Discipleship | “A Little More Shalom” with Cornelius Plantinga

Shownotes:

How do we as Christians have hope in a world that is more secular than ever? With decreasing church attendance, fracturing denominations, and new scandals coming out all the time, what does the future of the Church look like? Today’s guest on The Weight, Dr. Cornelius Plantinga, shares some good news with Eddie and Chris--hopeful, bright news that God isn’t done moving and shaping the world.

Dr. Plantinga is a Senior Research Fellow at the Calving Institute of Christian Worship and the president emeritus of Calvin Theological Seminary. He is an author, a speaker, and a preacher, and his 50-year career has given him a thoughtful, hopeful perspective: while we live in a broken, hurting world, there is a rich history of the church doing good amidst that brokenness, and this period of decline is not the last word.

Resources:

Find books authored by Dr. Plantinga on Amazon

Transcript:

Chris McAlilly 00:00 I'm Chris McAlilly.

Eddie Rester 00:01
And I'm Eddie Rester. Welcome to The Weight.

Chris McAlilly 00:03

Today we're talking to Cornelius Plantinga, known as Neal. Dr. Plantinga has been a pastor and a Christian educator, theologian for a number of years, especially in Calvin College and Calvin Theological Seminary, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. And we have a wide ranging conversation today about discipleship and faith and culture. It's a wonderful, wonderful conversation. What were your takeaways, Eddie?

Eddie Rester 00:34

I think for me, this is one of the most hopeful conversations I've had in a long time. I mean, this is a man who is buoyant in his faith, in his trust that even as the church struggles in the days after COVID, that the Holy Spirit is not done, the church is not done. He talks about the central role of worship and preaching. And I was just, you know, I left the conversation grateful and thankful for the conversation we got to have. What about you? What did you take away?

Chris McAlilly 01:11
I found a book of his that is really geared towards college students. And he spent a lot of time around young people and thought about how to preach and to teach the gospel in such a way that young people find it compelling. And I really appreciated some of the words that he offered, that were specifically aimed at folks who were struggling to find their place and their role within the world, within the kingdom of God. I think that was probably my favorite part of the conversation today.

Eddie Rester 01:46

Yeah. For those who are listening today, you'll note that the sound quality is a little different. We had some issues with our normal recording method with him, and so we ended up just having a conversation over the phone. So we just want to make sure you know that when you think boy, this sounds kind of different. That's what happened for us today. Cody blames me.

Chris McAlilly 02:07 Yep.

Eddie Rester 02:08
And I want to say that Cody is often wrong, and he's wrong today. Cody is our producer, and I'm no longer in Oxford to fire him consistently.

Chris McAlilly 02:18

We have, you know, a high bar of excellence around here with our audio quality, I feel like, you know, today, the quality of the conversation is worth sticking with it, even if the quality is not up to our standard. But here's the thing. As always, we're glad that you're with us on The Weight and we hope that you enjoy it, like it, share it. We're always grateful that you're with us, as a part of the conversation here.

Eddie Rester 02:47

[INTRO] Life can be heavy, we carry around with us the weight of our doubt, our pain, our suffering, our mental health, our family system, our politics. This is a podcast to create space for all of that.

Chris McAlilly 03:00

We want to talk about these things with humility, charity, and intellectual honesty. But more than that, we want to listen. It's time to open up our echo chamber. Welcome to The Weight. [END INTRO]

Chris McAlilly 03:15
We're here today with Neal Plantinga. We're grateful to have you on the podcast.

Cornelius Plantinga 03:21 Glad to be here.

Chris McAlilly 03:24
You've had a long and really just illustrious career within the context of of ministry and theology, and we're just really grateful that you would take the time to talk with us today.

Cornelius Plantinga 03:41
Well, thank you. I've been at it 50 years. So I would hope there'd be a little something to show.

Chris McAlilly 03:48

I wonder if, you know, just a place to start might be, you know... The the church in America has gone through a number of changes over the course of that 50 year period of time. I wonder, what are some of the changes that you've seen in your career?

Cornelius Plantinga 04:09

Sure. So I graduated from seminary in 1971. At that time, denominations were still relatively strong among Protestants. You could have, I think, Presbyterians were only six years away from their peak membership in their whole history. And Methodists were strong. The United Church of Christ was strong. Baptists, Baptist denominations were strong. So denominations were a big part of Protestant life in America in the early 70s, and all of that has diminished. I guess virtually every denomination has been withering to some degree.

Cornelius Plantinga 04:59

So that happened on the one hand, and then the rise of independent churches on the other. At one point, the term independent church would have been thought to be an oxymoron. How can you be independent as a Christian church? But there they are. And they are plentiful, and some of them are enormous. So in America, I would say the two most impressive changes have been the diminishing of denominations and the flourishing of independent churches.

Chris McAlilly 05:38

Do you have a? I mean, do you see... I mean, certainly that description of what's going on, that seems to be quite right. I wonder, how do you think about that? Is that good or bad? Or I guess,

Cornelius Plantinga 05:53

Well, my overall conviction is that the church belongs to Jesus Christ. It has taken many forms in many centuries and it undoubtedly will take more forms in future times. And to some degree, that's simply something we acknowledge witness, accept. At the same time, I would have to say that the diminishing of denominations is a matter for sorrow. I think we can do things in denominations, working together, that are hard to do when working alone. I acknowledge that some of the big, independent churches have formed webs or networks in which they do things together. And I think that's a great advantage. But to the extent that they do that, they are mimicking denominations.

Chris McAlilly 06:50

Yeah, I think it seems like--and I don't mean to keep jumping in Eddie, I want you to have an opportunity to ask questions. Yeah, I feel like, you know, one of the issues within our particular tribe and denomination of Methodism is, you know, I think the knock on denominations tends to be that they're bureaucratic and overly hierarchical, and, you know, if you do away with that administrative infrastructure, that it will allow you to be more entrepreneurial, more nimble, and able to evangelize and disciple, within your context. And so you throw off the apparatus, the institutional apparatus.

Chris McAlilly 07:37

But there's also been this other kind of, you know, set of conversations that have been happening. I think about the Mars Hill, the rise and fall of Mars Hill, some of the conversations going on in Christianity today about the need for accountability, the need for something beyond just a network of shared resources so that local life on the ground can thrive. I wonder, it does sound like, you know, you acknowledge some of those tensions and dimensions.

Cornelius Plantinga 08:10

Right. So I think that's so, having a certain amount of bureaucracy in a denomination is a given. You can't organize multiple churches for mission, for attending to social need, for evangelism, for any of the great works of the church without some leadership. You just have to have it. Can it become encrusted? Can it become stagnant? Can it develop a life of its own? Of course. And we all know that and fight against it. But a certain amount of it is just necessary to get the wheels turning. And I think we probably have to acknowledge that. And yes, I think independent churches do have a vulnerability when it comes to being accountable. Yeah, I think so.

Eddie Rester 09:06
Neal, you've had this great, long career. You've been dean of the chapel there at Calvin what's your perspective?

Seminary. You've been president of the seminary. You've taught systematic theology. You've written books. What have you seen, just in terms of the change in students over the tenure of your career who've come to seminary, who've sought to serve the life of the church? Are they hopeful or do they struggle with some of the bureaucracy of the church? What do you see in the students?

Cornelius Plantinga 09:40

That's a great question. I would say that, over the years, there have been a couple of developments among students. One is that an institution like Calvin University or one like Calvin Seminary--they are, by the way, on the same campus and are linked by belonging to the same denomination, but they are distinct institutions. I've been connected to both of them. I would say that one of the differences, certainly among seminary students, is that they are much less catechized by the time they get to seminary. It used to be that they would have a basic grasp of Christian doctrine, and of the history of the church, and that we would in seminary add on to it. Now, they come eager but uninformed. And so in the first year, we do a lot of sort of basic teaching of Christian doctrine and the history of the Christian church, in which I will add that they are extremely interested. And they are often quite healthy, interested, wholesome people who really want to serve Jesus Christ by serving the church. I'm impressed with them. I predict good things for them. But they do come with the pails empty, and we have to start by trying to fill them.

Eddie Rester 11:18

That's fascinating to me. I think I saw a bit of that I went to seminary in the in kind of the mid 90s, mid 1990s. And there were several folks who came to seminary who struggled to find books of the Bible who, you know, I could see maybe the gaps and the cracks in that foundation. Back then that seems to point to kind of a formation or discipleship problem back at the local church level. What do you see there? What do you experience there?

Cornelius Plantinga 11:56

I think that's right. I think churches have, over the past, many Protestant churches over the past decades have been so afraid of boring people with information by paralyzing them with doctrinal teaching, that they've gone to the other extreme, and have neglected it pretty much with the result that students come up with love for Jesus, but not with a lot of substance or gravitas when it comes to the life of the church, the history of the church, and the belief structure of the church. So, yes, I think there has been some neglect on the local church level, leading to the phenomenon we see in beginning seminary students.

Chris McAlilly 12:53

You know, one of the questions that I wonder about, as you know, a practitioner of ministry, as a pastor, is just the amount of time that folks are willing to give to the church, frankly, whereas it used to be assumed that, you know, I mean, when I was young, you go to worship, you go to Sunday School. There would be--I was telling somebody recently, Sunday night church. I was telling a younger person, they were like, "... Sunday night church?" And then Wednesday as well. So there would be 1, 2, 3, at least four, sometimes more contact points for a family with the local church.

Chris McAlilly 13:32

And now really, you know, I think this is exacerbated by the pandemic. We had an earnest conversation in our church just about are people going to come back to Sunday school in addition to worship?

Cornelius Plantinga 13:51 Right.

Chris McAlilly 13:51

And I think that any anyone out there that is in a pastoral role or on a church staff is wrestling with this question. And I wonder for you, as you think about catechizing the local church, I know that part of your emphasis and passion in your work was on preaching, and I wonder kind of how you think about that work within the context of preaching, catechism within the context of preaching, and then also kind of other means or mechanisms of doing some of the work of discipleship in the local church?

Cornelius Plantinga 14:28

Right. There's a lot there. And let me just say this, I think that the pandemic had far more serious and grave effects than we have yet been able to assess. It has really messed with people's habits, with their customs where the church is concerned, and we don't know yet how much we need to recover and how much we will recover. But trusting God, we will recover at least somewhat. And maybe we'll have learned something in the process. And I propose that one of the major ministries of the church that people will still come to be addressed by is preaching. It's the the ministry of the church which addresses the most members of the congregation most of the time. And good preachers will use the occasion of preaching to do a little teaching. They will do it winsomely. They won't just layer it on in tiresome reiterations. They will do it winsomely, but they will take some responsibility for informing the people of God of the belief structure of the Church of Jesus Christ. So I don't think the matter is hopeless, when it comes to informing our people. I think it just needs to be done by preachers who are savvy.

Chris McAlilly 16:11

Yeah, I think about my professor of preaching at at Emory was someone I think you you know, Tom Long. And yeah, he's a wonderful preacher in his own right. But he read this little book a few years ago on the state of American preaching called, "From Memory to Hope." And in it, he kind of addresses there was this trend in American preaching towards narrative preaching, the idea being that folks kind of had a grasp on basic Christian doctrine, they had the story, basically in their minds from Genesis to Revelation, kind of the big movements of the Bible. And what needed to happen was, it was just people were bored with it, and they needed it to be, I guess, infused with with life and inspiration.

Chris McAlilly 17:05

So contemporary stories can create a bridge. And in some ways, it can be illustrative of biblical truth and biblical points. But part one of the argument he makes in the book is that things have kind of swung in the other direction. And you can't assume anymore that folks have the basic teaching, and that there's going to be the need for more just basic doctrinal work in the context of preaching. And I hear you saying, you know, basically the same thing.

Cornelius Plantinga 17:33

Yeah, I think that's right. There will always be a major place in preaching for narrative. Mark tells us that Jesus never taught without using a story. So stories are important to preaching. They were important to our Lord. They will always be there. But sometimes we have to try to set people in the midst of the great narrative arc of creation, fall and redemption, to see their place inside it, to see the church's place inside it, and to see the movement of the church toward Shalom from a place of brokenness and scatteredness. And that has to be done by whatever means the preacher is good at. So it can be done in small bursts of teaching, it can be done with stories that truly have a point. It can be done in lots of ways. But a good preacher is going to think about those ways to fulfill the responsibility to inform the people of God.

Eddie Rester 18:44

You know, I think about the centrality of active worship and preaching. And it's almost as if the season of COVID... One thing we noticed in our context is the number of hours that people are willing to give to the church has shrunk dramatically post COVID. The number of times they'll come to worship during a month, whether or not they'll go to a Sunday School class or a small group in addition to worship. But when you really think historically, in the life of the church, everything has centered on historically, the act of worship and preaching that was centered on a local church on a Sunday, typically, I would think a Sunday morning historically.

Eddie Rester 19:34

So, so much of what we're seeing, if you want to think hopefully, is not just, whoa, we've lost these things, but how do we return to maybe this thing that's always been the heartbeat in the life of the Body of Christ? If you were to kind of wave your magic wand or say this, I think would be a healthy starting place for the churches and how they think about worship and preaching, what would you offer? Particularly as you think about the discipleship, piece of all of that, what would you offer?

Cornelius Plantinga 20:13

So I mean, one thing is we have to be cautious with our pessimism. We don't know yet, how the church is going to recover from the devastations of COVID. It may recover quite a lot. We don't know that. But meanwhile, what's our calling? I think our calling is to construct occasions of worship and occasions of preaching, which from our experience, and our conviction, are eventful, ones that in which something is happening. I think that means really carefully chosen worship acts, including music and singing. It includes preaching that is lively, and constructive, and substantial.

Cornelius Plantinga 21:09

I think we should not underestimate congregations in what they can absorb. A good preacher will have some sense of that, having been exposed to the congregation for some time. And I think that if our preaching and if our worship is from our own calling, eventful, of course, it has to be blessed by the Holy Spirit. Of course, the Holy Spirit has to be blowing in the room. But if we do our end, I think we have no idea how God may bless that. Remember that the church has gone through dry periods before...

Chris McAlilly 21:46 Come on!

Cornelius Plantinga 21:46 Including centuries long, dry periods.

Chris McAlilly 21:49
Sorry to interrupt. That's exciting to me.

Cornelius Plantinga 21:52
Okay, yep. Well, there it is. And that's, I guess, what I'm hoping for, that we will emerge from the COVID era, into a greater season of strength.

Chris McAlilly 22:05

I am grateful for the phrase that you used a moment ago, "I think we should be cautious with our pessimism about the effects of COVID." I, you know, I hear in that a real a deep faith in, you know, the capacity of the power of God to bless the preaching of the church, the worship of the church, and the mission of the church. Where.. Go for it.

Cornelius Plantinga 22:33

The church belongs to Jesus Christ. We are ministers within this church that belongs to Jesus Christ. Our congregations are the people who follow Jesus Christ. The church has taken many forms over many centuries. Our job is to be faithful, imaginative, available to the Holy Spirit, and let God take some responsibility for what then follows.

Eddie Rester 23:08

I think that's the hard thing about, a hard thing for the modern church, which for so long lived in a world where it could truly manage itself to success. I don't want to say without the Holy Spirit, but there just wasn't, you know, when I think about the 1980s and 1990s, even though the kind of early stages of decline were there, there is still an ease in how you could program and do things for the life of the church.

Eddie Rester 23:43

I think one of the things that you said that I'd love to hear more about or hear you maybe point to an example, is you said, you know, the church has been through dry periods before. In your mind, maybe historically talk about one of those that you think about and how the Spirit began to draw the church back or when the church, when the Spirit began to draw the church back?

Cornelius Plantinga 24:07

Sure, well, leave aside the dark ages in the Holy Catholic Church of which we are the heirs as Protestants, and think about just the Protestant era. We have had to hav,e periodically, revivals. So the first Great Awakening with Jonathan Edwards was in a period of great laxity and of falling away. Every so often, in the first Great Awakening and the Second Great Awakening with the evangelists, the church has had to be revived. It is part of our history that we decline, we revive, we decline, we revive. The Holy Spirit is the major operator in this, but we as ministers and congregations have to be available for it. So I am not surprised that there have been periods of decline in the 20th century. And now in the early 21st century, I would be surprised if there were no revival. Our pattern leads us to expect that. Our history leads us to expect that there will be revival.

Eddie Rester 25:26

One of the books that you wrote, gosh, it's been a bit ago, when I was in seminary actually, was "Not the Way It's Supposed to Be." It's really about the brokenness of the world, the need for shalom, that shalom is actually what God desires and hopes and has created us for. How does what you talked about there, this notion of shalom in our own sin and brokenness, how do you think that plays into this season of waiting for waiting for revival or how has that played into revivals throughout the throughout the centuries?

Cornelius Plantinga 26:09
Right. So everybody understands that the world is broken. There is nobody who thinks everything is just fine. Or if there is somebody like that, they're off in a land that the rest of us cannot approach. Everybody knows that there is corruption, that there is sorrow, that there is failure, that there are instances in which tyranny is challenged, and overthrown, only to find that reformers themselves then become tyrants. We have this dreary history of corruption. At the same time, we also have a history of reformers, of agents for good, of those who do all kinds of good in the name of Christ. We have the whole European landscape dotted with hospitals that were established by Christians. We have the ministries of churches that set up orphanages and foster care. We have all kinds of things in the world that point to the influence of the church, amidst all the brokenness.

Cornelius Plantinga 27:34

In fact, if you were to pass a magnet over the world and pull up, every good thing the church has done, you would leave in unfillable hole. The church has done an enormous amount of good and still does amidst brokenness. So one of the things we have to do is not lose heart. There is much we may be grateful for in the history of the church and in the current life of the church. Even while we sorrowfully go through a period of decline, we may expect that this is not the last word.

Chris McAlilly 28:11

I think that clearly, that's hopeful. And I think that one of the things that I observe among younger people is a desire to find their place within that, the sense that they are created for and called for a life of significance and purpose and meaning and that there is a sense that God's unfolding story from creation to the fall to redemption has a place for them.

Chris McAlilly 28:43

And there's a book that I came across of yours a few years ago that I found really helpful in thinking through how to have conversations with college students and recent college graduates called "Engaging God's World: A Christian Vision of Faith, Learning, and Living." I wonder if you could, just for folks who haven't had a chance to take a look at that book, talk through what you were trying to accomplish.

Cornelius Plantinga 29:11

Right, so I'm familiar with one robust institution of Christian higher learning, Calvin University, formerly Calvin College. I have much to do with students in the university, and have many occasions to see how they think and feel. And my colleagues all do, too. And they report on students. There is much to be hopeful about in the outlook of Christian university students now and Christian students in secular universities. In our experience, they're formidable people. They want to do something in the world that will count for Christ. And that's why I have found that introducing them to the concept of shalom is really helpful.

Cornelius Plantinga 30:08

So shalom in the Hebrew prophets, especially in Isaiah, is this vision of a time when all under God is full of harmony, justice, and delight, where people get along together, where they serve each other, where they delight in each other, where they love each other's culture and cuisine, where they find that they have nothing to fear from the animal kingdom and animals have nothing to fear from us. It's this picture that Isaiah paints of a time when all is right. We don't live in that time. But we can live forward toward that time, contributing our bit, so that we
leave the world with a little bit more shalom than we found it in--because of how we worked constructively together, how we spoke the name of Christ to people, how we did good in the name of Christ, how we sought those who are on the margins of society and attempted to reach out to them and draw them forward into a healthy life within society. I think that all of this is what you could call small bursts of shalom, and that young people today can immediately be attracted by it and willing to contribute their part to it. I love that and I find it really, really hopeful.

Chris McAlilly 31:39

I wonder if-you know, I intend to send this conversation to some of the college students and young folks that that we work with here in town, I wonder if you have a word of encouragement for someone who may be struggling to find their place or lacking a sense of meaning or coherence or significance in their story. What word of hope would you offer to them as as they seek to find their vocation in the kingdom?

Cornelius Plantinga 32:07

I would say to young folks, don't confuse your calling with your day job. You may have more than one day job across your life. Your calling is to be a profitable citizen of the kingdom of God--that means to be a good student, an absorbent, interested student. It means to be a good son or daughter, a good brother or sister, a good friend, to be aware of the church and ready to contribute your part to it, to be a good citizen of whatever country or state or city or municipality you live in.

Cornelius Plantinga 32:51

You have multiple callings inside being a good citizen of the kingdom of God. So you select an occupation based on whether it will contribute something to your citizenship in the kingdom of God and to the kingdom of God itself. Remember that the Old Testament vision of the good life is the coming of shalom. The New Testament vision is the coming of the Kingdom of God in its fullness. They're really the same thing, just a slightly different description of them. And our calling as good citizens of the kingdom of God, including our occupation, is to contribute what we have to contribute to this great movement.

Eddie Rester 33:37

I think one of the first times I've ever encountered someone who is living with that sense of life, there was a man in one of our congregations who sat down with me he was an executive of a pretty large international corporation was working out of our town. And he sat down with me pretty large international corporation was working out of our town. And he sat down with me one day and asked him just all these questions about his work and his job and all these things and he finally stopped me said, "Eddie, here's what you need to know. I go to work. I enjoy my work." He said, "But my calling is to be scoutmaster. That's where I feel like I am living the life that God has for me."

Eddie Rester 34:18

And he had actually gone one time to his bosses because there were conflicts. And he explained what he felt like his vocation was, which was to work with young men. And his bosses were very supportive of it and helped shape his work around his ability to be free to do those things. And so that has always impacted me as you can live your vocation and the job that you do, but sometimes the job you do is the job you do and your vocation is how you contribute beyond that.

Eddie Rester 34:52

I would wonder as you talk and think about college students and young adults, and all of us really, what would be some of the things that you see consistently pulling us away from that vocation of living as a citizen of the kingdom of God? What are some of the things that trip us up, pull us away, deny us that vocation?

Cornelius Plantinga 35:16

Well, we have a lot of people encouraging greed. We have a lot of people suggesting that the acquisition of things is our most important task. That's an obvious distraction and corruption of our calling. We have a lot of people suggesting that we are entitled. We don't have to be grateful for anything, because we are entitled to be gifted and blessed and served. That's another obvious destruction from our citizenship in the kingdom of God and another thing that kills gratitude.

Cornelius Plantinga 35:57

I would say that there are lots of forces out there that move us away from our calling to be good citizens of the kingdom of God into things that are either not terribly important or else actually corrupt and that part of the role of the church is to kindle awareness of these things and to combat them. So that sermons will sometimes include phrases like, "you'll see a lot of people around us who think that the center of life is...", "that the Gospel says the center of life is..." In other words, part of the calling of preaching is to be super alert to the forces within society that our congregations are living in, that are pushing and pulling them away from the Gospel and away from their citizenship in the kingdom of God and suggesting ways to combat these forces and to encourage what actually makes us flourish inside the kingdom of God.

Chris McAlilly 37:00
Yeah, that's good parenting, too. I'm taking notes, you know, because part of it is how, you know, the context that I'm thinking about that in is how do I cultivate, not just within our know, the context that I'm thinking about that in is how do I cultivate, not just within our church, but within my own children, gratitude for the gifts of God's goodness to them, in and through the gifts that are offered to them. You know, I don't want to deprive them of good things, and I want them to experience the world in all its fullness. And yet, it seems like combating greed and entitlement in children and in youth that are very much being categorized into a particular vision of the good life, by the surrounding culture. That's the work.

Chris McAlilly 37:54

And I think, you know, for me, one of the things I've been thinking about is, I can't expect that of anyone in my church, I can't expect that of any of my children, if I'm not doing that myself as a pastor, you know.

Cornelius Plantinga 38:07 I think that's a key.

Chris McAlilly 38:08

Cultivating basic practices of gratitude in places where I see God's Kingdom breaking in. And that's become, for me, a really important daily practice that certainly I don't get to every day. But that, you know, I think part of it is trying to make sure that I'm shaping the daily practices of my own formation and discipleship in such a way that I can see and I can enter into the vision of the good life that I actually do believe, you know, and that I want to see for others.

Chris McAlilly 38:46

And, you know, for me, I'm just encouraged every time I have an opportunity to have a conversation with someone like yourself, who has, you've seen a lot and having the perspective of your career, and for you to speak with such hope about the future. That gives me a lot of confidence. There are definitely times as a young pastor where I get discouraged. So I'm really grateful, really grateful to you.

Cornelius Plantinga 39:17

We all get discouraged. The church in her history has had periods of decline in which most Christians were discouraged. But faith means that God is alive and at work, that God has purposes for us and that if we find them and make them our own, we will be faithful, we will be obedient, and we will be in the target range for God's good gifts and blessings. And I think that as you have just expressed, a good deal of this has to do with gratitude, with thankfulness, with recognizing blessing and giving thanks for it. And our children see that we are grateful people, that we are thankful people. They can hear it in our tone of voice. They can tell it from our prayers. They can tell it in what we are enthusiastic about. They can see it from our attitudes toward acquisition.

Cornelius Plantinga 40:22

If you'll forgive a personal anecdote, when I was a boy of maybe seven or eight, my dad took me downtown and walked me past department store windows, and in perfectly good humor pointed out all the things we can get along just fine without. And I never forgot that. He said, "Oh, here's something. But you know, we don't really need it, do we? And here's something else. And we can live just fine without it." He was exercising his role as my dad by trying to combat entitlement and greed. And at least with me, he was somewhat successful.

Eddie Rester 41:12

You know, I think about that, and I think about something I read recently. I was doing some reading, preparing for Advent, and I can't remember the author. But the author said, "Jesus is not the savior of the fourth quarter profit statement."

Cornelius Plantinga 41:33 [CHUCKLES]

Eddie Rester 41:34

I just think about even the opportunity in front of us around Advent and Christmas, with teaching of, you know, the power that greed and entitlement have to drown out the great Good News of a God who's come near, you know. And sometimes churches feed right into that greed and entitlement around Christmas. It's hard for us not to.

Cornelius Plantinga 42:06

Yeah, well, that's what wise pastors are aware of and know how to combat at least partly successfully. Our congregations are willing to be inspired. They're willing to be inspired by an authentic Gospel vision. And if they need to have some of the distracting noises around them silenced or at least bracketed and set aside, so be it. We can help them with that, and do so at least in part by showing how much gratitude is a powerful engine of joy and of expectation and hope. Come thou long expected Jesus, born to set your people free. And there is freedom in shedding the distractions of entitlement and greed, and settling instead on our hope for the forthcoming of the kingdom of God.

Chris McAlilly 43:13

A few years ago, a friend of mine helped me to see that the Psalms, the 150 Psalms, when prayed through kind of begin with gratitude. They take you through all the ups and downs, the orientations and disorientation of life. But they end with praise. They end moving you from thanksgiving to praise. And this particular friend happened to be an excellent preacher, and helped me to see that thanksgiving is a mode, gratitude is a mode of giving thanks for an individual act. "I'm thankful for this one thing that was done." But over the course of time, and over the course of the history of God's people, with God's faithfulness, move from being grateful for the things that God has done to praise in just who God is and the ways in which God continues to be faithful and steadfast through the ups and downs. God's steady even when the world is not.

Chris McAlilly 44:17

And for me that learning to move through thanksgiving in the direction of praise and the God who will bring shalom, we can trust in that. That's a powerful medicine. And it's such good news. And I'm grateful to you, Dr. Plantinga for the reminder today, and for your time on the conversation with us on the podcast.

Cornelius Plantinga 44:47
You're very welcome. Pleasure to be with you, and I wish you God's blessing in the days ahead.

Eddie Rester 44:54
And the same for you. Thank you for your time today.

Cornelius Plantinga 44:58 You're very welcome.

Eddie Rester 44:59
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Chris McAlilly 45:07

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]