Episode 61: David P. Gushee - Living the Teachings of Jesus
In this episode of Faith for Normal People, Pete and Jared talk with David P. Gushee about what it means to take seriously the moral teachings of Jesus. They dig into how Jesus’s teachings are anchored in cultural context, yet still speak to real-life questions about freedom, forgiveness, status, and what it looks like to live well and love others.
Mentioned in This Episode
Class: American Christianity: How Did We Get Here? with Dr. Jemar Tisby
Books:
The Moral Teachings of Jesus by David P. Gushee
Introducing Christian Ethicsby David P. Gushee
Kingdom Ethics by David P. Gushee & Glenn Stassen
Join: The Society of Normal People community
Support: www.thebiblefornormalpeople.com/give
-
Jared: You are listening to Faith for Normal People. The only other God-ordained podcast on the internet.
Pete: I'm Pete Enns.
Jared: And I'm Jared Byas.
It’s July, so of course that means us Americans are thinking about America, so why not have a class about it?
Pete: Dr. Jemar Tisby, author of the New York Times bestselling book The Color of Compromise, is teaching our July class, called “American Christianity: How Did We Get Here?”
Jared: Dr. Jemar Tisby, author of the New York Times bestselling book The Color of Compromise. So mark your calendars for July 24th, from 8 to 9:30 PM Eastern Time, when Jemar will walk us through the history of how Christianity in the U.S. got tangled up with race, power, and, very relevantly, politics.
Pete: How did we get the religious right, and its marriage to the MAGA movement? How have black Christians been a part of the story from the beginning? But we’ll also talk about how the black Christian tradition has consistently offered a more faithful, justice-centered vision of the Gospel all along.
Jared: It’s pay-what-you-can until the class ends. After that, it’s $25. And if you can’t make it live, no worries. You can buy it now and watch it back later at your convenience. Head to thebiblefornormalpeople.com/americanchristianity to sign up.
Pete: And if you want a warm-up, our class, “One Nation Under God” with Dr. Samuel Perry on Christian nationalism is available now for purchase, and we’re going to give you ten dollars off for the month of July with code JULY25.
Jared: So head to thebiblefornormalpeople.com/onenation to purchase the recording, and don’t forget to sign up for the July 24th class with Jemar Tisby called “American Christianity: How Did We Get Here?” by going to thebiblefornormalpeople.com/americanchristianity.
Today on Faith for Normal People, we're talking about living the teachings of Jesus with David P. Gushee. David is Professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University and the author or editor of twenty-nine books. His newest book, The Moral Teaching of Jesus, is the background for our conversation today.
Pete: Right, and don't forget to stay tuned after this episode for Quiet Time, where Jared and I will reflect in more detail on this conversation, and I dunno, Jared, I think we need to get into this right away.
Jared: Let's do it.
Pete: Let's do it.
David: I see Jesus offering time after time really, really meaningful, true statements about life and how to make life better and…how to live better.
Every Sunday doesn't have to be about how do I get to heaven? It can also be about what did Jesus say about money, or what did he say about temptation? Or what did he say about humility…How do I love people better?
Jared: David, welcome back to the podcast. It's great to have you again, repeat customer here. Appreciate having you on.
David: It's an honor, Jared. I, I appreciate it. Um, I really respect what you guys are about.
Jared: Excellent. Well, uh, we wanna maybe set a little bit of, of context here because I think a lot of our listeners are trying to orient, how does the Bible and this Jesus that we find in the Bible, how does that intersect with morality when we're talking about how we should behave and how we should live, as a lot of people would still be Christians, but maybe questioning some of these connections. Can you maybe connect some dots for us as we get started?
David: Well, it really is a disorienting period in a sense that, you know, the centuries in which somebody would stand at the front of a church and hold a Bible and say, “thus sayeth the Lord,” and everybody would be expected to take, take in a whole lot of assumptions about the nature of the text, about the authority of the interpreter, um, about, I mean, the basic idea that God has communicated all kinds, in fact, all significant and relevant truth through the Bible.
Uh, that would be the Protestant side to say that. And, and that the, um, interpreters could be trusted to offer a fair rendering and that we should govern our lives accordingly. Um, all of that is, is now either shattered or certainly up for question now.
The thing that concerns me, um, you know, some of the response to the book has begun really with, well, hey, what is morality? Why should we care about morality? Isn't morality just pure puritanicalism and, uh, people trying to impose their rules on, on us? And so morality itself is, it is a contested concept.
And so what I tried to do in my book, Introducing Christian Ethics, from a couple years ago was to, was to help people understand that the moral dimension of life is, is intrinsic to life. It is at play every time we ask the question, how should we live this life? Um, what is right and what is wrong? What is good, what is bad, um, what should we strive for?
What does a good life look like? And I would contend that no matter what religious context one is in those questions, never go away. Now, of course, in a post religious environment or for post-religious or non-religious people, they're gonna answer those questions either intuitively or with reference to some other sources of insight or authority.
Christian people, I, I think even post-evangelical Christian people or deconstructing Christian people. Some of them at least, are still gonna be open to this conversation that not as some kind of inherent fiat from above, but they're open to seeing what Jesus had to say about questions like what is the good life and what is worth pursuing, and to see what wisdom he had to offer.
And so maybe a little bit less taken for granted, a little bit more exploratory, but I, I have confidence that everybody still asks the question, how should we live? They may not call it morality. They may call it something different.
Jared: Yeah. I appreciate the framing of even the question, what does a good life look like?
Because it, it can take away maybe some of the trigger points of like shoulds and oughts, but it still is setting us on that trajectory that leads to morality.
Pete: And you're also setting a stage, I think for what I'm hearing is almost language of a, um, a second naivete. We sort of move beyond, you know, um, a Christian America ideal and that's how.
Well, let's look at this from a fresh angle. Let's look at it differently. And you might be surprised what you see, what you've been told Jesus is about. That might not be the case. And that curiosity that I think might be feeling, um, the nuns, you know, or, or others who are wanting to stay in the Christian camp in some sense, but are tired of, um, being hammered with the, you know, the teachings of the Bible.
David: I really feel like I brought some of that second naivete to the project itself. You know, I mean, I had worked on the teachings of Jesus in the past, but most of that was done within, firmly within the evangelical context, like with my book, Kingdom Ethics with Glenn Stassen. Right. But this book was written on the other side of evangelicalism.
Uh, on the other side of white Christian nationalism and disillusionment and, you know, the Trumpification of evangelicalism and all of that. Right. Um, and, and I actually found Jesus remarkably fresh, challenging, radical, appealing.
Um, also, I mean, I would think that a book on the moral teachings of Jesus that doesn't talk a lot about theological claims about Jesus, it's there, but it's, it's not a lot, could be read by anybody interested in the great teachers of human history to see what exactly did he say? How does it compare to Buddha or Mohammed or, or, or whoever, right. You know? So I really attempted to strip away a lot of assumptions and just listen and see what was there.
Jared: Yeah. Can we, can we talk about that some, because. You know, we talk about, uh, on this, uh, both Bible for Normal People and Faith for Normal People, the fact that we can't get away from our context. And so when you talk about, you know, listening to what the text says or stripping back those things, how do you navigate the fact that our context is so different from the biblical context?
So in some ways for it to be relevant, there has to be, it seems to me some sort of reading in. Or do we have like kernel-husk kind of approach where we can strip away the context and get at what Jesus was, quote, really after I find those, that's a, it's a hard thing to navigate, how to do it where it's relevant, but I'm not putting into it things that are anachronistic or maybe not really what was, quote, Jesus's intention.
David: Yeah. Um, everybody who attempts to read the Bible seriously has to deal with those questions. Um, so actually what I tried to do in this book was to draw on the best current scholarship, especially about first century Jewish life. I. Uh, Amy-Jill Levine in Jewish Annotated New Testament as a major source, um, to, to try to let Jesus be as strange and first-century and Jewish and Roman-occupied Palestine and Galilee and so on.
In other words, really situate him where he was. Um, to understand his teachings then requires as much contextualization then as possible. So I leaned heavily there. I also was honest about the, uh, editorial slant, uh, of the gospel writers. And that's a whole nother layer as you all of course know, but not every, uh, listener or viewer would necessarily know.
Um, and then to, you might say, firmly locating Jesus then, first century, to then ask, are there points of contact with the human experience as we experience it today? I did not in this book, primarily say, “Hey, Jesus, we need an answer to abortion” and then look for something. Instead, I focused at the level of the actual teachings, the precopies, the teachings, and asked what they said in their moment.
And then you might say, the inquiry is, is there anything that speaks to us still?
Pete: Right, I mean, there's something very important I think that you brought out there that, uh, the, the gospel writers are already, to an extent, contextualizing what their oral tradition or earlier written tradition says Jesus said, and Jesus is also contextualizing things in his current moment.
So, um, that almost invites people to say, oh, well, I, I mean, not, not to make it sound too simplistic or namby-pamby, but how do you read this and how does it connect with you and your existence? And I guess you're, you're inviting people to, to join that process.
David: Yeah. And that process never ends. And, um, and so it's interpretation all the way down, um, and context matters all the way down, though I was kind of surprised as I worked through the teachings at how much seemed to reflect on the human condition at large.
Just what it is to be human. And it may be, like, for example, the constant quest for status, I think is a major part of the teaching of Jesus. Um, he sees in his context how people play status games. And he says, what a worthless exercise. Let's turn it upside down. So, so the way they would play status games in first century Galilee might look largely different from the way we play status games in 21st-century U.S., but status games are status games and, and the, the neediness, the insecurity, the competitiveness, the foolishness of the human being playing status games. That translates across context.
Jared: Well, with that, maybe can we, can we do a, a bit of a deeper dive into some examples of how this approach, 'cause I, I appreciate this approach of, of trying to bridge these worlds, of giving the respect due in the original context and still figuring out ways to, while honoring that, make it relevant for, you know, the moral teachings need to apply to us in some way, or at least get us to think about how these will impact our life today. So maybe can you give us a couple examples of how that works?
David: Take the teachings about enemy love and forgiveness. What struck me in working through, through those teachings again this time was again, everybody who has lived has, has accrued, sadly, enemies.
Some of us have accrued more enemies. Um, some of our enemies have been very public, but I digress. Um, so, so the, the boiling resentment, anger, desire to get back at those who hurt us, um, this is a, I think a universal of the human condition, the difficulty of forgiveness, and yet the cleansing. The cleansing experience of forgiveness and then reconciliation when it happens is also something that we all yearn for and sometimes even experience.
So who needed to be forgiven in first-century Galilee? Um, I mean, had a lot to do with the social hierarchy, the economic relations and Roman occupation or the Herodian regime or whatever. But, but the, um, the bondage. What I think, I see Jesus this time saying about those two things and the way they go together.
The bondage of having our actions determined by the actions of others is real. Um, and I know it in my own life, um, to have resentments that have lasted 15 years because I couldn't ever stop resenting or get to forgiveness. I feel that it's in my spirit still, and the, the invitation to forgive, it's, it's a command and Jesus says it so sternly.
If you want to be my follower, you will forgive. If you want to be forgiven, you will be, you will forgive. Um, but it's also an invitation. And, and this is a theme that I see in, in multiple different teachings. Uh, Jesus talks about bondage and freedom, but the bondage is mainly the bondage that, that we impose upon ourselves through choices that end up doing us harm.
And the freedom is when we say, actually no, that's not a path that brings flourishing. Uh, that's actually not a path that brings me in the way of God either. Jesus is very theocentric, I’m sure. All of this, he's thinking, this is God's will. But he is also thinking this God's will is for our good. It's for our flourishing.
So if we're commanded to forgive, it's for our sake and for the sake of our neighbors, um, not just some arbitrary hard command. So bondage because of patterns we get tangled up in that don't bring life, freedom when we can get loose from them and set our own course. And I think that's a theme in multiple places.
Same with the acquisition of wealth. I think a lot of his teaching about that is about the bondage of the constant striving and competitiveness and insecurity. Not only do I want to have enough, I want to have the most. I wanna have more than the next best person in town. Um, that's a bondage. Being free of that is, is freedom.
Uh, so I see, I see the, the wisdom teacher here saying, if you really, if you wanna do God's will, you'll actually discover true freedom. But it's quite a detox process to get from the way the normal run of things works to what path he is prescribing.
Pete: I like that you brought up, uh, the wisdom teacher, Jesus, because I think that is an important thing for people to hear as well, that that's part of who Jesus is.
I, I can imagine maybe some feedback you've gotten from maybe some of our more conservative brothers and sisters saying, “he’s making Jesus a moral teacher? Then what's all the other stuff about?” You know, it's just, it's, that's, he's gotta be more than that. But being a wisdom, being a sage, that's part of his Jewish context.
You know, that's, that's, that's part of, and not just a Jewish context, but a Greco Roman context wise, people say things and. You know, why wouldn't we want a wise Jesus?
David: He is more, in my view, because I'm a, I'm a Christian, he is more than a sage. But he is a sage. And, and if you're taking his own ministry seriously, people followed him around for the time that they followed him around, not just because of his acts of power, but also because of his, his extraordinary wisdom.
And people wanted to hear what he had to say, right? And the whole meaning of his, of his suffering, death and resurrection was out ahead. Um, and a lot of evangelical Christianity, really a lot of Christianity has gotten telescope down to the meaning of the cross and the resurrection.
Um, but what was it that attracted thousands and thousands of people to follow Jesus around it? It is from the gospel writings themself. It was. It was his teachings and of course his, his power, his healing and exercising power, which I believe he also had. Um, so something, something that's gotten really distorted in Christianity when people are all of a sudden suspicious that anybody would focus, concentrated attention on the actual teachings of Jesus as if they are a distraction from true Christianity.
But that is, that is one of the distorted aspects of, of a big chunk of our tradition. I think.
Pete: Well, in part because the many, I mean, I, I, I don't wanna over blow this, but it's common to think of the, the purpose of Christianity is largely to get people saved, just to make that faith commitment. You believe in Jesus. But, uh, well then what do you do?
Well, then you just poke around the Bible. You find verses for what to do. But if you think of Jesus as someone who, as part of his role was to be like, um, Lady Wisdom in Proverbs, who goes about the streets and calling on the corners and in and in the crossways and saying, listen to me, listen to what I'm saying.
Um, that's, that's a powerful part of the biblical tradition that can get lost very quickly.
David: It also makes me think of Psalm 119 related to the, to, to Torah as well, right? Um, the Jewish tradition sees law, prophets and wisdom as a gift of God's grace. Because God is gracious enough to show us wayward messed up humans how to live.
We're, we're, we're not left with, to our own devices. And it's a good thing because we make all kinds of bad choices. So, uh, Jesus, a parallel to, you know, Lady Wisdom going around the streets saying, here is God's will. Here's what wisdom looks like. Here's where true life is to be found. Um, there's no question.
I called the subtitle, “radical instruction in the will of God.” There's no question if we take the gospel seriously that he repeatedly said what God is looking for is people who will do God's will, who will listen and practice. And how many of our churches every week or every other week would say what God is looking for his people who will listen to the teachings of the Bible and practice them?
Um, we have another story. Our story is more like, well God is looking for his people who will accept that Jesus died on the cross for their sins so that they could go to heaven when they die. Um, so in one sense, this is the old Jesus-versus-Paul or the interpretation of Paul, right? But it's also, it's also an argument within the Reformation tradition, right?
Between like the Anabaptists and the more Magisterial Reformation. Um, my teacher Glenn Stassen would say, Christians have been ingenious at evading the teachings of Jesus for millennia. We would rather not deal with them directly. So we find ways to avoid and evade them.
Jared: How do we, maybe we can swing on the other side, because when you said that to, to hear and to practice, uh, and I don't have any sort of, uh, preconceived ideas of, of whether you would, um, of how you would sort of judge this tradition. But I would just think, yes, there are a lot of churches who focus on the, uh, the aspect of getting saved, but there are, at least in the traditions that I grew up in and I think have gotten more popular, there is a sort of moralism, but I would more call it like a -slash-best-practices.
Where it is, the, you know, the three ways to a healthy marriage, and we find those principles in the Bible, or this is how, you know, we don't want to offend people by the whole, you're a sinner, you need to get saved. We'd rather invite them into a kind of best practices, self-help, uh, protocol for how the Bible functions and works.
So how do you, how does that fit into this idea of wisdom? Because in some ways, you could argue like that's modern American wisdom. That's like how it gets packaged is in the Brene Brown, uh, sort of way to talk about vulnerability or talk about health and emotional health and all of that. So how does that fit?
David: I was not, I was not raised going to churches that did that, but I, I, I definitely have been exposed to them and I guess I would say, some of that kind of teaching really feels deeply assimilated to, uh, upper middle class managerial culture, you know? It's, um, it's, here's how, here's how you can have a good bourgeois, uh, life, uh, succeed at work. Um, get the next promotion. Um, be a responsible professional. Um, be a better-than-average parent, you know.
And hey, I think there's so much un wisdom around that, that practical wisdom like that. I. Is not to be sneezed at, you know, um, a lot of people run their lives into the ditch over, I mean, money, substances, anger, you know, impulsiveness, whatever it might be.
So, so to the extent that there's some adjustment tips for middle class living, I mean, there's some value to that. But Jesus is doing something more radical than that. Um, he's talking about. I think the striving paradigm itself, the wealth acquisition status game paradigm itself, the enemy making and keeping and destroying paradigm, um, the, um, and just everything that we do to avoid the question of what our relationship is gonna be with the one who made us.
So I think that, while there may be some overlap in, like self-help and sage Jesus, there's also a much more radical vision. Jesus's vision is radically theocentric. It's radically God-centered. The God who made the world and who made you knows how this life is to be lived. Let me tell you about it.
And um, and as I say in the conclusion, most of what human beings strive for, according to Jesus, is deeply offensive to God who made us for something far deeper, better and richer. Luke 16:15 shocked me. Um, what is valued by humans is an abomination in the sight of God. I, I had a, I guess that verse embedded in the teaching about mammon, uh, you know, had maybe been narrowed to that.
But I use it in the conclusion to say, I think Jesus is saying that about most of how human society is organized. Most of what we strive for.
Pete: Particularly Western society, do you think?
David: Well, well, um, he said it in a non-Western, premodern context. So I don't know that it's only Western society.
But, you know, and all, all the teachings about money that are so baffling to a lot of us Westerners who don't wanna hear them, I'm convinced, having looked at how much, like forty chapters in this book, there must be six or eight of them that are about money or wealth, because Jesus talked that much about it.
Um, I'm convinced that he saw the pursuit of wealth as a, kind of like a, a skeleton key, uh, for what is wrong with human beings. Um, it's not just the pursuit of wealth. It's everything that goes with it for him. And boy, you cannot draft this Jesus into upwardly mobile striving. He just doesn't, he's not interested in that.
In fact, he's always warning about that.
Jared: I don't want to take us off topic, but when you used status, again, it just occurred to me that I think for a lot of people that maybe feels abstract. Can you talk more about status as maybe one of those, because it seems like it's a core principle that Jesus seems to address that does seem to carry through, uh, and is relevant for us.
But maybe can you put a little meat on that bone in terms of what does that, what does that look like? What do we mean when we talk about status and what are the pitfalls of that according to Jesus?
David: Um, I'm kind of glancing through the table of contents to see, um, where he, where he gets to it. Like, uh, just some examples.
Um, the Kingdom of God teaching says that God's reign is what we should be striving for, but the average person is striving, you might say, for the biggest reign for themselves that they can possibly achieve, right? Um, the biggest reputation, the biggest career, the biggest, uh, imprint. Um, the, the teaching about true greatness, true greatness is found in humbling ourselves and serving others rather than being able to lord it over others and, and be in charge.
Also, think about when the, the two disciples or, and-or their mother went to Jesus looking for the places on the right and left side: status. We wanna be the major domos next to Jesus. And he says, um, uh, you want that? Um, well, you, you're gonna taste the suffering, but that's not what we should be striving for.
It's, it's service. It's self-denial. Um, it's God's work, not our status. Um, I think that the teachings about children and becoming like a child, I argue that children, young children especially have not learned to seek to be the top of the totem pole. They're just hanging out. And so look to children. Um, all the teachings about wealth, the, the part about wealth is, is partly to be the big man in town.
To be the one who everybody invites to the party. To be the one who has the biggest reputation and the most power in the community. It's, it's the, it's the clout. It's the prestige. It's the honor. It's the pursuit, it's the perceived reputation of goodness. Makes me think of Job, right. Uh, the greatest man in the East because he has the most wealth and is supposedly also the most pious.
Um, Jesus wants to shatter those assumptions about, about the connection between status, uh, virtue and money. Um, and all the way down the line. Um, the, the teachings about dinner parties. Uh, don't, don't invite people who can, who can reciprocate, invite those who can't. If you do get invited, go to the lowest place.
Let them invite you up if you, if they wanna invite you up. Um, the reciprocity games, the um, all of that. I think it's a consistent theme in his teaching. And as somebody who has lived an academic career, which involves a fair amount of status seeking, I am terrified. Uh, but also you might say convicted, not so much terrified.
'cause I'm not afraid of this, God, I'm more like, yeah, you're right. Got me.
Pete: So, um, yeah. Well, guilty.
Jared: For sure. You, not me.
David: Yes, we all agree that Pete is guilty.
Pete: Obviously, but I know that already 'cause I'm better than you anyway. Um, so, uh, the, the sagely teachings of Jesus and I, we're, we're sort of, um, hitting this on the periphery, but one thing it seems that, uh, as part of this upside down kingdom that sage Jesus is trying to get across to people is how one thinks about God.
So, uh, could you riff on that a little bit? And, uh, you know, I, I want to, as you do too, it's, it's very common for Christians to say, you know, break this into Old Testament, got it wrong, and then Jesus comes along and gets it right. But I think Jesus is trying to, um, bring the tradition forward in, in terms of maybe revisiting, uh, key elements of the tradition that maybe have gotten forgotten.
Something like that.
David: Yeah. I see far more continuity than discontinuity. Um, and I begin with a, a deep desire not to tell a discontinuity story. You know, bad old testament, good Jesus. Right. I'm just not, not gonna do that. But I also think it's not merited. Um, who is this God? Um, that's a great question. I should have said more about that in the conclusion.
Okay. I'll do a revision conclusion, part two.
Pete: Um, just cite me. Just cite me 'cause I'm looking for status.
Jared:Yeah, I was gonna say because he, he doesn't need any recognition.
David: That's right. Um, I would say this is a God who is, um, frustrated and heartbroken over, over the tangled mess that human beings have made of the world, and of their lives, um, a God who is reclaiming the world.
The whole doctrine, a concept of the kingdom of God, which is so central to Jesus preaching and to my own work over decades. This one, this by the way, remains in continuity for me and the kingdom of God, I think is, is a Hebrew Bible theme and a New Testament theme.
Um, this is a God who is jealous in the sense of a God who wants to be put first. And who does not appreciate people pretending or playing at religious devotion. Um, uh, and I think here maybe the teaching about idolatry is in view for Jesus. Um, like the teaching about, um, purity of heart and the beatitudes, I've been convinced for a while has to do with a person of pure heart is one who desires one thing, and that is to see God's will done in their life and in the world.
That's, that's purity of heart. Um, and, and the teaching about not doing your works of piety before other people. 'Cause if you're doing it to get a notice, you've already received the one reward. Um, is I think, an interesting clue as to how Jesus sees God, um, one who demands to be understood for who God is, who is, who is served with full devotion, whose will is pursued.
We're taught in the Lord's Prayer, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And we're supposed to orient our lives towards that goal. Um, who are restless agitators for social change where societies have, have organized themselves against God's will, so the prophetic tradition.
Um, and who are soft-hearted. Always ready to be corrected. Um, always ready to see the log in their own eye rather than the speck in somebody else's eye. Um, so the concept of always humble and ready to learn something new, to become more God-centered and God-seeking and God-honoring.
Um, uh, I also think the God that Jesus teaches about is broken hearted over all of our violence and all of our meanness and all of our conflict, and is offering practical steps for forgiveness and peacemaking and reconciliation. Um, and a God who, who knows if all the hairs of our head are numbered, a God who knows how many children are going to bed hungry on the planet that night.
And what kind of economic ordering of society would be required, uh, for that not to be the case anymore? I, it's a very attractive picture of God to me. Um, a God who loves, a God who forgives, who cares, who welcomes penitent people back, but who also has a clear way for how life is to be lived and so much would like us to live it.
That makes me think of the, the parable that I put in there about Lazarus, the indifferent, Lazarus and the indifferent rich man. Um, I think a really central parable of Jesus, because here's a guy who lives like a king. In fact, one, one idea is that it's a Herodian, uh, reference. A guy who lives like a king, while a man who he knows by name is starving to death outside his gate, and he does nothing for him.
I think that image is pregnant with meaning in every era because there's a lot of us in different rich people and a lot of Lazarus. Um. So who is that? God, a God who knows the name of Lazarus.
Pete: Mm-hmm. So I just may to- a little bit of a turn here. I'm just thinking, are there, are there elements of Jesus's teaching that we look at and we say, that's just too contextual? We really can't do anything with this?
Did you find anything like that? I'm not, I'm not asking a, a leading question. I really haven't thought about it much myself, but I can imagine, maybe someone coming up with a question like that.
David: That's a great question. Let me, let me think about it for a second. Um, there's all kinds of challenges at interpreting the most law-oriented passages like Sabbath and, um, um, the teaching in Mark 7 about tradition.
Very complicated. Uh, you have to try to understand who, who exactly were the Pharisees and what were the, and, and what were the competing traditions and what was the status of Sabbath observance and all of that. Very, very few Christians have any idea what was really going on there, and it's easy for us to do a, you know, Jewish legalism versus Christian freedom type move on all of that stuff, right?
I would say, and in fact, because of the use of anti-pharisee, uh, rhetoric and anti-Jewish rhetoric by Christians for two millennia, I would say such teachings are dangerous unless very carefully, uh, contextualized by people who know what they're doing, and most ministers don't, and most Sunday school teachers don't.
So that's problematic. I would also say the teaching about divorce, which I've done a lot of work on, um, clearly seems to be set in a very specific context of Jewish law and first century practice. Then in Mark, maybe with an overlay of Greco-Roman practice that, you know, in patriarchal power and the fact that only men could initiate divorce, mainly it looks like anyway.
And so one would have to unpack that pretty clearly to then ask what does this teaching have to do with us today? And again, most of the time that has been butchered with legalism such as, hey, Jesus didn't say anything about abuse. So if your husband is abusing you, you have to go back into the marriage.
You know, so there are these teachings that without deep contextualization in Hebrew Bible, first century practice, sometimes Greco-Roman stuff, uh, they're just, you might say, ticking time bombs for misapplication. Those are some examples. Those three, I would say.
Jared: Well, it seems tied to, I mean, and maybe this is where you were going, Pete, too, off the heels of, who is this God? Because it seems like there is a reference point, you know, where does the contextualization start and stop? It seems like we're, we're leaning on something outside the text itself, and so it's, it's also a theological point or it's a tradition point of like, what, what does our tradition say?
Who is this God? And then we're using that as a, as a rubric or as a guide. Like if it is a God who is broken-hearted and, uh, sides with the oppressed and is often talking about things like class and wealth, and these are important topics, then that helps us filter through how these things become, uh, contextualized or, you know, what layer do we stop at and say, okay, here's the layer which we can sort of draw this conclusion rather than that layer or this application rather than that application.
It seems like there- maybe that doesn't completely guide it and you, there are some clues within the text that help us understand the context and make these judgements. But I think sometimes when I hear this, it feels like maybe a little disingenuous not to acknowledge like, well, there's also this idea of who this God is, and you're carrying that into these texts to help us figure out what would be, you know.
To say that this God is going to endorse a rule about going back to an abusive spouse. It just doesn't compute even with the understanding of God that I have. So how, how would you sort of see that interplay of the view of God? This theological idea also plays into what we think we're gonna get from the text?
David: Um, to me the, the good news is that, well, there's plenty of Hebrew Bible depictions of God and Jesus's own depictions of God to draw from, so that we're not having to just kind of make it up.
Um, so the idea that, um, well let's take that divorce teaching. Um. My reading is that Jewish men were under a, under a stretch of Deuteronomy 24:1-4, some of them were beginning to divorce willy-nilly on the basis of inadequate grounds. And this is the Hillel versus Shamai debate related to, um, the grounds for divorce.
So it was a textual debate, but apparently it was also a growing practice that unconstrained, uh, men were being told that, if you find somebody more beautiful or who's more pleasing or your wife is irritating to you, you can write a certificate and that's sufficient. Put her away. Um, and so that is a kind of a, a heartless, cruel exercise of patriarchal power that would leave women bereft and often children destroyed.
Right? Um, and, and so what kind of God we have, um, determines to me the God who, who weeps over the brokenness of our world and who is especially sensitive to the most powerless and vulnerable is, um, going to give us a Jesus who says to men, don't even think about divorcing so casually. Um, marriage has more meaning than that.
Um, if you wanna divorce your wife and marry somebody else just because she's prettier or something, that's just sanctioned adultery and God is displeased. Now that can be read as just kind of old school legalism, but I read it as protection of the vulnerable. Uh, and if the principle is protection of the vulnerable, then when you come to a situation of abuse, in other words, sometimes divorce is the proper step to protect the vulnerable.
And sometimes divorce should be, should be strongly discouraged to protect the vulnerable. That is contextual. Um, but the protection of the vulnerable because of God's love for all and his heart, for the, for the most vulnerable, that becomes the baseline there. But I also think Jesus gives us lots of both examples and teachings about the kind of God that he has in mind, and I think that's the kind of God he depicts.
Jared: As we, uh, wrap up our time, maybe, can you, do you have any ways to help people who wanna, again, approach the Bible, uh, and to, to see it in a new light? You know, they, they're trying to, um, undo, um, how they have traditionally approached it. Maybe even that Romans road, salvation is all that matters way, or maybe in this, uh, more moralistic way, which I think I'm contrasting here with this deeper wisdom, contextual understanding.
What are, are there a couple of practices as we wrap up our time that you might point people to, to start seeing the Bible in this way?
David: I guess what I say when I, when I go to post-evangelical spaces, um, is, well, normally I would, I, I pay attention to what they're already doing and in general, what I see is a desire to engage the text, but not in an uncritical way.
And, um, a desire to see what I really think that the text used to be understood to mean maybe before fundamentalism. The idea is, is there a word from God for us today in this text? Um, is there a word? And, and on a given day we may not hear such a word, but we're committed to the effort to try, and that's why we go to church, that's why we open the Bible. Does God want to say something to us through this text?
And we together in community will, will go with open hearts and open ears and open minds. And to me, I, I am so excited about this, this new book because I see Jesus offering time after time really, really meaningful, true statements about life and how to make life better and how to live, uh, how to live better and how to please God.
But also how to live more freely, um, and more justly and more happily. Um, and so I would send people back to the, the teachings of Jesus first. Um, I would ask them, you might say, bracket your theological arguments about how you get to heaven, and just engage the text.
See what it says. Um, every Sunday doesn't have to be about how do I get to heaven? It can also be about what did Jesus say about money, or what did he say about temptation? Or what did he say about humility, you know, I mean, um, so, the average day, we're not thinking about what's gonna happen when we die, but the average day, hopefully we're thinking about how do I live a better life?
How do I love people better? Um, so, uh, openness, um, uh, trust that Jesus has something meaningful to say. I would send people back to Jesus. Um, and, um. A willingness to, to not have to have one interpretation of a passage. There's many different ways to read these texts, but the conversation is worth having.
Pete: Yes. Well, thank you David. That's, that's a wonderful way to end. And thank you for spending the time with us. I think this has been a really great discussion about a very important topic. So thank you for being here.
David: It is my honor. Thank you so much.
Jared: And now for Quiet Time.
Pete: With Pete and Jared.
Jared: Alright. Well we haven't had a lot of ethicists on the show over the years. So talk a little bit about your views of morality and how they've evolved over time. In your, in this faith journey, how, how did it affect your views of morality?
Pete: Well, um, I'd say one thing is not looking to the Bible for these compelling and eternally valid moral statements.
Um, not knocking the Bible, I'm just saying there are some, some things that are highly contextualized and, um, I think we're seeing examples of morality in context that we can then say, well, what does it look like today? And that's the task of theology. So it's, I mean, the bible's, you know, one of my taglines as the Bible's not a book, book or rule book, it's, it's a book of wisdom.
So, um, and I think that's, that's been, you know, helpful to me just to process some things in the Bible that I just wouldn't do.
Jared: How, how do you, um, maybe a tag on question for that is how do you distinguish, uh, you know, um, David talks about this a little bit, but how do you distinguish moralism from morality?
Like, there's, there's a shade of this that we're trying to get away from. Um, and there's a shade that we need to hold onto. And David talks about that early in the, in the episode about, everybody kind of has a, a “how should we live” question? But how do you think about that?
Pete: Well, I mean, I think we all have that question. We all have to work out, right? What does it mean to live well? To live in, in harmony with, with those around us. Unless you don't think we should be living in harmony, but that's a whole other issue. Um, so yeah. To, to, to live in such a way, but that's, for me, a constant process of working out what that even means.
Even as something as simple as love your neighbor, what that looks like is a constant process. And so to me that's like the difference between like having a moral path that you walk and moralism. Which, I mean, not, not to be trite or simplistic, but sometimes, uh, uh, that word connotes to me, like, being tense.
You know, moralistic and, you know, we just don't do those things and we can't even talk about these things.
Jared: Almost like a fear of the consequences.
Pete: Exactly. Right. Fear. And, uh, I think a more positive, proactive view of morality is just thinking how, how do I wanna present myself in the world that, I mean, fundamentally is not self-centered.
To me, that's, that's the heart of morality. It's not just you and what you think is right or wrong. It's how do you live with other people?
Jared: Yeah. Good. So maybe a way of saying that is not fear-based, but grounded in, kind of, character in community.
Pete: Yeah, sure, as a way of saying that. Yeah. Do you have any thoughts on that?
Jared: Yeah, I mean, I, I think I was just, uh, your word, your phrase, constant process, and I think that's helpful too, because one of the ways that my mind has shifted is thinking of morality as a static. You mentioned, kind of, this absolutist once for all time objective, um, moral code. And then either you are obeying that moral code, in which case you're being moral or you are disobeying that moral code and you're being immoral.
But seeing it as a, a dynamic process that actually develops and evolves through time and is culturally contextual. Um, I think is, has been helpful. And, and it, it brings in that element of wisdom, which is, there's a required skill to discern what's at the, the heart of the issue and what is culturally irrelevant as part of the issue, not just biblically, but just in life as well.
So, and, and I, when I think about this idea of character in community, it does, um, remind me of David talking about Jesus' teachings in community.
Like how do we interpret it within a group? And I think that's, I think it's really important because it does avoid this self-help mentality. That it's like, well, it's not just about me becoming, um, one of these guys, like on TikTok, where they, um, you know, they, it's like they're always one-upping each other.
It's like, well, I get up at 3:00 AM Yeah. And then I have four raw eggs and I work out 17 miles. Like, it's the one guy's like, uh, so I get like two days for every one of your days basically. And it's like, oh my gosh, this is absurd.
So that, I think the community piece of that is what, for me, if it's not gonna be static, rule-based, once for all time absolutist, what keeps us from falling off the rails and just making up our own self-serving moral code, is the community itself that we submit ourselves. A group of people to keep us in line. It is mutual accountability in that sense.
Pete: Which is an act of, I think, humility. To put yourself willingly accountable to a group.
Um, and not a group where there's a top-down person just saying, telling everybody what to do. That's not a group.
Jared: Yeah. I think it's a cult.
Pete: That's a cult. Right. That's not a group. Um, but it's hard to live that way, you know? And, but that's, that's welcome to adulthood. I mean, this is, it's, it's, you have to figure stuff out.
Jared: Yeah. So how, how have you, what did that look like for you as you've worked it out in life in terms of this, doing morality, in wisdom, in community?
Pete: Um, I think it's made me more relaxed. Right, that I am, I'm not overly concerned with, is there a Bible passage that might counter what I happen to be thinking right now?
And there may be, there may not be. And if there is, sure. You, you, you okay. You have, you reflect on that, right? But that's, that's exactly the point. It's, it's a reflection on ethics. It's a reflection on morality. And, it also, it just, to me, it makes it simpler just if you're hurting other people, it's not a good idea.
You know, I mean, it's as simple as that. And, um, I, I'm not sure if there is a, so a biblical Christian ethic that that really trumps that. You know, you don't want to hurt other people. And don't be a jerk, as one of my pastors said once, not to me personally, but just to the congregation, do you wanna love others?
Just try, just don't be a jerk. Just start with that, right? And, um, I, I, I don't want to overly simplify it, but I, I do think that the element of self-centeredness is the barrier to this. Right? And, and then people can use the Bible in a very self-centered way where, now I have my code, this is fine for me, and it doesn't matter how this affects anybody else.
Jared: Right. Right. It's tricky because I think, I feel like most Christians assume that they have humility and they have a de-centered, non-self centered approach. And so it, it is hard to-
Pete: I'm just following the Bible
Jared: -weed through the, uh, self deception. I think that is very easy to fall into.
Because I would've said I was, I was submitting to God, which is the most humble thing. But I mean, this is my cynicism a little bit. It's like, well, it's always easier to submit to God than to submit to other people. Because it's very easy to make God in our own image.
Pete: It's also very abstract.
Jared: Exactly. Yeah. Right. And you don't have to deal with the messiness of human and emotions. God's perfectly forgiving when I don't do it right. God's perfect. It's like, okay, that's abstract. But to like do it in community with people-
Pete: But now, go wash people's feet. Right. Ew. Right. I don’t wanna do that.
Jared: Yeah. And I think it's very Jesus centered to recognize that doing these things in community is part of the message of Jesus. Like, when you've done it to the least of these. When it, there's this integration in Jesus's ethic that it can't be disembodied and abstract. Jesus always brought the love of God and love of me is expressed in love of each other.
Pete: Yeah. Love of God and love of others. That's those, I think Jesus said something about that being really important. Yeah. You know. You being me, as I am and you as we're in each other kind of thing. It's, it's, it's, it's a mutual connectivity. Right. And, and in that sense, you know, it is, it's true that, you know how, how can you love God whom you have not seen.
If you can't love those, you have seen. And to me that's, that's an ethical, moral issue.
Jared: Well, it's a, it's a principle. I mean, I feel like it is, and it's hard. It's foundational, in a way that if we're looking for those abstract, absolute kind of principles. That's a pretty good one to start with.
If we're trying to be Jesus-centered. You know? That, how can you love God, who you haven't seen, if you don't love the people you do see? It's a very good question. Yeah. So, alright, well I'm, I think we should do more questions of morality and ethics.
Because I think theology can get, biblical studies can get very historical. Theology can get very abstract. And I think ethics kind of brings it home in terms of practicality.
Pete: We, we all struggle with it too. Some more them more than others. Well, some who don't struggle at all with it, maybe sort of missing things.
You know? Right. I think so. But it, it is hard to know how to show up in the world. Every minute, you have to make decisions of how we're going to be. And that's a lot of pressure. So I like to think of it as being on this path that we're trying to follow and not like, here are the rules, now go out in life, and just remember those rules back there.
Um, unless there's some, there's, there's a place for that. But like, that doesn't motivate you to, to truly be a loving person. You may be loving to give the appearance of, of doing so. I don't know if, I don't know if it changes you internally, external law.
Jared: Which kind of goes back to, it's deeper. It's about formation. Not rule-keeping. Which is wisdom again. All right. Well, good luck everybody.
Pete: Yeah. We've just got out of being told what to do ever.
Jared: That's really, that's what people will say. I know that's like the ploy. It is like, well, you just don't wanna submit to the Bible.
Pete: There you go again.
Jared: So you're bringing on these smarty pants PhDs to figure out ways you could just get away from doing what the Bible clearly says.
Pete: But it’s so easy. Just love people. Okay, how? By telling them they're gonna hell if they don't. Okay. Is there another way that maybe we can be nice with people?
Jared: Yeah. There are others, but it's not, it's not important.
Pete: And that's not important. Yeah. The only thing that's important is what happens after you die.
Jared: All right, well that turn took a left turn. All right. See you folks.
Pete: We always take a left turn.
Jared: Well, thanks to everyone who supports the show. If you wanna support what we do, there are three ways you can do it. One, if you just want to give a little money, go to thebiblefornormalpeople.com/give.
Pete: And if you wanna support us, and want an all access pass to our classes, ad-free live stream of the podcast, and a thoughtful community of people asking tough questions about the Bible and faith, you can become a member of our online community, the Society of Normal People at thebiblefornormalpeople.com/join
Jared: And lastly, it goes a long way if you just wanted to rate the podcast, leave a review and tell others about our show. In addition, you can let us know what you thought about the episode by emailing us at info@thebiblefornormalpeople.com
Outro: You've just made it through another episode of Faith for Normal People. Don't forget you can catch our other show, The Bible for Normal People, in the same feed wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was brought to you by the Bible for Normal People team: Brittany Hodge, Joel Limbauan, Melissa Yandow, Tessa Stultz, Danny Wong, Lauren O'Connell, and Naiomi Gonzalez.
[Blooper clip plays]
Jared: So this is video. Can't look down at your computer or your paper.
Pete: Sure you can.
Jared: Um, not the whole time. You gotta give the people what they want, which is your face shining into the camera. Enabling that parasocial relationship.
