Missing Theology

Welcome to the Uncut Podcast. I'm Pastor Luke.

I'm Pastor Cameron. And this is the Uncut Podcast, where we have honest, uncut conversations about faith, life, and ministry.

So we're recording this on a beautiful afternoon, and we were just sitting down and we were

We're just talking about a question that a friend of mine asked the other day and I thought

would be interesting, maybe fruitful conversation for us to wrestle with.

And you can tell what kind of friends I hang out with by the fact that he asked this question.

Yeah, I'm curious as to the context in which he asked it.

It's like you guys were, if he was offering a, was he offering a suggestion for the podcast

or is this just like your regular… No, this is just our regular conversation. I think we were talking about like.

He's very interested in the intersection of theology and social issues and we're both

kind of wrestling with like, what do we do when we're confronted with these difficult situations,

where being faithful to God isn't as clear as quoting a Bible verse and things like that.

And so he kind of posed this question that I thought we would sit with and answer,

is what is perhaps, in your opinion, right, the most neglected or not talked about or not

understood theological concept or area that the church is lacking from in current times.

So, it's kind of a dense question, but it's kind of saying, what is maybe a theological concept

that we've misunderstood or we've not talked about that is wreaking havoc in maybe our lives,

in our churches because we don't have a robust or significant understanding of it.

Boy, it's like a big question.

It is. I mean, I would say off the cuff, there are a few things that I consistently encounter.

I don't, some of them are very broad. Some of them I think are really broad.

Others of them I think are really, really specific. A really specific one that I encounter a lot,

is a misunderstanding around the responsibility.

Or call to forgive.

And the, I wouldn't even say pretty much, I wouldn't even say pretty much.

I would say the objective witness of the New Testament, especially with Jesus,

that forgiveness is a non-negotiable part,

of our posture towards the world and posture towards people.

And that our forgiveness of others is directly linked to God's forgiveness of us in two ways.

One is that we have capacity to forgive because we have been forgiven,

not because we want to forgive.

We have capacity to forgive because we've been forgiven. The other way is that our reception of forgiveness from God will be in equal measure.

To our forgiveness of others. For if you do not forgive your brother for their sins,

your Heavenly Father will not forgive you.

Those, that's the words of Jesus, folks. Like, it, you know, that was not a parable.

That was not like a mysterious saying. That was not, get your decoder ring out

and figure out what Jesus really meant there.

Can't really get more clear.

Well, as you're talking about it, and I've thought this before,

but it's hitting even more clear in my mind right now is just that it's embedded in the Lord's prayer.

100%. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.

The assumption is that like, I don't know, there's probably some study on that as we forgive,

like is that in proportion to or- In the same way that you- In the same way in which I do, right?

But the idea, the concept is embedded in there. If I'm saying to the Lord in the prayer

that he taught us to say to him, forgive me in the same way in which I forgive other people,

how forgiven am I gonna be at the end of that?

Right, right. So for clarity's sake, just like you're encountering people or this idea of like, I just don't wanna forgive, I don't have to.

Yeah, I feel like there's a lot of times a unapologetic, active withholding of forgiveness

because it's too big, the thing that they've done is too big.

It's too serious, or I don't feel like forgiving yet, I don't have forgiving feelings towards them.

Or they haven't apologized yet, so I'm not.

Or apologized well enough. Right, so I'm not gonna forgive them yet.

Or just, I don't want to, I don't have to.

I refuse, like a spiritual three-year-old having a temper tantrum on the floor.

I mean, I said that kind of tongue-in-cheek, but now that you extrapolate that out a little bit, like forgiveness is.

Forgiveness is, I guess, I don't know if I would call it the milk of spiritual life, or a milk product

of spiritual life, or if it's more like the meat and potatoes.

All right, farmer. Yeah. But, you know, it's like, so yeah, I would say that there,

it's wrapped up in a lot of those things, like just a willful hardness towards forgiving,

like just not gonna do it. I'm like thinking there are just so many passages,

like there's the parable that Jesus teaches of like the, who like went of the forgiving servants.

Unmerciful servant. Unmerciful servant. Matthew 18, yeah. Right, like all of that.

Like his, the woman who washed his feet and all of that.

And like he's like, you know, who loved the master more? you know, the one who is forgiven more, right?

She loves much because she's been forgiven much, like, and then we can go to 1 John, right?

And all of, in 1 John, it's like all of this understanding

of being in the light, receiving God's forgiveness, and then love and forgiveness flowing out of it.

It's, the, I think that like your,

someone's incapacity to forgive, not that it's easy, but that forgiveness becomes more reasonable,

and more doable when we have wrestled with our own sin. Yeah, and I think the biblical witness supports this

is that it is virtually impossible to come to a true place of forgiveness

without first having reckoned the immensity of our own sin

and the immensity of God's forgiveness of it.

Do you, so I wonder if this is the other side of the pendulum here.

Like I seem to remember like in years past.

That there is a significant amount of like preaching, teaching, and clarification.

Over what forgiveness is not, like, forgiveness is not like, you know, so like...

Letting someone step all over you.

Letting someone step all over you, forgiveness is not going back to the way things were,

or forgiveness is not like, you know, like, and we can think of like tons of examples of that

where, you know, people have been kind of told to forgive just perpetually, but then there's never

any consequences and people who, you know, churches get called out for this all the

time when like a pastor fails or does something and then they don't, they don't

seemingly, according to everyone else's opinion, judge them harsh enough or

punish them harsh enough. And there's this, there's this arguing over all of

that. Now that was the, I feel like that was the other side of that. Do you feel

like that's led to this other extreme where now people are more.

We've, we've lost one type of bad type of forgiveness and we've gotten another.

Or do you feel like those are two connected or?

Well, I think they're connected. It feels a little bit like those messages that are kind of trying to make an

argument for what forgiveness is not really like walking a tightrope of escaping

are like walking a tightrope of escaping the hard responsibility of forgiveness.

Because even things like, oh, you know, well, forgiveness doesn't mean that I just have to like lay down.

I can think I can make a pretty good case from the New Testament that actually like

laying down our life, even to the point of, like,

in the midst of false accusation, in the midst of our laying down our own goals, dreams.

Visions, hopes, plans for the future in humble service to others,

I think I can make a pretty strong biblical case there.

So to say that, oh, forgiveness is all these things, is all these things, but it's definitely not allowing someone to trample all over you or

anything like that. I think there's other reasons based out of wisdom, but I don't think it's a

place. I don't think it comes from the biblical argument. It comes from a place of like, well,

we can forgive but there's all like we can make these exceptions for like the

merit of our forgiveness certainly like I wouldn't like I wouldn't recommend,

that you know you take someone of an extreme case and it's not extreme for some people for some people's their their reality but like you take a case

that is very intense, like an abusive marriage.

And you say, okay, you say to the spouse who has been abused.

It is important that you forgive. I would not mean that to say that your forgiveness necessitates the continuation of the relationship.

But I would still say you need to forgive. you need to forgive because it is an unburdening of your soul

for what's been done to you. It's the only way to unburden your soul.

But I think that that, but saying that, OK, the relationship doesn't need to continue or shouldn't continue,

is something that's based in wisdom and based in, you know, you make, certainly make arguments for it,

like based in the, like protecting the,

protecting the weak, protecting the victim.

And advocating for them. But, you know, a lot of, a lot of that language around,

you know, what forgiveness is not,

I feel like there's just a lot of spiritual inference going on.

We're inferring that this is what it doesn't mean, but it's not explicit.

And so, we have to rely a little bit on wisdom, but it's not always necessarily super explicit.

I don't know where I would make the argument of like, well, you know, biblically speaking,

forgiveness doesn't mean that you can't have boundaries.

Uh-huh.

Say that again. Like you know how sometimes we say like, okay, we can forgive them, but then if like,

maybe it's not necessarily an abusive relationship, but like maybe an acquaintance or a person who

continually sins against you, right? And you need to forgive them, right? And you forgive them.

But then you set up a boundary so that they can no longer hurt you or they can no longer sin

against you. And that way, maybe you break off from relationship, you're not really acquaintances

or friends anymore, you know, spend time together, whatever. I think that that is a something that

someone can do out of wisdom. But I don't know that it's something that I would be like, well,

here's chapter and verse for why the boundary can be set and you can feel okay with it.

No, yeah, I think I agree with what you're saying there. There is definitely a,

I think that does mostly come out of wisdom. You could maybe make an argument out of, I don't know.

Kind of reflecting on what love is, what friendship is, right? Like if it's a friend

who is continually sinning against you, is that a friend? Right? And the easy answer to that is

probably not, you know, and so therefore stop treating it like it's a friendship,

you know. A whole lot of wisdom there, but I agree, not a place where I feel like there's

an easy chapter and verse where. So, I think it's this, you know, it's this balancing of just

because you are setting up a boundary or you're being wise doesn't mean that you then also just

get to neglect the forgiveness thing. It's like in maybe perhaps trying to recover.

You know, and give people the permission to make wise decisions, somehow the message of Christ's

forgiveness to others has been lost. I think...

Like two thoughts. There's one is that it's a hard, that's a really hard thing to teach,

because it has to be something that somebody chooses.

Forgiveness? Forgiveness.

Cause people, they're like, I don't want to, right? And I'm like, well, I can't make you.

And if I just sit here and I just keep, if I make it some sort of moral imperative, I could maybe

get somebody to do it in word and deed, but not in heart. It has to come from a place of choosing

the way of Christ. Like, like, it has to be a like, because you

were talking about like feelings, right? Like, it's like, I don't feel like forgiving. Right? Well, okay.

And, you know, and maybe just clear obedience is good. You know, just saying like, well, Christ has taught me this, so I

should do it. The Bible tells me so. That's not a bad place to start. But where Christ always roots forgiveness is in the

forgiveness that we've received.

Right.

And the dying to self, pick up your cross and follow me. And it has to come from a place of the gospel.

Like, does that kind of make sense? Yeah, it has to come, you know, if we say that our,

like, if our forgiveness of others is rooted in, rooted in God's forgiveness of us, or in the same way, or in the same manner.

Right.

Like, the question then becomes, well, what are the circumstances under which God forgave,

us? I mean, I guess you could play that game. Like, why did God forgive? Did God forgive

because he felt like it. Did God forgive because the offense was small?

Did God forgive, so why did God forgive? God forgave, yeah, it was part of his,

it's his identity to forgive.

And the identity, of course, is rooted firmly in love. So that if we have, that our forgiveness for others

comes out of an identity of love.

Not out of the emotion of willingness. I think there's a, the second piece is that the way we talk about the cross,

we often talk about it in terms of our sin, things that we have done, being nailed to the cross.

I know you're going with that. But the other piece too is that the things done to me have also been nailed there, right?

And therefore... Nuh-uh. Nuh-uh. That... That...

Jesus died for the... What you did to me is not on the cross, like...

Well, that seems to be the opposite of what the Bible teaches, you know?

Yes, correct. Correct.

You know as much as you know there's a I don't know that really changes it Yeah, if I take the offense that was done to me

And I and I turned to the cross and I said Jesus you've got a hold of that right now,

No, you died for that. Yeah, it's.

Massively for me at least makes a huge heart shift and How I can now again begin to approach the other person yeah,

Yeah, yeah, I, you know, just kind of a little bit off the cuff, you know, I come back to that.

You know, what is the main.

What is the main issue or main theological issue with the church's misunderstanding or whatever?

You know, like I, I don't wanna overstate this, but I think that forgiveness is probably,

the main granular issue that causes,

relational strife throughout generations. You know, like, compounded relational trauma, compounded, like, difficulty in relationships.

You know, inability to get along with people, inability to maintain intimate relationships or

friendships or anything like that, interpersonal conflict, I do think that it roots back to,

we're holding on to sin. We're holding on to it. We have not surrendered it to the Lord.

I, in my mind, that for me, when there's unforgiveness, particularly generational,

long-term unforgiveness, it creates, I think of Jonah, think of the prophet Jonah, and I think

of it creating a whole bunch of little mini Nineveh's, places you don't want to go, you don't

I wanna talk about, and those can be people,

those can be topics, those can be things where I'm not gonna talk about that with that person,

because while there's something.

Don't wanna forgive there, or there's a hurt, or there's a relationship.

Well, how many people have you talked to or counseled who you have heard horrific stories or instances,

of things that have been done to them in their lives that are now manifesting themselves significantly

in their relationships that they're having now that are not connected at all to what happened to them.

But that are, but that those things that were done to them were never passed through the filter of forgiveness.

And I'm not saying that people's really traumatic or difficult experiences, all you needed to do

was forgive the person, you wouldn't have them.

Like I'm not saying that, but I am saying, I'm not saying it's every, I don't know,

I might be saying it's everything.

I might be saying it's everything because the full surrender of that hurt to the Lord,

is I trust him to carry that hurt more than I trust myself. than I trust myself.

There's like, there is a limit to this particular truth. I think this is something that.

I've found to be very true, but I know is not necessarily always true.

But I, what I find is that, like,

Often, well, easiest way to say this is hurt people, hurt people, right?

You want to, you meet somebody who is abrasive, who is just an absolute, like

wreck to the relationships around them.

Well, I'm laughing for my own personal reasons. Yeah, but like, that's, you know, we so often, you know, when we come home or we're like

short with somebody, you know, and just like, and then like, we're just like, if you just

knew the day I'd had, if you just knew the day I just had, you would, you would be okay

with me acting this way. Right.

And it, the way we behave seems very reasonable to us. but when somebody else behaves a certain way, the assumption is like they're acting very

unreasonable. Chances are, not all the time, but chances are is that the way in which they

are behaving is actually fairly reasonable to them if you knew the whole story. Doesn't

mean what they're doing okay, but there is a… If we're able to lay down a fence,

love Christ and come near, love like Christ and come near, and look over the hedgerow and see

into somebody else's life, we will usually find that there are some fairly not justifiable but.

Sympathetic, understandable reasons as to why they are the way they are and where they're at.

CB Right. And my existential question is, would forgiveness address that early? I think it does.

DRH I think it does. CB You have illustrated this by picking somebody up on your back,

right? I always talk about holding a rock. Holding onto unforgiveness is like, if you're,

listening to this, this is a really excellent spiritual exercise you can do

for a day. If you've got like a major thing that you feel like you've been unforgiven, go outside, go to like a lake, Lake Chautauqua, go somewhere where

there's some rocks. Pick up a rock that's about the size of your fist and then.

Carry that around in your left or right hand for one day. Feel how heavy that thing is.

And see how hard it is just to get into your car. PAUL Yeah, you're not allowed to put it down.

RICK Not allowed to put it down.

PAUL At all. RICK If you're not willing to put down the offense,

the hurt, to let go, to forgive, to lay it at the foot of the cross,

then you're holding that unforgiveness in your hand.

PAUL Yeah, but it's too big. Like, Pastor Luke, the rock that I'm carrying is too big.

RICK It's too big for you to hold. The answer is like, well, if it's too big, then put it down. Like the bigger the rock,

the more eager we should be to lay it down, right? You want to carry that thing still?

Doesn't mean it's easy. I don't think either of us are saying that forgiveness is like a trite

thing, an easy thing, a flippant thing. But it is like, we want to talk about something that's like,

like crucial to our spiritual health.

Our relationship with God, it's pretty big. Well, I have another one, but I, you know,

maybe we should do a part two of this podcast and talk about them, but it's more general,

so I don't know if you had one that you wanted to bring up.

I don't think, we're on a bit of a time crunch, so I don't think I will do justice

to the one that I wanted to talk about, but if you got one that's a little bit more general.

Well, I think a little bit more general, like theological problem,

that's kind of invaded the church is, I guess I would put it two ways.

It has to do with the scripture and the way that scripture is used in spiritual formation.

And the, what I would see as like the use of scripture.

Either as like a moral handbook going in one direction. Yeah.

And, or, the.

I would say the gradual, progressive nature of explaining away obvious context in order to soften the social stance of the scripture.

We've talked a lot about, here on the podcast, if you've been listening fairly regularly,

you've probably heard us talk about the handbook approach to the Bible.

We've very thoroughly dismantled the fact that the Bible is not an instruction manual,

a textbook, a how-to, a self-help book, it's God's revelation of himself to mankind.

What do you mean by that second piece? I think I know what you mean,

but I want to hear you talk about that.

I mean, like, so our world, our culture, becoming continually, progressively,

more socially acceptable of the things that Scripture has obviously concluded

is sinful or destructive.

And so in order to soften the blow of Scripture's proclamation,

we explain away the truth of scripture by diluting the context in which it's written.

Yeah.

Yeah. So we dilute, you know, we dilute sexual standards, we dilute- Probably like the big one.

Probably the big one. Yeah. Even things like you go back, I think you can,

you can really apply that lens pretty much over every,

even the forgiveness. We have an upsurgence of self-help, do the work.

Do the emotional, mental trauma work, create all these boundaries. It's okay not to forgive

because things are really, a lot of trauma has been done to you, right, it's almost like a cult

of trauma a little bit. That's a, yeah, not everything needs to be called trauma. Right,

and have not reckoned with, well, you know, that the Lord has made provision for the health of our

interpersonal relationships by pursuing forgiveness with others the same way that we have pursued

forgiveness with God. And so, I would say a gradual exodus away from a responsible reading

an application of scripture and a gradual like pathway into it's like more socially acceptable.

Yeah, well, I mean, we were, so this is actually, that particular topic is kind of where me

and my friend who, when we first kind of thought about this question, were kind of talking

about, he was talking about, we were talking about divorce.

And like, you know, Jesus, the Bible takes a pretty strong stance on divorce.

And it is, that's one that gets explained away a lot of times by context and things like that.

I, yeah. That's a really hard one. It's a very, very hard one.

And that's why we were having this conversation, just like, and we come to a place of trying

to figure out like what is the best thing in the situation of like, of not a whole lot

of good things. Yeah. So that's a tough one. Really tough. It is. Have you ever been

asked by someone if they think, if you think that they should divorce their

spouse? Yeah. Yeah. I kind of refuse to answer to be honest. Yeah. I, again, I,

cannot, I can't. It's kind of an unfair question. It's a bit of an unfair question because I'm not them. It's their decision. I don't want to be at any point held accountable.

But there's like a couple things that I tell people when I'm having these kind of conversations.

One, depending on the situation, is sometimes I tell people that like people who get stuck and

are kind of wrestling with this, some people get really stuck and they're just like,

it's like they really want to separate or they want to get divorced. And I will tell them that

like separation or divorce is not always

the breaking of the covenant if the covenant has already been broken. Sometimes it's a consequence,

for the covenant having been broken in a significant way prior. For me.

You could disagree with me on that, and I would accept that. I don't know. I hold that as a,

this is what I think, right? And I don't have a Bible verse to hold that. That seems to be a,

drawn-out application of what Christ says, but I don't wanna draw it out so much that it becomes

licensed, right? So, where does that line go? But I have told people that before,

because I don't want someone to feel like, well, I'm the one who's gonna ruin it because I'm the

I'm the one who's saying this has to stop and I'm gonna divorce.

I'm like, well, you might not be, right? And so I wanna provide that.

But then also, and then my theology being that even in some of the most worst circumstances,

not, there are circumstances probably where I would say run.

I don't know that I've encountered any of those yet. But where there's wrestling, I, because I know the heart of the Bible and what it seems

to teach on it, it's like, preserve that.

But I can't, again, like forgiveness, I cannot make you choose that.

It has to be a choice to pursue Christ and Christ-likeness, picking up the cross.

That's a choice that you, I cannot hoist upon you or force you to pick up that cross, because

if I do, you'll just resent me and maybe resent God for it, because you felt like God made you do it.

If you heed the call of Christ in the gospel and you choose to do it, I believe that there's

something incredibly beautiful and glorious about that. But I cannot force somebody to

choose that path. So I try and present it, but I don't ever force anyone down it. If that makes

sense? Like what do you? Yeah, I mean, it really, I think it is an unfair question for people to

ask, do you think I should get divorced? Because like you said, it's not my marriage. It's not my.

You know, I would be interested to know, and I'm not a covenant theologian,

But I would be interested to know how...

God dealt with to think about the question of how God dealt with the nation of Israel when they,

When they would break covenant covenant. I.

Think there's like some I mean ultimately he created he provided the sacrifice. Yeah. Well, there's like some of the covenants,

What do you mean? You're not a covenant?

You're not dispensational No, I'm not, but you know what I mean? I'm not an expert in covenant theology,

is what I should say. You know?

Well, from what I remember of covenant theology is that there were some that were

made unconditional covenant promises, promised to Abraham where Abraham's put to sleep and God

walks through the pots and the animal sacrifices alone. But like the Davidic covenant, but the

mosaic covenant, when God gives them the law. He also gives them, I think, curses and consequences

if they don't. That was a conditional covenant. And so, like, there's, like, what is the covenant?

Marriage is also a unique one in that I've never really heard anyone explain it, and I don't have

a good answer to the question. But marriage seems to be one of the covenants and graces that is

available outside of the church, instituted inside of creation. And so, there's absolutely

like Christian theology to marriage. But I don't want to say that just because you're not a

Christian doesn't mean that you are not partaking in this common grace of marriage, covenant of.

Marriage. I'm not willing to go and say like, well, you're not a Christian, so that's not a

marriage, right? I'm not willing to say that. Nope, me neither. So the covenant of marriage

sits in this really strange place where we seem to share it with the world.

And it doesn't sit in that, that asks some pretty significant questions of like, how.

Do we navigate that outside of like, you know, the church and things like that.

Yeah. Well, I think the whole, the whole topic, you know, probably demands that we do a part two.

Yeah, I think so. I've like, I've got my own things to the initial question, but like, you know, sitting with

and thinking about marriage and maybe divorce, if we want to continue down that rabbit hole.

But if you're listening, and this is bringing up, you know, we talked about, gosh, I don't think we

intended this episode to be a – Yeah, forgiveness and trauma and divorce.

Yeah, I don't think we intended it to be a particularly heavy episode, but it kind of

ended up being that way. So, if you've got questions, go ahead and leave them for us in

in the comments and send us in the text line.

We'd be interested to hear those as they kind of direct this conversation.

I definitely want to pick this up.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, send us some texts, like Pastor Luke said. Put them in the comments and we'll try and deal with them.

But maybe pick this topic up next time we sit down and talk with one another. Yeah.

Music.