Point of View October 24, 2024 – Hour 1 : The Church

[00:00:04] [SPEAKER_00]: Across America, live, this is Point of View, your guest host for Point of View.

[00:00:22] [SPEAKER_05]: Welcome to Point of View Radio Talk Show. I'm Liberty McCarter sitting in today for Kirby Anderson.

[00:00:27] [SPEAKER_05]: It's always a joy to be with you and we have some important and very interesting topics to cover today spanning theology, the upcoming election, culture and so much more.

[00:00:37] [SPEAKER_05]: Here's a little preview of what we have coming up in just a moment. I'll interview Dr. Brad East, a professor of theology at Abilene Christian University on his latest book, The Church, A Guide to the People of God.

[00:00:49] [SPEAKER_05]: And then in the second hour, I will be joined by frequent Point of View guest and Millennial Roundtable co-host Richard Lim.

[00:00:56] [SPEAKER_05]: And we'll talk about recent polling and predictions as we are just about a week and a half away from Election Day.

[00:01:01] [SPEAKER_05]: We'll talk about the Electoral College. And as a historian, Richard always has so much relevant perspective and insight to offer.

[00:01:08] [SPEAKER_05]: So you don't want to miss that conversation. And towards the end of the show, I'll be covering a few other topics in the news that I think you'll want to hear about.

[00:01:14] [SPEAKER_05]: And of course, you can follow along with everything we're discussing today or learn more about our guests at pointofview.net.

[00:01:21] [SPEAKER_05]: But let's turn now to Dr. Brad East. Dr. East, I've spoken with you a few times on the Know Why podcast, but it's great to welcome you today to Point of View.

[00:01:30] [SPEAKER_03]: Thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here.

[00:01:33] [SPEAKER_05]: So Dr. East teaches theology at Abilene Christian University. He earned his Ph.D. at Yale University, and he is the author of several books and essays.

[00:01:41] [SPEAKER_05]: And you can find out more about those at his website, which again, you can find by visiting pointofview.net and you'll find all the links there.

[00:01:48] [SPEAKER_05]: But today we are discussing just one of his latest books out this month, The Church, A Guide to the People of God.

[00:01:55] [SPEAKER_05]: I've read it all the way through. If you're watching online, you can see me holding it up.

[00:01:59] [SPEAKER_05]: It's got all my sticky notes in it, so you can tell that I enjoyed it.

[00:02:04] [SPEAKER_05]: But Dr. East, before we dive into your book specifically, this is actually part of a bigger series called The Christian Essentials Series.

[00:02:12] [SPEAKER_05]: So can you tell us a bit about that series and the purpose behind it?

[00:02:18] [SPEAKER_03]: Sure. It started a few years ago, and the idea was, I'm going to give you a word, catechesis or catechism.

[00:02:25] [SPEAKER_03]: This is an ancient word Christians have used to describe learning the basics of the faith, whether as a child or as an adult convert.

[00:02:33] [SPEAKER_03]: And the old catechism used to be the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments.

[00:02:39] [SPEAKER_03]: And Lexham, the publisher, thought, man, people might need a sort of refreshed take on these things in addition to others,

[00:02:46] [SPEAKER_03]: like baptism and communion, the Bible, and my topic is the church.

[00:02:52] [SPEAKER_05]: Great. And yes, I do think that that is so important because, you know, some traditions, I think, do a great job of kind of passing that down.

[00:03:02] [SPEAKER_05]: And then there are a lot of Christians today, as we can see from research, that don't really have a full biblical worldview.

[00:03:09] [SPEAKER_05]: Their hearts are in the right place.

[00:03:10] [SPEAKER_05]: But in terms of understanding what the Bible teaches and understanding church history, there is just a little bit of a lack of education there.

[00:03:17] [SPEAKER_05]: And I think that your book is a very accessible resource for readers who want to learn more.

[00:03:23] [SPEAKER_05]: And one of the things that I wanted to focus on that you make clear is central to understanding our identity as the church

[00:03:32] [SPEAKER_05]: is really understanding what we were created to be.

[00:03:36] [SPEAKER_05]: And people, if they've been in church a long time, you know, they might hear occasionally in a sermon about the church being the bride of Christ,

[00:03:44] [SPEAKER_05]: or maybe they hear that used as a metaphor during a wedding ceremony.

[00:03:49] [SPEAKER_05]: But really understanding that we were created to be the bride of Christ is central to understanding who we are.

[00:03:57] [SPEAKER_05]: Is that right?

[00:03:59] [SPEAKER_03]: That's right.

[00:04:00] [SPEAKER_03]: Early on in the book, I quote the American theologian, Jonathan Edwards,

[00:04:03] [SPEAKER_03]: who once wrote in a variety of ways, here's one quote.

[00:04:07] [SPEAKER_03]: He said that God created the world in order to provide a spouse for his son, Jesus Christ,

[00:04:14] [SPEAKER_03]: who might enjoy him and on whom he might pour forth his love.

[00:04:18] [SPEAKER_03]: So I framed the book in many respects as a kind of romance, a divine romance between God and his people.

[00:04:26] [SPEAKER_03]: In this case, he creates this people.

[00:04:29] [SPEAKER_03]: He calls this people out of non-existence into existence, and then he woos and loves and cares for.

[00:04:34] [SPEAKER_03]: And at the end of time, we'll bring this people to himself in love.

[00:04:38] [SPEAKER_05]: It's so beautiful.

[00:04:39] [SPEAKER_05]: And it is something that I think can be hard for us to wrap our minds around.

[00:04:43] [SPEAKER_05]: But you do a really good job of breaking all of that down.

[00:04:46] [SPEAKER_05]: And a lot of people might think that when you are writing a book about the church,

[00:04:51] [SPEAKER_05]: that a lot of it would be focused on the New Testament, because when we talk about the early church,

[00:04:57] [SPEAKER_05]: we're usually thinking first century.

[00:04:59] [SPEAKER_05]: But you actually, the majority of the book is Old Testament.

[00:05:03] [SPEAKER_05]: So can you talk about why it was so important to go back even further than we normally go when we think about the church?

[00:05:12] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I'll give you at least two reasons, one biblical and one practical.

[00:05:16] [SPEAKER_03]: The biblical is that this is the bulk of the Bible.

[00:05:20] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, you often have people, Christians, adult Christians asking, like,

[00:05:24] [SPEAKER_03]: why is the first three-fourths of the Bible Old Testament?

[00:05:29] [SPEAKER_03]: Why is it Israel's story and Israel's scriptures and songs and triumphs and tragedies?

[00:05:36] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, and this is the practical side.

[00:05:38] [SPEAKER_03]: The practical side is that if you are a Christian, if you are baptized into the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,

[00:05:46] [SPEAKER_03]: if you confess faith and the death and resurrection of Christ,

[00:05:49] [SPEAKER_03]: if you receive his spirit and his forgiveness and all the many gifts of the gospel,

[00:05:53] [SPEAKER_03]: you are adopted into this family.

[00:05:56] [SPEAKER_03]: As I like to tell my students in the college classroom, this is not ancient history,

[00:06:01] [SPEAKER_03]: and this is not someone else's story.

[00:06:03] [SPEAKER_03]: The Old Testament is your story because it's your family history.

[00:06:09] [SPEAKER_03]: And so part of what I'm doing in the book is not only trying to tell the reader that,

[00:06:13] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm actually trying to show them, re-narrate it, and sort of induct them into this story as their own.

[00:06:20] [SPEAKER_05]: And where do you think we kind of cross that line of getting disconnected from the Old Testament?

[00:06:27] [SPEAKER_05]: Because when you look at Jesus and the disciples in his era, they were very immersed in the scriptures.

[00:06:32] [SPEAKER_05]: And then today it seems so foreign to us.

[00:06:36] [SPEAKER_05]: So why is the modern church, why do we have that disconnect?

[00:06:39] [SPEAKER_03]: That is a very important question.

[00:06:42] [SPEAKER_03]: It's one, in my whole career as a teacher and writer,

[00:06:47] [SPEAKER_03]: the phenomenon is one I'm always trying to push against.

[00:06:51] [SPEAKER_03]: It's often associated with a very early figure in the second century.

[00:06:56] [SPEAKER_03]: So let's say maybe a century after Paul by the name of Marcion,

[00:07:00] [SPEAKER_03]: who wanted to cut out all of the Old Testament and parts of the New

[00:07:05] [SPEAKER_03]: because he thought the Old Testament God was a bad God

[00:07:08] [SPEAKER_03]: and the New Testament God, Jesus, was a good God.

[00:07:13] [SPEAKER_03]: And unfortunately, in many churches, that is sort of beneath the surface of a lot of teaching and preaching,

[00:07:19] [SPEAKER_03]: or at least beneath the surface of a lot of hearts and minds.

[00:07:24] [SPEAKER_03]: I can't quite put my finger on the why,

[00:07:27] [SPEAKER_03]: but I can say that that view is utterly contrary to the gospel in the New Testament.

[00:07:33] [SPEAKER_03]: As you say, it is entirely built on and dependent on the witness and testimony and truth of Israel's history and scriptures

[00:07:43] [SPEAKER_03]: and life with the only God there is, which is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

[00:07:48] [SPEAKER_03]: So wherever it comes from, we have to counteract it as best we can.

[00:07:54] [SPEAKER_05]: So important.

[00:07:55] [SPEAKER_05]: And yeah, we are just scratching the surface of the wealth of information that you include in this book, The Church.

[00:08:04] [SPEAKER_05]: We're about to go to a break, but Liberty McCarter, if you're just now joining us,

[00:08:08] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm sitting in for Kirby Anderson today and interviewing Dr. Brad East on his book, The Church, A Guide to the People of God.

[00:08:16] [SPEAKER_05]: We are in an election season.

[00:08:17] [SPEAKER_05]: We will be covering more news about that later on in the show, so stick with us.

[00:08:21] [SPEAKER_05]: But I think this is such a relevant topic for us right now because we can get so hyper-focused on the political realm

[00:08:28] [SPEAKER_05]: that we forget what our identity is as the church and as the people of God.

[00:08:34] [SPEAKER_05]: And Dr. East just does a great job of reminding us of that.

[00:08:38] [SPEAKER_05]: You can follow along and find links to his book and more information at pointofview.net.

[00:08:42] [SPEAKER_05]: Don't go anywhere.

[00:08:43] [SPEAKER_05]: We'll be right back after this short break.

[00:08:58] [SPEAKER_01]: This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson.

[00:09:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Nearly every recent survey documents the need for Christians to get sound, biblically-based instruction on finances.

[00:09:08] [SPEAKER_02]: One way to maximize your resources for God's kingdom is to get a copy of Enduring Wealth, Being Rich in This World and the Next by Raymond Harris.

[00:09:16] [SPEAKER_02]: He asks many questions throughout the book and begins with an important one.

[00:09:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Are you rich?

[00:09:21] [SPEAKER_02]: You probably don't think that you are because you know others who are wealthier,

[00:09:25] [SPEAKER_02]: but he reminds us that compared to most of the world's population, you are very rich.

[00:09:29] [SPEAKER_02]: He also reminds us that the wealth that we have is a gift from God.

[00:09:33] [SPEAKER_02]: One chapter reminds us that it is okay to be rich and provides biblical advice for the rich.

[00:09:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Solomon underscored the inability of wealth to provide security.

[00:09:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Jesus warned of the folly of chasing temporary wealth.

[00:09:46] [SPEAKER_02]: A very significant chapter talks about developing economic engines.

[00:09:50] [SPEAKER_02]: In the future, we will need to develop other ways to fund missions and ministries apart from typical fundraising activities.

[00:09:56] [SPEAKER_02]: He is concerned that as non-profits and ministries proliferate, the clamor for kingdom dollars will intensify.

[00:10:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Developing a business project can finance God's kingdom work and is something he has not only thought about,

[00:10:09] [SPEAKER_02]: but has accomplished in many parts of the world.

[00:10:11] [SPEAKER_02]: He also has wise advice for business people who need to see themselves as stewards.

[00:10:17] [SPEAKER_02]: He even suggests that the new missionary will be a business person.

[00:10:20] [SPEAKER_02]: They will need to understand the difference between the world's economy and God's economy,

[00:10:24] [SPEAKER_02]: and we all need to remember, as he says in one chapter, that life is hard and time is short.

[00:10:29] [SPEAKER_02]: I recommend Enduring Wealth because it will remind you of what is important

[00:10:34] [SPEAKER_02]: and encourage you to use your wealth, your time, your talent, and your treasure for God's kingdom.

[00:10:39] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view.

[00:10:46] [SPEAKER_01]: For a free booklet on a biblical view of Israel, go to viewpoints.info.com.

[00:10:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Viewpoints.info.com.

[00:10:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Viewpoints.info.com.

[00:10:58] [SPEAKER_00]: You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:11:03] [SPEAKER_05]: Welcome back to Point of View.

[00:11:05] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm Liberty McCarter sitting in today for Kirby Anderson,

[00:11:07] [SPEAKER_05]: and I have on the line with me Dr. Brad East, professor from Abilene Christian University

[00:11:12] [SPEAKER_05]: and author of the new book, The Church, A Guide to the People of God.

[00:11:17] [SPEAKER_05]: Before the break, we were discussing how there is this disconnect oftentimes

[00:11:22] [SPEAKER_05]: between Christians of today and the Old Testament.

[00:11:26] [SPEAKER_05]: And, Dr. East, I think you were doing a great job of explaining what a lot of people feel,

[00:11:31] [SPEAKER_05]: is that the God of the Old Testament seems sometimes so different from the God of the New Testament,

[00:11:39] [SPEAKER_05]: not if you really dig into it and understand it correctly,

[00:11:43] [SPEAKER_05]: but on kind of a surface-level reading, which is what a lot of people have,

[00:11:47] [SPEAKER_05]: it can seem to be this big difference between who God was and who God is.

[00:11:53] [SPEAKER_05]: And then we lose that realization that really we are part of a much bigger story.

[00:12:00] [SPEAKER_05]: So I want to go to where you start the story, which is actually in Genesis 12 with Abraham.

[00:12:07] [SPEAKER_05]: Can you talk about why that's so crucial for us to begin there

[00:12:11] [SPEAKER_05]: as we learn more about our identity as the church?

[00:12:15] [SPEAKER_03]: Sure. I'll give you a few different ways of coming at this.

[00:12:19] [SPEAKER_03]: Obviously, the Bible doesn't begin in Genesis 12. It begins in Genesis 1.

[00:12:23] [SPEAKER_03]: One way I describe what Genesis chapters 1 through 11 are doing to my students or in Sunday school

[00:12:32] [SPEAKER_03]: is I compare it to the crawl, the slow crawl that begins the Star Wars movies,

[00:12:41] [SPEAKER_03]: where it gives you the background and the setting and the players,

[00:12:46] [SPEAKER_03]: but then the real action begins once the spaceship actually enters the screen.

[00:12:53] [SPEAKER_03]: And on this analogy, the spaceship is Abram.

[00:12:56] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:12:58] [SPEAKER_03]: We have chapters 1 through 11 are prologue.

[00:13:01] [SPEAKER_03]: They are giving us, okay, what is the setting into which Abram,

[00:13:08] [SPEAKER_03]: who is later renamed Abraham, enters?

[00:13:11] [SPEAKER_03]: And out of nowhere, in Genesis 12, verse 1, God just plops down into the life of this man,

[00:13:21] [SPEAKER_03]: whom we know almost nothing about, and says, go.

[00:13:25] [SPEAKER_03]: He says, go, and then he makes extravagant promises.

[00:13:28] [SPEAKER_03]: And we don't even get Abram's response.

[00:13:31] [SPEAKER_03]: It just says, and Abram went.

[00:13:34] [SPEAKER_03]: He simply obeys.

[00:13:36] [SPEAKER_03]: He leaves his family, his father's house.

[00:13:39] [SPEAKER_03]: He leaves everything behind, and he journeys to a land.

[00:13:43] [SPEAKER_03]: And he knows that even in that land, he will not receive or see all of the promises made to him by God,

[00:13:50] [SPEAKER_03]: but rather they will be fulfilled in the lives of his descendants.

[00:13:56] [SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so that's another way of answering the question.

[00:14:00] [SPEAKER_03]: Let me give you a second or third way.

[00:14:01] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[00:14:03] [SPEAKER_03]: What I argue in this book, which I don't think is controversial in Christian history,

[00:14:08] [SPEAKER_03]: but I'm trying to clarify it for readers, is the story of the Bible is the story of a people.

[00:14:18] [SPEAKER_03]: It's the story of the calling and formation of God's chosen and beloved people,

[00:14:25] [SPEAKER_03]: who, as you said in the first segment, is the bride, is the one whom God loves.

[00:14:31] [SPEAKER_03]: And from Genesis chapter 12 all the way to the last chapter of the book of Revelation,

[00:14:38] [SPEAKER_03]: the people of God is at the center of God's purposes in the world.

[00:14:44] [SPEAKER_03]: And just in the same way that I want baptized Christians today to realize that the Old Testament is their family history.

[00:14:54] [SPEAKER_03]: Likewise, and for this reason, the promises that God makes to Abram in Genesis chapter 12 and in later chapters are promises of blessing that are about you, that are about me.

[00:15:11] [SPEAKER_03]: He says your descendants will be blessed and through you or in you or by you, all the families of the earth will be blessed.

[00:15:22] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, who's that? That's the Gentiles.

[00:15:24] [SPEAKER_03]: Those are people who are not Jews by birth but become adopted as children of Abraham through Christ.

[00:15:29] [SPEAKER_03]: So the promises of blessing and gift and love and so on are made to Abraham 4,000 years ago, but they become ours by faith and in baptism.

[00:15:40] [SPEAKER_05]: So good.

[00:15:40] [SPEAKER_05]: It's so exciting to think about this and really dig in because I think that people, we have a natural longing to be a part of something bigger than ourselves.

[00:15:51] [SPEAKER_05]: And obviously, you know, the ultimate relationship in Christianity is with Jesus Christ.

[00:15:59] [SPEAKER_05]: But when we can see that we are part of a body, we are part of a millennia long history of that same God calling us to himself.

[00:16:09] [SPEAKER_05]: I think it just puts things in perspective.

[00:16:11] [SPEAKER_05]: And so I really love that you are doing that for readers.

[00:16:16] [SPEAKER_05]: And since we've been talking about Abram, who became Abraham in the future that God offered him, I think it is an important distinction that you make.

[00:16:27] [SPEAKER_05]: I never really thought about it that deeply before.

[00:16:30] [SPEAKER_05]: But a lot of times when we talk about God choosing Israel as his beloved people, it's kind of framed as a plan B or a backup.

[00:16:39] [SPEAKER_05]: Like, oops, we had the fall.

[00:16:41] [SPEAKER_05]: Sin entered the world.

[00:16:42] [SPEAKER_05]: And now God is going to use Israel.

[00:16:44] [SPEAKER_05]: But that wasn't plan B.

[00:16:46] [SPEAKER_05]: He was going to choose Israel all along is what you argue.

[00:16:48] [SPEAKER_05]: Can you talk about that?

[00:16:50] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[00:16:51] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm so glad you pointed that out.

[00:16:52] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[00:16:54] [SPEAKER_03]: I should say before I share my thoughts on this, that this is not a sort of chapter and verse reading.

[00:17:04] [SPEAKER_03]: I can't quote a verse that says this outright.

[00:17:08] [SPEAKER_03]: But I think it's clear that the logic of the scriptural narrative bears this out.

[00:17:15] [SPEAKER_03]: So here's the idea.

[00:17:16] [SPEAKER_03]: And listeners can try it on for size.

[00:17:18] [SPEAKER_03]: If Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the 12 sons of Jacob, and the whole people of Israel from whom comes the Messiah, our Lord Jesus,

[00:17:29] [SPEAKER_03]: if that's a plan B or if that's just sort of God, oh, I guess I have to respond to sin, didn't see that one coming.

[00:17:36] [SPEAKER_03]: It threatens both a robust doctrine of God, meaning our understanding of who God is, his omniscience, his omnipotence, and so on.

[00:17:45] [SPEAKER_03]: But it also throws a wrench into our understanding of Christ and of our membership in this family and our own salvation.

[00:17:57] [SPEAKER_03]: It also, maybe a third point is, it makes Abraham and all his progeny merely a kind of means, almost like a ladder that God climbs and then he kicks over when he's done.

[00:18:11] [SPEAKER_03]: And that just doesn't jive with the language we get in the Old or New Testament, that Israel is God's treasured possession,

[00:18:21] [SPEAKER_03]: that this is his bride whom he intends to marry, that he did not choose them because they were more numerous or impressive militarily.

[00:18:31] [SPEAKER_03]: He chose them because he loved them.

[00:18:34] [SPEAKER_03]: And then you say, oh, okay, God, well, but why did you love them?

[00:18:36] [SPEAKER_03]: What was impressive about them?

[00:18:37] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, you're getting things the wrong way around.

[00:18:40] [SPEAKER_03]: It's not that he loved them because there was something impressive about them.

[00:18:44] [SPEAKER_03]: Rather, they become impressive as God's people because he loves them.

[00:18:48] [SPEAKER_03]: God's love for Israel is bedrock.

[00:18:51] [SPEAKER_03]: You can't actually get any deeper than that.

[00:18:54] [SPEAKER_03]: And once we glimpse that mystery, we see that the mystery of God's love for us is contained within it.

[00:19:02] [SPEAKER_05]: That is so encouraging, too.

[00:19:04] [SPEAKER_05]: And I love the way you write that because, yeah, there's no real clear reason that, you know, Abram was the one he chose.

[00:19:12] [SPEAKER_05]: I think you even say that.

[00:19:13] [SPEAKER_05]: It's just, you know, out of nowhere.

[00:19:14] [SPEAKER_05]: But then that also is, you know, a precursor of us and how we're not doing anything to impress God for him to love us.

[00:19:24] [SPEAKER_05]: But I wonder if this was especially relevant to you during this time that we're experiencing in our world and all of the events going on.

[00:19:36] [SPEAKER_05]: Obviously, attacks against Israel are nothing new.

[00:19:38] [SPEAKER_05]: But your book is so full of explaining why we really have to love Israel in order to love God, because that's the family we've been adopted into as Christians.

[00:19:47] [SPEAKER_05]: So as you were writing this book, was that brought home to you in any particular way right now?

[00:19:55] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, I wrote it a few years ago, certainly before 10-7 last year.

[00:20:00] [SPEAKER_03]: I will say that one of the things, maybe the thing in my last 20 years of study, of graduate training in the reading of Scripture and in Christian tradition and Christian theology,

[00:20:16] [SPEAKER_03]: is as I put it in this book and as I've put it elsewhere in other writings, in other essays, is I'm quoting a Jewish theologian from memory.

[00:20:27] [SPEAKER_03]: He says, you cannot love the God of Israel without loving the people Israel.

[00:20:36] [SPEAKER_03]: In other words, it is a contradiction in terms to hate the Jews and to want relationship with the Jewish God.

[00:20:46] [SPEAKER_03]: It's a package deal.

[00:20:48] [SPEAKER_03]: So if we, and by we I mean Gentiles, people who are not biological descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,

[00:20:59] [SPEAKER_03]: if we want to be incorporated and integrated into Abraham's household, we cannot hate the elder brother who was there before us.

[00:21:10] [SPEAKER_03]: And instead of looking out at others and casting stones, we have to look inward at Christians' own history of anti-Judaism and anti-Semitic prejudice and repent of it.

[00:21:23] [SPEAKER_05]: So wise.

[00:21:24] [SPEAKER_05]: We'll be right back after this break with more with Dr. Brad East on Point of View.

[00:21:30] [SPEAKER_01]: In 19th century London, two towering historical figures did battle, not with guns and bombs, but words and ideas.

[00:21:39] [SPEAKER_01]: London was home to Karl Marx, the father of communism, and legendary Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon.

[00:21:48] [SPEAKER_01]: London was in many ways the center of the world economically, militarily, and intellectually.

[00:21:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Marx sought to destroy religion, the family, and everything the Bible supports.

[00:21:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Spurgeon stood against him, warning of socialism's dangers.

[00:22:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Spurgeon understood Christianity is not just religious truth.

[00:22:08] [SPEAKER_01]: It is truth for all of life.

[00:22:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Where do you find men with that kind of wisdom to stand against darkness today?

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[00:22:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Point of View will continue after this.

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[00:23:10] [SPEAKER_01]: And now, here again, your guest host for Point of View.

[00:23:15] [SPEAKER_05]: Welcome back.

[00:23:16] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm Liberty McCarter sitting in for Kirby Anderson today.

[00:23:18] [SPEAKER_05]: And before we jump back into our interview with Dr. Brad East on his book, The Church, I did want to remind you that we have got a great resource at pointofview.net, the election central.

[00:23:30] [SPEAKER_05]: Early voting is ongoing now in a lot of states.

[00:23:33] [SPEAKER_05]: And so if you haven't cast your vote yet or you're waiting until Election Day, you can find sample ballots, voter guides, lots of articles and fact checkers and really helpful resources for free at pointofview.net.

[00:23:46] [SPEAKER_05]: So definitely check that out.

[00:23:47] [SPEAKER_05]: But in an election season, it's always important to keep our priorities straight.

[00:23:51] [SPEAKER_05]: And so we are talking about the church and our understanding, our identity as the church and our mission as the church.

[00:23:59] [SPEAKER_05]: So, Dr. East, before the break, we were talking about how the family of Israel is our family.

[00:24:05] [SPEAKER_05]: And I thought you did a beautiful job explaining that and just the importance of loving Israel as a people and loving the Jewish people,

[00:24:14] [SPEAKER_05]: because that is the family that we have been adopted into as Christians.

[00:24:18] [SPEAKER_05]: And as Christians, the history of Israel is our history.

[00:24:21] [SPEAKER_05]: And one of those big events that we read about in the Old Testament is the Exodus.

[00:24:27] [SPEAKER_05]: And I thought you did a great job of using this as an example of how our God is the same God then as he is now.

[00:24:35] [SPEAKER_05]: And the Exodus wasn't just a one-time event, but it's actually an ongoing part of God's nature and who he is.

[00:24:42] [SPEAKER_05]: So can you explain that for listeners a little bit?

[00:24:46] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[00:24:47] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, the Exodus, I'm thinking of a recent book I would recommend to listeners by Alistair Roberts and Andrew Wilson called Echoes of Exodus.

[00:24:54] [SPEAKER_03]: And what they do in a book I try to do in a little chapter, which is to show that the Exodus is, in one way, the focal point or the heart of the biblical story,

[00:25:08] [SPEAKER_03]: not in a way that rivals what Christ does in his passion, but rather Christ's passion in its own way not only reflects Exodus imagery and Exodus themes and the Exodus action,

[00:25:23] [SPEAKER_03]: but even though it's later, from God's angle, so to speak, the passion of Christ in Holy Week and Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday is actually,

[00:25:37] [SPEAKER_03]: theologically speaking, the source of every great deliverance that God has ever engaged in, whether in Scripture or out of Scripture.

[00:25:48] [SPEAKER_03]: And all that I mean by this is that Exodus defines the character of God, that his people are in bondage.

[00:25:59] [SPEAKER_03]: They are slaves under a tyrant, and he is the one who delivers them.

[00:26:05] [SPEAKER_03]: He is the one who reveals himself to Moses, gives him his name, makes for their promises, and says,

[00:26:12] [SPEAKER_03]: this will be my people, and I will be their God.

[00:26:16] [SPEAKER_03]: And this pattern shows up time and again, not only in Scripture, but paradigmatically or maybe in fulfillment in the New Testament.

[00:26:25] [SPEAKER_03]: And so both in the New Testament and later, Christian readers have seen a kind of pattern on display

[00:26:32] [SPEAKER_03]: and read metaphorically or read spiritually points forward to the Christian life.

[00:26:38] [SPEAKER_03]: So we are not in bondage to Pharaoh, but we're in bondage to sin and death and Satan.

[00:26:45] [SPEAKER_03]: And God, through Christ and the power of his Spirit, delivers us through what?

[00:26:50] [SPEAKER_03]: Through the waters of the Red Sea, that is through baptism.

[00:26:52] [SPEAKER_03]: And he draws us to covenant with him at Sinai, where we receive his teachings, i.e., in the Sermon on the Mount,

[00:27:03] [SPEAKER_03]: when Jesus goes up on the mountain and gives us a kind of new law for our common life together as his people.

[00:27:12] [SPEAKER_03]: And then we journey through the wilderness, and the wilderness is this world.

[00:27:16] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, we are between the old way of life, sin, death, and the devil in Egypt,

[00:27:22] [SPEAKER_03]: but we have not yet made it to the promised land of the kingdom of heaven.

[00:27:25] [SPEAKER_03]: And what does he feed us with?

[00:27:27] [SPEAKER_03]: He feeds us with manna, bread from heaven.

[00:27:29] [SPEAKER_03]: What is that?

[00:27:30] [SPEAKER_03]: That is the bread and wine of the Eucharist.

[00:27:33] [SPEAKER_03]: He feeds us with himself.

[00:27:34] [SPEAKER_03]: As Jesus says, I am the bread which came down from heaven.

[00:27:39] [SPEAKER_03]: Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you.

[00:27:42] [SPEAKER_03]: And so that's one way of understanding how the Exodus actually gathers all these images

[00:27:47] [SPEAKER_03]: and uses them in powerful ways for us to understand the Christian life.

[00:27:51] [SPEAKER_05]: So good.

[00:27:52] [SPEAKER_05]: You do a great job in the book of really giving multiple examples of how the Old Testament is a precursor to so many things in our life now.

[00:28:04] [SPEAKER_05]: It's not just something separate.

[00:28:07] [SPEAKER_05]: It really is one continuous story.

[00:28:10] [SPEAKER_05]: And when we approach the Bible with that lens, I think it becomes so much richer for us.

[00:28:15] [SPEAKER_05]: And another point I thought that you make that is so good and so relevant for us to remember as the church today

[00:28:22] [SPEAKER_05]: is that we are supposed to, just as the Old Testament in many ways previewed what was to come,

[00:28:30] [SPEAKER_05]: we as the church are supposed to be previewing what is to come.

[00:28:34] [SPEAKER_05]: We're supposed to give the world a taste of what it's like to be liberated, of what it's like to have rest in Jesus.

[00:28:43] [SPEAKER_05]: And so, yeah, that was just really good.

[00:28:46] [SPEAKER_05]: But I think sometimes we forget about that and we don't always do a good job of providing the sample to the world that we should be.

[00:28:54] [SPEAKER_03]: That's a really lovely way of putting it.

[00:28:56] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, the New Testament's language is that the events and persons and even the words of the scriptures and history of Israel are types.

[00:29:05] [SPEAKER_03]: T-Y-P-E-S.

[00:29:06] [SPEAKER_03]: They are figures that point towards what was to come in the life of Christ and his body, the church.

[00:29:17] [SPEAKER_03]: And in the same way, the life of the church is meant to be a type, a taste, an arrow pointing to when kingdom comes in full,

[00:29:29] [SPEAKER_03]: when we actually reach the promised land, what we want is to be a little foreshadowing of that.

[00:29:36] [SPEAKER_03]: And that's, you know, I don't know how many listeners will be familiar with the language of sacraments,

[00:29:42] [SPEAKER_03]: but the sacraments of baptism and communion are meant to be, in certain cases, quite literally a foretaste, like manna.

[00:29:50] [SPEAKER_03]: They're not the feast, but they are a sampling or an appetizer.

[00:29:56] [SPEAKER_03]: Or if you want to use the sense of sight instead of taste, you know, or hearing, we hear the Bible,

[00:30:03] [SPEAKER_03]: but in heaven we will hear the voice of God unmediated.

[00:30:07] [SPEAKER_03]: We will see face to face, whereas we see through a glass dimly now.

[00:30:14] [SPEAKER_05]: Right. So I think that is convicting for individuals and church, local church bodies, too, to think,

[00:30:22] [SPEAKER_05]: are we being that reflection or that preview, the trailer, so to speak, for the movie of what is to come?

[00:30:32] [SPEAKER_05]: Is it something that people are actually intrigued by and interested in?

[00:30:36] [SPEAKER_05]: Or is it something that they think, oh, no, I'll pass on that.

[00:30:41] [SPEAKER_05]: But so may we be an intriguing preview.

[00:30:45] [SPEAKER_05]: But something else that I think is so crucial, and we've actually talked about this on the Know Why podcast in past episodes, too,

[00:30:53] [SPEAKER_05]: is just understanding the practical implications of who we are as the church.

[00:30:59] [SPEAKER_05]: And community is not nice to have or optional, but it's actually integral into who we are.

[00:31:06] [SPEAKER_05]: And one of the reasons for that is that we get the gospel from other people.

[00:31:13] [SPEAKER_05]: So, yeah, can you talk about that a little bit, too?

[00:31:18] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. You know, one way to come at it is simply to say that God made us to be social and communal creatures.

[00:31:24] [SPEAKER_03]: We have families. We have households. We have friendships. We have neighborhoods.

[00:31:28] [SPEAKER_03]: We have all these organizations and institutions we belong to, and we quite literally wither and die without them.

[00:31:36] [SPEAKER_03]: And God, having created us, knows what we need and has given us his people, a community and a family to belong to.

[00:31:43] [SPEAKER_03]: But just like I didn't give birth to myself, I am not the source of myself.

[00:31:48] [SPEAKER_03]: My parents are my human source, but they didn't birth themselves.

[00:31:55] [SPEAKER_03]: There is this chain that links in a chain that go back and in every direction, humanly speaking.

[00:32:03] [SPEAKER_03]: And in the same way, the faith, I didn't discover the faith for myself.

[00:32:09] [SPEAKER_03]: I didn't find the gospel by burrowing down into some kind of archaeological dig.

[00:32:16] [SPEAKER_03]: The gospel was handed on to me, and God gives us the church and the church's tradition precisely to hand on the faith.

[00:32:25] [SPEAKER_03]: That's what tradition means. It means to hand on.

[00:32:28] [SPEAKER_03]: And each generation of the church is tasked with this mission, not only to proclaim the gospel to those who haven't heard it,

[00:32:35] [SPEAKER_03]: but also to hand it on to the next generation because the present generation will die.

[00:32:41] [SPEAKER_03]: And that act is called mediation.

[00:32:44] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't receive the gospel unmediated.

[00:32:47] [SPEAKER_03]: I didn't wake up at age 10 and find a Bible, much less have a light shine down on me from heaven.

[00:32:55] [SPEAKER_03]: No, my parents and uncles and aunts in the faith and many, many more besides ministers and other faithful believers gave me what I now have,

[00:33:06] [SPEAKER_03]: and I in turn now handed on to my own literal children, but also my students in the classroom.

[00:33:13] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, so important in understanding that that bigger picture that we were talking about earlier, that we are a part of.

[00:33:20] [SPEAKER_05]: We're about to come to a break,

[00:33:21] [SPEAKER_05]: but I do want to encourage you to check out some of the other work I do at knowwhypodcast.com.

[00:33:27] [SPEAKER_05]: As I mentioned, you can find some other interviews with Dr. Brad East there,

[00:33:31] [SPEAKER_05]: but it's a great resource, especially for young adults in your life.

[00:33:34] [SPEAKER_05]: But we're going to wrap up this conversation with Dr. Brad East in just a few minutes after this short break.

[00:33:40] [SPEAKER_05]: So stay with us on Point of View.

[00:33:55] [SPEAKER_00]: You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:34:01] [SPEAKER_05]: Welcome back.

[00:34:02] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm Liberty McCarter filling in for Kirby Anderson today.

[00:34:04] [SPEAKER_05]: And in the next few minutes, we're going to be wrapping up our wonderful interview that we've been having with Dr. Brad East.

[00:34:11] [SPEAKER_05]: We've been discussing his book, The Church, A Guide to the People of God.

[00:34:15] [SPEAKER_05]: If you want to find a link to that and other works from Dr. East, you can find links to those at pointofview.net.

[00:34:21] [SPEAKER_05]: But right before the break, we were talking about the communal nature of the church.

[00:34:28] [SPEAKER_05]: And Dr. East, you were alluding to the fact that we receive the gospel from other people who pass it on to us,

[00:34:34] [SPEAKER_05]: and then we pass it on to others.

[00:34:38] [SPEAKER_05]: And that led me to something that we actually talked about on the Know Why podcast recently.

[00:34:43] [SPEAKER_05]: I interviewed Dr. George Barna, and he has a book out on raising spiritual champions.

[00:34:48] [SPEAKER_05]: And one of the things that he noted is that oftentimes today in the modern American church,

[00:34:55] [SPEAKER_05]: children's ministry can be kind of used or is often viewed as a ploy.

[00:35:03] [SPEAKER_05]: Not really a ploy, but something to basically attract the parents.

[00:35:07] [SPEAKER_05]: If we can get the kids to VBS or some, you know, big event, then we can get the parents in the door.

[00:35:13] [SPEAKER_05]: And they're used kind of as a means to an end, when in reality, discipling children should be central to our mission as the church.

[00:35:23] [SPEAKER_05]: I'd love to hear your thoughts on that, too.

[00:35:27] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, my response might be simple, which is yes and amen.

[00:35:30] [SPEAKER_03]: Amen.

[00:35:32] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you know, as you know, my other book that happened to come out this month is called Letters to a Future Saint.

[00:35:40] [SPEAKER_03]: And it's meant to fill this gap, not for true children, but for teenagers, 20-somethings and even 30-somethings who were raised in churches that entertained more than they catechized,

[00:35:59] [SPEAKER_03]: that distracted more than they instructed.

[00:36:04] [SPEAKER_03]: And I want to be careful because, on one hand, many churches are doing this right.

[00:36:10] [SPEAKER_03]: And on the other hand, it is a really difficult job, not least in a world of ubiquitous screens and smartphones and tablets and short attention spans and needy kids and parents who just need a little break.

[00:36:25] [SPEAKER_03]: So it's not a word of judgment, but it is a word for all of us.

[00:36:32] [SPEAKER_03]: I have four young children.

[00:36:33] [SPEAKER_03]: It's a word for all of us to redouble our efforts and to hone in on what do we want our churches, broadly speaking, and our churches' children's ministries in particular to do?

[00:36:49] [SPEAKER_03]: Or put differently, what is their job?

[00:36:52] [SPEAKER_03]: And I think a short answer, the job is to give them Christ as best they can and to give them Christ as a feast and not as empty calories.

[00:37:08] [SPEAKER_03]: You've got to start with milk, but you do want to eventually get to meat, as the Bible says.

[00:37:14] [SPEAKER_03]: And it's difficult to do.

[00:37:17] [SPEAKER_03]: And I certainly am not the one with the master plan.

[00:37:20] [SPEAKER_03]: Maybe Barna has the master plan.

[00:37:23] [SPEAKER_03]: But he's absolutely right that the church exists to evangelize those who are outside the church, and that just means to give them the gospel, and to catechize or give the gospel to those within.

[00:37:39] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes, so important.

[00:37:41] [SPEAKER_05]: And I know that listeners of Point of View have heard this multiple times, but the research shows that even among self-proclaimed born-again Christians, the percentage of people who really have a biblical worldview, and that is an understanding of the biblical teachings, many of which we've talked about today, is very low.

[00:38:03] [SPEAKER_05]: And the solution to that is prioritizing that for yourself, but then getting involved and passing that on to the next generation.

[00:38:13] [SPEAKER_05]: And so just a quick encouragement before I ask a few more questions is if you're listening and you think, well, I don't have kids at home or I don't have kids, there are still so many ways that the Bible says that the older generations are supposed to pass that on to the younger generation.

[00:38:29] [SPEAKER_05]: So get involved in kids' ministry.

[00:38:30] [SPEAKER_05]: Like Dr. East was saying, it is not just babysitting or distraction, or at least it should not be.

[00:38:35] [SPEAKER_05]: That is an opportunity to change the next generation and to give Christ to the next generation.

[00:38:42] [SPEAKER_05]: So just a little encouragement.

[00:38:45] [SPEAKER_05]: But you talk, the majority of the book, you talk about the Old Testament, which is so beautiful.

[00:38:50] [SPEAKER_05]: It gives us a really big picture perspective of who we are as the church.

[00:38:55] [SPEAKER_05]: But then you also end with several practical implications of what does it mean for our mission as the church.

[00:39:03] [SPEAKER_05]: And we've talked about passing it on to the younger generation.

[00:39:06] [SPEAKER_05]: But what are a few other items in our mission as believers that you think that maybe we have forgotten about or not done so well as the American church?

[00:39:15] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. So in the second to last chapter, I think it's the longest one.

[00:39:21] [SPEAKER_03]: I end with sort of 12 theses or little mini discussions.

[00:39:30] [SPEAKER_03]: And what I'll say, I'll actually back up just a moment, just to get in a thought that I should have said earlier in our conversation from two different angles.

[00:39:41] [SPEAKER_03]: And then maybe I can get practical in one way or two.

[00:39:44] [SPEAKER_03]: And that is you've been rightly emphasizing the way in which the church as a community and as a family is essential.

[00:39:53] [SPEAKER_03]: It's essential to human life, but it's certainly essential to the Christian life.

[00:39:58] [SPEAKER_03]: And part of what I'm hoping to do with this book is to say that the church is not an aggregate of individuals that sort of accidentally happens.

[00:40:12] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, because like Christian individuals, you know, sort of need to get together and do stuff.

[00:40:18] [SPEAKER_03]: That actually the primary thing is the community, is the people and the individual is added to that people, not vice versa.

[00:40:29] [SPEAKER_03]: We don't form the church.

[00:40:31] [SPEAKER_03]: We are added to a preexisting people that God himself created.

[00:40:38] [SPEAKER_03]: And that's also what you know.

[00:40:39] [SPEAKER_03]: This book is very much for me a love letter to the church.

[00:40:43] [SPEAKER_03]: I have been blessed in so many ways by so many different churches and above all the one that raised me from age one and a half to 18.

[00:40:53] [SPEAKER_03]: And as you know, because you've read the book, there's not an ounce of anxiety in this book about all the church's troubles in recent years and decades.

[00:41:01] [SPEAKER_03]: It is not a response, even 1% to all of the controversies and scandals, which feel like they fill social media feeds and news headlines.

[00:41:13] [SPEAKER_03]: Not the latest pastor who's fallen from grace or the latest scandal.

[00:41:18] [SPEAKER_03]: That stuff is very important.

[00:41:20] [SPEAKER_03]: And people need to think and write about that and respond to it.

[00:41:24] [SPEAKER_03]: But we can't lose the forest for the trees.

[00:41:28] [SPEAKER_03]: So this book is about the theologically primary fact that God and Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and Moses and David and Ruth and Hannah and into John the Baptist and Jesus, Peter, Paul, James, etc.

[00:41:42] [SPEAKER_03]: has formed a people and set them apart from the world for the blessing of the world.

[00:41:49] [SPEAKER_03]: And you and I are invited into that.

[00:41:52] [SPEAKER_03]: And to encapsulate that point, I quote in the book a very famous line from a church father in North Africa named St. Cyprian of Carthage.

[00:42:02] [SPEAKER_03]: And he said, you cannot have God for a father unless you have the church for a mother.

[00:42:11] [SPEAKER_03]: So in the same way that God, the God of the Jews and the Jewish people are a package deal, Abraham's God and Abraham's family.

[00:42:21] [SPEAKER_03]: In the same way, you can't have Christ without the body of Christ.

[00:42:29] [SPEAKER_03]: They're also a package deal.

[00:42:32] [SPEAKER_03]: And if you don't want one, then you don't get the other.

[00:42:34] [SPEAKER_03]: But if you do say yes to one, you get both.

[00:42:37] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes.

[00:42:38] [SPEAKER_05]: So good.

[00:42:38] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, we are about out of time.

[00:42:40] [SPEAKER_05]: But Dr. Isa, just want to thank you so much for joining Point of View.

[00:42:44] [SPEAKER_05]: I want to encourage listeners to grab a copy of that book, The Church, A Guide to the People of God.

[00:42:50] [SPEAKER_05]: You can find that anywhere books are sold, I'm sure.

[00:42:53] [SPEAKER_05]: But you can go to pointofview.net and we have links to that there.

[00:42:57] [SPEAKER_05]: We're about to go to a break, but don't go back.

[00:42:59] [SPEAKER_05]: We have a lot more to get to, including our next interview, which is with historian Richard Lim on the presidential election.

[00:43:06] [SPEAKER_05]: So don't go anywhere.

[00:43:07] [SPEAKER_05]: We'll see you back in a few minutes on Point of View.

[00:43:10] [SPEAKER_01]: It almost seems like we live in a different world from many people in positions of authority.

[00:43:16] [SPEAKER_01]: They say men can be women and women men.

[00:43:20] [SPEAKER_01]: People are prosecuted differently or not at all, depending on their politics.

[00:43:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Criminals are more valued and rewarded than law-abiding citizens.

[00:43:30] [SPEAKER_01]: It's so overwhelming, so demoralizing.

[00:43:32] [SPEAKER_01]: You feel like giving up.

[00:43:34] [SPEAKER_01]: But we can't.

[00:43:36] [SPEAKER_01]: We shouldn't.

[00:43:37] [SPEAKER_01]: We must not.

[00:43:38] [SPEAKER_01]: As Winston Churchill said to Britain in the darkest days of World War II,

[00:43:43] [SPEAKER_01]: never give in.

[00:43:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Never give in.

[00:43:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Never, never, never.

[00:43:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Never yield to force.

[00:43:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

[00:43:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's what we say to you today.

[00:43:55] [SPEAKER_01]: This is not a time to give in, but to step up and join Point of View in providing clarity in the chaos.

[00:44:03] [SPEAKER_01]: We can't do it alone, but together, with God's help, we will overcome the darkness.

[00:44:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Invest in biblical clarity today at pointofview.net or call 1-800-347-5151.

[00:44:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Pointofview.net and 800-347-5151.

[00:44:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Point of View will continue after this.