The Transfiguration of Jesus and the Growth of the Christian with Patrick Schreiner

[00:00:00] Part of the ways I've probably changed in preaching over the years is I really try to keep it simple.

[00:00:05] I try to take kind of CS Lewis's tack that you can have depth with simplicity and just like don't over complicate what doesn't need to be over complicated.

[00:00:16] But in the midst of that, I think there's probably a depth to what I'm saying that those who have never heard some of this stuff before could get this.

[00:00:24] And then those who have heard it understand like, OK, there's way more underneath of this.

[00:00:28] Hey, welcome to the Expositors Collective podcast, episode 328.

[00:00:33] I'm your host, Mike Neglia.

[00:00:34] And the voice you heard is our guest for this week, Dr. Patrick Schreiner.

[00:00:40] On this podcast, we speak about his recently published book put out by Baker Academic called The Transfiguration of Christ, an exegetical and theological reading.

[00:00:53] And so you won't be surprised to learn that we'll be speaking about the Transfiguration of Jesus, but then also the transformation and the growth and the change in Patrick's preaching over the years.

[00:01:07] And then also the growth and the progress that's available in the Christian life.

[00:01:11] So you're going to hear some real scholarly insight as well as some pastoral care that sprinkled throughout this conversation.

[00:01:20] My microphone wasn't working great during this call.

[00:01:24] And so on my end of the conversation, I don't sound very crisp or clear, but I don't think anybody listens to this show for my insights.

[00:01:36] The reason why you're listening is because I get to have great and fascinating conversations with academics and preaching practitioners.

[00:01:47] Patrick Schreiner is both.

[00:01:48] He's an associate professor of New Testament and biblical theology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and you're really going to benefit from this.

[00:01:58] Hey, speaking of things that you might benefit from, I'd like to speak to you about sermons.com.

[00:02:03] They are the sponsor of this episode.

[00:02:07] sermons.com is right up your alley.

[00:02:09] If you are a listener to the expositors collective podcast, they have a lot of online Bible study tools that go deep into the passage.

[00:02:19] And then here's one of the things that I like about their website the most.

[00:02:23] There's connections and links between like current events and newspaper articles and trending topics.

[00:02:31] And it links those back with passages of scripture.

[00:02:35] Personally, I find that pretty hard to do.

[00:02:39] And so I benefit from sermons.com doing the heavy lifting and making those connections between the ancient world and the contemporary culture and the news stories that people are thinking about and interacting with.

[00:02:52] So thanks for sponsoring us sermons.com.

[00:02:56] And one more.

[00:02:59] You probably, if you've been listening to the show, you know that we have an in person training event and it's coming up sooner than later on the day that this has come out.

[00:03:07] It's about a week and a half away.

[00:03:10] Myself, Nick, Katie, Mike, Chattick, John Whitaker, Alan Stoddard, Brian Stupar and more are going to be converging together in Pleasanton, California.

[00:03:25] We're going to be doing our two day preacher intensive training.

[00:03:30] And if you are an experienced preacher or if you're new to all of this, we want to help you grow in your personal study and public proclamation of God's word.

[00:03:40] There are still spaces left and I'm going to allow Heath Hardesty to invite you to his church Valley Community Church for our preaching training event May 24th and 25th.

[00:03:54] Here's Heath.

[00:03:55] Hey, everyone.

[00:03:56] Heath Hardesty here, pastor Valley Community Church in Pleasanton, California.

[00:04:01] I want to invite you to come out on May 24th and 25th to the expositors, elected interactive training event here in the beautiful Bay Area.

[00:04:10] This will help you grow in your personal study and the public proclamation of God's word.

[00:04:15] This will be a joyful time where we learn new skills and we do it in community all for the glory of God.

[00:04:21] So bring your team.

[00:04:23] Come on out.

[00:04:24] It'll be a powerful time of learning how to preach God's word and a joyful and powerful way.

[00:04:31] We hope to see you then.

[00:04:39] Well, hey, welcome to the expositors collected podcast.

[00:04:41] Really excited to be speaking with Dr. Patrick Shreiner this morning.

[00:04:45] Patrick, how are you doing?

[00:04:46] Good.

[00:04:47] Good to see you, Mike.

[00:04:49] Well, small talk check.

[00:04:52] I'm not good at small talk.

[00:04:53] Apparently neither are you.

[00:04:55] Let's just get straight to it.

[00:04:58] We'd love to get to know people by just hearing about their first sermon.

[00:05:03] So like, do you remember the first time you ever taught the Bible in public?

[00:05:08] Yeah, you know, the first thing that came to my mind, I just told you before we jumped on here, I have a bad memory.

[00:05:13] I taught the Bible quite a bit in like Bible study settings, small group settings.

[00:05:19] But the first sermon that I remember doing it might not even be my very first sermon.

[00:05:24] But the first sermon I remember doing was in college and this was probably around the year of 2005.

[00:05:34] And I was an associate pastor at a church.

[00:05:38] I'd just become an associate pastor.

[00:05:39] I was preaching for the main pastor at a small Baptist church in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

[00:05:45] And I think my text is Romans 13 on submitting to the government.

[00:05:49] So he was going through Romans and asked me to fill in for him.

[00:05:53] I think he asked me actually, if I remember correctly, like, do you want to do Romans

[00:05:58] the beginning of Romans 13 or maybe it was the end of Romans 13 or 14?

[00:06:02] And I just remember looking at the text and feeling like the text afterwards had like just a ton of commands.

[00:06:07] It was like imperative after imperative after imperative.

[00:06:10] And I was like, I don't know what I would do with that.

[00:06:12] So I'll take I'll take the government sermon because it seemed like at least there was like cohesion.

[00:06:17] I would know what to say.

[00:06:20] Wow. Yeah.

[00:06:21] You really cut those teeth.

[00:06:23] Do you remember how it went or or the reception?

[00:06:28] I remember I spent a ton of time, way, way more time than I do now

[00:06:32] in preparing sermons because it was one of my first ones.

[00:06:35] And so I had a very honed in manuscript.

[00:06:39] I remember I studied a lot like any first time preacher would.

[00:06:44] I remember I listened to even other people's sermons, which is a dangerous thing, right?

[00:06:48] Obviously, you don't want to take their own material.

[00:06:51] But I listened to other people's sermons on it.

[00:06:53] But I do remember I did that after I'd written my manuscript,

[00:06:56] and I probably added a few quotes from other pastors or whatever it was.

[00:07:01] And I remember I remember there were some tough things in the text.

[00:07:06] I remember talking about actually up front like,

[00:07:09] I yeah, it's a weird memory that's coming back now that even we're talking about it.

[00:07:14] But I remember I remember asking the congregation like,

[00:07:17] hey, it raises the question was the American Revolution or according to the scriptures.

[00:07:23] And I was sitting there as a pastor thinking, man, yeah, this text is tough

[00:07:28] in terms of answering that question.

[00:07:31] And I remember that people responded well, that they thought it was, you know,

[00:07:36] that kind of text in one sense, it's a tough text,

[00:07:38] but another sense, it's immediately practical.

[00:07:41] It's relevant.

[00:07:42] And so I think people are immediately just tuned in

[00:07:45] because we interact with the government and it's a real thing.

[00:07:49] So I don't, I don't feel like I had to do a lot of work of like,

[00:07:51] how does this connect to your life?

[00:07:53] I felt like it was pretty, pretty relevant already.

[00:07:57] So I remember I got good feedback.

[00:07:58] I was probably very tied to my manuscript because I was nervous.

[00:08:03] So yeah, I don't I'm sure being early on in preaching,

[00:08:09] there were many things I would do differently now, but I don't remember

[00:08:12] what those things are right now.

[00:08:15] Well, they'll come to you as we keep on chatting.

[00:08:19] But OK, so from 2005 in the Romans 13 up until now,

[00:08:28] then I know that your vocationally no longer

[00:08:33] is like in a pastoral, pastoral role, all right?

[00:08:36] Like you're in the academy now. Yeah.

[00:08:38] Yeah, I'm a lay pastor and so I preach about once a month

[00:08:42] that our local church and then I I travel around and speak at churches

[00:08:48] anywhere from like, you know, maybe 10 times a year or something like that.

[00:08:52] Is there OK? OK.

[00:08:53] Yeah. So essentially the question is from 2005 up until even even now,

[00:08:58] what are the sort of like progress or tangible?

[00:09:04] Like what have you decided to deliberately stop doing?

[00:09:07] Or is there something that you consciously put work into starting

[00:09:10] in the intervening 19 years?

[00:09:14] Yeah, I mean, some of this I feel like is pretty specific to me and based on who I am.

[00:09:20] I spent so much time in the biblical text because I am a teacher.

[00:09:24] I think at the beginning I was spending way more time on the exegesis,

[00:09:27] just making sure I had the text in front of me correct, which

[00:09:33] you need to do. But as I've taught the scriptures again and again,

[00:09:37] I find myself knowing many of the texts that I'm preaching beforehand,

[00:09:42] because I've taught them on them before.

[00:09:44] And so I'm spending more time and again, this is unique to me.

[00:09:48] So it's not like I'm giving advice to everyone, but I'm finding myself

[00:09:51] spending more time thinking about application, how it applies,

[00:09:56] illustrations, little turns of phrases that I could use to help

[00:10:00] enlighten the text.

[00:10:01] And again, I say that I want to be really careful to say it specific

[00:10:05] to me, not because I know the whole scriptures or anything.

[00:10:08] I think especially if you go to more obscure texts than the Old Testament,

[00:10:11] I'm spending more time on the text.

[00:10:15] But then I'm not going to like commentaries as much because I feel like

[00:10:19] I've looked at these texts.

[00:10:20] I know the main point of the text.

[00:10:23] And so really, yeah, I preach this.

[00:10:27] I was at this past week.

[00:10:28] It was this past week.

[00:10:29] I'm thinking of you under my process then.

[00:10:31] You know, I started thinking about the text two weeks before

[00:10:34] because I do have that time because I'm not preaching every week.

[00:10:37] And I just read it again and again and kind of think, OK, I think this is

[00:10:41] the main thing that's coming from this text.

[00:10:43] And then I developed an outline and then I wrote the sermon

[00:10:47] and I didn't really look at that many commentaries.

[00:10:49] It was 2nd Timothy.

[00:10:52] There was one verse.

[00:10:53] I maybe I'm not getting to your question, but we're talking about preaching.

[00:10:56] So maybe this is helpful.

[00:10:58] There was one verse that was interesting this time that I took initially

[00:11:03] a different way.

[00:11:04] And then I started thinking about more and read some commentaries.

[00:11:06] I shifted my view, actually.

[00:11:09] And that was 2nd Timothy.

[00:11:10] I was exactly going to ask you that.

[00:11:12] That was like I jotted down a question because you said that you know,

[00:11:15] you have a pretty baseline understanding of those passages in your sermon prep.

[00:11:20] Is it based on kind of discovery of what the passage says anymore?

[00:11:23] And I wrote down, ask him the last time he was surprised by a passage.

[00:11:27] Here it is. Here it is.

[00:11:28] It was this last week.

[00:11:30] Yeah.

[00:11:31] So the text was 2nd Timothy 2.

[00:11:33] 13 where it says, if we are faithless, he remains faithful for he cannot deny himself.

[00:11:39] And I think I've always taken that text.

[00:11:41] I've never looked in more detail as a comfort to Christians that

[00:11:47] I think we believe as Christians, we are we are faithless in many ways, right?

[00:11:52] But he remains faithful

[00:11:55] because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

[00:11:58] And so that the flow of this text is, hey, if you die with him, you'll live with him.

[00:12:04] If you endure with him, you'll reign with him.

[00:12:06] If you deny him, he will also deny you.

[00:12:09] But if you remain faithless, he remains faithful for he cannot deny himself.

[00:12:12] So I took it as more positively like, OK, I'm going to comfort Christians now.

[00:12:16] I'm going to comfort them and say, you know, you're never going to do it perfectly.

[00:12:20] Here's the gospel of Jesus Christ.

[00:12:22] And I was super excited about that.

[00:12:23] But the more I read about it, the more I thought, oh, I think he's

[00:12:27] I think there's parallelism going on between if we deny him, he will also deny us.

[00:12:33] And he's saying if we are faithless,

[00:12:36] he remains faithful to his promises to judge and his and his threats really.

[00:12:42] So he's he's he's faithful to his promises to save

[00:12:45] and he's faithful to his promises to judge for he cannot deny himself.

[00:12:50] So there's actually a parallel passage in Romans three, three through four.

[00:12:55] Paul says something to the effect.

[00:12:56] If we remain faith or if we are faithless is God a liar.

[00:13:00] And he says, by no means God is always faithful to himself.

[00:13:03] Basically, and he's pitching forward to Romans nine through eleven.

[00:13:05] So I wanted I really wanted to end the sermon on this like comfort gospel.

[00:13:12] But I ended up ending the sermon on like, God will judge you if you don't

[00:13:15] follow him, which is that was a good thing for me, because I think my

[00:13:19] tendency is to want to end with that comfort.

[00:13:22] And I kind of had to end on this like a little bit of a threat.

[00:13:26] And so that was good for me, I think, because I actually in the preaching

[00:13:32] of that text, I told the congregation my thought process

[00:13:36] because I wanted to show them that we really believe we want to go

[00:13:41] where the scriptures tell us to go, not what I think it initially says

[00:13:46] or what I wanted to say and so forth and so on.

[00:13:48] So I thought it was actually a good teaching moment just to let

[00:13:50] him in on my process a little bit.

[00:13:52] And so it was very quick.

[00:13:53] But I said, hey, I took this text a different way when I first saw it

[00:13:56] and here's some reasons why I'm convinced it's the other way.

[00:13:59] And I actually had a few comments from people saying that was helpful

[00:14:02] for me to even let them in on on my thought process of that.

[00:14:05] And I don't always do that.

[00:14:06] A lot of times in preaching, you just have to

[00:14:09] tell them the way you take it and you don't give all the reasons

[00:14:12] and you just go for it.

[00:14:13] And that often is the case.

[00:14:15] But I think in this in this instance, I thought

[00:14:19] this is a text where maybe initially it reads a different way than

[00:14:23] I am giving it.

[00:14:24] So I want to give some explanation of that.

[00:14:26] So I I'm straying way far from your initial question, but at least

[00:14:29] we're talking here.

[00:14:31] No, this was the this was the planned diversion and you

[00:14:34] you preemptively beat me to it.

[00:14:37] But yeah, I hear that verse quoted a lot at prayer meetings

[00:14:41] and people pray, you know, and and I agree with your kind

[00:14:48] of second interpretation of that.

[00:14:51] And yeah, often again, it's kind of in the context of a long

[00:14:56] prayer and that's kind of in the middle.

[00:14:58] But I want to be like, actually, that doesn't mean what you

[00:15:00] think it means.

[00:15:01] It actually is the exact opposite of that.

[00:15:03] That's right.

[00:15:03] That's right.

[00:15:03] Yeah.

[00:15:04] But it's also true that like we are always faithless in

[00:15:08] some ways and he remains faithful.

[00:15:11] But yeah, I don't think that's what this text is getting

[00:15:13] at. So there's a biblical truth that's underlying this.

[00:15:16] That's why people are taken that way.

[00:15:18] But Paul one thing that was convincing to me is I think

[00:15:20] I looked at this term faithless and Paul it's almost

[00:15:23] always if not always negative.

[00:15:25] And so that was pretty convincing to me as I looked at it.

[00:15:29] Right. Yeah.

[00:15:30] Yeah, it's a biblical truth.

[00:15:32] But that phrase is a is it one of those warnings?

[00:15:36] And funny enough, isn't your dad is quite well known for

[00:15:38] his work on the warning passages of Hebrews.

[00:15:40] So that's right.

[00:15:41] That's right.

[00:15:41] Yeah, maybe maybe that's it's seeped it's seeped in.

[00:15:45] Maybe I didn't even think about that beforehand.

[00:15:47] But yeah, maybe I just made that connection there.

[00:15:50] Hey, all right. So that's yeah, that's maybe some of those

[00:15:52] those ways of growth is and here's some questions.

[00:15:56] You you mentioned that that first sermon back in five,

[00:15:59] it was heavily manuscripted.

[00:16:01] Yeah. Is that still something that you're doing to this day?

[00:16:05] Yeah, I am still I do a full manuscript.

[00:16:08] I find myself I'm probably less tied to my manuscript

[00:16:11] than I was early on.

[00:16:13] And so I'm often what I what I do is I kind of

[00:16:16] paragraph my manuscript in terms of like

[00:16:19] probably two to three sentences.

[00:16:21] And then I do a full new paragraph.

[00:16:23] And when I if I have time,

[00:16:25] I usually try to bold the key word in that paragraph

[00:16:29] so I can glance down in that key word will then

[00:16:32] clue me and remember remind me of what I wanted to say

[00:16:35] in that paragraph.

[00:16:37] But I do I look down like if I feel

[00:16:40] you know, I feel like I do look down for every paragraph.

[00:16:42] And then I kind of look up and kind of probably give that paragraph

[00:16:45] and then look down again.

[00:16:47] So I some preachers would maybe say I'm a little too ready,

[00:16:51] but I've asked people and I said, do I does it sound like

[00:16:53] I'm reading when I preach?

[00:16:54] And most people say no, which I'm encouraged by.

[00:16:59] I in terms of my own reflections on it,

[00:17:02] I I do feel like I because I teach,

[00:17:06] I might tend to go on some rabbit trails

[00:17:08] and a manuscript keeps me honed in and keeps me

[00:17:13] saying what I want to say.

[00:17:15] But I also feel like I do connect with the congregation

[00:17:18] better when I'm not

[00:17:19] managed like when I'm not on the manuscript.

[00:17:21] So I've I've wondered over time

[00:17:25] if I would feel more comfortable going to an outline

[00:17:28] or a more full outline right now, I'm still manifesting.

[00:17:31] But I've considered making that switch.

[00:17:34] I do I still feel gosh, I'm probably

[00:17:37] I've never counted how many sermons I've done,

[00:17:39] but it's it's probably between one

[00:17:42] hundred, two hundred somewhere around there.

[00:17:44] Maybe it might be under one hundred total,

[00:17:47] but I feel like there's a sense in which you get

[00:17:50] you get a level of comfortability as you

[00:17:52] you just preach so many times.

[00:17:54] And I know there's pastors that

[00:17:56] I've heard kind of this like two hundred benchmark sometimes

[00:17:59] that like once you get to two hundred sermons,

[00:18:01] you kind of you feel like you hit your groove.

[00:18:05] Again, I don't I'm not I'm not preaching every week.

[00:18:07] And so that number is a little slower for me.

[00:18:10] And I teach very differently than I preach.

[00:18:13] Definitely for teaching, I have an outline.

[00:18:16] It's not all manuscripted.

[00:18:18] I really go from the top of my head on some things

[00:18:21] and kind of open the text and just start talking.

[00:18:23] Many biblical classes for me at a seminary is I open the text

[00:18:27] and I literally just start talking about what's going on here

[00:18:30] and the structure and for but for a sermon,

[00:18:32] I really want to hone in, as I said earlier,

[00:18:34] kind of on the application applying it to the congregation.

[00:18:37] So I think I think long and hard about that.

[00:18:40] So yeah, it hasn't.

[00:18:42] So the short answer is it hasn't shifted dramatically.

[00:18:45] But I would say I'm more free with my manuscript

[00:18:48] and I'm considering in the future

[00:18:52] going less and less to a manuscript,

[00:18:53] but I haven't made that move yet.

[00:18:55] So OK, well, you are

[00:18:58] yeah, a teacher and a preacher.

[00:19:01] And you mentioned that in in difficult studies classes,

[00:19:05] you'll open the Bible and then just talk about what you see.

[00:19:10] I grew up or was converted in a Christian tradition

[00:19:15] that valued, you know, verse by verse teaching.

[00:19:18] And so much of the sermons

[00:19:21] that I would have heard as a new Christian

[00:19:24] as a growing Christian, they were a lot like that.

[00:19:26] The the preacher would, you know, of course,

[00:19:29] they'd be forth thought and study, but it kind of felt like

[00:19:32] and probably was just opening the Bible

[00:19:35] and then explaining the things that are there

[00:19:36] and then moving on to the next thing.

[00:19:38] Yeah, so you're able to do that.

[00:19:40] And I bet you're pretty good at it.

[00:19:41] But why don't you do that on Sunday is when you preach?

[00:19:46] Basically, what do you see the difference

[00:19:47] between teaching and preaching?

[00:19:49] Yeah, that's a good question.

[00:19:51] You know, I don't know if I have like a strict definition

[00:19:53] between the two, obviously, preaching feels more centered

[00:19:57] on the local church.

[00:19:59] And certainly you're doing forms of teaching,

[00:20:02] but preaching feels more exhortative to me than teaching.

[00:20:06] Teaching is a little more informational based.

[00:20:09] So in a classroom, I'm not doing as much of that

[00:20:13] exhortation because of just the nature of the setting.

[00:20:17] And it comes from a theology of the local church.

[00:20:20] I don't have the same sort of authority

[00:20:21] over these students as I do as an elder in a local church.

[00:20:27] And so I think that's distinct there.

[00:20:29] So I'm explaining to them the Word of God.

[00:20:31] And I do that in preaching, but I'm

[00:20:33] exhorting a congregation to act in a certain way

[00:20:35] that I think that's different than in the classroom.

[00:20:39] In a sermon, I guess the other thing I'd say is

[00:20:43] I'm trying to drive home some key main points from a text

[00:20:49] and really make that that text clear to them.

[00:20:53] And that sounds weird like I'm not trying to do that in the classroom.

[00:20:56] I am trying to make it clear.

[00:20:57] But I think there's also I like I'm more OK with introducing

[00:21:04] like questions about the text and having discussion about the text

[00:21:07] and tough things in the text because it might be a little more discussion base.

[00:21:11] And so in a sermon, I'm often thinking of

[00:21:15] points that will help drive home kind of like the last sermon again.

[00:21:19] Second Timothy, I basically the title was How to Keep Going.

[00:21:24] And I had three imperatives for them of thinking, how do you keep going?

[00:21:27] Remember, I think it was remember Jesus, remember other Christians and remember

[00:21:30] your future depends on you keeping on going.

[00:21:33] And so as very some people talk about a homiletical outline, I don't get to

[00:21:40] it's like if someone doesn't use a homiletical outline, I'm not too bothered by it.

[00:21:44] But I thought, oh, this is helpful because it is three imperatives.

[00:21:47] It's three things they can do.

[00:21:48] It's driven from the text.

[00:21:50] Actually, when I looked at the text, there was only one imperative

[00:21:53] and it was remember.

[00:21:54] And so I thought, OK, this is flowing with the text in front of me.

[00:21:58] And so, yeah, in teaching, I'm not going to spend a lot of time thinking about

[00:22:04] let me try to get three points here that are matching in some way

[00:22:07] and that are easily remembered.

[00:22:09] And now I just kind of am opening the text and walking through

[00:22:13] and showing them different things and going to background and pointing

[00:22:16] out things they might not know and going to big literary structure.

[00:22:19] But for me, the sermon is it is

[00:22:23] an oratorical event.

[00:22:25] And I don't mean that like denying first gradians and how Paul said it.

[00:22:30] But but I do think there is something where I am.

[00:22:34] I'm not only giving them information, but I'm I'm I'm exhorting

[00:22:39] and I'm convincing and I'm.

[00:22:43] Yeah, I'm just doing something different in the preaching.

[00:22:45] So you can hear I'm kind of reaching for how

[00:22:47] I don't really have a very strict definition, but I do view those events

[00:22:51] as very different.

[00:22:53] And we preach expositionally, that doesn't mean we're opening up the word

[00:22:56] and not going verse by verse.

[00:22:59] But I feel when I'm preaching, I feel more comfortable with

[00:23:05] sometimes, you know, I will

[00:23:08] based on my outline, it won't necessarily flow verse by verse, but it all

[00:23:13] be, you know, like the homilical mind might not always

[00:23:17] I don't think it necessarily all always has to follow the verse by verse

[00:23:21] by verse. This last one, as I'm just thinking about it, it did kind of follow

[00:23:24] verse by verse largely.

[00:23:26] And so that was nice.

[00:23:27] But I don't feel like it always has to.

[00:23:30] I sometimes I think a view of a text that is slightly different

[00:23:34] than the structure of the text that's given can enlighten certain things.

[00:23:38] And I think that's fine.

[00:23:39] Obviously we want to be careful there.

[00:23:40] You know, I want to stay really close to the structure of the text.

[00:23:44] But again, I am thinking like in terms of delivery,

[00:23:49] what will make this most clear to people as well.

[00:23:52] So while staying true to the text itself.

[00:23:56] So all right, yeah.

[00:23:57] So Patrick, based on what you're saying about understanding teaching

[00:24:02] and preaching those two different roles, here's maybe a bit of a thought experiment.

[00:24:08] What would your bosses at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

[00:24:11] or they say to you if you started preaching too much in your classes

[00:24:17] and then also what would the elders at your church say if you started teaching too much in the whole bit?

[00:24:22] Yeah. Yeah, that's a good question.

[00:24:25] I don't, you know, in one sense, I don't think my bosses here at Midwestern

[00:24:29] would mind if I preached a lot in my classes because we serve the local church.

[00:24:34] And so maybe that would turn into you're not giving them enough depth or something like that.

[00:24:39] I don't know. But actually, I don't think there would be a major issue there.

[00:24:42] They would probably say that's great because, you know,

[00:24:45] you're kind of getting them excited about the text.

[00:24:48] And so because, you know, our tagline is for the church in one sense,

[00:24:52] I think they'd say, oh, that's just his style.

[00:24:54] And I, you know, honestly, I've taken classes from people

[00:24:58] who basically they get up and they preach a sermon for their lectures.

[00:25:01] And I found those classes like great.

[00:25:04] Now there's other classes that I really love that they didn't do that.

[00:25:07] And it was a little more lecture based and discussion based.

[00:25:09] So I don't think there'd be a major problem there.

[00:25:13] I do wonder at church, though,

[00:25:16] one thing I'm trying to show students.

[00:25:19] We have a lot of students at our church.

[00:25:21] But one thing I am trying to show students is that there is a difference

[00:25:26] and that probably they would come to me and say, hey, this isn't a seminary classroom.

[00:25:30] So stop talking about the new perspective on Paul or whatever.

[00:25:33] You know what I mean? Like whatever you're talking about, like this is

[00:25:37] supposed to reach people that aren't in seminary.

[00:25:40] This is supposed to reach people who work their 40 hour a week,

[00:25:44] blue collar job and have never thought about, you know,

[00:25:49] they've heard what justification means in a sermon,

[00:25:53] but they've never thought about like different views of justification or whatever it is.

[00:25:56] Right. So I think there could be more issues in the church

[00:26:00] because I do think people who I train,

[00:26:04] there's a tendency to maybe reproduce the classroom experience

[00:26:10] when I just don't think you're trying to reproduce the classroom experience.

[00:26:12] It is supposed to be a training ground from which you then

[00:26:16] hopefully preach a message that will reach everyone.

[00:26:19] That's, you know, part of you didn't ask this,

[00:26:22] but I think part of the ways I probably changed in preaching over the years

[00:26:27] is I really try to keep it simple.

[00:26:29] I try to take kind of C.S. Lewis's tack that you can have depth with simplicity

[00:26:34] and just like don't over complicate what doesn't need to be over complicated.

[00:26:39] But in the midst of that, I think there's probably a depth to what I'm saying

[00:26:43] that those who have never heard some of this stuff before could get this.

[00:26:47] And then those who have heard it understand like, OK,

[00:26:49] there's way more underneath of this.

[00:26:52] And so for me, that's just like again, this past sermon was how to keep going.

[00:26:56] That's a message on perseverance.

[00:26:58] It's on endurance.

[00:26:59] It's on the race that is set before us.

[00:27:02] And I could have used a bunch of Christianese language to do that.

[00:27:04] But I just was like, well, let's use language that everybody's going to understand.

[00:27:08] How do you keep going in the Christian life?

[00:27:10] And I did speak of perseverance,

[00:27:13] but I didn't use that as my title because I thought

[00:27:16] not everyone knows what perseverance is and that's fine.

[00:27:19] You can use those terms and teach those terms.

[00:27:21] But I just try to keep it as simple as possible so that,

[00:27:24] you know, if we have someone who

[00:27:26] and actually there were people at our church that Sunday

[00:27:28] who hadn't been in church in a while

[00:27:29] and I don't know when the last time they were in church

[00:27:31] and I hope they walked out or like, I understood that.

[00:27:35] So yeah, that's one way I just try to keep it as simple as possible.

[00:27:39] But that is not at the exclusion of depth.

[00:27:43] Yeah.

[00:27:44] Yeah. So you could talk about perseverance.

[00:27:49] Maybe without even using the word

[00:27:51] and then certainly without pulling in like the Synod of Dorks

[00:27:54] had this to say on perseverance.

[00:27:56] That's right.

[00:27:57] So there's always more that could be said.

[00:27:59] But yes, but it's that on set, the idea that you want.

[00:28:03] Yep, exactly.

[00:28:06] Yeah. All right. Yeah. Synod of Dork, man.

[00:28:09] First time I've referenced that.

[00:28:13] Here we go.

[00:28:14] Well, well, from there, from there, let's let's talk about

[00:28:19] another another gathering of believers

[00:28:22] that took place on top of a mountain.

[00:28:25] I, Patrick, I love your book on the transfiguration of Christ.

[00:28:30] I'm I'm on like the Baker academic like mailing list.

[00:28:35] Oh, nice. Yeah. Months and months ago

[00:28:38] when this was like, you know, pre-released,

[00:28:41] I actually responded and I was like, I tell me more about this.

[00:28:44] When's it going to come out?

[00:28:45] Because I just love the transfiguration of Christ.

[00:28:47] I think it's great.

[00:28:48] Wonderful. Like one of my.

[00:28:51] Obviously, the cross is erectioned.

[00:28:52] It has to be first, but it's just like one of those really exciting

[00:28:56] parts of the gospel accounts that I just don't see a lot of people

[00:29:02] spending time talking about.

[00:29:04] And so it's not in any of the creeds.

[00:29:07] As far as I know, there's no like worship songs or hymns that mention it.

[00:29:11] Maybe there is maybe there's not.

[00:29:13] I'm kind of wondering like, like why?

[00:29:15] Why should people care?

[00:29:17] Why don't be? Why do you care?

[00:29:18] Like just talk to us about the greatness of this event

[00:29:21] and maybe why it's not on people's radars.

[00:29:23] Yeah. And I think you're kind of hinting at why it's not under people's radars.

[00:29:28] It doesn't seem to be mentioned in the creed, although I think I would.

[00:29:31] I think

[00:29:33] Council of Calcedon Light from Light is probably pulling on transfiguration themes.

[00:29:40] Is it so there might be imagery there?

[00:29:42] And you even think Hebrews, the radiance of the glory of God,

[00:29:46] you know that people get very nervous about

[00:29:48] the Trinitarian metaphors these days, and I think rightly so.

[00:29:52] But the one metaphor that the church fathers and there's more than

[00:29:55] the one metaphor that they did like to use as light.

[00:29:57] And so I thought that was really interesting, just reading in the tradition

[00:30:02] to compare or to distinguish

[00:30:05] the father from the son.

[00:30:06] They they did use light.

[00:30:08] And I think it's based on the transfiguration narrative.

[00:30:12] So yeah, why do people neglect it?

[00:30:16] Why don't they think about it?

[00:30:17] I think it's probably partially because it's just a strange event.

[00:30:21] It is like like Jesus shines on the top of mountain.

[00:30:24] Then he goes to non shiny Jesus, non bright Jesus.

[00:30:28] And we're kind of like, OK, what's what's the point here?

[00:30:31] Like it seems like it's closed turn really clean.

[00:30:35] That's right.

[00:30:35] Never. It seems like our salvation could have been accomplished without this,

[00:30:39] right? And so it's a little hard to know what to do with it.

[00:30:42] It's mysterious in terms of like, what does that even mean

[00:30:45] that his closed turn really white, that his face shines?

[00:30:48] So I just think there's details in there that we don't know what to do with.

[00:30:52] And then the Eastern Orthodox Church has tied this to deification and theosis.

[00:30:57] If you know those terms, so I think Protestants might feel a little

[00:30:59] just wary about it if they know some history of interpretation of the event.

[00:31:04] But yeah, the more I study this, it's like anything I study.

[00:31:08] I feel like it brings the whole Bible together in a unique way.

[00:31:10] This is my argument in the book is this is a picture

[00:31:14] not only of Christ's future glory as the messianic son, the human figure,

[00:31:18] but his preexistent glory is gone.

[00:31:20] And what it's doing is it's giving the disciples hope by saying suffering

[00:31:25] is not the end of the road for Jesus glorification is.

[00:31:28] And ultimately, it matters for us because it's a picture of our glorification.

[00:31:34] Jesus or John says that when we see him as he is, we shall be like him.

[00:31:40] And I think what they're pointing out is when you think about

[00:31:43] what does it mean to be glorified?

[00:31:45] What how do how are we going to exist in the new heavens and new earth?

[00:31:50] There's not a lot of details we get about Jesus's resurrected body.

[00:31:53] You get a few little snapshots, but I think the transfiguration

[00:31:57] is actually the clearest picture of what glorified humanity is going to look like.

[00:32:03] And you're like, well, why does it matter that I'm bright and shiny?

[00:32:06] Well, why does it matter that there's this light emanating?

[00:32:10] It is a picture like how do you speak of glorification?

[00:32:14] Well, there's this weight of glory that will I think humanity will have.

[00:32:21] And you even think about the Romans road.

[00:32:24] You know, I didn't even make these connections before I wrote the book,

[00:32:26] but falling short of the glory of God, that's what it's described as.

[00:32:31] Like to sin is to fall short of the glory of God.

[00:32:35] And in the Jewish tradition, and I think in the scriptures,

[00:32:38] you can see there's something bright about the garden with the gemstones

[00:32:44] and yet in the Jewish tradition, it even speaks about them being bright figures.

[00:32:50] So there's some imagery that's just traced throughout the Bible of

[00:32:55] the fall is darkness creation is light.

[00:32:59] Right? Even he creates light out of darkness separates the light from the darkness.

[00:33:04] And so ultimately, this is an image of our longing to be glorified,

[00:33:09] to be united with Christ. It's to be transfigured.

[00:33:13] And in transfiguration, we don't lose our bodies.

[00:33:16] Our bodies are transformed. They're transformed.

[00:33:19] We then shine like Jesus shines and light.

[00:33:24] Yeah, light reveals things. Light has a sense of purity.

[00:33:28] Light is representative of God throughout the whole Testament.

[00:33:31] He appears as fire often, so power.

[00:33:35] There's so much we could say about light.

[00:33:37] Light is also blinding and revealing at the same time.

[00:33:40] Man, you just start like double clicking on light imagery in the scripture.

[00:33:45] And you think about John one, even though he doesn't narrate the transfiguration.

[00:33:49] He was the light of man, his light shown in the darkness.

[00:33:53] It's just man, that's all over.

[00:33:55] So I'm saying a lot, but really

[00:33:58] the end of the cross is not the end of the story.

[00:34:04] Jesus is encouraging the three disciples on the mountain

[00:34:07] that the goal of salvation, its glorification, and we will share in that.

[00:34:11] And so it's just really good news for us.

[00:34:13] And we should spend more time thinking about this and looking at this event

[00:34:17] because it is this picture, a small picture of what is to come.

[00:34:21] And it should be an encouragement in the midst of suffering,

[00:34:24] in the midst of hard times that this is not the end of the road.

[00:34:27] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:34:29] Amen. Wholeheartedly agree.

[00:34:31] And even you speaking about how for Christ and for us,

[00:34:36] suffering and death is not the end of the road.

[00:34:39] You know, I'm wearing my suit and tie right now, like because I just

[00:34:43] I just buried someone.

[00:34:44] I just came from a funeral this morning.

[00:34:47] And so, you know, this, this, you know,

[00:34:51] I've been speaking to grieving people earlier today about

[00:34:57] union with Christ and a wonderful future in the new heavens and the new earth.

[00:35:01] And, you know, just with the way that pastoral ministry works,

[00:35:06] that, you know, you got other stuff, you know, like now I'm here doing this

[00:35:10] and then I got a discipleship meeting later on.

[00:35:13] But to have this kind of glimpse, I'm thankful for how the Lord arranged

[00:35:16] this day that in the middle of this day that I have this like appointment

[00:35:20] to talk about like how suffering and death is not the end.

[00:35:23] And it wasn't the end for Christ.

[00:35:24] And it's not the end for this person who's freshly in the ground.

[00:35:29] Yeah, there's more to come when that's one of the leaders.

[00:35:31] There's a text.

[00:35:31] I don't mean to keep harpy on this, but there's a text that I kept thinking

[00:35:35] about when I studied the transfiguration, which is 2nd Corinthians 417

[00:35:39] where Paul says this light and moment and he's actually reflecting upon

[00:35:43] like I think he's reflecting upon the transfiguration because he's just

[00:35:46] been speaking about Moses and 2nd Corinthians 3 and his shining face.

[00:35:51] But Paul says this light and momentary affliction

[00:35:54] is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.

[00:35:58] And that is such good news because our

[00:36:01] our affliction doesn't feel light and momentary at the moment.

[00:36:06] And I think for those who have lost a loved one today,

[00:36:09] it feels like, man, this is like the worst.

[00:36:11] It's the worst day ever to have to lose someone like that.

[00:36:17] But Paul is saying like you got to Biden your horizon here.

[00:36:21] There's an eternal weight of glory that is coming that is I love this.

[00:36:26] It's beyond all comparison.

[00:36:27] It won't even compare to your suffering.

[00:36:29] It's going to be so good that your suffering is somehow going to be lost in all of this.

[00:36:34] In other words, it's it's going to it's going to feel like that.

[00:36:37] That was light and momentary because we get eternity in glory

[00:36:41] with the glorified one and glorified ourselves.

[00:36:44] So yeah, it's just it's such a comfort and I love it.

[00:36:48] Yeah. Yeah. Please do harp on, man.

[00:36:51] I need this and who knows?

[00:36:53] Maybe someone will listen to it and they need it as well.

[00:36:57] So yeah, this podcast Expositors Plective were part of a training initiative.

[00:37:02] We want to help upskill expository Christ-centered creatures.

[00:37:06] It's kind of the next question is like, well, well, how should someone

[00:37:09] preach on this? Let's say they're going through the synoptics.

[00:37:12] Matthew, Mark and Lou are coming to this.

[00:37:15] How should a preacher approach this?

[00:37:18] Yeah. Yeah. I think that's you know, I have somewhere in the book,

[00:37:22] one of my grad students, he helped me do some editing.

[00:37:26] He really appreciate it.

[00:37:27] Put a footnote in the book of how you could preach this text a few different ways.

[00:37:31] And so it's somewhere in there.

[00:37:34] And it gives like I actually give like some ideas for outlines and titles

[00:37:38] and everything just to help pastors.

[00:37:39] And I even in a scholarly book, I hope that you know, and you don't have to follow that.

[00:37:44] It just I hope it stimulates people's thinking.

[00:37:47] Yeah. So all that to say, I can remember a few of the things that they have to buy

[00:37:51] the book. That's right.

[00:37:52] You're not giving this out for free.

[00:37:54] They got to go by the book.

[00:37:55] That's right. I would say, you know, in this aligns with the context is so

[00:37:59] important, the context is in every single synoptic gospel, Matthew, Mark and Luke,

[00:38:05] the context of the Transfiguration, the same.

[00:38:07] Peter has confessed that Jesus is the Messiah.

[00:38:09] Jesus has predicted that he's going to go to his death.

[00:38:12] And then he says, right before this,

[00:38:15] some of you will not taste death until you see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.

[00:38:19] And so that's a fulfillment of the text right before.

[00:38:23] And it's kind of been this high moment and then this valley.

[00:38:25] And then you go again up this mountain to say, sufferings, not the end.

[00:38:29] So

[00:38:30] ultimately, I think this text is meant to be a word of encouragement.

[00:38:34] It's meant to be a word of encouragement.

[00:38:36] And so I think you want to put that frame of reference in mind.

[00:38:39] But in terms of like ways I thought about even outlining, I don't know if that's

[00:38:43] exactly what you're asking, but outlining it, you could think about going up the

[00:38:47] mountain on the mountain, descending the mountain.

[00:38:48] So ascending the mountain on the mountain down the mountain.

[00:38:51] You could think of a few maybe a month ago, I preached in chapel here.

[00:38:56] And you guys could people could look that up if you want to at Midwestern

[00:38:59] Baptist Theological Seminary, I preached on the Transfiguration.

[00:39:04] And I decided there was so much I could do, but I decided to take

[00:39:08] imperatives from this text or implied imperatives.

[00:39:11] So actually, I think I outlined it by a send.

[00:39:15] That's the first imperative is send them out with Jesus.

[00:39:18] Number two, listen and number three, look.

[00:39:22] So I just took kind of so the only explicit imperative in the text is listen

[00:39:27] to him from the voice from heaven.

[00:39:29] But I decided for again, this is kind of getting to the preaching verse teaching.

[00:39:33] I think there's an implied imperative of a send them out with him

[00:39:37] as followers of Jesus and then look at him as well, even though it never says

[00:39:41] look at him, they are looking at him.

[00:39:43] And so my encouragement there was how do you how do you how do you see who Jesus is?

[00:39:50] Well, you ascend with him,

[00:39:52] you look at him and you listen to him or you listen to him, then you look towards him.

[00:39:57] And so that's one way you could do it.

[00:39:59] And then I give probably some other ways of looking at it.

[00:40:02] But my little phrase that I give in the book is this is a text that speaks of hope

[00:40:07] by revelation, so it's revealing who Christ is.

[00:40:11] It's it's all about Christ and he's giving you hope because of who he is.

[00:40:16] And maybe the other the other final point I'd say is

[00:40:21] one of the big points of my book and maybe this won't make sense to those

[00:40:25] who haven't kind of entered the scholarly conversation of this text.

[00:40:28] But one of my big points in the book

[00:40:31] is that we in the church, we tend to speak about the transfiguration in terms

[00:40:35] of Christ divinity and the Academy it's usually spoken of in terms of Christ's

[00:40:39] future glorious man.

[00:40:41] And I want to say both are present there and the idea of sonship here.

[00:40:45] What's so unique about the transfiguration is I think it's bringing this

[00:40:49] eternal sonship reality and this messianic or human

[00:40:57] human sonship together in a text and not all texts.

[00:41:02] OK, I'm getting scholar Lisa buckle up.

[00:41:04] Not all texts do that.

[00:41:05] Not all texts do that.

[00:41:06] Often texts are talking about Jesus as the son in terms of the king of Israel,

[00:41:11] just like Psalm two seven says.

[00:41:14] But I think this text is speaking about his eternal sonship and

[00:41:20] his messianic sonship.

[00:41:22] And and I if you don't, if you're not following me,

[00:41:26] well, I don't have time to explain it all, but I think that's a hugely

[00:41:30] important point for this text because Jesus is going to receive glory,

[00:41:34] but that's glory that he already had from eternity past.

[00:41:38] And that's going to help that's going to help people put the Bible together

[00:41:40] because there's certain texts in the New Testament talks about Jesus becoming

[00:41:45] the son or receiving glory.

[00:41:48] And you're like, but he's God.

[00:41:49] What is he after? Why does he have to receive anything?

[00:41:52] And you need to teach your people

[00:41:55] rightly according to the church tradition that he's truly God and truly man.

[00:41:59] So as man, he does receive something from the father,

[00:42:02] but as God, he doesn't receive anything because he is one with the father.

[00:42:06] And both can be true at the same time because he's one.

[00:42:10] He's one person, one subject in and there's two natures.

[00:42:14] And so you can there's there's a chance here to dive into Christology and help

[00:42:19] people out a little bit because Christology can be very confusing.

[00:42:22] And there can be a lot of errors in Christology.

[00:42:24] And this is unique text where you see both.

[00:42:26] I think both things happening.

[00:42:28] Yeah, and thank you for your exercising your

[00:42:32] teaching and preaching right here in this very same conversation.

[00:42:36] You've lifted us high and also encouraged us with truth.

[00:42:42] Yeah, so I I'd like to speak about maybe the.

[00:42:47] I can use inverted kind of a quotation,

[00:42:49] but what's the what's the practical application of this?

[00:42:54] Like a lot of times in preaching, people only tend to be interested

[00:42:59] or predominantly interested in like, OK, yeah, that's great.

[00:43:02] You know, the guy would, you know,

[00:43:04] in the second to the last few his arms are folded.

[00:43:07] He's like, yeah, but what does this have to do with my life?

[00:43:08] Yeah, with all of the majestic truth and the Calcedonian Christology

[00:43:13] and all of these, you know, inauguration language that's there.

[00:43:17] Also, what does it have to say to the guy in the second to the last row?

[00:43:20] Yeah. And maybe we go back to what I said earlier in terms of this is a picture

[00:43:25] of your future glorification if you're in Christ.

[00:43:27] So if you're not in if you're not in Christ,

[00:43:30] your suffering is not only present now, but it's going to be increased in the

[00:43:36] future. There will be an eternal suffering, an eternal torment that you will have to suffer.

[00:43:42] But if you're united to God, that is eternal life and eternal life means glorification.

[00:43:48] And so ultimately, why does this matter to us?

[00:43:51] It's because if we're united to this

[00:43:53] beat, this this person, Jesus Christ, if we follow him up the mountain,

[00:43:57] going back to my sermon, if we listen to him, if we look at him,

[00:44:00] then we get to share in his glory.

[00:44:03] And so I think ultimately, I would look at a congregation and say, I know you all

[00:44:08] are suffering with various things, whether that's an illness that no one can see,

[00:44:12] whether that's death in the family, whether that's a sin that you can't seem to

[00:44:18] gain control over, whether that's a relationship, a marriage or a friendship

[00:44:22] that seems to be deteriorating.

[00:44:24] Maybe that's already has deteriorated.

[00:44:25] Maybe you just got divorced in this last year.

[00:44:28] Maybe it's a relationship with a child that you just feel like is at odds.

[00:44:32] And you just feel like, man, I can barely get out of bed in the morning.

[00:44:36] And this text says,

[00:44:38] if you follow Christ, you will be you will share in his glory and it will be

[00:44:43] this light momentary affliction will not

[00:44:47] it you know, this this will this will turn.

[00:44:50] God will turn all things that seem to be evil to go.

[00:44:54] Genesis 50 20, right?

[00:44:56] The Joseph narrative.

[00:44:57] And so I think ultimately you look at your congregation and say, this is not

[00:45:01] just an event that happens to Jesus.

[00:45:03] This is not just an event that talks about Christology.

[00:45:07] This is an event that shows this is where Jesus is bringing us.

[00:45:10] He's actually bringing us to the top of the mountain himself.

[00:45:13] And so,

[00:45:15] man, it's such an encouragement for us to keep pressing on and to recognize

[00:45:20] that the cross is not the end of the story.

[00:45:22] And so I think that is just immediately applicable.

[00:45:25] And you just kind of I think you throw out the different scenarios of

[00:45:27] suffering that people are going through and you press home that the Christian

[00:45:32] faith is one of hope that ultimately we hope for what is coming.

[00:45:36] We hope for what is not seen, not seen.

[00:45:39] And we do that because this is a trustworthy word.

[00:45:42] I mean, I go back to that one command in the whole narrative, listen to him,

[00:45:46] listen to what he says and what he's even saying, I'm going to die and I'm

[00:45:50] going to rise from the dead.

[00:45:51] That's precisely what they need to listen to because right before this text,

[00:45:54] that's what he's predicted.

[00:45:56] And they're like, no, no, no, you can't die.

[00:45:57] You can't die. He's like, but I will rise from the dead.

[00:46:00] I will rise from the dead.

[00:46:01] And so Christian, if you're in him, you will rise from the dead as well.

[00:46:06] Yeah. And you also have spoken and have written about like our own kind of

[00:46:13] transformation or progress in life is

[00:46:17] hinted at or or the same kind of language about what happened to Christ

[00:46:21] upon that mountain also described to the messy, gradual,

[00:46:25] growing righteousness that we have in our own as well.

[00:46:28] Yeah. Yeah. And the book I use in the Christian tradition,

[00:46:32] Protestants don't usually use this language.

[00:46:34] It's actually tied more to the Catholic tradition, Eastern Orthodox tradition.

[00:46:38] But I think I've become more convinced that we talk about spiritual

[00:46:43] formation, we talk about transformation.

[00:46:46] It's kind of like, OK, what do we do?

[00:46:48] Will we read our Bible? We go to church, we say our prayers.

[00:46:51] And that's all good. That's all good.

[00:46:52] But how do you chart if you're growing?

[00:46:54] Like, what does it look like to know that you're growing?

[00:46:57] Is it just kind of like this?

[00:46:59] I think I'm I think I'm more godly than I was two years ago because I

[00:47:02] responded better in the situation. Well, yeah, that's helpful.

[00:47:05] But the church tradition is actually

[00:47:09] I found this helpful.

[00:47:10] They've actually used different phrases to help us chart our own transformation.

[00:47:16] And and it's described in various ways.

[00:47:18] But in the book, I use this idea of purgation,

[00:47:21] illumination and then union.

[00:47:24] And purgation is usually it described as kind of at the bottom of the mountain

[00:47:28] or just starting to ascend the mountain.

[00:47:29] Purgation is getting rid or purging yourself of that sin that's hanging on so closely.

[00:47:34] And there's actually a bunch of different levels that they use.

[00:47:36] Like, first you purge yourself of gross sins, like the obvious sin.

[00:47:41] So if you're going to the strip club or you're sleeping around and you

[00:47:44] just became a Christian, you purge yourself of those things, right?

[00:47:48] And then you start to purge yourself, like maybe you've been a Christian

[00:47:52] for a while now and you're still struggling with I'm just using sexuality as an

[00:47:56] as an example, you're struggling with pornography.

[00:47:59] Well, then you start purging yourself of pornography.

[00:48:01] Let's say you purge yourself of pornography and you think, but I'm still in my mind.

[00:48:06] Sometimes it's so corrupt.

[00:48:07] And so you start trying to purge yourself of what's in your mind.

[00:48:10] And then the Christian tradition has talked about.

[00:48:13] I think that you can tie this to Psalm 24, different texts like this

[00:48:17] and even the transfiguration itself.

[00:48:19] You ascend them out and even more and you start to see, you start to put on the

[00:48:22] virtues, right? You start to put on the new creation.

[00:48:25] So you start to be illumined to who Christ is.

[00:48:29] And when I give these, sometimes people are like, oh, so you go step by step by step.

[00:48:33] Obviously, sometimes these things happen at the same time, right?

[00:48:36] You get rid of the works of the flesh and you put on Christ.

[00:48:39] That could happen at the same time.

[00:48:41] But this is a helpful way of thinking about it.

[00:48:43] So you begin to practice the virtues.

[00:48:45] And then finally, our ultimate state is to be completely unified with him,

[00:48:50] to be one with him.

[00:48:51] And so our ultimate goal is to be on the top of the mountain with Christ.

[00:48:55] So I use the mountain kind of imagery to say, this is how you start going up

[00:48:59] the mountain. This is how you progress up the mountain.

[00:49:02] And this is what it means to be on the top of the mountain with Christ.

[00:49:04] And that's I've actually preached on that a few times at our church and

[00:49:08] different churches. And I think people find it helpful because it just

[00:49:11] gives them where am I in my Christian life?

[00:49:15] And the point is not to make yourself feel guilty that you're not at illumination

[00:49:19] yet. The point is to say, how can I take the next step to go up the mountain with him?

[00:49:24] Because every actually every stage is a good stage because you're seeking after

[00:49:28] Christ. And so I try to encourage people to say like, hey, if you're at

[00:49:31] the very bottom, if you're at the base camp or whatever, right?

[00:49:34] That's a good stage because you're starting to climb.

[00:49:36] That's great.

[00:49:38] And if you feel like and the other thing is like

[00:49:41] it's more complex than what I

[00:49:43] spoke about, because like in different areas, you can be at different places.

[00:49:47] So let's say you're doing great with anger and sexuality things, but you're doing

[00:49:53] off with pride. So you're at the base camp with pride and you're actually further

[00:49:57] up the mountain with other issues.

[00:49:58] So it's way more complex because we're complex human beings.

[00:50:02] But there is a way that you can kind of chart your own spiritual progress.

[00:50:05] So that's another way you could look at this text and just say, like,

[00:50:08] what does it mean to ascend the mountain of God?

[00:50:11] What does it mean?

[00:50:12] Well, again, going back to the Psalms, cleanse your hands, purify your hearts,

[00:50:17] seek his face.

[00:50:18] These are these are the commands that are given throughout the scriptures.

[00:50:21] And so it's a very, very practical event in that sense.

[00:50:25] Yeah. Yeah. And as good Protestants, you know, there is a pushback that you want

[00:50:31] to have like, oh, you're telling me it's some kind of a ladder with rungs.

[00:50:35] And we just, you know, but yeah, but there's more.

[00:50:38] There's more to Christianity to just like, are you justified or not justified?

[00:50:42] There is.

[00:50:44] And even in our own church, we recently like relaunched our men's ministry and it's

[00:50:49] kind of built around this discipleship program.

[00:50:52] And to speak, I've got a group of six guys and we're beginning this process

[00:50:57] and to speak to these six guys about like, actually there's more like,

[00:51:01] and there's like, there's ways you can kind of chart your growth.

[00:51:05] Yeah. And to see it like maybe as men, maybe as Christians, the idea of like,

[00:51:10] oh, it's more than just coming to church, having a quiet time.

[00:51:14] Yeah.

[00:51:15] And repeating until I die, but like there's a progress of growth that's available to me.

[00:51:19] That's right. Yeah.

[00:51:20] And I think even when I've talked about these things, I've always said, hey,

[00:51:25] this isn't a climb the ladder up to God.

[00:51:27] This you have to put a gospel of grace over a banner over all of this that you

[00:51:31] only make progress because Christ is working in you.

[00:51:34] It's all of grace.

[00:51:35] So so I preempt all of those things before I speak about this.

[00:51:39] But then I say, you know what?

[00:51:40] There's also paratimes in the scripture.

[00:51:43] And there's also that there's ways that we need to think about how do we progress

[00:51:47] in the Christian life?

[00:51:48] And so sometimes Protestants become so scared of those conversations that we

[00:51:52] don't have them.

[00:51:53] But if you put them in a gospel frame, they're actually healthy

[00:51:56] conversations to have.

[00:51:57] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:52:01] Yeah, wonderful.

[00:52:02] Well, like, yeah, a few people, more little thoughts on the transfiguration.

[00:52:05] And then like to wrap up with some

[00:52:07] camp, come back to preaching.

[00:52:10] Like, yeah, I know that you have you've written on the transfiguration also

[00:52:14] on the ascension and like, man, I love the ascension.

[00:52:18] I love all the weird, all the weird parts.

[00:52:20] And like, my question is, like, are you going to write about the baptism

[00:52:25] of Jesus next, because it seems like that's part of like the the mystical,

[00:52:30] significant, iconic parts of Christ life.

[00:52:33] You might not be a son of a prophet, but you are a prophet yourself.

[00:52:36] No.

[00:52:39] I actually it's it's not going to be called anything about the baptism of Christ,

[00:52:43] but I'm writing a Matthew theology and I am done with it.

[00:52:46] It's into the editor.

[00:52:48] And basically I argue Matthew's whole theology can be viewed through Christ

[00:52:51] baptism in Matthew's gospel where he where he says where he says this is

[00:52:57] happening to fulfill all righteousness.

[00:52:59] I think those two terms in Matthew are the key terms for Matthew's theology

[00:53:03] fulfillment and righteousness.

[00:53:04] So I think he brings them together there.

[00:53:07] So in in in a way that comes at it from the side, I'm actually writing on Christ

[00:53:12] baptism, but my next project will be

[00:53:16] actually not my next project, a future project will be Christ's descent to the

[00:53:21] dead and so another another event that

[00:53:24] weird thing, yes, but that one's not really as

[00:53:27] glorious. I mean, it is.

[00:53:30] It is different.

[00:53:31] Yep. It's different.

[00:53:32] And then I might do temptation getsemane at some point.

[00:53:35] I've kind of thought about doing a whole little series on different things.

[00:53:38] So yeah, I'm well, I'm also attracted to the events that maybe we haven't thought

[00:53:43] about as much and I just I kind of want to resource the church in terms of like

[00:53:48] thinking well about these things because there's so much written on the

[00:53:51] resurrection and the birth and the cross, which I'm so thankful for.

[00:53:56] I learned so much from others who have written on these things.

[00:53:58] And I do think those are the major events

[00:54:00] in Christ's life, but I think we can learn a lot from what we call maybe the more

[00:54:05] minor events and so that's kind of it's kind of like a scholarly project of mine

[00:54:10] to hit these events that other people don't talk a lot about and maybe provide

[00:54:14] some clarity.

[00:54:15] Wonderful. Well, people like me are we're waiting.

[00:54:19] And then yeah, I'm glad I have one person out there waiting.

[00:54:22] Yeah. Well, OK.

[00:54:24] So in my ministry, like I get to travel and even

[00:54:29] within the network of churches here in Ireland, I do guest speaking and

[00:54:33] I'm a local pastor, but I have an opportunity.

[00:54:36] I end up preaching in churches that aren't mine.

[00:54:39] Kind of a lot.

[00:54:40] And it used to be that like the transfiguration was kind of was kind of my go

[00:54:44] to my kind of silver, silver bullet.

[00:54:46] So you were saying earlier on how you preach it.

[00:54:49] Can I ask you how you've preached it before?

[00:54:51] Do you remember?

[00:54:52] I use Mark nine and I start back in chapter eight about the I'm nervous,

[00:54:58] man, what if it's not right?

[00:55:01] I started Mark eight with the blind man who has the gradual site,

[00:55:07] the healing, the sudden stages and he sees the like tree.

[00:55:10] And then Jesus brings greater clarity to him.

[00:55:12] Then by six to eight days later,

[00:55:15] then he takes Peter up on the mountain along with the other guys.

[00:55:19] And then.

[00:55:22] Is it before or after?

[00:55:23] When just was Peter get the

[00:55:26] he says that you're the Christ, but you must not go to the cross.

[00:55:29] That happens before. Yeah.

[00:55:31] Yeah. So just as the blind person received a site imperfectly,

[00:55:36] but then gradually so Peter saw who Jesus was, but yet not clearly.

[00:55:42] So then he goes upon and then Jesus makes him see him for who he truly is.

[00:55:46] I love it.

[00:55:47] And I love it.

[00:55:48] I'm absolutely great.

[00:55:49] I didn't say it that way, but I totally agree with everything you just said.

[00:55:53] So I love it.

[00:55:54] Oh, I'm buzzing.

[00:55:56] I'm buzzing today was a hard day.

[00:55:57] Man, ending on a good note.

[00:55:59] Ending on a good note.

[00:56:00] You're like, hey, I'm not supposed to be asked questions on this podcast.

[00:56:03] I asked the question.

[00:56:05] That's right. That's right.

[00:56:07] All right. Well, kind of the final question we wrap up every interview with this.

[00:56:12] So you've heard about your first sermon and then grow since then.

[00:56:15] But like Patrick, how are you?

[00:56:18] How would you like to grow in the future?

[00:56:19] What's something you want to get better at in the future?

[00:56:22] Yeah, I think, you know, I spoke maybe a little bit at this beginning.

[00:56:26] I'd like to become less tied to a manuscript.

[00:56:29] I think that'd be helpful just for connecting with the congregation

[00:56:32] or whatever congregation I'm speaking to.

[00:56:34] And then

[00:56:36] I'm continually thinking about like pacing as well and like how you can be more

[00:56:42] effective in how you speak, slowing down, pausing, speeding up,

[00:56:48] louder, softer, so forth and so on.

[00:56:50] And I think I'm aware of some of those things, but also

[00:56:54] probably get pretty excited when I get up there and just kind of go, go, go, go, go,

[00:56:56] go. And I probably need to.

[00:56:59] I'd love to be as I get more and more comfortable.

[00:57:02] Everything you do, you get more comfortable doing it.

[00:57:04] I think I want to think more of like, OK, now is a good place to like slow

[00:57:08] down and let silence even come over the congregation.

[00:57:11] And people are very uncomfortable with that while preaching because you feel

[00:57:15] like you should be saying something every second.

[00:57:17] But I think the best preachers have a way of just like in music, changing up.

[00:57:22] It gets, can I say this on a preaching podcast?

[00:57:25] It gets boring if it's the same pacing and same tone the whole time.

[00:57:29] Just like a song is boring if it's like the same strum pattern the whole time.

[00:57:32] Right. Like you've got to change it up.

[00:57:34] And so I think in preaching, I'm wanting to grow in that.

[00:57:40] And then I always think like being more.

[00:57:45] I mean, here's another thing that I've been thinking about is

[00:57:48] I think when we think of illustrations, we think of like a story.

[00:57:52] But what if I've I've noticed more it's almost just as effective to give a metaphor.

[00:57:59] And it's like two sentences and people are just like, got it.

[00:58:03] You know what I mean?

[00:58:04] And I hear preachers do that and I find it really effective to where it's not

[00:58:09] like you're telling this like whole story that's going to take five minutes,

[00:58:12] but rather be like this last sermon, this was my metaphor.

[00:58:21] And I don't know if it was any good.

[00:58:22] It's I feel ashamed to give it now here because the people be like, that wasn't any good.

[00:58:26] But I was talking about remembering Jesus as a resurrection and the little metaphor

[00:58:30] I gave was be act like the bee by the nectar that dwells in the flower

[00:58:36] and doesn't just fly over it, but actually gets the sustenance from it.

[00:58:40] And I didn't like I didn't like give a whole story about a bee.

[00:58:44] But I was just like, here's a way to think about it.

[00:58:48] Because I was actually even talking about springtime and looking outside and

[00:58:52] seeing the blooms come and a picture of the resurrection.

[00:58:55] And I just thought, oh, it's like the bee.

[00:58:57] You want to be like like a bee that goes and actually gets the sustenance

[00:59:01] from that flower and really the flower of the Christian faith is the resurrection.

[00:59:06] And so I just gave two sentences on and I moved on.

[00:59:08] But I could I could when I was doing it, I saw a few people like, yeah, OK,

[00:59:12] I got it. You know, like there is an image and I think like Spurgeon, man,

[00:59:17] Spurgeon was so good at those images that it made something abstract concrete

[00:59:24] just immediately and I want to get better at that because those are super hard

[00:59:28] to think of sometimes.

[00:59:31] So yeah, there's a few things.

[00:59:33] Yeah.

[00:59:34] Is it will who wrote the Christian and complete armor of Pyrrhthin?

[00:59:38] Is it Newell or I don't remember.

[00:59:40] I know what you're talking about.

[00:59:41] I remember the three volumes set on on Ephesians 6.

[00:59:45] But I mean, that guy, yeah, with just in a paragraph, it would be like two

[00:59:51] or three little images, you know, and the image it's like sometimes it'd

[00:59:55] be it'd be half of a sentence.

[00:59:57] And then all of a sudden you're like, yeah, I see it.

[00:59:59] I see it. I mean, he moves on to the next.

[01:00:02] So yeah, sometimes we're.

[01:00:03] Yeah, you and I and many of us are tempted that to give an illustration involves

[01:00:07] like, all right, so there's these things that exist.

[01:00:10] They're called beads, you know, and they have what you know, you can go to all

[01:00:13] the details and flowers also exists.

[01:00:15] Let me teach you about those.

[01:00:16] But like just draw on it, say it and then move on.

[01:00:19] Yeah. Yeah.

[01:00:21] All right. Well, hey, speaking of moving on, I think this is a good time

[01:00:25] to wrap it up.

[01:00:26] How does that transition?

[01:00:28] Is it a good transition?

[01:00:28] That was a great transition.

[01:00:29] We only have one minute and 13 seconds left anyway.

[01:00:32] So we should probably wrap it up.

[01:00:33] I sensed that.

[01:00:36] All right. Well, thank you so much, Patrick.

[01:00:38] Really enjoyed your books and I will enjoy your future books as well.

[01:00:42] That's for sure.

[01:00:43] And for the listeners of this podcast, I hope that this conversation

[01:00:47] and I'll be doing expositors collective help you to grow in your personal study

[01:00:51] and public proclamation of God's word.

[01:00:53] Thanks.

[01:00:55] OK, well, thanks for listening all the way to the end.

[01:00:59] I really appreciate

[01:01:01] Patrick's care for the more obscure pieces of the life of Christ.

[01:01:08] But more than anything, just his connection to the reality and the pain

[01:01:13] and the loss of our Christian experience and how the hope of Jesus Christ

[01:01:20] and his identification with all aspects of our sad and troubling and

[01:01:26] glorious and wonderful human experience.

[01:01:29] That really helps me hope that you will check out his book published by Baker

[01:01:34] Academic and I hope that this conversation and all the we do at expositors

[01:01:39] collective helps you to grow in your personal study and public proclamation of God's word.

[01:01:44] I hope to see some of you May 24th in Pleasanton, California.

[01:01:48] And for the rest, I will see you next Tuesday for the next episode of the podcast.

[01:01:54] This podcast is a part of CGN Media, a podcast network that points to Christ.

[01:01:59] We are supported by listeners like you to help us create more great shows.

[01:02:03] Visit CGN Media dot org slash support.