To Podcast or Not To Podcast?

Philip All right, so, welcome to the first episode of whatever it is we’re doing here. Maybe it’s the only episode.

Sean It’ll be interesting to see if we care enough to keep recording ourselves — let alone if anybody else cares to listen to what it is that we are saying.

Philip Right. So, this is Philip.

Sean Yeah, I am Sean.

Philip And Sean and I have been talking a little bit about whether we should do some sort of recording or podcast. Because both of us, but especially Sean, really love podcasts.

Sean If I could have my Twitter handle be “Reluctant Podcaster,” that would work out for me.

But I have been thinking about it, because, like, you’re a pro podcaster.

Philip Yeah.

Sean So you have your own podcast, Business300. You’re a regular contributor, guest, on Contraritics.

Philip Yeah.

Sean So, like, you know all about podcasting.

Philip My name is out there.

Sean Yeah. I think I have only been a guest on my wife’s podcast, and that doesn’t even count. I’m just the spouse.

Philip Right.

But, yeah, I mean, I think podcasts are great. I prefer to consume content a different way — especially when it’s just people having a conversation. It’s difficult for me to learn, I guess.

So, my Business300 — the point is to keep it under five minutes, so that way I can’t drift off into chattiness. I just say what I intend to say, and then log off.

Sean Yeah, the amount of filler in most podcasts is discouraging to me.

Philip Right.

Sean Usually when you’re reading a book, an editor would require stuff like that to be cut out.

Philip Right.

Sean But if your whole point is to make audio content, then you want lots of words filling up the time. Except for, like you’re saying, with your Business300 podcast, because it’s very focused.

I mean, there’s a couple podcasts that I listen to, or have listened to, that are more focused. I don’t really listen to The Briefing by Al Mohler a lot, but his generally seem to be — which is true when it’s one guy as well.

Philip Right.

Sean Because even Doug Wilson’s podcast is a little bit more directed. He’s got to entertain himself with filler — and why would you do that?

Philip Right.

Sean So, yeah, I guess it’s the conversational ones that tend to ramble.

Philip Right. Well, and I mean, I did press record.

Sean And here we are, rambling about the podcast.

Philip Yeah. So, with all our reluctancy, we’re doing this for some purpose.

And so we were talking about whether or not we should do something. And then Sean proposed, why don’t we just record us talking about it?

And so, maybe we can talk a bit about why we should not do it, why it would not be helpful, and then also why we’re giving it a shot and thinking why we could do it, and then maybe even what we’re trying to call it.

But apart from our own personal opinions about consuming content — what makes you reluctant about being a podcaster?

Sean Yeah. I feel like every pastor with a microphone has started their own podcast.

Philip You’re the pastor, and I’m the guy with the microphone.

Sean Well, at our church you’d be pastor-in-testing.

Philip Right.

Sean So you also count now. Maybe half a year ago it wouldn’t have counted, but —

Philip There you go. Now there’s going to be a podcast.

Sean Right.

Yeah, I mean, even a long time ago, when I chose a URL for my blog or my website, I purposefully went out of my way to not choose my name as the URL — which actually would have been more convenient to tell other people, because the address of my website is not typical, and so lots of people don’t find it.

Philip It’s hard to build a brand.

Sean Yeah. Which, because it’s hard to build a brand, I almost sort of embrace that.

So there’s part of me that doesn’t like the preciousness — which probably is a temptation that I could succumb to as well, so I tried to fight against it proactively. And then there’s enough contrarian in me to just not want to do what it seems like everybody else is doing anyway.

So I have been almost rejoicing and boasting in my lack of podcasting for the last few years.

Philip It is one of your prides of life.

Sean Yes. Marked safe from starting a podcast again another week.

Philip Right.

Well, about the preciousness — another word is pretense.

Sean Yeah.

Philip And so I do think that that is prevalent everywhere in the world. And then Christians just have their own flavor of pretense. They can see what is popular, what is cool, what’s in today, and tried to get on that train.

But I think what we want, instead of pretense, is substance. And so, pretense is surface level; substance is more what we’re after.

Sean Which presumes that we are actually trying to be men of substance first, or more than just trying to produce things of substance.

And it seems like, in a world that is largely — well, at least the digital world — you need the new thing, you need more things, you’ve got to produce content. And that’s not impossible to do from a depth of substance, but it does seem difficult. And based on what’s out there, I wouldn’t say that a lot of people are doing that well.

Philip Right.

Sean Again, a very small percentage actually have something worth talking about, and then are able to record that and get that out there — as opposed to just, it’s time to record, let us say words.

Philip Right. Well, and part of it maybe is an order of events.

If you don’t have it inside of you — substance — and you’re trying to present yourself as if you do, that’s one way to maybe do it wrong.

But another way to, I think, maybe miss the mark is: learning and growing and having some kind of substance, having some kind of experience that you’ve learned, but then staying quiet and not passing that on, not teaching others.

You know, I think maybe I heard it from you about parents being able to teach their kids to then be parents. I know you talk about raising parents. But even that aspect of teaching your disciples how to be teachers, more so than just how to learn from you.

Sean Yep.

Well, and I do default to text as opposed to audiovisual things. I definitely have a face for blogging.

Philip Right.

Sean I mean, that used to be the joke, of having the face for radio. I have a face for blogging.

And I just prefer — ten years ago or more, I really would have dismissed, at least in my mind, somebody who said that they really enjoyed or valued listening to things over reading things. I’d be like, no you don’t.

Philip I still have a hard time not dismissing that.

Sean Yeah. But if nobody else, I completely believe that my wife gets more, actually, from listening than she does from reading. And that’s not just because of what is happening throughout her day, and being able to do multiple things at one time if you’re listening. It’s not just because of that. It does actually seem to be related to how information gets in.

Information doesn’t get in for me as well through listening as it does through reading. So that’s a personal bias against the audio part.

But also, in terms of sharing — so, you learn stuff and then you give it to other people. I feel like, at least for me, my mouth is open a lot. So I get to preach every Sunday, occasionally twice. I teach classes. It seems to me like people are always asking questions, like they want to talk, so I get to tell them what I think. Or I am leading meetings, or tweeting, or writing on my blog, or whatever. Or, you know, I started the Marysville Sun as another place to try a different kind of output.

So, for me, it seemed like, well, maybe I already have enough outlets.

The podcast stuff, like we talked about — do you remember the name of the one that I suggested a couple months ago?

Philip Maybe.

Sean Because our conversations can go long.

Philip Right. Oh, yes.

Sean We were down in the weeds.

Philip That’s right.

Sean So I suggested “Footnotes.”

Philip Right.

Sean Which would be an obnoxious podcast to listen to — which was the whole point.

Philip Right.

Sean Is, well, you’re needing to follow sub-outline points, tabbed over a crazy amount on the page, and trying to listen to that would be crazy. But to me that sounded so obnoxious — okay, well, that would be a good idea.

Philip Right, yeah. When it’s too crazy.

Sean Right.

Philip Yeah. But, like, our conversations — we do get into the weeds of the footnotes, but it seems like you and I both are able to draw a path back to the first point.

Talking to some people, that ends up just — it’s not footnotes, it’s you just get lost in the weeds. And that’s fine. Like with Dave, I think you’ve talked about his antifragility in that way, where that doesn’t bother him. Where it seems like I’ve seen it in you, I know for sure in me, where if there’s not a structure and it’s just chaotic conversation, it gets difficult.

Sean Yeah. So it’s a good thing that we both made some notes in preparation for this conversation. Because if we were trying to freewheel it —

Philip Right. Yeah, we don’t freewheel.

Sean No.

Philip I like the quote from Churchill. He was doing something, and they asked him, what are you doing? He’s like, I’m over here preparing my impromptu remarks.

Sean So his impromptu remarks were always prepared.

Philip Right.

Sean Yeah. I am told that I am perhaps the funnest person to go to Disneyland with — but that is because that is what I have scheduled in my head to do.

Philip Right.

Sean Is, this is the time to go be fun.

Philip Right.

Sean So, scheduling your spontaneity, or preparing your impromptu-ness.

Philip Right.

But about consuming content: us even having the opportunity to consume it in written word is very unique in the history of the world, in the history of the church. Since the printing press five hundred years ago — before that, the only way people were consuming anything was through audio.

Sean At least the majority.

Philip The majority.

Sean Yeah. I mean, you had the academics and the scholars who were making their own handwritten copies.

Philip Right. And then even after that, a big part of people, even though they had access to the written word, they did not know how to read; so they needed to be taught how to read.

So even us living in this culture of luxury, of having access to the written word, being able to read — we’re used to that. But listening to something on audio, and that being a normal way to learn, seems like that is actually what most of the people in history were doing. So our judgmental approach to those kinds of people is off base.

Sean Yeah, I like to point out that there’s not actually a command in the Bible to read it. The only commands given to read it are to those who are like Timothy, who needed to read it publicly — but so that other people could listen. So the commands are related to hearing. They are related to meditating day and night. Or even 1 Peter, talking about craving it like newborn babies long for milk.

So I agree — I reluctantly agree — that listening is a valuable thing.

Though, again, now there’s so much material out there, and so much of it seems to be toward the entertaining, or edutainment, rather than straight-up edifying. I do listen to some podcasts.

Philip Right.

Sean And I definitely am thankful for my ears. I am thankful for technology.

I mean, when I was in college and I was driving at night four hundred-plus miles a night — so I was in the car for six or seven hours at least — my van that I was driving did not have a tape player. And I was trying to get — this is before the iPod came out, this is before MP3s were a thing.

Philip Before CDs.

Sean Uh, yeah, I think there were some CDs out. But, like, I wanted to listen to John MacArthur tapes.

Philip Right.

Sean I didn’t have CDs, even if that was available in the mid-nineties. But my van did not have a tape player in it.

So I bought a special thing that would broadcast a little radio signal — I plugged it into my Walkman, and then it would broadcast like a local mini station that you could tune into, to try to then listen to what was on your tape.

So, like, I was desperate for listening at certain points in my life. And I made that happen, some, in that van.

But, yeah — what amazing technology. The kinds of gifts that we have that are easy to take for granted. So I’m not trying to take audio for granted. But there is so much out there.

Philip Right.

Sean And I think — didn’t you say things that can be used for good or bad? Well, that was a different conversation. But it can be a blessing, it can be a distraction. So, potentially, we can be more blessing.

Philip That’s the hope.

Sean Well, yeah — why do you want to start a podcast? Why do you — and, yeah, it’s not “why do you want to.” Why do you think — or are we still supposed to be talking about why it’s bad?

Philip No, yeah, we can keep talking about why it’s bad. I at least thought it was good enough to talk about whether or not we should do it. And so I think we know why we don’t want to do it.

But is it worthy of trying to do it? And I think a few different reasons. And maybe it even pertains to what we’re trying to call this thing.

So, All Are Yours. And we’ve talked a lot about — and even that emphasis of “all are yours” comes from when you were preaching through 1 Corinthians.

But it seems like what we all need more of — so, including us, the people at our church, different conversations that we’re having — is more grasping, more penetration, of that truth that all are yours and you are Christ’s, and what that means and what that looks like.

And so, in some sense, our Lord’s Day liturgy, apart from doing other things, it also feeds that, right? So, worshiping God, coming and beholding him as an assembly, is included in that.

And then there are also many other things that are encompassed in “all are yours” that maybe are not covered during our Sunday liturgy. And so it seems like it might be helpful to be able to cover more, and talk more about, what kinds of things fall under the word all. What does it mean that you are Christ’s? What does it mean that you live your life of faith under the lordship of Christ? What does that look like? How are we to flesh that out?

And so maybe having more conversations like that could be helpful, to spur each other on, to spur other people on, toward more faithfulness in that way.

Sean Yeah, that’s part of the reason that we started a school: to be able to carry that mindset. Which doesn’t mean that we’re doing it successfully every day in every class, but the idea, the vision there, is of that sort of worldview where Christ is Lord, and all the things that he is interested in are things that are lawful for us to be interested in.

And, in fact, if we’re going to be more like him, then we should be increasing in — we should be having more of our interests line up with what he is interested in. Which, again, if that’s all the things he’s made, and we’re finite, then, okay, well, we’re going to be busy for a while. And that’s a blessing, not a burden.

So, part of the reason for the school, for ECS, was to do that. And even, to some extent, whether or not we can keep the college level going — to keep extending that, because we’re not going to get anywhere close to finishing finding out all that are ours.

Philip Right.

Sean It is true — I think this is true for you as well — that our church backgrounds, our lives as disciples of Christ, have been more on the dualistic side.

When I got serious about being a Christian, I thought it was virtuous to basically reject as much of the world, day-to-day things, as possible. They were, at best, necessary evils.

So, studying the Bible — like, directly sitting down with the open Bible in front of you — was objectively the more Christian thing to do. So the longer that you were having your Bible open, or that you were praying, or that you were actually doing street evangelism, or potentially then preaching — the longer that you could do those things, the more spiritual you were, and pleasing to Christ you were. And that’s when I got serious about being a Christian.

And there’s part of that, probably, that was good, in terms of it kept me reading my Bible — to realize how limited it still was.

So it’s been maybe thirteen to fifteen years of gradually — I mean, I would actually say, for me, I had to repent from that, from not seeing that “all are ours” sort of thing.

And, yeah, I have been working really hard, trying to develop those muscles. And reading — ironically, reading — but also trying other things. Like trying to be interested in more than — not more than — trying to be interested in things because the Bible says that I can, or says that I should.

And I get that not lots of other people have been able to spend as much devoted time trying to develop those muscles. So, potentially a podcast like this —

Philip Right. You’re privileged.

Sean Yeah, and so I am —

Philip Right.

Sean — because I’ve got one of those spiritual jobs.

Philip Right.

Well, I mean, “Christ is Lord” is the basic Christian confession. That is what you’re required to confess to be a Christian. And so no Christian would deny the lordship of Christ. Yes, Christ is in fact Lord.

Sean Well, they might deny it if you said “lordship.” I mean, that’s been a big controversy, about people who want Jesus’ grace of forgiveness but not his grace to change their lives.

Philip Right. Well, I mean — Romans 10.

Sean But they would have to agree to that verse.

Philip Right. “If you confess that Christ is Lord.”

Sean Yeah.

Philip And so, right. I mean, Savior and Lord both apply to Christ, and they also have different connotations, different meanings. And so even salvation leads into confessing him as Lord. It doesn’t stop at forgiveness.

Sean Yeah. But what is salvation for?

Philip Right.

Sean Which, again, I think I had been saved for a long time before really asking that question. Or — you know, the spiritual answer of, well, I am saved for the glory of God.

Philip Right.

Sean Good. Right. Okay. But then, “I’m saved for the glory of God” — that looks like what?

Philip Right.

Sean And I had a very limited answer to that question for a long time.

Philip Well, and there’s different ways to come at it. So, confessing Christ as Lord — everybody will say that, but they mean something different. Saying that we are saved for good works — everybody will say that, they’ll quote the verse, but they’ll mean something different.

And so, “Christ is Lord” means that he’s Lord over my heart. He’s Lord over the church. And so, yes, there’s truth in that. But we believe the Bible reveals that Christ is Lord over the entire cosmos, over the entire universe. It covers way more than just my personal devotion time.

Same with good works. Yes, we’re meant to demonstrate good works, so that people would see our good works and glorify God. And so those good works are labeled as evangelism and ethics. So our good works are limited to, or are focused on, how we approach making converts and how we demonstrate our ethics at our jobs or at the grocery store — we’re polite, we’re kind, and that’s as far as it goes.

Where what we’ve been talking about, and what we’ve been learning from Kuyper, and a lot of other sources from before that even, is that the lordship of Christ is much bigger than that. And good works encompass much more than just evangelism and ethics.

Sean Yeah. I remember back when I was a different kind of foolish — so I won’t say that there are no foolish remnants — but when I was a different kind of foolish, I argued, I don’t know what the best word was, I definitely made my wife feel lesser.

Because when we started having kids, and she, whether she was sick, or the kids were sick, or whatever it was, it meant that she wasn’t able to give the same amount of energy toward leading her high school small group of girls that she previously was. And I communicated clearly — again, whether through argument or just through disdain.

So, this is wrong. I’m not saying this is right; this is an example of what not to do. I communicated to her that taking care of the kids was not really ministry. Like, that was a thing that you needed to do, but you needed to get better at that so that you still had time to do your ministry — or, like you’re saying, the good works.

Whereas, had I — again, I didn’t need Abraham Kuyper to figure this out; I needed to read 1 Timothy, that talks about how to identify good works. Which is, when Paul’s talking about how to identify widows that should be supported, is that they have a reputation for good works — which includes having raised kids.

Philip Mm-hmm.

Sean Entertaining and being hospitable, in that case especially to strangers. But in that case, there was even a verse. So my claim to be loving the Bible was a bad reading. It wasn’t reading all of the verses.

And so, yeah, that’s a really practical example of: does God care about — does God think that it’s Christian good works to raise our kids in one way rather than another way? And, actually, yes.

That’s a close-to-home example, obviously. But in terms of how we bless people — like, what’s the motto of your business again?

Philip Yeah, so we say, you know, we build up an impact culture by developing businesses to bless people’s lives.

And so we make our confession of the lordship of Christ very explicit in our business. Like, our employee handbook starts with, yeah, we’re Christians, we run our business with Christian principles and all that. And so that way people come in and know that.

So the point is, we talk about that very explicitly, so we end up attracting, or drawing the attention of, other Christian business owners or Christian business managers. And it’s pretty quickly identified that they do have a difficult time — a lot of Christian business people have a difficult time understanding how the lordship of Christ plays into their business.

And so they see their business as a means to an end. So, I should make profit so that then I could fund some kind of ministry, so that I could fund this missionary, or some kind of charity.

Sean So I could do the important things.

Philip So I could do the important things, right. So my business is a means to an end. It’s a necessary neutrality at best. The same way that Christians go to work and then bring their money into the church, or whatnot.

And so both the Christian employees and Christian business owners end up living Monday through Friday like they’re just wasting time. Like they’re not actually doing important things, like they’re not actually doing good works.

Which, ironically — Monday through Friday, Monday through Saturday, or whatever it is — that’s when you work. And so, “good works” — that word is there. It should ring some kind of bell, that doing good work includes going to work and doing that work. Not as a means to an end to fund something else, but as an end in itself.

And so we talk about the whole existence of business, the purpose of business, why you got into business: it is to serve a customer. That customer is a person who’s created in the image of God. And so when the Bible talks about treating others the way you want to be treated, when it talks about doing good to other people, when it talks about blessing people’s lives — that clicks very well with the whole idea of business. That’s the one thing you need to have a business: a customer, somebody to serve, somebody to do good to.

And so your whole focus, and doubling down your efforts on doing a good job serving that customer, I believe is very much a demonstration of your good works. And, actually, that if that is the majority of your waking hours spent doing so, you shouldn’t be wasting time begrudging that. But double down in your efforts of being a Christian in your work.

Sean Yet to me, having had jobs before — having had jobs while being a dualist. Again, “dualist” — because I know that there are people who still, well, what does that mean to be a dualist?

And for me, I just think of it as: well, if you think that only the evangelism, or the Bible reading proper — if those are, if God values those more than he values your good service to a customer at a business, or taking care of your kids — then you might be a dualist.

So, defining what God cares about, the spiritual things, more than the earthly things. If you think the earthly things are to be avoided or denied — again, not earthly as in sinful, but —

Philip Material.

Sean Yeah. If you think eating and drinking and whatever you do is just kind of God’s allowance, as opposed to something that he really wants proactively to be considered for him — then, again, you might be a dualist.

Philip So you could do, like, a self-diagnosis test.

Sean Yeah.

Philip “Are you a dualist? I don’t know.”

Sean That’ll be in the show notes.

Philip Right.

Sean But, yeah, when I was a Christian — so I confessed that Jesus is the Lord, but I sort of limited what his being Lord meant in terms of what was valuable in my spending of time. And I had to have other jobs to pay bills. It was constantly frustrating. Like, vanity.

Philip Right.

Sean Empty. Well, and why am I wasting my time?

So when I learned differently, it seemed like a weight was lifted, or the ceiling was lifted. It was like the concrete block that had been crushing the grass got taken off, so that at least the yellow grass could pop back up — if not actually then get some sun and water and grow some more.

So it seemed like an exciting revelation, that God cared. And then, as I have been in the process now for a decade or more of trying to help other people see that — those who have seen it seem excited. And there is another percentage of people who hear it and, like, go out of their way to reject it. They’d actually prefer to — they prefer to keep things divided.

Philip Compartmentalized.

Sean Yeah. And feel a mild level of guilt that they’re not reading their Bible more, and then have the rest of the day to themselves. As opposed to thinking that the rest of the day is just as much to be lived for Jesus, conscious of his interest in what they’re doing, paying attention to how they can be purposeful in serving him as they serve a customer, or as they serve dinner, or as they do all the mundane sorts of things.

I have been surprised at the number of even Christians, professing Christians, who get a taste of what we’re talking about and don’t actually see it as blessing.

Philip Right. Where some feel like the burden has been lifted, others feel like you’re placing a burden on them with that kind of requirement.

And it’s — you know, we talk about living a life of faith. And so it seems like it’s maybe even a misunderstanding, to an extent, of who God is, and what kind of Lord Jesus is.

You know, where, okay, when I read my Bible, I am under a burden because Jesus is watching me. When I’m praying, I’m under a burden, because God’s furrowed brows are looking at me. Well, and now you’re telling me I have to experience God’s furrowed brows Monday through Saturday as well. And now everything I do, God is going to be evaluating and judging whether I’m doing a good job or not.

And it seems like it’s a misunderstanding of what the lordship of Christ is — not just for that material, earthly living, but your church going and your Bible reading and all of it. Where Christ says, my burden is light, my yoke is easy.

There is an underlying satisfaction, or pleasure, that God has in his children that a lot of Christians, I think, miss. And is why they also have a difficult time accepting that Jesus cares about everything they do.

Sean Yeah, I would like to throw pastors under the bus here, as those who —

Philip Pastors with the podcast.

Sean Yeah. The PWPs.

Because happy people are harder to control. So if you can make people feel guilty, then you can steer them easier.

And I don’t even know that this is — I wouldn’t say that even the majority of pastors intentionally are trying to do that. Like, they are trying to take seriously what God says is serious, including sin, unbelief, wasting time, not redeeming the time. They’re trying to take that seriously.

But they communicate it in a way where then the option is not joy, like you’re saying. So obedience is not the place of blessing.

Philip Right.

Sean Obedience is not the place of singing. Obedience is not the place of feasting.

And I don’t actually think that you get that from reading the Bible. So you’d have to get that from people only reading parts of the Bible, or pressing on some parts rather than other parts.

If we keep this thing called All Are Yours — which is an actual Bible phrase; like, we did not even make that up, we’re just selecting that, from the end of 1 Corinthians chapter 3.

And I hadn’t thought about why those verses were significant until I had been preaching through the first three chapters, until I got there. But the “all are yours” is not only not a burden — the “all are yours” is actually a deliverance from the burden of pettiness and bickering.

So, 1 Corinthians starting with the division that was among the church body over their favorite preacher of the cross. Which is crazy ironic — which preacher do you like, that talks about the bloody torture and unjust treatment that the Jews think is a scandal and the Greeks think is foolishness? Which is your favorite one of those? Which is your favorite popular, unpopular preacher?

But, however they had gotten there, they were having this division among them. And that’s how Paul comes out of the gate in 1 Corinthians, is addressing that.

And his final solution to that kind of petty division was not saying, you guys just need to be thinking about the gospel — limited to the cross. Starting with the cross, yes, and pointing out that, look, nobody cares about the cross unless God is working in them. But then, when the power of the cross does save someone, then they are Christ’s, and in Christ all of the things that are Christ’s are theirs.

Which means that every preacher of the bloody, brutal crucifixion — every one of the preachers is theirs. Whether he alliterates his points or he doesn’t. Whether he preaches for twenty minutes or an hour and twenty minutes. Whether he —

Philip Talks into the mic or not.

Sean Yeah. Can you hear him or not?

So all of those preachers are theirs. And then he continues on, even with a surprising list — the present things or the things to come, life or death.

So the “all are yours” is a way out of being narrow-minded, and a way out of then a kind of conflict that comes between people when they get fixated on a super small thing.

Philip Well, in that list he includes “world.”

Sean Yeah.

Philip So he says, or the world, or life, or death. And so, I mean, that’s pretty encompassing.

Sean So we’re allowed to be encouraged now, as opposed to just in heaven.

Philip Right.

Well, and — you’ve talked before as well, and we talk at our church all the time about — a big point in understanding what it means to live under God’s delight, under his pleasure, your entire life, is how the church participates in communion, how they observe the Lord’s Supper.

And, you know, coming out of that Christian culture of guilt and heaviness and burden, the Lord’s Supper is too often presented as a burden, as a time of introspection and sorrow.

And so, the climax of the Christian faith is what Christ accomplished on the cross and his resurrection, and that is remembered and celebrated every Lord’s Day, celebrated with the Lord’s Supper. And when Christians are somber and act like they’re burdened during that, that does say a lot about what they think about the end goal, and the way they are to live here as well.

Sean Yeah, there’s the mindset almost of: who wants to do that?

So when you think about the your typical Baptist-y — I mean, forget Catholic Mass; that’s a completely different kind of crazy introspective sobriety. That’s not a party.

Philip Right.

Sean But —

Philip You have the party before.

Sean Yeah.

But — you don’t want to eat and drink unworthily. Because when you eat and drink unworthily, you’re eating and drinking judgment on yourself. And that is — those are the words in the verse. So those have to be wrestled with, for sure.

But the way that that is handled so often is — again, I wouldn’t say it’s intentionally manipulative, but it definitely is a kind of flavor of bread, and it’s not tasty.

And so, if I’m the normal person coming, and, here we’re going to have this communion thing again, and we’re all going to sit here and think about how sinful and unworthy we are, and really try to find any sins that might have been unconfessed, because otherwise we’re eating and drinking judgment to ourselves — after a while, I think you would have an unspoken, because you know you’re not allowed to say it, you’d have an unspoken: who wants to do that again?

But I guess I have to, because Jesus commanded it.

Well, if that’s what the ordinance of communion is like, then it’s easy to see how that then kind of becomes the attitude toward any commandment.

Philip Right. Well, then — what we’re all going toward is the supper of the Lamb in heaven. Like, our entire life is directed that way. That’s our aim. Whether you’re a dualist or not, you know that you’re going to that.

And so, what do you think that supper is going to be like? You’re getting a little sample of it when you’re taking communion with the church. That is the Lord’s Supper.

And so, the way you’re living your life on your way to the supper of the Lamb, the way you’re getting those samples during communion, is demonstrating what you think about the kingdom of heaven, what you think about the kingdom of God and the lordship of Christ.

And a lot of the time it seems like, instead of understanding who Jesus is, understanding the pleasure of God, we project our own little tyrant hearts onto God, and think that, you know, if I was Lord, this is the kind of Lord I would be, therefore this is the kind of Lord God is.

And so we live our lives, we live with our church, like we do under a tyranny. We’re skittish and scared and introspective of enjoying life a little bit too much. We don’t want to do that.

Sean Yeah. So the teeny cup and the teeny piece of bread, or cracker, that so many churches put on their communion tables, is taken as, like, this is all that the Lord is giving me, this teeny little bit — instead of seeing the bread and the cup as symbols of, no, this is representative of all that he is giving me. Of the “all are yours.”

So the introspection, the navel gazing, the feeling bad about ourselves, turns communion into looking at me as the individual participant — as opposed to the broadening that it should be, the expanding, to see that the Lord is ours, we are his, he’s purchased us for our good, with the intent to keep giving us good.

If the Father didn’t spare the Son, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Romans 8 talks about that.

So we are self-limiting and self-saddening.

I mean, it’s fair to say that even for our liturgy, we couldn’t do it the same way if we did communion as the first thing in the service.

Philip Right.

Sean We’d have to do some things differently, even in how we talk about it. Because it is true that the joy that comes in the obedience is a joy that comes in the obedience, not in the disobedience.

Philip Right.

Sean So we’re not talking about, hey, make this a party regardless of your good works. Make this a party because of Jesus. Not, “all sin is yours” — that’s the exact opposite of why Christ died.

So, because we take our sin seriously earlier in the service, in the time of confession, we can take our salvation from that sin seriously as well. So it’s a both-and.

So, getting people to celebrate more — not, I guess, aggressively, but more appropriately. It should be a celebration of all that we have in Christ, and us being his. That is predicated on, we’ve confessed our sins, and we’re not trying to hold on to sin as the thing that gives us joy.

Philip Right.

Sean And so it is both-and. And the churches that try to do that all in communion almost always then miss out on getting to the feasting part.

Philip Right. Well, it seems like it’s not that we’re trying to dumb sin down, like it’s not a big deal. We’re saying that we’re upping the whole standard altogether: that sin is a big deal, and you need to go past that into receiving Christ’s forgiveness. And then celebrating his resurrection, celebrating the life he’s brought you into, celebrating that fellowship that he’s given you.

Where God’s end is fellowship with his people. His end is not death. His end is not his sacrifice.

Sean Yeah. Salvation is not for God to finally be able to help us see how miserable we are.

Philip Right.

Sean Salvation is not unto God’s goal of rubbing our faces in it.

Philip Right.

Sean Though salvation includes him opening our eyes to see the offensiveness of whatever is in rebellion to him, including our own hearts. So, yes, our eyes are opened to that, and we do get a better sense, even as we are maturing — if the end of Romans 7 is a wrestling with seeing that we don’t always do what we want to do.

There’s a sense in which, as we grow up in Christ — at least pre-glorification — we see more ways we still need to be like Christ. And that is an eye-opening thing. But the point of that is not to leave us in despair. That’s not good news: “here’s the good news, that you can finally see what a worm you are.”

Philip Right.

Sean So we do see that. But then, like you’re saying, the joy at being brought to the Father, the joy of being restored, that then enables us to live our lives for him.

Philip Right.

Sean In fellowship with him. Instead of constantly trying to figure out the next thing we need to do to appease him.

Philip Right.

Well, and there’s — most people, I think, who say “Christianity is not a religion, it’s a relationship,” are not saying what I would want them to be saying.

Sean I think that could probably be the tagline of our podcast: you’re probably not saying it the way we would want to say it. Hence, we’re here to tell you.

Philip Right, yeah.

So, Christianity is definitely a religion. And so, relationship — yes, that’s a fine word. All are yours. But the word we like is fellowship. Where that is the end. That is the end of obedience. That is the end of God’s creation.

You know, him overflowing in his own Trinitarian fellowship, creating image bearers for him to be in fellowship with. Those image bearers sinned against him, and what that resulted in is a break in fellowship. And so his sacrifice, that Christ came down to accomplish, for the joy set before him — that joy was also then reconciled fellowship.

And so that is the original purpose of creation, and the purpose of redemption. And so that is the goal. The supper of the Lamb is enjoying fellowship, and what all that looks like.

And even in Corinthians, when Paul brings up “all are yours,” his context there is a break in fellowship that the church was experiencing. So it seems like that joy, the fellowship, is celebratory. It means people are happy to be together. That’s what we ought to be after.

Sean Which seems like the context of — whether you call it the cultural mandate or whatever — Genesis 1:28 should be.

After God created Adam and Eve and blessed them. So, here they are in fellowship with each other. Adam is writing poetry about his new wife.

Philip Which is a manly thing to do.

Sean Right?

Philip This is before sin.

Sean And they’re walking with God in the garden, and God blesses them. And in that — so, to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth would require intimate fellowship.

Philip Right.

Sean Physical, intimate fellowship. And then to take dominion and subdue it together, and then as generations would have gone on. They need to coordinate. They need to be together in that work. Adam could not have done all of that work by himself, across the globe, or whatever the continents were like at that time.

But in that fellowship — the fellowship blessed by God — then went and became fruitful. So even in the husband and wife relationship, their intimate fellowship results in fruit.

Philip Right.

Sean And likewise on Sunday morning, the fellowship that we share with God throughout the entirety of the liturgy, but sort of its pinnacle there around the communion, or fellowship, table — that fellowship where God is blessing us then prepares us, feeds us, strengthens us, to go be fruitful more throughout the rest of the week.

So in terms of our assembled worship, the communion is kind of the place we’re trying to get to. But then, in terms of how that begins our week, it begins our week not because we have done the thing that is the end.

Philip Right.

Sean We’ve done the thing that enables us to keep honoring him through the rest of the —

Philip Right.

Sean — all the days are ours. If the present and things to come, then the assembled worship is ours, and then the scattered work to our homes or businesses or schools.

I mean, it’s pretty good — so far we’ve talked about education, and business, and family —

Philip And church.

Sean And Bible. Boom.

Philip Yeah. And then the communion leads to commissioning. And even in heaven, our fellowship is going to be productive fellowship. We’re going to be living that out.

Sean Not just strumming harps in our capes.

Philip Right.

But one more thing, maybe to cover real quick. The context of “all are yours” is even talking about, like you said, competing for different preachers.

And our flock, our body of believers — you’ve called it a mutt before, that we are a mutt. And we kind of bring together, because we love “all are yours” so much, we bring together different theological backgrounds, different theological teachings, all into one.

Sean Just the biblical ones.

Philip Just the biblical ones, right.

And so, kind of the potential tagline even of our body — we like to say “reformed and still reforming,” and that kind of irritates everybody who we’re loving. So all of these theological backgrounds that we bring together — it seems like none of them really like us being reformed and still reforming. They’d rather have either we’re only reformed or we’re only reforming.

Sean Yeah.

Philip But what I do think we were trying to communicate is that this is not — like, we went to a buffet and we just picked out the different sorts of food that we like. There’s a reason why these theologies go together. You know, something like Kuyperian dispensationalism. Something like appreciating John Calvin here, and then how Abraham Kuyper fleshes him out here, and then also appreciating John MacArthur in a certain way, and Douglas Wilson in a certain way, and different kinds of backgrounds.

This isn’t just buffet pickings; it is connected. And so, fleshing that out more, and helping to communicate, understand more of, why does our muttness make sense? Why do we think we’re being consistent? I think is something also that we would like to discuss and talk about more.

Sean Yeah. I think around the time when TEC started, somebody asked me — I mean, I was meeting with him on a somewhat regular basis anyway — but he asked me, okay, what book do I need to read, so that I would understand all of this, and the direction that we’re trying to go?

And my answer was, well, there isn’t one. So, I mean, there are ones. I could make a top ten list of the kinds of ones that have the best sort of protein in a particular direction, to build a particular muscle group — but not one that, so far, there’s not one place you can go right to, to understand all the different things that we would say not just go together, but — not just because you can make a mosaic out of them.

Philip Right.

Sean I grabbed this piece and I broke it to fit into the spot. But how we can be as consistent as possible with what we think the Bible says.

I mean, you have been recently using a phrase about different groups of people. Because almost everybody is inconsistent somewhere. So we’re trying to limit, we’re trying to identify, where if possible we’re inconsistent, and change that to be more consistent.

Philip Right.

Sean And we have definitely seen that more of the kind of people that you and I have been going to church with have been living inconsistently with, at least, how they claim they read the Bible.

Philip Right.

Sean And it’s like they’re ignoring all the verses about joy.

Philip Right.

Sean And they’re ignoring all the verses about the world. The “all are yours.”

Philip Right.

Sean Which I think is part of the reason why “all are yours” is a good banner for the things that we could talk about. Because most of the people that I’m thinking about trying to persuade to see something more consistently, or more better — I am thinking about: their view of the world is too small, too narrow, too spiritual-only, quote unquote.

Whereas there are other people who are living like the world is theirs — but it’s actually hard to see how that’s consistent with the ways they read the Bible.

Philip Right. With their framework.

Sean Yeah. So, I get that it is — I mean, we’re both not trying to make it be complex.

Philip Right.

Sean And also, to the degree that “mutt” is the appropriate analogy — well, there are different parts of a mutt. The mutt’s genealogy can be observed. If you like the mutt — and we’d say it’s a good mutt.

Philip Right.

Sean A genetically modified — and we’ve chosen the mutt to be a particular way.

Philip We like to say sanctified, not modified.

Sean Yeah.

Philip But, yeah, right. And so, I’m sure there are other people. Like, we’re not unique, in the way that we’re the only ones who figured it out. So there’s a lot of people who figured it out.

But I also do think that there is a limited amount of resources out there who are saying it the way we’ve been trying to say it. And so, yeah, there’s camps and tribes within different theological frameworks. And, hey, well, you’re saying something good, and you’re saying something good, and we actually see how those things fit together, and you’re saying that they don’t.

And so we think, for our own people, we want to be able to equip them with how that works as well. And then also, we’ve had other people kind of asking in and peeking in and saying, oh, how does that work? Why do you read your Bible this way but you live your life this way? Aren’t those things inconsistent?

And so, both to equip our people with the All Are Yours framework — both in living their lives and the way they think about the Bible — and then even helping to equip, kind of overflow out of that, potentially for other people, is only good.

Sean Yeah. I have a few thoughts on all those things.

Like, I would agree that there are a lot of people who are trying to answer the kinds of questions that kind of consume us. I don’t know of anybody who is answering them the way that we’re trying to answer them.

Philip It’s all the pastors who are reluctant to have a podcast.

Sean Maybe. Yeah, they’re just holding out on it. That’s what I’m saying.

That said, the primary people that need to get it first: our flock. So that they know what they believe.

Philip Right.

Sean Not because of sentences that I said, or that you say, or because of the podcast that they listen to. We want them to see in the Bible what is theirs. We want them to see how to see the Bible, and how to see that all are theirs, for themselves — but so that they can explain it to their kids, and so that their kids can explain it to their kids, Lord willing, for however many generations.

So that our flock understands it. And then, yeah, secondarily, to the other people who are trying to, who have the same sort of questions, that they at least might be provoked to consider some of these ideas. Whether they need to be more Kuyperian, or they need to be more dispensational. I know that we haven’t defined necessarily either one of them.

Philip We could talk about that at some point later.

Sean Yeah. But, yeah, it does seem like there’s more — that there’s more; if all are ours, then there clearly is more that we can go after.

Philip Right. Well, and, you know, it’s like our people — we send them to get resources from different things, but everything’s kind of with a qualifier. And so, yeah, this is good stuff on this thing, but here maybe not as much. Or here is good, but here maybe not as much.

And so we don’t have something to say, hey, we agree with these people completely. And so — we agree with ourselves completely.

Sean All are yours, asterisk. With qualifier.

Philip Right.

Sean Yeah. We’re trying to equip people so that we don’t have to —

Philip Right. So, can we give something to our people that would be even more helpful, even more equipping them for their ministry, with their kids, with their jobs, with everything that they’re doing?

Sean Yeah. We have Sundays. We have the life-to-life groups, small groups. We have the men’s and the ladies’ groups. We have had seminars. We have school, or at least encourage — trying to encourage — homeschoolers. We have all those things.

But potentially adding one more prong, or tine, onto the fork, so that we can pick up the big meatball.

Philip Right.

Sean That would be good.

Philip Yeah. So we’ll see. We’ll see if we’ll do more, how many we’ll do, how often. I don’t know.

But I think we’ve been over an hour now, and there’s a lot to talk about. The world is big. The future is potentially long — unless we die tomorrow.

So I think we could be good, and we’ll see if we try again.

Sean All right.

Philip Cool.