it's great talking to non-Christians, but brother, we can't talk to each other. I was going to say, that's more challenging than the non-Christians in my experience. Right. Oh, I totally agree with that. So the second book was Winsome Conviction, Disagreeing Without Dividing the Church. And we, I agree with what you said, Preston, it is much harder to have a disagreement with a Christian because he wants to, she wants to say, have a disagreement with a Christian because he wants to, she wants to say, Hey, here's what the Bible says. I mean, come on, this issue is done because this is clearly what the Bible says.

And then another person says, that is not what the Bible says. The Bible actually says opposite of what you're doing. And then it's right. So that's what the project's about and we've been training churches christian organizations um conversations about covid race immigration critical race theory just trying to to one focus on the content but more importantly can we do this in a distinctly christian way where it's gentleness if insulted give, give a blessing instead. A wise man overlooks an insult, book of Proverbs. So that we're trying to model what that might look like. Yeah. Did you read that recent article by Jonathan Haidt in The Atlantic? It's a lengthy... It just came out. You should check this out. I listened to part of it, and then I listened to

two podcasts where he was being interviewed about it. But basically, he traces the rise of social media and says that what began as kind of family photos, keeping in touch with family, whatever, like pre-2011. what oh he he credits to the the retweet button on the on twitter and then the share on facebook and then all of a sudden now this became in it social media transformed into tribalistic kind of things and it just got worse and worse and worse and he he says i mean he made a statement on a podcast where somebody even said like wait are you are you serious? He thinks this can absolutely just destroy the fabric of our country. Like just the polarization being exacerbated on social media. It's a profound article. I like Jonathan Haidt. Jonathan Haidt is great.

And this idea of tribalism is really true. We have a whole chapter in wisdom conviction on group think oh yeah social media absolutely group think yeah and now we get algorithms have you seen the social dilemma oh gosh how come that hasn't frightened everybody away from their right i mean i watched it and all we're just my family's like stunned then five later, we're back on our phones. It's like, wait, did this not sink in? Yep. Yep. It's a testimony to short-term persuasion.

Oh, my word. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Well, I want to – yeah, so I encourage people. So I haven't recorded the intro yet, but I'm sure I said something like, you know, Tim is an expert in communication and this lost art of charitable dialogue, courteous listening, and just being able to dialogue the way Christians should dialogue,

this is your wheelhouse. Now, your recent book, Eyes to See, Recognizing God's Common Grace in an Unsettled World, it just came out a few months ago, December. I have not read it. But can you give us a snapshot of what it's about and then why you felt compelled to write this book? Because I mean, I know just from looking at the book enough, like, oh my gosh, there's a, I sense a bit of urgency behind writing this book. This isn't just some abstract theology or whatever. Right. Well, I mean, I feel the tension most people feel, and I think Christians acutely feel this tension. Let's just think about the last week. You had the New York subway shooting. You had tornadoes that wreaked havoc on communities. Ukraine is becoming more frightening every single day. And we want to say God's loving, present, active. And sometimes I feel that tension of wanting to say, yeah, I believe those things.

But I don't see evidence of God being involved in ways that I want to see him involved. I mean, come on, you can intervene when it comes to Putin and what's happening to these dear refugees. We've seen it in the Old Testament. You can harden the pharaoh's heart. But I don't see him acting in what I would say dramatic ways. And so maybe my expectations of how God acts needs to be adjusted to fit something called common grace, which is his more subtle ways of intervening in the world. Okay. That's good.

That's awesome. Yeah, we are going – I mean it's been a rough two years. I mean what do you even pinpoint? I mean let's just – the pandemic, maybe the start of the pandemic, and then you had – even the race stuff, it's – as a white guy, it's like, yeah. Then we – all these racial tensions began. I hear some people frame it. It's like, no, they were just simply acknowledged.

And it's not like this is something new. So I want to make sure I word it correctly. Then you had the polarization with the pandemic, the political polarization. And it breaks my heart and really, well, probably more angers me than anything when the church absorbs the tribalism that Babylon is engaging in. And it just drives me... Every single pastor, except for one, has said the last couple of years have been the most challenging discipleship season I've ever been in, and it has nothing to do with ethics or theology. been in and it has nothing to do with ethics or theology. And non-Christians have noticed. So I do martial arts. So I was at my martial arts studio and I happened to be preaching on a Sunday. And one of my non-Christian friends said, what are you preaching on?

And I said, where's God today? And he laughed out loud and said, hey, good luck with that. laughed out loud and said, hey, good luck with that. So, I mean, the subtext is, dude, you can believe in God all you want to, but man, just turn on the news. And there is ample evidence that God is not doing a darn thing to help us as we try to negotiate all the things we're negotiating. Because the church is not embodying a different way? Is that like – Well, because it's just not – I mean, come on. Watch Ukraine and say you're praying for Ukraine, right? We're all praying for Ukraine. But what is that doing?

I don't see that doing one thing to help the people of Ukraine. And then you see another subway mass shooting and you go, listen, you're God. So I quote Woody Allen, right, an atheist director. Woody Allen said, if God exists, he's certainly an underachiever. And I think a lot of non-Christians believe that. And I think, Preston, a lot of Christians silently believe, man, I don't see God acting. Like maybe I see it in the Old Testament. Maybe I see Jesus, you know, healing the blind, raising people from the dead. In the Old Testament, you see God intervening in very dramatic ways. Well, today, as a Christian, I don't see big dramatic things happening, but that's ignoring one whole part of theology called common grace, where God is giving

good gifts to the world 24-7, and he's giving it to Christians and non-Christians, but we don't see these good gifts. And so what would be a good gift? Well, imagine fighting COVID without N95 masks, antibiotics, the kindness and skill of researchers, EMS workers, hospitals. I mean, if we didn't have that, we would have been overrun by COVID. But God gets no credit whatsoever for hospitals, medical discoveries. And what I'm calling people back to, myself included, we need to give God credit. James says every good gift comes from God. So if it's good, it originated with God. And so to step back and say, thank God for Zoom, thank God for Skype, or we wouldn't even be having this interview. But God tends to get no credit for the good.

He just gets blamed for the bad. And we ignore this whole doctrine of common grace. I've often thought too, this is maybe, I don't know if this would fit in under common grace, but like when we, I remember like after 9-11, you know, everybody was wrestling with, you know, where is God and all this. And I, tell me if this is even worth thinking about. Like, you know, I said, okay, there's no way to frame it. That was a horrible, horrible event. How do we know that God didn't prevent a thousand planes from flying into the buildings every single day? Like, we don't know what's going on behind the scenes at how God is. Kind of like the Daniels at 10 or 11.

Daniel 10, you know, the angels going to battle the Prince of Persia and now he's running over there. We have no clue what's going on behind the scenes. And I hesitate even saying that because it sounds like I'm downplaying the evil and wickedness and suffering that does happen. I'm not doing that at all. I'm just saying that from a creaturely perspective, there's so much God at least could be doing. Of course, an atheist would say, well, you're just making stuff up. It's an argument from silence.

And I acknowledge that. But if there is a God, there could be so many things he's doing behind the scenes. Like, again, what if the evil we see are just a couple things here and there that God does allow to happen and I won't claim to know why? Right. But we don't know what he's doing behind the scenes to stop it. Yeah, but we even do know what he's doing, not behind the scenes, but what's obvious. So I just flew.

I just got back from Orlando, Florida. Guess what I had to do? I had to go through a metal detector. All my bags were screened. And so that technology, right, we could either say, well, thank God, really smart inventors who came up with metal detection devices. But that's common grace. So I do believe what you're saying is true. But God doesn't just like snap his fingers and prevent evil.

He uses human partners and uses technology to do it. So in the book, it's called Eyes to See, Recognizing God's Common Grace in an Unsettled World. So in it, I talk about penicillin. Think about this for a second. If we didn't have penicillin, we're in the dark ages. So I don't know if you know the story behind penicillin, but Alexander Fleming in the 1920s is like a sloppy lab tech, right? He goes off on a two week vacation, comes back and some of his Petri dishes are covered with mold and some aren't and some are half covered. And he's like, well, that's really weird. Why wouldn't the mold grow completely on the Petri dish? So he comes up with the idea of penicillin, writes a paper, presents it and then files it away in the 1920s up with the idea of penicillin, writes a paper, presents it,

and then files it away in the 1920s. And nobody knows about penicillin until World War II. Really? A British researcher is tasked by the British government, hey, you need to help our soldiers because they're all dying of disease in the bloody battlefields of World War II, Europe. So this guy does research, comes across the paper and goes, oh my gosh, this is amazing. Penicillin is now mass produced in Britain and the United States. And today, penicillin is lifesaver. Now, Alexander Fleming, not a Christian. So he has this great quote saying, you know, I really didn't mean to change all of medical history by my discovery, but I guess

sometimes that's just what happens. So that's one explanation is that was a serendipitous no, I really didn't mean to change all of medical history by my discovery, but I guess sometimes that's just what happens. So that's one explanation is that was a serendipitous moment by a researcher. But if the Bible is true and James says, no, no, no, no, no, every good gift originates from the father of lights. And many theologians believe James is looking up at the sky, seeing all the stars, saying, these good gifts are as plentiful as all the stars in the sky. So that's what we need to say to our non-Christian friends and to even fellow believers who say, well, where is God in Ukraine? I'm going to say, oh, well, okay, I feel that tension too. But imagine we would be without NATO, right? I mean, Putin would be running the table right now. Imagine we would be without NATO, right? I mean, Putin would be running the table right now.

Imagine we would be without defensive weapons to fight off evil. Imagine we would be without the kindness of Poland, who's taken in 40% of the refugees. I mean, there's a great picture of this train pulling up. And it's mostly women and children, because if you're a man 18 to 60, you can't leave Ukraine. You've got to fight. So here's this train pulls up, and there are 100 baby strollers. women and children, because if you're a man, 18 to 60, you can't leave Ukraine, you got to fight. So here's this train pulls up and there are 100 baby strollers sitting on the platform that these mothers are going to use. And these are all Polish women, many of them non-Christians, but spurred on by God's kindness, compassion, and goodwill. And God gets, he doesn't get credit for

any of that. Wow. Yeah. The bathroom book is about presence. The eyes to see is actually a C.S. Lewis quote. Remember when the cosmonaut went up into space and famously said, I don't see God. Oh yeah. Yeah. And Lewis wrote to his nephew and said, you know what? You take a saint and send him up into space. He's going to see God everywhere, just like he saw God everywhere on earth. Okay.

So we need to have eyes to see God's good gifts. And that's what the book is about, is training ourselves to recognize the good things God are doing. And I'm not denying the supernatural, Preston, at all. Right, right, right. But I'm just saying in my life, the supernatural tends to be rare. But God's common grace, I can identify every day if I choose to. Well, even throughout the Bible, there are seasons when the supernatural seems to be much more active and other seasons when it's not.

You take the post-exilic period. It's one of my favorite parts of the Bible because it's so undertaught, underread. one of my favorite parts of the Bible because it's so under, undertaught, under read, you know, but like, you know, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, I mean, the whole theme, especially in, in as well as, as well in all books, really the whole theme is God working behind the scenes. There's not a single Red Sea parting, you know, and it's easy for us to say like, okay, it's a little blip on the biblical story. Well, we're talking about, you know, 150 years of history. This is like going back to like, what if God didn't do any single miracle from 1850 to today? You know, we would say, that's a long period of time.

You know, well, that's the post-exilic period as it's told in the Bible. And God is working through kings. He's working through decrees. He's, you know, the book of Esther famously doesn't even mention God. And I think most people would agree that that's rhetorically on purpose. The author wants to show God working behind the scenes through human actors. He's not dipping his finger in the historical flow of history, like parting red seas and stuff. But he is still at work.

And, of course, in the three years of the life of Christ, we read about He's doing all kinds of miracles. But again, that's three and a half years in the apostolic period as miracles and stuff. But yeah, God sometimes works in miraculous ways and sometimes He doesn't, but that doesn't mean He's not at work. So I did this with my class. I'm a professor at Biola University. So I walked in my class. I said, okay, you can get into a time machine and you can see any miracle of the Bible that you want, any act of God that you want. So what's on the list? So people were saying, obviously the fall of Jericho, the parting of the Red Sea, Jesus raising somebody from the dead. And then I joked and said, how many of you would pick the ancient church creating sanitation systems?

And they were like, what? It's like, well, listen, where would where would a city be? Oh, yeah. without a sanitation system? And so we know from church history, that's exactly what some Christians did, is they helped create roads and sanitation systems. And all I want to say is, hey, Jesus raising someone from the dead is an absolute act of God. So is that sanitation system, because God was spurring on inventors and thinkers and designers to help with real problems. And that would be a sanitation issue. So to me, we're not excluding one thing or another. We're broadening our idea of what does it mean for God to act.

And I think that's going to encourage both Christians. of what does it mean for God to act. And I think that's going to encourage both Christians, and I think it's going to make non-Christians go, well, okay, how can you prove penicillin came from God? And my answer is, I can't. But let me tell you why I think there's a God and why I think there's a loving God who I think would be interesting

in giving us penicillin to fight off disease. Right. Well, yeah, you can't use common grace as like an argument for the existence of God. I don't think that's the purpose, right? But if you assume, if you do prove God exists, then you can kind of say, okay, let's explore what this God may be like. Can you, I mean, we're recording this, I don't even know the date today. What's today's date? April? Today is April 19th. April 19th. What's the – where are we at with the Ukraine thing?

I followed it closely up until about a week ago. I'm getting bits and pieces and stuff. Is it – yeah. Pretend like I haven't followed it in the last week. What's the latest update? It's about to get worse. Really? What's the latest update?

It's about to get worse. Really? May 9th is one of the biggest celebrations in Russia. It is celebrating the end of World War II. And the huge role Russia and the Soviet Union played in winning World War II. I mean, they sacrificed 22 million people to turn back Hitler. So they celebrate that every May 9th All the experts are saying Putin is Desperate on May 9th to say the war is over and we've accomplished everything we wanted to accomplish in Ukraine

So what he's doing is he's moved away from Kiev Now he's taking all of his forces and he's going after one particular region that he wants to get by May 9th. And unfortunately, he's going to be brutal getting it. He's bombing the tar out of this one particular region of Ukraine. And we are going to see a devastation that we have not yet seen in this war with Ukraine. And it's going to get worse. So I think more people are going to say, okay, my prayers are doing what? Like, what are my prayers doing as I watch these horrific images? And that's one of the ways I think we can step in and say, but okay, I'm not denying the bad things that are happening. My goodness, that'd be ridiculous. But let's consider for a second the good that is happening through the kindness of strangers relief organization,

President Biden stepping up in big dramatic ways and said putting money where his mouth is, sending money and materials to Ukraine. I think those are all good gifts coming from God. Okay. What's the threat of like NATO getting involved and then possibly nuclear war and all that? Is that still kind of like a day-to-day like, because the second the West gets involved directly, is that nuclear war? I mean... Well, so hang with me. I actually make the argument in the book that apocalyptic literature is a gift from God. So think about this for a second. What is keeping Putin in check and NATO in check is this idea, hey, this could go off the rails. Like we've seen how many times we've seen a movie where this goes off the rails.

And in fact, you get World War Three and then you get a post-apocalyptic world. So I actually mentioned a very famous protest song called 99 Red Balloons. Have you heard of this song, 99 Red Balloons? The German version and the English version are very interesting. They both got to number one in the United States. So it's based on a true story. in the United States. So it's based on a true story. A guy is at a Rolling Stones concert in West Berlin, and people are letting go red balloons. And as the balloons are going over into East Berlin, he has this idea, I wonder how they interpret these red balloons. Like when they're looking at the radar, could they interpret this as an attack? And so he writes this song, 99 Red Balloons, where in fact that does happen. And these balloons are viewed on this as an attack? And so he writes this song, 99 Red Balloons, where in fact that does happen. And these balloons are viewed on radar as an attack that launches a counterattack

and it destroys the entire world. And the song ends with a guy standing, letting go one red balloon as a testimony to what humanity used to be. But all these apocalyptic stories, and we could go to poetry, literature, film, and we all get the sense of what the world could look like if things go south. That's what's holding Putin in check. And President Biden in check is, hey, we can't let this go south because we've all seen movies and read stories about this. And I think that's a common grace that God is letting us envision what, what it would look like if the rebellion really took root. And now we're launching nuclear missiles at each other. Gosh, it's so like the economic sanction.

I don't know enough about, you know, warfare stuff among nations and what's the right thing to do. So I don't – but it's sad to me that like the economic sanctions are just hammering like the Russian people, right, who are not for the war. But it's like there's not of civilians that, you know, whatever they signed off on the survey, they're probably not supportive of the war. I don't know. Right. And who knows what they're even getting, what the Russians are getting of how the war has been framed rhetorically. So again, but again, go back to common grace.

There's protesters in Russia that that are standing and again i say to my students listen imagine you're a college student in russia and you're going to protest and get arrested you just canceled your future in that country you you're not hireable anymore in that country yet the bravery of some of these students standing up saying, I can't remember the famous woman. The Russian newscast is happening. Yeah. And she comes up and holds up a sign that says the war is wrong. You're being lied to. Well, I can imagine how Russian authorities felt about that.

And that poor woman right now could go to jail for 10 to 20 years. But where did the courage come from is what I would argue is God's common grace, is that he gave her the courage to step in and protest. And now she has a lawyer. And God's not going to abandon her. Now, she may go to jail, but God's common grace is going to follow her. Maybe the kindness of other inmates, maybe the kindness of a guard who's going to help her. So he doesn't cancel out evil. He doesn't totally shield us from it, but he's always working 24-7 to lessen the effects of evil. effects of evil.

Now, could it be, I mean, there are cases, right, where people don't actually experience the tangible common grace of God, like that reporter, what if she does go to prison, gets brutally raped, and then dies? Like, we can't assume that there's always going to be some encounter with God's common grace, right? No, sadly, no. I think you're right. I think sometimes it's brutally difficult to see it. But let me give you an alternative. So we know from Corrie Ten Boom that when she was in the concentration camp with her sister, who would eventually die. I mean, her sister would die in that concentration camp. Corrie would be let go from a clerical error.

There was an error made that she was supposed to be released when, in fact, she was never supposed to be released. So we could chalk that up to God's common grace. But the fact is her sister dies. But here's what's interesting about Corrie Ten Boom. She actually praised God for lice because the lice was so bad in the barracks that she lived, the German would not go into the barracks. So she could have open Bible study within the barracks because of lice. So you see what I mean? It is an attitude to say, I'm not denying the horrors of a concentration camp, and I'm not denying the death of my sister.

horrors of a concentration camp. And I'm not denying the death of my sister. But even in the midst of all of that horror, I don't believe God has abandoned me. And I'm going to try to find a way to see the good. Now, listen, even non-Christians do this. Remember Viktor Frankl, man's search for meaning? This is a non-Christian guy in a concentration camp. And he's coming up with this idea of positive psychology where he's saying, even in the midst of a concentration camp, I still have made a friend. So there's friendship. There's compassion, a fellow concentration camp member. So this is coming from a non-Christian. Yeah. Right.

members. So this is coming from a non-Christian, right? So even God, I think, is infusing a non-Christian with this idea of, hey, keep your eyes open for my kindness. So again, Preston, I'm not minimizing evil because it's for real. But I also want to say we will get pretty bitter quickly if we're not adding common grace to the mix. So I share a joke to start the book, Preston, and I'm sure you've heard this joke. And I bet a lot of your listeners have heard the joke. But I thought it was the perfect way to start the book. So here's the joke. I'll tell it very quickly.

So a man learns that there's a flash flood going to happen. But he's okay. He's a Christian. God's going to save him. So the floodwaters come. Now he's on the second floor of his house. A boat comes by and says, hey, jump in the boat. We'll take you to safety. He goes, no, I'm good. God's going to save me. Now he's up the second floor of his house. A boat comes by and says, hey, jump in the boat. We'll take you to safety.

He goes, no, I'm good. God's going to save me. Now he's up on the roof. The floodwaters are that high. And a FEMA helicopter drops a ladder and says, hey, jump on the ladder. He goes, no, I'm good. God's going to save me. Well, he dies, stands before God.

He's mad. And God goes, what do you want? I gave you a radio message, a boat, and a helicopter. Yeah. You see, his expectations were what? Like, what were his expectations standing on that roof? That God would do what? A divine hand would come and pick him up? Crosswinds would blow the water away from his house? But no, he sent a boat, he sent a helicopter and the guy said yeah but that's not matching my expectations what divine intervention would look like so i'm not gonna uh give you credit that and i think that's a huge mistake we're making today because we're not giving him credit for a boat and i get the disappointment. I get that I would want something miraculous

to save me, but I'm going to stink and get in a boat and now have to give God credit for a boat when I wanted so much more. That's the tension I felt that leads to this book. Yeah. So you're just trying to teach people to have a more, a theologically wide angle lens in looking at the situation. I also wonder, and it's, whenever we deal with these kinds of questions, it's so hard because it's such sensitive things going on. There's so much suffering. But when I look at like the last, you know, we all think we're living in, gosh, this is

the end of the world. There's so much going on. We all think we're living in, gosh, this is the end of the world. There's so much going on. But in the last 100 years or so, I mean, you have the Spanish – what's the death toll at COVID? Is it over a million totally or two million? Five million worldwide. Five million?

Yeah, worldwide and one million, closing in on one million in the United States. So the Spanish flu was, what, 25 to 50 million? Something like that is crazy. And I think the Spanish was killing young, healthy people, whereas this one, I know comorbidities, age, and everything factors in, which not to downplay it, but it's not like tons of children are just dropping dead in the streets, whereas Spanish flu was more of that.

You have World War II, World War I, World War II, or even things like – think about the Rwandan genocide. Think if the Rwandan genocide happened in America, 800,000 people slaughtered by – many of them by neighbors that they went to church with the week before. Women with babies on their backs, walking next door with machetes and hacking to pieces the person they just had tea with the day before. Roughly 800,000 in 30 days. That is insane. Insane.

Insane. And yet it didn't happen. Insane. Insane. And yet it didn't happen. And part of me is it – I just wonder if there's a little bit of ethnocentrism. Maybe that's too strong of a term, but like our generation, let's just say Gen Xers and younger, have had a window of a fairly comfortable padded 30, 40, 50 years in America. comfortable padded you know 30 40 50 years in america um but globally and historically things like covid things like ukraine that that that's more normal than it's not and again not to downplay at all but um i don't know i just i don't think we we and this is known right we don't

have a strong resilience to suffering in America. That's not our fault. We grew up in kind of a nerfy world and you're going to cry harder when you bump your knee. I don't know. Even 9-11, people are like, where is God in 9-11? Like, well, you know 9-11 happened last week in Somalia the week before. There's terror again and again i'll say when we're done not to downplay that but this is not abnormal in the history of how people have lived you know so let's take a test case and the test

case will be this based on unicef research 3 000 kids will die today in africa because of malaria oh my word three thousand now um unicef has produced nets that are chemically treated because they're going to die from malaria transmitted by mosquitoes okay that's how they're going to die so unicef has created these nets that are chemically treated and they uh will save a family of five. They can sleep underneath these nets and the net will last three to five years. A net costs $15 for one net. Now think about that. It is an absolute tragedy in a fallen world that malaria exists and these kids are going to die 3000 a day today. Now, $15 a net. I will say to my students, count the change that is in your pocket right now. Like the money you have on you, just count the money. And we usually get around $300 or whatever. And then I say, how many mosquito nets can we buy

for that money? Now, listen, listen, I walked in with a vanilla latte from Starbucks because I cannot lecture without a vanilla latte from Starbucks, right? But do you see the tension between God's common grace? God's common grace is these treated mosquito nets, but UNICEF can't just do it by themselves. They need donations. Those donations are slow, right? And then Bono said this, the front man for U2, he said, listen, I promise you, if those 3,000 kids were white, you'd have more mosquito nets than you could deal with because people would not live in a world where 3,000 white kids are dying a day. But because it's 3,000 African kids, he called it racism by distance. So think of all the complexity of that example.

We have the technology. We have mosquito nets. That's God's common grace. But what's keeping us from responding as we should is maybe racism, maybe materialism. Hey, I can't spare 15 bucks because I'm getting a new phone. I've got to do this X, Y, or Z. So God is saying, I've given you common grace. But it's not being used as it could be because God needs human partners.

He chooses to use human partners. And sometimes we're really bad dance partners, both the church and those outside the church. So again, God's not a genie God. He says, okay, on three, malaria is gone. On three, I'm going to magically appear 10 billion mistreated nets. He's not the genie God. He wants to work with human partners. And sometimes we are resistant to working and we take his good gifts and we turn them for evil. Dynamite was originally

for agriculture. It was to break up really hard soil. Well, you better believe the military came in, took dynamite, and it's one of the most effective killing mechanisms we've ever seen in the world. But it was originally intended for good purposes, for agricultural purposes. Wow. Yeah, I think a big part of it is geographically induced indifference. Few humans I know, you take them over to, for instance, Africa, go into a hut where a mother just lost her two-year-old to malaria or something. And then you reach down your pocket and you find 15 bucks. I know a few people are like, no, I need to go home and buy my lot.

But that distance is just so, so tough. I feel on my own. I mean, I'm very passionate about the global movement of God and missions and everything. I've been overseas many times. And it doesn't take much but, you know, a few weeks to get back home. And all my first world problems now are front and center. And I totally forgot what I encountered, you know, in a more majority world country. And there's compassion fatigue.

That's for real. You turn on the internet and you just take a half hour and take a little tour of the world, you're going to see there are problems happening everywhere. And that, again, leads to this idea of like, well, okay, God, I don't get it. Like, why don't you just fix this place? And again, God says he's

going to. Revelation 21 paints a picture of this new Jerusalem coming down like a bride prepared for her husband. And remember what God says, I'm going to wipe away every tear, pain, sorrow, death will be done. But we're not in that period yet because God wants the church to be the church. He wants people to come to faith. Peter says, hey, do not take lightly God's patience because he wants all people to come to him. So God's given the church time and he's trying to reconcile this world. Paul says, you're all ambassadors for Christ as though God were reconciling through you. We need to take that seriously as God's communicators. I still, I mean, brother to brother, I still struggle with the problem of evil on a more globe, like a, to me, Christian universalism is really the only, if you just ask me emotionally,

the only real satisfying response to the problem of evil, because I mean, I agree with everything you're saying. I mean, it makes total biblical sense. There's common grace way more places than we realize it. Suffering has redemptive elements throughout. But at the end of the day, if a small portion of people can experience that new Jerusalem while the rest who not only suffered in this life, but now don't get to experience a new Jerusalem. So it's like a strike one, strike two. I mean, that's hard for me, you know, but my faith in God, faith in scripture outweighs whatever emotional, you know, hangups I have. That still is like, I don't know. That's a hard sell. Have you worked through that?

Well, go read the Psalms. What I appreciate about the Psalms is God gives permission for the psalmist to say, hey, wake up. I mean, literally to God, wake up. Where are you? Have you fallen asleep? And then remember C.S. Lewis, who is my, I would say, literary Lewis. But remember, he wrote a book, A Grief Observed, when his wife, Joy, was diagnosed with cancer.

She went into remission, came out very quickly and died. And he, biographers of Lewis said he never publicly defended his faith again and he wrote he wrote a grief observed which is like if you if you've read that this is a man wrestling with everything you and i just are talking about like it is hard for him to believe god's good in light of the death of his wife and And that gives all of us permission to question and vocalize what we're internally feeling. God can handle it. So I love the fact that there's, and remember, Pascal even said, you got to answer the question of the hiddenness of God. Like God sure seems to be hidden today. And every religion, including Christianity, needs to answer that question. And so I love the fact that we are given permission to wrestle with God, because Jesus even

wrestled, right? I mean, on the cross, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Unless he's play acting, that's what he's feeling. He's feeling it in his humanity. I've been abandoned by God. Well, that gives me great comfort that I have a high priest who can sympathize with my weaknesses. And in the Greek, sympathize means knowledge by way of common experience. So Jesus knows what it's like to live in a fallen world and experience that fallen world. So do you think, so are you saying like a legitimate response to the problem of evil isn't necessarily figuring it all out, but living in the Psalms and saying, God, I do not understand this. Wake up.

This doesn't make sense. Period. Like not, oh, but I read this book and I got it all buttoned out. Yep. Well, except if it's my book. Except if it's my book. Except if it's my book present. But no, I think lament is firmly established in the scriptures. So I think we can be in a time of lament and lamenting a world that's in sin, lamenting a world where kids die of malaria and Ukraine's being blown to bits. of malaria and Ukraine's being blown to bits. And I think we can step back and just say, God, I know your heart breaks, my heart breaks. I don't get it. I don't get it. But I know that Jesus died for everybody. I know God wants to reconcile this world back to himself.

I know that. So I'm going to choose to sit in my sorrow. I'm going to choose to sit in my sorrow. I'm going to choose to sit in my pain. And then I love what the writer of Hebrews says, without faith, it is impossible to please him. So I will exhibit my faith, which is trusting God, in the moments when I don't have any answers and I feel the crushing weight of the problem of evil, that's when I sit and say, God, I am sitting here by faith and I don't have an answer. And what does the writer of Hebrews say? You must believe that he is a rewarder of those who seek him. And I am seeking God even in my lament. And so the book is very personal for me. You mentioned, I mean, you're the winsome conviction guy. What are you doing deviating, writing a book on common grace? And

honestly, the book was originally written for myself where I'm like, I am wrestling with this. And my wife had a cancer scare. So I remember it, discovered a doctor was doing a procedure, saw something out of the corner of his eye that looked weird and biopsied it. And then we came back, it was cancerous. Now we go get that test. Nobody wants to take, which is a full body scan to determine if cancer has spread metastasized, if we got a real huge problem or if it's treatable. And I remember sitting in that hospital lobby, Preston,

and saying to Noreen, thank God for this hospital. And thank God for a machine that's going to scan every inch of our body and then we'll know if the cancer has spread and we can try to deal with it. Well, I honestly feel like that's God's common grace. All of that. Otherwise, and again, we prayed the cancer would be gone. Of course we prayed that. Of course we did.

But it didn't go away that way. Now, Noreen's cancer-free, praise God, because of God working through medical technology, gifted surgeons, cancer research that has been building for years and years and years. See, if I don't have that, then I'm mad at God. Because I'm like, well, God, she has cancer, and I pray that she wouldn't. She does. I prayed you would take it away. You didn't. Now I'm stuck.

But now God is saying, yeah, but I'm working through St. Jude Hospital. I'm working through these talented tech. I mean, think of this guy who's running this machine, Preston Mann. He's four floors down. He hasn't seen the light of day forever, and he's paying off his medical debt to learn how to run this million dollar machine praise god for that guy who ran the machine and got trained on how to run it because we found out what the issue was it was localized and now we could treat it are you an optimist by personality is that what you say no no no because i was gonna my follow-up was like is it more easier for you to think this way because i can imagine people hearing you talk thinking like yeah i just don't

see the world like i just my bent is to see everything the opposite no you're not an optimist no no no no my wife would tell you that pretty quickly so but, this is what's fascinating. The study of happiness is an academic study. Some really great books have come out on the academic study of happiness. I'm thinking of Sean Aker's book called The Happiness Advantage. He's a Harvard researcher. You can actually train your brain, Preston, to either see the good first or the bad first. Sean Aker argues you can actually train your brain through doing certain exercises. So again, Sean Aker is not saying deny the bad. I mean, that would be profoundly unhealthy. But he's saying it is possible to train your brain to see the positive first before you see the negative. And I teach self-defense at domestic violence shelters in Orange County, California,

with women who have been abused. So you better believe, Preston, they have every reason in the world to see the negative first. So I give them these exercises based on psychology. And they have reported back to me that over time, they've seen a change of attitude. So even though they're victims of abuse, which is horrific, they now can see the kindness of the support group that they belong to, where they get to share their stories. Even things like, hey, we don't need to have snacks at this meeting. We don't need to, but I really appreciate the fact that people brought snacks today.

You know what I mean? Training your brain is a process, so noticing the positives first. I would say, Preston, over the last two years reading a ton of books on happiness, I have, and I think it's a spiritual discipline of saying, listen, things are hard right now, but I'm going to meditate with the Lord and try to think of the positives, even within the hard things that are happening. Is that CBT? Is that, I mean, what you're doing when you're training your brain to see things a certain way or? I'm not sure. Cognitive behavioral therapy, where you're kind of analyzing your own thoughts and seeing what is true and what's not. So he gave a study that blew my mind. Okay. So Sean Aker said that he can actually do an MRI of your brain and he can see the effects of your brain when you're thinking about positive or negative things that produce stress. OK, so he gives this assignment that if you take one week and write down five positives per day.

positives per day. Okay. So how I say this to the women at the abused domestic violence shelter, how long based on Sean acres research, would it affect your hyperthalamus? Um, no, I'm sorry. Amygdala. How long would it affect your amygdala? If you did that for one week? So I said, I said to my women, how long do you think? And women will say things like, oh, I bet you'd get a whole week out of that. And I'm like, oh, that's great. Longer. And they're like, oh, maybe you'd get a month. I said, okay, longer. They're like, get out of here. There's no way. I said, guys, longer. Six months is what Sean Aker says, doing it for one week.

Really? So isn't that mind-blowing? So imagine doing it for six weeks, doing it for seven weeks. Again, Aker is saying you can train your brain. And again, and by the way, Sean Aker is not a Christian. So this is another example of God's common grace, that he's given this insight, medical wisdom, research to a non-Christian, yet we can take that as Christians and incorporate it into our faith. So the book is called The Happiness Advantage by Sean Aker. I just bought it. I'm on Amazon right now.

i'm on amazon right now and by the way talk about god's greatest common grace ever is amazon prime it's also dangerous man we got all our books behind me man this is amazon prime at work remember every good

gift can be abused exactly but preston amazon prime sometimes two days is too long. It's like you need it in the day. I love Amazon Prime. We just got an Amazon location here in Boise. And so right now, I think we have like a two-hour delivery

option or something on some things. Like, do you want this by 5 o'clock? That's crazy. My wife has been doing, instead of going to Costco, which I would rather roll around naked in a room full of broken glass and go to Costco on Saturday afternoon or something. Well, the food court is the common grace, I guess. Right, right, right. So my wife has been just ordering online.

She'll spend 10 minutes. The delivery fee is like the price of what it would take for us gas to go there. Boom on the, on the step is crazy. It's insane. Crazy. Yeah. So, so when, we're kind of joking right now, but here's one major pushback I've gotten from non-Christians. Okay. Cause, cause I've been speaking on this issue. Um, and here's the one major pushback. Okay. So you're saying everything's common grace. Come on. You're saying you're getting God off the hook by saying everything's common grace. So I say this, listen, I do think James is right. Every good gift comes from the father of lights.

So blindness is not a good gift, but the study of optometry is a common grace I mean I'm wearing glasses right now so God doesn't ignore the evil he's not responsible for the evil but what does Psalm 145 say God is good to all so here's the cool thing about God he doesn't't just say, okay, listen, I'm going to treat my Christians well. I'm going to give them good gifts, but hey, you non-Christians, get away from me. You guys are, I mean, come on. Convert, I'll give you some good gifts. The cool thing about common grace is it's common to everybody, saints and sinners alike. And that shows me the graciousness of God, because he has given these good gifts to everybody,

Christian and non-Christian alike. And so I would say every good thing comes from God. If it's good, it originated from God. Whether we give credit to him or not, I think it originated from God. Well, yeah. And I don't hear you saying like, everything that happens is good, but that there are good things happening, many of which that we don't realize, we don't focus on, we don't, yeah, we kind of ignore. Do you think, I mean, I've heard people say, I've probably heard myself say, you know, the only source of true joy is like being a Christian, the only way to live a truly fulfilling life, true happiness, true – I don't know if I believe that though, just anecdotally.

I come across non-Christians with great marriages and they're not depressed. They don't go home at night like drinking themselves silly or whatever. It's like, no, I enjoy my life. I'm actually genuinely happy. Well, and again, one of the greatest marital researchers ever is John Gottman, a non-Christian. So Gottman, if you've never read a John Gottman book on marriage, you have to read out. I don't know what that is. John Gottman. All Christian writers use him. So the book I would recommend to your listeners and to you is Gottman's book, Why Marriages Succeed, Why They Fail. And it's Gottman, G-O-T-T-M-A-N.

He is one of the top relational researchers in the entire world. That's common grace. And so people using his suggestion research no doubt are experiencing good marriages. Hey, I got to plug in. My battery's dying. So I'm going to go plug in so I don't lose you. I'm going to take a little trip with you right now. But yeah, I totally agree with what you're saying. Just because you're a Christian doesn't necessarily mean you have a better marriage than a non-Christian. And let me grab my plug real quick. And I would add, I mean, I'm kind of thinking out loud here, but I would say that the most satisfying life would be living in line with the Creator's design. So if somebody is committing adultery all over the place if somebody is having tons of kids out of

wedlock if somebody is um addicted to drugs doing like abusing creation whatever then yeah that's that's not going to be um that's going to lead to more destruction than you know flourishing if not for you for somebody else you know having tons of kids out of wedlock, maybe you're like, ah, I'm fine, whatever. But yeah, now look what you did. But I guess my point is like a non-Christian could still live in line with creation. They could still, you know, follow the way God has orchestrated things. Yeah. Two quick thoughts. One, you did put in a qualifier, true happiness. So the qualifier, true happiness, I think only a Christian can achieve that. I think non-Christian happiness. Reconciled with their creator kind of has to be there for true. Yeah, that's true happiness. And then let me say this. I quote Wayne Grudem.

His systematic theology book is very popular. He makes a fascinating comment on common grace that it's entirely possible non-Christians get more common grace than Christians. In other words, your Christian, your plumber might be more skilled, more insightful because he's worked harder than a Christian plumber who just hasn't put in as much time and study as the non-Christian plumber. I think that's brilliant observation and one that I would really agree with. Well, and probably because he's embodying the creational design more than the Christian. He's working hard. He's using his gifts, putting in time, you know. Yeah. Yeah. So again, I'm not an eternal optimist but i will say writing this book has affected my thinking maybe more than any book i've ever written wow wow that's a big statement it's been had a profound impact on how i view god

i will say that it really changed. Because my ex, I was getting disappointed all the time. Like, I just don't see it. I don't see God answering my prayer. I don't see my wife and my wife's going through this. I have other issues,

higher academic, higher education. Education's in trouble. I'm not seeing, you know, and we're all praying like crazy for our university, the place that I work, but I'm still having friends get laid off, let go. And you're thinking, okay, God, what in the world are you doing? And so I think back to Woody Allen. God's an underachiever. Unless I change my expectations of what it means for God to act.

And again, not denying the supernatural. I can think of a handful of things that I've seen that have been supernatural. But I like what you said, the wide angle view is what I've more adopted in my walk with God. Yeah. Well, Tim, thank you so much for our conversation. I could talk to you for hours. I'll have to do this again. I'm sure we will.

We can make this at least a yearly conversation. A yearly, yeah. That sounds great. I really appreciate it. Again, we've mentioned a lot of books on this podcast, so I apologize in advance for maybe your wallet's taking a hit because you really sold us on a few here. I literally did order a book while I was talking to you, which I don't know if I've done that before. But the book you wrote, the recent

one is Eyes to See, Recognizing God's Common Grace in an Unsettled World. Would encourage you to check it out. Tim, thanks for what you do. Thanks for the winsome conviction project. And yeah, just excited to have another Christian leader who's trying to cultivate more charitable conversations in a polarized world. So keep it up. Well, I appreciate your podcast. Thank you for having me on.

My pleasure. Take care. Thank you.