Joshua Keith Craft

0:52 So one of the things he does these kids come up they're like 67 he goes 8 n and yeah cuz people started saying that I'm like where'd that come from? So he created that this guy he goes and then they were like oh cuz he just he went 8 nine it was so funny dude. So like the how fast how uh how quickwitted people are man I wish I was really that fast. Dude, you could be, you know, but there's also you have to control that because I I I do have a quick wit and it's not always served me because I've been I've been very mean to people throughout. Yeah, that's that's that's what it usually ends up being is you become quickwitted about cutting people down. Yeah, it really hurt a lot of people's feelings and there's quite a few people who don't want to be my friend anymore. It's a great leadership quality and they don't talk when I'm around. They're scared to talk. That's not That's not actually true, but yeah, great leadership quality. Are we recording for real? Okay, so I'll get back to that. I say, but you you were saying that so much of of American church culture is built on American culture, not kingdom culture.

1:48 Well, it's built on Yeah. just like American westernized uh populism that we have the right and responsibility to publicly critique anybody as much as we would like to. And um you know, I think about a person like like like I know I know Lakewood Church. I know Joel Osteen personally. Um, and I think about what he does. People go, "Oh, well, you know, especially in the in the reformed like theological world, people go, you know, this guy really should know the Bible more and he should preach repentance a lot more and he should do this and he should do this and he should do that cuz he's not discipling anybody, right? And the the thing that I feel like is one of the most pervasive things in American Christian culture that really is is the um it's not like I'm not saying this like from a from a prophetic standpoint.

2:43 It's but it's really a black mark on the on the church is how great we are at criticizing the race somebody else is running without actually knowing the race that they're running. So what I mean by that is a person will hear a Joel Osteen message or they'll listen to a podcast or they'll hear what someone else thinks about Joel Osteen and they'll formulate a whole series of opinions, but that's not based on actually being around any kind of community in that environment. Like see, so people will say, and I've heard this, you'll say, "Well, Join, he preaches this really light message. He doesn't preach repentance and nobody in his church gets discipled." I don't I don't I don't live in Houston. I don't know that to be true because if you really judge a person based on fruit, then you're going to get close enough to their world to see what the fruit of it is. Now, the problem that the problem that I think a lot of critics have that want to criticize one of the most well-known people on the planet, especially as a pastor, is they've never they haven't interacted with Lakewood or Joeline long enough to see whether or not there is fruit there.

3:49 Right now, the reason and they don't think that they should have to either, right? And I I want to dive into this more because a couple episodes ago I I asked you the question, what's essential for church? And your answer was discipleship and so and I thought it was a great answer. It's the great commission. Yeah. All right. Here's the question though is like what is discipleship actually? Because and I'll tell you where I was challenged on this recently and why I want to dive into this. So we did the church production. I feel we've been talking about the Christmas production for a while. We'll move on after this episode maybe. It's always like a hot button thing. We'll do and we just took and it's also we put a lot of time I basically lived at the church from Friday to Sunday. Like, no joke, man. I went home to sleep and that was about it. And I'm not complaining about that. It was amazing. But like, so, uh, big production, over 10,000 people come. Um, I co-wrote it and I'm one of the main characters. Um, and phenomenal. Josh comes out, preaches the message, we, you know, give the altar call. Over 450 people give their lives to Christ. Amazing. Now, I I have my daughters that act in the play with me and I always get them to come and look at you always do this thing where you turn off the lights and you have everyone who gave their life to Christ put their their phone light up and it's amazing because you get to see a visible representation. I say to my kids, I'm like, "Kids, this is why we do this."

4:56 Like the conversation I have on the truck drive over is I'm like, "Girls, we're here to serve." Like, I know you're going to have fun acting. I know you like want people to see you, but remember why we're doing this. It's not to do with us. It's cuz we are serving. this is a way that we're serving in church to help people hear the about the greatest love that's ever ever known which is God's love. That's the conversation I have with them. So when you then get to see these lights come up and like that's the whole center of the the story that we wrote is I'm this jerk character that encounters God's love and gets broken by it which is such a a powerful uh story which so many people I think that's that's the story of life. When you really encounter God's love it breaks the hardness of your heart. So that's what you see in this in this uh this this production. Well, so I'm I'm like, you know, yes, we, you know, I see all these lights come on. I'm like, praise the Lord. I'm also a person who like deeply cares about not just somebody saying a prayer and then going back to their normal life, but that they actually get discipled. And so I was challenged because I like I felt really deflated. I I haven't talked to you about this, but I felt really deflated afterwards cuz I was like, man, wonder how many of those people are actually going to come back here or going to actually get discipled. And like so I'm sitting there going like, man, we're getting it all wrong. Like this is where my mind's starting to go. And you know what the Holy Spirit brings to mind? He brings to mind Acts I can't remember what chapter it is but whenever uh Philip runs up on that Somalian uh that Somalian guy reading just happens to be reading the book of Isaiah drops in on him preaches the gospel baptizes him spirit sweeps him up and he takes him off we never hear what happens to that guy again and so suddenly I'm left and I'm like huh like was that guy discipled I don't know he's Ethiopian but Ethiopian apologies yeah I don't know why I said I think I said Somali because that's a hot buck that sorry that's a hot news topic right now started daycare Yeah. Shout out to Minnesota.

6:32 So excited for The Dialog daycare. It's coming. We're going to be millionaires. Yeah. Where it's opening up in Minneapolis very soon. Enjoy this podcast while you can cuz it's going to be shut off soon. We're going to be running that daycare anyways. Running a daycare for absolutely nobody. It's going to be awesome. Anyways. Yeah. Ethiopia. Apologies. Apologies there for the details, but like Yeah. And and I just so I I I felt the Holy Spirit kind of remind me of that and I was like, "Oh, so like man, maybe I'm getting hung up in tactics." So like what is discipleship? You Well, I mean what you know what's interesting about the um this just like a little fact. The Ethiopian church is older than the the the Christian church. Is it really? Well, it's not Christian, the Western church. It's older than the Catholic Church. The Ethiopian Bible is older than the Bible we have. And they say it's because of this Ethiopian. He went back to Ethiopia and reached because Ethiopia is the earliest the the the longest going Christian nation.

7:25 I didn't know that, man. That's amazing. So Ethiopia is really amazing. But um you know to what you're saying to me the challenge is uh this you know even counting salvations right and I'm like I'm sitting here having I'm just going to be honest like even counting salvations to me I don't like that because that when you're when you're taking a data a data measurement one of the things about data is you take the data point because what gets measured measured gets managed, right? So, if we man if we measure this number, we can pretty much determine whether or not it's going to go up or down based on some inputs, right? I don't personally I have a little bit of a hard time with that as it relates to salvations because I think that it's the working of the Holy Spirit in people's lives. I don't think that we're responsible for it. I agree.

8:20 I think that we're contributors. Like I I love what Garrett says, God's sovereign and man's responsible. I think that we contribute to to God's plan happening in the earth, but I also don't think we're responsible for it. And the thing is that's just my opinion. Like that's that's really I mean on a level it's just my opinion. It's my interpretation. Well, God God chooses to work through people. So, but people Yeah. Right. But like so I'm I'll use I'm I'm using my own disconnects as an example here. So I don't I don't believe in altar calls. Personally, I don't not not that I don't believe in them. They're not in the Bible, right? So, so, so people do people will do an altar call as if that's the way to lead someone to Christ. And that's number one. I don't I don't necessarily agree with even like leading someone to Christ. I think the Holy Spirit convicts people of their sins. That's what the Bible says that the Holy Spirit the the Holy Spirit like convicts us of our sins and leads us into the knowledge that we need something deeper. It's like you're saying it's the love of God, the the goodness of God leads us to repentance.

9:23 It's not the conversations with another person, right? Yeah. But I mean, so all a part of that. Okay. I was just But are you getting into semantics a little bit there? Well, I'm I'm saying more from the perspective of what am I actually responsible for? Okay. So, I am not I can't right now. And again, I I always reserve the right to change my mind. Right now, at this point in my life, it's hard for me to see how I'm responsible for salvations. Okay. as a person, as a leader in a church, but so all that and there's a lot of people that think that well define responsible though this is I just a number that we should track uh because we can manipulate that in some point in some way so that we could do something that leads to more salvations, right? Like cuz if we just run a bunch of Easter and Christmas productions, we would that number would go up. Yeah. I mean, but what's but then you go, okay, well, if if I'm going to define this outcome a certain way, I have to be able to control as much as I can leading to the outcome, and I'm not responsible for people's hearts, right? Okay. So, that's what you're saying. I just want to make sure I'm understanding.

10:25 Yeah. So, I can't I can't control the working of God in someone's life. Therefore, for me personally, tracking salvations is uh thinking that you're doing God's job on a level, right? Um that's just my opinion, though. So, I live in a I grew up in charismatic culture. I grew up in like a lot of Pentecostal stuff and in this in this particular world, everything was about the altar call. It's about getting people to getting people to respond to the gospel. We want them to we want them to respond to the gospel. So, we play the music behind the pastor while he's preaching. We have like a whole kind of uh ceremony, so to speak, that we do where people raise their hands, they close their eyes, and they stand up and they come forward. all that. Um, I don't personally vibe with that 100%. I don't either, man. But here's the thing, that doesn't matter, right?

11:17 Because one of the things that, uh, an altar call environment does is it reminds people of why we're doing all of this in the first place. Does that make it a bad thing to do because it's quote unquote not not really clearly written in the Bible somewhere? No. because like people like Hope and Eevee and Elijah and every and everybody who's doing this production serving gets to see the a spiritual outcome take place that they got to contribute to. Well, and and and like and this is where I'll immediately throw back my own. I'm with you. I'm like, man, I cuz cuz for me cuz like I said, you and I both value authenticity so highly that what's what's what's dangerous in that is like who determines what's authentic? Because for me, I'd be like, well, I don't want anybody to have anything. I don't want to just get an emotional environment created and then they make an emotional decision and then it's not real. Well, does God work with imperfection? All the time. Do I have literal stories of people I I can think of right now that told me, "Hey, my child gave their life to Christ at the the production a couple years ago." And I was reminded of this before this year's production. And I'm like, so so what do to your point? Yeah, I don't vibe with it. I don't think it's perfect. Who cares? Because you know what? Like I don't know how many of those 450 or whatever it was plus people will actually you know find Christ but let's say like I don't know well let's say we planted a seed let's say they go right back to their life but they experience something that like one man sows another man waters but it's God who makes it grow and and so there's a large dose of humility needed because I strug I I you know this was my thought process afterwards is I'm like man I want to do a good thing I want to serve God. I mean and then you're immediately kind of like uh am I am I missing it here?

12:58 Yeah. Well, I think that there's just such great um there's always great clarity or great uh peace in being a balanced person, like having just a balanced perspective. And and what I mean by that is people live their life with this either or mentality. Either it's got to be this or it's got to be that, it's got to be this way, it's got to be that way. What I want to do is I really want to trust God with people. Yeah. You know, I I've been a I've been a church leader for like a long quote unquote church leader for a long time, bro. You're a church leader. Like I've just I know you I know you like been a leader in a church for a long time. Okay. On some level. This is a strong powerful moment. You just admitted that. Well done. Proud of you. And the thing the thing that the thing that I think church leaders get wrong out of the best of intentions is putting a timeline on other people's transformation.

13:49 Yeah, that's true. So when you say we're going to do this, this and this is going to make you a disciple or this this and this is going to mean you're saved or once you do this once you once you check these boxes then you'll have you'll have uh transformed. Yeah. Right. I think that you've got to learn how to trust God with people, which means for some people it's raising their hand in a moment like that and then 10 years later being reminded of that and you know being in a place where they're able to do that, right? And as as a part of the sovereignty of God over our lives, right? And uh you know, if God's goodness leads leads us to a place of repentance, what's the proof of salvation, right? The what's what's really the proof of a person saying yes to Jesus? It's not whether or not they raise their hand. It's the It's the fruit of their life. It's the sustained.

14:41 Yeah. But I I think that the the the challenge of that, you live in a world or we live in a world where according to most recent statistics, only 4% of Christians have a biblical worldview. So if we want to measure whether or not people are going to heaven, like 96% of us might not be. Mhm. like 96% of people that believe in Jesus because Jesus talked about so there's a there's a passage in scripture where these people come to Jesus and they say you know Jesus is telling this story you they come to him and they say we cast out demons in your name we did all this stuff in your name and then he says depart from me I never knew you the most terrifying scripture in the Bible in my opinion yeah and and the Greek word for know that Jesus uses there is this Greek word ginōskō it means really to know someone intimately yeah And the question that we have to answer, you know, for me, this podcast isn't, you know, a lot of people want to use their whatever platform they have to say how to criticize other people.

15:39 This my my encouragement um is for us to criticize ourselves and our own personal belief system before we go, oh, here's so back to Joel Osteen. Here's what a guy like Joel Osteen should be doing. Well, okay. Um you go do that. Where where do you where do you think that comes from though, man? Because I I always want to like like I said, my job is to pull the best out of you as your friend and a guy who knows you, you know, more than a lot of people. And I think what you do so well is you combine theology, history, and philosophy. And kind of like what just happened that Ethiop what you did, you know, whatever 10 minutes ago for me where you're like, "Oh, don't worry. That Ethiopian church was actually older than the Western church." Oh, man. So, Philip got brought there and and what happened? He got whisked off, but the Holy Spirit transformed that guy's life. And that's transformed his whole nation. And that's what actually matters. So, but where do you think we got this altar call like cuz it is very much a tradition at this point.

16:32 Yeah. I mean, I think this human nature, right, is to create traditions for the sake of safety, right? So, traditions make us feel safe. Traditions make us feel comfortable. We all have where our life is filled with a series of traditions, you know. Um traditions are just the things that we think the ways that we think that we should do things. So I have a tradition when I wake up in the morning, you know, routines are traditions. Yeah. So people uh find safety in that. So in the tradition of faith that like me and you come from that was like a big deal. Whereas in u in there's been some churches I've gone to, they don't do altar calls, right? They don't even talk about salvation because if you're, you know, this is like way hyper reformed, but if you're one of the elect, you're going to go to heaven eventually anyway, right?

17:23 So God will, you know, God's already decided in advance that you are going to be a part of the 144,000. So we're not even going to talk about the gospel with you. You're just going to you're either going to live according to that or not. You're either going to be saved or not. God will do it whatever he's going to do. So there's all these different thought processes that are out there and that's just how people are are geared to live. You know, you think about why did the Catholic Church not want the the Bible to be translated from Latin? Yeah, that's a wild one. The one of the fundamental reasons why they didn't was because in the Catholic Church, the traditions of the uh or the traditions of the elders, that's what the Pharisees said. But in the Catholic Church, the traditions of the church fathers are of equal importance, if not if not more important than the scripture. So why why wouldn't the Catholic church want the Bible to be translated? Because we don't need you to know the Bible. We need you to know the church father's perspective on the Bible, right?

18:22 So if we can't control that, right, if we can't control you knowing, we want you to know parts of the Bible that reflect the traditions of our belief system. Yeah. Right. Isn't that I I the So the King James version was like what 1611 I think it was or 1633. It's in the 1600s. Think about that. So Jesus died they think roughly between what 80 30 and 35 something like that. So for 40 whatever. Yeah. Let's say it was 50. It doesn't really matter. The point is 1,500 plus years the average person could not read the Bible. I mean, you know, people like uh uh John Wycliffe, different people. I mean, uh killed for trying to translate the Bible by the church, right? So, yeah. So, to me, this is the reason why I'm saying that is because this has always been the dynamic is people get on their traditions. They get on tradition is just another way of saying the way of doing it. Yeah.

19:15 So, people get on their way of doing it and it becomes so important. And I I've quoted that before that Jesus said about you know elevating your God gives us the power that our thinking becomes more important than the Bible because traditions ultimately in our life and in faith traditions become more important than even what the word says. And that was true in the history of the Catholic Church but we're not we're still human. Yep. you know, 500 plus years later after that experience, we're still human beings that create traditions and say, "Here's how it has to be done. Here's how here's how this thing must go." And when you when you zoom out and you go, "Okay, what are the what are the real like non-negotiables with God?" There's not I mean, there are some, yeah, but there's not as many as what we've created. So, people go, "You should you should um" And there's all these different ways to express this. when you get saved, the real proof of your salvation is whether or not you get baptized, right?

20:14 Then you got charismatic people who are like, "Well, the one of the proofs that God's really working in your life is if you get baptized in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues, which is uh really complicated uh to me, the really complicated doctrine to hold to say that." And I don't want to just get too too super deep into doctrine and all that stuff, but what we do is we go, okay, um, we complicate it because we not only say, here's the fruit that God wants us to have, we say, here's the fruit that all the tradition, all of our all of our little doctrinal denominational rules are that we've created. Here's the fruit that needs to also be present in your life. And then it's actually really hard because we have to now interpret every little thing for you to make sure you're doing all the different all the different traditions. Yeah. It takes you away from God and puts you right back in the the hands of whoever is leading your church or whatever whoever you look to, which is to a lot of people is a valid Yeah.

21:10 approach. But the the main question, so to zoom back out, that was like a I don't know if that was a rabbit trail, but that was like a fascinating journey we just took there. Yeah. Glad you enjoyed the ride. Come aboard friends. But to zoom out, but if you go back to discipleship and you go back to what we were talking about when we started on people like Joel Osteen or Steven Furtick or people that like I genuinely love these people. I think that they're doing they seem to be doing exactly what God's called them to do and they're producing some kind of fruit as it relates to that. The thing that we have to really measure our Christian walk based on is whether or not we make disciples, right? So whether or not we teach people to obey all that God's commanded us to do, right? You know, and that's not the that's the call of the church and that's the responsibility of the pastor or the leadership of the church or whatever to make sure that the church is reflective of this discipleship mission. But that's the thing that's fascinating to me is when you when you hear from the western church like western church leaders the number one thing that most churches are unsatisfied with is the quality of their discipleship.

22:19 You know the quality of what's being produced out of their church which leads to a lot of different implications. If this is if there was really two things that Jesus said that mattered most one was the great commandment the other one was the great commission. How can we not be doing well right? As it relates to there's just two things. Love God. Love people. Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And love your neighbor as yourself, right? And go teach people to obey all that I've commanded you to do. That's really it. And we're sitting here um do you think counting a lot of other things? Yeah. But do you think we get distracted because I mean I always think about whenever he says, "A new commandment I give you." Like this is a really big deal. John 13, right? cuz this is a really big deal because the whole of the Old Testament that they were was all that they followed had very clear commandments, right? Very clear commandments. It had a whole instruction system. And so like the new covenant which Jesus brought you would think would be like the first one have a bunch of instructive stuff and it wasn't so prescriptive. There was like Jesus brought the new covenant in and that was one but that was one of the things he says a new commandment and he uses those words very intentionally. A new commandment I give you. Love each other as I have loved you. Oh man. Like, okay, that's really challenging cuz what did how did Jesus love people, man? He challenged them. He He met them where they were at. He healed them. He showed them God's way. He dealt with their with their frustrating and stupid things they said when they had their values wrong.

23:43 He corrected, but he did it lovingly. He like, he always was in the moment trying to give the person they what they needed to be exposed to the character of God that they might have a chance to to to see who he was, to see God, and make a make a decision and transform. Yeah. And that's like, man. Yeah. And I want to I want to make something really clear right here that's kind of becoming the goal of this particular podcast is like this specific episode or these past couple episodes we've been talking about is it's so easy for us to look at like a like a big- time person or a person who has a lot of influence and criticize the quality of their discipleship without ever looking at our own. The goal of this is not for me to give my opinions on church church movements in America although I have opinions. The goal is for for hopefully all of us to say what kind of how am I walking this out that Jesus said in my own life because that's what Jesus told all of us to do. So when you have mastered for instance or to give a thought like when a person has mastered discipleship then they can probably go around and start critiquing the outcomes of other churches or other movements when they've really accomplished some really amazing things and partner with God and all that. It's so interesting to me that we mostly will sit on the sidelines and won't be in the game, right?

25:08 And then we'll go, well, you know, if if they put me in the game, I'd have thrown the football over those mountains over there. You know, if you give me a jersey, I'll I'll, you know, like people like one of my favorite basketball players, Luka Dončić , people talk about how he doesn't play defense. It's like, I understand that he really doesn't play defense, but I can't I what what am I going to do compared to one of the best players in the NBA? So I Oh yeah, here's all the stuff I would do if I was in the game. So really, the reason why I'm saying all that is because before I just go down that road, I want to make sure that you as a listener to this podcast, you're assessing your own personal uh outcome. This is look in the mirror, not look out the window. This is us. This is always us looking in the mirror. This isn't, hey, here's what this guy's doing that we don't think should be happening. I think there's way too much of that because if we all just if you just take and the reason why I'm saying all that is because if you just look at John 13:34 where Jesus said, "This is a new command I give you. Love each other as I've loved you." You if you just spent your time thinking about how well you do that, you would have a lot of work on your hands. I I have a lot of work on my hands to be able to do that effectively. And it's such a that's such a challenging the idea of really biblical love I think is such a challenging thing especially in it's always been a challenging thing in the world that we lived in like if you look at the history of philosophy right if you look at what secular philosophers say about Jesus the the primary thing uh that a lot of secular philosophers will say about what Jesus contributed to the history of philosophy is he was the first person that with any level of clarity would said to love your enemies.

26:54 He was the first person in the history of philosophy that they can look at to say hey you should love your enemies and you should bless those who curse you. There is never a person before Jesus that they in the like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, all these guys no one said love your enemies. They talked about love. They talked about all that. But they never said, "Love your enemies or bless those who who persecute you." So this idea that Jesus had of love changed. Yeah. He fundamentally changed philosophy, changed changed people's approach to life. If you decided to follow Jesus, this is the first time in history that really a person who's a any kind of uh leader of people with influence says, "Hey, go love your enemies." So the reason uh why we're having this conversation on this podcast is because we have to assess how well we do that because it's so confrontational to culture and it always will be. Like we live in a world today that we think is more divided than ever. It's not any divided than it's ever been. There's always been factions. There's always some kind of terroristic threat in society. There's always been this kind of stuff. And and the response that the church or Christians, us as individuals have to that is the is to me one of the greatest proofs of whether or not we really follow biblical Christianity and really follow Jesus because that's one of the hard when the so the story of the the story of the good Samaritan I think is a really great example.

28:24 Yeah. So they ask Jesus, you know, rich young or guy comes to Jesus and he's wellknown in everything and he's a he's a scribe and he knows everything and he comes to Jesus and he says, "Hey, I've done all these things since I was a kid. I've I've so teach so I want to go back to the great commission. Teach people to observe all that I've commanded you." Well, then what did God command? Right? So go back to the great commandment which is love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. And then Jesus adds a new one, which is harder. It's harder than So love your neighbor as yourself. That's actually easier because I don't like myself that much. So I'm going to Right. I'm I'm going to like you just just as much. Yeah. I'm I'm going to hate you just as much as I hate myself. Jesus doesn't just leave it there. He goes, actually, there's a new command, and that's love people like I've loved you.

29:14 How does God love somebody? It's like unconditionally like you can't escape his love. all that stuff. So, so teach people to obey all that I've commanded you. This is the the command isn't the ten commandments. It's a part of it's a part of the ten commandments. But Jesus says, "All the law and the prophets are summed up in these two commands." So, in the story of the good Samaritan, this guy comes to me says, "I've I've done everything. I've been a religious person. I've followed all the rules. I've done everything that God said me to do from a young age, and I want to know what it and I and I want to know what it means." So Jesus so he says Jesus says you're not far from the kingdom, right? He says that the guy says love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus says you're not far from the kingdom. And then he says well he asked this question which on this particular topic is the question and that's who's my neighbor?

30:08 Yeah. Big time. And Jesus tells a story of a of a Samaritan of the good Samaritan. So, he talks about how a guy was traveling, got beat up by bandits, and these different people come by. One of them is a a priest's assistant. He sees the guy. He doesn't he doesn't help him. He he moves on. You get to the good I'm just paraphrasing. Everyone kind of knows the story of a good Samaritan. You get to the Samaritan man who comes and he takes the guy, pays for him to get healed, help all helps all that stuff. Jesus tells this whole story of the good Samaritan, the guy that comes along and uh that that that story is so particularly challenging because of what a Samaritan was to a Pharisee in the ancient world. So Samaritans, there was a region called Samaria and the Samaritans lived there and the Samar Sam Samaritans were people were Jews who had married non-Jews and they were considered unclean. Like you couldn't even as a Jew, Jews would go Sam Samaria was right by the Sea of Galilee and Jews would go around Samaria to make sure that they didn't interact with a Samaritan. Yeah.

31:20 At all. That's why the the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman is so challenging for like Jewish Jewish theology because as a Jew, he's interacting with a with a Samaritan which would make him unclean on and on. Yeah. So Jesus, can I can I add that real quick? Not just that that they married Jews, but they also only recognized the first five books of the Bible. Right? So they threw out all the prophets and they had a separate place to worship. So from a very right place, you could be like, "You guys are breaking the law. You're doing exactly what God said not to do." Blah, blah, blah. And feel like you were on a just and moral high ground to be able to say that to them. Well, and he's talking to a guy who he's talking to a guy who is that, right? He's talking to a guy who's obeyed all the laws. So he then he brings up a Samaritan and he talks about how the Samaritans are your neighbors. So the and I'm I'm paraphrasing a little bit of what Jesus said, but you can read the story of the good Samaritan for yourself. And Jesus is saying the Samaritan is your neighbor. Well, who's a Samaritan? I think about this and I go, who's a Samaritan in the modern world that we live in? I mean, who's who's people that we would avoid? Who's people that we're against? Who's people that we feel like that should be driven out? I mean, the easy answer to that in the south where we live and in America is Muslim people, right?

32:41 So, people go like, we're we're we're recording this, I think yesterday or whatever. Uh, Mamdani in New York got sworn in and he swore in for the first time in American history on a Quran in New York. No way. Yeah. So he's swearing on a Quran and people are losing it and there's a lot of implications for that. I'm not really that uh I know this is not a great thing to say, you know, in today's world, but I'm not really that political of a person. I'm not really that concerned with all the political dynamics of this, but when you think about kind of the people who are who are the Samaritans in the modern world, especially for Christians, it's people that are Muslim. It's people that are a part of Islam. And there's so much negativity and vitriol and anger that's expressed from Christians to uh Muslims. And I have a hard time with that understanding the story of the great the good Samaritan.

33:35 So where Okay. So let's let's Yeah, I don't know why you're laughing, man. It's uh cuz cuz what a It's like the air just sucked out of the room. Well, not really. I mean I mean in the in other people's room the proverbial room. Well, yeah. So So okay. the we we've talked about what a Samaritan meant to a Jewish person back then, which I don't necessarily know how real that will be for people. The Muslim one might really hit home because here's the thought process about why people feel like there should be a little bit more of an on guard against Muslims is that they're they'll feel like they're not here to integrate. They're here to kind of take over um that they have proof that they've done this in other countries. And so it's like what's the right response? Cuz I'll just be honest, I lived in the UK, which the UK is now, you know, it's got people I mean, Keir Starmer, you know, he's the current prime minister. There's people in power that that are have Muslim background. And that's not by accident. I remember when I lived there in the early 2000s and all the way through I moved out of there in 2013 that like I was aware of it because my father-in-law told me he said the Muslims have a 15-year plan to put people in key positions of power so they can bring in their own law and their own way of thinking and doing things.

34:48 Yeah. And so, you know, I hear what you're saying about the Samaritans, but I'll just be honest with you. I am not one of these people that I'm like, you know, let's like gear up and just go out and just, you know, be against every single Muslim person. Because what I've always found, and this is regardless of whether it's Muslim or progressive or gay or anything that you want to say that we try and group people by, when you actually talk to people who who are in any group, any other group, I always find it's very different. I'm yet to meet the person who's like that I see on Instagram. Yeah. I mean, maybe it's just cuz I haven't gotten out much, but I do travel quite a bit. And like even during co I was traveling and talking to people whenever there was deep racial tension and all sorts of things going on. This is the George Floyd time and all this stuff. Like I remember I traveled and I was talking you I was in an Uber with a guy who's black dude. I'm white and we were just having we had like a great conversation. We were reading the same books and I was like well isn't this counter to what I see on TV? So I'm always like look we we can't the moment you start dealing with a person based solely off one characteristic you're in danger territory right because now you are basically saying this is how I define you and once you've defined somebody you don't need to learn anything well we live in an era of that I mean we live in an era of single issue politics where it's just about one thing and you know your your stance on this one thing determines your stance on everything.

36:05 Life is life is way more complicated than that. I think to to what you're saying I think we should think about this in our relationship with God. Okay. Right. Cuz when cuz when the when the man the expert in religious law talked to Jesus, the Bible says in Luke 10 and verse 29, it says the man wanted to justify his actions. So he asked Jesus, "Who is my neighbor?" He didn't ask who is my neighbor because he really wanted to know. He asked who is my neighbor because he wanted to justify how he lived his life and his approach. So I think the danger okay all this stuff valid about Islam right okay the danger is okay now let's justif wanting to justify his actions he goes who is my neighbor because he's trying to rule out some people from being his neighbor. Yeah. And that's that's maybe not true in everybody's story that's listening to this but that's true in many people's story. That's true in this guy's story.

37:03 So Jesus tells the story. The priest comes by, the temple assistant comes by, the Samaritan comes by, and then at the end of the story, Jesus asked him the question. He goes, "Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the person who was attacked by bandits?" And the guy said, "The one who showed him mercy." And then Jesus said, "Now go and do the same." Right? So you have to understand like a person has to understand the level of hatred that a Jew an ancient Jew had for a Samaritan. They had intermarried with these other people. They worship pagan gods. There was all this different like valid based on the old covenant reasons for Pharisees, Israelites to not associate and Jesus blows the whole thing up in their face. And I think he always like the question for for me as an individual is who's my neighbor?

37:58 And what people do and we do it politically, we do it in every other way is they go, "Okay, I'm going to I'm justifying my actions not based on what scripture teaches. Hey, I believe in the Bible, blah blah blah, but also we got to deal with this politically. We got to make sure that these people are not tolerated that they're and it and it becomes instead of I man I'm as a person who lives in the western world and lives in America like no one's sitting here advocating for Sharia law to like enter the country that we live in right so there are laws that govern a nation all that different kind of stuff and the people that happen to be in power have a lot to say about what those laws about what those laws are But um the the tension the tension that that creates in me is what's what kind of level of love am I personally showing to people that live in my community, right?

38:55 Or that move here for whatever reasons. Yeah. There's like so I want to make sure I'm understanding the separation before you keep going. Like so cuz I don't I don't want Sharia law in our in our country at all. And I and I personally um so it's interesting because I if you said, "Hey, are you do you want a bunch of Muslim mosques popping up in Texas or in America?" I'd be like, "No, I don't." Of course not. Now, the flip side is do I would I when I meet someone and they they tell me they're Muslim, do I immediately go like, "Oh, no, I don't." I'm like, "Oh, you know, like I want to I want to know the person. I love people." So, I'm like, "I want to get to know this person." So, but at the same time, that person for them, they're going to want to have their place of worship. And you know, depending on how they you know, one of my best friends growing up actually is Muslim, right? Like, and we were literally one of my best friends. I found out as a game changer in high school that he was here illegally as well. He's not legal, so you know, I'm not incriminating.

39:45 I'm not going to say his name. No, I'm not going to say his name, but but like he like that was a big shocker for me in high school. And I got a little bit of insight into how they lived. And I mean, they're contributing members of society. Uh don't have particularly positive feelings towards Israel. Um but they're but they're not like anti-American. And so you you get my point. So this is where the conundrum because there's definitely the same way that some Christians would maybe represent the Christian faith in a way that you or I would say that's not the Christian faith. You'll get people who say it's a it's a religion of peace. But then you're also looking around at like what's happened all around the world. You're like man that doesn't look like peace. So like you understand what I'm saying? So how do you walk out I'm going to love this person I met while also being against the larger religion that they would be wanting to bring in because I don't think it's God's way. I don't think it's good for our country and I don't you know like how do you that's attention. It's complex. Yeah, that's a tension. I Andy Stanley I love what Andy Stanley says. He says when you don't know what to say or do just ask what does love require of you?

40:42 Okay. And I think that's a huge that. So this zooms it in though for me. This zooms it in to where when I'm you have to think in your life I'm dealing with onetoone. So like I'm sitting with a Muslim guy. I'm not personally doing that. But you think of it in terms of community, not in terms of monolithic culture. Okay? And the problem that we have to me is that we've simplified so many issues to the point where nobody's a human being and they're just they're just a makeup of different uh political, religious or or cultural positions, right? So So whether or not a person can be a good Muslim or whatever, be peaceful and all that is not really the conversation. Like you're saying with the guy in the Uber, when you start to interact with humanity, you start to see the commonalities between all humanity and that we're all that the tension for all of us, right? Is we're created in God's image. Every individual Hitler was created in God's image. I mean, like what is that? What are the implications of that, right? And the Bible tells us that knowledge puffs up, but love builds right? The Bible says that the goodness of God leads people to repentance. So, if I want to change culture, I've got to be good.

41:53 I've got to be good to people. And again, that's that's what I'm saying is so challenging about the philosophical implications of Jesus saying, "Love your enemies." Cuz he's not even we didn't even talk yet about the Bible verse that says, "Love your enemies." Right? But but Jesus is just talking about how to how to be a good neighbor. And the good neighbor is the Samaritan. So the people that you hate, those people are better neighbors than you is kind of the implication here that Jesus is that Jesus is making with the guy. And that's a that to me is the answer to that is not uh how do we as a Christian culture or how do we as churches reach out and love Muslim neighbors? I think that's a big question. It's as an individual person, how do I express love across the whole world I live in, including to my to my enemies, right? And is that and the problem probably the one of the biggest challenges that I have is is that the reputation of Christians?

42:54 Like is is our reputation that we're loving, right? Is you know, in 2017 there's a famous thing Bernie Sanders said Christians shouldn't run for office because they're so hateful. Wow. You know, and is that and that's that's a developed reputation. And so what people do well hang on. Bernie Sanders also said education should be free. So I'm not sure that really rely on his word. Yeah. But again like I I I think about it I think about it from the perspective of love your enemies. Like do your enemies feel loved by you? So a person who's a leftist would they feel would they feel loved and accepted by cuz these to me these are the people the church should be reaching. Yeah. So the people that we should be reaching are those people who are the furthest from God. So, if you think about a radical Islamic terrorist, it's like what that person needs the most is Jesus. Now, I'm not saying we should all get on planes and go try to, you know, hey, let's go to uh, you know, Iran and start to just preach the gospel to people. It's not going to it's not going to probably go very well. But there's a there's a thing that there's a thing that Jesus did, and I've heard people talk about this. Jesus connected before he corrected with people, right?

44:01 So the question which again man is like such a it's it it creates com the reason why it creates complexity is not because it's not simple. It's because it requires us to quit being ridiculous. Okay. And what I mean by quit being ridiculous is stop feeling like everything is monolithic and fighting every battle and learn how to be a onetoone great lover of people. This is what Jesus talked about. So, it creates complexity because, oh, I can't just throw out uh I can't just spout my opinions on social media because I'm not sure if that's going to be loving to a group of people. What people do is they go, "Oh, well, this is just a bunch of tolerance and we should, you know, they're going to take quote unquote people are going to take our freedoms away if we don't speak up, if we don't stand out, if we don't do this different stuff." And I understand all of the hypotheticals, right? I understand all the hypotheticals around this stuff, but the question to me the question that God asks is still the question is like that's how well you loving your enemies, how well are you loving your neighbors?

45:03 Are you are you treating them that way? Like the same stuff, you know, my thing is if you and I I used to have this conversation a lot with people when like the gay marriage debate was like really massive, right? People are homosexuality is a sin. These people shouldn't be allowed to do this, right? On and on. And my question to people has always been, would you sit down if you had like a like a friend or uh a person in your life who you loved who was gay? Would you sit down with them and talk to them this way? Right. The answer is always no. If you genuinely loved the person, you wouldn't talk. You would say the truth to them, but then you would you would speak the truth in love. Yeah. And um if that's really how we want to be and that's really how we want to follow Jesus, that has massive implications on our lives. And it the reason why I'm saying it creates complexity is it because is because it requires us to not be flippant in what we say. It's not people go well that leads to all this different stuff that you know uh uh uh this culture that's just a mix of all these religions and it leads to mosques in the community and different stuff like that. It really it really doesn't because you can speak the truth in love. You can still you can still tell the truth. Telling the truth is still massively important. But the question that Jesus has for us is like, are you doing that in love? And are you doing that from a perspective of I I love this individual. I love this person and I want to see them go to heaven. Like I want to see this person have a have a relationship with Jesus. And um I think it's I think it's a massively challenging thought to think about.

46:39 Yeah. My question, I actually think there's a number of things that would be interesting to do and I don't know if we'll actually do them, but I would love to do two things. I'd love to actually have someone who's Muslim on here and talk to them. I think that would be interesting. I also would love to have Garrett on because I think there's a interesting I I I I agree with what you're saying, but I'm also very much there's some people that don't want to reason. The only thing they understand is is force. Yeah. And I don't know, like Garrett's obviously a person who who has fought, you know, served as a Navy Seal in our country and has been over and seen the way people live and do things in countries that I've never been to and never plan on going to. And there's a different way of thinking, a different mindset that like you and I I I also don't want to be this idealistic person that's like, "Let's have a sit down, have a conversation. That'll change the world." Because some people, they don't want to have a conversation. You're either going to they're either going to conquer you or you're going to have to like put them down. and that and like but here's what I also I don't think that's the vast majority of people that you and I will meet here in America but they do exist and so I don't want to sit there and like hide away and be like oh we're never going to have to cuz like there is there is a time when I believe like yeah you take up arms and you you you fight but I don't think that's the first resort you know for for mo and especially not for most of the people listening to this in America you know I I don't think someone's going to be trying to storm into your town and like force Sharia law on you like all these things that if you watch social media and you listen to the extremists and the people that want to get clicked the stuff they put out there is all designed to do what? It triggers a fear response and when you once fear controls you, man, watch out.

48:04 Yeah. And so, yeah, that that would be my thoughts. I don't know if we'll actually Man, I love Well, I love what with that I love Yeah, I'd love to do that. I love what Marcus Aurelius said. You know, he said he said, "Say to yourself every morning you're going to meet with people that are unkind, unruly, mean, jealous, ungrateful, all these different things." because they don't know the difference between right and wrong, right? So they don't know what you know. And I think that's the challenge. So the challenge is I can't once I learn about God's love for me, once I learn about um how God wants me to be towards people, I can't live like a person who doesn't know that. And I can't also treat everyone else like they already know that, too. Like I can't look at a uh a person who doesn't believe what I believe, whether they're like an atheist or a Muslim or whatever other qualifier we could give. I can't look at that person and expect them to hold themselves accountable to what I believe.

49:05 So, so the challenge of that like if you look at we decided to do this. This is this is what I'm saying like with with Christians with like a person who's a Christian. I decided that I was going to be a person that believed this stuff and followed Jesus. I decided that there's a lot of people that live on the earth that'll always live on the earth that won't make that decision. So, I've decided to buy in to how this thing works, right? And then Jesus says, so uh I'll in in uh Matthew in Matthew 5, right, he talks about an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Talks about going the extra mile. Yeah, there's so much that I could say there, but I'll just So, you've heard the law that says love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I say love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you. In that way, you'll be acting as true children of your father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that?

50:04 Yeah. Well, it is challenging, right? Because I I'm thinking about how the early church dealt with persecution and it wasn't they didn't take the arms. No, it's a hard thing to Here's here's the the the approach that I have that's like the approach of philosophy, okay? Is not here's the answer to the question. It's we got to ask these questions so that we can figure out our own answers. So the question that a person who's listening to this, the question I have to answer in my own life, you everyone else, how well do I love my neighbor? And am I doing what love requires of me? Right? That's that's an individual question to answer as it relates to your own revelation on what love is and what it means for you to love somebody and what it means to follow the great commandment of Jesus. So what I have to do but this is my own personal kind of I guess revelation on this is like Romans 13 all through all through the New Testament Romans 13 owe nothing to anybody except to love each other. Mhm.

50:58 Like the New Testament is filled with this. And you can define love and like this this word agape, right? The word love that scripture uses a lot. This Greek word for love is a love out of out of your character. It's not a love because you feel a certain way. It's not a love cuz it's like God is love. God the the uh the experience of who God is is love because that's literally what he is. And then the Bible asks us to like be the same thing, right? And not just be the same thing. So the kind of love that you would feel for your kids, your spouse, the people closest to you, you should you should learn not how to feel that way towards everybody because when people hear like a term like love, they think I got to feel that way towards like someone who I vehemently disagree with, right? No, it's how do you act in that right towards a person. So the early church was not just like remarkably tolerant. The early church endured persecution. Jesus said to do that. So people go, "So here's to me the anti- a lot of the anti-Muslim sentiment in culture is out of complete fear.

52:04 It's out of fear that we wouldn't be able to practice freedom of religion, right? And we wouldn't be able to freely be Christians because that's what happens is in Islamic countries." That already happened in Christian history. So there was a time in Christian history where in history where 80% of Christians were under Muslim rule during the Ottoman Empire. 80% of Christians on the earth were under Muslim rule. The gospel still advanced. God still did what he did. It didn't, you know, that was a time when we didn't have votes and different things like that. So it was just the rise and fall of empires. But the fear that people have is what would happen if we lived in a country that was run by this ideology and this thought process. And I completely understand that. I completely understand that fear. Um, except for the fact that we're supposed to be people of faith. And I believe if I fundamentally believe that the gospel and the love of Jesus can transform someone's life, to go back to all this conversation they were having on altar calls and stuff like that, if I fundamentally believe that can happen, then I believe it can happen for a Muslim person, a Jewish person, uh, whoever, whoever, whatever, whatever categories or qualifiers that I would put in place. And the way that I the way that I do my part to help someone experience the kingdom is through love. Like if you look at the Roman Empire, the Jews and the Jews who didn't run the country and the Romans who ran the country did everything that they could to erase Christianity.

53:35 Right? So then by the time of Constantine, Christianity becomes the state religion of the Roman Empire. How did that happen? One of the primary or a couple of the primary things that happened were Christians developed such a crazy reputation for service that people thought um they were insane. So, I think we've talked about this on a previous episode, right? But they but they thought that uh there's no way, you know, people didn't take care of unwanted kids. They would just throw them in the street. There's no way that a Christian food is so scarce. There's no way a Christian would adopt a kid. They they they're practicing child sacrifices because there's no way that they would actually adopt and raise these kids. Christians were some of the first people that would uh that would bury the dead. So, Christians started providing all of these social services for everybody in the Roman Empire basically. and all of the people who were in power in the Roman Empire to engender loyalty from the plebeian class from the from the normal everyday person. They realized how much how much the normal Roman people respected and loved the Christians for all the Christians did for everybody, right? And so then some of the political pressure that was legitimately on Constantine during that time in history was, dude, we can't the Christians are actually doing a lot of great stuff and a lot of the people like them. Yeah.

54:52 Right. So, what what can we do? What can I do in my life? And I'm not and I'm not just here to represent I wish the reputation of Christians was better cuz there was a time in history where it was a lot better than it is now. I wish the reputation of Christians was better. But that's not the question I'm trying to answer. The question I'm trying to answer is what does that look like in my own life to practice that? What does that look like in my own life for me to cuz the enemies that I have? I mean, I don't I don't really personally know any Muslim people like the interactions that I've had with I've had interactions with imams and different all kinds of different Muslim people and it's always been relatively pleasant, right? There's cultural differences and all that different kind of stuff. But the question for me is not even that's not even who my enemy is, right? Like like Jesus talked about loving your enemies.

55:44 Anyone who you would have a tendency to see as an enemy is actually your neighbor is the thing that Jesus completely turns on its head. So the person who the individual person who's wronged you the most. The individual person who's wounded you the most, the people in your life who are the most against you, you should love them. You should want what's best for them. You should uh pray for you should pray for them. You should bless those. This is what Jesus says. The people who persecute you, the people who have the biggest problem with you as an individual. Yeah, we can like extrapolate that and become all cultural and make it about Muslims versus Christians when Jesus is talking about onetoone. He's talking about these individual issues that we have with people and how we should never we shouldn't the the way that I think about that in like a simple definition way is I don't get to decide if someone sees me as an enemy or not but I get to decide whether or not I see them as an enemy for sure.

56:44 And the responsibility that I have if I see someone as an enemy is to love them really well. And how do you do that? Well, this is why you got to read the Bible. This is why you have to learn about what scripture teaches. This is why you have to learn to un because if Jesus can wrap up every command in love your neighbor, not just as yourself. Love your neighbor as I have loved you. We've got to learn then what's the next step here, right? I've got to learn personally the the depth of love that God has for me. How much he's for me, how much he created me to live a great life. how much he's going to, you know, in spite of my humanity, in spite of what I don't do, in spite of who I'm not, how much grace and mercy he gives me every day. Cuz if I learn like that relationship, if I understand that, then it's way easier for me to give grace to other people. Cuz it's like, man, I'm in I'm an idiot, too. I need help, too.

57:39 There's a lot of dumb stuff I've done in my life. I've heard I've hurt a lot of people. I've done this, this, this, and this. And God still loves me anyway. So now I have the responsibility to do the same thing for you. To learn to obey everything that God's commanded us requires a lifetime of commitment to like this progressive revelation of that, but it will also require a lifetime commitment of learning how to do that in really complicated complex human relationships. Thank you for listening to The Dialog. Make sure to like, share, and subscribe. And also, if you think someone else would enjoy this, please send it to them. If you want to get in touch or learn more about me, what I think, speak, and write, you can go to joshuacraft.com or you can also follow Nick and I on Instagram. Our handles are in the show notes. We'll see you next time.