Unlocking Biblical Language Secrets with Reverend Dr. Alec Fisher

Each podcast confronts real-time struggles facing the local church and a post-Christian culture . Step into the action with the ULC at uniteleadershiporg . This is Leigh Time .

So , but I get to hang out with with Alec Fisher today . Jack , did you want to respond to my comment there ? I don't know . You got to look at me too .

Like some guys got a bio of academia , this is to the next level , alec , and I know you're going to hear humility and great wisdom today from Alec but Bachelor of Arts University of Florida , which shaped his story , with a major in Judaic studies Judaic studies he received as Master of Divinity and a master of his STM Master of Sacred Theology at Concordia

Seminary in 2016 and 19 , respectively . During that time , he also studied at I'm going to say this , wrong the Lutherish Theologian .

So he's on the way to get his PhD at the University of Birmingham , where he researches bilingual New Testament manuscripts with the Institute for Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing , also known as the ITSEE , if you were walking alongside that , in conjunction with the International Greek New Testament Project , the IGNTP .

Prior to accepting his first call at Christ Lutheran Church , reverend Fisher served as a pastor at First Evangelical Lutheran Church in Odenton , maryland , until 2020 . It is an honor to hang out with you today , fresh off coming off of a conference . This is this is where Alec rolls .

He was just at the Society for Biblical Literacy , the SBL conference around Thanksgiving , and so tell us a little bit about that before we get into our conversation today . Alec , thanks for hanging with us .

It's a place where a bunch of people from all over the world get together and present papers and have discussions on biblical literature , and it is a wide range of people that come from all over the world , all different kinds of traditions , and it's it's really neat . I , when I go to those , I attend the sessions for New Testament textual criticism .

So , as you said , you know my my work is done at the University of Birmingham , in the Institute for Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing they should call it Etsy .

So there are , we're getting manuscripts together and using some new methodology , utilizing digital technology , to transcribe them and collate them and offer up new editions of the Greek New Testament .

So you know , the New Testament that we use , that , you know , at seminary there is always , there's , there's going to be , there's a new edition that comes around now , planning about every decade , and we've never really used this kind of digital technology before up until very recently , and so all all the manuscripts now are kind of going through this , and so

it's . It's really exciting , it's a really exciting time to be in the field . They just started the Matthew Project , so the Matthew manuscripts , and the first Corinthians project , and the Galatians project is underway and the Colossians project , and so the the project and the pastoral pistols , first , first as I can , timothy and Titus .

So there's a lot of exciting stuff going on right now .

Because you've got , say , 5800 manuscripts and it's one thing to take them and kind of eyeball them and kind of sift through them . But if you can , if you can transcribe them into a computer and then have the computer collate them and show you all the differences , they're going to pick up stuff you're going to miss .

Or like one of the what's , the one of the kind of procedure that's we're using right now is taking the digital transcriptions and comparing one manuscript to another and seeing what percentage of agreement they have in certain test passages , and that kind of helps facilitate , all right .

So when you've got two manuscripts that say the same thing but they only agree with each , you know , in this one place of interest , in this one place of variation , but they only agree with each other 70 percent , and the test passages maybe . Maybe two different scribes made the same mistake , right ?

So maybe they don't actually agree with each other in the way that we had hoped they did , or something . So so yeah , there's just . You know , the technology changes the way that we read it , and it's always been that way , always .

It's one thing to learn the Greek and the Hebrew . It's another thing to learn like how the Greek and the Hebrew New Testament came to be and the Old Testament came to be as we have it today . That's a whole nother level . Shout out to Gibbs and and Chloe and all these guys that have done the belts , that have done this over the years .

I mean , you kind of stand on the shoulders of many , many who have gone before that really , really care about deep biblical exegesis . How did that story come about ?

Then I started going to youth group at a Baptist church . And those guys were fantastic Good friends to this day , and they taught me to read the Bible in a way that I hadn't ever thought about before and I'll never forget .

One of them took me to an exhibit in St Pete , florida , right across the bay from Tampa , and it was an exhibit on the Dead Sea Scrolls and there was , I think , a traveling collection of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the guy that was there gave a presentation on them and from that point I was hooked .

I was 17 years old and I'd been reading my Bible , but something changed that day and I just started reading it . I would pick up a Bible and read it and then buy another Bible and read that one , just one translation to the next . I started learning Hebrew . One of my neighbors was kind enough to tutor me in Hebrew , which was a blast .

I'd gone to a Jewish Community Center for Preschool and I had a lot of friends who were Jewish and went to their Bar Mitzvahs and loved hanging out with them , and so so , you know , doing this kind of Hebrew tutoring , some of them had , you know , maybe gone to , you know , we knew people would go on to Hebrew school and and we had nothing like that , you

know , and you know , in the LCMS I didn't . We didn't have a Greek school or a Hebrew school or anything like that , and so I thought , well , I can , I can learn Hebrew , and so I started learning it .

And then I went off to college and decided to major in Judaic studies and I really wanted to get a good sense of the Hebrew Bible , the Old Testament , and also a sense of what what the world was like around the Mediterranean in the first century AD . Now , I didn't really get that there .

I did learn about the Hebrew Bible , but I also learned a lot about Midrashic Judaism , rabbinic Judaism , from like the second to the seventh century AD , and I took a lot of classes in anthropology and Greek and Roman history and church history . And I mean it was .

It was a very insightful time for me and I , as a part of the Judaic studies program , you had to take modern Hebrew . So I took two years of modern Hebrew and between my first two years , that first summer they actually had a fully funded they could fully fund a student and I was a student of the Jewish , jewish Jewish program .

They could fully fund a student to go to Jerusalem for a summer and do the Jerusalem O'Pon , which is an immersion program at Hebrew University . So I studied there for five weeks every single day for six hours a day , modern Hebrew immersion at the Frank Sinatra International Center .

Apparently he was a big donor and I've got a picture of that , his name in English and in Hebrew and and so so , yeah , I mean , it was a very exciting time for me .

I , I , I had studied Latin in high school and so I took a few Latin classes when I was in college too , and now I teach it and and so , yeah , then that was that , was that really I knew that I wanted to study theology , but even more specifically historical theology , and , if I could , manuscripts , biblical manuscripts but at that time it was Old Testament

manuscripts , because I didn't really know anything else . That was that , was that really got me into the academic stuff and kind of the archaeology , archaeology of it .

At the same time , I was , I was , I was highly influenced by my campus pastors at the University of Florida and they were , you know , they , I , it was , you know , in Missouri Synod Lutheran Church and I , I was very active and I loved being there at First Lutheran Church of Gainesville and they encouraged me . They encouraged me in my studies .

They encouraged me in the program that I was in and in my faith and they , after going to Jerusalem for a summer , they encouraged me to try going other places . So I did , and so I ended up spending a summer in Uganda and spending a summer in Panama . The first was with LCMAS World Mission .

I just kind of went over there and met with the missionaries there , with whom I'm still friends to this day and Jake Gillard and Shaolin Trump were there at the time . And the next summer I went to Panama with Calms , central American Lutheran Mission Society , and I was immersed in Spanish there . I lived with an all Spanish-speaking family . It was wonderful .

They were very gracious hosts to me .

But doing those things and then also leading Bible studies and working with the campus ministry , which I was probably leading two or three Bible studies a week at that time in my last few years of college , it really my pastors kind of put this bug into my ear of you know , asking have you thought about going to seminary ? Because at that time I had my goal .

I wasn't thinking of going to seminary . I would have gone to I don't know , I would have applied to University of Chicago or something to study historical theology or , you know , manuscripts or something like that . And so so I ended up applying to Concordia Seminary , st Louis , and going there , which was thankful that I did .

It was a wonderful , I would say , four years , but it was longer than four years . I did my first two years like normal and I'd come in with Hebrew and had to , you know , take their Greek class here at the seminary . And then I had another opportunity to go overseas .

So my then fiancee and I had discussed going to , you know , spending the year in Germany after we got married . And that's what we did .

We got married and a few months later moved to Oberussel , germany , to study at the Lutheran Church of Germany , the Schelzstange , the Evangelische Lutheran Church of Kirch the Zelch , and so we were there for a year , which was wonderful . While we were there , our exegetes actually came over there for a colloquium , an exegetical colloquium .

I didn't even realize they were coming , and at the time , you know , we had studied German . And now I'm learning German by immersion and in classes , and I have one class in December . We got there in August and December to give a presentation in German .

So it was kind of , you know , it was like what I did in Jerusalem , but much longer and much more immersion . And anyway they came over and it was

wonderful . You know I saw some of the guys that you mentioned . You know I remember running into Robby , paul Robby and Tim Celeste on the street , david Adams , and they said , what are you doing here ? And I said I'm going to the grocery store . What are you doing here , you know ?

And anyway , while we were there , jeff Kloh , who was a professor at the University of Jerusalem , who was the provost at the time , gave this paper . That was it was kind of a critique or a review of the new Nestle Allant Greek New Testament that had just come out a few years prior , nestle Allant , edition 28 . And gosh , that presentation . I was galvanized .

I had never really spoken to him prior to that At least I don't think I did and I went up to him and I said I want that's what I want to do , I want to , I want to work on New Testament manuscripts , and so that's what got me in to that . And he got me set up .

When we went to , came back to my vicarage in Virginia , fairfax , virginia , and he was giving me reading material at the time came back to St Louis and he got me a transcribing manuscripts for the International Greek New Testament project , the Museum of the Bible , or the not yet Museum of the Bible , the Green Collection .

They had had a program where they were taking graduate students and getting them transcribing manuscripts and now that project is funny that that project is the Paul project .

It's on 1 Timothy , 2 Timothy and Titus , and that's that's now finally coming to a conclusion and they've invited me to come speak at their conference in June in 2025 , because I was one of their transcribers as a student and I finished up my my time there .

I took an extra year for the STM and I studied a manuscript , a bilingual manuscript called Codex Bernarionis Latin and Greek . It's very , very unique . And then it's got a Greek text and then a Latin word , basically word for word , latin over the Greek . That's not .

There's only two other manuscripts like it and they're not of Paul's letters and this one is of Paul's letters and so I did my project on that and at the same time I you know I've got that 2017 , then I took a call out to Maryland and so I took my call , started writing my thesis in the same year and at that same time , Concordia Seminary , they had a

lot of graduate students who had to pass their past competency exams in different languages , like German and Latin , and I was tutoring them , tutoring a lot of them while I was on campus in German and Latin and Greek and Hebrew , and they asked me to teach a class online for them .

So I started teaching German and then the next year it went well , so the next year I started teaching Latin , and so I've been doing that for them ever since as well . So there's a lot yeah .

They're like you know , because we're , we're talking about you know some of our tests we're running right now in pastoral formation and trying to raise up local biblocational co-vocational leaders and things like that . What would you say to a guy who has a little bit of kind of apostolic influence over a number of different ?

They may not be young leaders , but they're young in terms of their exegetical understanding . What would you say to them in terms of how they develop that love and respect for the original language is the scripture and why that's so , so important for those that are heading into being proclaimers of the word Alec ? What would you say to them ?

But knowing , knowing kind of where that came from and the long tradition that came from , that there are these artifacts in the church that they've been around for hundreds , not you know , over a thousand years , you know , I think of like a codex Ceneidicus , which is up in the British Library right now , or codex Vaticanus , which is in the Vatican Library from

the fourth century AD , and in papyri that are held in Oxford , or by the Egyptian Exploitation Society that go back to the second century AD . And I think it's easy . I think it's easy for us to get into the mindset that there's kind of only the here and now and there's only ever been the here and now .

And so why not just kind of read my Bible in English and kind of whatever it says ? That's , you know , that's kind of good enough and I think , I think that it is for most people If you're a teacher and you are , you're teaching the Bible .

I think kind of getting that historical glimpse or having an appreciation for where it came from is really important and therefore actually kind of knowing , knowing what the words say . I'll give you an example .

It's like if someone came to me and told me they were Shakespeare expert and let's say we weren't here , we were in France , and I said , okay , well , do you know English ? And they said , well , no , I read Shakespeare in French . I would say that's great , but I kind of want someone who can read Shakespeare in English .

You know , I could say the same thing , you know , if someone came to me and said they were a Goethe expert and they only read Goethe in English and not in German . You know , I mean , there's , I think it's an important bit and I think there is . You know , anyone can take a Bible and sit down and read it in their own language . I mean that it's pretty .

That itself is incredible , but there are some things that are ambiguous in English , that aren't ambiguous in Greek or Hebrew .

You know , it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first , and though my condition was a trial to you , you did not scorn or despise me , but receive me as an angel of God , as Christ Jesus . This might not be a perfect example , I think it's good enough , so you could .

If you're teaching or preaching on this text , you could probably walk away from this and have two different mindsets . How do you read that ? Is it you did not scorn me or despise me , but receive me as an angel of God , as Christ Jesus ? That is , as you received an angel of God or as you received Christ Jesus .

Or is it as you receive me , as an angel would receive me , or Christ Jesus would receive me ? Hmm , I mean , in English it's kind of ambiguous , it is but the Greek tells us how to rightly .

So it's very clear in Greek that you would receive me as you would receive an angel of God , as you would receive Christ Jesus , Right . So I mean in English , it's kind of ambiguous as a messenger .

of Jesus ?

But then again it's kind of hard because if you don't know how the language functions , you could also , you might just be better off with ESV you know , let the translation experts kind of take you there . I mean , that's another mistake , you know .

people that , if you're , if you're thinking about it , um , uh , to to start just trying to learn the language , like the basics of the language . If it's something , I mean , it's kind of like language , is it ? It's not like a one and done kind of thing . You know , competency is one that you get , you get better at it as time goes on .

You know you can't learn , you can't learn a language in just a few weeks and think you know the language . Language is something that takes a lot of time to actually learn and , um , I think it's .

You know , I would encourage someone to to pick up a and there's a lot of tools for , for , for people who are , you know , just starting out and just wanting to learn the language there . Uh , if you , if you kind of know a little bit of the language , there are , uh , greek readers out there

where you can have a whole new Testament in Greek , and then the difficult words or , can you know , grammatical constructions are there in the notes . Um , but I would , I would just I would suggest kind of making a leap to try to learn the language .

I would almost rather that then then going into logos and kind of , you know , trying to decipher something that you might not come out . You might not come out with something very good , even if you think it is yeah , no .

We've got a lot of lay lay folks , as well as those that are training with Luther house and beyond , who are in on on those classes right now . Alec , would you recommend I mean that's a great primer right To enter into the language with Mark ?

Just sit with someone and just kind of try to learn the language . Um , I've got a few guys in my circuit and kind of beyond uh , that I've been doing Greek with for the last 10 weeks or so and it's been really amazing .

Um , these , these are pastors who went through the SMP program , specific ministry pastor program , and , um , you know , greek is not a part of their program , but they want to learn Greek .

So we're we're doing Greek , um , and and it's it's better than trying to kind of pick apart the language through a program , because now they can sit there and so what they've , what they've done , is they've got their basic grammar books and I've also told them to get the Greek reader so they can go through the Greek reader and they can .

They're starting over the last 10 weeks Now they can read more and more , uh , and they've got their helps below , uh , for vocabulary and grammar . Um , but they get excited about it .

See , it's exciting when you can actually pick , not just look at it on a computer or something , but when you can pick up a Bible in Greek and read like half a verse , even like that's exciting .

Yeah , you know , I , and I think if if people saw that or had that experience more than they would , they would uh see that there's a there's a whole , there's a whole other world of , of biblical language out there , uh , that that opens up the Bible in a way that they never saw it before . Manuscripts , or what did that ? From me , you know ?

Do they have things like Duolingo or stuff where you can go in there and actually be able to learn some of these ancient languages , hebrew and Greek ?

Yeah , and it's not going to be exactly I mean , you'll have to take a book then and learn a little bit of extra stuff for Ancient Hebrew , but it's pretty darn close , okay . So yeah , I would highly recommend it . Hebrew does not have a whole lot of words in it . It scares people because the characters yeah , they don't look like anything . That's right .

But once you get past that it's a very accessible language because there isn't there's not a whole lot of vocabulary words in it . So so yeah , you can do that . Greek might be a little more difficult . There is a movement I know of of Learning kind of Greek and Latin .

It's kind of a it's from the classics side of things , learning Greek and Latin Not just by reading it but by speaking it . That's kind of been picking up . I don't know , I can't name off dot my head any programs , what they're out there . I know because David Maxwell at Gordy Seminary has been kind of playing around with those things .

We need people Well , not me , but we need to do this .

You know and you realize that that the way some of these you know gospel writers , the way that the writing is really incredible .

I remember Jim Veltz likes to make the point and he's right about this you know , and like the gospel of Luke or the gospel of Mark , when , when Jesus is up in Galilee , he's kind of talking like he's in more of a rural area and the language Everyone's kind of talking that way .

And then when he gets into Jerusalem and is talking with , kind of the elites , the language is elevated to more of a classical style . You know , and and there's it's , you know , in English we would be able to detect it immediately . Yeah , we would be able to detect it immediately .

We think this is a kind of a King James thing . We , we like the variety of our vocabulary . We , you know , we've got a German vocabulary and a Latin vocabulary in a French vocabulary which is still kind of a Latin vocabulary , and a Greek vocabulary .

But you know it's , it's one thing to call something Kingly versus royal or regal right , those are all the same word , just different languages . Or or , you know , water sports versus aquatics . You know there . So we loved it . We love to keep variety . But let's say , in Hebrew there isn't that kind of variety .

So in the Old Testament , when you're reading and you're reading all this great English variety in the language , and you realize that the writer is using the same word over and over and over again and English keeps giving it a new word , hey , maybe that word is actually kind of important and maybe you would be good to translate that word the same way over and

over again , and we just don't really do that . But you wouldn't see it if you , if you didn't read it in Hebrew , you know ah , alec , this is I'm gonna pivot to another because we can talk about here .

that even is still maybe coloring some of our disagreements today . Alec , any thoughts there ?

One of the one of the easy ways to kind of Keep that difference kind of in check is that lower criticism deals with this , like the , the stuff that's actually there . So grammar , you can look at the , you can look at the words on the page , grammars .

A part of lower criticism my , my bit and textual criticism I know it's got that word in it , but Is you can pick up these actual physical manuscripts and you're actually dealing with the physical manuscripts that are there , that

you're in the room with . Okay , so you're dealing with actual artifacts . Higher criticism is much more theoretical and you're trying to reconstruct the worlds based on the text that you're looking at and you're really trying to kind of look past the text and and and .

So at the University of Florida we would , we did this in my Hebrew Bible literature classes where we get to , you know , we , we would learn about the different Theoretical sources that would made up the Torah , the . You know , some people worshiped Yahweh as God . So the way that they write about things is gonna , they're gonna , they're gonna use the name Yahweh .

Other other , you know other group , and Canaan wrote about things . You know they had Elohim as their God and so that when they wrote about things they would use the name L or Elohim . And an Elohim was much more transcendent and and kind of , you know , distant than Yahweh . He was much more imminent and dealt with people In a more straightforward manner .

And and then you had the , the priestly cast , and they were the priests would , they cared about Numbers and calendars and seasons and all that stuff related to the , the tabernacle . Then you had the , the Deuteronomical source , who basically wrote Deuteronomy and and kind of pulled it all together .

And then you had a redacted that brought it all together and go to five books . So that that's the theory and it's all . It's all completely theoretical , right , and so I think I was as we , what , what ?

speculative yeah , and so and so , in our classes we would get a sheet of paper on , let's say , the exam , and it would be , it would be , you know , god tells Moses to do something , and then Moses reiterates the instructions to the people of Israel , and and one would say why ? Like Yahweh's or J ?

And the other one would say E for Ellis or Ella , you know , elois or Elohim , an e source . And we'd have to , in the exam , say why this is a J source and why this was an e source . And that was the exam .

And so what I would do , as I would , I would tell , I would say exactly what , what it was supposed to be , you know , you know , give all the description . And then I forget . I did this one time . I crossed out on the top , it was like a , I think it was a , the J , and I said God said .

And then I crossed out the E and said Moses said , and I was doing , I was doing narrative work without even realizing it . I got a hundred on the exam right , because I could tell the differences . But at the same time my professor didn't care that I , I didn't , I wasn't up for the speculation . So I did that all that all the way through college .

I kind of dealt with that and you know I , I know that , I know that the Missouri Synod had us , had a , had a very difficult time . I'm engaging all of that .

My personal experience was , you know I , well , I knew the Bible and I and I was , and you know I believed in Jesus and so when I was , when I was given these things it , you know I just it was kind of for me it was almost like a , a new task or a new way to engage . So I actually had a lot of fun doing that .

I'm , I'm , when I'm teaching from the Old Testament , I care about , I care , I care about the fact that these are real people and that these are these real people are going through something and I want to see kind Of how , how they deal with it and how God deals with them .

So so , yeah , so that that you know I I did a higher criticism enough to know that I'm not a higher critic , but it was interesting to me because I didn't know anything about it .

In the Missouri Synod , before going to seminary , I think , I raised my hand one time in class and asked don't some scholar and I want to sound smart don't some scholars think that this is a J source ? And and that fellow student is just they went after me and I had no idea why . I had no idea and and I was kind of joking , but they .

But then I learned all about the Missouri Synod and the walkout and and all that stuff and and I thought oh wow , there's some baggage here , I want to be careful around you know how to joke around , y'all .

I mean you got people that , like I don't do source criticism , but I know that there are people that do source criticism and some will say , well , this kind of proves that this is all nonsense , and then some you'll have are otherwise very faith and the likes of Jeets and Christians . So there's definitely a spectrum there .

So , yeah , you might have someone say , well , here's an example . All right , jerob , when the monarchy falls in Israel or it divides , and Jeroboam sets up his new temples Remember the people making King ? This is after Rehoboam . Solomon's son kind of messes things up and there's a little too little too into himself here and he gets the people upset with them .

All . The North leaves , they abandoned Judah , and Jeroboam becomes . He was a political rival of King Solomon . Jeroboam is made the king of the North and what he says

is he sets up a temple in the North and in the south of his territory and he builds a golden calf for each one and he says to the people these are the gods that brought you up out of the land of Egypt .

Okay , well , you'll have someone who's , let's say , a higher critic , who will say well , you know , you might ask the question in Exodus , when Aaron , when he makes one golden calf and says these are the gods that brought you up out of the land of Egypt , you might ask why is he saying these instead of this , why is it plural ?

And they would say that the whole story with Aaron and Moses is all kind of made up during the monarchy and it's pro-Juda , okay , and so what they're doing is they're taking the words of Jeroboam and they're putting them in the mouth of Aaron and painting Aaron as someone who leads Israel astray and therefore Jeroboam is someone who leads Israel astray .

Right , it's like political propaganda , okay , so things like that , you know , and I I mean , and you can read and see , well , yeah , I mean , a lot of the Old Testament is pro-Juda , but it just is because of the nature of it all .

But , yeah , that doesn't do a whole lot in helping people believe that God brought his people up out of the land of Egypt and saved them , which is the way that they recognize him throughout all the Old Testament , right ?

So a New Testament version would be something like there's a source that we don't know , it's called Q , and you can go in and see all of the word for word parallels between Matthew , mark and Luke , and they said , well , that came from an independent source prior and it might be used to undermine the authorship of Matthew , mark and Luke right Now .

That being said , what I've learned , what I learned in my , you know , in classes with this stuff , is that some of the people that are doing this are very good with the text and they know the text very well , and I think that one of our issues when we kind of look at that and are maybe scared by it is , I think , rightfully so .

We don't want to undermine the text and it has been used that way , but I think there we've got a sense of insecurity that it forces us to recognize that we maybe don't know the text as well as we think we do or should , and so by not engaging it .

I think it's an act of fear in a lot of ways , because if you've got someone who can point out details and quote Jeroboam and say that he's you know , saying that you know this is the same thing that Aaron said , like I've never heard any . I've never heard that comparison made in a church . I mean , that's a pretty careful reading of the text .

I heard that in a secular Old Testament classroom , so I think that's important for us .

I mean , we were , we were products of this church body , gone through our seminaries , I went through Concordia , seward , nebraska , and , you know , had amazing , amazing professors , so , so blessed .

And yet I lament , and part of the reason why the ULC exists in this podcast exists is just , I lament the way we treat one another and don't recognize the gifting , the very gifts that are within the body of Christ .

And what are some of your primary hopes for the Lutheran Church of Missouri Synod , especially as it relates to we're not fighting over the Bible right now . Alec no one's having big , higher critical . Those are not the issues we're dealing with today . I think it's way more sociology than this theology , but love to get your take on it .

I have been , and you know it's funny because I spent four years of my life pushing back against higher criticism .

Right , it's very ironic for me and , yeah , I think that if there was more of a , if we weren't afraid to engage the Bible better , I think that's what we need to do Engage the Bible better than we are right now and actually read it in its original languages and make that something that's actually important for us .

You know , as far as the way that we interact with people , I think that if we were more confident in our reading and own biblical literacy , then we probably wouldn't attack people the way that we see in the Missouri Senate .

Well , because I think that if we have a reading of the text and or , I'm sorry , if when you open up the Bible you read things that you don't normally hear in a church , I mean , you just don't you just , oh , you open up , you read from the Catholic epistles , you read from a lot of Paul and you hear phrases and things that you just don't typically hear

in Missouri Senate churches , and I think that scares people and I think it scares even pastors . And if we did read those things and encounter those things regularly , they wouldn't scare us .

And so when someone used the phrase that we're not familiar with , or talked about the Bible in a certain way that we're not familiar with , then we would be more , we would approach it more with a spirit of humility and intrigue and curiosity than with fear .

If people knew more about the biblical manuscripts , had any idea about our biblical manuscripts , then they would look at kind of what I do , I think , and be very curious , rather than kind of hold someone like me at arm's length , which has happened . So again , I think it's just

a matter of knowing what we've got in the Bible and the tradition of the transmission of the Bible . But if we can't do that , then all it's gonna be is add hominem attacks and kind of push anyone who does that away .

And the easiest way to do it is not dealing with the actual content , because you actually have to know something in order to deal with the content , but just making someone out to be a 1960s or 1970s liberal or something from a bygone day in the Missouri Senate .

But just reading the love that Paul has for these Corinthians and how he's kind of talked in a way that's got , that's got them upset and is now trying to smooth everything over the tightest , the way that he exegetes Exodus there and talking about the veil and the kind of the everlasting covenant with the spirit .

Right now I'm actually and for Advent , our series here is we're actually talking about apocalyptic literature where we're reading the minor prophets which when do we ever talk about the minor prophets , you know , maybe Joel too for Pentecost or something , and talking about why apocalyptic literature even existed and then opens up the whole book of Revelation for us .

But yeah , I think that there's a lot that we can do in that way . And also transparency , even at the higher levels . So , yeah , I mean , tim , you had mentioned Cordia Seward , I was up for a position there .

I mean not that you know they were going to extend a call to me for assistant professor there and you know maybe we would have prayerfully , you know considered the call but that was shot down immediately with no reason given . You know , it's like there with no conversation .

And if we had more , if we had a , if we cared more about conversing with each other and getting to know the , the biblical text , I think a lot of that would just kind of go away , because we'd realized that the people that we thought were threats might actually be your biggest ally .

Because because you , we need people who know the Bible and we need people who know the Bible who want to talk positively about it . And you know it's one thing to talk positively . We do a lot of talking about the Bible in the misery Senate .

Hey , and if we knew it better and talk positively about it , then if we'd be better off , then taught we just like , when we talk about it and then we hear something that we don't like that's actually from the Bible , then we , we kind of cave in on ourselves . So so , yeah , I think I think that would go a long ways because we wouldn't .

You know , when you're , when you become insecure about something , that's when you start attacking people and you start kind of circling the wagons and you , you act from a fearful posture .

One of my , one of my buddies likes to point out that my one of the things that I like to say a lot , as we operate with a Hermitic of fear , and if we , if we weren't so insecure about the biblical text and we would engage it more and wouldn't be afraid when others engage it too , you know , would be excited about it .

I imagine I did about it my my Bible study .

We should be able to read second Kings and be excited about it and understand , you know what , what's going on with a Syria in Babylon and Seeing , seeing , you know ourselves in this world today where we know we live in that something .

We live in a chaotic world with all kinds of different narratives and the biblical narrative is , is God's narrative , it's the creator's way of of , of talking about the world .

And If , if we could , you know , cling to that and and see ourselves as a part of his narrative , then a lot of that other stuff kind of we become resilient and yes , and and and we trust it , that that Jesus Christ has defeated death as defeated sin for us and is returning and making all things new For us and therefore we can live our lives as Christians .

I'm afraid of whatever's going on around us , because our narrative is is the narrative of the way things are .

And so , for those who do not cross into other different areas and contexts , and With with curiosity rather than condemnation , for those who are in leadership roles that live by lists rather than living by Curiosity and care for the wider body of Christ , this is a call , this is a call for you toward repentance and change in the name of Jesus , for the sake of

the movement of the , the gospel of Jesus Christ , because we are united under the cross of Christ , and I don't know anybody that could listen to you talk or anybody that could listen to you speak that says one You're not a Lutheran exegete , you're a Christian exegete . You're a conservative follower of Jesus .

Yeah , deeply loves , who deeply loves the word of God and wants to seek out the riches , mind , the riches of it in its Original language . And we need more Alec fishers to be bold . I step in into this . I'm proud of you , bro . Keep doing what you're doing .

We need , we need you , we need your , your , the depth of knowledge that you have to keep us tethered to the one grand narrative that you were referring to at the end . That's what it's about man , from creation to recreation .

The days are short , and the time is too short for us to backbite at one another or fear when the perfect love of God casts out all fear . We know who's we are , we know who wins , and so let's go , man . Let's be united in mission Jack . Any closing comments on the conversation ? It's been fun .

Right , we don't need to hold things so tightly and be afraid , and you know , one of the things that I'm learning is I don't have to defend God . God can defend himself . He doesn't need me to defend him . Right , he's way better at defending himself than I am being his defender , and so let the scripture speak for itself .

You know , and and not not feel anxious when , when somebody may be misunderstand something , or maybe there's something I don't understand properly , or maybe I'm . You know , we're talking past each other on a specific topic . If we can just be calm and be trusting in God as we go into these Conversations , I think we're just way healthier for it .

You all see podcasts like lead time this is lead time or the American Reformation podcast , and we continue to have wonderful guests like Alex who stretch us , especially in lead time . That stretches that challenge us , that yearn for the Lutheran Church Missouri Senate to be united in mission through Word and sacrament to make Jesus known . It's a good day .

Go and make it a great day . Thanks so much , alec . Thanks so much Jack . Yeah , thank you guys .

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