The Tim Ahlman Podcast
The Tim Ahlman Podcast is your go-to resource for inspiring conversations that equip leaders to thrive in every vocation, inside and outside the church. With three primary focuses, this podcast dives deep into:
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Learn: Engage in deep theological discussions with scholars who illuminate how Christ is revealed on every page of Scripture. Together, we’ll bridge theology to the realities of a post-Christian America, ensuring practical application for today’s world. This segment aligns closely with the themes of the American Reformation Podcast and resonates with the 60% of you who crave more exploration in this area.
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Join Tim Ahlman as we navigate leadership, learning, and living with purpose, so you can lead with strength, wisdom, and a Christ-centered vision.
The Tim Ahlman Podcast
Did Lutherans Misread Paul? Dr. Gorman Might Think So
What does it truly mean to follow Christ? According to Dr. Michael Gorman, it goes far beyond simply believing the right doctrines. In this profound conversation, the renowned biblical scholar challenges us to consider whether we've been misreading the Apostle Paul all along.
Dr. Michael Gorman shares his groundbreaking work on Pauline theology, exploring how Christians are called to not just believe the gospel but embody it. The conversation navigates deep theological waters with practical applications for how the church lives out its mission in today's polarized world.
• The theology of the cross vs. theology of glory - understanding the cross as both the source and shape of our salvation
• Common misreadings of Paul that focus only on individual forgiveness instead of communal transformation
• How Western Christianity tends to individualize Paul's messages that were written to communities
• Understanding grace as "unconditional but not unconditioned" - requiring grateful response
• Why faith, love, and hope form the core theological virtues in Paul's writings
• The concept of "anticipatory participation" - living now as a foretaste of God's coming kingdom
• How peace-making should be central to the church's witness in a polarized society
• The dangers of Christians seeking worldly influence and power rather than servant leadership
Welcome to the Tim Allman Podcast. It's a beautiful day to be alive. Pray the joy of the crucified and risen Jesus is your strength. I've been looking forward to this conversation for so long. About six months ago I was told by Dr Jeff Cloa to check out the book Becoming the Gospel Paul, participation and Mission, and I just I looked up on the internet and you can find all sorts of people on the internet and I was like I wonder if Dr Michael Gorman would be open to coming on for a chat. And you, graciously, dr Gorman, I think within a day or two, got back to me and said yeah, let's talk about Jesus together. So let me tell you about him, if you've not heard of Dr Gorman. He holds the Raymond E Brown Chair of Biblical Studies and Theology at St Mary's Seminary, which he just told me is the oldest Catholic seminary in the United States, and it also has another seminary that runs out of it, at the very same time serving the wider church. It's an ecumenical seminary. We can maybe start with some questions there Connected. He lives outside of Baltimore, maryland Now.
Speaker 1:He has written so many books. I'm going to give you a number of them here Cruciformity, paul's narrative of the cross and inhabiting the cruciform God, both companion books. And inhabiting the cruciform God is his second book, and then this companion book, becoming the Gospel. It came out about a decade ago. He's right in the commentary space right now. His newest book just came out a month or so ago, commentary on 1 Corinthians. He had a Romans commentary connected to Erdman's, I believe, and Baker books that came out. A Romans commentary came out in 2022, and he's now working on Philippians. So, reverend Dr Michael Gorman, how are you doing, brother? Thank you for your generosity of time.
Speaker 2:Thank you, tim, for having me and for that kind introduction. It's great to meet you and to have a chance to talk with you, so thanks for the invitation.
Speaker 1:Well, we're going to have a great time. And you just told me that you have some Lutheran background. Your kids went to a Lutheran grade school and even this last week you went and worshiped at one of our LCMS churches in your community. And if you know anything about we as Lutherans, well, one we love Jesus, we love grace, we love the mercy of God flowing from the cross, but we have a strong theology of the cross and I was fascinated as your book. You have a very strong theology of the cross. It sounds a bit like Martin Luther. Have a very strong theology of the cross. It sounds a bit like Martin Luther. Just curious, how much of Luther have you read?
Speaker 2:and kind of maybe knowingly or unknowingly- incorporated into some of your writings, dr Gorman. Yeah Well, again thanks, tim. My background with the Lutheran church is primarily through a school that our kids went to. My wife actually went to a Lutheran church when she was young. My familiarity with the LCMS is through not through churches per se in my own experience, but of course I read Luther. When I was in seminary. I went to Princeton Theological Seminary and we read a lot of Reformation texts, including Calvin, of course, and Luther.
Speaker 2:I think Luther probably got into me accidentally, if you will, it wasn't deliberately, but maybe what Luther and I have in common is and the reason we have the cross in common is because I think we were both trying to read Paul on Paul's own terms, and sometimes Luther gets accused of reading Paul completely in a 16th century context, with a 16th century lens, and he doesn't really understand Paul per se. I don't buy that. There might be some truth to that, but I mean, who reads Paul perfectly? And I read Paul. I deliberately read Paul from a 21st century perspective as well as a first century. So I think it's our common interest in Christ crucified, and especially for me, over against the theology of glory, which of course Luther also opposed and I think in our political context it's one that's very concerning to me.
Speaker 1:Well, let's pause there for a bit. You had me at theology of the cross and theology of glory for a bit. You had me at theology of the cross and theology of glory. For those who are unfamiliar maybe with those terms, would you define first this theology of the cross over and against theology of glory. Dr Gorman, in your understanding, yeah.
Speaker 2:So theology of the cross from my point of view is that it takes Paul very seriously when he says I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, that is, jesus Christ crucified. Of course he wouldn't even care about the crucified Jesus if he wasn't also the resurrected Jesus. So he's not eliminated in the resurrection. But he's saying that, as the German theologian Ernst Casemann said last century, that the cross is the signature of the risen one, so Jesus remains the crucified Messiah, even as the exalted Lord. And we see that in John 20, when he's got the marks in his hands and his sign and so forth. So but for me the theology of the cross means that the cross is central, not only in terms of the source of our salvation, but also the very shape of our salvation, or the source of our spirituality, the source of our spirituality and the shape of our spirituality. So that's why I use the term cruciform and cruciformity.
Speaker 2:Sometimes I think, and maybe even in some Lutheran circles, there's so much emphasis on the cross as the place where we get forgiveness of sins. Amen, I don't want to dispute that. But let's move on and see what it means to live within the realm of the crucified Messiah and his sort of canonic, self-emptying, self-giving love. The theology of power, on the other hand, represents only an understanding of Jesus as the resurrected one who's come in glory and who wants to exercise power, political and otherwise, without any reference to the cross. So it leaves the cross in the dust, and I think Luther was absolutely right to say that's extremely problematic and extremely dangerous.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's interesting. I've not heard theology of glory synonymous with power. How does that theology?
Speaker 2:Misuse power, misunderstandings of power. The cross for Paul. The cross is true power. It's the wisdom and power of God. Yeah, sorry.
Speaker 1:So it's a worldly view of power might makes right. And how does that move us? Not just in Luther, but obviously in Paul. How does that move us, Not just in Luther, but obviously in Paul? How does that move us in a works righteousness direction? I mean, I'm thinking of you could go down the charismatic, maybe, name it, claim it, and if you have enough faith in God, is the genie in the bottle that's going to give you all of your wildest dreams, you know. And and if the cross actually comes, it means that you don't. I'm I'm giving a very general summary of some doctrine. But if, if and when the suffering of this world comes as Jesus is very clear, it will In this world you will have suffering and trial. Take heart, I've overcome the world. That's true power. It's through the cross to the resurrection. But how does that lead us toward works righteousness? That should be guarded against, Dr Gorman.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have to confess, as a Methodist, I'm a little less concerned about works righteousness than you, as a Lutheran, might be. But I think I would phrase maybe a little bit differently and say it leads us away from the essence of the cross, which is not only about forgiveness of sins and it's not only about suffering. It's about this life of faith in which the call of God on us is to repeat what Jesus said to be in his passion predictions, where he calls us to be the last in order to be the first, where he calls us to be the servant of all, as he is the servant of all, to welcome the weak and the children. It's just a whole understanding of life as shaped by the reality of Christ's cross as his gift to the world.
Speaker 1:I love that and this is I mean, I hear a little bit of the cost of discipleship in Bonhoeffer there have you read some of him? Because he saw the church going down a way that cheapened the grace of God, and I think that is certainly a concern for us today, as we're hearers, we're also doers of the word, and I love what you said. The cross is both the source and the shape then of the Christian life, is both the source and the shape then of the christian life. There is a hearing, there's a believing and then there's a living out of of the faith. Right, we believe and then this is the central point of your book we believe and then we become more and more like jesus right, more there, dr gorman.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the community. Well, first of all, to bonhoeffer I, I've read the discipleship book. Used to be called the english translation was costcipleship, and then the actual title is simply Discipleship. I started reading that and actually read that when I was probably about 18 years old, and I've read it at least a dozen times since then. I've used it as a textbook in classes, I think it's I tell my students when you leave seminary if you haven't read two books, you shouldn't graduate. If you haven't read Augustine's Confessions and you haven't read Bonhoeffer's Discipleship, you're not theologically trained. But anyhow, to Bonhoeffer, yeah, I mean cheap grace, cheap justification, lots of cheap things, unfortunately. Cheap, lots of cheap things, unfortunately. And in the grand scheme of things, we sometimes minimize the things that are most important and maximize the things that are important but not as important as we think they are. And Bonhoeffer's understanding of grace is so important in this day and age, in my opinion.
Speaker 1:Well, could you get more specific there? What are some of those things that we over-elevate at the expense of what should be elevated? Could you go deeper there, Dr Gorman?
Speaker 2:Sure, I mean.
Speaker 2:One thing I think we over-elevate is influence, whether it's local or national, or even international, christians have this idea that one of our primary goals is to change the world, to have influence in the world by grabbing hold of power, whether it's power of the local, city or the state or whatever, up to the highest levels, and that just, unfortunately, often becomes the opposite of cruciform power.
Speaker 2:It's not cross-shaped, it's about control, it's about influence rather than about the influence that comes naturally by means of suffering love, of self-emptying love, and it also ends up oftentimes meaning that we want to get people in the door of the church, so to speak, but not out the door, and we don't have a vision for serving beyond the immediate needs of the church, the local ecclesial body. So this gets very much into the book we're going to talk about Becoming the Gospel Paul, participation and Mission. What does it mean to be in Christ? It means to be transformed, but it also means to be on the move, it means to be out the door, it means to be involved in people's lives and especially in their suffering. So, yeah, I mean there's lots of things I could say about that.
Speaker 1:Hey, let's just pause on that, because this is a very real struggle is probably the right adjective that we're walking through right now. In my church body, where does ultimate authority lie? I would say it lies in Christ and then, along with Paul and I would say with Luther, it lies with the priesthood of all believers, the baptized, the loved and sent out into the world. Because it's very evident to me that Jesus came to establish a diffused, decentralized power structure. There's certainly power, but he was free with giving that. And when I think power, I think authority, the authority not only after Jesus ascended, risen and ascended, but in the midst of his ministry.
Speaker 1:I'd love to get your take on the work of Jesus as an example for us in sending out, decentralizing authority, in the sending out Luke chapter 9 of the 12, the sending out of the 70, luke chapter 10, to do exactly, to say what Jesus had said and to do what Jesus had done. There was this invitation and all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. So in your going I'm giving it out to you, and this led to the greatest movement of love the world has ever known. It wasn't about one. I'm thinking Jesus when he's talking it's in Matthew 24, 25, right when he's talking.
Speaker 1:Let no one call you rabbi. If you have one rabbi or you know just, we're friends. Now I've called you, I've lowered myself and we've become intimate friends and everything I've heard I've revealed to you, and so it's very evident. But the Catholic and I'm not, I'm using Catholic very generally but the Catholic tendency is to move then from a Pope down to bishops, down to and we have this exact kind of move that takes place right here. Some have asked me who gives you the authority, tim, to raise up the next generation of leaders, bivocational, co-vocational leaders, and it's like well, I think that's what Jesus gave to me and to us. It was a decentralized move rather than a hierarchical move. Anything more to say there, dr Gorman?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean there's lots that could be said, but I think the most important thing to say is I would define authority again in terms of service. And if Jesus came, as he said, I came not to be served but to serve and to give my life as a ransom for many. That's the kind of authority that he exercised. That's the kind of authority that he exercised and as such, he calls his disciples to embody, to live out that same kind of service. If you will, that is the power and the authority of himself. So, yeah, I mean, jesus says in John 13, I call you friends. Jesus says in John 13, I call you friends. I'm going to have you know what I'm up to, to participate in what I'm doing. So there's I'm sorry, john 15, in the farewell discourse. So yeah, I mean I resonate with a lot of what you said. For sure I find it interesting.
Speaker 1:I think it's Mark 11, 10 into 11. We're walking through Mark together, as a faith family, through Lent, and Jesus is just predicted I think it's for the second time that he's going to be handed over in the hands of sinful men and then handed over to the Romans, beaten, flogged, crucified and then rise again from the dead. And it's right on the heels of that I think the Bible is kind of funny that James and John come up and say we want to seat with you when you come into your kingdom. They're thinking so small, they're thinking earthly power and Jesus is the cosmic Christ and Jesus is so patient with the disciples. Right, it's not for you to know who's going to be hung. And I love in Mark's gospel and then the height of his power one was crucified on his right and on his left and right. Mark is very specific that the height of power is the way of the cross, dr.
Speaker 1:But we we want the position and all the accolades, the influence to use your that come along with being influential and, yeah, it's not the way of Jesus. Have you thought much today about the and this is a little bit of a tangent but what God is doing through celebrity pastors, you know, those that have a large platform? I talk about Jesus with a lot of different people in our church body, outside of our church body, so in a sense I'm known by some in our church and really it's not that I'm a parish pastor here just trying to be faithful, but I guess there even is, in the podcast sense, this desire to move conversations forward. And, as my grandpa said, watch out, son, that you don't get the big head, tim, you know, because this is not about you. My grandpa was a pastor, so is my dad and, yeah, have you heard much, or do you have many thoughts about kind of celebrity pastors here in the?
Speaker 2:US. Yeah, I mean, the term concerns me, first of all because a pastor is supposed to be a shepherd right. That's what the word means. Is supposed to be a shepherd right, that's what the word means. I mean, there's no doubt that, whether it's a theologian or a biblical scholar or a pastor, our responsibility as teachers, as leaders, is to have an impact on people. I mean, that's what we're called to do. The idea of anything that would be largely self-promotion or aimed at making somebody look, feel and be celebrated, that gets dangerous, and so I think that the virtue of humility is critical for anybody who does the kind of thing that we're doing today.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:There before the cross of Jesus go I and so yeah, this isn't about me or us, it's about elevating the name of Jesus. I got to bring your central thesis in becoming the gospel. This is what you say Already. In the first century, the apostle Paul, one of the communities he addressed to not merely believe the gospel though belief is very important but to become the gospel and in so doing to participate in the very life of the mission of God. I agree with this wholeheartedly, but what are other ways in which Paul could be read, apart from a missional believing and becoming Like? It seems so self-evident as I've read Paul, but I guess you can read him with another lens. Dr Gorman, could you share that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the major misreading of Paul that takes place in many Protestant circles, and has taken place at least in the last hundred or so years in the English-speaking world, is to read Paul primarily as a kind of legal theologian that the whole purpose of Jesus' death was to guarantee God's pronouncement of us as liberated from sin or forgiven of sin, or a very narrow understanding of Paul's mission, his own mission to be the agent of the forgiveness of sins in a very forensic legal sense, sometimes called the traditional Protestant view, or even sometimes called the Lutheran Protestant view, although I don't think Luther had that view at all. Luther was very much interested in the relationship between forgiveness and participation in Christ, justification and participation. So, anyhow, that's one major misreading of Paul, and so, at the end of the day, if you read Paul that way, the main thing Paul wants to do is to get the individual believer to accept Jesus as his Savior or her Savior and therefore have forgiveness of sins and have eternal life. All of which is true and all of which is about 25% of Paul's teaching. So it neglects the other 75%, which is as you read the thesis of the book.
Speaker 2:Is certainly part of it the call for the church to be a kind of embodiment of the very gospel that it has received, and therefore that gospel has to be understood as much more than the forgiveness of sins. It's the invasion of God into our world, the benign invasion of God into our world to rescue the world, including all of creation, from the forces of sin and death that we are subject to, and to create a new world If anyone is in Christ. New creation. That doesn't just mean if anyone is in Christ, sin is forgiven. Yes, it means that, but it means much more than that. And also Western Christians and North American Christians in particular tend to read Paul completely individualistically.
Speaker 1:There we go. That's what I was going to ask. Yes, yes, yes, go on.
Speaker 2:So all you need to do is know a little Greek to know that Paul almost never addresses individuals. He almost always is writing to communities, and we need, in English, a way to say that. So I will draw on our southern friends and say, for instance, y'all, he became what we are, for instance, so that we might become the righteousness of god in him and not just to, as my now late friend richard hayes used to say, not just that we would receive the righteousness of god, or not just that we would believe in the righteousness of god or know about the righteousness of god, but that we would actually be transformed into that righteousness, become the righteousness of God. Which was a lectionary reading, by the way, on Sunday, at least at the LCMS church that we happen to attend with where we know some friends.
Speaker 2:But it seems to me that if you individualize the gospel, over-individualize the gospel. I don't want to eliminate the individual, but you over-individualize the gospel. For instance, philippians 2, work out your salvation, for it is God who is at work within you. I don't know how many times I've heard people say that. That's, in essence saying that's the story of my life. I want to work out my salvation and my relationship with God. Well, okay, there's nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 2:It's not what Paul says. What Paul says is you, as the community in Christ at Philippi, work out, embody your corporate salvation in the world, because God is at work, not inside you, but among you enhuman in Greek among you. Of course, god is at work within you individually, but that's not Paul's main point, that's not his point in that passage. So what does it mean to become, not to replace the gospel, but to embody the gospel. I don't mean that we're the salvation of the world or we're the saviors of the world not at all. But we can't be the church if we don't embody the gospel. I don't mean that we're the salvation of the world or we're the saviors of the world not at all. But we can't be the church if we don't embody the gospel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that's so good, Work out your salvation. He is always speaking outside of Titus and Timothy Philemon. I mean these are individual letters to leaders in the church. He's always speaking to churches that have been established. I've thought this for many years that the Holy Spirit moved out of Pentecost, obviously in the book of Acts, and you see the gospel going from Jerusalem to Rome and then all roads lead out of Rome. It's the sending of the church out of Rome, that's the missional move in the book of Acts. And then you've got Paul writing all of these letters to churches that have already been planted and established, with leaders that have been raised up.
Speaker 1:In Ephesians, chapter four, is such a live verse. And then this one office. We could have some, maybe conversation, I don't think debate, but apostle, evangelist, prophet, preacher, teacher for the, equipping, for the releasing, for the you could even say sending, empowering of all of the saints. This is why leaders exist and it's very evident that Paul had that anticipatory participation. That's your language, I have participated in it or I have been grafted in.
Speaker 1:You know, I have been crucified with Christ and then we have been collectively changed and man, this is where the sacraments kind of come in so heavily. I have been baptized, I've been washed, I've been put to death so that the new man or woman in me may be raised up. But then I'm set out with a common confession, a common union. That's the catalytic impact of the Lord's Supper. It's a common union as we move out in mission to make Jesus known sins forgiven, as we move out in mission to make Jesus known sins forgiven. And we're a new type of people, a new type of image bearers, with the cross being what goes ever, ever before us.
Speaker 1:That's the only way that I can read the Apostle Paul, because we have some debates in our circles that pit confessional Lutherans versus missional Lutherans, and it's two sides of the same coin.
Speaker 1:We're a confessing people, a believing a hearing and believing people, and then we're a doing people, who live it out, not because of it. I love how you even I'm not as concerned about works, righteousness, and if I've been put to death, if we've been put to death because of the righteousness that's found in Christ, because of the cross of Jesus Christ, centered in our new identity as baptized children of God. There's no room for works here. It just is what it is. We're living out what will ultimately be on the last day when Jesus returns to make all things new and we live in a perfect, right relationship with God, self, others and the rest of creation. But that new life is not just then and there. It's here and now. The kingdom of heaven, because of the inbreaking of Jesus and then the sending of the Holy Spirit, is here and now, not just then and there. Say more about anticipatory participation, dr Gorman.
Speaker 2:I was going to say. That's exactly what I mean by the term anticipatory participation. I mean if we believe that what God has done in Christ is to inaugurate the new creation of the prophets promised, the kingdom of God, the new creation these are not synonymous, but they're overlapping terms If we believe that God has really done that and that that new creation points forward to the time when Shalom, the peace of the prophets promised, will cover the earth and the justice of God will cover the earth, cover the earth and the justice of God will cover the earth and God will reign in that very self-giving sense, if you will, the canonic sense of always giving his love in creation and redemption and in the eschatological reality. This is God's nature to self-give. And now, in anticipation of that, the church becomes, is called to become, a kind of model of that, a 25-cent word, an instantiation, if you will, a kind of emblem, an icon of what is to come, never perfectly. In Wesleyan and Methodist circles we have a saying moving on to perfection. It doesn't mean we'll ever, either individually or corporately, arrive there, but our goal is to know Christ and to, as Paul says in Philippians 3, to grab hold of the one who grabbed hold of me and of us. And what's his purpose? His purpose is to be creating these communities that have a major impact on their worlds, not because they're grabbing for power, but because they're serving, they're doing good.
Speaker 2:So you know, I joked a little bit about not being as concerned about works. Righteousness no Christian officially is Pelagian. Catholics sometimes get accused of being Pelagian. They're not, and I'm not Catholic, but I've read the Catholic catechism. I know grace precedes works, but the point is that Jesus said himself the greatest commandments are to love God and love neighbor. You can't love your neighbor without doing something. It's not some kind of head trip, and if you want to call that works in the, of course it's works, it's activity, it's mission. But to claim you're the church and not be involved in the service of other people is about as oxymoronic as it comes. Uh, it makes absolutely no sense and also it completely disintegrates the tie between Christianity and Judaism. You can't read the Old Testament and think, oh, the whole purpose of life is to believe something. The purpose of life is to love God and love your neighbor, including the stranger, including the migrant, including the enemy, even according to Jesus. So I mean you're getting me started on my soapbox, tim so.
Speaker 1:No, it's good, Dr Gorman, I really appreciate it. I mean, we're confessing people in our gatherings. We have which you were just there a confession and absolution, sometimes a slightly more formal. I, a poor, miserable sinner, sinner, confessing you all my sins and iniquities, which which I've ever offended you and justly deserve your temporal and eternal punishment. I'm sorry for them. Sincerely repent of them and I pray you have your boundless mercy and grace for the sake of your son, jesus Christ. You would have mercy upon upon me, and there's no shortage of things I love thinking about, not just sins of commission, but sins of omission. So there's no grounds for self-justification, because there's always more, of course, right, but it's in Christ.
Speaker 2:It has nothing to do with with earning salvation or earning justification. No, it's living out what you've been given. John Barclay, very significant New Testament scholar in Great Britain, has a couple of books, one called Paul and the Power of Grace, the other one called Paul and the Gift. His basic argument is in the ancient world, kairos, grace, which also meant gift, a gift. In the ancient world and I think in many ways in many cultures, including our own ancient world, and I think in many ways in many cultures, including our own, when you give somebody a gift there's an expectation of reciprocity. And when Paul uses the word gift or grace to talk about the action of God, he says in very poignant, I think very good language, barclay says says the grace of God is unconditional, but not unconditioned. It's unconditional, in other words, it's when we're enemies Christ died for us right. When we're sinners, god's grace is unconditioned. You can't earn it. No, nothing makes it merited or deserved.
Speaker 2:But because it's a gift, it's a divine gift it comes with an obligation attached. The first obligation is gratitude. Charis, gratitude, give thanks to God, is the same word as grace. We even say it today. I'm going to say grace before my meal, right, it's the same language in the ancient Greek speaking world. And then also, when we think about grace as something that includes reciprocity, we think about the many times in which in the Bible, when someone is forgiven, they don't go back to their old way of life, they're called to move on. The woman caught in adultery Go and sin no more. The woman at the well, whatever her condition is, she bore witness to the community. She became an apostolic witness, if you will. So there's no dichotomy between confession in the general sense or confession of sin in the narrow sense, and the call to do.
Speaker 1:God's work in the world. Well, hey, I think one of the best places we find Paul gosh there are so many places, but we find Paul giving us a. There were so many places, but we find Paul giving us a living example of what it looks like to love unconditionally and then be conditioned to love is in the marriage relationship in Ephesians 5, 22 to 33. Just as Christ has loved the church, so husbands love your wives. As the church submits to Christ, so wives see their husbands as the leader in the home. Here's the way, husband, you're going to love your wife, not taking the powerful, prideful position, but humbling yourself even to the point of death. And then Paul says this is this mystery of the union between the embodiment of Christ, the crucified and risen one, and then living within us as the church, is a divine mystery. And then I love how he ends. I love how he ends in verse 33.
Speaker 1:However, let's get practical here. Let the husband love his wife and the wife respect her husband. It moves, it flows and it gets lived out. It'd be weird for me, dr, how long have you been married, brother? Long time, long time. Okay, it flows and it gets lived out. It'd be weird for me, dr? How long have you been married, brother? I didn't even talk. Long time, long time. Ok, I'm 20 years, right? It'd be strange for me to say I love you and then I do, which I do unconditionally to my wife, alexa, but then do very little to display that love by taking care of. I just washed some dishes last night, dr Gorman I of. I just washed some dishes last night, dr Gorman. I was doing my husbandly duty, putting the kids to bed, all those types of things, right? It'd be very strange for me to have that identity and then not live in that identity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so any more about the husband and wife kind of model that Paul gives.
Speaker 2:I think you've you've exhausted, you've said plenty on that, I guess. Maybe just to point out, even in the, even in the marriage relationship, it's within the Christian household of mutual submission Verse 21. Yeah, so yeah, I've been married. I mean I'm both proud and a little embarrassed to admit I've been married for almost 50 years. We got married very young.
Speaker 1:Very cool, very cool. I'm 30 years behind you, so we'll get there one day at a time, right, brother? Well, I love this way of understanding the movement of the church in witness and mission using centripetal and centrifugal action. Would you talk about that a little bit, dr Gorman?
Speaker 2:Sure. So out of the vocabulary of physics you have this idea that something can move sort of in on itself from the out toward a center, and that's centripetal. And then you have movement from the center out to the outer exteriors if you centrifugal, two different kinds of forces and missiologists. For a long time, some missiologists at least have used that language to say that the purposes of god, the mission of god, is both of those things. That is to say, the church as god's agent definitely needs to move toward a center, to to create a community and to be caring for that community, to be. That's part of God's mission. To create a holy community that's cared for, that's loved, that is taking care of one another, loving one another, serving one another, crying together, sharing joys together. All those kinds of that's part of the mission of God.
Speaker 2:The mission of God is not simply going out, in other words. So the centripetal mission of God is to pull people in to this circle and then at the same time, for God's mission to wind its way out and for the church to be called out of that central spot and taken out into the world, called out of that central spot and taken out into the world. So I think it's a lovely way of using the metaphor of centripetal and centrifugal force as a unity, and that God is interested in both. So yes, does God want to? So a confessing, holy forgiven people.
Speaker 1:Made holy by God.
Speaker 2:Is that the end? No, that's the beginning. So that group of people is sent out into the world. Does that mean everybody becomes an evangelist or a missionary in some different culture? No, that's not the case at all. But I think we misread Paul if we think that the people who he was pastoring by letter were simply gathering together on Sunday night to celebrate the Lord's Supper and then going home and nobody knew anything about it. Their neighbors, their friends, their business associates knew anything about it. Their neighbors, their friends, their business associates. Why in the world was Paul and were other early Christians imprisoned? Why were those who were not imprisoned, like in Philippi, thessaloniki, rome perhaps, and other places to which Paul writes, why does he either address them as sharing in his persecution or in his sufferings if they weren't doing something that got people annoyed? That's it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what did they do that got people annoyed, dr Gorman. I mean, you talk about this. They made declarative confessional statements, and I think the key one, caesar well, no, I don't know. No, it's Jesus is Lord, there's one Lord. It's great. I mean, they were very, very bold. Talk about their boldness in confession, dr Gorman.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, if we want to be confessing Christians letitely with people who think Caesar is Lord or some specific deity or many different deities are Lords or updated to our own context, if you say something that sounds like it could challenge political authority or you're not necessarily going to be well-received and that can have all kinds of consequences. We believe most scholars believe that in the early church some Christians lost their business ties their business. Let's say they had a shop and somebody finds out that they're going off to the Christian meeting. And well, are you still going to participate in our activities where we we offer incense to the emperor or we have a sacrifice to the God who is the patron, god of our particular profession and I say I'm sorry, I only worship Jesus as Lord. Now, well, if that's the case, that puts our business and our city in danger and we're not going to kill you, but we're not going to do business with you until maybe somebody gets mad enough where they actually do threaten you and maybe even carry that out.
Speaker 2:In Hebrews it says you've not yet suffered to the shedding of blood, but if you haven't and it's brought up, that means it must be at least a possible possibility. I mean, I think we're unaware of the way in which the gospel, as Kevin Rogue, a very fine New Testament scholar at Duke Divinity School, puts it. Revolution, no, no. New culture, yes, and that new culture that the church embodies can be not deliberately, but it can be threatening, it can be perceived as a threat. And is it a threat? Well, yeah, I mean we do. At least we should do economics differently, we should do all kinds of things differently from our host culture.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, no, that's really good. I loved your section on the three theological graces and how Paul orders them in what we think is his oldest book or his first book. 1 Thessalonians as faith is his oldest book or his first book. 1 Thessalonians as faith, love and hope. Most of the time we look at 1 Corinthians 13, faith, hope and love but most of the time he orders them faith, love and hope. Why are those the three theological graces and why is that order important in Paul's writings, dr Gordon?
Speaker 2:Well, in 1 Thessalonians there is a strong emphasis on hope and he actually has that order twice at the beginning of the letter, in chapter one at the kind of major components of becoming a believer in Christ, a believer in the gospel. And yet they suffered persecution. Paul was so worried about them that he sent Timothy to check out if they had survived, if they had retained their faith, not their sorry, not their Lutheran confession, but their faithfulness, had they been faithful in spite of persecution. Paul prayed, paul worried and Paul finally sent Timothy.
Speaker 2:And so I think he deliberately puts the order of faith, love and hope because he wants the community that is threatened or persecuted to know that, no matter what happens to them, they have the hope of Christ's return and of all that that implies for resurrection and for eternal life and for security and all those kinds of things. But there's even hope in the present. So I would say that Paul alters the order depending on what he's trying to emphasize. He emphasizes hope in 1 Thessalonians, he emphasizes love in 1 Corinthians, because it seems to be a rather unloving community and there may be times. Maybe in our context, maybe we're good at loving, maybe we're good at hope, maybe we're good at loving, maybe we're good at hope, maybe we're not very faithful. So maybe in our context, paul would say I give you these three virtues of missional practices love, hope and faithfulness and maybe emphasize the faithfulness. I haven't ever said that out loud before, but now that I say it I like it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no, I think that's, I think that's true Romans. You did, I mean a huge commentary on Romans. If you were to make a case that Paul was, he said a lot in Romans. I mean it's this kind of magnum opus, right Theological, very, very deep. But would you do you think he gave extra emphasis to faith, love or hope, if there's one of those, do you think he had extra emphasis in romans in your scholarly work? What do you think it would be?
Speaker 2:well, that's an interesting question. Um, in the commentary I say if john is the gospel of life, romans is the epistle of life. Um, I, I guess I would if I had to answer that. It seems to me all three of them are pretty balanced in that letter. But I guess I would emphasize, especially for those of us who are used to reading Romans as a theological document, to remember that the letter moves to very practical conclusions In chapter 14 and 15, he wants to make sure that the weak are taken care of. 15, he wants to make sure that the weak are taken care of and he wants to make sure, throughout chapters 12 and 13 and 14 and 15, that the community is a thriving community, life together. Again going back to Bonhoeffer, you know that's what life's.
Speaker 2:The gospel is not just about God saving us from our sin. The gospel is about life together 12, 13, 14, 15, even 16.
Speaker 1:Well, I think initially the Lutheran would probably say it was about faith, but to say, the summary of the law or the teaching of Christ is life together, which I would make synonymous with love, the love of God that flows from the cross.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of love in chapters 12 to 15 for sure, certainly, and there's I mean in my commentary I suggest that for paul um I I call hope the future tense of faith, the future tense of faith. There's a lot of connection between faith and hope, especially in romans 4 about abraham. You know, uh, what looks like a hopeless situation. He exercises hope. So, yeah, there's lots to be said about that.
Speaker 1:This has been fun. Hey, this has been so fun. I'm really, really grateful for to God for making creating Reverend. Dr Michael Gorman, brother, you're a blessing. Let's close with the topic of peace. We live in a very, I could say, peaceless world. Polarization was the word of actually 2024. If there was one word that I think one of the most searched words via Google was polarization. And so we need the peace and the unity that flows from the cross and empty tomb of Jesus Christ. How should a Pauline understanding of peace change the mission of the local church, dr Gorman?
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, at the heart of Paul's understanding of peace is, first of all, the prophetic promise that God's will is for the wolf and the lamb to lie down together, or the lion and the lamb to lie down together, that people who are at odds with one another will be reconciled together. So I remember years ago a friend of mine is now a pastor, actually in the Methodist Church, but at the time he was just a member of our congregation and the kids on his kid's school bus were always fighting. So he volunteered to be a bus rider every morning and every afternoon and he could. He had a nighttime job. He would ride on the bus to make sure the kids didn't get into fights. I mean, and he did that deliberately to be a peacemaker.
Speaker 2:At the time he was studying this is interesting.
Speaker 2:He was studying international relations and peacemaking international relations and peacemaking at American University in Washington. So he was working as a security guard at night so he could do his reading at night, take classes during the day and in the morning and afternoon, ride on his kid's school bus. He's a really cool guy, by the way, and just the other day he was telling me about trying to start this new movement toward peace in our polarized society, in the local church. So I mean, that's one person, but it seems to me we have plenty of opportunities in our local congregations and our local communities to try to create places of understanding, not necessarily acceptance. We have to agree to disagree, but we have to do it civilly and part of the Christian mission is to say, even within the church we have so much polarization in our own congregations, how do we live in a way that exemplifies the fact that, as Paul says in Ephesians, he broke down the wall between Gentile and Jew, he broke down the wall between black and white, he broke down the wall between Male and female.
Speaker 2:You fill in the blank in our own context. So many binaries, the citizen and the immigrant In this country. Unless you're Native American, we're all immigrants, so lots of ways that we can think about peacemaking.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, well, that's really good we get to live with anticipatory participation. That's what's going to stick with me, with a heart filled with faith and love and hope, and hands that are quick to make way for peace, in anticipation of the Prince of Peace descending on that last day to make all things new. Dr Gorman, if people want to connect with you, brother, how can they do so In your work? But come in the gospel, check it out, man. He's got so many other works. I'm sure you can find them all on Amazon or wherever right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're on Amazon and other booksellers. If somebody wants to contact me directly, they can look at St Mary's Seminary and University in Baltimore, maryland, and find my email address there. That's probably the easiest.
Speaker 1:Hey, I had a lot of fun with you. This is the Tim Allman Podcast. Please like, subscribe, comment wherever it is you take in these podcasts. This is a podcast of the Unite Leadership Collective. Yes, we're a part of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, but we believe we're a part of the church triumphant, the church that goes down through the ages. Lutherans have actually, down through the ages, been deeply committed to ecumenical conversation and I pray that still continues today, for we have a lot to learn. We've been justified by faith in Jesus Christ alone and therefore sent out with a message of. You can be justified too by grace, through faith, and come into this brand new life, which includes a head that's changed, a heart, most especially, that has been changed and hands and feet that are ready to bring the message of Jesus and the words of Jesus into a dark and dying world. It's a good day. Go make it a great day. I'm really grateful for you, dr Gorman, thank you for your time.
Speaker 2:Thank you Tim.