Dr. Bryan Litfin On Enchantment, Embodied Christianity, And The Influence Of The Early Church - Ep. 5

Merging Wisdom Welcome to another episode of Merging Wisdom podcast. I am Dan Heroy, joined by my usual co-host Joel Hubbard, and my wife Sarina here, and we are very excited to have a guest with us today, Doctor Bryan Litfin. We're excited to have a great conversation centered around his expertise, and we're looking forward to the wisdom that he's learned and gleaned and can share with all of us today.

But I did want to also plug your recent book that you released with Kathie Lee Gifford. This one's called Nero and Paul. It's the second book in the Ancient Evil Living Hope series. You can kind of talk about that, talk about some of your inspiration and the wisdom you learned along that journey, and even with the first book, and then we can get into some conversations and topics to pull some threads of wisdom and pull on some of your expertise.

But if you just want to kind of introduce yourself to our listeners and followers and let them know who you are and what you're about. Well, great, Dan, thank you for having me and Joel and Serena as well. I look forward to a good conversation and to all those listening or tuning in or watching. Yeah, we're going to talk about some important things.

So yeah, like Dan said, I'm Bryan Litfin. I've been studying the ancient church fathers ever since. Really? Really since my seminary days. I went to Dallas Seminary back in the late 90s and then got interested in that and studied patristics, which is ancient Christianity, at University of Virginia under one of the country's leading figures in that field at UVA.

And I've just been interested in it was a professor of many years at Moody Bible Institute. Now I'm at Liberty University. And so we live here in in Virginia, in Lynchburg. And I just think that the ancient church has so much, like you said, wisdom. I mean, that's the best term for it. Wisdom. And we we today need to to look backwards in order to move forward.

I mean, I just think that's essential. And those the books that I did with Kathie Lee, what most people are familiar with, Kathie Lee Gifford, you know, she was on America's TV screens for years and years, and her husband was a was a broadcaster. He's in heaven now, but he was a sports broadcaster. And so, yeah, we did both of those books just to kind of show I mean, just in a nutshell, they're kind of, you know, it's like a paradigm of like, what is it when evil is in charge?

So Herod or Nero, and then what is the the countercultural opposite, which is the gospel exemplified in someone like Mary, who humbly and was kind of the lowest rung of society. And yet she said, I will be the vessel of the incarnation, that God chose the lowest type of person, you know, social class, outcast, female, young to be the vessel of the in fact, to be the temple is really what's happening there.

And then again with Nero, Nero and Paul. Paul's this like bow legged idiot that everybody discarded. I mean, he's described as bow legged. Yeah, and sort of homely and small. His name means small. He was a small guy. And yet through him, the gospel of Jesus Christ reached the ends of the world, rather than someone like Nero that you would think had all the power.

So, you know, that's a paradigm and that's worth thinking about exploring. One quick question I had just to get into the book a little bit, which I read, and I know Joel read as well. Where were you getting any material outside of like the biblical accounts? Just let the people know. I know there's some narrative that you guys had to kind of piece together, but were there some accounts that we know of from historical records that you could draw on outside of, like the Book of Acts and Paul Zone writings?

Well, so, you know, with like a, like a Nero, you have several different authors, three, three, one, Suetonius, Tacitus that talk about him. Herod. You get a like a full detail from Josephus. So you had a lot for, for the bad guys, for the good guys, for Mary. I mean, there's not a lot in Scripture, but there are certain ancient church traditions that seem to have a kind of nugget of truth in them, or they're early enough that they could be even kind of like, you know, oral traditions.

They got passed down accurately about her youth and her childhood and her parents. So we don't take those with the authority of Scripture, but we can imagine they they could they could have some truth in them. Same with Paul. Or of course, you have his his letters, but you also have second century accounts, the acts of Paul that talk about his martyrdom.

And so, you know, through those we we kind of construct a counter story to the narrative of what these dominant tyrants are all about. I mean, I love the way you gave the backdrop to Nero, because that's something I didn't learn in seminary. And so this was really quite profound to go into the depths of the character of this individual.

Yeah. You said, you know, this is something really powerful about how it seems like God uses Paul. A small person uses Mary, an insignificant, you know, female in the ancient world. And what is the wisdom? I've wrestled with this personally. What is the wisdom? Is it, you know, like, why choose these people? Why are they the ones selected and not the most talented?

You know, in the case of Nero, I loved how it's like he is not the most talented, but he certainly thinks of himself that way. But, you know, the people that that are either positionally in the roles that they are in or just because of talent or charisma end up in the roles because I think that's important to me to understand what's happening today in the wisdom around leadership today in the church world and all this weird stuff that's going on.

It's like, what is the wisdom, then of that of choosing these lowly people? Well, you know, sometimes the Lord does use people in positions of power and influence. So, yeah, you know, I want to affirm that, that that can be a strategic way. I mean, you think about in the ancient church where Constantine was kind of raised up and whatever one thinks about him, you know, the Lord used him.

He I think he had a kind of genuine faith. In fact, I did three novels about Constantine in his faith, which I. So I have this fiction side that I do. So that's an example where somebody is powerful and is having to grapple with like that, and you think about like a King David or something and how God would use him or Solomon.

But even with David, you do have that principle as well, that God uses the weak. I mean, the classic case of five smooth stones and a little shepherd boy, but that goes all the way back. I mean, that goes all the way back to, you know, Gideon, like, well, I'm going to get an army. No, let's reduce your army so that when you triumph, we know who did it.

And I think that's the same with, like, a Mary. I mean, it's just it's just amazing that the incarnation happens like it does, and that we get this account where he says, you know, I'm the handmaiden of the Lord. My soul magnifies the Lord by Magnificat. Let it be done to me according to your will. And so that's the voice of someone small, someone humble, someone submissive.

So she's female. So she's already kind of, you know, marginalized in her society compared to men. He's young, so he doesn't even have like, elder woman kind of stature. And then she's shamed and sort of sexually assumed, of course, sexually tainted, although she wasn't. But people people thought that and spread those rumors. And yet that's the vessel of the incarnation.

And same with Paul, where he's. Yeah, he's a talented rabbi, but he's nobody as far as like the Sanhedrin, really. And yet it's him. Like in this book, we we imagine his love, we tell his life and fill in some details as we know it, and we take him all the way to Spain, and we sort of imagine him on the, like, Atlantic coast of Spain, where, where in his world there was no other world.

Like he didn't know what was out. He didn't know there was North America out there. So like the world, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, uttermost parts, I mean, Spain was the uttermost parts to a Roman. And so Paul had brought the gospel that far, and you would never have thought he could be the vessel to do it. So the wisdom of it is the wisdom.

Like like who's listening right now? Who are you? Are you powerful? Not many among you were wise. Not many among you were great, he says. Paul says, and yet God was pleased through the weak things of the world to shame the wise and through the foolishness of the world, to bring forth the message of the gospel. And any of us that are listening, all of us that are sort of pre presidents, are we titans of industry?

You know. No. But the Lord is pleased to use the weakness of ourselves to, to do his purpose. And there's such wisdom of that. I mean, it's just the wisdom of loaves and fishes, you know. And the Lord multiplies beyond what we have to bring to the table. Yeah, I think it was maybe Kathie, Kathie Lee Gifford, who kind of underscored this point of like, Nero had a couple, had some opportunities to change, had some opportunities to to come to terms with some things.

And it seems to me that the more powerful we are, the more that we have, especially here in this country, to not deal with the challenges that come our way, that are meant to perhaps confront us and call us into transformation. Whereas it seems as some of the people that don't have that maybe are more receptive, like in the case of Mary, that is my favorite line that you quoted there from.

One of my favorite lines from the New Testament is beat unto me. As you have said, it's like such a powerful receptive. Like I don't have the escapes. Everybody else does. I don't have the options. Everybody else does. So all right, I'll go through the process of literal transformation. You know, my body is going to transform and all that.

So I thought that was like, I really kind of lost myself in that space as I'm listening to the book. I did it on audible. So I'm listening to the book and I'm like, yeah, that's the there's opportunities all the time, but it tends to be the people that don't have as many resources that can be maybe more receptive.

Yeah, that I mean, what do you think about that? No, I think that's very true. And I think all of us need to have that Marian mindset. And, you know, that you don't have to be Catholic or something to Roman Catholic to to say that we should follow what the example of Mary and to sort of venerate that faith.

I mean, all generations will call her blessed, you know, says Jesus. And that statement is a statement of like, infilling and like becoming the temple. And if you think about like a first century Jewish girl or something, where, where like what's where is the dwelling place of God? Well, it's Mount Zion, it's the temple sanctum. It's the Holy of Holies.

I think that's yes, it's very glorious and golden. And it faced east. I mean, the book I did about Herod talks a lot about the construction of that actual building. And so to someone like Mary, the place of God's dwelling has to have this magnificence going all the way back to the tabernacle and the Solomon's Temple and then the Second Temple, and then Herod's beautifying of that, really essentially a third temple.

And that's what we think of as being where God is. And yet when Mary says, let it be done to me, like you said, she's like, my body will change. Well, lots of women experience that, right? They get pregnant, but nobody experienced what she was going to experience, which is that her body also becomes the literal dwelling place of the Shekinah glory of God.

That that the new Holy of Holies is the uterus of uteruses inside of Mary. And and then that prayer is and then all of us, right? The body of Christ, like you are the temple. This is the Pauline gospel, right? God, you know, has come to dwell among us, you know. And one of the things we talk about in that book is, is the tearing of the veil.

In fact, we start with, you know, the tearing of the veil. And in Hebrews and it's so often in people's mindset, well, the tearing of the veil means you can go into the Holy of Holies or there's like access. And that's certainly true like in Scripture, but it's also true. The gospel accounts don't do it as an ingress motif.

They do it as an egress. So so when the veil gets torn, suddenly, like dead people are coming alive and there's like this, this, there's this outgoing of the Holy Spirit. Yeah. And that's because, you know, there's now like we are the temple, you know, and and so the wisdom is like you were saying, Joel, the you might be weak.

You're also the, you know, the vessel, hidden treasures in the vessel. You know what I mean? We're weak vessels. And yet the hidden treasure, the riches of Christ, are inside of us. It's amazing. You know what I like reading about in books such as this? And I'm also going through the audiobook of a book called Dominion by Tom Holland.

With that one. Yeah, yeah, that's a that's a good one. And it just brings you back to the early days of the church, just like what you're doing with Kathie Lee. We've lost all the context for what you just beautifully described, and just the elements of that shift from the old temple and, you know, Jewish mosaic law practice into the birth of the New Covenant and what we've been living in for these two 2000 years.

But somebody like me, who's just born in the 1980s, it's just so normal for it. Yeah, of course the Holy Spirit lives in us, and it's almost we get flippant about it. It's just we take it for granted, and then you go back and you see just the utter chaos and and beauty and horror and all these, you know, big emotions and worlds changing things that were happening at that time.

It was just such a seismic shift. And it's hard to even, like put into words. But, you know, what have we lost, you know, these 2000 years later, going from that to what we now, a lot of times I would say take for granted almost. Well, that's a great point, Dan. And what we've lost is, is the enchantment.

We've become disenchanted. I mean, that word is even used to sort of say I'm indifferent. I'm sort of disenchanted. But at a deeper level, we've lost enchantment. We've lost the intertwining of the supernatural with the physical. And, you know, it didn't happen over 2000 years. It probably happened in the past, you know, 300, maybe 400 years since the enlightenment, you know, and that's really even in even then, in some ways, it didn't really happen until the 20th century when we kind of entered a, you know, like a space age or something like people up until you could say up until the 20th century, certain up to the enlightenment, had this enchanted worldview

in which the supernatural and the natural were just intertwined. And a lot of people still have that view today. It's not as common in the West, but other cultures do have it. That's just inseparable. Like the idea that you could be living in a materialist environment without supernatural. It's just nobody's there. That's not what they think. And so we as Western American Christians need to reincarnate our conception of the cosmos.

Can you say a little bit more about that? Like what? What were the losses along the way? What were the factors that caused us to pull away from that concept of the material and material world being kind of one, or at least a relationship dynamic between the two of them. Yeah. Well, the the enlightenment had a lot to do with it where there was this kind of, you know, they had gotten into like religious wars and there was a lot that the enlightenment was reacting to in Europe that was just, you know, bloody and reformation and, you know, of Catholics versus whoever and deaths and wars.

So they were like, we're done with it. We're just going to pull out of faith altogether. And so what you get is this kind of mechanistic or scientific paradigm that is extremely powerful. It becomes its own kind of of worldview in which we're living in a machine. And because God's laws are orderly, it lends itself to the idea that we're just in a big machine.

And I think a lot of evangelicals today still have that concept. The supernatural is not present enough. And maybe in particular, the evil supernatural is not. People aren't cognizant of it enough is sort of they shunted aside and we we sort of know, well, God's supernatural if I'm a believer, Jesus or a miracle or loaves and fishes, but we kind of forget actually that that there's this like cosmic combat happening.

And certainly the church fathers were aware of that now. So, Sarina I want you to jump in before I could rattle off 25 questions about Paul or the Shroud of Turin or something. So, Bryan, if you knew our dynamic a little bit better, you would see that I have a lot of questions on, you know, knowledge and, you know, all my fascinations.

But Joel and Sarina do a really good job of getting a little deeper into the emotional stuff, the wisdom stuff, and pulling those threads. So I don't want to get off on the Shroud of Turin too quick here. Kathie is super interested in that, but I don't know much about it. You don't know much about the shroud.

Okay, I'll cross. The strategists blown up like I know it's the thing and Kathie is very, very interested in it. Yeah, okay. I don't I mean, we could talk about relics, but. Sarina were you going to. Were you going to weigh in there? What? The ball got thrown your way. Talking about the dualism that we live in, where it's so hard in modern, like society to merge the natural with the supernatural, the the spiritual with logic.

Like there's some divide that our minds always want to create and, you know, and it could just be like our Western culture and where we birthed out of. And that was just like the way of, of of being so like my background, my personal experience, like, has lean more on like the supernatural culture, like we're we're spirituality in it, you know, like is normal, like wanting to make, you know, healings or praying for people or deliverance.

It was just normal talked about in like in my background. And so but what I also noticed was this extreme dive into that side of things where it got a little bit, this is too weird now. Like, I can't function normally like, like almost like this. The lightest club of super spiritual people that only a few can attain this like high revelation and are really tracking with the demons and the angels and know the portals, the secret portals, or like, you know, just gets really like lofty and like hyper Spiritualized.

And I'm like, I don't want to say I don't believe that could be possible. But I was like, how do I live? Like as an average person? Kind of where does that fit in my faith? And but I don't want to, cause I don't want to throw the baby out with a bath water, you know, like, I, I want to hold on to that.

But I also don't want to like. Yeah, like the temptation to just logic it, the temptation to just systematically live it is. Swing hard to rationale. Right. Yeah. And so it's just like where is that balance? And I feel like my life is, is constantly trying to find that like this extreme in that extreme, just trying to find like, okay, maybe the early church fathers had this like answer of what what was normal, what was just accepted as enchanting and like spiritual with with material and not this dualistic like fight, you know?

Well, you raise a great point because a lot of people have no contact with that conceptually. And in your experience, you kind of have the other like it was sort of so present that it was dominating and, and to what you were describing it as a kind of elitist thing. So I don't know if there's like an easy solution to that, but I think it would help a lot if all of our churches today had more cognizance of the things you're talking about.

And so they were weaving in a kind of liturgy and a kind of proclamation and a sort of spiritual breathing, so that it's not just a few elite and who can get there and who can't. But it's like woven into church life, like a big part of church life is not that you came to church and like, like our songs are like I was a sinner and I was forgiven.

Well, praise God, you know, like, that's true, a lot of us. But we focus on that theme so much, and maybe we need to focus on on the themes of Christ's victory over the powers and who's defeat. Yeah, evil. And we need a kind of rhythm and a kind of like a liturgy, really. We need to confess the creeds so that it doesn't become elitist and just a few are doing it.

But like the whole community is responding back and forth with the pastor. It's a unifying. Yes. Unifying. Exactly. It's like invitation and into the proclamation of the victory of Christ. Yeah. You're making it accessible. I like what you're saying. There's a lot of things here that I would love to threads that I'd love to pull on in liturgy and all that.

Yeah, there's. Because I think, Sarina, what you've brought up is something that's a of great concern to me as well in that, you know, there's these extremes because I was raised in that as well, the sort of charismatic Pentecostal that I was exposed to all of that and lived in that for quite a long time. But that still is somewhat in some sense, Bryan, and you've talked about this, the sort of Gnostic kind of extreme of things, which is the separation, again, from the material world by overemphasizing something above that, whether it's the logos, the the mind, the rational self.

And so it's it is a dualism. It's a hard thing, I think, for humans to hold that. Like, what does it look like in practice? And you mentioned liturgy and I think that's so refreshing. I'd love for you to maybe expound a little bit more on that, because that's something I'm coming to is more of like an embodied faith.

And, and a lot of people to it seems. Yeah. Yeah, it is a lot of people. Yeah. Yeah. Well I think it's the way forward. I mean, I think that's the future. Christianity is going to have to look backward in order to move forward. And I think the sense of dislocation that Serena, you were talking about in Joel, where you're sort of in this charismatic Pentecostal type tradition, which I affirmed the beauty of that.

But that is that tradition historically, which, you know, arose in the early 20th century with the street revivals and kind of the different waves, second, third wave. It also arose in the American context of sort of an individualism and like a pulling out and like, let's let's go back to the like, like the restorationist movement and the American Christianity, which is like, let's let's forget the intervening ages.

Let's go back how first century. And so book of acts and what were they doing there? And that's where the problem comes in. Because it's not that we don't need to be cognizant of these spiritual realities, but but the churches that have historically been the ones putting that out there and inviting the power of the spirit have also tended to be separatist, fundamentalist type churches.

That's true. So if you can keep that, the the awareness of the enchantment that the Pentecostal charismatic movement is very, you know, cognizant of keep that enchantment, but also wed it together with something historical and grounded in ancient rituals and ancient liturgies, creeds and confessions. And just to kind of cognizance that that you belong to a trajectory, then you get a much more stabilizing experience, and then you realize that your conversation about these spiritual realities is actually part of an embedded conversation, that that goes back to the ancient church and goes back to the New Testament.

You think about Jesus's exorcisms and you go back into the Old Testament. Someone like Michael Heizer has pointed out where there's these sort of cosmic combat. So that I think is is what we need is a blending of a kind of ancient Christian, ancient future faith with this enchantment that the charismatic movement has been aware of. You know, put those two things together.

You got a powerful combination. And it seems and we've talked about this even on our just first few episodes, humans in general seem to have a hard time being nuanced, doing two things like that. You know, even politically, spiritually, we see it in our denominations, right? We're either like super, super charismatic and then we have to reject logic or we go hard.

We're only logical and rational and anything like, have you seen that over in your study of like the more early church, have we always been like that as humans where it's like this or that a B binary thinking. Yeah, yeah, that's that's true. Like even in the early church, it was like, you know, like for example, literal interpretation.

No allegorical. And so there's like which one is right? Or, you know, this Christology, that Christology. Oh, hypostatic union, deity, humanity, three persons, one substance. So, you know, I mean, yeah, there's kind of always been that that's probably a I don't want to sound Hegelian here, but there's probably some kind of synthesis that comes out of thesis and antithesis.

There's probably a process like that that it helps, you know, iron sharpens iron, we might put it that way. So nobody's kind of got like the perfect balance. But when you, when you take the, the, the things that are good and true that someone has and someone else has, when you can create a synthesis of them, you kind of do take it up to the next level, I think.

Yeah. So animism was sort of this, you know, kind of worldview for a while. And then you talk about the the early church fathers, which they did have a more that love to get into the relics to and talk about that they had more of a comfort. Naturally. They weren't where we are today. So the the physical was imbued with something.

There was. So can you unpack that a little bit? Is like, what was the redeeming movement of the early church as it relates to, you know, everything is animated with spirits to Paul's, you know, great revelation, one of his many, you know, God in all things. And that's troubling. I've had people in my own church when I was pastoring questioned that and questioned me on that. I'm like, hey, I don't understand that.

That's just Paul is saying, you know, there's in, you know, all things like Pan is the word. It's like in all things, I don't know, but it's not it's not pantheism. And I don't understand that either. But there's something to it that maybe the ancient world had that was maybe a movement from animism towards something or whatever it was countering or engaged with.

You have this. I talk about this a little bit in my book, The Story of the Trinity, where I'm trying to figure out where where's the Trinity begin, like Nicaea? No. And I just kept going back. I was just like, no, but actually and I so I start with kind of animism or polytheism or the, you know, sort of people having this encounter with like rocks and trees that have spirits in them. And, before you can get to the ancient church, you have to think about ancient Israel.

So, I mean, the answer is, is that the biblical God is both on high and and imminent in the world. So like God, God in all things. Is that true? Well, in one sense, no, because Yahweh sits in his throat like the earth is his footstool, like he sits up there. He doesn't come down, you know, like the father.

We might say, we can read that back into the OT. The father doesn't come down. He sits enthroned, and you know, he's up there. But ancient Israel, you know, the Jews, the Israelites, the Hebrews, they understood that Yahweh absolutely remains in his throne. They kind of had a physical architecture where he was up there above water on beams.

But but they also understood he's always present, and he's always present, as some 33 says, by the word of your mouth and by the by the breath of your mouth, and the word of the Lord, like those two things, the heavens were created word and breath. And those are things that go forth that are from the speaker or from the breather and yet are distinct.

And so you've got this like spoken word like, let there be light, right? Let there be, let there be. Yeah. He yeah, he which is Yahweh's name, Yahweh, you know, let there be. And then you have the spirit hovering over the waters. And then just again and again through the Old Testament, you have, like the Israelites, being led by a pillar of cloud and fire, and also the angel of the Lord.

Or an example would be the burning bush. Everybody loves to think about the burning bush. If you ever look at like Sunday school depictions of the burning bush, it that's what it looks like a burning bush. It's a bush with fire. But the Scripture says, the angel of the Lord is in the burning bush speaking. So you have both the flame and the humanoid appearance of God, and they're both there.

And so that's what I'm saying, is that Yahweh remains on high, and yet Yahweh always projects himself and inhabits the world. And so it's no great, marvelous. And it is, but it isn't. When he actually takes on flesh, like it's the natural extension, when the word becomes flesh and dwelt among us. And that's where a Paul can say, like God is, is in our midst.

It's not pantheism, it's incarnational theology. And once you have that deep rootedness in that's who Yahweh is like, he doesn't just stick around up there and absurd, but like he inhabits his creation, so much so that he takes creation into himself in the incarnation, irrevocably and permanently, and becomes united to the material world in hypostatic union. Well, then you have the ability for what we just said, for all the physical things, to have a kind of localization of the Divine Presence, or also for physical things to have his absence or to have other spirits kind of take them over so there can be a kind of localized evil or something like that.

So yeah, this a deep theology behind it. Well, and people but people experience it even at the, at the like most ignorant of any of that stuff. People can still walk into a space and go, I don't know why. I feel very restful, very peaceful in the space and that other times walk somewhere else and go, boy, that felt just.

I felt all kinds of, you know, in that, in that space as well. So I think people intuitively feel intuitively feel that. But there's something to that localization that feels, that seems right. And it seems like, as you're saying, it's it's kind of there's more of that, those kinds of appearances. Jacob's ladder, you know. Oh, I didn't know God was present here.

You know, that kind of concept. Again, the transcendence, immanence, kind of, kind of thing going on there. But it gets into that, that localization of even to the point that you talked about, the ancient fathers did not have a problem with relics, in fact. Yeah, altars were built over these things. Can you, can you unpack that a little bit?

And because that seems to modern ears, that seems weird. Like I can't even imagine a Protestant church going, yeah, that's a good idea. Let's, you know, let's do that. Yeah. Well, and I did talk about that on Very Creatures a little bit because that's what they wanted to talk about. So I was explaining it. I maybe I'll say to you, and I don't want to go on record as, oh, the relics guy or, you know, crater relics or some, you know, the evangelical who says, you know, holy bones or something.

No, no, but but I like I like that you're going to talk about it and and that that doesn't mean the extreme that kind of goes back to that Abbey thing. Let's talk about this in a nuanced way. So, yeah, give it give it. To us. Right. With all due caveats or whatever. Yeah. Really it's it's grounded in the theology of the incarnation.

Is it? When Christ takes flesh, he takes the cosmos into himself, like he takes materiality, so that matter and the supernatural are just, like, permanently joined. And there's a kind of bridge, like Christ is called our high priest. That word means like in Latin, anyway, means a bridge maker, you know, Pontifex, make a bridge. And like you said, Jacob's ladder.

So in that sense, you know, I don't think I would even put it as much emphasis on, like, a relic, like an actual bone or something that, I mean, that that was part of ancient cognizance and could be extreme, like Saint Augustine, for example, says, you know, don't do that. Like his mother was super into that. And and her Bishop Ambrose was like, we don't we don't do that, Monica.

Like, you know, so like, you could certainly turn it into something more pagan if you weren't careful. But that being said, it's kind of like space. Like a sacred space, like it's just a localization of memory. And it's not that bones have some kind of imbued power, but that there's a kind of tangibility to bones, just in the sense that that's what will preserve over time.

Any kind of materiality is not going to be flesh, but it could be bones, and often is. And so it's like more like you might say, stones of remembrance, like there's places where I've traveled in the ancient world and just pick up a little rock. I shouldn't say where some of these came from, because it's probably not allowed.

But, you know, like I have like a stone of remembrance and it's just so you could hold it and you could sort of focus. I mean, icons are supposed to be used that way. You can kind of see that little icon right up here. And I don't pray to icons, but they are supposed to say like, look, these are real people.

And there's a kind of visualization and conceptualization that we need then everybody needs. I mean, what's most precious to a soldier when he's in duress, in war, some picture of his loved ones, some locket or some letter or some you want when you're in greatest need, you want a kind of tangible reminder of of who you're connected to.

And so that's how I think these things serve. And in particular place to like go to the place like go to Jerusalem, like like the angel, the angel said to the women, come and see the place that he lay. That's an important command. Yeah. Isn't it. That's like a command to all of us for holy pilgrimage really is a com and c b and eyewitness.

I too have seen, you know, the empty tomb or I too have trod the places where these things have happened. And so place and space and object and all of this reminds us that the physical, earthly world we live in. And like you said, Sarina there's a sort of portals to what's beyond. And sometimes they're every day.

They're not always like the church of the Holy Sepulcher, right? Sometimes it's just the back of a wardrobe behind a couple of fur coats. But there you are. You know, it's the whole world back there. Who knew who was new? Yeah. Do you suppose that that's also maybe in some sense. I mean, at least the way I perceive it, like the sacramental nature of things?

Yes, yes, yes, that's exactly right. That's because the supreme portals are not bones or even, you know, locations where it happened, or stones that remember, it's the supreme portals are the God given sacraments, which I don't have any problem using that word, because that word means mystery, so that somehow regular bread, somehow or regular, let's just call it fruit of the vine, regular fruit of the vine, regular bread, regular water.

What could be more normal and plain than water? Right. And they become these like participatory things convey saving grace, but they absolutely do convey nourishing grace, as the scriptures is clear that there's a washing, that a spiritual washing. And so like the metaphorical and the reality can just be wetted right together. Yeah, yeah. Can you talk about the Eucharist a bit?

That's something that's kind of coming back into our conversations as a culture and as a church and even as Protestants, because I, I feel like there's a lot more power in it, in the symbolism of it, in the partaking of it. Then I've been raised to kind of observe, and a lot of people might have similar thoughts.

But since you've studied the early church so much. Yeah. What have we lost with even, like something like the Eucharist? Well, we've lost that. It's okay to talk about it as real alongside symbol, but in the Reformation that it hardens into a kind of an either or, like a binary that wasn't there, where it's like if it's a symbol, it can't have any reality.

You know, the Colloquy of Marburg where there's like Lutherans, they just couldn't get together on this subject. So unfortunately, it's like caused us to take an either or. So if we are memorial list, you can't speak about it being real. And then what do you do with like Jesus and John six when he says, my body is true food, my blood is true drink.

And you can't. It's hard to say. Oh, clearly he was talking symbolically. Because, yeah. He lost a bunch of disciples because they said, no, you don't mean he said, I do mean. And they left him, you know. Right. He doubled down. Yeah. And okay, so raw cannibalism is not what we're talking about here. But it is. It is absolutely paradigmatic that what God did in Jesus Christ is he gave us his flesh and blood, because the exact opposite is what the demonic powers do.

They are always described as eaters and consumers. They are cannibalistic. They are these giants or these, you know, these like what they they consume man's goodness, they consume man's produce. And that's used up. They consume man himself. That's just what they want to do. They want to take and not give. And and Jesus gave without taking, you know, I give to you my I give you my body, I.

And that's that's the Lord God giving his own self and substance to us. That is remarkable. Yeah. And all throughout, you know, history. I mean, why did God prohibit eating of eating blood? Why was that so important? It's because God was saying again and again, do not get a taste for that demonic food. The gods, they they are literally blood thirsty.

And Israel and God's people will not even develop a taste for those things. I will not demand that of you. Instead, I will provide substitute, and you will not have to have your own flesh and blood taken by me and so many of the gods, you know, there's this human sacrifice is just that's what they do, whether it's Molek, whether it's Saturn, whether it's, you know, places that this is happening in the world today.

Yeah. And God is utterly opposed and opposite to that because he's a giver of himself. So that's why the Eucharist is so important. It's not ancillary. It's not right. And I'm fine with, you know, like once a month or, you know, whatever your different churches do. I'm not saying it has to be every Sunday like an Anglican church or a Catholic church, but it has to be seen as utterly paradigmatic of who who God is because he is the giver of himself, freely and so.

Feast, feast. It's nourishment for the soul. Well, it's interesting to me that even the way that this is troubling to me earlier on, particularly as I was pastoring, because I'd run across these, you know, you can read, you can read the same thing over again and not and not see it. And then suddenly one day you see it.

I'm reading this and I'm thinking, why does Paul say I don't want to be disembodied or separated from from the soul? Like going to heaven as a soul is fine. And because the way I was raised to think was like, that's all that mattered was just that, right? And then why is it that he's raised? Jesus is raised from the dead as being both capital and non-capital, having both elements.

Why wasn't he? Why is that important? Why is the physical resurrection important if all that matters is eternal life? And all of these things began to be a little troubling, like this is I haven't learned about this in all of my upbringing in the church world. And so the word incarnation became really I started to think much more about that and wondered, what did we lose then from, you know, this extreme?

And it was, of course, correction, I get it. But we probably it was over course correction in some sense. It's like, did we lose more of that incarnational understanding of the divine? Well, God is is a creator, you know. And so it is it is intrinsic to who he is. You know, in eternity past you have father, son, and Holy Spirit.

They're completely satisfied. But because of the intensity and the wonder of the interpenetration of their love, it is only going to overflow into creation because he is self-giving. The three persons are so self-giving that that the self-giving demands a kind of a kind of expression. And so creation, you know, bubbles up out of the Trinity, out of the mutual self-giving, is to create a world so that there can be this kind of exchange and love and something to love, you know, outside of the father, son, and the Holy Spirit.

They're not constrained. And yet their self causes this to happen, their very being. So then so then created ness. Therefore corporeality or physicality is just it's it's essential to life, like you said, you know, eternal life. And yet, you know, you could imagine that, you know, why do I need a body for that? Because life is life is in the blood, says Scripture.

Light. Life is embodied. That's the only kind of life there is. Now. Of course, the Trinity is a different case, but in terms of what we can experience, you're not alive unless you have a body like the breath of life. Like Adam is just like meat until the divine nefesh goes into him, and then he becomes a living being.

And so the breath of life and life and embodiment just go together. And that's the thing that we've lost, like you were saying, but you can't have a heavenly destiny, which is like living and life without the body that is alive. And that's why Christ's resurrection is so important. It's a first fruits, which is a promise of the harvest to come.

And then we are. We are that harvest. We are that the resurrection. So it's just not possible in the Christian view of the world, or really even the Semitic or Jewish view of the world, to have a kind of living self that is not embodied, you know? Yeah. So bringing it back to Miro and Paul a little bit and just kind of comparing their personalities, even like first, you know, the beginning of this, we were kind of talking about how there's some that God loves to use the foolish things of the world to kind of like set the, the proud things right.

But there is something in like modern society, I think, where there is this attraction to neuro types, there's just this like magnitude that call it charisma, cause it confidence, call it whatever. Why or why is we as people just attracted to that? Like that's where the masses want to go. But yet it's in these humble, unseen, like hidden places and people that God often is.

Don't want to say hiding, but like choosing and and using in a more pure, purified way. At least it seems. Well, you're right, we're drawn to that. We're drawn to the charismatic, you know. And by that I mean, like those that have that kind of charisma or that personality. And we tend to idolize that, like, literally like turn that into an idol.

And sometimes, you know, there are mighty people that the Lord raises up that have those, you know, traits. And if they're pious and godly and the Lord is able to use them. So not not all, not all power is is bad. You know, there are good people with great power that use it for great things. And so, like, you know, I want to affirm that, but it's because the Lord is making that person.

And you think about someone like Nero who just has this kind of larger than life personality, and contrasting that with Saul, who becomes Paul. But, you know, Saul, there's two souls in Scripture, right? There's King Saul and the Old Testament. And then there's, you know, Saul and the new. And it's an interesting contrast there, because the first Saul was those things that Nero is.

He's tall. He's like, well, that's who I would want for a king. Now, his short guy, who's a shepherd boy with a sling, I'm like, you know, my NBA player, Saul to be be my king. Look at his sword. So strong. And those people can like, in a kind of a worldly paradigm, that is, who get range like these warlords and even giants.

If we want to talk about kind of height being important of the spiritual realm. But Saul turns out Saul that turns into Paul is actually the one that gets far more used. Like King Saul just fails. He falls on his own sword, and Paul is beheaded by a sword as a martyr for Christ, having kept the faith.

And so it's just, you know, so Nero is that same kind of person who also commits a kind of suicide like the book is. He does commit suicide. Paul commits a kind of suicide. I mean, martyrdom is a kind of holy, holy death because you could avert it by denying the thing that you believe in, but you choose that.

And so death comes to you. So it's warriors and noble. And Paul's death is something as insofar as we know it is something to be celebrated. Paul's death by the sword. And Nero kills himself with a blade. He's he's hiding with a couple of slaves in a in a little country house in the basement while the enemies close in.

Or King Saul, you know, falls on his own blade. And and it just shows. It shows where the true power lies. Is like in the end, when you're tested, who's able to stay true all the way to the very end. And someone like Paul was able to do that. Do you think there's anything with like, not necessarily like like instead of I don't want to say picking on, but instead of like examining the the key figures like what in in us as like the common folk I guess.

Or like the followers like is there something that will draw us like, do you think there's something intrinsic in how God designed us as humans that will ultimately win out being attracted to where he is putting? I don't know his I don't want to sound too charismatic, but like putting his fear, putting his blessing on, putting a leader who has the character as well as like a gifting, even though they're not quote unquote like attractive or cares matic or like drawing the numbers or something.

But it's like, why? Why? There's just a thing that my Russell's in my brain about. Like, I want to believe that we're designed to be attracted to the humble, to the, the pure thing. But so often our egos aren't. Then for some reason, these bigger personalities feel a false sense of safety. Maybe. Is it safety we're seeking? Is it?

I just don't know. What might it be? So I'm just. There's the interplay of the fact that we're image bearers. And so there's that, that part of us that is sort of knows who God is and responds to the divine, and we're fallen. And so even believers, you know, certainly you'd expect unbelievers to sort of clamor after the latest Hollywood idol or sports star like, you know, sort of just clamor for the the physical acclaim or the looks or wealth or whatever.

But but even believers, like with kind of the celebrity pastor phenomenon where, where there's this kind of like rock star persona and sadly, that kind of acclaim can attract a certain kind of person who's maybe more attracted to wanting that. And so they gravitate to that, and that creates a kind of a toxic thing. But at the same time, you know, I think of a lot of pastors, you know, they're trying to serve the Lord faithfully, and they they can't necessarily help sometimes that this giant cult of personality develops around them.

And so, like the faithful ones, will will see that for what it is like. I think of like a John Piper. Piper is a great example of somebody that that has massive like cult following to the degree that it's kind of crazy, but he's trying. He stays rooted, he stays grounded. He stays like, no, like I'm going to reject that kind of thing.

And so you do get these godly pastors that have that kind of ability. But sadly, it's kind of rare. Yeah. Let me draw that into something. So you mentioned you were on the Blurry Creatures podcast recently, which was a very fantastic, interesting conversation. And after I saw that, that's when I reached out to you, because I was so intrigued by a lot of what you said.

There was one thing you said in that conversation. They asked like something along the lines of, like with the early church fathers and apostles, like, what would they think of church today? And, you know, you said something. But when they asked that question almost before you answered, I felt embarrassment. I had an emotion of embarrassment for where we're at.

You had been regaling them with stories of sacrifice and bravery and passion for the gospel, and the unimaginable transformation from the Old Covenant to the new, all the stuff that they were dealing with. And and then they said, well, what do you think they would think of us today? And I'm like, oh, can you kind of just maybe speak into that a little bit?

Like, what would the early church fathers think if they walked into. Maybe, maybe make us feel better? Yeah, yeah. What would they like us. They'd like us a little bit. Right. I think it's in one way it's hard to answer because who's the US that you're talking about? Yeah, I know I was in my mind. It was. You know what?

You know, it's probably this. The celebrity church, the one on social media, was probably like a typical evangelical thing that was kind of that more than, you know, anything else. Exactly. And I think, you know, you took him to the right place in the American church where there's, you know, like a company, some guy on his, you know, prison ministry, the apostles and the Church fathers would be like, yep, I get this. This is what we do.

And, you know, like, there's the all these, like, hidden and good places and soup kitchens and, and, you know, people helping marriages grow strong. So like, I don't want to like bag on the American church. And it's so easy to do that. But like the celebrity culture and I don't think they would understand that. I think there's a lot like you could walk them into like an evangelical Anglican church or some kind of structured church.

My my church is Presbyterian, and they'd probably get that a little more as far as like, oh yeah, there's like an order of service and oh, there's a creed. And, you know, this is the pastoral prayer and here's the sermon and oh, look, we're collecting tithes, okay? That's, you know, just Justin Martyr describes all of those things.

And of course, the Lord's Supper singing hymns. So, you know, congregational singing the ancient church. Now, they didn't use instruments that, you know, I'm not saying don't like. I love pipe organ or piano or something, but I am saying the ancient church utterly rejected musical instruments because that was associated with either orgies or the theater or sacrifices pagans.

So then to have the tidal wave of instrumental music coming over you and that they would not understand, and the kind of disjointed, what are we doing next kind of easy flow, you know, without a kind of structure to it or a liturgy that I don't think they would understand. And I'll say this, I don't think an ancient Christian, any of them, whether it's a house church, whether it's, you know, post Constantinian basilicas or something, would understand why we insist on having church in the dark, why we and that's a that's a theater.

That's a theater visual cue. That's an entertainment. Like you go to a movie dark, no windows. You go to a concert dark, you know, no window. So you can focus on the stage and all the illumination is like beaming to you from, from the stage, but really like spotlighting on the stage instead of the community. And there's no light from heaven.

There's no portals of windows, of letting in the divine light. You think about medieval cathedrals and how much attention they paid to bringing down beauty of the heavenly light, or an ancient basilica where you had this upper story that you would light it, or candles and the lamps and even the menorah in a synagogue. And so I think one thing they would not understand is why we have the option of having lights and windows, and instead we have church in the dark.

So would they recognize one guy called a pastor kind of leading the whole show? Yeah, yeah. Like like for example, Justin Martyr. And really, what's kind of the like the earliest description of a church service. So this would be around mid second century, mid to late. And he calls the guy the president. Like the Presider doesn't use the term episcopacy or bishop, but that term is used even earlier by like say Ignatius of Antioch.

So there is a presider and leading that and bringing a homily, but it's illuminated so that the people there are responsive and hymns are sung, antiphonal like, back and forth. And the pastor will say something and the people respond, or prayers are said, and there's a response. And so the incorporation of the congregation and his even the president, you know, the pastor, the presiding ability to see the people, like some of the I've been up on those stages where the crowd is dark, you can't see the people of God, and so you can't really respond with them.

You're just a performer. And so they would be fine with a single figure leading, assisted by some other people like singers, cantors or lectures. Those who read doorkeepers even. But I don't think they would understand the the separation of the people and the presider. Let me tell. You what about. Yeah, I was going to ask about the separation between laymen and clergy.

Where do you want to go with that? So they would that's very ancient. You know, I did this book called wisdom, wisdom from the ancients and one of the chapters, and it's all the little pithy little statements that sound kind of shocking until you say, oh, well, that's actually what's meant. And one of them is you ought to put your pastor on a pedestal, and that goes against our sort of egalitarian grain, or America, and all men are created equal. And, you know, nobody's on a pedestal.

I'm as good. He's as good. But actually the Scripture doesn't speak that way. The Scripture says, you know, first Timothy 517 and 18, double honor, first Thessalonians five 1213, James three one. There's more accountability. So like Scripture, and certainly you have the Levitical priesthood having this concept where Scripture says there are some people that need to have this kind of stature and to belong to recognized calling, let's say, ordination.

And so we are the people, and he's the one called to that and is worthy of double honor because of his vocation now. So that's like a clergy lady distinction. Now, I'm a good Protestant, so I believe in priesthood of the believer. I'm not trying to say like, you can't access God except through that priest. Right, right, right.

But the original concept wasn't that the priest had or the presbyter, the episcopacy, the bishop had had, like special access or some kind of like transformative ability to the bread and the wine that wasn't the original concept. Was this like double honor and vocation and calling and literally ordination? Because ordo means like an order, like you had moved from that into that order.

And so that kind of understanding of, of clergy laity is probably really good and deserves we deserve to put our pastors on that pedestal of honor. Scripture tells us to do that. And elders. You know the elders. There's a lot of things there in terms of where I think we would also look at that. We're not I don't believe that you'd be saying that this is a sort of they are to be worshiped like near.

I think that was your point with the in the book of with narrow. It's like that's more of an egotistical attempt to meet a personal need. And oftentimes it happens in the celebrity world, church world, and, you know, more times than, than it should be happening there. But but the kind that you're speaking up is more about the servant leadership that you were describing, that you saw through Jesus, as opposed to through Nero or through Paul, as opposed to narrow is is more of that servant kind of leadership happening in that space, but that there is also this thing which I've wrestled with for a while now,

and that has to do with the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom being that we've sort of lost in our day, a sort of respect for people that have done their work and are further along. Maybe, you know, we don't, you know, we just don't have that as much. It's sort of like, you know, I looked it up on Google, so I know just as much as you do about this.

And it's like, no, you don't, you don't have a, you don't have a medical degree, you don't have a PhD in this subject. It's like at least honor for people that have done their work to get to where they are and who have developed a particular skill that is exceptional. And we should look to that, because I think that's a kind of like even the idea of worship is putting up something that is above and beyond, and the transcendent sense of that which helps us to orient our lives towards that which is above and beyond us.

And I think if we don't have those things, then we got nothing. You know, everything's flat. No. Yeah. No. No ascendancy. No. Everything's flat. It's like, well then what's the orientation towards that? Which is good, true and beautiful and that which is beyond us and that which is. So that's what comes up for me, as I'm hearing you say some of this stuff and reading through Paula Nyro.

Well, you know, when it comes down to with a pastor, is that it's not just a matter of like, well, they went to seminary or they learn Greek or something like that, but they actually invested according to Scripture with a kind of divine calling this, this higher than the regular column. That's why they are worthy of double honor.

That's why when you when you take it upon yourself to teach the Word of God, God says more will be held accountable of you. So in addition to sort of further training that you know, deserves our respect, just like you would give to a physician or something is also the the stature, call it clergy, call it laity.

It's the stature that God gives both to the Levites and he gives to New Testament pastor elders. So there is an authority that comes with it, whether the person deserves it or not or handles it properly could be debated, but there is a divine authority that goes with the office of the local church pastor. Elder. Yeah, so let's get into some Paul stuff here as we kind of start to land the plane a bit.

Bryan you referenced a bunch of the epistles and works that Paul wrote. Even in the New and Paul book, you kind of asserted Paul's writing of Scripture. There is a lot of debate in discussion on if Paul wrote certain books. Maybe there's a third Corinthians. Maybe those shouldn't be included. Maybe Timothy, maybe, you know, all these books have some debate around it.

Where do you land on the Paul debate as far as Scripture goes? Well, as a good evangelical, you know, inerrant, I land very squarely on Pauline authorship of of the epistles that are attributed to him. Some things you can debate, you're not exactly sure you know who wrote Hebrews, for example. There's an increasing move. One of my colleagues at Liberty is making the case that Pauline authorship for even Hebrews.

So I land on that. You know, inerrancy is very important, and there's no such thing as, like misleading scriptures or something like that. I would agree, you know, the inerrancy inspiration thing. Yeah. But what about a whole book that he didn't even write, you know, could a book have been forced into the canon, or would that go against, you know, the divine nature of God or gaining the whole canon?

Well, in the end, it didn't happen, right? So like, like Paul talks about two other Corinthian epistles that he did. Right. And so the first and second is actually the second and fourth. I think that's right is what they are. So there were these two more. So I mean, but that's not that surprising, right. Do we think the only time Paul ever put pen to paper was when he wrote these letters?

Of course not. So like any human author has written things, but only some of those were written under inspiration. Some of them you can get into the issues of like, well, was there an a monument which is like a scribe or someone that could sort of like pin it for him? I talk about some of these topics in my book after X, which is exploring the lives and legends of the apostles.

Like what happened to them, what happened to Paul, what do we know by tradition, post New Testament? What do we know about Peter? What do we know about Mary? What do we know about Thomas? And I look in, you know, what do you know about James? And so all the disciples and I look into the early church traditions about them and kind of grade, grade, how likely these different ones are.

And so sometimes, you know, John, for example, there was like a Johannine community and he had a team. But in the end, the point of authorship is the word authority, who the author is the authority. And so the the figure whose name is attached to it is the authority behind it. Even if somebody else, you know, penned an early draft or some kind of writing process like that.

Did Paul come up with or elaborate, exposed new commandments, new guidelines we need to live by? Because at one hand, he's a very radical grace preacher. The law is, you know, been done away with and all this. And then in these writings of his to the churches, he's then going, by the way, don't do this, don't do that.

Hey, man, watch the hair. Women, watch this, do that. Earrings, drunkenness, all this stuff. It's. Did he introduce new commandments beyond what the law had? Well, I suspect any one of those things. And he does say things like not I, but the Lord. Now the Lord says, not I, where it's like there's a there's a gospel saying.

And then on his own authority, I was just talking about like pastoral authority on his own pastoral or apostolic authority. He speaks words. I don't know if I'd call them new on each case by case basis, you'd probably see that there's some kind of parallel or trajectory coming out of like Second Temple Judaism or Jewish culture or something, where it's not like this is just where did this come from?

But there's a theme there that Paul is developing, but he can certainly develop. He's under inspiration. It's not like the red letters matter more than the non red. You know, in the text that all of Scripture is God breathed, and if so, if the Holy Spirit speaks it through Paul, then that's authoritative. Just like if the mouth of Jesus uttered it on, you know, on, on the Temple Mount or something. Yeah.

Any other wisdom threads we want to pull as we close? Any closing thoughts, Bryan? Anything you want him to mention as far as what you've learned and on your journey? Yeah. Well, I've spent, you know, a couple of decades now on one main topic, which is try as modern Christians to become Catholic, which, of course, I do not mean, you know, join the Roman Catholic Church.

So some people do. But I understand why evangelicals, you know, go to Mother Rome or something. That's not my message. My message is to be little seat Catholic and to root yourself in the faith and just not to have this idea that, well, like I live now in a sort of I want to jump over the centuries and get back to the first centuries, if that's the one that mattered.

It was foundational. But the faith has come down to us through these ancients and through the medieval and through all of the church history. And I have a book coming out next summer called Church History for you, which is like, it's your story. Every chapter is your story. You know, the dominoes fell forward. And to the extent that you're being affected is only because the other ones tumbled forward, not because they leaped over the centuries.

And so I just think that's very healthy for modern Christians to especially American Christians who, like we were saying, tend to be individualistic, tend to be like innovative and kind of, you know, what can we do and how can I do it differently? And what what in the future is, is coming down the pike that I can kind of be different.

No, be the same be forward thinking, but say the same things that have come down, you know, confess the faith once for all delivered to the saints. And so insofar as you look forward, first look backward and then move forward. And that will provide a kind of rootedness and richness that will counteract our tendencies to just kind of really to draw from pop culture.

That's what happens when you try to be innovative, is you start drawing from media culture and pop culture and secular culture. So to counteract that, get rooted in the faith once for all delivered to the saints. And it sounds very much like where you're going with a lot of your work around. There's no going back to a point in time in history where you know, this is perfect and this is where we want to adopt that.

This is sort of the the tree that was that was envisioned of becoming the tree that covers the whole earth. That's like, this is the rootedness and the evolution and the development of faith all over the world. Yeah, yeah. No, you can't go back to like, a golden age or like, that's not much at all. Yeah, yeah.

There's not like, oh, leave it to Beaver some time when everything was great or whatever. I mean, yeah, each generation had its challenges, but like, like as we move forward for the gospel, taking God's message to the to the nations and to the ends of the earth, do that with a sense of trajectory and communal participation, which is what catholicity really is like.

Do it, and you'll be richer and stronger and more grounded for having those those roots. And I'm glad you guys just mentioned that to you, because that was a thought I wanted to get out there in record as I read, you know, your accounts that you've been focusing on and the depravity and the just the difficulty of life back then.

We have this view right now like that. Life is so bad right now. And certainly it's difficult for people for sure. But in a very large aspect, you know, civilization seems to be it seems like progressing in a lot of ways and in a lot of beautiful ways with education and health and just a lot of things.

There's just was such a darkness in some of those past times. So I don't want to take for granted what we're given now with the modern inventions and access to things we have now. So it is good. It's almost like traveling to another country that isn't doing as well as we are. It just gives you perspective. Traveling back in time to the early church in some of these works is really perspective changing, and I think it's a valuable thing for things for people.

To do. Well, we may be we may be heading into some scenarios that are more like that, where the opposition. And if that happens, then there's some context that we can learn from to some wisdom. Right? Yeah, yeah for sure. Anecdotally. So Bryan you did mention also you go to a Presbyterian church. Well, so we've had and you're from Virginia.

So out of our very few episodes we've recorded so far, we had had you a Presbyterian from Virginia, and John G. Turner, a Presbyterian from Virginia. So we're we're very strongly emphasizing this one dimension of of the, you know, people out there. So we got to broaden a little bit. Do you know John G. Turner? That sounds.

To me he's the Joseph Smith and Brigham Young biographer. He's at George Mason University. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Right. Well, I do go to a Presbyterian church and I love it. I am in some ways Presbyterian adjacent. So I'm, you know, I don't subscribe to the whole Westminster Confession and some of those things. So I just go on the record.

I teach at a Baptist university and more, more like a Reformed Baptist. But I love my my church and I love the great preaching of the of the faith. That's awesome. Yeah. And we're not. Yeah. Multiple places. We're not huge on labels and denominational. And just one has the whole picture like we've been talking about. There's so many different elements here.

So yeah, I live very happily in Baptist world. I live non-denominational, Bible evangelical, I live in Reformed Presbyterianism, and I have great appreciation for Anglican and even for my Catholic and Orthodox brothers and sisters. So I love that as long as we're on the risen Christ, you know, you're you're a friend of mine. Yep, yep. Everybody has a piece of the picture in some way or another.

Everybody has their wisdom and maybe lack thereof at times. So we're all on this journey together. All right, everybody, you can get the book everywhere. Books are sold. Nero and Paul with Doctor Bryan Litfin and Kathie Lee Gifford. Go watch some Regis and Kathie Lee reruns to support Kathie Lee's work by Bryan’s other books. Whatever you got to do and really appreciate you coming on here and talking with us.

Thanks. I have a web page. If anybody wants to know. Who's this guy? What is he? What is he written about? So it's just my name, which is probably in your project. Well, put it in the show notes, but. Yeah, look that up too. bryanlitfin.com easy to find Bryan with a Y Litfin all one word dot com.

And people can figure out what kind of craziness I'm into. Love it. And so and that's the thing one last thing about our platform here. Because it is a little bit new for folks. You know we're going to have a variety of people on. Check out Bryan’s work if, if if you need to wrestle with it wrestle with it.

If you agree with it, agree with it. If you want to share it, if you want to debate it. Like we're open to so many differing voices. But what we're looking for in all of it is where are the threads of wisdom? And it's not up to us to dictate what that is. We're not going to tell you, but we're going to search that out together and have this conversation together as a community. That's what we're trying to do.

So thanks again. Thank you so much Bryan. Thanks for having me. Yeah. It’s great having you on. Appreciate it. Merging Wisdom