[upbeat music] Miroslav Volf is one of the leading public theologians today. He's a professor of theology at Yale Divinity School, and the founding director of the Yale Divinity School for Faith and Culture. But guess what? He's not our guest today. We've had him on previously. Our guest today is a name you will recognize, because he and I have sparred back and forth-
[laughs]
... On pronouns, empathy, a beloved Biola professor by name of Tim Muehlhoff. Now, you're wondering, why did I introduce Tim Muehlhoff after Miroslav Volf? Because Tim and I took a class together-
Yes, yes
... Where Volf came out for four days, and we sat through just some of the most brilliant- ... Insightful teaching-
Mm-hmm
... And thought, "Let's do a podcast together." For both of our listeners here at the Think Biblically podcast at Winsome Convictions, just some lessons we took away, and I think they'll enjoy it. That's the hope.
This is the cool thing about Biola, Sean, is every year, to just keep faculty sharp, they bring in some of the top, theologians, thinkers, Christian thinkers, and then you can apply, get accepted-
That's right
... And you sit in a class with your colleagues from all these different disciplines, and you do the reading ahead of time, and then they bring in a world-class, theologian, and we got to... It, it was like being back in grad school-
Oh, man
... But all the cool ways of grad school.
It was so much fun. I took a ton of notes.
Yeah.
It was personally enriching. I was the first one to turn in my application.
[laughs]
I don't mean that as a sense of pride. I mean, like, I was so pumped-
Yeah
... That Miroslav Volf-
Yeah
... Was coming-
Yeah
... That I was like, "I gotta get into this thing." So let's, let's jump into really what he's talking about, 'cause he's the head of kind of the Faith and Culture Center-
Yeah, yeah
... Is how, as believers in God, do we interact with the world? And of course, the world can be Christians, it can be the wider world, it can be creation itself-
Yeah
... And we need to think about all of those. So he wrote a piece on why did God create the world? I've got some thoughts, but jump in and tell us what you think, Tim.
Well, one of our good friends, Greg Ganssle, who's just a top-notch philosopher-
Yep
... He made a comment that I wrote down. He said this- "You seldom hear Christians say, 'The world is good.'" And that really struck me when he said that. When I was in grad school, I didn't tell people right away I was on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ back in the day.
Sure.
I just didn't want to lead with that. I didn't even lead that I was a believer. I was a grad student, so I was privy, Sean, to all these backdoor conversations.
[laughs]
I mean, this is the Bible Belt, right? This is UNC Chapel Hill.
Yeah, yeah.
And, I remember one comment somebody said, that we were really negative people, Christians. We think people are sinful, everything that's wrong with the world, everything that's wrong with everything, we love to point that out. And I thought, "Okay, that's an interesting critique." And some of it's warranted, because you don't often hear Christians, as Greg said, say, "The world is a really good place." Now, we have to be careful and unpack that-
Of course
... But Volf really did a good job of unpacking that-
He did
... Going back to Genesis.
He does.
And when God made the world, he's the one who said, "It- this is good, very good." And I think even though it's fallen, and we'll get into what John later has to say about the world when he's talking about the fallen world, but we need to remember, God created the world to be a place, as Volf said, that we inhabited with each other and with God. I think that's a beautiful thing to think about, that God wanted to inhabit a physical space that we could enjoy together, and made it as creative as,
science tells us. It's amazingly in-depth and creative.
So Volf sent us these papers that he had written and had presented, and we got to kind of discuss them before he released them, so it was kind of fun insight. And he had one literally called Why Did God Create the World? [laughs]
Yeah.
And it's kind of a simple question that kids ask. I've thought about this a ton, Tim, but when I was reading this, I was like, "Why didn't I quite piece it together this way?" So he points out a couple things in here. He said, going back to, like, God calls Abraham, God delivers the children of Israel from slavery in Egypt, and all this to fulfill the one promise- "I will dwell among- ... The Israelites-
Mm-hmm
... And I will be their God."
Yeah.
You come forward to John's gospel, of course, and very clearly, it's about God who's coming, what? To dwell with us.
Yeah.
God humbles himself in the person of Jesus, who is fully divine, takes on human flesh. You know, and even in John chapter 4, it's like he's tired, so he sits down by the well.
Yeah.
It's like he's God, but he's human, and he's dwelling with us. So Volf says, "Put simply, God created the world to dwell in it."
Yeah.
And then he asks a question. He goes, "Why did God create the first humans and place them in the Garden of Eden?" He said, "To help the garden flourish as their home." He says, "The Bible closes making the same point. At the very end of Revelation, you know, John of Patmos sees new
Jerusalem coming from heaven and the renewed Earth. To make sure that John doesn't miss the meaning of what is happening before his eyes, a loud voice fr- you know, from God's throne says, 'See, the home of God is among mortals.' "
Yeah.
"He will dwell with them. They will be his people." He says, "God and the peoples of the Earth now have a home together."
Yeah.
That's so simple, and yet it's profound, and I don't know that I've thought about the world primarily through that lens for reasons that we will, we will get into.
Yeah, and we'll be there with- dwelling with him, interacting with him. That great passage in Genesis, in the cool of the day, God's walking. Certainly anthropomorphic, but you can see it. I mean, you- God is dwelling. So Sean, do you think when the, when the new heavens and the new Earth happen, and God is omnipresent- ... Do you think now in the new
Earth-... That we will go about, interacting with each other, but we'll always have that presence, almost like elevator music in the background, that we'll see the presence of God as we interact and move around in this new Earth?
I don't know how to answer that question.
Wouldn't that be wild?
But [laughs] here's what I think. I think it's the new heavens and the new Earth, and it's physical. So sometimes we have this idea that God comes down and destroys this Earth-
Right. Yeah
... Carts us off-
Yeah
... Somewhere else. That creates a sense that this world is not our home. We don't have to care for this world.
Yeah.
I think when God comes down, it's like he's gonna restore the Garden of Eden. God placed Adam and Eve-
Yeah, yeah
... Carefully. And if you look in Genesis 2, it's like you look in the original Hebrew, it's like God just gently placed them there with such care. That's what Prager argues in his commentary, like, this God who just places them there- ... Matters so much to them-
Yeah
... That in the new heavens and new Earth, I mean, is Jesus physically walking around? I mean, I don't know the answer to that. I can't answer that, but it's physical.
Yeah.
And we're in God's-
Yeah
... Presence relationally-
Yeah
... And we see Him. But that metaphor of home-
I love it
... I think is interesting.
Yeah.
So I've got some thoughts on how I think about creation differently as home from this seminar, but I'm curious, how does thinking about the world as our home shape the way you think about its goodness or its brokenness or how we should relate to it?
Well, I wrote down one quote when you, I, it-
Yeah, do it
... It came to me when you were speaking, that God, Volf said, "God is intimately involved with each small part of the world." Right? Remember Jacques Cousteau? [laughs] Do you remember Jacques Cousteau?
Okay. [laughs]
Okay, do you remember that name?
I know the name, yeah, but like-
Yeah, a long time, long time ago, he was... He, he introduced the world to deep-sea everything.
Okay.
I knew nothing about the deep sea. I'm from Detroit, right? But I remember this one episode where he goes deep as you possibly can in the ocean and sees some fish and makes the comment, "No one's ever seen these fish before, ever. This is the first time they've ever been recorded," and they were-
That's cool
... Beautiful! So think about that. God creates these amazing, beautiful fish nobody will see, but they're still intimately beautiful because God delights in really beautiful fish that maybe people will never see until we got the technology to go actually record them.
Mm-hmm.
That, to me, is the crazy thing about God, is he's decorating this home with all these elaborate gifts, like food just tasting amazing, and the more we learn about food, different combinations. He's, he's giving us visual sights, sounds that are just amazing, and God does it because He absolutely delights in it. I mean, He loves it, and then, you know, Trinitarian theology is the Trinity wants to share that love with human beings-
That's right
... The love that exists. So here's God saying, "Ooh, ooh, let me show you this part of my home. Let me show you this part of your home." "Oh, wait until you see this. It's gonna blow your mind." Then when you create microscopes, you're gonna see how cells interact, and that's gonna blow your mind. So to me, this home is crazy elaborate, and that we need to receive it as a gift. We can talk about it in a second, but then it also breaks your heart when God looks at what's happened to His home.
That's right.
Even the good gifts have been misused, right? Technology that could help us actually now hurts us because it's been weaponized. So I don't doubt that there's also a sense where God's heart breaks when He looks at a fallen world, and sees what we've done to it. But to me, it's every intimate part of the world. Art, I'm looking at your screensaver-
[laughs]
... On your computer.
The back of my computer.
Yeah.
Yep.
Which is what? It's, um-
It's van Gogh, Starry Night.
Yeah. I mean, that's God. Right? I mean, we could talk about the stars the rest of this podcast-
Sure
... How elaborate and beautiful and amazing it is. So I need to receive that as a gift. What I got from Volf is I need to stop and recognize, even within the fallen-ness of the world, there are basic pleasures I probably take for granted.
Sure.
But I need to stop and say, "Hey, this is awesome. I need to say thank you to God."
Now we'll come back to what it looks like, how we respond to it, but that whole metaphor is really pretty powerful. Like, you think about those fish that people didn't discover-
Yeah
... Until Jacques Cousteau. God had been getting glory and joy out of those fish-
I love that
... Before we came along.
Yeah.
There are some fish we'll never explore, certain galaxies in the depth of the universe.
Yeah.
So we're tempted to say, "Oh, God made all of this for us," and it's like, okay, time out. This is... The story is about God, not about us.
Yeah.
But He's inviting us-
Yeah
... Into-
Yeah
... His home-
Yeah
... To share it with Him.
Yeah.
That's the important way to look at it. Now, when I think about home, I asked Volf this question. I said, "For me, home, like, when I'm tired, I'm like, 'I just want to go home.' My family-
Yeah.
... It brings... Like, if I'm on a trip, you and I are traveling-
Yep
... And I'm like-
Mm-hmm
... I just can't count the [laughs] minutes until this plane lands-
Especially if you're going through LAX
... And I'm home. Oh, [laughs]
Especially if you're going through LAX.
Yeah. That is a living hell-
Oh, come on
... Sometimes.
Come on.
I avoid that at all expense.
I know.
But I'm just like, "I just want to get home."
I know. I want to get home.
'Cause it has such a warm-
Yeah
... Resonance with me-
Yeah
... Relationally, growing up. My dad did not have that experience. You know my dad.
Yeah, yeah.
There was abuse that was there.
Yeah.
There's alcoholism.
Yeah.
So I was like, "Why are we..." I asked, you know, Dr. Volf, "Why should we have this metaphor when for some people it's so painful?"
Yeah.
And he said, "But still there's a yearning for home. It's written inside of us."
Yeah.
So my father, out of that brokenness, built a good home for, you know, my mom. Obviously, they did it together, for my sisters, now for us grandkids. Like, there's something inside of us that yearns for that home, and I even think of, like, photos, interestingly enough.... And they show photos outside of Earth, it kind of feels like, oh, I have this feeling of like home for that.
Oh, yeah.
So I wonder if we'd shift that metaphor a little bit, the way I treat my home, and obviously I respect somebody else's home [chuckles] I'm not gonna walk in-
Right
... And wreck it-
Right
... Out of care for them. But there's something about like, wow, this is my sacred space.
Yeah.
And I care for that, and I clean it up, and I fix it. What if we'd think about the world through the lens of the home?
Yeah.
I think it might shift the way it... Two things- It might shift the way we treat our home-
Yeah
... But second, the way others would perceive us in light of the comment you made earlier about how non-Christians often view believers.
Yeah, I mean, you wouldn't trash your home.
[chuckles]
Y- there's parts of your home that are even sacred. Like, there's cer-
Or something's wrong with you, right?
Yeah, there's something wrong with you. Or you just watched the Detroit Lions get beat by the-
Yeah
... Washington Commanders.
By the Chargers.
Come on!
But keep going.
Oh, that was... Okay. [clears throat] but there's certain things that kids have made that are irreplaceable. I mean, you can't go and- ... Buy them on Amazon Prime. I mean, these are things they made in second grade, and if a fire took them, they're, they're gone forever. So there's certain things in our home that are actually sacred to us, that we just treasure looking at those kind of things. Hey, I had one thought when you were talking about the home-
Yeah, come back to it
... And God creating it, so and traveling. So we have a dog, Raleigh, after Raleigh, North Carolina- [laughing] ... 'cause all the kids who were born in Raleigh, North Carolina-
So funny
... Were diehard, Tar Heels. [laughing] she's this crazy, COVID dog, that if you walk into the garage and just come back in, you've only been gone 30 seconds, she acts like you've been gone for a year, and she's so happy to see you.
Right.
So coming home for me is, the tradition is, when Noreen hears me pull up in the car, she opens the door-
Mm-hmm
... And out comes Raleigh, running like a mad person to greet you, and it just makes me laugh, Sean, every single time to see Raleigh just coming at you. Isn't it wild to think that could be God? That there's things in our world that literally just make God laugh. Like, He just looks at it and says, "I... That's great," to see how people interact with each other- ... To see, to hear a joke, to see parts of His world that just delight Him
and really make Him smile, and that He enjoys... It's not just for us. He enjoys the world as well, and it's kind of interesting for me to think He could look at a great piece of artwork and go, "Oh,
that's really good." "I really think that's beautiful." So this idea of co-delighting in the world with God, I think, is also very important, that God loves, the way food tastes, the beauty of a sunset, that He would enjoy that, and it's not just us enjoying it, but He's enjoying it with us, I think is a cool thought.
And it, you know, I think of like classic, often bring it back to The Matrix, when they discover what-
[chuckles]
... Their real home is. It's like the food is like oatmeal. There's nothing aesthetically pleasing.
Right.
It's just reality is painful.
Yeah.
Well, some of that can be the effects of sin, but God didn't have to make a world with taste buds.
No!
God didn't have to-
Right
... Make a world as beautiful as He did.
Yeah.
Well, what do we do in our home? We make our home beautiful-
Yeah
... As much as we can, right? We put artwork up.
Yep.
We put pictures up. We put things that mean something to create the aura.
Mm-hmm.
Well, God has made a home that is beautiful and good, and I thought of, you know, Genesis 1, you mentioned this earlier, you know, what could God mean by calling creation very good? This is in Volf's piece.
Yeah.
He says, "Good in what sense?" So it could be aesthetically good, so it's beautiful. It could be functionally good. It could be morally good. But I don't know that I'd thought of it in the way he framed it here. He said, "There's another sense of good, call it existential." "A kind of goodness which cannot be lost and of which there cannot be more or less. When a wanted child is born, the immense joy of many parents often renders them mute, but their radiant
faces speak of surprised delight- ... As if they were saying, 'Just look at you. It is so very good that you are here.'"
Yeah.
Like, as a-
Yeah
... Parent, how many times do we look over a crib?
Yeah.
I remember when my wife was pregnant, a math teacher who's passed away, Mr. Nick, he goes, "You're gonna have this moment where you look over your crib, and you're in awe." And I remember going, "Okay, I don't know what you're talking about." [laughing]
Yeah. [laughing]
And then you have a kid, and you're like-
Yeah
... "Oh, my gosh."
Yeah.
"It's beautiful."
Yeah.
"It's amazing."
Yeah.
That's like a glimpse of God looking at creation saying, "It's good. It's very good." And then he says, one more thing, he says, "The delight precedes any judgment about the beauty, functionality, or moral rectitude of the child." by the way, I love the word moral rectitude. [laughing]
[laughing]
By the way, I just gotta pause. He goes, "The child's sheer existence, the mere fact of it, is very good. That's what I propose God, too, exclaimed, looking at the newborn world. Some unconditional love grounds creation's existence." That's powerful. That's a take-home one to me.
So we need to receive this. We need to slow down long enough to receive it as a gift, and to savor it. So I took this one class, Sean. I for- man, I even forget what the class was. It was in my master's. It was a long time ago, but it was about play, human play, and she did this thing. She gave us three M&M's. The... It was a three-hour block class, like a lot of grad classes are, so three hours, you get three M&M's, and she goes, "I want you to savor these three
M&M's. Like, make them last the three hours."
[chuckles] Wow.
And I'm... You know, normally I'd take those three, pop them in, we're done, right? "But, Sean, put it in your mouth and just savor it."... Not like eat 15 of them, but just savor one, was a really interesting experience to get the full experience of an M&M.
Yeah.
And David Turner, he helped run this Bold Seminar, he passed out these really little flowers one day, and we just sat there, all 15 of us- ... And he said, "I just want you to focus on this flower and enjoy the flower. Like, savor the flower." And then a friend of ours, Liz Hall, she said she has a Jewish friend, who would, when he would see a beautiful sunrise, would say, "I'm sorry, I just need to stop. I want to savor this and offer a prayer of thankfulness
and praise to God for the sunset." And I thought, "Wow, I seldom do that!" Like, I might think that sunset is beautiful, but I don't think I stop to savor as much as I possibly could. That could be a really interesting practice in our lives, to savor the really good times. Because the bad times are there, it'd be ridiculous not to acknowledge the fallen-ness. But to savor the really good moments, I think, are, really important. Remember, James says, "Every good gift,
every good gift is from God." So we need to receive these moments as gifts from God, and to savor them, and then express thanks.
So we're shifting now from recognizing what does it mean that the creation is our home? God made it so he could dwell relationally with us.
Yeah.
Made the home with what we might call superfluous things-
[chuckles]
... That are just not necessary.
Right, yeah.
Like little, small, beautiful flowers.
Right.
Savoring the taste of coffee or-
Yeah
... Like swordfish, as random as that is. [laughing] I love swordfish-
[laughing] I love-
... Or strawberries.
Swordfish is great.
It's one of my favorites.
Yeah.
Like, those are superfluous things that we would consider blessings that God has given us, and the response is, how should we respond to that blessing?
Yeah.
And one way is to appreciate it.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, if I give a gift to my kids... And it's interesting, back to something you said before, you talked about, like, in a home, there are certain things that are irreplaceable.
Yeah.
If I make something myself and give it to somebody, it means more than just buying something-
Yes, yes!
... And giving it to them.
Yes, yes.
Because our thoughtfulness goes into it. The time went into it. The personalization went into it, and it makes it that much more valuable and meaningful. And so this world has a lot of superfluous things in it-
Yeah
... That are uniquely made. Now, I think there's certain joy that animals get. You described your dog, Riley, before.
Yeah.
Like, that's a part of God's blessing in creation.
Yeah.
But what should our response be-
Yeah
... To these kinds of blessings you're describing? Well, one is not to abuse them. That's where sin comes in-
Yeah
... Taking something good and-
Garbaging the world.
Garbaging the world.
It's that, it's that phrase that was used. It was, You have the book right here.
Is it the one-
Rosa. It was Rosa.
The Uncon- she describes garbaging the world.
Yeah.
So-
Which is, I use, I use it. It's for me. I use it up. I take, I take, 50 M&M's-
There you go
... And maybe I only eat 30.
Which is overconsumption-
Over... Yeah, yeah
... Which we as Americans have down-
Yeah, yeah
... Pat.
Yeah.
Right? So one, you know, one way is to just abuse something that's good, and that's what-
Yeah
... All sin is.
Yeah.
That's what all ugliness-
Yeah, yeah
... Is taking something good and turning it bad, or beautiful and making it ugly.
Yeah.
But we're also supposed to enjoy it.
Yeah.
Like, God gave us that flower to stop and enjoy. He gave us beautiful music-
Yeah, yeah
... To stop and enjoy.
And made it for you. That's such a- that was an interesting comment you said, "Made it for you." So let me tell you a story. I'm like your dad. I came from an abusive home. It was horrible. It was really bad. Physical abuse, verbal abuse. And we didn't have any money. My parents hid it from us, Sean.
Like, physically hid it from you? [laughing]
Yeah, we did not have money.
[laughing] What's happening?
But they hid it from us, and you know how I found out eventually? I had two older brothers. We wrestled nonstop, and we all had glasses.
[chuckles]
Very young, we all had glasses. So I looked at all my, like, you know, like, junior high pictures. It's duct tape-
Oh, my goodness
... On one arm, and my glasses
Are sideways [chuckles]
... Like, turned sideways. And I would say to my mom, "Mom, why do I have duct tape on my glasses?" My mom later said, " 'Cause we couldn't afford to get your glasses fixed." Okay, so a, well, embarrassing moment for my dad. We go to Kmart, and there's a sale on these toy guns, toy rifles. And it's a great price. So my dad, very uncharacteristically, says, "Each one of you get one." We're
like, "Oh, this is awesome!" Right? So we got our guns. We go up to the cash register, and he's misread the price.
Oh, no.
It was something above it.
Oh, goodness.
It wasn't the actual guns. Well, he couldn't afford one, let alone three.
Oh!
So he turns to us and he says, "Put 'em back." You can imagine our immature response. "Dad, you said! You said!"
[chuckles]
And so he- but he said, "Put 'em back," and he got really upset, okay? Two days later, at his factory in Detroit, he took wood, and in his off hours, carved wooden rifles-
Amazing
... And brought them home and gave it to us. Now, when I first got it, Sean, I was a little bit like, "What? A wooden rifle compared to the one at Kmart?"
Yeah, like, "I want that one." Yeah.
But later, it became more precious. Like, "That's something my dad made for me," and my initials were on the, handle of the rifle.
Oh, that's very cool.
That's, that's interesting to think-
Do you still have that, or probably not?
I think it's at my mom's. I hope it's at my mom's.
That'd be a cool thing to hang on to.
But that was... I mean, to me, that's like, "Hey, I made this. I didn't buy it at Kmart." Nothing wrong with that. "But I made this specifically for you in my off hours." and to think our bodies are that. I mean, we know that from Psalm 139, right? He- the- ... The psalmist uses language like a master weaver crafting you, and I think we can say our bodies, even though falling and, you know, slowly degenerating, are a gift God gives to us, and we should enjoy our bodies, certainly, as we can.
... You know, it's interesting to kinda, to, to shift towards asking the question how the church views brokenness-
Yeah
-and views goodness. So, so far we've been talking about, like, God has made this creation for us. I love that story that your dad, like, personalized it.
Yeah.
So the flowers are for everybody, but they're for you, and they're for me-
Yeah, yeah
... To enjoy. And yet, clearly the world is also broken.
Yeah.
Right? I've had two conversations in the past week that have just been running through my mind, and YouTube conversations, and with, like, Peter Singer-
Mm-hmm
... Literally one of the leading ethicist-
Amazing, yeah
... Ful, influential philosophers in the world.
Yeah.
Outspoken atheist.
Yep.
And his issue was problem of evil.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Todd McFarlane, who is a comic creator. He co-created Venom. He was the creator of, Spawn. Really influential. The way he draws Spider-Man, I absolutely love it. I have so many of the comics. [chuckles] We met him in person. He signed some of the comics for me. But he leaned in and was like, "The problem of evil-
Yeah
... I will never believe in God."
Yeah.
So clearly, we have a choice, just like you had a choice when your father gave you that gun. Am I going to receive this-
Yeah
... As a gift or not?
Yeah.
Like, we have a choice if we see the goodness in creation or if we see the brokenness in creation, but the reality, there's both, and I think this is what we have to keep in balance, and we'll maybe come back to how to do this. But I'd just be curious from kind of a 30,000-foot view, and by the way, before I ask it, just Christian worldview is like creation, fall, redemption-
Yeah
... And glorification. So we've been talking about creation. Of course, the fall, Genesis 3, messes everything up until Revelation, we get to the last two chapters.
Yeah.
Do you think the church errs on the side of emphasizing the goodness of creation or its brokenness?
Well, I... Well, and this is my experience, obviously, anecdotal. I think it's the brokenness. I think we're the brokenness people. The world's a mess. People are sinful. We're often seen as negative people. And I think we have to do better than that. I think within the brokenness, we have to point out the beauty that is still there, even within the brokenness. Now, ultimately, Jesus can only fix the brokenness, but He's given us really good gifts. So I was writing... I wrote this down,
and you're probably gonna remember it, Sean. Remember during the pandemic, actor John Krasinski, he did this great, from his home, he did, he put on a show called Some Good News? Do you remember that from The Office? John-
Probably missed that one. [laughs]
Oh, no!
Sorry, man. [laughs]
Sean, it was our favorite!
[laughs]
So here's what he did. D- when it was raging, and all of us were losing our minds-
Yeah
... With the pandemic, like, seriously, how bad is this gonna get?
Right.
People were missing their, proms. They were missing graduations. I had two kids miss graduations.
Yeah.
He would share stories that were sent to him, and it was called Some Good News. In the midst of a pandemic-
Oh, gotcha
... Some Good News.
Okay.
And he would show a dad who converted his living room into a high school gym with... And then he w- he had a tux, and his daughter was dressed in her prom dress, and he would dance with her in the living room, right? Making the best of a really bad situation. I think the church should do that a little bit more. I think we should say, "Listen, in the midst of all the craziness you can watch 24/7 on social media, here are some good news." And the good news isn't just
spiritual. The good news is, in the midst of all this, the sun is... A sunrise is still spectacular. Friendships are really important. God's common grace is real. Like, yeah, there's disease. There's also penicillin, and God gets blamed for all the bad. He never gets credit for all the good things. Like, we'd be in the Dark Ages without penicillin. And if you know the history of penicillin, it's fascinating. One medical history book called it, "The greatest serendipitous moment-
Huh
... In the history of medicine," is the guy Fleming, who discovered penicillin totally by accident.
Wasn't there, like, bacteria on-
Yeah, yeah
... Some, like, dish?
He went on vacation.
Yeah.
Oh, oh, yeah.
Okay.
He went on vacation, came back, didn't clean all of his Petri dishes.
[chuckles] Okay.
Some of them had fungus growing, some didn't, and some had half. He said, "Well, that's really weird. Like, why only half?" And he wrote a paper, presented it to, like, a handful of people, and then it was buried. It wasn't until World War II, when British soldiers were dying in the trenches-
Huh
... Of disease, that this one British medical, researcher was tasked with, "Go find something to save our soldiers from dying from disease." He finds the paper, and he's g- he's like, "Oh, my goodness, this is... What?" And, within months, it's being mass-produced in the United States and in Britain, saving millions of lives. So even in the fallen-ness, God is saying, "Look, here are good gifts I give you," tol- all the time- ... All the time, all the time.
I think that's really important for us to stop and say, "God, sometimes this world is really hard," but thank God, in the midst of cancer- ... We ha- which my wife had a cancer scare, you know, we have oncology. We have people who have dedicated their entire lives to the study of cancer. We have radiation, chemotherapy. So God hasn't abandoned this world. He continues to give us good gifts.
It really is interesting. I wish there were some study that was done, I don't know how they would do it, on, like, social media, books, pulpits, conversations, what Christians emphasize more so than others.
Yeah.
And maybe there's a different... Certain denominations might be different.
Yeah, yeah.
Maybe areas in which you grow up. My parents were not this way. My dad's, like, the consummate optimist-
Always ready
... So he's always seeing the positive, but very aware of the brokenness in the world.
Yeah.
And so I don't know, I-... My suspicion is, of the two, we lean probably more heavily into critical, calling out sin- judging, and there is a time and place for that-
Yeah
... Than there is recognizing the good. And I might, I might get some more criticism just for this one, but I [chuckles] Taylor Swift, I didn't think that was gonna come up.
[laughs]
I don't even know a lot of her music, but my son helps me with social media, and he goes, he goes, "Dad, at this point, she dropped a new album. Give your thoughts." You know, and they were celebrating it, and it's all scripted. And all I s- all I said was, I go, "It's incredible how much she gets done. I don't know how she does it." Like, she... And then she talks about loving what she did.
Yeah.
I said, "What an example of how much you can accomplish if you just find something that you love." Like, that was it. Like, that was, that was the point. That was my takeaway. Some people just lost their minds. I got emails, "How can you promote this?" And, "What's wrong with you?" And I'm just thinking, "We're so quick-
That is such a good point
... To criticize."
It's such a good point.
A few people reached out, and they're like, "You know what? We know your heart. We know what you're doing here. All you do is building common ground." She's a creator. She creates stuff and does it remarkably, even if I disagree strongly with a lot of the lyrics. [chuckles] And I don't even know how many songs I could mention, to be completely honest.
Right. Right.
But I think we have this knee-jerk criticism, "Watch out for sin," more than we have a knee-jerk, "Let's find the good." That's just- ... My experience sometimes.
Psychologists call that splitting. Something's all good, all bad. It's all good, or it's all bad, and I think the church is guilty of splitting on many of these things. Like, we're not good at saying, "Hey, there's good and bad." In most things, I can think of good and bad. So I don't want to one-up your Taylor Swift thing.
Do it! Do it.
I'm gonna one-up it.
Go it.
Here we go.
You can two-up it, man.
So, Rick Langer and I, we do the Winsome Conviction podcast.
Wait, is this a story where you went on tour with her? Because that would... I'm just kidding. [chuckles]
Yeah, I did. I did. I was her-
[laughs]
But I felt objectified. I finally stopped. Okay, so we decide in the midst of all this crazy political rancor, we're gonna do something kind of crazy. Here's what we decided to do. Listen, we can do the negatives of President Trump- ... And President Biden. We can do it all day long, but let's not do that. Let's take the next episode and do- ... The positives of both. We're only allowed to say positives. We flipped a coin. I got President Trump; he got President Biden. Next podcast, Sean, we
researched the two, and all we did was positives. Like, give me... I'll give you a quick for both. President Trump, he doesn't drink. Why doesn't he drink?
Yeah, that's interesting.
He watched his brother drink himself to death. So when it came to the opioid crisis, it is just fact of record, he poured in billions to address the opioid crisis, okay?
Yep.
President Biden is, right about to do a Democratic debate, and, he's sitting next to Pete Buttigieg, and he's going through his rosary. Now, this is from people who were in the green room, and Pete Buttigieg leaned over and said, "Hey, what are you doing?" He goes, "I'm praying through my rosary. I just prayed for you." And for all accounts, he shared his Catholic faith with Pete Buttigieg. Okay, so that's what... All positives. I get my very first death threat.
Legit death threat?
Legit. It was on my bucket list.
[laughs]
My wife is like... My wife is like, "Who are you?"
[laughs]
And I'm like, "Noreen, I have a black belt in kung fu." She goes, "Against bullets?" I was like, "Yeah, that's probably secondary." [laughs] You know what I mean?
[laughs]
But, Sean, think about what splitting that was. And the comments were, "How dare you say anything positive about that person?"
Yeah.
And I think that's splitting. So is the world all bad, or is it all good? Well, we know it's not that easy.
It's neither.
It's n- it's much more nuanced than that. But I think we get the reputation of really pointing out the need for Jesus, which is... We absolutely have to do, but we do it by pointing out how bad people are, how bad the situation is, and we forget God's common grace. There are non-Christian EMS workers who are running into burning buildings to save people, and they're not Christians. They do
it because of God's common grace. We need to call out the good and the parts that need redeeming, but I think we need to do both, and I don't think we're good at being known as, "Oh, you're the posit-," like-
Right
... "Evangelicals, you're the positive guys." It's like, I don't think, I don't think that's our reputation.
Well, I think that's, that's a fact.
Yeah.
You know, it is... It would be interesting to talk to or do a study of non-believers if we framed-
Yeah
... Things like, "Christians view the world as their home. How well do you think they're caring for their home?" [chuckles] Like, it would-
Yeah.
I don't have a clue what they would say.
Yeah.
But I suspect they'd say, "Well, the environment." And I know there's a political angle for that-
I know, I know
... That's not what I'm talking about.
Right. Yep.
But I'm just saying, caring for the world that God has given us-
Yeah
... I think is a part of-
Yeah
... Stewardship.
Yep.
Caring for animals, right? There's... I just yesterday, I was reading through some of the Old Testament passages-
Mm-hmm
... And even in Proverbs 12-
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm
... It's like a righteous man, the way he cares for animals.
Yeah. Yeah.
You know, do we care for this world? I don't know that we're perceived that way of doing so.
Yeah.
And what this does is it causes us to lose credibility in the eyes of the world.
Mm-hmm.
It's like, if I walk into your home, and you're telling me certain things, I'm looking around, I'm like- Bro, this is messy and messed up. And, you know, like, whatever's going on-
Yeah
... You lose a certain level of, like, maybe respect, in a sense. I wonder if that's what's going on. So it matters... I guess it matters on two levels when we think about the world as our home. Number one, would just be so we can appreciate it and have spiritual practices as Christians to receive it as a gift in the way you described.
Mm-hmm.
But there's also an evangelistic angle towards other people trying to find a home. I mean, I think about-
Yeah
... How many movies are people who are lost?
Yeah.
The Martian, and they're just-
Yes
... Trying to get home.
Yeah.
So there's an evangelistic piece to this as well. One question that, uh-... That Volf went into is some people are probably thinking, "Wait a minute, are we supposed to love the world, or are we not-
Right
... Supposed to love the world?" Because there's calls to protect ourselves from the world, separate ourselves from the world, but love the world? How do we make sense of those seemingly conflicting biblical passages?
Well, let me just say one thing. Sean? [laughing]
[laughing]
What?
I did that to Clint Arnold one time at the emergent.
You called him Sean? [laughing]
No, I called him Sean. [laughing] We were asked this crazy question about-
So random
... About Colossae.
[laughing]
It was like a really tactical... Clint is a friend of ours.
He is, yeah.
He's an expert on Colossians.
Brilliant.
He was asked a really hard question. We were on a panel, Sean, and I said- "Hey, real quick, let me just say one thing." I said, "Clint." [laughing]
[laughing]
It brought down the house.
I love that.
Now, let me say this, and we could e- we could even add to that John's observation that the entire world lies in the power of the evil one. So obviously, what I think the writers are trying to say is, do not love the fallen world. Do not love, the things that the world promotes, like, a, an unhinged sexuality. Do not love, raw power and ambition. Do not love money above people.
You know, that kind of thing, I think the writers are saying, "When I'm using the world that way, I'm using a world that has been deeply influenced by the evil one," and we need- ... To recognize that and fight against it. So yeah, I think both things can be absolutely true. God created the world to be our home, but the home has been invaded. I mean, that's one message- ... Of the New Testament is- ...
People have come through the back door, and they are invading our home, and we have got to take seriously that we're pushing these evil forces outside of our home and using spiritual weaponry to do that. I think, without a doubt, we can see the work of the evil one in God's home everywhere, as he wants to try to dominate it as long as he can before he's ultimately defeated. So we're in a war. I mean, this home is... M- it's kind of like having a home in Normandy invasion, right? [laughing]
[laughing] Sure.
I mean, it'd be ridiculous to not look around you and say, "Hey, wait a minute, there's an invasion happening, and my home is now in the midst of a battlefield, not a, romantic balcony." I th- I think that's probably good to keep that in the back of our mind, is we can enjoy the world and be oblivious to the pain and the spiritual battle that's happening in the world.
You mentioned Colossae, and Clinton, Clint Arnold's second edition of his commentary on Colossians, it might be in the first, but he mentions, like, three kind of, of enemies of us that can lead us to temptation. One is the flesh.
Yeah.
Second is Satan, demons, and third would be the world.
Yeah.
So it's like, wait a minute, the world leads us to temptation, and yet God so loved the world. Well, we have to distinguish what's-
Yeah, yeah
... Meant by the world based on the context. So the world can mean all of God's creation, including the Earth, animals, and human beings, and I think based on Romans 8, that Jesus's death will redeem even creation.
Yeah.
You can mean the world in that sense. Sometimes the world might refer just towards, like, the church and believers. It might include unbelievers.
Yeah.
But a lot of times, it's the, it's the negative belief systems in the world-
Yeah
... That are opposed-
Yeah
... To Christ. That's what we resist. So we have to be careful when we take certain teachings, and we'll talk about, "Well, the world is evil. The world is bad." Well, that doesn't mean creation's bad.
Yeah.
That doesn't mean people are bad. It means there are systems invading them within them, so we've got to find a way to resist that, and yet love people and our creation. I think that's the balance, that we're looking for. Let me ask you this last question, unless there's anything else I missed. What... If we were really... At the end, this is one of the last questions we asked Volf, and you said, "All right, so creation, God just is thrilled
that we're here," like looking at a baby going- ... "Whoa, it's arrived," like, beautiful.
Yeah, yeah.
God has made this world for us to-
Mm-hmm
... Enjoy, amongst other things, but to enjoy.
Yeah.
He wants us to receive this as a gift in the way that you described. What... But it's also been fallen. What holds us back as believers from properly loving the world?
So I wrestle with, and I think this is one of the negative impacts of social media, but, you know, you've been overseas just like I've been overseas, and, you know, we've gone some pretty nasty places- ... Like the Mathare Valley. The first time I ever went overseas with Campus Crusade for Christ was the Mathare Valley. It was the most intense poverty I've
ever seen in my life. So for me to enjoy a really nice meal, right, and to take my wife out on a really nice date, i- sometimes in the back of my mind, I'm thinking about the Mathare Valley. That this money could... Remember Oscar Schindler? Schindler's List?
Of course.
He takes off that watch. He goes, "This was two people I could've saved. This car was 20." And I think we can do that. And social media makes it so easy. I mean, we see- ... Sex trafficking, not just what's happening here in California. We're seeing it all across the world, and we're seeing children particularly. It's heartbreaking that they're eating gar- I mean, in Mathare Valley, they're eating garbage. So how do I enjoy a good meal when I know that's happening in the back?
Man, I don't, I don't know. I don't know the answer to that question. I don't think I can't enjoy the meal, and go to Starbucks, and get my vanilla latte, Sean. [laughing] All my students know, vanilla latte and, banana bread. You want me grading your papers with banana bread.
[laughing]
... So I think I need- I can do that, but at the same time, not to the exclusion, I don't think deeply about my finances. I don't think deeply about, "Okay, what can my wife and I and family do?" Like, like, when that come- remember when the tsunami hit, in Japan?
You're talking about the 2004 tsunami?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I remember, I remember [chuckles] this is so funny, and I hope my kids never listen to this, okay? [laughs] But you know how it comes on the bottom, it comes a number for the Red Cross- ... You know, to help tsunami. [laughs] So I don't know about you, but I believe it's biblical calling that I control the remote control in the house.
[laughs]
I think that's biblical. It's hard to nail down a particular verse, but I think it's heavily implied. I once got my wife, by the way, a Valentine's Day card.
You're on, like, your third rabbit trail-
Yeah, yeah
... On this one. [laughs]
I got my wife a Valentine's Day card that said, "I wanted to give you a symbol of my undying love," and so it's, "So I'm giving you the remote control for 24 unhindered hours."
Oh, my goodness.
And then you open it, and a remote control pops up, and it says, "It started yesterday." [laughing]
[laughing]
So when that thing came on, I literally paused the TV.
Mm-hmm.
I did, I paused it. I said, "Okay, Muehlhoffs, what are we gonna do?"
Wow!
Like, is that, is that, is that not us? As we sit and watch our flat screen t- you know what I mean? Not to guilt him, but to say, "Do we just get to turn a blind eye to that?" so I think that's the balance. I can enjoy a flat-screen TV, but when I learn through that flat-screen TV that there's people that are really suffering, I think I need to start to question, what's my role in helping with a fallen world? What's... For you, how do you balance this?
You know, I li- I do live in a certain tension there. You know, interestingly enough, reading Peter Singer, you know, an atheist, he had a chapter in one of his books on poverty and was like, "You buy a new TV, you could have saved somebody's life."
Really?
Like, this prophetic voice-
Yeah, yeah
... Of calling people to sacrifice. I'm going, "Wow, here's an atheist who I disagree with profoundly about- [chuckles]
Yeah
... Euthanasia, abortion, all these issues." Like, I think he's right about that. I live in that tension. I, I don't know how to fix that. I think it's a little bit of just living in a good world with brokenness-
Yeah
... And the reality of that. I don't think we'll fully escape that until we get to heaven. So I think if we're just completely enjoying things, we've lost, we've lost the brokenness and the urgency to act.
Mm-hmm.
If we're living in that brokenness and sinfulness, number one, it can become depressing, [chuckles] but number two, I wonder if we are receiving the goodness and beauty-
Yeah
... That God has given us.
Yeah.
So I think, I think it's a dance between the two, and we probably have personalities and just experiences and rhythms-
Yeah
... That lean us one way or the other. It's kind of like the truth and grace thing. Either people, you know, tend to be more truthful-
Yeah
... Or more gracious, and you need to balance the two together. It's probably the same with this. You know, what keeps us back from properly loving the world, to kind of wrap up this conversation, I think it can be bad theology. That's why it's important to think about the world- ... As the home. I think it can be misguided priorities about what we're here for-
Yeah
... And what our task is-
Yeah
... To love God and to love other people.
Yeah.
And it can just be our own, our own sinfulness and our own falling short. But, this is challenging. It's been fun to revisit this, Tim-
It was great
... 'cause that class was really meaningful to me.
It was really good.
And I just forgot how deep that idea of thinking about all of creation as our home and our responsibility to it resonates with me, and I think the Scriptures, and to just ask the question- How do we better love God, love His home, and love people who are here? That's really the most important question.
And how cool that he would come to Biola and be super accessible.
He was.
I found him to be very accessible. We had lunch with him.
We did.
You, me, and a friend, and, I thought... Yeah, I thought he was very-
And by the way, if you see him in public wearing some Jordans-
Yes!
... That was from my son and I, which was just a gift-
Oh, cool. He loved them.
Out of... He absolutely loved them.
Yeah.
Out of appreciation-
Yeah, yeah
... For how he blessed us, which brings us back to the power of gift.
And I can't wait, after this, podcast, to see the shoes that you're- you have for me. [laughing]
[laughing]
I'm, I'm just... But I digress. Go ahead.
Tim, this is fun. We'll do it again.
It'd be great. Thanks.
Folks listening, make sure you subscribe to the Winsome Convictions podcast and to the Talbot Podcast- Think Biblically. We'll see you next time. [upbeat music]