Note: Can I Say This at Church is produced for audio listening. If able, I strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which has inflection, emotion, sarcasm where applicable, and emphasis for points that may not come across well in written word. This transcript is generated using a combination of my ears and software, and may contain errors. Please check the episode for clarity before quoting in print.
Gabriel Gordon 0:00
But that process of God revealing God's self, and then us responding to it doesn't stop with the production of Scripture, right? It continues. So God then picks up those words, as a vehicle for himself. And the Holy Spirit squeezes Jesus the jelly into the donut, right? And squeeze it squeezes him into the words of Scripture
Seth Price 0:20
about your shirt right there.
Gabriel Gordon 0:22
That's jelly doughnuts.
Seth Price 0:24
No jelly, doughnut, Jesus,
Gabriel Gordon 0:26
jelly, jelly cheese. So he squeezes Jesus into into the words of Scripture. And then those serve as a vehicle to bring him to us once again. And then we respond to that right, with a human interpretation. And then that response, he picks up again, and starts the whole process over. So it's just this continual process of God incarnate. And God says self in in through what we humans respond and interpret.
Seth Price 1:14
What is happening there you find folks, I hope that your day as well. My day has been good so far. I think you're really gonna like today's episode, so brought Gabriel Gordon up on the show, Gabriel wrote a book last year, it was fantastic. Now full disclosure, I read it, I also endorsed it, which I still find a little bit crazy when people ask me to do that. And it's humbling, either way, like a year later, finally got him on the show. Now here's a bit of what you can expect. So if there is a little bit not a crazy amount of salty language in this episode, so if you've got little kids with, you may want to skip this one, at least for now. Again, it's not crazy bad, but it is there. We'll call it pG 13. Right. Outside of that, I think you are in for some goodness. I know I really enjoyed doing this episode, as well as editing it. And I also really want that jelly doughnut. And you'll get that as you listen through. I promise that'll make more sense. Anyway, let's roll it with Gabriel Gordon.
Gabriel Gordon 2:32
And I'm an open book so you can ask me about anything
Seth Price 2:36
I can ask you about why Texas is better than Oklahoma. Gotcha. Oh, damn.
Gabriel Gordon 2:41
So so I was on. I'm actually originally from I was born in the Northwest. exile. But I think here's here's what I say. Texas is better than Oklahoma. But it's still Texas. And they're in they're really the same state. Just Texas has more pride about it. Right? They culturally they're like they both wear cowboy.
Seth Price 3:12
We have a bigger football. We have a bigger handle. So it's true, man. Are you from Texas? Yes. Yeah, I'm from Midland, Texas.
Gabriel Gordon 3:22
So but you live in the East Coast now.
Seth Price 3:23
I live in Virginia. Yeah, okay. Yeah,
Gabriel Gordon 3:26
my friend is from the Amarillo Borger area
Seth Price 3:29
Oh yeah, a good one. One of my good friends is also from Amarillo lives in Charlottesville here close by we talk every day. Yeah. All right. Let me hit record on the video for the patrons because you know, we're doing a thing all right. Recording in progress in your hair. I'll fix my
Gabriel Gordon 3:45
Yeah, I would have put oil on my beard if I Yeah, well, it's gonna be on Hold on.
Seth Price 3:49
Let me there's one. I actually one in the
Gabriel Gordon 3:52
way this is for the patrons but I'm actually going bald by a male pattern baldness.
Seth Price 3:57
I do not want to hear that. I'm going bald, saying.
Gabriel Gordon 4:02
I I'm convinced that we need to stop all these like fundraisers for cancer research and we need to start doing research for male pattern baldness. Like how many people are suffering around the world from their male pattern baldness? I
Seth Price 4:15
don't know that I agree. But for two reasons. So my wife is a nurse for pediatric cancer patients. But second, second, no one dies from hair loss. This is so but I do miss my hair and my wife would tell you I false advertised, you know slightly better shave. full head of hair. You know, anyway,
Gabriel Gordon 4:36
no, we we were talking about sarcasm earlier. I'm pretty sarcastic. So the things I say are dark jokes are not meant
Seth Price 4:44
to be no, there's no equivocating. Now there's no equivocating. You're done.
Gabriel Gordon 4:49
My wife is actually a nurse to what does she do? telemetry cardiac stuff.
Seth Price 4:54
I don't know what I know it. Cardiac. telemetry to me is like a NASA term like we put people on the moon. So Though anyway Alright, let's let's do the thing. Gabriel Gordon you're not master anything right? Like not
Gabriel Gordon 5:08
no no not tell me not told me you know
Seth Price 5:11
I could hold it. No I'm not gonna hold it alright Gabriel Gordon you want Gabriel you want Gabe? What do you want? What do whatever you want
Gabriel Gordon 5:20
you know it just made the cancer joke it's your
Seth Price 5:23
name it's your name Welcome to the show man I think we've been emailing intermittently like every nine weeks for it feels like a year and it might actually be a year I'm going to check now but I'm glad that you're here and I am very very sorry that I am not good at the Internet and and that it took as long as it took to get you on to the show but I'm glad you're here man.
Gabriel Gordon 5:50
If I was mad it'd be the pot calling the kettle black you know, so I can't be mad. Are you equally as bad at the Internet? I'm I'm pretty bad at the Internet. Yeah, yeah,
Seth Price 6:00
I am. I mean just for for Case in point I shared so I make merchandise for the show. That is not a plug this just literally as a funny story that happened yesterday. And I put a new design up and I asked for some people's opinion yesterday like in a messenger thread. And I was like, tell me what comes to mind when you see this. And then I thought that I posted the image. 45 minutes later, I get a text. When I see what and I'm like man, I knew but i thought that i did it i would have I would have bet money that I put that in there. And I didn't and I apologize. I told them I'm also not good at the internet so. So when you tell people who and what you are, what is that? I like to start off by saying that my Myers Briggs is shared by the Joker and Captain jack Sparrow. I don't even know what is that Myers Briggs? It's the NTP NTP that's what they did. Yes, the debater personality that is also me. I did not know that that really? Yes, but I didn't know that. So the Joker and who? Captain jack Sparrow and Tom Hanks. was Tom amazing. Yeah. And I think newt gingrich too, so runs the game. So so that's where you like to start. And so which one of those Do you lean more towards the drunk pirate or narcissistic want to watch the world burn? Where are you at in there?
Gabriel Gordon 7:20
I think I fluctuate Really? Oh. You know, sometimes, I was talking to a friend about COVID recently and he was talking about like, we live in so we live in Grand Junction, which is very heavily Trump country. And it's in Colorado, but it's it's not like the rest of Colorado. And so we he was like Doomsday and like, Dude, what if you know with Biden's mandate, just people start pulling out their guns and it just goes batshit crazy. Are we allowed to cuss on the podcast?
Seth Price 7:52
You just did? We did. Okay, yeah, that's fine.
Gabriel Gordon 7:56
So gonna go batshit crazy. And he's like, we I need to I need to get a plan together and and I think I said something about you know, just give them over to their their folly. Just let the world burn. You know, so, yeah, so it depends. You know, some days I'm more hopeful and more like drunk and caps, Captain jack Sparrow, and other days I'm a little bit more like, let the world burn if they want to fuck it up. You know? Yeah, I can't do anything about it.
Seth Price 8:20
Yeah, yeah. So what do you do then outside of that, but while while you're while you're voyeuristically watching the world, burn, what, what else? What else keeps you busy?
Gabriel Gordon 8:31
So I like to pretend I'm a writer. The book we're talking about today is my second book. And I'm working on my third and fourth and big blog. Yeah, the first one did not get self it got self published. So I like to, you know, there's this episode of The Simpsons where Lisa gets put into a fancy prep boarding school and her teacher, you know, says, Hey, this, this work you're working on is so great, let's let's publish it and least ask the question, self published or real published, and the teacher says, real published. And so my first book was not real published. But yeah, it's called a late night meanderings with God, a collection of essays. And it needs an editor, even after it's been added and needs another, I might go back and revise it at one point to actually get it published. But so yeah, and then I'm working on a couple new books. My friend Adam, that I mentioned earlier, we're doing a he goes to seminary with me. So we're writing a theological commentary and devotion on the, on the Psalms, using the Septuagint, rather than most people use for the Old Testament. And then I'm doing a book called The fundamentals are recovering fundamentalist. And how far are you into that? Like 75 pages?
Seth Price 9:47
How many pages Do you plan to write like 90?
Gabriel Gordon 9:50
I don't know. Maybe, maybe, maybe maybe like double that. I don't know. We'll see. It's kind of, I have no idea where I'm going with it. I have a general direction. Like idea, but not quite sure. And yeah, and the Psalms commentary is like, I've got like two songs written the commentaries on.
Seth Price 10:08
So that's most of the songs though. Like that's your your most of the way there I just Yeah,
Gabriel Gordon 10:13
yeah and actually with the Septuagint there's actually a 100 and 51st song, so we had to do an extra that's besides the size right? I have actually been in a couple of short films, I've done some acting with some friends that were videographers so I got paid for one of them. So technically I'm an actor. Yeah, as a child that used to be a model even going bald. Yeah, no, I don't have an ID. But I used to live in Thailand as a child. And like I was three, four and five and my dad's side of the family is Jewish. And so I guess ethnically, I looked not white enough that they the ties that I was half Asian, and because of white supremacy, why it's kind of the norm. So they're actors and models tend to be mixed with white, and they're half Thai, so they're lighter skinned. And so I got into the modeling whole industry when I was in Thailand, for like, I don't know a year or two and I was like little so I'll wear this tight Speedo because that's what they do in Bangkok. They don't wear swim trunks they were Speedo so 34 year old gay wearing a speedo arms up in the air with his half Thai half white parents on the beach. So But yeah, I was on a horror film called the woods off slover Street and there was a scene where I'm like, in my underwear, I'm covered in blood. And so when I had my long hair, and I'm demon, I'm playing a demon possessed detective and I was like, eating this dude. But that cut that see now I'm really mad. It got cut out. But yeah, so besides that, I'm the college missionary. It's called missioner, but short for missionary for our church, which I just started like a month ago. So I'm supposed to start a whole college ministry. I run a ecumenical blog and podcast and conference annually, called the missiology club where we have people from all sorts of spots of Christianity, fundamentalist evangelicals, main liners, Catholics, Eastern Orthodox. We disagree on a lot of stuff, but we come together to talk about Jesus and affirm some of the historic Christian creeds. And what else do I do I like to hike sometimes. So I have a dog I named after the 20th century Swiss theologian, Carl Bart, really so yeah, and then I'm a master's student and theological studies specializing in biblical studies at Portland seminary. I'm actually in the direct line of the the Inklings. You know, the group that CSOs and token were part of Yep. The part of the Inklings was john Walsh. He used to hang out with Inklings. He was part of their club, and he actually taught at Oxford, and he taught a student named Dan Bruner, who is my one of my professors at seminary. So I'm actually in the direct successive line of the Inklings. And then I'm married to my beautiful wife, Hannah Gordon, she's from Colorado, we met at a cologne Baptist University and grew up Assembly of God and Southern Baptists and then ended up in the Episcopal world and my theology tends to lean Eastern Orthodox. I couldn't be further from Protestantism in general. And even though I thought anything that wasn't Protestant, we're a bunch of heretics back then, and now I tend to lean the other way
Seth Price 13:19
but everybody's somebodies heretic everybody. So I have a different question. One that I wasn't planning and I don't I think we were recording when we talked about your friend and Coronavirus and you know Trump country yeah so what I my response to people when they have those conversations and it comes up I live out here right outside of Charlottesville Virginia work in Charlottesville Virginia we go all in where you know we have entire white supremacist rallies that you know use an entire nation into a different conversation about supremacy you know we were the oh geez you know when it comes to the Old Dominion here when I ask people you know what do you mean by a well regulated when they talk about what you can get these guns on the common they'll get these guns How would that come up you think if you're like yeah Should I you know that these people are gonna go crazy after this vaccine mandate and you can't come to work etc etc. What do you think that your your neighbors would say are well regulated when it comes to the armed militia? They're
Gabriel Gordon 14:21
like, what would they say in response to that's
Seth Price 14:24
how they have all the guns, right? The second amendment right? And yeah, it says, you know, a well regulated militia. I'm just curious, what what you think well regulated means which is not anywhere close to what what I was supposed to talk to you about, but just, it's gonna be my one side.
Gabriel Gordon 14:38
I will say, when it comes when we get outside the realm of theology, I don't know anything about theology, but when it says we get outside of theology, when I when I have conversations with this friend I was talking about he
Seth Price 14:53
you're aware that there's a second amendment right? Yes. Okay. Yes, I
Gabriel Gordon 14:56
am. Yes. But he's a political science. Major and he'll start talking about politics. I'm like, No, no, right? I mean, we need to go back to theology because you know more about me in this particular thing, and I don't like that. So understood. well regulated. I don't know. I don't even think I understand the question. Honestly,
Seth Price 15:18
there's a fair answer. It's a fair answer. It's a fair answer.
Gabriel Gordon 15:22
About how are you talking specifically about how I
Seth Price 15:25
say it, I say it tongue in cheek to say, you know, well regulated does not mean I buy whatever I want and use it for whatever purpose I want. But that's that's freedom. Yeah. Well, yeah, sure, sure. Anyway, we're gonna get off topic. Speaking of the inkling, so I'm currently reading a book called a secret history of Christianity. That is on some of the work of Owen Barfield, who I believe was also part of that Inklings group. It is fantastic. Very, very, very, very good. It was recommended by friend. All right. So the book that you wrote, however, yeah, God speaks which To be clear, I read it earlier, last year, enough time that I had to read it again, before you came back on today. Luckily, I read extremely quickly, and I'd already read it once. So it made it easy. And so I want to lay some groundwork as we kind of dive into it. Because a lot of people Yeah, I like how to do that. So that only you and like seven people can see it. But if I have to talk with my hands, if I put them in my pockets, I think I'll just mumble. So what is essential? kenosis? Why does it need to be a thing? And how is that different from the way that most people? You know, view scripture and God and their relationship to it?
Gabriel Gordon 16:38
Yeah, so essentially gnosis the other kind of terms for it that are more the layman's term, would be the Uncontrolled Love of God, or God can't theology. I don't necessarily like the term God can't. I know Tom uses that to be provocative and kind of draw people in. But I don't necessarily like that term. And maybe we can get into that. But so the idea of the Uncontrolled Love of God or central gnosis is that are a couple things. So starting off with the idea that God is love, right. And most people don't have a problem with that in the Christian tradition. We, they might define it in particular ways that people start to argue over, but generally people will affirm that God is love. So God is love. And God can only act according to God's nature, right? This is pretty mainstream. In Christianity, even in fundamentalist circles, I would say this is more of the mainstream view, maybe with some of the more extreme Neo Calvinist, you'll get kind of will, God doesn't have to act like God, but but generally even I went to Southern Baptist School, which is fundamentalist and my philosophy professor said, God can't do anything that's illogical, right? God can't make two plus two equal five, or can't make a straight line, not straight, or a square circle, or something like that. And so starting with the idea that God is love, and that God cannot act outside of God's nature, if God's nature is love, and God can't act outside of that, and we say that we add the caveat that to love is to be uncontrollable, to be uncor. So if to only act in persuasive ways, then then that entails that God can't control and that God necessarily gives freedom to human creatures. And since, as Paul says, and Romans, God's gifts are irrevocable, God can't take away what God gives, then that what we end up having, and the example I like to use is Hitler, that God could not take Hitler's freedom away, and control him in order to prevent the Holocaust, for instance. So that's kind of a basic, very basic definition to kind of what essential kenosis is, yeah. What does that say? What's the,
Seth Price 18:54
what's the inverse of that for the way that most people view? I guess, non essential kenosis? I don't know what the inverse is called, of us. And yeah.
Gabriel Gordon 19:03
So I mean, there are a couple. I mean, there's a myriad of ways we can kind of understand the power of God and so forth. But I think the other the two that are popular in Protestantism, are basically the Calvinist perspective than they are mineus perspective, okay. And the Calvinist perspective says that God, generally and Calvinism is much more nuanced than this. But generally, kind of the Neo Calvinist perspective would say that God controls everything. So when evil happens, the world as well as good, I mean, that's God doing it, right? Everything. Uh, john Piper likes to talk about everything down to the very atoms, the very smallest particles of reality are controlled by God and doing exactly what God wants them to do. Whereas the Armenian perspective would say, Well, God can control right but chooses not to Or at least modern Armenians, maybe Jacob arminius wouldn't have said it quite like that. But that's outside my realm of knowledge. But essentially modern Armenians would say that God could control and, but chooses not to the problem with that. And Tom uses this as an example, this example in one of his books, is that if a mother is at the bank of a frozen river during the winter time, and her daughter walks out into the ice, and her mother allows her to walk out on the ice because she freely chose to do so. And then she falls to the ice. And her mother chooses not to save her, even though she had the ability to save her because, oh, my daughter made this choice. I'm going to respect that. Well, that's not going to hold up in court, right? The mother is going to go to jail for a very long time. And and that would be the idea of the Armenian problem with the Armenian perspective is, is that if God just choose your can control but chooses not to, yeah, well, then God's morally culpable for the evils that happened in the world. Obviously, I think the the Calvinist problems are self evident. I mean, if God controls everything, then God is evil, Gods do evil. If people want to try to make an argument for why that's not bad, I'm not sure we're gonna have a productive conversation. But at least with the Armenian perspective, we're gonna kind of show why that's problematic. And people might have an easier time understanding that so essential, kenosis goes a step further than arminianism. But it's not necessarily. I don't think it's necessarily out of step with some of the stuff that's in the early church. And I tried to show this in chapter two where I talk about central gnosis in the book, I use the letter of Dionysius, which is a letter from sometime in the second century. The author says that God there is no compulsion and God. So I think kind of the idea that God cannot control and that's in the second century, right? And the I think it's second Timothy might be getting that mixed up. But either first or second Timothy says that when when we are unfaithful, God remains faithful, for God cannot deny himself and, and that idea was continuous through much of the early church, particularly in the Eastern Church Fathers, Gregory Nisa, and Origen both say, hey, God can't do what's outside of God's nature. And God, nature is only the good is only loving. And so God can't do evil. And that's not a limitation on God. Right? That, you know, we might say, well, if your kid comes and running, and Daddy, I want that pig to fly. This is a weird example. But Daddy, I want that pig to fly. And before you say, well, actually little Jimmy, you know, pigs can't fly. It's not in their nature to fly. You can't expect it to fly because it's it's it's absurd to expect it to fly because it's not in its nature in the same way. It's absurd to expect God to be able to do things that are outside of God's nature. Yeah, that's not a limit upon God.
Seth Price 23:02
Yeah. So a couple things on that. Do you know what Cincinnati Wk RP is? It's a show. I do not, then you're not going to get this reference. I'm going to send you a YouTube link. It's not going to be funny. And so I'm not going to put it into the episode. But man, the pigs fly. Makes me think about turkeys flying, which makes me think about, you know what I am going to tell you. So it's a show from like the 70s like my dad would have watched it growing up. Yeah. And it's a radio station in Cincinnati. And they're trying to drum up like business or giveaways or whatever and it's around Thanksgiving, they want to be thankful so they get all of these turkeys and put them in a helicopter. And they they throw them out of the helicopter. In an attempt to try to give turkeys away for Thanksgiving to all the people that you know need a turkey.
Gabriel Gordon 23:45
These are live Turkey. Yeah, are there better?
Seth Price 23:48
Well, they're dead because they can't fly. So these turkeys are die bombing the city there's a part at the end the guys so contrite and he's like I swear to God is my witness. I thought that turkeys could fly. Like I genuinely but either way in my I'll have to send it to you. I've lost it's
Unknown 24:06
funny. I'm laughing.
Seth Price 24:09
I haven't seen it. It's good. It's good. It's a very old show. Um, so yeah, that's that Timothy reference is actually one of my favorite verses and I'm not one for memorizing scripture. It's actually Second Timothy. Two, something I don't remember the exact verse But it says if we are not faithful, he remains faithful faithful because he can't be false to himself or untrue to himself recant deny himself or something that I'm not. I had too many versions running through my head. I don't know exactly what it is. Um, yeah, yeah. So no, I like that. What? So you tackle inerrancy in the book quite a bit and inspiration in the book quite a bit. But before I get there, you said something a moment ago and it escapes me now. But you would talk to the problem of evil, you know, and and you know, if God can stop things, and he doesn't stop things, and that's an issue, so that It leads me to a question that I think I've only ever also asked Pete ends. And so my question is, you have an entirely smaller, maybe 40 page book of subtitles. Matter of fact, on one of the pages gave the subtitle or not the subtitle, the the subtext, or the footnote or whatever it's called. I said, subtitle that's the wrong thing. But it's at the bottom. It's at the bottom of the screen, you know what I mean? Bottom of the bottom of the page. One of them, I think there's only like, seven sentences on the page. And the remainder of the pages is set aside for footnotes, of which one of those footnotes is like two paragraphs long, and it's not a reference back to another book, it is literally you, I guess, working in words that you wanted to say but didn't want to beat you did not want to be in the actual print, hoping that people wouldn't read them. But what so what is the purpose of a footnote? In an in a book of this way, because there's a lot of tongue in cheek there is that just you trying to, you know, express something that you hope that people won't read? And the reason I asked that is the first one that I I read was number five. And I think it actually says, You see, yeah, yeah, says that whole DC franchise, I have it here, the whole DC franchise has unfortunately tried to play catch up with the cinematic Marvel Universe, whereas Marvel spent nearly a decade developing their storyline, which is part of the reason it's so good DC tried to do it, and bah, bah, bah, bah, blah. But that whole four four sentence footnote is literally just referencing one line from the Batman Superman movie. Yeah. What is the purpose of a footnote? Like, like legitimately? Or is this just a way to put zingers in there?
Gabriel Gordon 26:40
as well? I think I could footnotes I think are like, originally an academic thing, right? And it's generally I think, to show you, Hey, I'm only talking about this particular topic this much. But actually, here's all the background information and all the stuff I know about to show you that I did my homework, and I'm not dumb. I, and I, that's not going to go in the text. So I think that's kind of like the academic reason. Um, so some of that is, I would say behind why I'm putting footnotes, some of it, obviously, not this one. But there are many. Yeah, some of it is just so you know, in particular topic. I'm not. When you're writing a book like this, you got to be careful because you're going to bore people really easily. And so oftentimes, I'll put things on the footnote that I think are pertinent, or whether it's a definition of a particular term, I did that as well. Just extra stuff that I think is helpful that but it's not necessarily necessary to the text itself. However, I also liked saying things that complement those zingers in there for those people who special people that were willing to read the footnotes. So give him some I think I have one about zombie horses
Seth Price 28:03
you do in the end? I think that's in chapter six. Yeah, something like that. Yeah. And I mean,
Gabriel Gordon 28:07
like, how could I you know, that's what he brought up about DC. How could I not mention that? Because it was such a terrible movie,
Seth Price 28:14
like the bus? Do you not realize the the paradox that you've put people in so to get the full context, they now have to read or watch the movie. And so you're, you're pointing people towards a terrible movie to get the full context of what you've written. And it feels it feels wrong to me, because I agree, it just isn't.
Gabriel Gordon 28:35
So So I will say, I had not thought about that. Now, my whole world is just imploding. But, but, you know, bad movies, in some ways can have a pedagogical function, they can have a teaching function, right? Because they show you how not to do a movie, right? My grandpa was a missionary, and he left my grandma for a Thai prostitute. He serves as a wonderful negative example of what not to be like when you're a missionary. So and so you know, maybe that's what this movie is about? to show us not how not how not to do movies.
Seth Price 29:11
Fair enough. So I don't necessarily want to be the zombie horse of inerrancy. That is not the way you use that. I don't believe that footnote but that's okay. That's the way I'm going to use it. Just because for a couple reasons. So we'd referenced Jared from a few a few a few minutes ago and I he was one of the first people I talked to on the show and we already talked about that a couple times though, we can weave it in and out. I'm more interested in the way that God speaks through inspiration, and how that relates to the Bible that you and I have today. And I want to ask a question after that that regardless of what your answer is, I'm going to find a way to make the question work because it is the one question that I wrote down because I would like your opinion on it but inspiration How is God speaking through that to be tongue in cheek off of the the way that you've you've worded the book?
Gabriel Gordon 29:59
Yeah. How is okay? Yeah, we're gonna have to zoom out for a bit fair enough buckle up, we're getting on a roller coaster. So okay, put on some pants, maybe a diaper. Put on some socks, it can haven't blown up. So first of all, I'm deeply influenced by Eastern Orthodoxy and in the eastern tradition of the early church. And when we think about inspiration in the West, especially the modern West, we have a totally different conception of what the early church did. So when we think about inspiration, today, we think about it, we locate inspiration in the minds of the authors, and in the words of the page, that is we located in the past, historically, in the past, um, whereas that's not how and that's why all of this comes from modern biblical scholarship that arose in the 17th 18th and 19th centuries, which has a historical focus. But that's not how the early church thought about meaning. And therefore, because inspiration was located in the past, in the minds of the authors in the words of the page, meaning itself is located in the original, the original intended meaning by the author that is found in the words in the past. So meaning is the is history. And that's a way of looking at history. That's very modern. That's why you find conservative evangelical textual critics going back to trying to figure out what did the original text say? Because they they see truth and meaning as located in the past. And this is the same, the same understanding of history that actually underlines the Jesus seminar people who also go back, what did Jesus actually say, because they both are convinced by modernist conceptions of what it means to know things and where knowledge and meaning is located. They're both convinced that it's in the past. And that's a modern way of thinking about all desk. So and the early church, meaning is not located in the author's meaning is not located in the words of the text itself. Meaning is located in the interpretation of the text. That's also where inspiration is located. And so and it's, it's specifically it's located in the person of Jesus, right, so when the Philip, when the unic, the Ethiopian unit runs into I fill up the evangelists on the road back to Ethiopia, he's a pasta light, who's come to Jerusalem, because he's converted to the faith that the Jewish faith, he's not Jewish, he's Ethiopian, but he's converted the Jewish faith has gone to Jerusalem to to worship God. And now going back to Ethiopia, he's sitting in his chariot. On the side of the road. He's reading the scroll of Isaiah, one of the scrolls of Isaiah. And Philip comes along, he meets a mysterious like, what's that Broca's Philips an extrovert, right? And the Ethiopian says, Who is the Prophet talking about himself or someone else? So here's, here's, here's the, here's the good stuff. Our question, if we were the people in that church, we would have said, what was the intended meaning by the original author? What did this mean back then? That's not what the Phil, that's not what the unit asks. He says, Who is this about? Which isn't a question about the past, whether the author what they intended, or whether what the contextual meaning of the words are historically? It's a question of the who, which is in the now here now. So Philips answers him. He doesn't he doesn't negate his question. He doesn't say you're asking the wrong question. He assumes he's asking the right question. And he says, Jesus, so so the meaning of the text, and its inspiration is not found the words themselves are the authors in the minds of the authors. It's found in the person of Jesus. And so when we're looking at second text, like Second Timothy, where it says, All scripture is God breathed. There's a couple texts that kind of help, I think, illuminate what this means, given what we have just kind of shuffled out concerning how we understand meaning and inspiration, where it's located and how their relationship. So the first text I want to briefly mention is Genesis one, right? In Genesis one, or maybe it's to Genesis two, I think two seven. I'm like the beginning that makes up one of those chapters. It talks about the creation of Adam, right? And and there's two, there's two stages to the creation of Adam. There's, God takes the dust of the earth and he forms Adam which forms is kind of another way to say creates, he creates alchemy forms out him from the dust of the earth, and then that's the first part of this process. And then only then, does he breathe the life of God into Adam, making Adam an animated living being So dennis is the author of Second Timothy, who, by the way, is the first one, as far as we can tell, to coined the word God breathed, didn't exist before, right? Seems to be harping back to Genesis, which is the New Testament authors are doing this all the time. And so he seems to be hearkened back to Genesis, but he doesn't say All scripture is God breathed. Here. He doesn't say All scripture is God formed and God breathed. Or that it's God formed. He says, God breathed. So it's not created by God. It's breathed in by God. And remember, what does john 14 six say? JOHN 14 six says that I'm the way that Jesus speaking I'm the way the truth in life. So Jesus is life. And as we know, in the Nicene Creed, Jesus, it says, we believe in the Holy Spirit, the giver of life. Well, who is life, Christ His life? What does that second process that God breathes into Adam, the life of God? Yeah. So the life of God being breathed, given by the Holy Spirit is Christ. So and then we jump to Matthew, chapter five, verse 17, through 19, the sermon on now I promise, these are connected. So Jesus says, I've not come to abolish the law and the prophets, right? But to fulfill them. But then that bastard couple verses later, is like, Hey, what's up? Guys? You've heard that, you know, in the Old Testament, it says, You should hate your enemy, you know, and you should do this. So this actually doesn't say necessarily say hate your enemy. I think it's implied. But he but he says, You've heard it said I for it is for today, or you've heard it say, to swear on oath. And then he says, But I say to you, yeah, you know, love your enemies. Take care of them, so forth. Do that your Yes, be yes. And your No, no, anything more comes from the evil one. And so basically says, actually, those old testament texts got it wrong. And I'm telling you something, I'm telling you the truth because I am first. I am the Thor. And in Matthew, what you find is over and over and over the con. And actually, I think most of the Gospels, the concept of where, where his authority located comes up time and time again. And in Matthew, it's always Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. And at the very end of Matthew 20. He says, I have all authority in heaven on earth has been given to me. You didn't say scripture does, he says he does. Doesn't say the church does. He says he does. But and when he says, But I say to you, he's calm, he seems to be contradicting what he just said a few verses earlier, when he says, I've not come to abolish all the profits, but to fulfill them. So what's going on here, I think there's a couple ways we can handle this. And one of those ways to talk about a book maybe if you want to talk about that later, we can't, but connecting to what we were talking about inspiration a moment ago, this is all coming together promise. Um, so the word behind fulfill is in Greek is play row. And it can be translated as fulfill, that's one of the Submit semantic meanings, meanings of the word. It can also be translated as to make full of, or to fill, and origin and the third century who I'm a big fan of, and his commentary on the book of Matthew, He pulls out this text and he starts to speak about scripture, metaphorically, he uses the metaphor of a net, and he says, scripture, as the net, before Christ was yet to be filled. And then he cites Matthew 517. So it seems that Matthew understands that at least this word plays a role in the context, Matthew 517, that I've come to abolish the law and profits, but to play for them to fulfill them, at least has the double meaning of to fill. So if Jesus is saying, I've not come to abolish the law and the prophets, but to fill them, will whatever you remember about fulfilled, we remember Genesis, the creation round, that God breathes, the Holy Spirit gives life that life is Christ, he feels it and doubt him, and then he becomes a living being. Yeah, and this is incarnational language right here, right? I like to think about it in terms of a jelly doughnut, you know, the donut being scripture. And the jelly is Jesus who is squeezed into it by the Holy Spirit of anger.
Seth Price 38:59
Is there a way to do this without diabetes?
Gabriel Gordon 39:01
No. I'm always talking about diabetes because it runs in my family on both my grandparents have it and I'm always I can't I can't bring home ice cream, you're going to give me diabetes. I use analogies to diabetes and so yeah, so so when he says I'm not going to abolish long profits but to fill them and we connect that to the Genesis and then when we go back take all that back with us to second Timothy 316 inspiration is not the mind that the author's it's not in the text itself. And indeed origin even talks about the the text is like he cited in Second Corinthians where Paul talks about we have jars, clay jars with treasure inside of them. He's he he uses that analogy from Paul to say that scripture is are these clay jars, these broken clay jars and what's inside of it is Christ. So inspiration is sacramental or incarnational. For for those who are not from Sacramento language so cry inspiration is the Holy Spirit taking up these texts and failing Christ Christ Sacramento or incarnational presence into the text and it becomes the literal text becomes a sort of body for the for the presence of Christ within and he becomes allegorical or spiritual meaning within and that's why fill up and the Ethiopian can say who is the Prophet talking about meaning is located in the who is located in Christ Christ He is the meaning because he is the one present in the text transforming it into his image
Seth Price 40:38
been enough weeks you know what that sound means 1530 seconds tops I'm going to be back in just a second so the you talked about the net b this is not my other question I just want to follow up on a few things so yeah you talked about the Nets being filled you know by by Christ is that you using that as as a as an analogy or is that that net that net usage in the text
Gabriel Gordon 41:22
so that is from origin it's not an nothing because I can tell what did the analogy of Scripture as a net being filled with Christ is from Origin
Seth Price 41:32
The only reason I ask is I'm the it calls to mind the other story with a net where you know that they've been fishing all day can't find any fish there is no food which without food there is no life yeah shows up dude you're doing it wrong just throw it over there trust me it's gonna be fine I'm okay I'm here now and I'm here with you and then all of a sudden we're tipping over boats with life or food or fish was
Gabriel Gordon 41:55
who's who was the early symbol for Jesus yeah for the Christians
Seth Price 41:58
yeah fish Yeah,
Gabriel Gordon 41:59
right yeah so yeah origin would be proud of you you just read that allegorical and you you got this you you found Christ in the tabs?
Seth Price 42:07
I don't so I've been told what did so I talked to Barbara brown Taylor and she told me I was a pernis kapus furnish I don't know what the word is I know how to say it a reader like a certain type of reader where you take things into like oh these go together and some editor came in and said nope, you need to put 400 words in between here but they should have been you know they were originally to get Yeah. Which based on your like appendices or extra stuff at the end appears as though the editor of this book told you to do the same thing because there's actually stuff in the back that appears to go in the first part of the book but that's a different conversation.
Gabriel Gordon 42:38
Tom it was Tom was it tom tom tom he was the he was brought on as like the theological editor so just to kind of give feedback and yeah, he told me it was too much. You
Seth Price 42:49
said something in passing that I don't think most people listening maybe they caught on and didn't and heard it and said hey, what so I want to call back to it so you reference Second Timothy 316 and you basically said that word doesn't exist anywhere else? Like I'm assuming you mean in the Bible or do you mean in history? Or because there's other words like that like what is it the ark so I don't know how to say it the word that people will use about homosexuality that's later on. It's a rk fcn How do you say I'd have to look at my Bible how long it's another one of those words that like exists only in Scripture and then like an Oracle like a siren or a civil Oracle one of those other Yeah, are
Gabriel Gordon 43:27
Yeah, so this word so when, when a scholar is looking at words have meaning only according to their use, right? Words are given meaning all words are made up and they're given meaning by how they're used in a sentence and in the context so when a scholar wants to decide what does this word mean, they're going to look how is it used in its sentence and its paragraph in the letter as a whole? Is it says so for instance, for this word that we translate is God breathed in Second Timothy, they're gonna say, is this anywhere else in Second Timothy? Is it anywhere else in nice, I'm gonna ask is it found anywhere else in the New Testament? And if it is, they're gonna say, Okay, well, how does this help us under looking at how it's used? How does it help us understand its meaning? They're also going to look anywhere else in the contemporary Jewish literature surrounding this text and in the Greco Roman literature, contemporaneous surrounding this text maybe around the same time a little bit before a little bit after and it seems that the author is second Timothy, coined this word that they they're the ones that first came up with it and so we don't have so those those people like john MacArthur, I'm gonna throw him under the bus who say, Oh, this word means it means it's God's word God breathed means it came straight out of the mouth of God, it's the Word of God. He can't say that. It's it's, it's it's a it's a lot more complicated than that. We don't necessarily easily have the meaning, which is part of the reason why I think you have to go to some of these other texts to kind of fill out some of that meaning and I think you have to go to the first people that you That word. And the first people that use that word were out what's outside the New Testament for the church fathers, and that the way they you they used it was much broader than the way we use it. So they used inspiration to talk about the work of the Greek philosophers like Plato and Socrates and to talk about their own writings. The author of either first or second climate. talks about his own writing is inspired by God, Gregor and Nisa talking about his brother basil, his commentary on Genesis one and the fourth century says it was more inspired than Moses, his own writing. They taught us to refer to, to bishops and Creed's and the decisions of councils and, and amongst other writings, and so that's not to say that everything, we tend to think what's inspired is scripture, which is not really how they didn't think those were synonymous. But that's not to say everything is scripture. But it's to say that inspiration as a concept, a theological concept was used in a much broader way than we use it today. And it's not used synonymously with the Word of God. When they say inspiration, they don't use it to say, this is the word of God, because they use it to talk about monks, and all these other things I mentioned. And so if you look in those contexts, when you swap that out real quick with Word of God, and you look at that, does that make sense? In the context, it doesn't, it's not synonymous. Yeah,
Seth Price 46:27
so yeah. So I want to nuance that a bit. So is there a difference between inspired writing and scripture? And if no, why is the Canon closed? And why are other things not more readily today considered scripture?
Gabriel Gordon 46:45
So first of all, john Bair, a Eastern Orthodox patristic scholar, points out that it's not until the 1700s that the word canon even gets used to refer to a set list of books and the Bible. Before then it was used to refer to the rule of faith. The canon of truth is another way it was talked about, which is essentially the gospel message kind of the Creed's are an example of the rule of faith or canon of faith. And so that was actually there was no idea of sola scriptura. When we when we think about, especially Protestants, when we think about the early church, we kind of anachronistically we we superimpose sola scriptura back into the early church. And we think that the Canon was how they decided things, right? The canon of Scripture was how they decide things, but it actually wasn't it was the rule of faith, which you can find this rule of faith. The Creed's, again, are a form of it, you find it in there. And as an origin, a bunch of early writers, and they all kind of agree on some of the basic same things that God is a creator, everything that God has taught us, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and is fully human, the virgin birth, resurrection, the ascension, some of these basic things. And that was what they use to decide what was scripture. So for instance, they take the Gospel of Thomas, which is a gnostic, so called gospel and they would say, this doesn't line up with this totally discounts any of the suffering of Christ totally discounts the cross, and doesn't line up with the rule of faith. It can't be we can't consider it scripture. And so the inspiration did get applied to other texts. And people certainly thought that other scriptures that didn't end up in our quote unquote, New Testament canon, that early Christians believed were scripture. So like the shepherd of her moss and the decay were examples of books that were considered scripture by some of the early church. And so depending on who you talk to certain books they would consider scripture would be different from other people. So it was more that it was more gray but there certainly were books that the church did not that agreed on these are not scripture like the gospel Thomas and and so and then that also brings into the the problem of cannon we kind of think, I think, possibly, I think, Dan Brown's book and the movie that was made off with Tom Hanks, The Da Vinci Code, I think, probably has something to do it shapes our, our, kind of when we picture canonization, we picture that movie right the scene where there's a bunch of old white dudes and the council and I see through 25 and Turkey, and they're deciding what books go into Bible and whatnot and they're like, secretly Oh, we can't have these gnostic books. That's that's that couldn't be farther from the historical fact.
Seth Price 49:27
There are no white dudes there. No, yeah. No, why didn't the coach want to get a T shirt
Gabriel Gordon 49:31
that says, Council and I see it on the back hashtag no whites.
Seth Price 49:34
I'll make it Yeah.
Gabriel Gordon 49:36
So this church, and so yeah, they were all brown dudes. Athanasius was a black dude from Nubia. And he was at the Council and ICC had black people he had brown people from Turkey and Syria in Egypt. And but
Seth Price 49:50
Jesus was white when he was at nicea though, right?
Gabriel Gordon 49:53
Oh yeah, definitely blond hair, blue eyes. So then, and not only that, Were they brown and black? They were actually. So they were actually they were the topic of what books are in the Bible and what are not never came up that nothing to do with any of the council's any of the ecumenical councils, the council and I see that council council Don and 381, the Council of emphasis and 431, the Council of calcined on 451. None of those have anything to do with what books go into the Bible and whatnot. Those have to do with doctrines of God, who is Jesus? Who is the Holy Spirit? Who is the father? Yeah,
Seth Price 50:34
almost all of the stuff Yeah.
Gabriel Gordon 50:36
Yeah, nothing to do with, with the Bible. So, so yes, there's no such thing as canon. We all do agree on 27 books in New Testament, but that's just you know, that we that's how, over time, we all have ended up using 27 books, Protestant, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox have all ended up using so on a practical level, there is functionally a Canon but never officially did account Ecumenical Council get together and say these are 27 books. And for the Old Testament, it's even more complicated because we do have three different different books. So orthodox have a different number than the Catholics. And that's a different number than than the Protestants. Protestants have the least amount of books for people that say, you know, solid script, Torah, you know, they have the least amount of books you think they want more books, most edited, most editing. So to answer your question, so no canon. But there were were books that weren't considered scripture that were inspired. And then there were other scriptures that aren't in our New Testament, they were considered scripture by certain people. And so the picture is kind of complicated.
Seth Price 51:43
Yeah. So is there anything to say then that I can't take I shoot, let's just take this one. I'm going to take this one because it's here. It's small. So there's nothing to say that I couldn't say just this is this is scripture. This is inspired. This is scripture. I say that tongue in cheek. Yeah.
Gabriel Gordon 51:58
Why not? Or in CS Lewis is great. He should be a saint.
Seth Price 52:01
Can you be a saint if you're not part of the Catholic Church?
Gabriel Gordon 52:05
Was there saints in the Eastern Orthodox Church?
Seth Price 52:07
That's what I meant. That's what I yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Was he but he wasn't Eastern Orthodox either. Was he?
Gabriel Gordon 52:13
No, he was my denomination Anglican. But here's the best kind of angle can I think he was a, an Anglo orthodox? His theology is not very Protestant that I can tell I think it's not Eastern Orthodox. But yeah, but could I call so let's go.
Seth Price 52:27
Could I call that scripture?
Gabriel Gordon 52:29
Um, I would probably say no. Could you call it inspired? Maybe, okay. But could you call it scripture? I would, my personal opinion would probably be no, I would say, what does the church call scripture, right? So I wouldn't say you know, this church has never called CS lewis's but and it's too new, right? We have these other books have been around 2000 years now. And for 2000 years, the church has functionally used most of these books as scripture. So
Seth Price 52:59
enough what in your dog's face when you saw your dog said to yourself, that's Karl Barth.
Gabriel Gordon 53:07
So he does kind of look like cardboard if you put glasses on him. It's kind of got that wrinkly face, well, man face, but I originally wanted to name him origin. And my wife was like, there's no way we're naming our origin. And so we were going through names Ignatius of Antioch and john Wesley and
Seth Price 53:27
so your wife had no history. Your wife got no,
Gabriel Gordon 53:31
like those. She liked Carl Bart. No, she we went with Carl Bart, because she was like, we have some someone popped out the name Carl Bart, and she was like, I like Carl. Bart. Carl? Yeah, so we just call him Bart. But his full name is Carl Bart. So and because, you know, because Bart wrote a bunch of dogmatics. You know, it's kind of funny.
Seth Price 53:51
Yeah. Yeah. towards the back half of your book. And this will be the last probably heavy question I'll ask you. And then we'll end with a few because and for those listening, there is a lot in this book, it is the we've, we would we would have to talk for seven or eight hours to actually talk through the book. And I don't, I don't have the ability to do that. I'll have to eat it eventually. But there's a part in here, you're talking about Louis's model, and I can't remember what is the model of but you say what I'm calling participatory incarnation of inspiration. And so we may need to define that. But the part here is that I am trying to get where is it at? Hold on, let me find it. So you say are you right? This initial response is what we call scripture. God continues this participatory act of revealing God's self through a back and forth dialogical process, even after scriptures production. And then you go on further to say so it's not as if scripture is our only response to God, but we continue to respond to the revelation who is the word that comes to us through the text, we can sum up this we can sum up the process this way. God presents God's self and our initial response to that is scripture. And so can you break that Part of it because that is that 157 in the PDF. I don't know if that's the actual page. Okay,
Gabriel Gordon 55:08
I'll find it. So continue with your question. No. So
Seth Price 55:10
that is the question. So that's why I asked that question about CS Lewis, not specifically Louis, I just happens to be the smallest book up here. And the other ones are actually a Muslim and Islamic books. Because that's what I'm trying to learn about recently. Because why not learn something new? It just happened to be happenstance that it is CS Lewis, there's a Rob Bell, but behind there, it would be really heretical if I said, Could this be scripture, people would just would just, you know, hit hit the eject key on on subscribing to the show. Yeah, so essentially, Yeah, why not? Yeah. So what is participatory incarnation of inspiration? And I can't remember what it's called. But like the chapter before you actually contest that with a different way? of it's not it's I think it's Greg Boyd, you give Boyd has a different view, of incarnation of inspiration. But, but yeah, can you break apart what lewis's model is, and why you're calling it participatory? Yeah.
Gabriel Gordon 56:00
Louis had this. Let's see if I can find the quote. Yeah. So in his book, reflection on the song, which is a fantastic book on the Bible, um, I just read the quote here real quick. He says, In this towards the beginning of the book, it seems to me appropriate, almost inevitable, that when that great imagination, speaking about God, which in the beginning, for its own delight, in for the delight American angels, and obese had invented and formed the whole world of nature, submitted to express itself, that being God, and human speech, that speech should sometimes be poetry, for poetry, too, is a little incarnation, giving body to what had been before invisible and Inaudible. So CS Lewis had this view, and I don't think it's, it's, it's not exclusive to him, it goes back to it's kind of a general incarnational view of, of the Bible and of Christ, that goes back to the early church. But he had this view, that human speech, poetry and human speech in general, served as a vehicle for the Word of God being the second person of the Trinity, whom we call Jesus Christ. And so I kind of take that, and add to it a little bit. So when we talked about in chapter three, I talk about participatory notions of inspiration. So essentially, in that chapter, I say, God reveals God's self, and revelation is always Christ, right? from the New Testament perspective. And when God reveals God's self, we as human beings who always interpret things, right, when we're never not interpreting things, what we receive is interpreted. And then what we produce out of that as a response is a human interpretation of that response. And so God reveals God's self, that's the first part. We respond, it's naturally interpreted in that responses as human interpretation. So that's the first part. That's why it's participatory, because it's not just like Gods dumping a bunch of words on a page, and that's God. That's how God made scripture. No, it's God does really reveal God's self. But then it's up to us to interpret that. And we produce human scriptures that are a human response or interpretation. So that's kind of the first step. But that process of God revealing God's self, and then us responding to it doesn't stop with the production of Scripture, right? It continues. So God then picks up those words, as a vehicle for himself. And the Holy Spirit squeezes Jesus the jelly into the donut, right? And squeeze it, it squeezes him into the words of Scripture about your shirt right there. That's jelly doughnuts.
Seth Price 58:46
No jelly, doughnut, Jesus,
Gabriel Gordon 58:48
jelly, jelly cheese. So he squeezes Jesus into into the words of Scripture, and then those serve as a vehicle to bring him to us once again. And then we respond to that right, with a human interpretation. And then that response, he picks up again, and starts the whole process over. So it's just this continual process of God incarnate and God's self in in through what we humans respond and interpret. Does that make sense?
Seth Price 59:24
It does. So that's theosis then correct or is that am I using the wrong there?
Gabriel Gordon 59:31
With theosis is the US participating in the divine nature becoming more and more like Him sharing more and more in his and mortality and likeness? So I don't I mean, I think that's probably part of the process. Because when we do encounter Christ, right, and we freely open ourselves up to Christ, we are brought in to further union and share with the divine. So yeah, I think that is part scripture. Definitely serve as a means for our theosis. Right? Okay. It's I think how I would say,
Seth Price 1:00:04
Yeah, um, this is not in your book, but I'm curious. So the way that I've used sin is an intentional act that breaks Shalom, or the kingdom of God, like I intentionally chose us and I create a small hell. And so in keeping with the jelly doughnut metaphor, what portion of my personal malicious sin enters in through that metaphor of a jelly doughnut? like is that me throwing out the box? Like, I want to stretch the metaphor a bit, but I'm hoping I'm asking my question in a good way. I don't know if I am or not like, that's the best way I can ask it.
Gabriel Gordon 1:00:40
If I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying does Jesus does the jelly enter into our doughnuts of sin?
Seth Price 1:00:46
Well, I don't believe in original sin, but like, where it
Gabriel Gordon 1:00:49
just yeah, our particular doughnuts. Yes. Yes. I keep stretching the metaphor. Yeah. Um, yeah, you shouldn't believe in originalist. And that's an image of Augustine. You should believe in the Eastern Orthodox perspective. But anyway,
Seth Price 1:01:02
I do. I do. I originally made bless it and hold Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Gabriel Gordon 1:01:06
Amen. frisbee to him. So yeah, I have thought about this a little bit. Um, we can go back to the Hitler example. Does
Seth Price 1:01:18
does does Godwin's law exist on podcast? This is what you don't know what Godwin's law is? I don't think so you continue saying what you're gonna say. And I'll find a coordinated sense.
Gabriel Gordon 1:01:28
So I'll start with this Maximus. So this is my first time really trying to articulate this question and then out loud processor. So this is gonna sound probably jumbled. But Maximus the Confessor in the seventh century, said that all of creation is an incarnation of the Word of God, that being who we know is Jesus Christ. And so and that's the eastern perspective that all things are sacramental, right? All things are filled with Christ. All things are a vehicle that bring us into the presence of the word, not just the bread and wine, not just scripture, not just, you know, the, the rain or whatever. But everything is sacrament, everything is filled with the presence of Christ. And if that's true, my initial thought, not giving too much thought to it, but my initial thought would be yes, that God is filled into our sin, I don't buy the idea that God is holy, and therefore cannot stand in the presence of holiness, because one that seems to defeat Omni presence versus a, I tend to be a classical theists. So to deny the Omni presence of God, I think would be problematic. So if God really is everywhere, then God is always around sin, God is present in and through and, and through it. And all around it, we live and move and have our being in God. And that includes our sinful acts as well. So my initial thoughts is, yes, that God could certainly use that as a vehicle. I. That's with only, you know, initial thoughts. I could see maybe that being problematic, you know, if we think about a rape or Hitler's genocide, like how much do we want to say that God is present in that? And maybe that's some of that paradoxical ness of the cross that we we don't want to say that Christ that God is present in the suffering of the cross, right? But there he is, and I and maybe that's a way of saying, the revelation test to say that God has always been present in our suffering, and in this in the sin that causes suffering, and is there present, seeking to persuade us to the good seeking to bring transformation and seeking to make alive what is dead because sin is, in some sense, is dead, right? It's something that's not really doesn't have life in and of itself. It's the the absence of life. And so if Christ who is life is present in all things, including our sin, then he seeks to, to resurrect and to bring life into those areas of our life that are on unfathomably evil.
Seth Price 1:04:09
So yeah,
Gabriel Gordon 1:04:10
I don't know if any of that made sense. No, no,
Seth Price 1:04:12
I like it. And I also feel as though I told you at the beginning, I like to ask questions that are not in the book jacket. And so I feel as though the fact that you're like, I don't matter that process, I count that as a success. I again, I like to ask questions that are slightly different. So Godwin's law is this if you can believe Wikipedia and and why not? So it says it is a it is an internet adage, asserting that as an online discussion grows longer, regardless of the topic or scope, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Adolf Hitler approaches. In less mathematical terms, the longer the discussion, the more likely a Nazi comparison becomes, and with a long enough discussion, it is an absolute certainty. Wow. Yeah. So and to be honest, if you like get in the Facebook comments have a long enough thread and eventually it always happens like it's just a few degrees of separation of the original posts. It is quite fun to watch devall anyway, doesn't matter. So this questions, I got two final questions for you. And then and then I'll have you point people where they should go, which is not the author page of the Misfits theology page we've already discussed. It'll be fixed. I didn't discuss that. So and this may go to one of the other books you said you were writing. But so one of the questions is I that I've been asking people in it, and I take it just from the name of the show, because I realized I wasn't actually using that to the full, you don't want to get all of the legs out of that horse that I can. What are some of the things that you feel like we should be speaking about in our churches or feel liberated enough to be able to talk about in our churches, not as a clergy, but as a congregation? And maybe if we don't, it's actually going to cause quite a bit of damage if we can't figure out the the courage to do so?
Gabriel Gordon 1:05:47
Yeah, I'm, I'm going to get vulnerable here. There are plenty of things that we do talk about, right? And often, those devolve into arguments like if I would have, Can I Say This At Church? I was thinking about that question. Because that's the name of the podcast, right? And when I was in the Southern Baptist world, which is where I came from, when I wandered in the Episcopal to the Episcopal Church, what I found was that I could not be open about what I thought about scripture about the conclusions, I was coming to what I was seeing in Scripture itself. And when I came to the Episcopal world, there, you know, if I, if I did have those conversations, right, those conversations are happening a lot, say in the southern baptist church, it's just that there's a very specific answer they want, which I actually think is a heretical answer. Which is right, the that the Bible is the Word of God, I actually think that's heresy. Just dropped that piece in there. I'm not gonna say any more about that. But, um, but if, but I couldn't really, if I didn't give that answer, right. You know, I couldn't actually say that out loud, because it would devolve into to, to an argument, and maybe shaming and asteroseismic and getting kicked out, which I eventually did get kicked out of a Southern Baptist Church. But, um, so two things. Part of what drew me to the Episcopal Church was that I could say things in church, right, that I wouldn't necessarily have been able to say, my fundamentalist background. Um, but the thing I want to say, quickly, and then I'll jump to another thing is that when we do have conversations about things that we disagree about, right, whether it's scripture, first of all, we should be able to say, talk about these things, right. And we should be able to talk about them in a way that's filled with grace, and kindness, and generosity, and mercy, and all those things that you know, the gifts of the Spirit that Paul talks about, and that are integral to the teachings of Jesus. And oftentimes, whether we're progressive, whether we're conservative, whether we're Catholic, or whatever the case may be, we aren't actually living out the teachings of Jesus when we have these conversations, right. And so, one, I do think we need to be able to have these conversations about the Bible. But I think one of the things that's so divisive to the church right now, and I know that for my, some of my own experience, but also the denomination is homosexuality, you brought it up earlier, right? That's not something that can be talked about in one way, and the fundamentalist world I came from, and it can't be talked about in another way, and the Episcopal world that I live in. If you're in the Southern Baptist world, or ag world, for instance, if you have a progressive view of homosexuality, you can't talk. You can't talk about that, right? That's not something you can say at church don't get kicked out. But if you're in the Episcopal Church, oftentimes, that's the same thing. But instead, now, if you have a conservative view, you can't say that a church, right? It'll be misunderstood. It'll be you'll get ostracized. And so I would hope that people I think that's one thing just because that's such a divisive topic right now, the United Methodist is about to have a split over it. The Episcopal Church had a split over at 1015 years ago at this point. And I don't think that's a matter of Orthodoxy. I think we this is something we can disagree about. We can have loving, respectful conversations about and we can come together and actually come come away from those conversations, disagreeing and still loving one another and being part of the same church. Yeah. So that that I think is something that immediately comes to mind. I've known people, I'll just be honest, I tend to have a more traditional view and my first Episcopal Church that I was in when I did say that at church, right? Can I Say This At Church? The answer was no, yeah, I'm the I was very viciously verbally attacked. And shamed and ostracized. And I think I ended up crying that night. And the lady accused me of making statements about rape, being the homeless better than homosexuality and all these absurd things that I never said. So I think this is a huge area where we can actually practice what it means to look like Jesus and follow Jesus. And sometimes that means eating at the same table with someone you disagree with, and doing so in a loving, respectful way. And coming away from that conversation, maybe even disagreeing, and still being able to come back the next day and have a beer with them.
Seth Price 1:10:37
So yeah, when you try to wrap or put words to what God is, what do you say to that?
Gabriel Gordon 1:10:47
Um, God looks like Jesus. I'm stealing that from Brian's on. But I think, I think that is spot on. When if you want to know what God looks like, Look to Jesus. Jesus is what God looks like. I think that also would include the Trinitarian nature. And I think that would include mystery. God is both noble and the person in face of Jesus, but God has also beyond anything that we could ever comprehend. He is infinite. And he's not a he, I just use that male pronoun, but God is beyond gender and beyond sex, beyond our human constructs, and yet is still knowable in the person of Jesus. And I think the dogma of the church, so
Seth Price 1:11:30
Yeah, perfect. Gabriel, I have enjoyed it. We've gone all over the place. I don't know that we talked about 12% of your book. And that's okay. That's okay. It is very good book, listening, you should go and get it. I very much enjoyed reading. And thanks again for sending it to me. But more importantly, a year and a half later. Thanks for thanks for finally coming on to the show. And that's not your fault. That's mine. But it's been it's been a pleasure to talk with you, my friend. Yeah.
Gabriel Gordon 1:11:55
I appreciate having me on the show. Yeah,
Seth Price 1:11:58
no problem. Now, I haven't added it up. But there are hundreds of 1000s, if not millions of podcasts on the internet. And I am humbled that you continue to download this one. This is your first time here. Please know that there are transcripts of these shows. Not always in real time, but I do my best. And if you go back in the logs, you can find transcripts for pretty much any episode that you'd like the show is recorded and edited by me, but it is produced by the patron supporters of the show. That is one of the best if not the best way that you can support the show. If you get anything at all out of these episodes, if you think on them, or if you you know you're out and about and you tell your friends about it or Hey, Mom, Dad, brother, sister, friend, boss, Pastor, here's what I heard, what are your thoughts on that? If this is helping you in any way, and it is helping me consider supporting the show in that manner. It is extremely inexpensive, but collectively, it is so very much helpful. Now for you. I pray that you are blessed and you know that you're cherished and beloved. We'll talk soon