“Believe Like Jesus” with Rebekah Simon-Peter

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Transcript:

Eddie Rester 00:00
I'm Eddie Rester. [LAUGH TRACK PLAYS] Really, we're gonna do that? He's just a child. What's your name across the table from me?

Chris McAlilly 00:09
[LAUGHTER] I'm Chris McAlilly. That was fantastic.

Cody Hickman 00:15
He just found out what the buttons do.

Eddie Rester 00:16
He just found out what the buttons on the board do. Welcome to The Weight.

Chris McAlilly 00:22
[LAUGHTER] That's great. We'll have to use that again sometime. Welcome to The Weight

podcast. We're glad that you're here. Who are we talking to today?

Eddie Rester 00:30

We're talking to my friend Rebekah Simon-Peter. She's an author, she's a consultant, she's a coach. She's a United Methodist pastor, who, after serving in the local church for 12 years, stepped out to begin her own ministry to help churches and pastor begin to create a culture of renewal. And I met her along the way with some training and some equipping, and she just really is one of the most faithful, loving, lovely people that I know. And she's written a new book.

Chris McAlilly 01:01

Yeah, the new book is called "Believe Like Jesus: Rising from Faith in Jesus to the Faith of Jesus." It's a conversation about moving into a more active posture in faith. She talks a lot about maybe some of the frameworks within the American church that lead to a more passive or disempowered way of being faithful. And she wants to counteract that.

Eddie Rester 01:28

She wants to point us beyond just this moment where we come to believing in Jesus and learning about Jesus, to where we actually live the faith of Jesus, where we, if Jesus believed in the miraculous, we believe that the miraculous is right there in front of us. If Jesus believes in the power of prayer, then we believe passionately in the power of prayer, that it can change us and others. And so again, it's moving from this perspective that, well, faith is this thing I can understand and do to faith that not only do I live it out, but it challenges me, and it challenges my relationships with others in the world.I

Chris McAlilly 02:09

Yeah, think it's an experiential practice-based understanding of the faith. And she also is using the category of apostle, and that's maybe a category that you have not come across. You certainly haven't, maybe, embraced that as an identity. To be an apostle simply means to be one who is sent, sent by God. And so we talk a lot about that as well, ultimately, very encouraging, upbeat, enjoyable conversation. And I had a fun time with this one.

Eddie Rester 02:42
You did have. And to start the podcast today. You had... You can tell it's near the end of the season, because he's gonna hit another button.

Chris McAlilly 02:50 Eddie...

Eddie Rester 02:51
Are you gonna hit another button? [LAUGH TRACK PLAYS] Now we have a laugh track. That's...

Chris McAlilly 02:58 Yeah, that's, it's on the...

Eddie Rester 03:00
Let us know if you like the laugh track or not.

Chris McAlilly 03:03
If don't like the laugh track, then don't let us know. [CRICKETS CHIPRING] No, that's bad. That one's real bad.

Eddie Rester 03:08

That one's real bad. We don't want crickets. So. But thank you for listening, for letting us be silly. But enjoy this. Share this with others who may be struggling with their faith or thinking, what does it mean to really live my faith?

Chris McAlilly 03:20
[INTRO] The truth is, the world is growing more angry, more bitter, and more cynical. People don't trust one another, and we feel disconnected.

Eddie Rester 03:32

The way forward is not more tribalism. It's more curiosity that challenges what we believe, how we live, and how we treat one another. It's more conversation that inspires wisdom, healing, and hope. Join us each week for the next conversation on The Weight. [END INTRO]

Chris McAlilly 03:44

So we launched The Weight podcast as a space to cultivate sacred conversation with a wide range of voices at the intersection of culture and theology, art and technology, science and mental health, and we want you to be a part of it.

Eddie Rester 04:07

We're here today with Rebekah Simon-Peter. Rebekah, thank you for taking some time with us today.

Rebekah Simon-Peter 04:13
Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here, Eddie.

Eddie Rester 04:16

Rebekah and I met, gosh four or five years ago, right before the pandemic, doing some training, helping me learn how to do the DiSC conflict training. So it's been extremely helpful for me, and I, really it's been way too long before we've had you on the podcast. So thank you for being with us today.

Rebekah Simon-Peter 04:38 Yeah, it's a pleasure.

Eddie Rester 04:40

So you have a new book that by the time this podcast comes out, will be out already, "Believe like Jesus." And you shared with me that this is a book that really has been kind of bubbling up in you for a long period of time. So tell us about that. Tell us a little bit about where this book came from and...

Rebekah Simon-Peter 05:01 Yeah.

Eddie Rester 05:01
And then we'll dive into what you hope it'll do for Christians.

Rebekah Simon-Peter 05:06

Awesome. Okay, yeah, thank you. So first off, it's a sequel to the book that came out in 2019, "Dream Like Jesus." And I was going to write "Believe Like Jesus," like, the next year, and then the pandemic happened. So a different book came out instead, "Forging a New Path." So I got back to this, and I'm so excited, because it's about rising from faith in Jesus to the faith of Jesus. And it's really... It all got started with a date that I had when I was single, single pastor, about 24, 25 years ago. For any of my listeners, if you have dated when you were a single pastor, it's awkward. So I had some kind of awkward dates, at Bible study asking for advice about how to get back with the old girlfriend, weird stuff. But one guy, one guy, I always remember this conversation. He asked me, "Do you think I'm an apostle?" And I thought, do I think you're an apostle? Like, I wasn't even really sure, Eddie, what the word meant. It just, it just was not on my radar screen. Honestly, I was pretty new Christian, still as a pastor, pretty new. And I thought, oh, maybe here's a word I just haven't really come across. Now, this guy was a postman. He was a mailman, and so he delivered messages all day long, but I came to understand, you know, that apostle is somebody who carries a message, not like USPS, but carries a message that they're not just following, but they're carrying. They're entrusted with the message that they are carrying. And so his question to me so many years ago was a really good one, and honestly, I've been thinking about it this whole time, because I have been living with him. We got married.

Eddie Rester 06:45
Oh, gosh. So it was a successful date.

Rebekah Simon-Peter 06:46

"Do you think I'm an apostle?" was a good, you know, was a good come-on line. And it's just been really cool to be digging into that and exploring that whole question and the difference between discipleship and apostleship all these years. So that's where it came from. My favorite chapter in the book is entitled, "Do you have the faith of a mailman?" So, chapter one.

Chris McAlilly 07:10

I wonder if you could describe maybe some of the problem that you see in the church, maybe some of the ways in which our understandings of faith, of faith in Jesus, may have missed the mark or maybe are not robust enough. Maybe what would you say is the problem?

Rebekah Simon-Peter 07:33

Yeah, thank you so much. That's such a great question, Chris. Well, I see that we ask people to basically do the work of apostleship, while we call it discipleship, and without equipping people with the faith that it takes. Jesus was always saying to his would-be apostles, you know, increase your faith. You know, get a stronger faith, a deeper faith, a bigger faith. Well, we basically give people enough faith to follow Jesus. Okay, follow. He's a big guy. You follow him. And Jesus didn't do that. Jesus was always about transferring his spiritual authority, his beliefs, his faith, the actions, the kingdom, to his followers. In fact, if he hadn't, we wouldn't be sitting here having a podcast today talking about Jesus. That movement would have died out when he did. So we watched Jesus teaching and training and training and teaching, and I think he didn't just sort of teach them gestures. "Okay, put your hand here. Put this hand there, take a little spit, do some dirt there." I don't think he did that. I think he was really teaching people how to believe like he did, not just act like he did, because there's no way they could have done the things he did if they didn't also believe the way he did. So that's what I see. And I think that's why many of our ministries are sort of anemic. I think it's why the church is somewhat anemic. You know, we sort of go out and do things, okay! And then we, you know, sort of hurry back to the church. We're not really sure what to do. So this is designed to help people identify five beliefs of Jesus and then take on that, that audacious challenge of beginning to make those beliefs your beliefs.

Chris McAlilly 09:23

I have... This resonates with something that I remember from a teacher of mine, Craig Hill. He was a New Testament professor, and I encountered him in a doctorate ministry program, and he said, you know, people will sometimes say the hard thing. They're the bracelets that everyone remembers. You know, "What Would Jesus Do?" And he basically just says, the hard thing is not doing what Jesus did. The harder thing is believing what Jesus believed.

Rebekah Simon-Peter 09:52

Yes! Yes. Thank you so much. Good question. These are such great questions. Well, after Jerry, that's my husband's name, asked me about if I thought he was an apostle, it just lit this fire within me that burned while I was pastoring. I pastored for 12 years before I started doing this work of helping to shape larger conversations in the church. And so it just kind of percolated in me. And as I developed my program, "Creating a Culture of Renewal" in which church leaders go on a three year journey of spiritual formation and leadership development. It occurred to me that part of what these leaders needed to do in order to have visions big enough that would be what I call dreaming like Jesus, they really had to develop this bigger faith.

Chris McAlilly 09:53

And it resonates very, very well with what I hear you saying. And I do think we struggle with that, to have the capacity to see and imagine the kingdom of God as being the most real reality, rather than the table, you know, the chair, the mortgage, the stress kind of... And so I guess, as you think about, how do you... Where did you learn that? Or where did you come across that revelation or that insight for yourself, when you realized that it was really belief, it's the deep belief, it's kind of growing in trust and the reality that Jesus helps us to imagine? Where did you come across that? Was that in, was there a teacher or a pastor or a Christian, or was that from your reading of the Gospels or your own ministry? Where did it come to you?

Rebekah Simon-Peter 11:38

There's no way to take on what almost seems impossible, unless you have a faith that stretches you. And so I think it just came to me. You know, promptings from God, reading the gospels, continuing to explore what a disciple is, what an apostle is. And so the five beliefs of Jesus, I don't think you can get... See, Jesus was a visionary, so he's talking about a thing. Yeah, it's not tangible. It's not. No vision is tangible. By definition, it's a thing that doesn't yet exist. So it is really hard. You can't. It's not the same thing as, you know, checkbook, pair of glasses, etc. Or even, let me put in 40 hours this week. It's a vision. But how do you even have the courage to dream those visions, let alone say them out loud? Well, I think you have to believe at least these five things. So here's what I think. Jesus believes that he and the Father are one. The scripture is clear on that. Jesus also believes we and the Father are one. And that's something that we don't always really get to in the church. He believed that his prayer had power. And he, you know, he speaks often about how in the gospels, how God hears and answers his prayers. And I believe that he believes our prayers have power, and so we're called to pray that way. I believe that Jesus believed that miraculous is possible because he's one with God, and because his prayers have power. So he's got this miracle mindset. I think we're called to a miracle mindset, and I can say a lot more about that. But also that life has purpose. He lived very, very purposefully. You know, there was a time when he was going around in the Galilee and he was and he was healing, and the people were like, "Stay with us.!Stay with us!" Which, of course, you can imagine, "Stay with us!" And he's like, "I cannot," you know, "the reason I came is to, you know, share this message around." And so he didn't even let people who seemed to love him, "Stay with us!" keep him. He lived very purposely, and he calls us to do that.

Chris McAlilly 13:40

There's a ...My New Testament professor is named Luke Timothy Johnson. Luke Johnson wrote a book on miracles, and one of the things that he did, and you know, he's one of the smartest guys I've ever been around, but what he's trying to do is ground some of the supernatural dimensions of Jesus's ministry in the Gospels in existential experiences that people can have. You know, that we can have. And one of the ways he does that is he ties the stories of miracles in the New Testament back to a theology of God as creator, and the sense that God's... You know, connecting us with God's power and the grandeur of the One who created all things, and this kind of explosive and combustible power that we have access to.

Rebekah Simon-Peter 13:40

And then he believed in that resurrection is real and calls us to. So these have very tangible, there are very tangible ways to believe this, and I write about all of this in the book. Here's how to believe that. Here's examples of how to do that. But probably the most powerful one is the miracle mindset. Now I'm not anti-science in any way, that's my background, that's my training, is science. And yet we know from all the discoveries in the universe that there are inexplicable mysteries out there. And if you've ever had a spiritual awakening or a God moment, you know science could not have predicted that. So we live in this world of science and clarity and wonder and enchantment and mystery, and there's some way in which all of that comes together, and that's what I'm inviting people to tap into. You don't have to shed your scientific worldview and open it up to receive enchantment again so that the miraculous seems possible once again. Yeah.

Chris McAlilly 15:38

And I've found that to be an incredibly helpful framework for navigating pastoral ministry, for preaching, for my own faith. When people come to church on Sunday, you know, I do think that folks come seeking, or maybe they come out of patterns of residual ritualism. You know, maybe they come because they've always come. But I find that people are hungry. People are seeking after something from beyond them that can help, that can save, that can heal. And you know, if we don't offer confidently that God has the power to break in and to rescue and to offer an opportunity to move from one place to another. I mean, there's not really anywhere else to go to. You know, and it can be... You can get yourself into some very despairing places. And so I find, I found that theology, the theology of God as creator, the way in which that's connected to the ministry of Jesus, the miracles of Jesus, the death and resurrection of Christ, to be an incredibly helpful framework for thinking about what I'm trying to do when I'm preaching a sermon, when I'm offering frameworks of faith to the congregation. Where did you connect with that, Eddie? I mean, the power and the grander of faith, or are there other times for you guys, when you've experienced that?

Eddie Rester 17:14

You know, I think about some of the early times for me would have been in college, in deep study, that as you deepen, you know, when you deepen your study of Jesus, it begins to open your eyes to, again you were talking about it earlier, Chris, kind of a different world, the kingdom of God that is here and among us, and that Jesus said, is here and alive. And I think for me, that's the piece sometimes that people, that I miss sometimes, that we think that all that there is is here. And I think that sometimes we give people a faith that simply says, "Endure the here. Endure the now." Not, "There is more than now. There is more than what your eyes can see." And Rebekah, I guess I would say, how do we help Christians? How do we help people of faith move from... Because as I look at the five things that you believe, I mean all of us would say, "Oh, I believe in those." If I'm a Christian, I believe that Jesus and the Father are one. That means we are one. I believe in prayer. I believe in these things. But how do we make that shift to where those things we believe in become the things that really release us into the world to live differently?

Rebekah Simon-Peter 18:34
We may believe it, but we don't really act like it.

Eddie Rester 18:36 Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rebekah Simon-Peter 18:38

And I think one of the things that really helped me was, I'm first born and raised Jewish, and so I had such a sense of wonder about Genesis and the creation all around me, and it's so clear God speaks the creation into being. And yet some of us are so timid in our own prayers, timid in what we believe. I think perhaps I've been helped by the fact that there was a time in my life where I was in a big period called sex, drugs and rock and roll, and that period of time did not yield the best results in my life. And so I ended up getting clean. I ended up getting sober, and I ended up attending meetings in basements of churches long before I ever sat in a sanctuary of a church and I saw people's lives absolutely being changed as people realize, "I don't have to drink, I don't have to drug." And the thing that made the difference was not okay now I've got willpower. It's that people surrendered their will in their lives to the care of a power greater than themselves. And the thing that I saw that makes me love the miracle mindset so much is that they began to understand life is not a fixed reality. As we begin to shift our perception just a little bit, the impossible becomes possible. The thing that seemed way out of reach is now in reach. And so in the book, for each of these beliefs, I give people ways to believe, particular ways to put their belief into action, and particular ways to answer the call. And I share some really deeply personal stories about how each of these beliefs got reinforced for me, and why, now, when I start to doubt, "I believe, help thou my unbelief," I remember it's just a slight change in perspective that helps me understand the way in which God is working in my life. And so I think the other thing I want to say is that I don't think it's just about having more faith. I really came, as I looked at the scriptures when Jesus is writing about, or when Jesus is talking about, you know, "if you had the faith of a mustard seed." And I used to think that he was talking about, if you had even just standing a little faith at all, your faith must be so small as to be non existent. Could you at least be the size of a mustard seed? And I began to realize as I studied more and more, he's not talking about size. He's talking about persistence of belief. Because I'm a master gardener, and even if I wasn't a master gardener, I still like to watch things grow. And in Wyoming, seeds have to grow against frost and concrete and trees and rocks. And what do those seeds have? They are persistent. They don't give up. They don't think, "well, this rock doesn't like me. I don't think I'm gonna grow here," or "this day isn't sunny like I like it. I don't think I'm gonna get out of bed today." They just don't do that. They're coded to grow, and they grow, they just persist. And I think that's the biggest thing that this book revealed to me, is, what is it to have faith that does not doubt itself? What is it to have faith that truly persists? Because that's what Jesus had, that's the quality of faith that he had. We may believe these things. But like I said, we don't really act like it. But what if our faith was just more persistent in all of it, and we dared to go beyond our unbelief?

Eddie Rester 22:09

So I'm thinking about, you know, what we call our discipleship paths, how we help people engage their faith, grow in their faith, and typically, what we offer is sit in another Bible study, go to Sunday School, be in a small group. And I don't think we want to say those are bad, wrong, or that's the wrong approach. But what is it that those methods of discipling people miss so that people don't move from discipleship to apostleship? What's...

Rebekah Simon-Peter 22:45
We never teach about apostleship. We never teach about it. You even talked about discipleship pathways.

Eddie Rester 22:53 Yeah, I know.

Rebekah Simon-Peter 22:53

We need apostleship pathways. We need apostleship pathways. Now in the denomination that you and I are in, Eddie, The United Methodist Church, you know, the mission is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. But I think we have to ask, who is it that makes disciples? Well, it was the apostles. When Jesus said those words, when he commissioned them, they were apostles. So okay, make disciples, but it's not disciples who make disciples. It's apostles. So I think we have to have apostleship pathways, and I think we need to have classes in which we practice these beliefs. Don't need another Bible study, exactly, but practice these things. And the spiritual but not religious have been telling us for years they want more spirituality. Apostleship is chock full of spirituality, because to believe like Jesus, you got to encounter some stuff in your own soul and mind that will need to be transcended.

Chris McAlilly 23:51

So you've said a lot over the course of the last five to 10 minutes of the conversation, so much that I'm interested in exploring. You mentioned that you grew up Jewish, but then had this period of time where you were into sex, drugs and rock and roll.

Eddie Rester 24:09 That era. Yeah, her era.

Chris McAlilly 24:11

That era, that era. So what I'm thinking about is the book of Galatians, the letter of Galatians, just because that's where I've spent a lot of time. You have the apostle, one of the first apostles, Paul, who goes to this region of central Turkey. And on the one hand, he's criticizing them for taking on the Jewish law when they're being offered the freedom of Christ. They're being offered the faith, to trust in the faith of Christ. And on the other hand, he's worried about sex, drugs and rock and roll, that if you're free, you end up doing whatever.

Eddie Rester 24:47 Whatever you want.

Chris McAlilly 24:48

And that's also not the path. And one of the ways that he begins to talk about and shape and frame freedom, "For freedom, Christ has set you free." But what freedom is for is to love other people. It's this surrender of the will and surrender of your life so that you can become slaves to one another in love. And that framework, for me, has been incredibly helpful in kind of moving beyond just faith in Jesus, and follow this set of rules or whatever, or just abandon the whole thing and go try to find other avenues for happiness and flourishing. Neither of those paths really get at it. But there is something that's being offered in Christ that is robust, and there's this argument in the scholarship of Galatians, between faith in Jesus and the faith of Jesus.

Rebekah Simon-Peter 25:43 Yes.

Chris McAlilly 25:44

And I think that distinction, for me, when I realized that what I was being invited to was to have the faith of Jesus, not just to believe in Jesus. That, for me, was this, it opened up a much more rich and robust understanding of faith, because here's this guy Jesus who had a faith that now I can take on myself.

Rebekah Simon-Peter 26:11 Yeah.

Chris McAlilly 26:12

And his having of that faith gives me more confidence that I can have it as well, rather than I'm just going to have faith in this guy that had faith on my behalf. That didn't quite do it for me. I mean, or it didn't lead to a deeper faith. So anyway, I feel like at this point I'm rambling.

Eddie Rester 26:29 No...

Chris McAlilly 26:30
But I wonder what you hear.

Eddie Rester 26:31

I think, because I've been doing a lot of research recently on Gen Z and millennials, and not just giving, but their engagement with the church and because they see the world as a place where they can be engaged, where they can bring about change, and they're told to sit and be quiet and listen often when they come to church, that they're already leading the way for us in some ways, of sometimes in their rejection of the model of Church we have right now, which is, I can sit anywhere. I can go to the coffee shop and sit if I want to sit. But their heart is to bring change to the world. And so how are we releasing them? And before we before we started recording, you talked a little bit about agency, about giving faithful people their agency again. Can you say a little bit more about that?

Rebekah Simon-Peter 27:26

Yeah. I believe that Jesus was all about the transfer of authority, spiritual authority, power, belief, that that's what he was doing. That's how disciples became apostles. And that he didn't want people just trailing after him. He wanted them to go out and be agents of change. He sent them out in front. And so I write about the five A's of apostleship. These are qualities that Jesus accepted for himself. Jesus, by the way, is also known as an apostle in Hebrews, so he's named as an apostle. But he accepted these qualities. He extended them to the apostles and to us. So here they are. This is what really constitutes agency, to understand that we are anointed. We are appointed, and that has nothing to do with Methodist system of pastors going to churches. But we are appointed. We are authorized. We are accountable. And we are ambassadors of the kingdom. So those are the five A's of apostleship. And I think that's what we're called to grow into, instead of seeking permission, and is it okay? No. You're anointed. Go. You are appointed. You are authorized. You are accountable. And you are an ambassador of the kingdom. So that sense of agency, to go and do, I think Jesus would look at the churches today and think, "What are you sitting around for?" It's good to worship, right? But like, now live that, live that. I think about how the disciple-apostles of old, that they, you know, they establish this entire far-flung system of structure, the structure of faith that spread all over the known world. They weren't just sitting, you know, singing Hosanna or even just feeding each other. I mean, they really traveled. And look at Paul, right? They really traveled. They really went all over and they really paid attention to the prompting of the Spirit. You know the time when a vision came to somebody, okay, I'm gonna go travel over there. Like, they had this trust of the Spirit to go where they were being called. That's what I think we're called to get into again.

Chris McAlilly 29:33

Yeah, so you mentioned Hebrews 3. I missed the fact that in Hebrews, Jesus is referred to as an Apostle and High Priest of our confession. Yeah, "therefore holy brothers and sisters who share in the heavenly calling consider Jesus the Apostle and High Priest whom we confess." And just reminded the word apostle, I mean just the basics of that word, specifically as Jesus embodied it is. He's the one who was sent from God, by God. And for us to share in that heavenly calling would be to embody that identity that we are also the ones who are sent. And, yeah, I mean, I just think that that... To think of yourself as being gathered in by Jesus, you know, authorized, appointed, and then sent out again... It's a powerful set of descriptions. And I do think it's a good reminder.

Eddie Rester 30:36

You know, one of the things that I've been thinking of is back in John chapter one, where in the prologue, and it talks about light and dark and what's going to happen. And it just says that, and I went and looked it up, because I want to make sure I didn't get it wrong. First John. I mean John 1:12, "But to all who received Him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God." And I think sometimes we shrink back as followers of Jesus. We think, well, it can't be all true, or I can't believe in that all the time. What are some of the things you think that just make us want to pull back and not take that kind of agency and authority and accountability? What is it that for Christians...

Rebekah Simon-Peter 31:22 It's doubt.

Eddie Rester 31:23 It's doubt?

It's doubt?

Rebekah Simon-Peter 31:24

We doubt ourselves. We don't feel good about ourselves. Then we had God, then we had to prove ourselves. And then I think the whole notion of separation from God is very damaging. It's not really a Jewish concept, and Jesus was Jewish, so I don't get how that becomes a Christian concept, of this separation from God. And in the book I really write about, if we're really one with God, that means humanity and divinity, not only in Jesus, coexist, but in each of us. We talk about having a soul, but I don't think we really take that seriously. I used to envision, like, my soul was this sort of thing inside of me. I got to go dig deep and find it. But I began to realize, if God is infinite, if there's no place we can go that God is not, and my body is certainly not bigger than God, that piece of infinity isn't in me. I am in it. Like, if God... This is why people, I think, people talk about the universe sometimes, you know, as God, because if God, if there's no place we can go where God is not, then as big as we can imagine, God is that big and bigger. And so it's not like we can be separate from God. What does that mean, to be separate from God, right? So I see in that humanity and divinity coming together in Jesus, I see biblically, this argument for it has come together in us. We, too, are an expression of that humanity and divinity coming together, whether we're talking about the vine and the branches and the way we're invited into that. But I think we haven't really taken that seriously, and we get... I think it's very... It's inculcated in us to believe that we're separate from God. We have to prove ourselves. I think we don't really accept the grace that is there, and then we do a lot of praying, but then we do a lot of disallowing of our prayers to be answered, because we throw up a lot of doubt in the way.

Eddie Rester 33:37
And I wonder if that's some of just the old puritanical system that just continues to hang on and hang on that tells you yeah, God loves you, but.

Rebekah Simon-Peter 33:49 Yeah.

Eddie Rester 33:49

God's grace is for you, but. And those three letters ring so loud in our ears and in our hearts that it just steals from us joy. And we let so much, so many other parts of life feed into it. That doubt that you talk about, you know, we're not great at our work, or, you know we're struggling parenting at this stage of the game, or, you know, our family's a mess, or all these other things that just feed into that, "Yeah, but you should just sit this one out."

Rebekah Simon-Peter 34:28

When spend, probably, we spend so much time in our head so that argue back and forth, back and forth in the head. Yeah, this is all about survival. I don't actually think we spend enough time really being in the presence of God. If you spend any moments tapping into the inner divinity within you and being in the presence of God, there's no doubt about God's love. There's no doubt that you're okay. But we're go, go, go, and it's a lot of head knowledge or head arguments, versus actually being immersed in the presence of God. So you ask, what can people do? I think that's a big thing we can do. Stop trying to figure it out and allow ourselves to experience that deep unity with God, rather than trying to figure it out up here.

Eddie Rester 35:12

And that's, I mean, I just thinking in my own life, that's hard. Because we spend a lot of time here, and let's be honest, the church pushes us to think a lot with our mind and less with our heart. And again, if you're listening, please, please, don't think I'm against Bible studies and small groups and those kinds of things.

Rebekah Simon-Peter 35:33 We're not saying that.

Eddie Rester 35:34

We're not saying that. But I think sometimes that becomes our default position. If I could only grow my faith, if only knew a little bit more, if I could only understand a little bit more, if I could only solve another mystery of faith, then I would be ready to be used by God for great things. Then I could be part of the what the kingdom is really about. Yeah, I... Go ahead.

Rebekah Simon-Peter 36:02

You know, one of the things that came to me, Eddie and Chris, about this is that I see the Bible as this beautiful plethora of spiritual experiences, right? I mean, you've got Jacob and the ladder. You've got Adam and Eve in the garden. You've got Moses. You've got story after story after story of divine encounter, and every one of them is different. They're all different. And yet what we've done over the ages is we've taken these beautiful stories and we've mined them for do's and don'ts. And so we've taken the spiritual and we've turned it into a set of do's and don'ts, of morals and behaviors. It's not bad to have morals and behaviors, but I think what's needed now is to gently set those morals and behaviors aside. I don't mean don't live them, but I mean set them aside as we look at the Bible and approach the Bible again to see where is the spirituality in here? What are the spiritual experiences people are having? How do I have that as a pathway to God? Versus, let me get all the do's and don'ts right.

Chris McAlilly 37:04

Yeah, just I'm, maybe it's just because I'm reading the letter of Galatians, but it's just it very much is this framework, this sense, that Paul comes in and he offers the gospel. It's Jesus plus nothing, and that's the gospel. It's Jesus plus grace. And you have these other teachers. They're coming in and offering Jesus plus follow the rules, the Jewish customs, you know, get circumcised, follow the entirety of the law. And it's not that Paul is saying that the law is bad. He didn't think of it.

Rebekah Simon-Peter 37:36 Not at all.

Eddie Rester 37:37 Right.

Chris McAlilly 37:37

He thought of it as very much a guide. And, you know, it was simply that what is being offered now is freedom, the sense that you can live the faith of Christ here and now. You can be guided by the Spirit. And there's an exhilaration to that. There's the power of the Spirit, the ongoing presence of God that was, you know, the spirit that was working inJesus is now available for the church. And that has the capacity to empower an incredibly robust life. And I don't know. It's just, it's a powerful framework for thinking about some of the things that you're saying.

Eddie Rester 37:37

I'm even thinking about where in Book of Acts, where Jesus says, "You will be my witnesses," and we make that into words. "You will be my people who speak words." But the Greek behind that is "martyros," which is how we get the word "martyr." It's a person who will live in a certain. You will be my life. In some ways, you want to think of it that way. You will be the one who lives this out.

Rebekah Simon-Peter 38:45 Yeah, yeah.

Eddie Rester 38:47
Any... We've been rambling over here, so any thoughts to add there?

Rebekah Simon-Peter 38:55

No, it's all beautiful. I think the thing I didn't tell you before about being Jewish, and you know how I didn't tell you what happened.

Eddie Rester 39:03 No.

Rebekah Simon-Peter 39:04 I didn't.

Chris McAlilly 39:04
You didn't tell us what happened.

Rebekah Simon-Peter 39:07

I didn't tell you. No, no, no. So born Jewish, became an reform, and then became an Orthodox Jew, and then had an experience with Jesus. This is what got me on the path, first of discipleship and then apostleship. Because he came to me very Jewish looking, and just with his heart, with his eyes, just spoke to me that he loved me. He understood me. This is right after the sex, drugs, and rock and roll period, era, and that he understood me. He understood where I came from, why I did what I did, what it was all about, and that he accepted me and loved me. And I mean it, it... It was unbelievable. I had no framework for this, no context, no expectation, no hope. He wasn't even on my radar screen. So my very first experience, positive experience, with anything Christian was a miracle. And so I have been a big believer in miracles since then, because I know not only the time I spent in church basements, having my whole, you know, a whole spiritual awakening happening there in terms of the way I lived my life, but then having Jesus come to me in a vision? So I've been on the hunt for miracles ever since, and that has led me to discipleship and to apostleship and seeing what is the full message of these gospels?

Eddie Rester 40:27

One of the things I've just been thinking while we've been talking the whole time, because I see this from my Wesleyan Methodist lens, is that, you know the journey of sanctification, of being made whole by the Holy Spirit, of being set apart for the work, not apart from the world, but apart for the work to Christ, to live as Christ lived, to be completely perfect in love. And that there's this journey that if we allow it to unfold, it will take us deeper and deeper into the work of Jesus, which is what John Wesley wanted his people to understand. You're going to look and sound and act more and more like Jesus, even if you don't understand all of it, you're going to act more and more like Jesus. So yeah, I think a lot of threads I think are playing out here. When people read your book, and I know, what do you hope when they set the book down, or when the group finishes up their time of studying it together, what do you hope they walk away with? Or what do you hope happens when they're done?

Rebekah Simon-Peter 41:43
So the book, it's got a 40 day guide in it. And so it's like, great for Lent or things like that. It doesn't have to be done that way. One of the appendices has a 40 day guide in it. So I really hope that groups take this on together, and that they wrestle and they struggle, and I'm okay if they take up the book sometimes and shake their fist at me and say, "Rebekah Simon-Peter, this is too challenging!" Or, "Are you sure this is right?" I love it when people say stuff like that. I want them to be challenged by it, and I want them to have an awakening in which the Spirit opens up and a smile from deep within emerges and they realize the truth of it for themselves. A new found sense of wonder about their deep interconnectedness with God. A new found sense of a miracle mindset. A new found sense of their power and their purpose, that their life has meaning, that they can take action. They do have agency. They don't have to sit back. They don't have to shrink in the face of the challenging, challenging world we live in, in the things that are around us and before us. That they feel empowered to take action because they know they are one with God, because they know their prayers have power.

Chris McAlilly 43:03

The book is "Believing Like Jesus: rising from Faith in Jesus to the Faith of Jesus." Rebekah, thanks so much for spending time with us today and for guiding us into some of your reflections. We really appreciate it.

Rebekah Simon-Peter 43:18
Thank you. It's a pleasure to be with both of you.

Eddie Rester 43:23
[OUTRO] Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed the podcast, the best way to help us is to like, subscribe, or leave a review.

Chris McAlilly 43:29

If you would like to support this work financially, or if you have an idea for a future guest, you can go to theweightpodcast.com. [END OUTRO]