CEP SEASON TWO EP:11 - WITH GUEST SAM BENGER

May 26

By Dave Mckeown and Nathan Benger

Welcome to Season 2 Episode: 11 of the Church Explained Podcast.

A conversation to help grow your leadership, develop your team and build your church. Your hosts will be Dave Mckeown and Nathan Benger. We talk about all things leadership with key team players from IKON Church and other guests during each show.

In today's show, we are joined by Sam Benger, whose roles include online campus pastor with his wife Rachael and head of communications at IKON Church. Sam shares how we can always find a way to be creative even on a limited budget and the keys to building a great production team.

This is a great nuts and bolts episode that will inspire you.

Some interesting things about Sam are -

He enjoys supporting Chesterfield football club, mountain biking and going to gigs.

SHOW NOTES

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FULL TRANSCRIPT

Created by AI so not perfect but good.

David Mckeown 0:00

Welcome to the church explained podcast, a conversation to grow your leadership and build your Church. On today's show, we've got a brilliant guest, a guy called Matthew Bates, and he's got something to share with us around what the gospel really is.

Nathan Benger 0:22

Hi, I'm Dave. And I'm Nathan.

David Mckeown 0:23

Welcome to the church explained podcast. Today we're joined with Matthew Bates, who is the Associate Professor of Theology at Quincy University in Quincy, Illinois. And he's written a number of books is some of the books are the gospel allegiance, salvation by allegiance alone, the birth of the Trinity, the hermeneutics of the apostolic proclamation on the gospel precisely. He's also the co founder and co host of the popular on script podcast. So welcome, Matthew.

Matthew Bates 0:57

Dave, Nathan, thank you so much for having me.

David Mckeown 1:00

So just say a little bit more about you after completing a BS in physics from Whitworth University 1999. Matthew began a career in electrical engineering. Let's say your life took a bit of a swerve when you began to look at some of the biblical studies programme at Regent college university. So it'll be good to pick up on that as we go through math, you've got seven children, is that correct?

Matthew Bates 1:26

Yes, seven. It's an intense number. And that keeps me very busy. The oldest is 16. So just here, and I'm in the United States. So just starting driving, and we have one that just turned four. So we're finally out of diapers, which is progress, and relief. But it's a great joy, though to have seven children.

David Mckeown 1:49

Well, it's a very busy household. And I guess you say here, you enjoy hiking, and baseball, as well. And a particular favourite team. When it comes to baseball,

Matthew Bates 2:00

the San Francisco Giants. That's my baseball team. I grew up in Northern California. So I was brainwashed from an early age to be a Giants fan. And they're the best, so why not? Right?

David Mckeown 2:14

They've got to have some fans say,

Nathan Benger 2:16

I know nothing about baseball. So I am just like laughing along thinking I know that what's going off?

Matthew Bates 2:25

Yeah, well, you know, it's one of those sports that it's nice because you can kind of watch it but not watch it. It's a low. It's a low intensity sport. And so it's good background, and then you can watch as you wish. So I have it on off. And in the summer, I'll just turn on a game. And it's sort of like having the radio on your watch when you want to, but you don't watch a lot.

David Mckeown 2:47

Well, hey, so good to have you with us on the podcast today. We're gonna ask you a few questions as we go through and get some discussion happened. Yeah.

Nathan Benger 2:55

Why don't you just tell us a little bit something more about your background, family location, and your role? And yeah, just expand on the things that we've just been talking about?

Matthew Bates 3:06

Yeah, so Well, my main occupation is professor of theology, with an emphasis in Scripture in particular. And so I've been here at my present post for I guess this is my 11th 12th year, something like that. And so I feel like I'm settled into that fairly well. And mostly what I teach then would be courses on scripture, I teach a course on Western religion, sometimes on Christian spirituality. I've taught Greek as well. So stuff connected to the Christian tradition, Church history, too. It's a small school, so you get to wear many hats, which is a fun and challenging. And yeah, I did PhD work at the University of Notre Dame. So that was an interesting experience to as a Protestant. I'm studying at Notre Dame, but Notre Dame's pretty big tent, there's a lot of a lot of different students from different traditions. And it was a great a great thing to do. So yeah, but I got started in Biblical Studies, especially when I went to Regent college and Vancouver, BC, some some of your listeners may be familiar with Regent as it has a fairly large international footprint. But that was, yeah, it's sort of like broadly speaking, evangelical ish kind of place, although I don't know if we want to use the word evangelical anymore, as that's been tainted by politics. But yeah, back in the day, at least, that was its identity, and still a place that I very much admire. So yeah. That's a bit about me. And, yeah, I love to hike. And in fact, I have a little bit of free time this afternoon. So I'm going to be heading out to the trail. There's a state park not too far away from here. So I'll be I'll try to get in a good five mile hike and I also have taken up running so I like to jog as well a little bit when I get a chance. So we'll see how that goes.

David Mckeown 4:57

Yes, running gators. Not Yeah, yeah, helps along the way. Hey, so we want to talk around a little bit about some of the books you've written. And especially I think for us and our audience, maybe around the gospel precisely, which I know it was written for our Church members, obviously, you have the other books you've written as well, more from an academic point of view. And we're trying to think around this idea around the gospel. Because in one sense, I think for many people, you would say they probably would have a limited view of the gospel. And I wonder if you could just maybe begin to speak into that, around that subject, you know, why, why is it a limited view? And what should be different?

Matthew Bates 5:43

Yeah, well, I think that along with many things in life, there's a desire to simplify and being simple as good. We'll agree with that. But maybe the tendency has been to simplify the gospel in the wrong direction. So that some of the ways in which the gospel has at least tended to be simplified is focused on especially forgiveness of sins, right, and that trusting Jesus as the Saviour, so that your sins can be forgiven, so you can go to heaven, or trusting in his righteousness alone and not works, trying like the various ways in which it's been simplified, I think don't actually capture the essence of the gospel as we would find it revealed in Scripture. On the one hand, those things could be true, right, that we do want to trust Jesus as Saviour, and we want to do so for forgiveness of sins. And it can also be true that we have to be thoughtful about how works fit into salvation. Right? But that doesn't mean that those are the gospel. Right? The Gospel may have a sharper definition in Scripture. And that's what the projects are designed to help us recover would be a sharper definition of Scripture that has a more expanded view.

Nathan Benger 6:52

So what how would you how would you describe that in maybe in your kind of simple terms, what what would be that entire Gospel message?

Matthew Bates 7:03

Yeah, so we, as we think about the entire Gospel, actually break it apart into like, kind of 10 steps in the Gospel precisely, but it has a simple, simpler kind of way of summarising that is scripture is own way of summarising. And that would be that Jesus is the Christ, right, or that Jesus is the King. And so I think one of the problems has been and our way of thinking about salvation is that there has been a tendency to reduce the term Christ to an empty signifier that's either Jesus's last name or just another way of referring to Jesus. But it's it's been emptied of its royal content, or the the word Christ, the word Messiah, you know, Anointed One, you know, was connected to an expectation of a king that would come in the line of David. And so studies have shown and even some recent studies has shown in New Testament scholarship that the Christ was an honorific, which is a certain kind of title. And a similar kind of thing would be like Judas Maccabee. Right? In the time just before Jesus, Judas Maccabee was a warrior and his, the title Maccabee wasn't actually his name. He was the son of Mattathias, a mundane, the Maccabee title meant the hammer, which is an awesome title for a warrior. And so but it wasn't an empty title. Like when people called him Judas Maccabee. It was a way of honouring his prowess as a warrior. Similarly, Jesus Christ, the Christ part was a way of honouring Jesus and saying, he's the king. So we have to be careful not to empty that. And so the Bible is it summarising says that Jesus is the Christ, that's the gospel, and we would have that summary in numerous places. But beyond that, then as we look at how does the house what's the fullness of the gospels that expands beyond Jesus being the king? Well, it's the this king preexisted with God the Father. And then God, the Father sent the Son and sent him in a very specific way to take on flesh, like the Incarnation into the line of David. So it's a fulfilment of the promises that God made to David, and a friend going back to the promises God made to Abraham. And so as Jesus then is incarnated, he takes on human flesh, then he becomes visible to people, and people can begin to see His glory. So he lives an ordinary human life, right, and in the sense of an ordinary life in the sense of being fully human, but extraordinary, right, in the sense of being obedient to God, and then dies for our sins. And of course, we don't want to miss the cross as part of the gospel as it's very much part of the gospel. And then he's buried as a confirmation that his death was real. And then on the third day, he's raised again from the dead, and both his death and resurrection are said to be in accordance with the Scripture. So again, it's closely linked to all that God's been doing throughout the story of Israel. Absolutely. After he's raised from the dead, he then appears to many witnesses. And so as he's viewed by these many witnesses, that's also Gospel, right, confirming the reality of His resurrection. And oftentimes, I think that's where we stopped the gospel would be like with his death and resurrection. But the New Testament actually puts the stress on what happens next, as maybe the climax of the gospel, or the most important part. And that's because next he ascends to the right hand of God the Father and is installed as king. And that's when he becomes the Christ in the fullest sense. So if the gospel is Jesus is the Christ, well, when does he become the Christ? Well, there's a sense in which he's already the Christ chosen before time began by God the Father, but that doesn't become a historical reality tell he's anointed at His baptism, and then it doesn't come into its fullness until he's installed at God's right hand, because then he has a throne. Now he's actually ruling in power, as Paul puts it, he's the son of God in power, and Romans, one, three, and one, four. So anyway, and Paul describes all that as gospel. So once he's in throne, then he sends the Holy Spirit as part of the gospel. And then finally, he will come again as the judge. That's the gospel in a nutshell.

David Mckeown 11:09

Yeah. And of course, that's quite, quite much a lot wider than I suppose how most people would view the gospel, because I think most people view the gospel as you say, Matthew, that it sort of stops, and the climax is the cross and the resurrection. And for many people, that's how they understand the gospel. It's that moment of making a decision having our sins forgiven, but the cross is the central part of the gospel first. So so many people, your viewers that you're saying, it's much wider than that. It's much bigger than that. It's It mustn't just stop there, it's got to go further. And of course, you talk about this idea of Jesus being the Christ and being the king. Could you say some more about that? You know, what, what difference does that make for us about Jesus being the king, and around about us having a loyalty to Jesus?

Matthew Bates 12:03

Yeah. So once we recognise that the gospel is about how Jesus became king, right, and nothing, it's not about the cross and the resurrection too. But that that that is sort of the climax is that Jesus is in thrown at the right hand. And that's how the benefits of the cross, right, that's how they they're mobilised for us, is through his kingship once we realise that it does help us to rethink what it means to have faith in Christ. Right if we have reduced Christ down to a personal name, and it just means the same thing as Jesus to us, then faith in Christ and faith in Jesus, are very easily left at a simple kind of trust in His saving power, or something along those lines or trust that the atonement works, or trust that what happened at the Cross really did give me righteousness. But when we become aware of that the gospel is actually about how Jesus became king, it does help us to think about faith in wider categories, too. And some of the studies that I and others have done, Theresa Morgan, for instance, University of Oxford, has written a marvellous book on faith, have shown that faith has a wider reach to and that it means faithfulness, fidelity and loyalty allegiance. And that's sort of like another side of the faith image, right? On the one hand, you want to think it does mean trust. Absolutely. Right. But on the other hand, we don't want to shear off inappropriately that word, as it also means loyalty or fidelity would be another way of speaking about this. So yeah, this helps us to think about what it means to respond to the gospel fully, and may help say, solve some of our faith work prop faith works problems, right? If we realise that really what Paul means by faith when he talks about justification by faith, and things like that is that we're giving our loyalty or our allegiance to the king. And then that opens up some space for thinking about what it might mean to Yeah, to hold faith and works together.

David Mckeown 14:00

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Nathan Benger 15:16

It's so good. And you use this phrase allegiance quite a lot. But I wonder if you just kind of expand a little bit on the difference between Lordship and kingship, as in relation to that allegiance?

Matthew Bates 15:33

Yeah, well, Scripture obviously uses both metaphors to speak about Jesus, right? He's both our Lord and our King. So we would see both of them is fully appropriate. You know? That's a good question. And I thought about that a bit before. But as I have mostly I've come to the determination that it's not an enormous difference, other than maybe degree of sovereignty, right? A Lord can be a more petty chieftain. Right. But a king has a has a greater purview of sovereignty. And so I think that's probably what's intended and speaking about Jesus as the Christ, right, he was to be a king that would come in the line of David and would restore the fortunes of Israel, but he was always understood to have significance for the nations. So I think in speaking in that way, it helps us to realise he's not just some sort of petty Lord. But it's, in fact, the King of all kings, as he's now not just the king of Israel, not just significant for the nations, but has been installed at the very right hand of God. That's the throne from which he rules. So he has a universal reach in His sovereignty. So I think the kingship metaphor is important for us to, to hold front and centre in our minds. Because it it, I think, more accurately tracks the degree of sovereignty that Jesus holds.

David Mckeown 16:54

And Matthew, if we were to pick up on the the Ephesians, 210, Scripture around that, you know, this idea that it's by faith and by grace alone, your interpretation of that, then would be that this fear that it's more than just faith and trusting, but it's to do with faithfulness to words, the keen, I wonder if you could just say a little bit more, because I think that's pretty interesting, because I think a lot of people will feel it. Having faith in God is trusting in his promises, or what you're saying it's something much bigger than that. It's about having a loyalty to God, rather than just trusting in his promises. Could you say some more about that?

Matthew Bates 17:32

Yeah. And so yeah, we don't want to deny that it involves trusting in his promises, right, as certainly when Paul talks about Abraham, he talks about Abraham, you know, trusting in God's promises, but I think also even even then, sometimes the promises get truncated. Because really, you know, when you're reading, let's say, Romans four, which is the pastor's that illustrates, you know, especially Abraham is the example of, you know, exercising faith in the promises that the content of the promise isn't that Abraham himself can be justified by faith is if the message is like, just trust, and you're good to go. Right? The message is actually that he has to trust in a specific promise and the promises that through his offspring, all nations will be lost. So and this anticipates the royal seed that will come right there's, there's an implicit kind of trusting in the king that will come and will bless all nations. That's even part of the promise that Abraham is trusting in. So yeah, anyway, but circling back to the Ephesians passage, yeah. When we talk about grace, or the concept of grace, that's a multifaceted idea. But I would understand grace to be something that's effective, right? So that it's, whenever Paul talks about us being saved by grace, like enrollments, Paul talks about grace ruling over us. So it's something that actually is effective. And that is something that's historically given as a gift. Whenever we talk about grace, we're not talking about just some sort of abstract fluid. What Paul seems to have in view is mostly the content of the Gospel itself. Right? That is the ultimate gift. And God gave it to us when we were in a human condition where we did not deserve it at all. As humanity as a whole was lost. And in darkness, God gave us grace, He gave us a gift. And it wasn't because we as humans deserved it, right. But then, as part of that grace, like that, there is a need to respond to the grace and the way that we respond is by exercising what's called pistis. Right faith or faithfulness, or fidelity or allegiance. And that as we do so then we come to recognise we're not in a right position with God on the basis of works or works of Torah. It's not about this this prior Jewish boundary marker because the universal salvation that Jesus wants to bring is for all humanity. Right, not just for yet not just limited to the Jewish people. So anyway, yeah, we can think about how to rework passages like, yeah, Ephesians, two eight through 10. And I actually worked through that extensively and In some of my more scholarly books like other gospel, the gospel allegiance, but gospel allegiance is where I especially hammer away at the Ephesians, two, eight texts and show different ways of thinking about it.

David Mckeown 20:12

Yeah, very helpful. So I was trying to think through there and Matthew, around the wider picture of the Gospel, Jesus being the keen or showing allegiance to him, compared to a more narrow view of the gospel that so many people believe that the cross is the climax. For every sort of de leader listening to that, what do you think is the big difference? Like, you know, is it okay for them just to have that? Or do they really need that they take attention, put their attention on this, Jesus being the king, and showing allegiance to him? What do you think is the difference? And, you know, what, what difference can I make in people's lives? And suppose?

Matthew Bates 20:54

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think the practical difference would be a recognition that the disciple making is the path of salvation. It helps us it helps open up space for us to make sense of Jesus's words is very strong words that call us to follow him in order to enjoy salvation. And so as we, as we think about what it means to take up our cross and follow Jesus, for instance, it's hard to reconcile that with a, the idea that like, No, on the other hand, what Jesus really wants is for me simply to trust in His promises, well, which is it? Right, as are we saved by following Jesus or trusting his promises? I think an allegiance model helps us to see that that both are in view. So I think it helps, it helps us shift the church's energy away from kind of a mass evangelism approach, where, you know, really, the, the preacher feels like, Okay, I have the congregation in front of me. And what I really need to do is I need to get them week in week out to continue trusting in God's promises for them. And so that they can have confidence that they really have right standing with God, or that's oftentimes the the view or to get them to make a decision. Right, if they haven't made that decision, yet. They make the initial decision to trust and then get baptised. And then once they've made that decision, while you just want them to keep keep clinging to the promises. It shifts the model of evangelism away from that to one that emphasises disciple making. Because really, then what you're trying to do week in week out is to get people to swear allegiance to King Jesus, and to submit their lives to Him to show to show fidelity to him. Right. And so it helps us to realise that it's not just about the promises, although those are still important. Right, but that there's this wider purview. And I think it makes sense of why Jesus calls people to be disciples to come and see to experience life under his kingship, because the quality of life under his kingship matters. It's not just a transaction, you're not just coming to Jesus to get a transaction, right to get a forgiveness, you know, you know, ticket, but you're instead coming to Jesus to learn from him experientially. And that's actually integral to your salvation, as salvation has been understood to be more of a process, which is how the New Testament speaks about it. But I think in our simplifications of salvation, we've oftentimes reduced it to a one time one moment in time decision, kind of thing. But that's not how the New Testament presents salvation. So I think it connects more fully to a holistic biblical theology.

David Mckeown 23:31

Yeah, of that. Yeah. It's

Nathan Benger 23:32

super helpful. I just wonder, just off the back of that many, many churches would take that moment where somebody raises their hand in a service says yes to Jesus, for the first time, they would call that a salvation moment. Would you rephrase that? How would you phrase that moment where somebody makes that first step?

Matthew Bates 23:55

Yeah. Well, we don't want to we don't want to suggest making a first step isn't important, of course, right? We do want people people do need to make an initial choice. I would probably just frame that whole invitation differently. Right? I don't know that I would call it a yeah, that what it means when somebody raises their hand is hard to weigh, like, the New Testament perspective would be that what saving is that whenever you confess your loyalty to Jesus, you repent from other loyalties, you're turning away from those other loyalties that have dominated your life, saying that those are somehow not not have God's will. Right, and you're now embracing loyalty to King Jesus. And as part of that, of course, traditionally your get baptised right as a way of expressing your loyalty or your allegiance. So we should understand baptism in its original context, in the New Testament to be kind of an allegiance repentance complex, right? Like you were calling upon the name of the Lord Jesus for forgiveness of sins, but that was also an expression of fidelity to him, and a desire to accept his kingship and submit to him. And as part of that, then, as you were baptised you would have been understood to be entering into the community of the Holy Spirit. And so it was all like, it was all part and parcel of one thing. And, and so helping people to get a better sense of the need to publicly confess that they want to be loyal to King Jesus, you know, and that's something that is awkward, maybe in our current Church context, because we don't have a lot of infrastructure that allows it on a week in week out basis, we might come together and sing some songs and hear a sermon or whatever it might be. But there's not a lot of opportunity to individually and corporately come together and say, why I'm here is I'm confessing loyalty to Jesus. That's what I'm doing here. Right. And I and as we confess loyalty to him together, we're giving him authority and space to rule as the king. So unless we have those kind of mechanisms in place in Church, it it does become kind of awkward, right? How do I how do I get this person an opportunity to publicly confess their loyalty to Jesus? So I mean, if I was a Pastor, and I presented the gospel, and I had a raise the hand situation, I would follow up with that person and say, you need to in front of our congregation, confess your faith, right? Your loyalty to King Jesus, because that's what the New Testament models, and then you could do that as part of baptism. But if you hadn't, you know, assuming you haven't already been baptised. But if you've already been baptised, well, then you need to make a public confession, probably anyway. Right would be how I would I would deal with that.

David Mckeown 26:30

That's a great answers. Yeah. And I think just think of the word allegiance. Obviously, it's not just a one off event. It's a continual process as part of part of discipleship, that we're continually saying that Jesus, we're going to show our allegiance to you. And for me, that somehow seems a bit stronger, rather than, hey, we've made a decision. We're following Jesus. And then people do whatever they want to do. They offer they don't, but sometimes people do they get their ticket, and then they go, or allegiance is saying, hey, all of my life, I've swapped my allegiances from other things, to show that loyalty to Jesus. For me, that seems somehow seems much stronger. Yeah, doesn't it? Really? Yeah.

Matthew Bates 27:15

Yeah, I think that, yeah, some of the confusion has come just around like, we just need to switch the order there. Right, like the the order that we've traditionally evangelise has been like, accept Jesus as your Saviour. Okay, now the heavy lifting of salvation has been done. And oh, by the way, you should follow Him as your Lord. Now, that might be a nice idea to express your love for Jesus, but it's not seen as essential to salvation. Right? Whereas the correct New Testament perspective is that the Gospels Jesus is the King, you confess your loyalty to him, right? That's the heavy lifting of salvation. It's right there. And that as a benefit of his kingship, right, that he extends the benefit of justification and forgiveness to his whole people. So it's as you enter into the people of God, as you swear allegiance to Jesus, you become part of the forgiving community. So as we get that backwards, right, we think it's about individual liberation from sin. So then I can follow Jesus, the truth is the other. Right, it's about commitment to Jesus as King, which then actually moves you into the community of the liberated. So yeah, we flip the order. And we've lost the communal dimension both.

David Mckeown 28:23

Yeah. Now, that's interesting to pick up that because as you say, a lot of people will think forgiveness is the point of transition from one kingdom and to the other. But you're saying it's allegiance. And then forgiveness becomes part of that allegiance to Jesus? Yeah,

Matthew Bates 28:40

yeah, I think the best way to frame it, as I've been working on, at least for me, that I found most helpful is to is to frame it as a benefit forgiveness as a benefit of the gospel. And it's a benefit that, yeah, that the king gives his whole people. So the question is like, how do I become part of the king's people? Well, it's by giving loyalty to the king, and then I'm immersed in all of those benefits that the king gives.

David Mckeown 29:02

A part of those benefits is forgiveness, justification. It's all that stuff alongside that. Yeah. Yeah. If we were to pick up just a little bit further on that. So Nathan was asking you, How would you reframe that the Church? Obviously, your books have been a little while. And I'm sure you've been having conversations with other people on podcasts and other pastors. What's the biggest change? Those churches have made you think that has allied, this view of the gospel to be used within our churches? Or what would you recommend? Let's say someone's listening? Yeah. What would you suggest?

Matthew Bates 29:40

I think that as pastors, you have a lot of leeway because your congregations already trust you. So I think that one of the things you can do is you just begin introducing different language in your sermons to talk about these things. You start talking a lot more about Jesus's King, right about Jesus as the Christ. So Stop just saying Jesus Christ and start saying Jesus Christ or Jesus done Messiah, right, which is 100% fine for how to translate that phrase in the New Testament, and just help people to kind of pick up on Jesus's kingship more. And then start, you know, instead of just speaking about faith, like mixing language of fidelity, or loyalty or allegiance, and begin to help them to see this wider view, and then after you've introduced that language, there may be occasions where you want to explicitly teach around, you know, a King Jesus Gospel, you know, like, you could deliberately work through resources, I have some Scot McKnight, the King Jesus Gospel would be another, you know, excellent example. And a lead lead, especially maybe key leaders elders through, you know, like, why are we doing, like, why are we changing language here, and to help them understand some of the underpinnings? Because I think honestly, it takes a long time. That's I guess my experience is I've seen churches make this transition, is it actually takes quite a while. congregations are so used to hearing the gospel presented a certain kind of way. And there's powerful cultural underpinnings to that, that it just takes even if they've heard it, and intellectually get it, they'll they'll default back into other ways of thinking about it constantly, until they've heard it about 100 times. And it's true for me, too, it's took me 100 times of rethinking it, you know, before I could begin to articulate it and to begin to embrace a different way of thinking about it fully. I think that's, you know, we're it's wired into our DNA, right to think about the gospel in this way. So it takes time. Yeah. So I think pastors can make that shift. And then I'll create allegiance opportunities right within your Church, where there's more space to publicly acknowledge Jesus, his kingship, and that that's fronted more, right, that there's more of an emphasis on giving King Jesus space to rule and thinking about what that might look like.

David Mckeown 32:01

Or land. Yeah,

Nathan Benger 32:02

I think the whole conversation has been super helpful and helpful for people to think about the gospel in that full picture. And, you know, even just, even just even little shifts that they can make, I'd love to hear, Mark, your greatest inspirations, and, you know, who has been that greatest inspiration to you and why they were that greatest inspiration?

Matthew Bates 32:27

Oh, that's hard. I mean, yeah, I mean, there's always personal, you know, people like my mother is a woman of faith and just also one of the most kind and generous people in the world. You know, the kind of person who seems like never has a bad view or a bad word about anybody. So my mother has been very influential and instrumental in my own faith journey on a you know, kind of a more like, intellectual level like I've you know, and and personal level two, I've always just deeply admired the apostle Paul, I mean, obviously, Jesus, you can't you can't choose him. No, that's sort of unfair, right? Everyone's gonna choose Jesus. But if I'm not going to choose Jesus, the apostle Paul, I did PhD work on the apostle Paul, specifically because I've always admired Paul, and been challenged by his thought, right as he's a. He's a deep and subtle thinker. And it's, it's hard to track Paul, like, you really have to have your game on right to, to follow all the polls trying to give you but his life was so admirable to as an expression of the Crucified cruciform life, that I've deeply admired Paul, on a more modern front in terms of scholars I particularly enjoy. I love Michael Gorman, who's a scholar who's mostly written on Paul NT Wright has been a big influence on me too, and admire his work. Yeah, there'd be numerous scholarly influences. But those are a couple of folks I admire.

David Mckeown 33:48

Right, fantastic. And Marty, if you want to share one other big idea to our listeners that you haven't already shared, what would that mean?

Matthew Bates 33:58

Another big idea? Well, I spent all my time thinking about the gospel. You know, I suppose it's maybe if I it would be another way of repackaging some of these ideas. But it would be to say that what it means for the Church to be the Church, what constitutes the Church in the first place, is the confession that Jesus is King, right? It's in the gospels, whenever Peter first says, You are the Christ, that Jesus says, you know, that on this rock, he's going to build the Church. And it's because Peter, in his confessing capacity, has just made the statement. That is the only statement that ever founds the Church, right to confess that Jesus is the King is what the Church does. And if it's not doing that, it's not the Church. So I think that the degree to which the idea of Jesus's kingship is constitutive, for the very fabric of what the Church is, is something that we need to be more thoughtful about. So yeah, that would be maybe a different way of packaging these ideas. Now if you want something entirely different and I can talk to you about the doctrine of the Trinity as I've done some extensive work on that too. And if you want, I guess, an additional challenge, you could start thinking about how Old Testament passages feature Jesus as King or not Jesus, because he's not revealed as Jesus yet the Christ feature the Messiah. And the Messiah has already revealed as a speaker and speaking to God, the Father in the Old Testament, in these very interesting passages, passages like Psalm 69. And, and Psalm 22, would be passages where we would see this kind of thing. So anyway, that's something to maybe tickle your fancy in an entirely different direction about the Old Testament origins, not just the New Testament origins of the doctrine of the Trinity

David Mckeown 35:45

now, all right, very good, I guess even around the discussion of what constitutes a Church could be a real interesting topic in itself. Because there's a lot of conversation out there of what what does constitute Church, you know, is it the size of the size of the congregation is the components in the service for micro Church, the macro Church? And I think maybe the nail on the head there, actually, it's about the confession of Jesus as the Christ. And the keen more than anything, actually. So that would be an interesting topic, maybe to pick up on another point. But yeah, to repackage that sounds pretty interesting. I like that.

Nathan Benger 36:24

I'm, we know, Matthew, you've got your own podcast on script. I wonder if you would just give people a little bit of some people might be interested to listen to that. Give them a flavour of what happens on there. What you talk about all of that?

Matthew Bates 36:39

Yeah, we're a podcast that sort of fits mostly in the kind of Bible scholar theology, academic niche like that was when we found that the podcast I was probably got some six years ago now maybe. We noticed that there wasn't anyone really covering that space. Now there are more podcasts covering that space along with us. But yeah, so we mostly conduct interviews around recent books that have been published by academics in Biblical Studies and theology. So we've been privileged to get some of the leading voices in Christian theology and biblical studies on the podcast, and really to hear what they've been working on their important ideas that they're contributing to the Church. So the podcast was successful in ways I didn't anticipate when I started, I thought maybe someone might listen, maybe my mom. But yeah, we it's really grown. And it actually got so big, and that we we really couldn't handle it on our own meaning my co founder, Matt Lynch, and I, we couldn't really handle it. So we've invited other people to co host along with us as we're all busy academics, and we all have jobs as professors. So the on script is sort of a side gig for us. So we have now a team of, I believe, seven, or do we have eight. And there's actually a whole little family of podcasts connected to on script. There's actually several other podcasts that are a part of the on script family. We have three podcasts now that are one on archaeology also, and one on poetry in an Old Testament. So anyway, yeah, if you're interested in on script, check it out.

David Mckeown 38:15

The poetry one that has quite a new one, isn't it? I think that's common. Yeah. I listened to a couple of the episodes at the beginning, I think when you were launching that very interesting as well. So listen, our final question for you, Matthew, is what's the one question that no one's asking you that you wish they would? And what's your answer to that question?

Matthew Bates 38:36

The one question No one's asking me

David Mckeown 38:39

to do on anything would ask me.

Matthew Bates 38:43

Yeah. Hmm. Well, you've asked me most of the questions that I want people to ask. Well, yeah, that's, that's a very, very challenging final question. The one question people aren't asking me that. I wish they would ask. How can I send you lots of money? Yeah. Yeah, I'm stumped. You guys have stumped me for your final one. I can't come up with anything right now.

David Mckeown 39:13

Well, not a problem. But listen, we appreciate you being on the show with us. And I think Matthew, some of what you've shared will really help people to, I guess, rethink what the gospel is definitely. And, and our encouragement is for people maybe to read your books that they're a great start. And even for people in their churches, the Gospel precise is a great book to give to people just to get them thinking on. Yeah, Matt,

Nathan Benger 39:37

is there a great way for people to connect with you? Do you have a website? Anything? Instagram? Yeah,

Matthew Bates 39:43

I have a website, Matthew W. bates.com. And then I'm on you know, I'm not really on Twitter, but I have a Twitter handle. I mean, I'm on there, just very rarely but but then I'm on Facebook, too. You can friend request me and if you if you don't look crazy, I'll probably, you know, be glad to Except you as a friend. So yeah, that's that's a way people can connect. But yeah, I mean, the the books I've written are the main resources that I that I'm trying to get out to people at this point. So yeah, the Gospel precisely in particular is more oriented toward the average person. And so it's it's a good resource for leaders alike. I think that probably the gospel allegiance book is the one I think is the best. Salvation by allegiance alone is sold better, but I don't think it's actually as good as gospel allegiance. That's the one I think that's that's the better resource truthfully.

Nathan Benger 40:32

sound sounds so everyone go buy the gospel allegiance. Go do it.

David Mckeown 40:39

Yeah, hey, well, thanks for taking the time with us. Yeah, it's

Nathan Benger 40:42

been so good to chat, man. And

Matthew Bates 40:44

thank you, Dave and Nathan. Appreciate it.

Nathan Benger 40:47

It's been great. Great to explore the gospel and just want to encourage people wherever you're listening, subscribe, like, do whatever. To get this out. Maybe even share it with somebody you know will be interested and check out the show notes. And you can find resources as well at IKON dot shirts forward slash open but we look forward to having you with us next time on the church explained podcast

Transcribed by https://otter.ai