See, oftentimes what we see is quite the opposite. We see Christian community that is angry at culture, and there and is actually taking on that same posturing that we see in culture and waging war against culture, rather than focusing on what it means to be the people of God and Christ that embody the light and the hope of God.
Hello, and welcome to the shifting culture podcast in which we have conversations about the culture we create, and the impact we can make. We longed to see the body of Christ look like Jesus. I'm your host, Joshua Johnson, our show is powered by you, the listener, if you want to support the work that we do get early access to episodes, Episode guides, and more go to patreon.com/shifting culture to become a monthly patron, so that we can continue in this
important work. And don't forget to hit the Follow button on your favorite podcasts app to be notified when new episodes come out each week, and go leave a rating and review. It's easy, it only takes a second. And it helps us find new listeners to the show. Just go to the Show page on the app that you're using right now and hit five stars. It really is that easy. Thank you so much. You know what else would help us out? share this podcast with your friends, your family, your network, tell
them how much you enjoy it. Let them know that they should be listening as well. If you are new here, welcome. If you want to dig deeper find us on social media at shifting culture podcast, where I post video clips and quotes and interact with all of you. Previous guests on the show have included rich politis Sharon hottie Miller and Steve Carter. You'd go back listen to those episodes and more. But today's guest is Tara
Beth Leach. Tara Beth leach is a pastor, author and speaker, the senior pastor at Good Shepherd church in Naperville, Illinois. She has also served communities in the Chicago suburbs as well as southern California. As the author of emboldened radiant church and 40 days of being a sixth that co founder of propel Ecclesia and CO hosts of the pastors table podcast, Tara Beth writes and speaks widely about women in ministry and church
leadership. She has two beautiful and rambunctious sons and has been married to the love of her life Jeff since 2006. In this conversation, Turb athlete shares her personal journey of discovering a deeper relationship with Jesus as a teenager moving beyond a cultural Christianity to truly affirming her faith. She emphasizes the importance of living in Christian community and bearing witness to the love and grace of God, rather than just fighting against culture.
Tara Beth also discusses the challenges faced by the early church, as described in John's letters, and how they relate to divisions and strife in the church today. She highlights the need to cultivate the fruit of the Spirit through practices like abiding in Christ following a Rule of Life, and discerning truth through a Jesus centered
lens. Ultimately, terrible issues a call to the church to returns the radian teachings of Jesus, and repent of any posturing or baggage that has caused the church to lose its witness in the world. This is a powerful and a timely message for the church today, as we seek to be a light in the darkness and embody the love and grace of Christ. So join us as we learn to live in the light. Here is my conversation with Tara Beth Leach, and Sarah bath. Welcome to shifting culture. Thank you
so much for joining me. I'm really excited to have you on.
Hey, thanks for having me, Joshua. So good to be here. Yeah,
this, this new study that you have on the letters with John, one of the things that you start out in as helping people like behold the radiant Jesus getting to know Jesus, the radiant King. Tell me how you got to know Jesus, the radiant King and who Jesus is for you. Yeah.
So I grew up as a cultural Christian. In a very cultural Christian family, and a Lutheran church and I was baptized Lutheran. I was confirmed Lutheran, but I don't think I really affirmed my baptism and acknowledge just that grace in my life until I was 16 years old. I was in a school where there were a lot, a lot, a lot of really just vibrant Christians. I grew up in Bourbonnais, Illinois, which is also the same town as Olivet, Nazarene University, big
Christian University. And so in my high school, there were a lot of kids whose parents were missionaries prefer sirs, and pastors. And they would often talk about God in ways that I had never heard before. They would talk about God in ways as if they knew God, and they actually heard from God. And that was so weird to me. Frankly, I thought they were weird. But at the same time, I
also wanted what they had. And so I thought, well, if I'm going to understand what they're talking about, if I'm going to want what they have, maybe I should just start by reading my Bible. And I grabbed my leather green Bible that my German Lutheran grandmother had given me on the day of my confirmation, and I decided I was going to read it for the first time ever. And I began to plow through Genesis and Exodus, which was so exciting, Leviticus, the numbers was a
little rough. You know, and then by the time I got to the Gospels, I really started to fall in love with Jesus, I was so amazed at the ways that Jesus was loving and gracious to the very people in society that the religious leaders thought he shouldn't be gracious and loving to them. In fact, he shouldn't even be near them. I remember leading, I remember reading in the Gospel of Luke, when Jesus finds this widow, who is grieving because of her feud, her son's funeral. And he meets
her there. And it says that his heart went out to her. And that just stopped me in my tracks for some reason. I was a teenager that was also going through a lot in life. Although I couldn't articulate it, then it was years of therapy later that I was able to realize how there was some serious stuff happening in my life. And I thought, Wait, does Jesus heaven, have compassion on people like real compassion? Does that mean he has compassion
on me? And then I got to the story of the cross, and I thought, you're we have this wildly compassionate guy who now is being crucified that makes no sense to me. And I was angry, I was confused and have any sort of theology of atonement, or any sort of atonement theology was just so weird to me. Even reading like the Passover, and Exodus, I was like, what, what kill baby boys like why, like,
this makes no sense. And, but at the same time, even though I couldn't comprehend it, something struck me that day, when I was reading, and I got down on my knees next to my bed. And I put my palms up in a posture of surrender, no one told me to do that just felt right in my body to do that. And I started to say, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus. Thank You, Jesus, with tears streaming down my face on to my Bible, and
was just weeping. And although the words Yes, Jesus, or although the words, floored, come into my heart did not come out of my mouth that day. That's what happened. I affirmed my baptism, I affirm the grace of God in my life, I affirmed the presence of the Holy Spirit that was willing my heart and turning my heart towards Jesus. And I gave my life to Jesus in new ways, then, and ever since then, I've had a profound love for
scripture. And I'm discovering Jesus and Scripture, the radiant King, and I'm always blown away.
I'm just thinking about your your story of being confirmed and Lutheran Church baptized. And then as you're reading scripture, you're actually discovering the love and compassion, the grace and the, the life that he gives for you. What was the what's the difference, then? Like your difference between like, the confirmation process of you walking through something, and then you receiving something from Jesus? In your room?
Yeah. You know, it's so. So I also happen to be a pastor of a Lutheran church. And, you know, we just confirmed some 50 kids not too long ago, and, and so I really, really believe and the confirmation process. I think, for me, I didn't, I couldn't comprehend it, you know, the words that were coming out of my mouth on the day of my confirmation, the journey to it, it just felt like
a check off the box. And, you know, and at the same time, you know, Scot McKnight talks about the million gentle nods of the soul. I do think that that was a gentle nod of the soul. Even though in many ways there were wrote words and things I had to memorize and things I had to say and had to show up every Saturday morning and then I had to stand in front of the church and it just been so I you know, I think that was a beautiful Ecclesia theological moment for me, but I didn't really affirm
it. Like I didn't really confirm my faith until 16. Then
what does that look like for us then to bear witness to the kingdom of God, in culture with people, as you starting to realize that, you know, we're receiving God's Love Where You know, and that we can, like, confirm our baptism, we can confirm whatever, but it's the love of God for us, and that we can then in turn love our neighbor. Well, what does that bearing witness look like in the world?
Yeah, you know, to bear witness first, I mean, it begins in the church as the people of God, to confirm to one another, the gifts that we see in each other, to confirm one another, the Holy Spirit that we see. And this is why I believe so much in this Sunday morning gathering. This is why I believe so much in doing life and Christian community. This is why I believe so much and being in meaningful, lifelong relationships with brothers and sisters in Christ because I
can't bear witness alone. I need other and you know, even my journey towards that affirmation, it was because other people were bearing witness to the love of God, they were bearing witness to Jesus and their life, and it took other people coming alongside. And similarly, you know, to bear witness to the love of God, we need one another, we need one another. To tell that story, we need one another to say, I was in the valleys I was I was in just the depths of pain, and God
scooped me up. And for others who here that who might be in the valley and the depths of pain, I desperately want to be scooped up by God, or cared by God or nurture by God, and don't know what's possible until they hear someone else are witness to that, to say that. And so It's life on life, it's natural life.
That's a beautiful place to be to be able to bear witness with one another, in Christ to be in community with others. But sometimes, like, sometimes our culture and our community ends up in strife and ends up in conflict and difficulty. There's all sorts of ways that we go down wrong paths. You know, I'd love to get into some of these, the the letters that John Rhodes, and he's dealing with a lot of, you know, church issues,
community issues. And if you know, we are the ones to bear witness to the Spirit of God and one another, that we need to be community. Can you set us up? Like, what is John trying to get us back to in what what is the predominant culture that is happening within these letters?
Yeah, well, lots has changed. since Pentecost, Allah has changed, you know, so some of these fledgling churches are now beginning to age a few years that that honeymoon stage is maybe a little bit over. And, you know, I think of much like, you know, the church that I pastor, like, we went through a honeymoon phase, and when honeymoon phases end, we start to realize, oh, like, we're real people, and we have real
problems to work through. And there was a lot of strife happening within the community because of out side influences and false teachers whom John calls Antichrist. And this began to decay away at the witness of the church. And so I think, you know, similarly, today the church is, is awfully prone to this kind of internal strife that pastors you know, I have another podcast called The pastor's table, and we interview pastors all the time who were talking about some of the pains
and the woes of pastoring. And John was experiencing as a church planter, as an apostle as a pastor as a teacher. He wanted to call this fledgling church that had been influenced by by false teachers that was causing division within the body. He wanted to call them to return to this radio witness because Radio One is because he understood
what was at stake. Right like he understood that without unity, that their witness would be built on a faulty, faulty, anemic Foundation, and that they would go from fledgling to decaying to losing that sense of Holy Spirit momentum, because they're not living into the fruits of the Spirit,
then, so if he wants us to live in that, in that unity, I mean, unity is not uniformity. It's not being the same. There's there's a diversity of viewpoints, there's a diversity of gifts, how do we live in unity, and celebrate the diversity of our perspectives and gifts that Jesus has given us? It will, man
Well, it takes a whole lot of work, doesn't it? It takes a whole lot of work. And it takes a whole lot of allowing that Philippians chapter two, Jesus that we read about right in this incredible hymn of Paul, where he says that Jesus did not consider a quality with God is something to be grasped. But he took on the form of a servant. We forget that. Especially in I mean, things are
so polarized right now. Right, there's a doubling down and culture there is a digging in there is enemy making machines, because we are taking a command and control posture about things that yeah, we value. But we have lost the art of charitable, charitable discourse, which, like we happen to have the key to doing charitable discourse. It's called the Holy Spirit, the living God, the fruits of the Spirit, charitable discourse, what are the fruits of that? The Holy Spirit? Well, it's loving.
And it's joyful, and it's kind. And it's good, and it's full of grace. And it's full of fidelity
to one another. Because you know, that when you are conversing over sticky issues, that something that you might even disagree about, there's fidelity, because you're looking at that person and saying, Well, no matter what, I'm not going to leave you, no matter what, I'm not going to use violent words against you, no matter what, I'm not gonna throw you under the bus or slander you or gossip, you fidelity in this conversation, even though we are struggling to greet that's,
that's the type of unity that is not uniformity. It is birds from the Spirit of the Living God, which is why I like John and his letters, he has these remarkable contrast, walk in light, walk in love, don't live in darkness. He wants us to walk in the way of light. And just because we're walking in the way of light doesn't mean that we're uniform. But we're unified because of the Spirit of God is alive in us.
And there's love joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self control, and fidelity and faithfulness to one another, that worse, stuck together, no matter what. And divisions and churches, what we see today, often are completely void. Those things, like tell me any church division where you see the fruits of the Spirit. Man, yeah, that's just not happening. No,
we we need to get to the fruit of the Spirit and live out from that space. How do we, I mean, this is really easy to talk about, it's easy to say this is the way that we should be with one another. This is the way that we should live, we need the fruits of the spirit. It's another thing to actually put it into practice to actually walk alongside somebody where you don't like their perspective. And then But the fruit of the Spirit is coming
out. What what is, is there? I mean, there's no, I know that there is no magic formula to actually get the fruit of the Spirit besides making sure that the Holy Spirit is within us. Is there a way for us then to, to cultivate the fruit of the spirit within love
that? Absolutely. And I think John himself really helps us with that. As he recalls, Jesus's remarkable teaching, of abiding, of abiding in the vine and you know, I think of biting and Jesus is this idea of tethering right like we are just so tethered to Jesus and are coming
gyms and our goings. And in the morning when we rise, we are surrendering our lives to Jesus, and allowing the Holy Spirit, which is in fellowship with the Trinity, the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, as we are tethering, to chisel away at the hardness in our hearts to chisel away at the selfishness to
chisel away. And so, you know, of course, like we can talk about practices like self examination, we could talk about practices like prayer, we could talk about practices like reading scription, I think all of those are really important. And I think really like it's, you know, what's your what's your framework? What's your rule of life? What's your, what's your center by which you are going to choose to abide to tether yourself? Because for so many of us, it looks different,
right? Like some people are 4am risers and I have to read the Bible for him and pray or am and that's one way to tether yourself to Jesus. Others prefer to do it at 7am. No, but no, like it's so it's making a decision on how you're going to order your life, right, instead of haphazardly throwing ourselves to Jesus. And I think that's where so many of us go wrong, like we're just
haphazard. But we actually, like this idea of biting means that we are choosing to order our lives in such a way that we can walk in the path of this Tethering and this abiding.
Yeah, that's what I love, John 15. Because there he's taught talking in there about, you know, Jesus say, Abide in me and my love, and then you're going to obey my commands, you're going to actually put it into practice, right? And then later on, and Trump if he says, if if you do, obey my commands, if you do order your life around my teachings, and who I am, you will abide in My love, that it goes this this love and the way of Jesus, the the obeying, Jesus goes hand in hand, that is not
just one or the other. How does the abiding look like, like in an all of life process? Because a lot of times I think we think about abiding as I'm just gonna go and spend my time with Jesus, then I'll just live my life. After that. How is it an all of life process? Yeah.
Well, you know, again, then this is where I think rule of life is so so helpful, you know, rule of life is, you know, just this old image that we use, often with a trellis and a vine that if we were to grow a tomato plant, for example, it needs those support structures, the plant grows by the light, and the water, and this amazing thing that happens through nature. But we've put up these trellises, so that the vine actually has these support
systems. And when we think about a Rule of Life, we think, okay, I want to be an abiding Christian, I want to be a growing Christian, I want to live into what John tells us when he says that we ought to walk in the light live in the light that God is enlightened that if we really want fellowship with one another, we have to walk in the light, okay? So it's the light of God that creates his fellowship, it's a light of God that creates this unity, it's a light of God, that
creates these fruits. So we have to think about, okay, what are the structures that I need in my life? Okay, so for me personally, it is waking in the morning, and practice practicing prayer. And I practice something called Great morning, which stands for gratitude, reflection, exaltation, ask, and trust. And that is a time for me to reflect on my life and to begin with God and gratitude. But then there are other practices of reading scripture
in the morning as well. And then there are other practices of surrounding myself with accountability groups and women of God, that speak important to my life. And then there are other practices of nurturing my marriage of being sure that my husband and I go on a date every
other week, at least. And then there are other practices of ensuring that I'm gathering together in worship with people because there are some weeks where I am really struggling to have faith and I need the people of God to recall faith for me on my behalf, and to have faith for me. And so we need to think about like, how are we going to order like our lives on a day to day basis so that we can truly ABIDE and walk in the light of crisis John calls us?
I think a Rule of Life has been incredibly important in my life, the life of our community, in our church in the world if we tried to do a communal role life and you know, individual, we have, we have home churches We gather once a month corporately. And so we're trying to do like a corporate rule of life, like a whole home church rule of life and individual family rules, rules of life. Sometimes it gets a
little too convoluted. But it helps to say, Oh, this is how we, we want to order because it helps in the decision making process, then how does that then, like a communal rule of life? Or if everybody's having this rule of life, then how does that start to help with the strife of the church and the disagreements of the church, when we do have this way of saying we have committed to doing life this way?
Yeah, those kinds of covenants as a community are so important, because, you know, again, like, we're so quick to leave one another, were so quick to say me first, we're so quick to demonize and other people and place them in categories of, well, they're the villain, and I'm the victim. And so, you know, I think these rules of life can express himself in a
number of different ways. So for example, like churches might have a covenant that people make when they come in to membership, or a small group covenant and how that maybe more micro church is going to practice community together. Or it could be you know, cultural values, you know, that are established. And because we do need to always have something within community to point back to that's the ideal. Because if you don't, the culture in the world is pretty
strong. And we know that you know, the old adage that culture eats strategy for breakfast. Culture, eats holiness, for breakfast, Culture eats Krishna community for breakfast culture eats unity, for breakfast. And so if we don't have some sort of tele us, some sort of communal tell us of what the ideal embodiment of Christian community is, and we have nothing to point back to, when internal strife or disagreement start to happen.
Where does discernment take take place? You know, John, John's, working with false teachers with calls the Antichrist? They're trying to discern, like, some people can't discern, oh, this is a false teacher, and they're moving way off course, not being faithful to Christ. How, where does the sermon take place within the stripes? And how does the Holy Spirit help us discern what is happening behind the thing that is actually happening? Yep.
No, that's great. Yeah. So you know, first, I think we need to unpack Antichrist a little bit because, you know, in contexts where I've pastored, when we think of antichrist, we're like, is this next president, the Antichrist, and I grew up being terrified of the Antichrist, you know, my brothers would always scare me. And they'd say, Oh, well, don't you know, like, George Bush is
the Antichrist. And let me tell you six reasons why, you know, this matches up with the the book of Revelation and, you know, in some of that is a little bit of just kind of old dispensational theology that seeps into maybe pop Christian theology of your everyday ordinary teenager. But, you know, the Antichrist is not a single person, and the letters of John, it's not one person. In fact, he says, in multiple places that there's, there's more than one there's, there's
Antichrist. And so we have to break down the word a little bit like, it's anyone that is anti or anti theoretical to the ways of Jesus, right. And so within this passage, you know, or within the, these letters, there were people that were teaching, a framework of who Jesus was in this world that was such a far cry from actually who Jesus really was. And so discernment then within the community first has to happen with you know, is it elders? Is it the pastors, is
it a council? Is it a theological board, you know, like fast forwarding to today to the different structures? Well, and it has to be grounded in Scripture, right? It has to be grounded in so for me, I'm such a Bible person like and Joe Bible person, because the Bible is a place where we can discover the revelation of who God is in the person of Jesus. The Bible bears witness to this to the Word of God who is Jesus Jesus.
is the word. And so we've got to keep returning and pushing ourselves back to Scripture and to the to, to who Jesus says He is in Scripture. And the teachings of Jesus, you know, we, I think we often, you know, wonderful, how are you gonna make this decision? Well, who's Jesus? And how is the character of God revealed? And how is the character of God revealed in the life, the death, the resurrection and the ascension
of Jesus? And so, for me, like discernment happens with viewing like discrepancies or theological disputes through the lens of Jesus, it's a Jesus centered theology, discernment process.
I think we all I mean, like 100%, I love like Jesus lands, Jesus centered theology, and we need that. We also, for most people, like we have different lenses on and then even through our different lenses, then we're going to put on our Jesus lens, and then view it through Jesus. And so we have a, a, a strange perspective, or a different perspective than
actually what Jesus has. But we'll just place our Jesus lenses on top of our, our own biases or lenses that we have, how do we start to, to analyze the different lenses that I have put on that is not the Jesus lens that has something different, that I may be unaware of, like, I don't like is just an assumed, like an assumption of how the world works. And I'm not like overtly aware of my different lenses or biases that I have.
Yeah, boy, that's complex, isn't it? You know, because like, it's not as simple like, here's three easy steps to grow in awareness of, of, How's it different? Let you know, because I mean, there's so many would sell well, it would sell well. Yeah, you know what I mean, there's so many so much work out there, and how we impose our Western eyes and our western lens into Scripture. And how we impose I mean, how many times do we come to the Bible and say, Well, what does this
mean, for me right now? You know, and so we do need to return to just the honest and faithful work of exegesis and understanding that the Bible is a dynamic book, that the Bible is a complex book that the Bible had a very cultural context, and sociological context and political context, that when it was written, there were things going on. And so when we read through Scripture, we want to read it through through those different understandings that we can always project our cultural
situations on to Scripture. And so, you know, when it comes to a Jesus centered theology for me, my understanding of a Jesus centered theology is, isn't in line with the cross. Because we believe, as Jesus tells us, that if we want to know what God is like, we look to Jesus. And Jesus displays the fullness of the love of God on the cross, which then I believe that the cross totally epitomizes the
character of God. And so if we are projecting our built up images of Jesus into our own, like kind of idolatrous or framework images of Jesus, and to our theological discrepancies, and if it is contradictory to the way of the cross, that's a pretty good sign.
Hey, you, you're a Bible person. You're here you have the Bible that you want to get people to enter and and probably and read the Bible. This is a good Bible study that you're you have written as well, how then do you think that we should start to read the Bible? How does that help us within these different struggles as tribes living like, well, within our culture, how do we read the Bible? Yeah.
Well, and this is why I love Bible studies, because I'm a proponent of reading Bible, the Bible and community. Me You know, when I was young, and I read the Bible, it was awesome. And it was good and I was so not equipped to really understand, but by the grace of God, you know, I fell in love with Jesus and it was awesome. But every Your time I read Bible and community and read Scripture and community. And I and community for me isn't just like, meaning we have to
only read it in person. For me reading Bible in community also means that I am sourcing scholars that have gone before
me. You know, so for example, like, I love reading commentaries, I love learning from other Bible teachers, I love reading from biblical scholars who have held with like, in their hand, maybe as close to some of the original text as they could get, and, and they were there at some of the archaeological sites and, and they, you know, they've traveled Jerusalem, and they've traveled in the footsteps of Jesus and, and they have knowledge of things that I that I, you know,
maybe they've they've been in contact with the Dead Sea Scrolls and, you know, other sources, and that can help on Earth, some of those cultural phenomenons that were happening, that I don't have access to. And that's so important, because otherwise, I'm going to get into trouble when I start reading passages like women should wear
head coverings. Well, reading scripture and community means that we are looking at looking to other scholars and looking to other Bible readers to help us make sense of this to work this out in fear and trembling. But then also reading Bible and community does look like in that group setting where we're wrestling through the passages together, trying to make sense to it. of it, because you know, as I mentioned, like, Scripture
is just, it's dynamic. It's not clear it anytime I hear someone say the Bible is clear, I just shutter because usually when they're saying the Bible is clear about whatever, they're using it as a weapon, they're weaponizing, trying to prove a point. And it's a posturing of kind of posturing over someone well, don't you know, the Bible is clear, like, how do you not know that? How do you not know that I mean, the Bible is just not clear. The Bible is good. The Bible is holy, the Bible is
pure. The Bible has an a, in a story in my life, the Bible is foundational, but it's complex. And we can approach it lightly or flippantly. We can approach it, believing that or we can just open it and understand the context. It takes care. And it takes time.
So good. That's very helpful. Thank you, Tara bath. And, you know, one of the things that you do in your study here, as you you contrasts a bit of shame, and grace. And I think in communities, especially communities of strife, there could be a lot of a lot of shame, there could be a lot of of, and, you know, I worked with, I've worked with Muslims, for a lot. And so shame is a very communal thing. So if there's, you know, so if somebody has, has shamed the whole family, they try to
exercise it. And it's not just a muscle thing. It's actually just a culture of word Jesus was in the, in the gospels, it was a very honored ame. Culture. I mean, I, the very first honor killings in the Middle East were actually done by by cultural Christians, and not by Muslims, because it's just embedded within the culture. So what is the difference? How do we then not try to like say, Oh, you have have shamed this, and we just excise you, we just cut you off move? Where's that balance?
And how do we bring some grace to people to keep that that community alive and not like, cut off? People in the community cut off things to make us look better? Yeah,
you know, and that's, that's challenging. Well, okay. I shouldn't say that's, that's challenging. What I want to say is that cutting off is something that we see even in Western culture, with entire people groups, right. And so it may not necessarily be, you know, a cutting off of a direct neighbor of this person that I know that I'm in community with because oftentimes what we see is proximity makes that really hard
to do. Right like when we actually know someone and that makes it really hard to do. Where we see that most happening is these building of kind of like the straw Manns of the people group that we disagree with. And then we see people getting on social media and shadowboxing. These people groups that we have built up to be villains dangerous to, to our faith dangerous to our country, dangerous to and I say Americans because this is where I often
see it. You know, people talk about the decay of culture, the decay of culture is because of this generation or the decay of culture is because of this race or the decay of culture is because of this sexuality. Right, and we start shadowboxing and Christians and what they end up what ends up happening is they became become known. That's
their banner, right? Like, that's their, their battle cry, like we need to be in battle with this particular issue that is at war with the church, and we need to be at war, and we need to take back our faith, right. It's like, it's culture wars. And, you know, one of the things that, that I have learned is that men, a lot of people that get wrapped up in cultural wars, and then they start to spend time with the very people that they've been shadowboxing.
And things start to change. We need more time with people that are not like us.
So then if John is calling us to live in the light, what is living in the light? And what how is that different than warring against culture? Going into the culture worse?
Yeah, you know, so to live in the light, is to live in such a way in Christian community, where we are so tethered to Jesus, and we are so tethered to one another. And we are walking in the Spirit, and living out of that rural life, right. And understanding that the Tellus that God's calls us to is, is seen all throughout
the story of God. And that there is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and gentleness, self control and peacefulness within the community, that we are living in such a way that is very countercultural to the world, that the world and is drawn into that community, that in such a way that they when they enter into the community, the Spirit of God and the goodness of Jesus, and the light of Christ draws people in to enter into that in such a way that they are
also then invited, to tether and to abide in the ways of Jesus. See, oftentimes, what we see is quite the opposite. We see Christian community that is angry at culture, and there is actually taking on that same posturing that we see in culture and waging war against culture, rather than focusing on what it means to be the people of God and Christ that embody the light and the hope of God.
So, so good. So, you know, if people would actually go through this study in community that live in the light study that you have on the letters of John, what is your hope for those communities that would walk through the study together?
Yeah. So you know, as I mentioned, like, we can't necessarily project like all of our situations on the scripture. But what we can do is we can ask God, how does what was happening in that church at that time, inform us in our particular context. And, and that's, you know, that's the fun work that we get to do. And exegesis is allowing the Word of God allowing scripture to shape us and so you know, what are the antichrists today? There's a lot
of them. There's just a lot of different theology that I see in America that just feels so warped, that feels so scary, that feels more like a political, nationalistic, fear driven form of Christianity that is so confusing that when I start to read the gospels, and I start to read the letters of John and the writings of the apostles, and then I look, and I think, Wait a second, is it Are we following the same Jesus? Are we are we talking about the same
code? And so you know, I think when when when people read the letters of John then like, I want them to be able to assess where they are as a church where they are as a Christian to be able to assess like, where are the Antichrist, that are
influencing us. And also like, where's the posturing in our community, the posturing of this victim villain mindset, the posturing of walking in darkness, instead of light, the posturing of choosing the way of hate instead of love and to do our own exegesis on how we might be more like the churches that John wrote to then then different. What
then what's your either exhortation or your call to the church today?
Yeah, my call to the church is to return to the radiant teachings of Jesus. I think more than ever, as we're seeing the trend lines of the church, spiral downward, and so many local churches feel as though they are caught up in this and caught up in the dust spiral. And oftentimes, by no fault of their own. It's collateral damage, right, to the changing culture to the shifting cultural culture. And recognizing that, that this shifting culture is happening, perhaps this is a moment for us.
Perhaps this is a moment for us to reassess. Perhaps this is a moment for us to stop and say, Wait a second. Like, what is the baggage that we've been hanging on to for all these decades that has created this decaying witness that has caused our everyday ordinary neighbors to lose trust in the church to lose trust, trust in Christianity? Like, what? What are the things that we've done? What are the practices that we've taken on? What's the posturing that we've
done? And how can we repent? And choose an alternative way that Jesus calls to, and to walk in the light and to walk in love, as John calls us to?
Amen? Amen. Couple of quick questions, I have a terrible one. If you go back to your 21 year old self, what advice would you give? Hmm,
I could go back to my 21 year old self, it would be life is going to throw a lot at you. And it's going to be so wildly surprising, and nothing is going to go as planned. Keep clinging to Jesus. And the deepest and the darkest valleys that you will experience through pain, through loss through death, through betrayal, through confusion, and disorientation God sees you. And the best is yet to come.
I'll tell you about. Thank you for this conversation. I hope people go out and actually dig into this study. I think it's gonna be really helpful for people to live in the light and to live the way that that God is calling us to be to actually see the fruit of the Spirit actually come out of us to have a rule of life so that we could order our lives towards Jesus to look like him that we could be in the culture, not just fight culture wars, but we could actually be
lights to the world. So Tara Beth, thank you for this conversation. I really, really enjoyed talking to you