Theology in the Raw - S9 Ep996: #996 - The Perfect Church, Fate of Judas, Intermediate State, Christian Music, and More: Q & A with Preston Sprinkle

Episode Date: August 4, 2022

My patreon supporters sent in tons of questions, some which I address on this podcast. Some questions include: What would a perfect church look like in my opinion? Did Judas go to hell. Is Chrisitan rock music sinful? When do I feel most intimate with God? Should Pastors copy other people’s sermons? Would the Canon of Scripture look different if women were involved in the putting it together? What’s my view of the intermediate state? Did the Pharisees and Jesus hold to eternal conscious torment? And several more.  If you would like to support Theology in the Raw, please visit patreon.com/theologyintheraw for more information!  –––––– 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/theology –––––– 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. Today is a Q&A podcast. Every month, my Patreon supporters send in a whole grip load of questions and I answer about half of them on the Patreon-only podcast and the other half on a public podcast, which is this one that you're listening to right now. So I will dive in. I got a lot of really good and thoughtful questions. I spent all morning typing out a bunch of notes, and we'll see how this goes. There's some really juicy ones here. First question from Davis, if you could create your perfect church to attend each week, what would that look like? What would be the most biblical church in your mind? Is there a difference between perfect church and biblical church? And then Marsha chimed in with a really cool example of a church that she attended in San Diego that was a diverse, multicultural, great worship.

The Jewish context was addressed in the teaching and preaching. And she goes on to describe the nature of this church, which I resonate with a lot of stuff that she talks about there. So I took so many notes. I just kept typing and typing and typing on thoughts about what the most perfect church I can imagine would look like. Obviously, there's no perfect church. I know some of you are thinking like there is no perfect church. And I would agree because there's no perfect person. But here are some key features that came to my mind as I was kind of envisioning the kind of church that I would really love to see created or one that I would most resonate with. And there's some subjective elements here, certain things that I just kind of would prefer that aren't necessarily true or not true, just things that are more

preferences. So first of all, the first thing I wrote is that the centrality of Christ would be evident in everything, in the way we watch the kids in the nursery, in the way we do youth group, in the way we do church services, in the way we do everything, like the centrality of Christ. I know it's kind of vague, but I just have to say that up front. I think, yeah, people would, if they were part of the church for any number of days, they would say, wow, this church is like really into Jesus. The leadership would be humble, thoughtful, and diverse. Age, diversity, class diversity, ethnic diversity, and sex diversity. And I, you know, as many of you know, I'm on a journey right now trying to figure out what I believe about women in church leadership. Wherever I land, even if I land on some form of

complementarianism, I still wholeheartedly, 100% believe that a church cannot succeed or thrive or further the kingdom at all without women playing an absolutely crucial role in the church. So even if you have only men teaching and preaching and eldering, I do think that a woman's voice should be significantly heard in the preparation of what is being taught, what's being said, how it's being said. And I've been a part of complementarian churches that have done that. They really have, you know, within their theological framework, solicited and learned from and leaned on the wisdom of women in the church. So sex diversity among the leadership, even if at the elder level or whatever, you only have men. The church would

be multi-ethnic. That would be a big value of mine. In as much as the community that it exists in is multi-ethnic, I would want the church to reflect that. So if the greater neighborhood is, you know, 70% white, then I'm fine with it being 70% white. If it's 60%, you know, non-white, then the church should be roughly 60% non-white. Even if it is in a white dominated community, I would still want like white middle-class members to find some aspects of the church rhythms to be unfamiliar and uncomfortable. Like, yeah, I would, you know, uh, songs sung in different languages, different styles, um, preaching styles to be, you know, not the same every single Sunday. Like I would want again, yeah. Well, white middle-class members to, to have some aspects where they're like challenged

a bit and it just like, Ooh, I'm not, that's, that's unfamiliar to me. Um, I'm not, I didn't grow up singing, you know, amazing grace that way. Um, I, you know, um, I thought church ended at 1215. Why is it one o'clock and it's still going? Well, yeah, there's other ethnic groups where time isn't as times a little more fluid. It's more event time than clock time. You know, I would want the church to really keep as one of its main goals is to the best of their ability to reflect the multi-ethnic nature

of God's kingdom. I would want the church to have a strong sense of community and belonging. I would want... I almost wrote down, I wouldn't want the church to be attractional, but I don't know if I want to say that because there's certain, I would want the meaningfulness of belonging to be the attraction, to be a main attraction. That man, this church, you know, it's kind of a uglier building, you know, it's out of date. The people on stage aren't that attractive. You know, like, I don't always love whatever the worst, the style of the worship song or whatever. But man, when I show up, I feel like this is a group of people I want to belong to. And when I'm not there, when I, you know, for the members that

are part of the church, when they miss a gathering or a few gatherings, like they're missed, like people, like, wow, where were, you know, like you're known and you're loved at this church. And it's, that sounds, of course, every pastor is going to say, yeah, that's what we, yeah. And so I don't, I don't have like, here's this, all the steps to accomplish that. I don't know. I don't always know how to accomplish that, but I, I would want to make that a huge, huge, huge priority. People hunger, are starving for belonging. So I would want to really explore imaginative, creative ways of working hard to cultivate that kind of environment. Obviously, since it's not a perfect church, there's no perfect church, we would, this church would fall short of that.

But it would be a main kind of goal on the table. I would want the church to be participatory. I, you know, when you read passages like 1 Corinthians 14, I know the Corinthian church had loads of problems, but, you know, you read the few passages in scripture that kind of describe, to some extent, a church service. It's very participatory. The idea of two or three people on a stage and everybody else is just kind of passively

absorbing, you don't really get that picture from the New Testament. And obviously, there's a huge challenge here because modern churches are typically a lot bigger than the churches being described in the New Testament. But again, I don't know if we can exactly replicate what we read about in the New Testament, unless we have a church that's like 50 people. But I would want to, again, elevate the value of people participating, using their gifts. So I would want to explore multiple avenues for members, for instance, to ask hard questions. I would want every curious question that people have to be addressed. And again, to think of creative ways in which members of the church, and I keep using the term member, I didn't

write down whether I'd have a formal membership or not. I don't know. I'd have to think through that. But people that are belonging to the church on some level, yeah, I would want them to, whatever their gift is, is being used. Like they are part of a significant part of the rhythm of the church. I was part of a church in Scotland that kind of had brethren roots. And that was just part of the DNA of the church. It was very, very participatory. And it had a very kind of democratic view of leadership. So historically, brethren churches, I believe, don't have like senior leaders. Like it was congregationally led. And it was really cool being part of church services that were just that like there was one service they'd had like a traditional service and then a more contemporary service the

traditional service which was a traditional kind of brethren service there was no leader you just come in and people start doing stuff guy walks up to a piano and plays a song and everybody's saying another guy stands up and reads scripture another person requests a song another person gives a testimony and you think oh, oh my gosh, that'd be a crazy nightmare. Everybody's standing up and just doing their thing. It'd be wild. I mean, I don't know. My experience was shockingly that it wasn't that. And maybe it's because they have a culture of that kind of environment. So they knew what to do. But yeah, it was really cool. It's probably one of my favorite church services really that I belong to. Cause it was just, it was this very just, yeah, participatory. I felt like everybody played a role.

This perfect church that I'm envisioning would be radically inclusive, especially of the marginalized. If you're not wealthy, if you're not physically attractive by Western standards, you would feel like a king in this church. The church's use of money would reflect its values. If the church says it cares for the poor, then the budget would reflect that. If the church believes that the church is, you know, more than a building, then the budget should reflect that. If the church believes God's kingdom is multi-ethnic and global, then the budget should reflect that. If the church says, you know, yeah, we value, we want people to grow, to engage in theological discipleship, to learn the Bible, to not just learn to believe, but to live by a Christian worldview, then the budget would

reflect that. Because that's a good indicator of where your values actually are, is where are you spending money? One idea, I know I've talked about this in the podcast before, but I think we're moving into an age when the church is not going to have the same level of resources that it used to have. There was a great book. I forget who wrote it, but he kind of described, I don't know. I forget the author and the name. Okay.

So that doesn't help you at all. But he described how the church in the 80s and 90s really had these ballooning budgets. Like there was just lots of people giving tons of money to the church. It's when the boomers were making tons of money and churches were filled with boomers. And there was a lot of wealth in the 80s and 90s. I don't know. And so churches kind of got used to having a lot of money. And then the ministry kind of reflected that.

Well, we're moving into an era. We're already in an era, but we're still moving into one of deeper into this era that we're just, we got to get used to doing ministry on tighter budgets, I think. And we need to be spending our money again toward fostering the values we say we believe in. And what idea I had, well, just the whole building, The building is a money suck. I mean, it sucks so much money. And I'm not anti-building. I used to be a little more anti-building.

I'm like, especially in most parts of the country, you need a building, a roof over your head where you're gathering. But what if you had shared space? So what if – here's a – not not dream, but an idea I had. Like what if a church owned a building, but you shared the space with both a coffee shop and a brewery? So the brewery, a tasting room, you know, opens up at night. The coffee shop's open during the day. You, you know, as part of the agreement, you have, you know, a couple, you know, space during the week where you have gatherings. Maybe the coffee shop's still open during the gathering.

I don't know. How cool would that be? People are in the coffee shop and then you're also doing some kind of gathering as part of the use of the building. And this way you have like two different businesses that are utilizing the building. The church probably wouldn't even need to pay anything. You just kind of lease it out to these two different businesses at a good rate. So they're getting a good rate. They're happy. They're able to run their business. You have an open door to the public so that you have in the space where the church is gathering is regularly frequented by

non-Christians. And yet the gatherings, whenever the church, the people of God gather, it is an explicitly Christian gathering. You gather as Christians. It's not really, the gathering is not designed to be attractional, but the very nature or location of the gathering has an attraction built into it. So you're not trying to manipulate some sort of attraction to get people into the door of the church, whatever. You're just being the people of God, but you're being the people of God very publicly. I don't know. I don't even know if that would work. I don't know the zoning for coffee shops and breweries and all that stuff. I would love to explore some more creative ways in which we can reduce the cost of the building.

And rather than get a church, we have to kind of get people to the church. Like, let's bring the church to the people. And let's think creatively about being the church in the public square in a way that is meaningful and really kind of shocking. I think if people heard that there was a church gathering at a brewery and that they were allowing these businesses, not allowing, but kind of partnering with these businesses to pay a cheaper rent to run their businesses, I think that would turn some heads. I think, you know. Anyway, run with it. Love to see if somebody's actually done that before. I'm sure they have. Obviously, Christians who have strong allegiances to a political party would feel very uncomfortable at the perfect church

that I'm envisioning. Strong emphasis on both teaching the Bible. And when I say that, most of you just thought of some guy standing up behind a podium, walking through Genesis, just monologically. But we all know that the best kind of teaching is dialogical, right? I mean, when you go to... Where have you learned the best? Was it in a lecture hall where you're just kind of listening to a speech and then class is over and then you leave? I mean, you learn that way. I learned that way, you know. But the best kind... The way to absorb content the best is both through listening to somebody that's smarter than you and then gathering in typically small groups to discuss it and then have space to ask questions and respond and push back. even dialogical debates as part of the rhythm of the church to model both unity across diversity and as a way to help people to really think through various ideas in the Bible. There would

be also, so not just biblical teaching, but also this church would be engaging the ethical and cultural questions that people have. I wouldn't want, you know, like if there is a traditional kind of sermon, I wouldn't want every sermon to be like on the hottest cultural issue of the day. There would be a blend, I think, of both instilling people with a strong, deep, robust, thoughtful, challenging biblical worldview, but then also helping people to apply a biblical worldview to a lot of the cultural and ethical questions that they are wrestling with. No topic would be off the table. No question would be not allowed to be asked. And I would want hardly anybody in this church to say,

oh, I've got a question that I'm just scared to ask and no place to ask it. People would have lots of avenues to really not just absorb a Christian worldview, but to wrestle with a Christian worldview. And there's so many other, yeah, anyway, that's my perfect church. I got more thoughts here, but I'm going to move on because I just kept going on and on typing notes about notes on what this would look like. Ethan, you say a lighthearted question here. What movie or TV show in the past year has moved you deeply and why? I had to really think through this because I couldn't think of any movie that moved me deeply in the last year. So even if I go back a couple years, I haven't seen too many new movies. So a few come to mind.

I saw that movie Pig. That was an interesting movie. One of you guys recommended that to me um one of my patreon supporters it was interesting i kind of i liked it but it was i don't know if i need to watch it again obviously there's lots of layers and layers of meaning there i would say it moved me though it was just kind of an interesting movie really liked um extraction i mean it's kind of a thoughtless no it's not thoughtless it's got a meaning behind it. I mean, it was, but I mean, it's a, you know, good action movie.

Unhinged was a little disturbing, but that moved me to, first of all, I want to keep in shape. My word, Russell Crowe. I just remember him from Gladiator. And then in this movie, I'm like, oh, my word. I need to go to the gym. But yeah, it kind of disturbed me. So those, yeah, none of those really answer your question. Okay. Here's, here's some that I re movies that I rewatched that they move me every time I watch them. Um, field of dreams. I probably

watch it four or five times a year. Uh, moves me every time. Love it. Love, love, love field of dreams. I don't cry during movies. I don't cry in general. I wish I did. Wish I could. But I grew up in an era where men weren't supposed to cry and it's just been pounded in me not to cry. So it's hard for me to cry. But Field of Dreams, okay, almost moves me to tears every time. Oh, so the new Top Gun. Okay. So I probably watched the old Top Gun at least a couple times this year. And then I've seen the new Top Gun. Okay. So I probably watched the old Top Gun at least a couple times this year. And then I've seen the new Top Gun a couple times. And I mean, I don't...

It was great. It was awesome. It moved me in the sense of just my childhood kind of nostalgia. Like all Gen Xers, Top Gun was just a significant part of our growing up experience. Oh, my word. I mean, just, yeah. I don't know if we have movies like that anymore. It just so profoundly shapes you.

The music in it, the scenes, the lines, the characters. You know, we all wanted to be either Maverick or Iceman. I don't know how many people went off to the Naval Academy after seeing that movie. So the old Top Gun is just, it's a piece of me. It's a piece of me. So how many, what, 30 some years later, the part two comes out? Like, that's just amazing. Like, oh my word, I waited so long for this movie. And it was awesome. It was awesome. So that was just kind of a walk through memory lane by watching the new one i'm so i thought i thought they just did a fantastic job

with it of keeping some of this similar themes and yet not just repeating everything in the old top gun um yeah it's great um ali so my son and i the movie ali with will smith my son and i were in louisville louisville i never can say it right louisville that's how you whenever i hear people from louisville say louisville they say louisville and then when i say louisville they say nah it's close i'm like what do you mean it's i said it's exactly how you said it louisville louisville my son and i were in louisville kentucky um and we uh went to the baseball the the Louisville Slugger Museum and Louisville Slugger Museum which is amazing by the way and then we also went to uh well I saw that there was a big uh Muhammad Ali Museum there that was kind of called

museum like a almost like a learning center um so I was going to take my son there but I'm like oh he's got to watch the movie Ali and I watched that movie and that's just such a great, great movie. And so it was really cool watching that movie and then going to, uh, learn about Muhammad Ali at the museum the next day, you know, as a movie, a movie that moves me and I've seen it two or three times now that I've, I heard hardly anybody ever even mentioned it is a hard ball with Keanu Reeves, which it's, he's actually good in it. Michael B. Jordan in it as a kid. He's like a young teenager, like 12 or 13 year old kid in the movie.

Like the Michael B. Jordan, like that movie is, I thought it was really, really well done. And I would say that one would be in the category of moving me. There's some scenes in there that are pretty powerful. Okay. Next question, Cale. Why do we believe that Judas went to hell? Did he? Your main question is, do we know that he went to hell? I mean, sure. He's like a monster. He betrays Jesus, yada, yada. But he also recognizes what he did wrong. I'm summarizing your question here. He felt bad about what he did.

And isn't God's grace big enough to include Judas? You didn't say that. I kind of said that. I don't blame Judas for hanging himself. I probably would have done the same. Makes me think he believed in Jesus as the son of God. What are your thoughts on this? Well, first of all, Judas didn't go to hell because nobody went to hell yet. Sorry, this is kind of a hobby horse of mine.

Hell is a place where people go, according to, well, most orthodox views of the afterlife. Hell is a place where some people go after Jesus returns and raises the dead. And after everybody is raised from the dead, John 5, 28 and 29, Daniel 12, 1 and 2, they face judgment, Matthew 25, and Jesus separates what he calls Matthew 25, the sheep from the goats. And then that's when after judgment, after he comes back, after resurrection, then they go to hell. So the place where people, according to certain views, are in now. So non-believers who have already died, who are waiting, like we all are waiting resurrection, go to a place that's called various things. But in Luke 16, it's called Hades and a few other passages. So the question is, is Judas in Hades and will he end up going to hell? So where we get this from is there's, well,

two, no, well, one main passage in John 17, 12, Judas is called the son of, well, the old King James, I think said, son of perdition. The better translation, because nobody knows what perdition means, is son of destruction. The Greek word is apoleia there. And that's the common word for destruction. It's often used, the word apoleia is often used to describe the final state of used. The word apoleia is often used to describe the final state of the wicked, the unbelievers, however you want to describe them. And it's basically, it's describing hell, where people will end up going, and that will be their destruction. Yeah. So John 17, 12, Judas is called son of destruction. The only other time we see this phrase, I believe, is in 2 Thessalonians 2, 3, where the man of lawlessness is also called the

son of destruction. Same exact phrase. A person doomed to destruction, if you will. So, yeah. So, even though he kind of realized what he did was wrong, the classic argument is, well, instead of turning to Jesus for forgiveness, which if he actually believed in Jesus, he would have done like the thief on the cross. He ended up going and hanging himself, you know, so he didn't actually embrace the free forgiveness that was available to him. Yeah. So I think really because of that phrase, son of destruction, I think that would point to going to hell. Next question. I think that would point to going to hell.

Next question. What sexual acts are or should be permitted in a heterosexual Christian marriage? Oh, my word. I do have lots of thoughts on this, but you know what? I'm going to punt this one to my Patreon only podcast. I'm going to address this behind a paywall because it's going to be really explicit. Next question. Hey, Preston from Levi. Hey, Preston, I was reading Zondervan's four views on Hell book this week. And after reading the conditional immortality author's view, the author made a very interesting retaliation. I think you're misspelling some stuff here.

You said the metaphorical author made a very interesting retaliation on, oh, oh, yeah, that's the old, that's right. Okay. The older Four Views book had that kind of metaphorical view. Anyway, one of the authors in there was critiquing annihilation and he pointed out that the Pharisees believed in eternal conscious torment and whenever Jesus is debating them about the nature of hell, he uses the same language as they would have back then and never says anything radically contrary to their presuppositions. This author also claimed that none of the early church fathers held to conditional immortality,

which is another way of describing annihilation. What are your thoughts on these claims? which is another way of describing annihilation. What are your thoughts on these claims? Yeah, they're pretty wrong, quite honestly. First of all, we really don't know exactly what the Pharisees believed about hell. There's only one Jewish book, early Jewish book that many scholars think was penned by a Pharisee. It's called the Psalms of Solomon. It has nothing to do with Solomon, like the actual Solomon. It was written in, oh, about 50 years before the birth of Christ. And some people say that this might be the only book that we have access to that was penned by an actual Pharisee. Well, throughout the Psalms of Solomon, we see lots of references to where the wicked will go. And it seems pretty blatantly annihilistic. The view of hell in Psalms of Solomon seems pretty clearly describing what we now call annihilation. It does not describe ECT at all. Annihilation does not describe ECT at all.

Assuming that it's written by a Pharisee, assuming it's the only book that we have access to is written by a Pharisee, that would be a more strong evidence that Pharisees believed in annihilation. Secondly, when Jesus talked about hell, he typically uses images that convey the idea of destruction, not never ending torment. Even if we take, even if, for the sake of argument, you know, let's just say that certain phrases like, you know, Matthew 18, the everlasting fire, Matthew 25, everlasting punishment. Let's just take the few times when Jesus does seem to use ECT kind of language. Now, again, I've got a response to all of that. But even if we assume that those statements reflect ECT, the majority of statements that Jesus uses to describe the final state of the wicked is much more annihilationist. I mean, he often uses language of death and destruction and the wicked will be burned up or consumed like chaff.

Like the majority of images that Jesus uses to describe the afterlife is much more on the annihilation side. Now, again, I'm trying to be, I don't want to argue for that position here because that's not really what you're asking, but to say that Jesus's language kind of reflect a pharisaical position, which is more ECT, that's wrong for several different reasons. Third, most Jewish statements that describe an eternal conscious torment kind of view of hell, they come after AD 70. In fact, I'm only aware of, so like 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, what else? There's other, I'm blanking on some names now. The only book that stands out as describing hell in more ECT type language is the book of Judith, which in the Apocrypha, which does predate 8070. I think it predates the birth of Christ.

I think there's like one statement there at the end of the book that sounds more like ECT. But that's, it's mostly, if you cite, this is something I didn't point out in Erasing Hell, that when I was citing if you've read the book, citing a lot of Jewish texts that refer to eternal, that seem like it's describing eternal conscious torment. I didn't, I didn't really point out that most of those texts are, they post date AD 70. They post date Jesus basically. So,

and that, so here, so here's the deal. You have all these different Jewish groups, Jewish sects, you know, the Essenes, the Sadducees, the Pharisees. All of those kind of went away after AD 70 to destruction of the temple, except for the Pharisees. Except for the Pharisees. The Essenes all got killed off.

The Sadducees were connected to the temple. Temple's destroyed. They kind of lose their identity. The Pharisees are the ones that kind of continue on. And it's the Pharisees kind of morph into what we now call like rabbinic Judaism that ended up producing the Mishnah in AD 200 and later the Talmud around AD 500. And in those later Jewish texts, which do have pharisaical roots, I guess, yeah, you have a lot of ECT-like statements on hell. But again, those are later developments to say that the Pharisees that Jesus was interacting with in the early first century, that they believed in ECT and Jesus doesn't correct them, there's no evidence for that. And again, the strongest piece of evidence we have

to the contrary is the Psalms of Solomon. Fourth, this author says that early church fathers, that we have no evidence of early church fathers describing hell in a way that would be annihilationist. That's just not true. We have statements in Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, even Arnobius that describes hell in a way that would reflect more of an annihilationist position. Now, yet to be clear here, with these early church fathers, pre-Augustine, you didn't have a lot of, as far as I know, you can correct me if I'm wrong here. I'm not an early church expert, but as far as I can tell, these early church authors weren't like arguing for annihilation against the ECTV. Like that wasn't what they were saying, but the language they use to describe hell in several authors seems to reflect much more of an

annihilationist view. And there's other authors, Tertullian and others that would reflect more of an ECT view of hell. So there's diversity in the anti-Nicene or pre-fourth century church. Okay, next question, Chase. what is your view of the intermediate state? Do you have any resources you'd recommend for someone studying this topic? I kind of already described it in a previous question, but yeah, intermediate state, you have a place called heaven and a place called Hades. Believers go to heaven or Abraham's bosom or paradise is another word to describe it. Unbelievers go to a place called Hades, which might reflect some Old Testament references to Sheol.

Sheol is very flexible. It can mean many different things. So I don't want to say every occurrence of Sheol means Hades, but there are some passages in the Old Testament that where Sheol is used, where it does seem to reflect this kind of intermediate, what we now would refer to as the intermediate state. Old Testament people didn't have kind of a really much developed view of the afterlife. So yeah, then Jesus returns, everybody's resurrected, believers,

unbelievers face judgment, and then people either enter into the new creation or what Jesus just calls life in Matthew 25 and non-believers go into what we now call hell or Gehenna. John calls it the lake of fire in the book of Revelation. There's very little explicit biblical teaching on the intermediate state. The most thorough passage would be Luke 16, the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. But it's a parable, or at least most people believe it's a parable. And there's so much going on in that passage that shouldn't be taken literally, that it's a little, it's kind of a catch-22. That's not the right phrase, I don't think. I feel like Michael Scott. The most extensive passage we have on the intermediate state is laced with metaphors and other things going on. So we just

have to be really cautious taking that as kind of like a video recording of the intermediate state. We have, oddly enough, hardly anything describing the state of believers in what we call heaven. You've got a reference in Philippians 1, 21 and following to die is to be with Christ. That's it, to be with Christ. You have a debated passage in second Corinthians five, one to 10. Uh, it's debated whether Paul's talking about the intermediate state there or the final resurrected state. Today you will be with me in paradise. The statement that Jesus told the thief on the cross, or really it's a revolutionary on the cross. It's not just that he didn't just snag some apples at the market. The guy, the guy hanging on the cross. But yeah,

so all these statements are really just kind of in passing. And I think they do probably point to the intermediate state where people will go immediately after they die. But we don't know too much about this. There's debates. Is it, are you in some disembodied existence? What does that look like? Do you get a temporary resurrected body? Are you conscious? Are you in some disembodied existence? What does that look like?

Do you get a temporary resurrected body? Are you conscious? Are you unconscious? Some people talk about some kind of like soul sleep, like when you die, you're kind of safe with Jesus, but then you immediately are in the resurrection because you're outside of time anyway. So there is no like temporariness during that state. So, yeah, it's tough. There's just, I think, um, anybody that kind of waxes eloquent on all these details of the intermediate state is you should probably not trust, trust them or at least that they don't, there's not a lot of clear biblical, uh, passages to go on to, to, to get a full picture of what the intermediate state is, uh, books to talk about.

I, you know, I couldn't even think of any off the top of my head. I went to my little hell section in my personal library. I mean, I love Ed Fudge's book, The Fire That Consumes. It's a big book. It's a defense of annihilation. But even if you don't agree with annihilation, he talks a lot about everything that the Bible says on the afterlife. So that would be a good book. It's not short, but it's pretty clear. So I'd point you to that. Ed Fudge's The Fire That Consumes. Get the third edition. Jonathan, what is your take on pastors

using other pastors' material for their sermons? For instance, I come out of a megachurch setting where the basis for virtually every sermon was somebody else's sermon. They may edit some of it, but they will also use whole sections, including jokes and stories. They will also use books and quote, word for word, whole sections, all with no credit to the author and speaker. Okay. That's, I have a problem with that there. Sometimes it will give credit to a book, but copy a sermon

based on the book. The answer given internally several years ago was that everyone does it. It's normal, so it's okay. That's terrible ethical reasoning. Everybody's doing it. Everybody's jumping off a cliff. Everybody's sleeping with their girlfriend these days. Everybody's on porn. They have an advisory board, but the real leadership lives in a paid staff executive team. The board knows this happens and don't like it, but it lives on. I suspect this is happening in many cases. What are your thoughts? Do you consider this plagiarism? I, okay. So before I kind of critique this, I do have to admit that I feel like when I first became a Christian and when I first started preaching, which is about probably a couple of years after

I became a Christian, I remember absorbing like John Piper sermons. And as I think back, yeah, there's phrases I would use. There's, I think even, I remember like an illustration of several illustrations he used that were so impactful for me that I would use the same illustrations and sermons. And I can't for the life of me remember if I said, you know, John Piper told the story and it was so good, I'm going to retell it to you. Or if I just told it, I'm sure I probably nicked some stuff from other people's material without giving them credit. The very first sermon I preached was on the book of Ecclesiastes. It was for youth group. I was like a youth helper, helping out on the youth group. And I preached kind of a whole sermon on the book of Ecclesiastes. And I remember listening to some cassette tape of some

dude somewhere that preached on Ecclesiastes. And I probably took about 25% of that message and pretty much repeated it, you know, because I thought he was spot on and what he was saying. Well, no, I did put it in my own words, but I guess it was just this interpretation of the book that I took. But anyway, yeah. Since then, since my first couple of years of being a Christian, I very much have been adamant about studying the passage on not, I don't want to say on my own, because when I study a passage, I'm reading commentaries. I am maybe listening to sermons. I'm reading books, articles. You know, I'm gathering.

I'm studying in a community of voices, whether it's voices through a page, through a podcast, whatever. It's not like I'm just reading the Bible with no other outside help. So in a sense, any, I think, responsible and thoughtful study of a passage should be studying in community, a community of other voices, primarily probably commentaries and books. So other voices will certainly influence your interpretation of the passage. Maybe they will even give you an illustration to use. But yeah, I think if you say anything kind of word for word, then you should quote the author and give the author credit. If you use an illustration that's taken directly from somebody else, you should give that person credit. Yes, absolutely. You should do that. In fact, I would. Why wouldn't you? And here's where I don't want to assume, I don't want to assume, but I would assume that at least some people struggle with that kind of wickedness, self-serving badness.

So is it wrong to use somebody else's sermon? What if you give them credit? Is it wrong? Then I wouldn't say it's wrong, but I still like, But I still like, I just so believe that teaching and preaching in a local church context should be very, should be intertwined with your pastoral, your pastoral rhythm of the church. What are people going through? What are they, what are they, what are they wrestling with? Like it should, it should have a strong local flair to it. So just to download somebody's sermon, you know, they preached in Orlando, Florida or something.

And then they preached that in Wichita, wherever Wichita is at, Kansas. Yeah. It's like, well, there's no local connection there to that sermon, like local church connection. So, yeah, my ideal situation is that pastoral preaching should be an outflow of the pastor's own relationship with God, but also their pastoral ministry with the local people. the local people. Um, so because I kind of value that I, I, um, I just think it's just unwise really to just hijack somebody else's sermon, even if he gave them credit. Um, but could you, could you be influenced by someone else's sermon? Of course. Yeah, absolutely. Learn from other preachers, even, um, study their cadence. What, what worked, what, um, Yeah, I'm a big fan of really producing not just accurate sermons, but also sermons that are rhetorically powerful. There's lots of great speakers out there. So yeah,

learn from how other speakers are doing things. So yeah, those are my thoughts. Eden, I cannot explain the great value of this podcast for me. Thank you so much, Eden. When people give me that kind of feedback, it just super, super encouraging because I love podcasting. But it just motivates me all the more when people say it's actually helpful and meaningful for them. So thank you for that encouragement. You've gained so much from me in my book. Are you in your books? I was wondering, would, I love this question, would the canon of scripture be different if women had been seen as equal to men back then when it was canonized? I know that there may not have been any literature written by women considering their education during the time. I'm glad you added that caveat, considering their education at that time. That's true. They were largely under or uneducated women back then,

most women, not all. But could there have been other books added if women had a say in the canonization of the Bible? I like this question because there's really no wrong answers. You're asking kind of like for me to kind of speculate. And so let me speculate. I want to lean towards saying, no, I don't think the canon would have looked different. I know it's bold for a man to say, and maybe I'm missing something here. But let me give you two reasons why I don't think the canon would look different. Number one, I do believe, and this is kind of a theological assumption, I guess.

look different. Number one, I do believe, and this is kind of a theological assumption, I guess. I do believe that God guided the canonization process and God equally values men and women. We both bear God's image. So because God is ultimately behind the canonization process. And I can't prove that. I can't, I wasn't in the divine council when he decided which books were going to be in there. I don't have a tape recording of that conversation, but there's theologically, I think we, you know, Protestants of which I am one, um, believe that, and maybe even Catholics, I don't know, um, that God had a hand, um, a determining hand in, um, what books would be along, would be in the Bible, which books wouldn't. And obviously there's a whole other side of that coin. There's a human process and councils and discussions that God worked through. But ultimately, I want to say God is behind the process. Number two, it is, and I know,

especially nowadays, people often focus on the, apparently the more misogynistic kind of statements in the Bible. But if you look at it in its own historical context, the canon contains lots of extremely countercultural statements that elevate women. I mean, just think about the fact that it was women who stood by Jesus of the cross, and it was women who testified to the resurrection. That's huge. So even though there are men that God uses to collect the canon, I think so, it's not like they just handpicked books that made men look good and women look bad. In fact, there's lots of stories in the Bible where the whole male superiority is reversed,

namely the book of Ruth, parts of the book of Judges, mutuality and sexual relationships in Song of Songs. I mean, the agency of the female voice in the Song of Songs is astounding. Women at the resurrection, women in the life of Jesus, lots of women that are highly elevated in the life of Christ. Even Paul, Paul gets a rap, bad rap for being a misogynist, but, um, lots of statements he makes that are, um, you know,

a woman doesn't have authority over her own body, but the man does. The man doesn't have authority over his own body, but the woman does in first Corinthians 11thians 11 that that is no statement you would find nothing like that in the greco-roman world that a woman has authority over the man's body crazy you have you have uh and i think this is unparalleled that when when you read kings and even Chronicles, you have such a critique of men in authority. I mean, scathing critiques of male figures of authority in the book of Kings, especially Kings and also Chronicles. Chronicles gives more of a positive view, but man, in other lists of Kings, I mean, it was just nothing but praising the kings.

Why? Because it was kings and servants of the kings that were collecting these and writing these, you know, what, like records of the king's actions and everything. And the book of Kings does the exact opposite. It shows all the problems that men had, men in authority had. So, um, there, there is throughout the Bible, a critique of male power and an elevation of a subversion of female assumptions about female weakness. Okay. I worded that carefully. Cultural assumptions about weak women and women are lesser than the Bible subverts that, um, which even though men were involved in the canonization process, uh, that's pretty, that's pretty

fascinating. It's pretty fascinating. Next question to Caroline, uh, when do you feel most intimate with God? How, when do you feel him drawn near to you? This is a good question, Caroline. I so appreciate this really personal question. I really thought through this because it's a hard question for me to answer. But I think it's hard because I think in my 25 plus years as a Christian, it's been seasonal. There's different seasons when I feel connected with God, certain seasons when I don't feel connected with God at all, like feel connected with God at all. Theologically, I believe a hundred percent I am connected whether I feel it or not when I'm asleep, I'm in Christ, you know, even though I'm not feeling anything except, you know, my wife is feeling my snoring,

but yeah. So different seasons, you know, very early on Bible study for me was my connection with God. Um, definitely felt God's presence going deep into the scriptures. Shortly after, I think prayer and worship, um, prayer and worship was, was a time when I felt connected with God. I would say in the last 10 to 15 years, the primary way in which I feel connected with God, when I'm in meaningful community with other believers, not just in the physical presence of other believers necessarily, but when I'm relate, when we're going deep conversationally, when we're being honest and

thoughtful and engaging each other. And even, even I've been, I've been more in tune with even the spiritual nature of sharing food and drink with a meaningful community of believers. Like I think some of the evenings we have on our back porch here with, you know, the night we had a few couples over, um, we had, uh, uh, one of the couples, I won't say her name, but you know, the wife works at a, at a wine tasting, a winery here and, and, and does like wine tasting. So she, she gets these discounted bottles. So she brought over some really good wine. Um, my wife and I are huge fans of like pretty aggressive French cheeses.

So we had a good spread of, some people call it charcuterie. The French would call it charcuterie. That's a terrible pronunciation, but it's better than charcuterie. Anyway, yeah, meats and cheeses and olives and spicy pickles and some good French bread. And the evening, the weather was perfect. And we were just having great, meaningful conversations. People were asking deep, personal questions. And we were all talking. You know, I felt God there.

Like that, the presence of God born through the image bearing Christians in that space. That's, I would say, where I feel God most in, I guess, more recently. Next question. How many more do we have? One, two, three, four, four questions. Okay. Maddie, I feel a tension when studying theology because I feel like it can get very heady and can sometimes lack a heart relational experience with God. I often experience people on one side or the other, heavy in a theology and little heart connection or vice versa. Heavy heart connection, no head. I know God makes everyone different in various Enneagram types, background, interests, personalities, but I think God calls us all to know the word, but also have hearts postured towards and connected to his heart. Have you

noticed this? If so, how do you balance the two? And also, do you think seminaries foster both sides as well? I 100% resonate with everything you're saying here. I think people do experience God differently. This is kind of related to my previous question that I addressed. I think personality types go into this. Do some people connect with God through deep, heavy theological study? Yes, absolutely. There's been times in deep theological study does not connect me with God. So I don't want to say like, oh yeah, every time I read Karl Barth, I just like, oh, just, you know, feel God all over the place. But sometimes I do. For me, sometimes when I read kind of fluffy, less, I almost said thoughtless, but let me say less thoughtful Christian material. It pushes me away from God. It makes me not even want to be a Christian. Like I'm like, ah, just don't give me

the Twitter version of God. I want something I could chew on, you know? And that actually like, I typically, my heart connects with that more when my head is connecting. Other people, the opposite. Other people, the opposite. And I think that there is no right or wrong answer. I think people need to be in tune with their different kind of approaches and what they resonate with. You know, for some people listening to maybe Christian worship music brings them closer to God. I know some people that listen to Christian worship music, like pushes them away from like, they just, they, they, they don't like that. It's almost like triggering for them, you know,

you know, Christian worship music is not helpful. So, um, just being sensitive, I think to, um, what is pushing you away from God and what's drawing you closer. So, and so how do I balance the two? I mean, I don't think I do extremely well, but I don't force myself to fit in some cookie cutter mold of what works for somebody else. Yeah, for some people, yeah, I've already kind of said it, but studying might touch their heart, studying might not. So being sensitive to how you're responding to them. Seda says, not a question here, but you just loved my podcast 992 on the centrality of ethnic reconciliation. This is something I have thought, have long believed and sense deeply and viscerally, and I've desired to promote and live out the comprehensive theology you share, justified my conviction and grounded it on a more biblical foundation from Genesis to Revelation.

So thanks for your work. Thank you so much, Seda, for that. That podcast I recently did is ethnic reconciliation part of the gospel. It's been something I've been planning for like two years. So I finally sat down and organized my thoughts and recorded that podcast. I think I recorded it like a month and a half ago. So yeah, that's something that's, you know, that topic has been on my heart for a long time. And I really wanted to kind of just put down in one podcast, kind of my A to Z thoughts on it. So yeah. So I'm glad you found it helpful. Thank you for letting me know. Josiah, I'm a Christian who listens to a lot of heavy metal music like Silent Planet. It's also, I don't know Silent Planet. This also brought me to listening to a, here, I'm going to skip ahead here. Your main question here is you stumbled across a video called What is the

Correct Christian Music to Listen to by Spencer Smith. In this video, he talks about Ephesians 519, which mentions like spiritual songs and how Christian rock or Christian metal music is just fleshly songs and not spiritual songs. He starts talking about this at the 944 mark. You said you're kind of confused about how he's interpreting this verse. Would be interested to hear my thoughts on this. And you gave me a link to the video. I did watch a third of the video, maybe half of it. a third of the video, maybe half of it. And, um, I don't know this person. Um, so no, I, let me just begin by saying I had lots of disagreements with lots of stuff he said in the, in the video, no disrespect to him. I don't know him. Um, but in terms of the content of what he was saying there, I didn't resonate with much of it, um, at all, really. Um, first of all,

music isn't Christian. People are Christian. Like, I know it's common for us to talk about Christian music, and I refer to that. I think I even said it in this podcast, you know? So, I don't want to get... I'm not too particular about never saying the word Christian music, but since you're asking me about Christian music, now I do want to unearth a little more thought to it. Christians can produce music. A song might contain themes that reflect the beliefs of Christianity as a religion. But technically speaking, Christian is not like a musical genre.

It shouldn't be. People are Christians. Christians can produce music. But to say it's Christian music, what does that even mean? Well, the lyrics are Christian. Well, are they? Are they accurate? Well, Christians are producing it.

Okay, they might be Christians. They might not. What if they are doing it for the money? Is that still Christian music? What if the content's great, but they don't really believe the content? They just wrote the content because they know it would sell records. What if the Christian label is more driven by, uh, secular ways of, um, where profits come before people where, um, they produce something simply

because they know the market is demanding it rather than producing something because it's, um, actually very creative and, and, and promotes and resonates with a holistic vision of the kingdom of God. Like there's so many, even aside from the fact that I don't think the word Christian should be used to describe music because Christian is an adjective describing people. I just have questions about, okay, when people do use the term Christian music, what is Christian about it? So anyway, I would want to unpack even that very concept. I did start listening to the video at the beginning. And I just immediately, I, you know, he gave some feedback on, you know, we should consider the source of the music.

The source of the music. And he basically said, like, if a Christian is on a secular label, then that's not christian that's not good but then while he's saying that there were ads popping up on his youtube channel for secular companies and i know firsthand that like he makes money off that so he's every month i probably get like 200 bucks in the mail because of some because i run ads on my youtube channel you know he'll make a lot of well he may i mean he's got a lot of followers, so he probably makes pretty good money off, off of this. So as he's saying,

Christians shouldn't be part of a secular label. They shouldn't be making money from a secular label or doing something to fund a secular label. I'm getting ads like VRBO and other secular companies being, you know, popping up on his channel. So I thought that was funny. And later on he says,

yeah, you know, rock music can't be Christian. So like even the, he has a, there's certain styles of music that he says are intrinsically wrong and rock music can't, he said, I'm pretty sure this is a quote, rock music can't be Christian. Well, I would agree with that because music can't be Christian. People are Christians, but that's not what he was trying to say.

He was trying to say, no, the very sound, like, uh, the, uh, the kind of guitar played, you know, in, in, in Christian rock music is intrinsically goes against Ephesians 5, 19. It's not spiritual music. Um, but that's, I don't know, do I even need to, I think most people listening are probably rolling their eyes, but I, I don't, I think, I don't think God has a favorite genre of music. I think we're probably going to be a little shocked in the new creation if and when we have a musical worship service. I think the music, the sound of music will reflect the beautiful diversity of God's creation. There will probably be sitars.

There will be the rhythm of drums. There will be reggae. There will be Russian music. There will be the rhythm of drums. There will be reggae. There will be Russian music. There will be whatever. It's going to reflect. It won't sound like a modern American Western traditional church service. I can guarantee that. was just very just saturated with like modern American conservative Christian assumptions that I think didn't really resonate with me. Maybe watch the video. You guys can go watch it.

See if you disagree with me on that. But last question is actually not a question. Jenny says, just want to say thank you for answering my question last month. It had been bugging me since February. So it's nice to understand more and be able to put it to rest. Thank you for your ministry to all of us. Thank you, Jenny, for letting me know. Again, I'm deeply encouraged by all of the positive feedback I get from this podcast. And I can only respond to maybe 5%, if that, of the comments I get, whether it's critical or positive. I get stuff through Instagram, Facebook, which I hardly ever check, but every now and then I'll check.

I'm like, oh my gosh, there's all these messages here and stuff and emails and stuff that comes in through the website and stuff. And I just can't respond to almost all of it. But I want you guys to know that I do read a lot more than I respond to. And I just want to thank you so much for all of the encouraging words. When I say encouraging words, it's not the stuff like, hey, really like your podcast. I think you're cool or whatever. It's this has been meaningful for my spiritual walk. I feel closer to Jesus and more excited about Christianity as a result of the podcast.

Like, it's that meaningful feedback I get that it truly blows me away. There's something I've been thinking about, and I guess I'll just end with this. Like, I've just been thinking about what is, we need to develop an ecclesiology of podcasting. What is a podcast? It's such a new thing and yet it has become a very influential thing. And I want you all to hear it from me. I wasn't planning on talking, so hopefully this will make sense. I'm not sure what's going to come out of my mouth here. I'm not reading off notes here. I'm not sure what's going to come out of my mouth here. I'm not reading off notes here.

I am thrilled, thrilled that podcast, let me just speak, you know, this podcast is helping people in their spiritual journey in as much as it is doing that. It's challenging people's faith, is encouraging people's faith, hopefully, is not just giving intellectual answers, but hopefully moving hearts as well, introducing you to different thinkers, challenging your presuppositions, all of that. I'm just, as my mom would say, tickled pink when I hear that kind of feedback. However, I never, ever, ever want this podcast or any podcast to kind of replace someone's church identity. And I don't know what to do with that. Like, I would love to see thoughtful ecclesiology of podcasting.

How can podcasts, and again, I'll just refer to how can Theology in a Raw become not competing with church or even existing alongside church, but to somehow be intertwined with church. Are churches exploring this? And I know lots of churches post the sermons on the podcast and that we've been doing that for a while. I mean, at first it was cassette tapes, and then it was CDs, and then it was, you know, on the podcast or whatever. But this kind of podcast, what is this? What is Theology Raw? Curious conversations with thoughtful people. But how can this really come alongside the mission of the church? Or these are genuine questions, or is it? Is the fact that Theology Raw is kind of its own independent entity does that protect the rawness of the brand if you will um because part of me is like would i want to

would i want to put theology under the authority of the church whatever i'm like depends it really depends um who's who's gonna be calling the shots here you know but then i'm like i don't i don't i don't want to be some lone ranger either. And, and I mean, you know, I, it's, Theology in Raw is not officially under anybody's authority. It's under my authority, but, um, I, I am in deep conversations with a good number of people, you know, that listen to the podcast, give feedback. So there is kind of an informal, I guess, communal, I don't want to say authority, even structure at all, but, um, uh, there there's,

there's input, there's input from other people, not just me. And I do listen to feedback, um, especially like my, my patron supporters. I, I, you know, when they say, Hey, love your podcast, love supporting you. But man, uh, you said this on this podcast and that I think that's kind of wrong. I didn't like what you said it or, you know, I listened to, I do listen to, I can't listen to all the criticism, but I do listen to good critical feedback that's done in good faith. It's thoughtful. But anyway, that's, that's a question. I'm just going to leave that question out there.

What is an ecclesiology of, of a podcast of podcasting? Is it akin to, as I have said before, conversations with my neighbors? You know, like if I went out and talked to my neighbor and hit record, I'd put it online. You know, like that's kind of the spirit of this podcast. But some people treat it more like a sermon, like an authoritative, oh no, this is authoritative. This person is on a podcast and they said this. What is the genre, the ecclesiological genre of podcasting? Love to hear your thoughts.

If you can reach me. I already said that I don't read. I can't read everything. But that's a dialogue that I think we need to have because podcasts keep growing in influence, not shrinking in influence. So thank you so much to all of you supporting the show and to all of you who simply listen to the show. If you can't support the show through Patreon,

that's okay. You can support the show by leaving a review, leave an honest review on Apple or Spotify or wherever you're listening to this from. And you can also share the podcast on your social media outlets or even word of mouth. That's the best way through which podcasts like this grow. So thanks so much for your support. We'll see you next time on Theology in the Room. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.