Learning to Preach Like Jesus with Peter Williams

[00:00:00] but often terminology divides,

[00:00:02] so it can be very helpful for clarifying,

[00:00:06] but a really clever person can be thrown by one word

[00:00:09] they don't understand.

[00:00:10] So there's nothing clever about using specialist terminology

[00:00:14] when you don't need to, or trying to catch someone out.

[00:00:18] And Jesus wants to talk about Pharisees

[00:00:20] as taking away the keys of knowledge.

[00:00:22] And I think that sometimes what happens is we lock away

[00:00:26] knowledge, and that's a lot of what happens in the academy.

[00:00:29] So is there a way of trying to use all of the learning,

[00:00:32] the study, the dedication which you have in the academy

[00:00:35] without using that to lock knowledge away?

[00:00:38] And Jesus is the most brilliant mind,

[00:00:42] the most brilliant brain ever to walk the planet in

[00:00:45] terms of his understanding.

[00:00:46] And yet he spoke very simply.

[00:00:48] So I think it can be done.

[00:00:49] Hey, welcome to the Expositors Collective podcast, episode 318.

[00:00:56] I'm your host, Mike Neglia.

[00:00:59] And our guest for this week is the esteemed Dr. Peter J. Williams.

[00:01:05] This guy has a real heart for the lost

[00:01:09] and a real mind for the text.

[00:01:13] He is a scholar, scholar, and an evangelist's evangelist.

[00:01:18] He bridges the gap between the academy

[00:01:22] and the unsaved person

[00:01:25] and their honest questions and doubts.

[00:01:29] I have, yeah, I've been reading his stuff for years

[00:01:33] and so it was a real treat to be able to speak to him

[00:01:36] for this show.

[00:01:38] He speaks with me about the surprising genius of Jesus.

[00:01:45] We talk through one of our Lord's most famous parables, about the surprising genius of Jesus.

[00:01:49] We talk through one of our Lord's most famous parables, the parable of the prodigal son,

[00:01:52] and Peter has some real cool insight

[00:01:55] that shows the level of thinking and intertextuality

[00:02:00] and connections that Jesus is making

[00:02:04] in this very short story that really packs a punch.

[00:02:10] This is not just an academic exercise, of course.

[00:02:14] Peter has excellent advice for non-geniuses like you and me as to how we can teach and preach

[00:02:25] the words of Jesus, but also in the way of Jesus.

[00:02:31] This episode is sponsored by sermons.com.

[00:02:36] Elevate your sermon and worship experience with sermons.com.

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[00:03:36] guided by the expert resources at sermons.com. So thanks to our sponsor for this week, sermons.com.

[00:03:46] And now I'm going to let you listen in on a fascinating

[00:03:50] and encouraging conversation with Peter Williams.

[00:03:59] Hey, welcome to the Expositors Collective Podcast.

[00:04:01] I'm excited to be speaking with Dr. Peter J. Williams.

[00:04:04] Good afternoon and welcome to the Expositors Collective Podcast. I'm excited to be speaking with Dr. Peter J. Williams.

[00:04:05] Good afternoon and welcome to the show.

[00:04:07] Great to be with you.

[00:04:09] Yeah, I'm not very good at small talk.

[00:04:12] And so rather than ask you about what you had for breakfast

[00:04:15] or this or that, let's get to it.

[00:04:16] What was the first time that you taught the Bible,

[00:04:19] first time in public opening God's Word and explaining it?

[00:04:21] So I think I did street preaching from about age 16.

[00:04:26] But the first time I was invited to speak to a place,

[00:04:28] it was really a disaster.

[00:04:30] I was speaking at a mission for the blind

[00:04:34] where there were a lot of people who are also deaf.

[00:04:37] So deaf and blind.

[00:04:39] And so they were receiving the signal

[00:04:41] via hand messages, touches on their fingers.

[00:04:44] And of course I was nervous

[00:04:46] and what do you do when you're nervous, you talk fast.

[00:04:48] And so I don't think it necessarily helped the people

[00:04:51] very much, but I got experience at speaking.

[00:04:55] Yeah, were you invited back?

[00:04:57] No. Okay.

[00:04:59] And if I could say, when was your first time preaching

[00:05:02] to a sighted and hearing congregation?

[00:05:06] It would have been shortly after that.

[00:05:07] So yes, I suppose at least from age 18,

[00:05:13] I would have been preaching.

[00:05:14] Yeah, yeah.

[00:05:15] Okay, well, some common threads that I see here,

[00:05:18] all the way up to what we know of you now is that you have,

[00:05:21] what seems like an insatiable desire to make sure

[00:05:23] that all people have an encounter with Jesus, either those on the street or those that are gathered

[00:05:29] with hearing or without. So that's a, why? Why? Why do you care so much?

[00:05:34] Well, I mean, I want people to hear about Jesus to save the world. We need saving from

[00:05:38] our sins. We need rescuing from condemnation. So that's a big thing. And I grew up in a household

[00:05:44] where my parents had both been converted from a non-Christian background,

[00:05:48] but they were very evangelistic, very wanting to reach people.

[00:05:52] And so that's certainly the air I breathed, the young people's group I grew up in was very much involved in outreach.

[00:05:59] What you would do is go out and do street outreach often at a weekend.

[00:06:04] And so that's what I grew up with.

[00:06:07] Yeah.

[00:06:08] Yeah.

[00:06:09] Is, do you find, and this is maybe more of a sociological observation,

[00:06:12] do you find that young people today are as interested in evangelism

[00:06:17] as maybe your generation?

[00:06:19] I think things have changed radically in terms of what the sort of cultural music is, what people,

[00:06:27] the background you can expect. So there's been a definite reversal about saints and sinners.

[00:06:34] So it used to be that the saints were in the church and the sinners were outside the church

[00:06:38] and you were telling people to sort of come away from your life of sin and come to Christ and turn

[00:06:42] around. Whereas now people think the sinners, and you understand,

[00:06:47] I'm just talking about labels, not the actual content.

[00:06:50] Everyone's a sinner, but that the people in the church are doing the bad thing.

[00:06:54] They are less moral than the people outside the church who are more accepting,

[00:07:02] more concerned about the environment, more concerned about the really righteous causes, if you say that.

[00:07:08] So I think that's a really interesting change.

[00:07:11] You can't assume any Bible knowledge.

[00:07:14] That's refreshing as well.

[00:07:17] So you do find people who are just genuinely intrigued.

[00:07:20] They don't have any background against Christianity as well.

[00:07:24] That's another thing. So some people who have been any background against Christianity as well. That's another thing.

[00:07:25] So some people who have been inoculated against Christianity,

[00:07:29] they've had small doses and they really don't want it.

[00:07:32] And that's really hard to overcome.

[00:07:35] People who already think they know what you believe.

[00:07:38] Yeah, try to make, didn't work.

[00:07:41] I'm onto the next thing. Yeah.

[00:07:43] Yeah. So back to, yeah, teaching or preaching.

[00:07:47] I know that these days that most of what you're doing

[00:07:50] categorizes, yeah, well, as far as my understanding

[00:07:53] is most of what you do is kind of a teaching context.

[00:07:57] But yet, how would you understand yourself as a teacher

[00:07:59] versus yourself as a preacher?

[00:08:01] And then there's that overlapping evangelist

[00:08:03] that's in this.

[00:08:04] How do you

[00:08:05] define your current Bible handling ministry? Yeah. So Martin or Jones used to talk about

[00:08:11] preaching as logic on fire. And I do think that there is a sense in with teaching

[00:08:17] that obviously as an academic researcher, I do lots of content, but you do want to move people. You do want to get down to the basics and

[00:08:26] the one of the biggest memory aids that we have is our emotions that is I can remember certain people's names

[00:08:35] that came up at very poignant times in my life. Meanwhile, I can forget quite a number of students names because nothing particularly

[00:08:43] struck me in the situation when I was teaching them. So emotion is a huge memory aid. So I think

[00:08:49] this divide between preaching where you have passion and teach and the sort of dispassionate

[00:08:56] teaching is not a very helpful one because if you are not excited about your subject,

[00:09:03] guess what? People aren't going to learn very much.

[00:09:05] So you think about all the YouTubers who are excited about what they're talking about.

[00:09:12] That's preaching.

[00:09:14] Okay. Yeah. So when, like what is it? Is it James Hoffman who's talking about the latest

[00:09:19] coffee exciting news? Like he has a message to communicate and he's doing it with passion.

[00:09:24] Absolutely. And it can be someone telling you about the natural world and wildlife.

[00:09:28] David Attenborough who's very excited about that. It can be someone who's really excited

[00:09:33] about chess. Whatever that will make them a better teacher. And if we're teaching people

[00:09:37] about Jesus Christ, of course, we should be excited about it. And I think part of what we've been to is this idea of modernism where

[00:09:47] you're dispassionate, you're just a brain on legs. And that's, that doesn't make a lot of sense.

[00:09:54] Yeah, so the goal is to not be a brain on legs, but to be a passionate, enthusiastic communicator.

[00:10:00] And, and whether that's in the Tindale House House or whether it's in a secular university

[00:10:07] speaking to unbelievers.

[00:10:09] So you want to be that brain on a legs embodied and passionate.

[00:10:13] Yes, and I think you can join up more

[00:10:15] even the academic and the lay communication

[00:10:19] via the language you use.

[00:10:21] So obviously when you're in a group

[00:10:24] with a group of specialists, you can

[00:10:26] use all sorts of terminology that lay people wouldn't understand, but often terminology

[00:10:31] divides. So it can be very helpful for clarifying, but a really clever person can be thrown by

[00:10:39] one word they don't understand. So there's nothing clever about using specialist terminology when you don't

[00:10:45] need to or trying to catch someone out. And Jesus once talked about Pharisees as taking away the

[00:10:52] keys of knowledge. And I think that sometimes what happens is we lock away knowledge. And that's

[00:10:58] a lot of what happens in the academy. So is there a way of trying to use all of the learning,

[00:11:02] the study, the dedication which you have in the academy without using that to lock knowledge away?

[00:11:09] And Jesus is the most brilliant mind, the most brilliant brain ever to walk the planet

[00:11:15] in terms of his understanding.

[00:11:17] And yet he spoke very simply.

[00:11:18] So I think it can be done.

[00:11:20] Yeah.

[00:11:21] Yeah.

[00:11:22] I'd love to speak more later on about Jesus's teaching style than even his

[00:11:26] deliberate unlocking of knowledge, kind of in contrast to the locking of knowledge that

[00:11:31] the Pharisees did. But you know, that idea of like a single word being able to throw people,

[00:11:37] like that's something I wish that I knew when I started teaching and preaching. I became

[00:11:41] a pastor at a very young age, probably way too young, had a lot of insecurities.

[00:11:45] And because of my young and youthfulness,

[00:11:48] I think I tried really hard to impress people

[00:11:51] by using big words or by quoting like sophisticated authors

[00:11:55] as a way to say like, listen, I'm really young,

[00:11:57] but like trust me, I'm really smart.

[00:11:58] Or I know more words than you do.

[00:12:00] And that's actually, you know, Peter,

[00:12:04] I got a lot of regrets in my life. And that's

[00:12:06] one of them taking those early years and out of insecurity trying to show off my knowledge

[00:12:11] as a way to gain credibility. Yeah. And the thing is, I would say John's gospel is brilliant.

[00:12:17] The epistle to the Romans is brilliant. One has more technical language than the other.

[00:12:22] But I wouldn't say that they have different levels of depth.

[00:12:25] The depth is the same either way.

[00:12:27] Yeah. Yes. Okay. Yeah.

[00:12:30] And so that's something that I guess I know now that I wish that I knew then.

[00:12:35] Is there something for you in your years of teaching or preaching or communicating?

[00:12:40] What have you learned now that you wish that you could go back and then do over again? Well, I think it goes along those lines and so much of Jesus' teaching is to the heart.

[00:12:51] And Jesus is really prepared to be underestimated.

[00:12:53] So he goes in and he speaks in a very simple way.

[00:12:57] And you can think, well, he's not using fancy words.

[00:13:00] So there's not much here.

[00:13:02] And yet there are whole worlds to explore. So I think that's where

[00:13:07] it's very easy to be impressed by what is flashy and what seems clever and that's an important thing

[00:13:15] to overcome. Okay, yeah. Well, so as we kind of move on to let's say you and your teaching and then me and mine with those limitations.

[00:13:26] You you write in your latest book that that Jesus in his teaching demonstrates that he is like a

[00:13:33] a genius. Now in the books that I've read about Jesus and even the attributes of him,

[00:13:39] I haven't seen many or anyone use that word to describe him. Like, what convinced you that Jesus is a genius?

[00:13:47] Well, I mean, there are occasionally people who've used those terms that certainly was the case.

[00:13:53] Dallas Willard was prepared to do that and Ken Bailey has used that, but it's not common.

[00:13:59] And I think what for me, a lot of it was studying this three-minute-long story

[00:14:06] from Luke chapter 15 about the two sons or the parable of the prodigal son.

[00:14:09] And just seeing its depth, I was teaching it interactively over years and seeing how

[00:14:15] every single word counts, there's nothing, no flab there, but also there's even things

[00:14:22] that are said through not being said.

[00:14:29] So for instance, the way the younger son three times calls his father, father, and the older brother doesn't have that word,

[00:14:34] tells you the younger son is closer to his father than the older son.

[00:14:39] And it's those sorts of things when you can say things by not saying that you

[00:14:42] tell them that the older brother was in the field, but you don't say what he was doing in the field,

[00:14:47] but do you sort of guess he's working late? Or by not having the ending on the

[00:14:53] story, telling you how the older brother responds. That's really clever.

[00:14:57] And so Jesus is doing through the words he doesn't use, like he doesn't describe

[00:15:02] in detail the way that the younger son wastes

[00:15:05] the money. He just gives you one word for the entire waste of money that we want to make

[00:15:09] into a long story. So time and time again, he's doing things through not saying things.

[00:15:14] Then he's doing things through the words he says. It's a very clever thing.

[00:15:18] Yes, yes. I, yeah, a couple of different thoughts on this.

[00:15:25] First off, you mentioned that there's only one word that describes the way that the

[00:15:30] prodigal son is prodigal and that we often want to make that into the main point.

[00:15:35] What an excellent observation.

[00:15:37] And that's just all that I've heard for so long.

[00:15:39] And in fact, I got dropped off at a youth group when I was a kid and it was a,

[00:15:43] it was testimony night and there was a

[00:15:45] late it was only one person one lady gave her testimony she had a long story about leaving home

[00:15:51] and then you know live and let up in the city everything going bad and then she comes back and

[00:15:57] her dad has this breakfast nook that he's always in and he runs out and greets her and then the

[00:16:02] twist was that it wasn't a testimony night she was was retelling the prodigal, the prodigal son story.

[00:16:08] And I didn't like that at all. I was like, this is,

[00:16:10] she just lied to us the whole time. The whole point was that it didn't really

[00:16:15] happen. And, but it was kind of the whole emphasis was on what she did wrong

[00:16:21] allegedly, what she allegedly did wrong and how how she spent her money with this and that,

[00:16:25] and the friends that abandoned her, et cetera.

[00:16:27] So all based on, yeah, one word,

[00:16:29] and you highlight that that word doesn't even maybe mean

[00:16:32] what we think it does,

[00:16:33] or maybe it's the older brothers interpretation of that word.

[00:16:36] Well, I wouldn't want to say it's necessarily wrong,

[00:16:38] because again, what Jesus does is he creates something

[00:16:42] which is itself very generative.

[00:16:44] What I mean by that is with one word,

[00:16:46] he hints at something and then we are almost invited

[00:16:50] to unpack it, fill in the blank,

[00:16:53] fill in your own version of what went on.

[00:16:56] Now the problem is if he'd gone really specific

[00:16:58] and he said he wasted his money on drinks and parties

[00:17:04] and sex drugs, rock and roll and that sort of thing.

[00:17:07] That wouldn't necessarily speak so powerfully to someone who for instance had given their life

[00:17:15] over to gang involvement. So by actually leaving a blank, it's a very powerful thing, because it

[00:17:21] allows lots of people who are running away from their father from

[00:17:26] God in different ways to fill in that spot. So I think it's even better. And I don't want

[00:17:33] to use it to criticize people who then expand that. I simply want to observe the cleverness

[00:17:40] of the storyteller to give you if you like a seed from which so much can grow.

[00:17:46] Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, yeah. And as I was reading, even particularly the early chapters of this,

[00:17:53] as you're just like taking this very familiar story that many of us secular or Christian or

[00:18:01] religious, like everyone's aware of this. And myself as someone who's been teaching

[00:18:05] the Bible and taught this passage loads over the years, I learned more and I just I kept finding

[00:18:10] myself kind of like grinning and just kind of being like, Oh, he's right. He's right. He's kind of

[00:18:15] showing all these little things, these assumptions that I made or this like connectivity or especially

[00:18:20] how the the Old Testament is there in the background of all of this. I just, it's not a commentary,

[00:18:27] but it's the kind of commentary that I love

[00:18:30] that shows me that there's actually a whole lot more

[00:18:33] to this story than I knew

[00:18:34] and that it's not hidden in the Hebrew or the Greek.

[00:18:37] It's not, it's actually right there in front of me.

[00:18:40] You just need somebody to kind of highlight

[00:18:42] or point out a few different things.

[00:18:43] And then you ask yourself,

[00:18:44] how didn't I see this before?

[00:18:45] Exactly. Yeah. And I'll never not see it now. But kind of my question,

[00:18:49] how do I ask this? But essentially, like, Peter, how did you see all that stuff? How did you notice?

[00:18:54] Well, it took a lot of time and a lot of people. So we learn well in community.

[00:19:00] So I've learned an awful lot through doing interactive Bible study with people.

[00:19:02] community. So I've learned an awful lot through doing interactive Bible study with people. And so in the early days,

[00:19:06] I might ask a man had two sons, who does that remind you of?

[00:19:10] And I was wanting the answer, a Isaac, because he's the most

[00:19:15] famous person in the Bible to have two and only two sons. And

[00:19:18] then people would respond Abraham and I'd sort of tell them

[00:19:21] off, no, that wasn't the answer I was looking for. And then the

[00:19:23] more I thought about it, no, it is the story of Abraham as well.

[00:19:26] And it is the story of Adam as well, because they all have two sons and they're all

[00:19:31] in some ways reflected in this story.

[00:19:34] So I think it's that sort of thing where you learn a lot from other people, you

[00:19:39] learn slowly, you turn over.

[00:19:41] It's one of these things in Psalm 1. It talks about the man of God meditating on the law

[00:19:45] day and night. Presumably at night, not with a candle, but because you've memorized during the

[00:19:50] day. So the point is you're turning over the phrases again and again in your head and thinking,

[00:19:56] what does that mean? What does that mean for me? Yeah. Yeah. You had mentioned that there's lots of

[00:20:01] interactive teaching about this over the years. And so that maybe is, yeah, that's fed into it.

[00:20:06] The other writer that I have enjoyed who consistently shows me this type of stuff about Jesus

[00:20:12] teaching is Frederick Dale Brunner.

[00:20:14] Are you aware of him?

[00:20:15] How he's looked at that.

[00:20:17] You're in for a treat.

[00:20:19] You're in for a treat.

[00:20:20] Yeah.

[00:20:21] He's done like a two volume on Matthew and then one on John's gospel and and he'll be so quick to highlight that yeah

[00:20:26] He's taught this in classes for like a decade leading up to the publication of the book

[00:20:31] And that he would say that he's he's learned so much from the sorts of questions and the interactions

[00:20:36] He's taught the book of Matthew and different cultures and the different things that people

[00:20:41] Contribute the questions they ask and the connections that they see has honed him. And I see that that's the case for you as well. I got to go teach you

[00:20:48] to seminary for 10 years so that I could start getting these types of insights apparently.

[00:20:53] And again, you're also learning from the, you know, Kenneth Bailey and Dallas Willard.

[00:20:57] Yeah. But so let's say you're on your own and let's say you're working on the next parable

[00:21:03] or the next thing as you and your pencil. What are the sort of things that you're noticing? What are the questions that you

[00:21:09] consistently ask that bring this type of stuff to the forefront for you? So I read the Bible

[00:21:14] slowly. I mean, I read slowly generally and I read the Bible in various languages. I find that

[00:21:19] slows me right down. And it also highlights for you what words are repeated,

[00:21:26] what words do, are there, what words aren't there.

[00:21:29] That's really key.

[00:21:31] So I think that there's a lot to be said

[00:21:34] for reading slowly, memorizing those sorts of things

[00:21:38] that will enable you to see more.

[00:21:41] And I think the other thing's expecting to see more.

[00:21:43] So if you were grading a first

[00:21:48] year freshman's paper, you might not expect to see as much as if you were reading something

[00:21:54] you knew was from a noble laureate of some kind. So again, how much do we expect when

[00:22:00] we read Jesus' words? If we think this is the Son of God

[00:22:06] who created language, the word of God,

[00:22:10] wouldn't we expect to see more?

[00:22:11] And so expecting to see more slows you down

[00:22:14] to think more about what they're saying

[00:22:17] rather than just gliding over it.

[00:22:20] Okay.

[00:22:23] Do you think that it's possible to, I wanna be careful how I say this, but to see too much though?

[00:22:29] Yeah, yeah.

[00:22:30] And what are the guardrails that keep you from seeing too much? Or what are maybe students that you've had?

[00:22:34] What are they seeing too much and how do you have the end point?

[00:22:38] Well, there isn't a clear cut-off line. So I think you can watch a film and wonder about what the intent of

[00:22:48] the filmmakers was. Did they have this particular agenda? Were they trying to draw a parallel

[00:22:55] with this or that? And you can't always be sure. Some of the confidence you get is quantitative.

[00:23:02] So the more times you see a particular pattern, the

[00:23:05] more like you are to say, yes, that's deliberate, as it is with judging a personality, the more

[00:23:10] times you see someone responding in a particular way, the more confident you are of your interpretation.

[00:23:15] But that's not a hard and fast thing. And so at one level, it's hard to say what God doesn't intend other than when he reveals it.

[00:23:27] So I do think that there is an edge and a lot depends on how

[00:23:34] how fine your measurement is, how your measuring instruments, how much can you see?

[00:23:41] So given our human fallibility, the danger is that we could head after a gnat

[00:23:48] and swallow a camel. And so it's really important that we keep the main thing, the main thing.

[00:23:55] Remember that the 62% of the story is about the younger son. The older son is a big part.

[00:24:01] It's not the biggest part of the story. And we make sure that we're not

[00:24:07] getting so caught up on a possible echo somewhere that we start building on that and so on.

[00:24:16] And I think in that sense, it's, it might not matter too much, just how many grains of

[00:24:21] chili you have in your recipe. It matters an awful lot, you know,

[00:24:26] whether you have 10 pinches or one speck.

[00:24:30] So I think that's where with this question of illusions,

[00:24:33] it's not so much where the cut-off line is,

[00:24:36] it's the very fact that you can establish,

[00:24:38] clearly Jesus is drawing lots of parallels

[00:24:40] between the story and the stories in Genesis.

[00:24:43] And they are, again, it's a very generative story.

[00:24:47] It makes you, it makes the imagination work.

[00:24:51] You start thinking through all the family stories

[00:24:53] of Genesis.

[00:24:55] Yeah, and as one of us is retelling Jesus' story,

[00:25:00] which is what Bible teaching and preaching is,

[00:25:03] at least in this passage, will retelling it.

[00:25:05] The temptation that I want, you know, I want to be careful that I don't go and preach this next Sunday.

[00:25:10] And because I think I'm probably ill suited for this because I've got all these ideas kicking around in my head.

[00:25:17] And I wouldn't trust myself to not just be like, and guys, this is great.

[00:25:21] Turn with me, Genesis here and there and ping pong everywhere.

[00:25:24] That is essentially just, I don't know, just being so excited at these

[00:25:28] connections that I've actually missed all of these years.

[00:25:30] I want to be like simple and clear and highlight the appropriate thing.

[00:25:35] It'll be appropriate time.

[00:25:36] Similar to how like Jesus is such a good, clear communicator.

[00:25:40] There's there's more there for those that are, I guess, able to see or that

[00:25:44] wants to see, but that there's more there for those that are, I guess, able to see or that wants to see,

[00:25:45] but that there's something there for everyone. What are your observations about Jesus as a

[00:25:52] preacher, as a teacher? What can we learn from him communication-wise? You kind of alluded to this

[00:25:58] a few minutes ago, but now I want to come back. How does he teach and how can we learn how to teach

[00:26:02] from him? Well, I think he has perfect understanding. So when you know absolutely everything,

[00:26:09] then you're able to simplify. So Einstein with equals MC squared, it's brilliant,

[00:26:16] it's simple. He manages to bring a whole lot together in one little equation.

[00:26:22] Jesus is way smarter than that.

[00:26:25] So when he can bring a whole load together with a saying,

[00:26:28] like, the truth will set you free.

[00:26:31] That is a universe that is mind-blowing.

[00:26:36] It takes a brilliant understanding to it,

[00:26:40] see how simple things are.

[00:26:42] You then apply that or do unto others

[00:26:44] what you'd have them do to you.

[00:26:45] Or judge not that you'd be not judge whatever measure you use

[00:26:49] on others, will be used back on you,

[00:26:51] or turn the other cheek, or vent to see the things

[00:26:54] that are seized into God, the things that are God's.

[00:26:57] To, in order to come up with any of those really simple

[00:27:02] sayings of how to deal with things. You have to have really great understanding,

[00:27:07] and then you simplify. I don't know of any politician or philosopher who's able to say

[00:27:14] as many smart things as you get attributed to Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount within a few

[00:27:20] minutes of each other. This is just sufficient for the day or its cares. Wow, I mean like,

[00:27:28] you ought to be famous just for that. One saying like that. And Jesus has loads of them.

[00:27:34] So I think part of it is recognizing that here is someone who knows more, who is not morally corrupt,

[00:27:47] who is not morally corrupt, who presents knowledge morally. So that's the other thing about recognizing that how evidence works, that evidence is morally structured so that if you seek, you

[00:27:54] find, and if you do not seek, you will stumble. The supreme example of this is on the cross,

[00:27:59] when God shows his love and you could stand underneath the cross and say, oh, this is really good evidence.

[00:28:06] The Romans are in charge in that this person on the cross is a loser.

[00:28:09] So at the same time as God's revealing himself, if you're not seeking, you will be stumbled.

[00:28:15] Yeah.

[00:28:16] And doesn't Jesus say in John 7 17, if anyone's will is to do God's will, he will know whether

[00:28:24] the teaching is from God or whether I'm speaking on my own authority.

[00:28:28] So there is like a volitional aspect to understanding truth.

[00:28:32] If you want it, or as what Jeremiah 30, Jeremiah says somewhere, you know, if you seek after me with all your heart, then you will find me that there is like a heart component.

[00:28:41] So this is knowledge, but it's all it's connected to our desire to know the knowledge.

[00:28:45] And I think that's a really clever way to structure it, because if it were simply that

[00:28:52] the more you know, the more evidence there is, then it would favor the wise, whereas actually

[00:28:59] to structure it so that God is always revealing himself and always hiding himself depending on

[00:29:08] the moral state of our heart. That's an incredible thing to do.

[00:29:13] Yeah, how does that change the way that we prepare to preach on a Sunday, knowing that on the one

[00:29:19] hand it's up to us, we have to bring something forward, but yet the conditions of the hearers and the pew

[00:29:26] actually matters as much as what we bring forward.

[00:29:30] Well, it's interesting.

[00:29:31] Of course, Jesus does these three stories, doesn't he?

[00:29:34] Where the shepherd goes after the one in 100 sheep,

[00:29:38] the woman sweeps the house to find

[00:29:41] the one in 10 coins that's lost.

[00:29:42] And you go from 1% lost to 10% lost to,

[00:29:45] I think 100% lost at the end of the chapter. And the sheep is found by having gone astray from home,

[00:29:54] the coin is found at home, the sun returns from being away. And then you've got the older sun

[00:30:00] at home. But there's also this balance where the shepherd and the woman go looking

[00:30:07] and then you have this son returns and the father hasn't gone out looking for him. He

[00:30:12] didn't follow him down the road. So I think again you have this balance between God's

[00:30:18] sovereignty, human responsibility which is presented in the story structure there. It's not that one picture captures everything.

[00:30:28] So I'd want to stress again and again,

[00:30:31] human responsibility, our moral responsibility

[00:30:34] to respond to God.

[00:30:36] And at the same time, I want to stress

[00:30:39] that God is a God who seeks the lost.

[00:30:42] Yeah.

[00:30:43] Yeah, and so oftentimes, you know,

[00:30:44] there's the,

[00:30:46] what could be a perfunctory opening prayer.

[00:30:49] And oftentimes the preacher prays for himself, you know,

[00:30:51] dear Lord, help me to speak well or, you know,

[00:30:53] but like it's appropriate as kind of our literature

[00:30:57] at our own church, you know, Psalm 19,

[00:31:00] may the words of my mouth and the meditation

[00:31:01] of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight.

[00:31:04] You know, it's maybe it's appropriate even more so

[00:31:06] to pray that people's hearts would be receptive to this

[00:31:10] and that it would be connected to a desire for all of us

[00:31:13] to learn, to grow, to receive and then to obey

[00:31:15] what we're hearing.

[00:31:16] Absolutely.

[00:31:18] Yeah.

[00:31:18] Well, that's kind of a diversion,

[00:31:20] but thank you very much for that.

[00:31:22] So, but you, I've heard you say this in a different context,

[00:31:25] but you spoke about how Jesus as a teacher,

[00:31:28] he wants everyone to understand,

[00:31:30] and there's something for everybody.

[00:31:32] And you said that he doesn't lock up

[00:31:35] or kind of gatekeep wisdom using innkeeper language,

[00:31:38] sorry, gatekeeper insider,

[00:31:41] using insider language to gatekeep.

[00:31:44] And you talked about how the Pharisees, they

[00:31:47] lock up knowledge and wisdom, but Jesus is the opposite. How can we as preachers learn from

[00:31:53] Jesus as the homolytician or the public speaker? Well, I mean, obviously, at one level, parables

[00:31:59] do lock up things. They are, but the way of unlocking them is a morally seeking after God. So that's

[00:32:08] the way the key, that's the shape of the key, if you like, seeking and you'll find. But what he

[00:32:14] doesn't do is say that the key to unlock things is greater intellectual prowess. So, you know, here

[00:32:23] I'm going to lock things in the cabinet of scholarly learning,

[00:32:27] and then you need to get the key of scholarly learning to bring stuff out. He doesn't do

[00:32:31] that at all. So he uses simple words, and I think that's actually shows superior understanding.

[00:32:39] Often we can use complex language and vocabulary when we are trying to sound clever.

[00:32:45] We're not actually fully sure of our own ground.

[00:32:49] I mean, when we think about some of the most amazing passionate moral speeches

[00:32:55] we've ever seen, they're not ones that are using complicated words.

[00:32:58] They're speaking very simply.

[00:33:01] And that's where we see Jesus doing that and that's quite a contrast

[00:33:06] with the way unnecessary technical language can come into academic

[00:33:11] discussion. Yeah like when I said perfunctory. Yeah well I think some longer

[00:33:17] words like that can be helpful in terms of they're quite poetic I mean if all of

[00:33:21] our words were short it would begin to get boring wouldn't it after a while.

[00:33:24] Yeah yeah Jesus is happy to use long words, but not too many of them.

[00:33:28] Yeah, sure. Sure. Well, maybe that was the conviction coming upon me as you were explaining

[00:33:33] Christ-like monosyllabicism. Well, I crammed the word perfunctory in earlier on.

[00:33:41] Well, yeah, well, thank you. Thank you. I know that. Okay, there is I want to like

[00:33:46] allude to the broader conversation, but not spend too much time on this. But but some have

[00:33:51] wondered like, well, does this mean that Jesus is a genius? Or does it mean that Luke is a genius

[00:33:56] in writing these things, these things down? You've spent a lot of time on another book on this topic,

[00:34:02] but could you give us like a one sentence answer? Yeah, so, but take as long as you like, I suppose. But

[00:34:08] basically, what we find in Luke 15 has patterns of speech, which we find attributed to Jesus

[00:34:17] outside Luke's gospel. So having back-to-back stories, like you have in Luke 15, that's also

[00:34:24] happening in Mark

[00:34:25] and in Matthew.

[00:34:26] Having the idea that a human is more valuable than a sheep, that's part of the structure

[00:34:31] of Luke 15, that you can find outside Luke's Gospel.

[00:34:35] Having a male and a female pair as you have the shepherd and the woman each seeking for

[00:34:42] what's lost, that you can find outside Luke's gospel. So the time and time again you can see the way he's speaking is

[00:34:49] something that happens outside Luke's gospel. And also if Luke is a Gentile

[00:34:55] why would he put in a ton of references to the Old Testament Scriptures for his

[00:35:01] audience whereas he does record that Jesus is talking specifically to

[00:35:06] tax collectors sinners, scribes and Pharisees. So people who don't know the

[00:35:09] Bible like tax collectors and sinners and scribes and Pharisees who do,

[00:35:13] particularly scribes actually copy out the Bible. That's so they really know it

[00:35:17] very well. And you explain how Jesus has got lots of references to the Old Testament

[00:35:22] in this story precisely by saying

[00:35:25] the audience that Luke says is exactly correct.

[00:35:28] This story seems to come from Jesus from a particular situation.

[00:35:33] And we haven't yet explored the depth that there is there, but for instance, I would

[00:35:37] say the high point of the story is when the father runs embraces and kisses the younger son, that goes to a key part of the

[00:35:45] scribal training where they learn that verse where Esau, the older brother who's been cheated

[00:35:52] out of his inheritance, runs embraces and kisses his younger son.

[00:35:55] So all of these things fit together with it actually coming from a rabbinic setting from

[00:36:00] the setting of the time of Jesus, not a Gentile setting from the time of Luke.

[00:36:06] Yeah, and so you've written another book previously entitled

[00:36:10] Can We Trust the Gospels?

[00:36:11] And kind of the short answer is yes, yes we can.

[00:36:14] Yes, and there's a longer answer,

[00:36:16] but we can trust the Gospels and we can even trust

[00:36:19] that Luke is communicating Jesus' genius

[00:36:22] through this story.

[00:36:24] Yep. So as we kind of wrap up, I've kind of two final questions. communicating Jesus is genius through this story. Yeah.

[00:36:25] So as we kind of wrap up, I've kind of two final questions.

[00:36:29] The first is, so you are a president and you are spending a lot of your time at Tindale

[00:36:34] House.

[00:36:35] What, what is that?

[00:36:36] And then how can it help preachers like us?

[00:36:38] Ordinary preachers.

[00:36:39] So Tindale House in Cambridge, England is a campus with six buildings on the doorstep of Cambridge University

[00:36:48] with the UK's largest library of the Bible and people from around the world come and study that.

[00:36:53] So we have about 60 scholars here at any time working at the doctoral level and above. So in

[00:37:00] terms of thinking of Jesus' Greeks who are Bible geeks, we've got an amazing collection.

[00:37:07] And how does it help? Well, through the commentaries that are written here and the works that are done here,

[00:37:15] all sorts of things happen. So whether it's in Bible translations or writings,

[00:37:21] a lot of them, if you look in the introduction, the acknowledgments in all sorts

[00:37:26] of books that are on your shelf, you will actually find that we're mentioned. So we're

[00:37:29] not Tinnehouse publishers, that's a completely different organization. We're Tinnehouse,

[00:37:34] which is a cheerleader for people who are taking Bible studies at a deeper level and

[00:37:39] then trying to serve the church.

[00:37:41] Okay, yeah. What is the original Tinnedale Dale House? Did 10 Dale have a house that you're

[00:37:46] referencing?

[00:37:47] Yes. Yeah. There is actually a house. We still got it acquired in 1944. So during the

[00:37:53] Second World War, that's when we started because when the war's going on, you've got to do

[00:37:57] Bible scholarship. That's right. And our house is cheaper during, I don't know. Oh, they

[00:38:03] were the massively it's like Jeremiah buying a field.

[00:38:06] Yeah.

[00:38:07] And when the Babylonians are outside,

[00:38:08] it was before D-Day and we got a,

[00:38:10] yeah, to have an acre site for 4,500 pounds

[00:38:15] was a bit of a snip, yeah.

[00:38:16] Yeah, well, you're curating it and serving us well.

[00:38:19] Yeah.

[00:38:20] Kind of the final question that I ask every guest is,

[00:38:23] like Peter, how are you trying to improve as a Bible teacher?

[00:38:28] We can and should learn from you,

[00:38:30] but how are you trying to learn and improve currently?

[00:38:33] Well, I keep trying to read the scriptures, read them slowly,

[00:38:37] read them in community with others.

[00:38:40] And I guess learn new skills that would help.

[00:38:44] So trying to find a how about new areas.

[00:38:46] I mean, when you get to the ancient world of the Bible,

[00:38:49] it's a vast minefield.

[00:38:51] There's just so much going on.

[00:38:53] And so just trying to learn a little bit more about that

[00:38:56] can help, but it's, the key thing is that none of us

[00:39:00] is indispensable.

[00:39:02] There are lots and lots of Bible teachers across the church.

[00:39:04] And we're

[00:39:05] supposed to play our part in the big team. Yeah. Well, yeah, thank you very much again. It's always,

[00:39:11] it's always particularly encouraging for me as, you know, those whom I personally have learned from

[00:39:16] are also continually in this like self-improvement wanting to steward their gifts better. So thanks

[00:39:22] for letting us in on that. Thank you. Any final shout outs or like we referenced in your house,

[00:39:28] we referenced this book.

[00:39:30] What's the next book that people should go out and buy?

[00:39:33] Or what's something that's come out of Tindale House

[00:39:35] that you think is not a bestseller, but it should be?

[00:39:39] Oh, well, we produced our own New Testament in Greek.

[00:39:43] So the Greek Tinder house Greek New Testament.

[00:39:45] And I would encourage lots of pastors to read

[00:39:48] the New Testament in Greek, even if you don't feel fluent,

[00:39:52] just have a go, don't be afraid of it.

[00:39:55] You don't need to understand it perfectly.

[00:39:57] I feel some people are put off because they think

[00:39:59] unless I've got perfect knowledge of a language,

[00:40:01] I can't use it at all.

[00:40:03] And I think, look, parents read

[00:40:05] the ingredients on a tin to see what they're going to give their children. Doesn't mean

[00:40:11] they're claiming to be dieticians. It just means you as a pastor, feed the sheep. You

[00:40:16] are an information quality specialist. So that's why you should actually take care about getting

[00:40:23] some knowledge of the Greek if you can.

[00:40:25] And we've got loads of different editions of the Tinhouse Greeting Testament,

[00:40:28] some of them with facing English page, some of them with parsing and so on.

[00:40:33] So you can get a lot of those from Crossway.

[00:40:35] All right.

[00:40:36] Link will be in the description.

[00:40:37] Well, thank you so much, Peter.

[00:40:39] And for the listeners of this show, I hope that this episode and all that we do

[00:40:42] at Expositors Collective help you to grow in your personal study

[00:40:45] and public proclamation of God's word. Thanks again, Peter.

[00:40:49] Thank you.

[00:40:51] All right. Well, that was a great conversation. I really

[00:40:55] enjoyed getting to speak with and getting to know Peter a

[00:40:58] little bit. And I hope that was encouraging to you. Now, let's

[00:41:01] go get some Greek New Testaments, right fellas?

[00:41:05] Well, I would be remiss if I didn't remind you here at the end about our upcoming

[00:41:11] training event, May 24th and 25th in Pleasanton, California.

[00:41:17] Valley Community Church is hosting us and it's going to be a great time of

[00:41:22] preaching and teaching from the front and then coaching

[00:41:26] and mentoring in small group settings.

[00:41:30] We want to help you grow in your personal study and public proclamation of God's Word.

[00:41:36] You can find registration details and more information and testimonials at our website

[00:41:43] expositorscollective.com.

[00:41:46] Hope to see you there.

[00:41:48] This podcast is a part of CGN Media, a podcast network that points to Christ.

[00:41:53] We are supported by listeners like you.

[00:41:55] To help us create more great shows, visit cgnmedia.org slash support. Thanks for watching!