“Humanity From Humility” with Joel Muddamalle
Show Notes:
Humility. Through. This episode hangs on those two words, and how they relate to Christianity today. Joel Muddamalle, Director of Theology and Research for Proverbs 31 Ministries, wrote the book on humility, The Hidden Peace. He explains that true, Christian humility--living out the humble life of Jesus--will bring us to God who will get us through the hurts, the hard times, and the exhaustion of life today. We find peace in humility, in that awareness that the Lord is with us always. And knowing that God is with us means God will walk through every broken moment with us.
Joel earned his PhD in Theology under the guidance of Dr. Patrick Schreiner and Dr. Michael Heiser. He serves on the preaching team at Transformation Church with Derwin Gray. He writes, studies, and teaches about scripture and theology and how they go hand-in-hand with our every day, busy lives.
Resources:
Follow Joel on Facebook and Instagram
Buy The Hidden Peace
Transcript:
Chris McAlilly 00:00 I'm Chris McAlilly.
Eddie Rester 00:02
I'm Eddie Rester. Welcome to The Weight.
Chris McAlilly 00:04
Today we're talking to Joel Muddamalle. He has recently put out a new book. And the title of that book is one that Eddie's really excited about and that he needs.
Eddie Rester 00:15
It's "The Hidden Peace'" is the name of the book. Joel also works for Proverbs 31 Ministries with Lisa TerKeurst. He does a lot of writing and thinking about how to help Christians think theologically, how to read the scriptures theologically. He is an amazing, I think, author. I think this is one of the books that as I got into it, I was like this is a book that's helpful because it allows you to lay things down, to release. And it really begins to talk about how the work of humility becomes the answer, the antidote to a lot of our weariness and exhaustion and overwork and all of the control we seek. So Chris, what was your favorite part of the conversation today?
Chris McAlilly 01:05
I think just Joel, as a person. And you know, one of the things that you see is he has a scriptural imagination. You know, you have some people that know scripture verse here or there. There are other people who are so... they've been so immersed in their understanding and their reading of the Bible that they live in the world with a scriptural imagination. And that's what I hear in Joel is that he has the capacity to go into the world and help you understand some of the things that we're dealing with, the tension points in our own lives, the pain points in our lives, but to do that in light of the wisdom and the truth of Holy Scripture. And so just listening to how he frames things up, I think is super helpful. And this is... I don't meet a lot of people who have the depth of a PhD level understanding of the Bible, but then also are able to communicate very clearly and plainly to folks who are just looking for a five minute devotion. And so on any given day, I'm looking for either, but I don't... He spans the polls, and I find that to be really, really impressive.
Eddie Rester 02:22
He has his own podcast. It's called Theology Talk. And so you can find that wherever you are looking for or listening to your podcasts. So I would encourage you. He's got a great couple of episodes that I listened to preparing for today. One was how to disagree as a Christian, which I think is an important one for us right now. But he's one of the voices that now that I know who he is, you're exactly right. I want to keep tracking with him. And I hope today, you do that with the episode. That you take a good listen, maybe go find the book, and share this with some folks that you know are feeling weary and exhausted, are looking for something that can help them take a step forward in the right direction.
Chris McAlilly 03:08
Thanks for joining us on The Weight. If you liked the episode, share it with your friends. We're always glad that you're with us. [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 03:26
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.
Joel Muddamalle 03:38
So we launched The Weight podcast as a space to cultivate sacred conversations 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 03:53
Join us each week for the next conversation on The Weight. [END INTRO] We're here today with Joel Muddamalle. Joel, thank you. Welcome to the podcast.
Joel Muddamalle 04:06
Absolutely. I'm so excited to be here with you.
Eddie Rester 04:08
We're glad to have you. We want to talk about a book you've recently written and released, your first solo book. It's a great thing. I've gotten to read all the sample chapters. My copy hasn't gotten to me because it just released two days ago. So I've read all the samples. I want to get to that. But you're also a part of Proverbs 31 Ministries. So tell us a little bit about that and your role with that.
Joel Muddamalle 04:33
Yeah, so I serve at Proverbs 31 Ministries as Director of Theology and Research, essentially theologian in residence, and so I get to bring oversight to theological development, research projects. Today, a lot of my work is a podcast that we do called Therapy and Theology, with the president of the ministry, a gal y'all might know, Lisa TerKeurst, who I work with directly. And so when I first came on to the team almost eight years ago, Lisa, she kind of gave me this vision, where she said, "Hey, I think that people have more access to the Bible than ever before, which is awesome. But it seems to be the biblical literacy is still in a decline." Like we have access but don't know actually how to read the Bible for themselves. And it was kind of like a, you know, the Luke 24, Jesus on the road to Emmaus, these two guys are like, "Didn't our hearts burn alive?" I kind of had that moment where Lisa started to communicate just some core ideas of what it means to be a people who have access and understanding and affection for Jesus through the scriptures. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, this is the thing that I want to kind of give you my life to. And at that time, I had a seminary degree, but I always wanted to do a PhD, but I had no idea how that could ever work with a family, a wife and three little boys at the time. And when Lisa was like, "hey, what if you came in, you came full time and you worked, and then we created a space for you to be able to really engage in doctoral work." And so I started a Ph. D. program, finished that a couple of years ago. And it has just been an incredible joy to be at now. Some of you are listening, and you're scholars and you're like, "Joel, Proverbs 31. Isn't that a passage in Proverbs about women? You are not." Yes, y'all are brilliant scholars. I'm so glad that you picked up on it. I'm one of six guys on staff, and the ministry is almost seventy people now, which was amazing. And it's pretty awesome.
Eddie Rester 06:29
So I'll be pretty honest. When I saw that you were with Proverbs 31 Ministries, I was like, how does that...
Joel Muddamalle 06:34 How does it work?
Eddie Rester 06:35 How does that work?
Joel Muddamalle 06:36 Yeah.
Chris McAlilly 06:38
For folks that aren't as familiar with Proverbs 31, just kind of give a little bit of the scope of what you guys do.
Joel Muddamalle 06:44
Yeah, I mean, it is a ministry that really is equipped. So we've got like three or four different arms of kind of what we do. One is daily devotions, this is kind of for the woman who is on the go. I think of my wife, and just a lot of our family friends. You're probably typically in the car rider line, you know. You got five minutes before you're picking up kids. Or if you're stuck at the back of the line, you might have a little bit more time. And you're like, "Man, I just need to engage with God's Word in some way." And so devotions would be a great place for you, what's called An Encouragement for Today. And then we have another part of the ministry that's called First Five, which I spend a lot of my time working on. And that has been historically an exegetical, book-by-book Bible study. So when I first started, we were in the Gospel of John. We're kind of working through the entire Bible. And so six years later, we were able to finish the entire Bible. And so literally, book-by-book, chapter-by-chapter, kind of verse-by-verse. That's for your in-depth Bible study gal. You're like, "hey, I want to do some substantive Bible study." And it's amazing. And then our social media presence is amazing. We get to kind of intersect with people's real-life tension point, I think this is one Lisa taught me. The genesis of my book came out of a lot of learning in these areas of just recognizing that we all carry a heavy heartache that is typically isolated. We're fearful of communicating it, and we're feel fearful of what people think of us if we're just honest with our weakness and our vulnerability and insecurities. And yet the Scriptures speak directly to that. And God has given us a community of image bearers that are an aid and help for us, if we turn to them. And so I think we're doing something pretty amazing. We're able to speak to real needs the women are dealing with, but then really point them to biblical truth. And so we kind of just simply say, if you know the truth and live the truth, that changes everything. That's really how we would summarize what we do at Proverbs.
Chris McAlilly 08:45
And tell me, I'd love to know what your PhD work was in, kind of what area of study did you work on? And kind of what was that research like?
Joel Muddamalle 08:55
Yeah, so my doctoral advisors... My first reader is a guy named Patrick Schreiner. Patrick's a New Testament scholar, and his dad is a kind of world renowned New Testament scholar, Tom Schreiner, and just a brilliant, brilliant man. And so Patrick was New Testament. And then my second reader is a guy named Dr. Michael Heiser, kind of renowned Old Testament scholar, wrote an incredible book called "TheUunseen Realm." Unfortunately, Mike passed away around this time last year from pancreatic cancer. In fact, I was finishing my dissertation, on chapters three or four, when he was diagnosed. And and Mike texted me and said, "Don't even think about getting another reader for me," like, "I'm gonna see you through this." And he did. He did, which is amazing. So my study, I'm a biblical theology emphasis. And so I did my dissertation on Paul's letter to the Ephesians, particularly Ephesians 2:18-22. And I argued in the dissertation that when Paul talks about household, the household of God, the oikos tou theo, that he has in mind, like most commentators, you read, everyone is like, "oh, yeah, it's a Greco-Roman background with the Temple of Artemis." I'm like, "Yeah, absolutely." But I'm like, you know, y'all Paul's a good Jewish boy. And he understands the Hebrew Bible. So there's got to be more going on to this. And so I argue that in the background of Paul's understanding of this household of God, that he's got a Hebraic understanding of it, which is actually rooted in the Tower of Babel. And so you have in Ephesians 2:18-22, a redemptive reversal and reinstitution of the Genesis 10, 11, and 12 paradigm that's happening in the Old Testament. And so that's why I had a New Testament reader and an Old Testament reader, because I find myself smack in the middle of two areas, the Bible that made me realize how much I do not know, I'll tell you that much. I got my PhD, and I was like, man, there's a lot I don't know.
Chris McAlilly 10:43
I love that so much. And, you know, I think there's some people that kind of gravitate towards the five minute devotion, and then there's some people that gravitate towards the deep, you know, doctoral dive into scripture, and I don't come across a lot of people that span those poles. And so, you know, I guess, how do you think about that? I mean, it sounds like you're very comfortable in this very deep, intellectual, theological, biblical world. And then you're also comfortable in, you know, how is this made plain for a person going through something today. How do you talk about this two sides of your work?
Joel Muddamalle 11:19
You know, I think everybody's got different seasons that they're in. But I think it's a little bit challenging. If you only stay in the shallow end of the water for too long, there's a joy to the depth. But there's got to be a process in how we get to the depths. You don't want to throw people into the deep end without equipping them essentially. And there are seasons when you're in the deep end, and you're like, "You know what? I'm exhausted." Like I talk about this a lot with just some of the gals that are at the ministry. They've got young kids and a career and all this, and I'm like, "Y'all, stop trying to read a commentary on Romans right now." Like, maybe right now, the best thing that you can do is love your family, love your children, do your work with excellence, and just spend 10 minutes in meditation in God's word. And so being aware. Actually, this is what I found with humility. Humility is a gift of self awareness. It actually helps us to become aware of who we are, where we are, what we're doing, what we can't do. And it's in those places that we can be like, yeah, this season is, you know, kind of not surface level. Surface level sounds bad. But, like, this is just like an introduction, and this season is a deep dive. But here's what I found, consistently, is the Bible... There's never been a time in human history that God's word has not been accessible to God's people. Like, that's a fascinating thought, just by itself. So just that lets us know that God desires his Word to be in the hands of his image bearers. And in light of that, just that simple truth, it's like, okay, is it possible--this is what I experienced in my PhD work--is it possible to take the ivory tower substance of heavy, heavy theology, keep the substance of it, but communicate it in a way that is incredibly accessible? And I'm like, yes, we can do that. Is it hard work? Absolutely. Is worthy work? You bet. And that's what I feel like I've kind of given my life over to is to play in both sides, and to point people from the shallow like, listen, there's some beauty over here on the other end, and people that have been just being swallowed up on the deep end, like, take a break. Go stand in the shallow end for just a little bit, because God doesn't want you to be exhausted at the same time, but don't get comfortable in either place.
Chris McAlilly 13:28 Yeah, I love that.
Eddie Rester 13:30
I think that's a great, great vision as well. And when you think about making things accessible, I think about the prophets. Many of the prophets in the Old Testament, some of their work is lost on us because 2500, 3000 years later. But so much of what they were doing is they were taking common things like locusts, or buildings, or crops, or rivers in the desert, offering these images to allow people to step into what God was trying to say, what God was trying to teach. And so that's actually how the Bible has kind of drawn people in from the very beginning is it takes the complex, often, understanding of who God is and what God is up to, and how God's at work in the world, how God is bringing redemption and restoration and yet offers it in such a way that allows people to step in. And I know that's what you're trying to do in your book with humility. I want to push in that direction. Tell us a little bit about the setup for this book. What made you decide... The name of the book, "The Hidden Peace: Finding True Security, Strength, and Confidence through Humility." What was the genesis of this book?
Joel Muddamalle 14:50
The genesis of the book was the fact that I am miserable at this. And I have always viewed humility as... Like, I say this often to y'all, like, I'm committed to honesty at all costs, so you're just gonna get a lot of honesty for me in these ways. I'd always viewed humility as like a thing that the powerful used and weaponized against others. And so humility wasn't anything to embrace. It was something to reject and run away from, because all it was gonna do was squash you down. And so I had a view of humility, and I would argue, after all of this study, that it was not a biblical view of humility. And then simultaneously, kind of what I experienced was like, nobody's running around waving the flag of "I want to be humble!" Like, "humility is the thing I'm going to champion," right? Like, if you did a word for the year, it would be an interesting study to see how many people's word for the year on January 1 is humility. It's like overcome, be confident you have all these...
Eddie Rester 15:49 Advance.
Joel Muddamalle 15:50
Advance, you know, achieve, win. But humility is like the last thing we're often talking about. So then I'm paralleling this thought of this is just my own experience and experience of my friends and family. And what we hear at Ministry, all the time at Proverbs, there's more exhaustion. There's more fear. There's more unrest. There's more insecurity than ever before. And so here's the question: then what do we do about it? And so we're like, oh, how do we deal with our weaknesses? We cover them up. We hide them. We pursue strength at all costs. Well, how do we deal with the fear of losing control? I've got to be more powerful. I gotta gain more. I gotta do this on my own. But notice how this is all framed. I call this the unholy trinity. It is framed within the context of me, myself, and I. How can I achieve? How can I do? How can I grow? How can I win? And at the end of it, the more you achieve, you realize the more that you can't do. The more control you think you'd have, you realize all the things that you don't have control over. It's just a fascinating thing. And at the end of that is more exhaustion. It's the last thing that you have is peace. And so now the big question is, where do I get peace? Where do I get rest? And I came across Matthew 11:29. And here's Jesus, and he's offering us this exchange of yokes. And he's like, Hey, let's just... Not a removal of the yoke. Let's do an exchange of the yoke. And when the exchange takes place, the promise is, "enter my rest. I'll give you peace. I'll give you rest." And he says, "Come and be like me, because I'm gentle and humble." And I was like, wait a minute, what does that mean? And so the genesis of this was just, like, my theological scholarly mind was like, "what is that word humble?" And it's like, it's the Greek word, tapeinÃ3s. Well, what is tapeinÃ3s? And it's like, wow, the Greco-Roman world hated humble people. It was the thing that you were rejected the most. Where else is this word used? Oh, Philippians 2:8 and 9. Jesus takes on humility, tapeinÃ3s. You're like, wait a minute. Why does Paul to the church in Corinth, Ephesus, Galatia, he keeps telling us to wear the clothing of humility? And how is it that this church in the first century seems to throw everything upside down because of the way that they lived and the person whom they followed? You're like, oh, my gosh. Y'all, I think that the path to peace, to actual rest, is to take on the humble life of Jesus. And in so doing, we will experience the type of peace that is not conditioned on whether there is hurt or not hurt. Actually, humility helps us to walk through the hurt, to experience sanctification on this side of our imperfect life that's marred and marked by sin and still have an internal peace that is possible because we follow Jesus and he's secured that for us on the cross. And so really, the genesis you know, back to the first question, I think, is simply like, man, there's more fear. There's more exhaustion in this world. And I think people are desperate to figure out is there actually a way to experience peace? And I'm like, yes, there is. J.I. Packer has the best phrase of all. I almost didn't even write this book. I'm like, J.I. Packer, he's already got it. But the idea is this: weakness is the way. That's the title of book, "Weakness Is the Way." And I'm like, yes, weakness is the way.
Eddie Rester 19:12
I think a lot of times we see, when you talk about the fear and all of that, the way it emerges in our culture today is fear and anxiety. It all comes out as anger and rage and protection, setting ourselves as, "Well, I'm here, and this is the place to be. And those people on the other side, they're just wrong. They're terrible. They're horrible." When we're not living out of that humility, then it really begins to set us up to live not with other people were created in God's image, but to compete with them, to live against them. How do you see that? How do you see all that relating?
Joel Muddamalle 19:57
Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things that I'm seeing in terms of the competition part of it is, I just go back to, like, I'm a nerd. And so I always go back to Eden. Right? I always go back to Genesis 1, 2, and 3. And I think it's really important. It's like, okay, the question for this question is, what is God's ideal for humanity? How did he design them to actually be? And here's something fascinating about this is that in Genesis 1, 2, and 3--prior to 3, 1 and 2--Adam and Eve were in a true place of vulnerability. They were in a true place of vulnerability. The word "vulnerability" that we get from English comes from a Latin phrase which means "to be wounded," or "to be woundable." And what's fascinating about that, is that in Eden, they're set up to be truly vulnerable, without fear of being wounded, because who could wound them? Well, God, and God's not going to wound them. But there they were exposed and what were they exposed by? They were exposed by the ability to wound themselves internally, from inside. And that's exactly what took place. And so this idea of competing against each other, this idea of feeling fear, and how fear is presenting itself, it actually comes out of this Genesis 3 reality of sin, because it's turned us inward. It's turned us into trying to be a self-preserving individual, which that in itself is not horrible. But self-preservation at the cost of other people, and at the cost of our humanity, is this defeating... I mean, that is just catastrophically negative. And so we go back from like, okay, we have to move from out of being inward focused to saying, how do we turn our heart back outward and pour our love and affection back out onto God? And humility is the key that allows us to do that. And I think that's an important part of it.
Chris McAlilly 21:49
I want to pick up on just this idea of weakness being the way. I came across a book, and I've mentioned on the podcast before. The book is called "Dominion." It's written by this British guy named Tom Holland.
Joel Muddamalle 22:03 Oh, yeah!
Chris McAlilly 22:03
"How the Christian Revolution Remade the World." And I think he's an atheist scholar, but he had spent a lot of time doing historical studies.
Joel Muddamalle 22:11
I think he was. I think he's a Christian now.
Chris McAlilly 22:14
Yeah, I don't know personally, I don't know.
Joel Muddamalle 22:16
We'll probably have to look that fact up. But I actually have that book. I think it's like right there. Yeah, I actually read it. It's pretty fascinating.
Chris McAlilly 22:23
Yeah, he does these... His background was he did these historical studies on Rome and Greece, Persia, Islam. And he, I mean, he describes his research on the apex predators of the ancient world.
Joel Muddamalle 22:34 Yeah.
Chris McAlilly 22:35
And then he kind of comes to start thinking about how did the world become different. And it was, you know, so he was looking at pre-Christian societies, the Greco-Roman world that focused on the glorification of strength and power and might. And the inversion of that was kind of the explosive genesis of the Christian faith across the ancient world. It was the primacy of weakness and the primacy of suffering in Christ and then exemplified on the cross as... I mean, it was, it showed solidarity in the deity and God with those who previously would have been seen as forsaken: the poor, the vulnerable, the weak, the forgotten. And that idea was so explosive, and it stands behind kind of modern concepts of human rights, equality, some of the things we think of as a part of an enlightened, modern kind of set of sensibilities. But actually, no. It's not like... These aren't universal principles. These are things that have a particular historical, cultural, kind of Genesis genealogy that goes back to Christ and early Christianity. It's a fascinating study.
Joel Muddamalle 23:55 Yeah.
Chris McAlilly 23:55
And I think it really is, it kind of aligns with some of the things I hear you saying about humility.
I think he was. I think he's a Christian now.
And I guess my question would be, what is it about this particular cultural moment that is a foil or kind of a backdrop for seeing humility as this beautiful virtue?
Joel Muddamalle 24:16
So this is fascinating. I've, when you work on a topic... It's kind of like, when my wife and I started having all these kids, we've got four kids now. So we've got three boys and a little girl, and we were in youth ministry. We were like, "we're never going to have a van." Like, "We'll never buy a minivan." Like, "That's so uncool. And by kid number three, we're like, "We've got to buy a minivan."
Eddie Rester 24:37 Yeah.
Joel Muddamalle 24:37
This is the most glorious vehicle, right? And so we go and we're like, "Okay, what's the coolest color that we can get?" Because we don't want to be uncool. We want to be cool. And like, okay, we're gonna get a space gray Honda Odyssey, I'm Indian, so Indians' kind of unsaid rule, you got to drive Honda, Toyota, that kind of deal, and so I want to not get uninvited from the family potlucks. And so it's like, we're going to get this Honda. It's gonna be awesome. And you know what's fascinating? I've never seen a space gray Honda Odyssey. You know what's fascinating, y'all, is that the second we drove off of the car lot, what do we see?
Eddie Rester 25:07 Space gray.
Joel Muddamalle 25:07
Space gray, everywhere. They're everywhere! It's like, Well, were they not there before? Of course they were.
Eddie Rester 25:12
They're all 30-year-old men who used to think they would drive cool cars.
Joel Muddamalle 25:16 Exactly.
Eddie Rester 25:17
But now, they're driving a Honda Odyssey minivan, which I drove for nine years. So yeah.
Joel Muddamalle 25:20
That's right. That's right. And this is the same thing that I found with humility. Humility, it's like nobody... But then once you start talking, you hear it everywhere. You actually do. And once you hear it, it's fascinating how people talk about it. Universally, today, people actually have a positive conception of humility, but they don't have a place to locate it. They don't have a way for it to be fleshed out. But like deep inside, they're like, this is what we long for, like we want it. And why is it? This is, one of the things I wrote about in the book is, humility actually regains our true humanity. Who doesn't want to be a good human?
Eddie Rester 26:01 Yeah.
Joel Muddamalle 26:02
Who doesn't want to be a person that's known in their life as bringing good into the world, not bringing evil and pain into the world? And so it's like, the moment that we live in, the cultural moment that we that we live in, it's almost like this idea. And then it's like, even the play on words with "The Hidden Peace," it's like, if you ever played hide and go seek or whatever, some of the best places to hide were actually in plain sight. You know, like, I remember playing hide and go seek and all the adults would be hanging out, and I would hide in front of the adults and just sit down on the couch next to them. My friends would go crazy, because they would never think to look in plain sight. Like there's no way, but that's where it is. And this is what I think we actually find with humility. It's actually hiding in plain sight for us. And think about all things we're about to deal with here, from questions about politics, questions about ethics, questions about human rights, questions... I mean, we can go all over, questions on justice, all of these questions. Well, how did we handle that? How do we? And this is what I found. Why is this so important? Humility is going to teach us how to have conviction in what we believe. We have to be a convicted people, right? We've got to have conviction. But it's also going to teach us how to be compassionate in how we communicate. And then it's going to always keep us committed to the reality that we're first and foremost citizens of the kingdom of God. So if you've got these three things, if you've got conviction, compassion, and the reality of your citizenship in the kingdom of God, well, this actually becomes a winsome witness to a world that is looking for the roots. Like, where do I locate humility? Because I hear it, and I like the idea of it, but maybe my experience of it, because it hasn't been framed biblically, it's been framed anthropocentricly through a human lensed view, has been weaponized against me. And I don't want anything to do with it. Well, you just haven't had the real thing. You've had a counterfeit.
Eddie Rester 27:55
Well, let's talk a little about the real thing versus the fake humility. I think sometimes people think, well, humility just means I've got to abandon my strengths, or I've got to abandon my think, well, humility just means I've got to abandon my strengths, or I've got to abandon my
Joel Muddamalle 28:09 Yeah.
Eddie Rester 28:09
But that's not what you're talking about here. You're talking about something drastically different, a humility that has a root that defines us. So help us understand what you're talking about when you talk about humility, not becoming a doormat for everybody.
Joel Muddamalle 28:24
Yeah, that's so good. So I think I'm kind of a fan of the threes kind of movement idea. And so again, I think humility is a three part movement. Y ou know that there's a famous phrase, "humility isn't thinking less of yourself. It's thinking yourself less often." It's historically attributed to CS Lewis. As a general rule, you should never disagree with CS Lewis. That's a dangerous, dangerous proposition. So I'm not going to disagree with Lewis. But I'm going to suggest that maybe the best biblical place to start is not with the self, when it comes to humility. I actually see humility as a three part move in humility. First and foremost, it's about an awareness of God. Like if I can know who God actually is, full panoramic view of God, then I can actually know who I am. And if I know who God is, and I know who I am, an image bearer, meaning likeness and image of God, then that actually frames how I ought to relate to other people. So notice, the order matters. First, I know God. Then I know myself. And now I know how I ought to relate to other people. So then what does this do for us? What does the gift? Where's the power? What's the payoff? The payoff is this: that this framing of humility, a biblical, theological framing of humility, what it does is it serves as a protection, a prevention, and a preservation. It protects us from thinking too low of ourselves. Because if you and I think too low of ourselves, it actually dishonors the image of God that was freely given to us. And so to think too low of ourselves invites others to treat us like pawns ,right, or to be stepped all over. And it's like, we don't want to be pawns or just sacrificed at anybody's whim. Like that's not what God intended for us. So there's a protection here. But there's also prevention. And the prevention is humility prevents us from thinking too high of ourselves. Because if we think too high of ourselves, we will inevitably be the people who are walking over other people or treating them like pawns on a chessboard in our life. And then lastly, it's a preservation. It's going to keep us rooted in the life of Christ. And if we're rooted in the life of Christ, it's going to actually teach and frame how we relate to all of these cultural, societal questions that are coming up, that we might not have a framework for, if we're not rooted in the clothing of Christ. This is back to what Chris was saying earlier. Like, I think this is what Tom Holland actually came to the conclusion of, this seems to be this secret virtue that I would argue for, embodied the people, these first followers of Jesus simply called The Way, that had the Roman Empire with their jaws open. Like, they couldn't make sense of them, right. And the more they persecuted them, the faster they grew. Like, what in the world is happening here? Until you get to Constantine. And Constantine, he's kind of brilliant. He's like, I'm not gonna fight against these people. I'm gonna join. I'm gonna join. Like, let's make it the religion of the empire. So it's own sense of self in the world. like, this is where a biblically framed view of humility is actually powerful, because it regains your self worth, but it refuses to allow you to be self obsessed. It gives you the gift of self awareness, and it frees you from the entrapment of pride that makes you self conceited.
Eddie Rester 31:28
Right. A couple of thoughts on that. When I think about pride, and you mentioned Genesis 3 earlier, often, when I think about that first sin, what it really is, is pride. Its pride that drove us, thinking too highly of themselves. The other thing is, I think about Philippians chapter two, where Paul was writing to group people, who were trying to figure out who they are, as the body of Christ. And he says, "Let this same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus." And then it goes on to describe this dissent of Jesus, his willing humiliation that allowed him to bear the strength of God into the world in resurrection. And maybe that's part of it for us, is that we begin to understand in humility, that there's a strength that we can bear that doesn't have to be our own. I think for most of us, we spend all of our lives trying to figure how do I present myself? It's what you've been saying. I've been trying to figure out how do I present myself in such a way that others will respect, admire, fear, all those things. One of the passages of scripture that you haven't mentioned yet, but is important in the book, Psalm 46.
Joel Muddamalle 32:52
Oh, yeah, yeah, the Lord of hosts.
Eddie Rester 32:54
Say a little bit about why Psalm 46 is important to our conception of humility.
Joel Muddamalle 33:03
Yeah, humility gives us the gift of self awareness and helps us to see God, and a lot of times one of the reasons that we struggle with fear and lack of control all of these things is because we're trying to live out a lived experience absence of the presence of God. And that is a terrifying proposition. And so Psalm 46 is amazing. And in the book, I actually talk about the most terrifying moment of my life. My youngest son had febrile seizures, and the very first time that he had a febrile seizure when he was 11 months old just absolutely wrecked us. And my friends, Shane and Shane, you guys may know them, they had the Psalms Volume Two album that had just come out. And so I had Psalm 46 on repeat, you know, obsessed. I have an obsessive tendency with songs, particularly. So my wife got so annoyed. She was like, "hey, you've got about five more listens on this road trip." And the catchphrase, you know, the catch to it, the hook to it, is "the Lord of hosts is with us." And that phrase in Hebrew, the Lord of hosts, it's a militaristic term. It has in mind this king, who is a warrior king, not a general who sits in the back safe and secure... It's like William Wallace, first in battle, running. That's why it would be like screams when like that scene happens, you know. It's like, oh my gosh. And this actually fleshes out biblically. This is Jesus in the Incarnation. Like all the other mythology of every religion, it's like, "we are trying to be like God." Christianity is like, "No." God's like, "I'll become man in order to rescue you to come back," you know. And so in Psalm 46, you've got this incredible refrain, and it split up into these three parts where it's showing the total supremacy and the power of the Lord of hosts over all things. Things in nature, we talked earlier about images and symbols. The mountains were images of total power in the ancient, Near Eastern world. The seas were images of total chaos and destruction in the ancient, Near Eastern world today. We're like, "Hey, let's do a boat trip on the lake." Ancient Israelites ain't trying to play with the boat. Being a fisherman is like the most scariest proposition, because anything can happen on the sea, right? Like, that's where you get this idea of the Leviathan, the sea monster. We miss some of this contextual stuff. And so, in those first opening lines of Psalm 46, you have the mountains being swallowed up by the ocean. It's like what is going on? The two most immense images out there, and then you have this, "and the Lord of hosts with you." You have... And God, Yahweh, is supreme over all. Like, don't fear the created thing, because the Creator is by your side. And in the most terrifying moment in my life, where I didn't know what was happening, I thought, like, this might be it. My 11 month old son, he's gonna die. That's how bad it was. I had just this refrain that just kept coming back to me, "the Lord of hosts is with you." And Eddie and Chris, like, I didn't have, in all honesty, I didn't have any sense that everything was going to be okay. There was no promise, like, Luke's gonna be fine. It's like he's got a febrile seizure. It's going to be a thing for about four to five years of your life, and he's gonna grow out of it. None of that. All I had was this one assurance, the Lord of hosts is with you. In the midst of this situation, the Lord of hosts is with you. And so this is that peace proposition, why Psalm 46 is so important. It reminds us that regardless to the situation, the circumstances that we are walking through, the Lord of hosts is with us. And so humility gives us that awareness that he is with us, and if he is with us, he will walk through it with us. The preposition "through" is the most important preposition in my vantage point of all scripture. It was necessary for the Israelites to walk through the wilderness. Why? Because they experienced the provision of God. It was necessary for them to go through the Red Sea. Why? They experienced the protection of God. It was necessary for them, for Jesus to go through Samaria. Why? He meets a Samaritan woman who becomes the first evangelist. It was necessary for Jews to go through the cross. Why? So we can experience the redemption that comes from the power. We are a people that have to retrieve the throughness of living the Christian life and fight against the temptation to not go through but to go under and around and short circuit the process. Because it's the through where we encounter the Lord of hosts who's with us, and we're becoming and regaining our true humanity.
Chris McAlilly 37:32
Yes, yes. Yes. I like that. I love that.
Eddie Rester 37:38
And then part of the psalm "Be still and know." And so, in our frantic... I, you know, I've read the story in the book of that moment, and in my own life, and Chris's life as well. I think about some of Chris's daughter's early, early years, as well. There's just, when something is wrong with your child, you...
Joel Muddamalle 38:04 Oh, gosh.
Eddie Rester 38:05
You're frantic. You're not still. You're... Your everything goes out the window. And...
Chris McAlilly 38:14
Eddie's referring to our daughter had some breathing issues. It was pre-asthmatic. And there's this moment where I was holding her, in this whole car ride, took 45 minutes to the hospital, and then we get to the hospital and realize, during this process where I'm trying to comfort my daughter, her lung had collapsed.
Joel Muddamalle 38:36 Oh, my gosh.
Chris McAlilly 38:36
I know. And it was excruciating. And so we found our way to incredible care and amazing doctors. And, you know, that experience was horrific. And also at the same time, it is this incredible reminder of God's provision, the ways in which God can be trusted. The ways in which I'm not in control of the outcome.
Joel Muddamalle 39:05 Yeah.
Chris McAlilly 39:06
Specifically as it relates to my kids. I was very young as a father at that moment. And I am totally struck by this, the throughness, this idea of the way of Jesus as a way through. You know, I can just think of several people who, our friends, our family members, or people that are in our community that are struggling with different things and just the promise that as you're going on a way through really, really difficult stuff that God has been through that stuff. The word that I keep coming back to that you've said multiple times is exhaustion, which I find an interesting word to kind of counterpose with humility. It doesn't make... It's not self-evident to me that exhaustion would be the thing from which humility would deliver you. I wonder if you could speak more about that?
Joel Muddamalle 40:17
Yeah, I think the perfect tie in is what you just described, and what we're just talking about. The perception of control and the belief that we can actually control anything leads us into trying to this theological phrase. We tend to call this moralistic behavioral modification, moralistic works this theological phrase. We tend to call this moralistic behavioral modification, moralistic works righteousness, right? And so it's like, I can do, I can do, I can do, I can earn. That's exhausting. It is an exhausting existence. In the end, I think maybe Eddie what you had to, or sorry, Chris, what you had to experience and what I had to experience in that moment with our children, and anybody in any situation with your children, specifically, you kind of have this thought that you have it in control. Your sole responsibility is to love these children, take care of them, make sure they don't get tragically hurt. It's like, okay, we can handle a scraped knee, and even a scraped knee has a way to break your heart, you know? And now you're in this moment, and in this moment, you are fully aware of that you are not in control.
Chris McAlilly 41:21 Yeah. Yeah.
Joel Muddamalle 41:22
And that, to me is actually a gift, because I want to flip. I want to flip that moment upside down on its head, because the gift that is hidden in this moment of a lack of control, is it forces you into answering this question: then, who is in control? If you're not, somebody has to be. And when we get to that place of saying, hey, God, you're in control, that's actually the relief of the exhaustion. It's the freedom that comes with the power of humility.
Chris McAlilly 41:51
That's right. Just the image that I had, in my own life, of what you're describing is, when your daughter may or may not... You know, if you're worried if she's gonna take another breath, what do you do at night? You sit up, and you're trying to will your daughter to breathe the next breath. And so that when that happens, when you're doing that, for every breath, for every night, for every day, for weeks, it is truly exhausting. And you know, I do think that, in some ways, I guess one of the questions I was going to move towards is, how do you get there? And in some ways, it's like, you don't get there by trying a practice or doing a spiritual discipline or any of that. It's just, you kind of fall into the place of, "I can't," not "I can." You know, there's just no way, and so I just have to... I mean, it is a kind of surrender, you know?
Joel Muddamalle 42:45
Yeah, I think it is. Absolutely. And I do think there's some practical things that we can do. But you nailed it. One of the biggest... like if somebody read my book and left, and they're like, humility, checkbox checked, move on, I'd be like, I failed. I truly would be a failure. Because humility is not a checkbox that you move on from, it's the soil of the Christian life that you live from. And like any soil, and I'm not like, whatever is the opposite of a green thumb, I'm the opposite. Like, I cannot keep things alive for the life of me.
Eddie Rester 43:19
Plants come to our home to die.
Joel Muddamalle 43:21
Right. Right? Oh,my gosh. And you learn like, man, soil is important. What you put in that soil is important. How you cultivate that soil is important. Foreign objects that my children put into the soil are detrimental to the health of whatever is trying to grow inside that soil. And so in this sense, I think there's this two part thing. One is what is the very practical that we can do? One of the practical things is, we want to become aware of humility. And hopefully this conversation has done a bit of awareness for us. But then we got to move into a place of acceptance. In the same way that minivan example that I said, it's one thing for me to know that minivans are out there. It's a totally different thing to come to the personal realization that I need this thing. Because there's a tension point in my life that this thing will ease. It will help to solve. And then there's application and the application part, I think the hardest gap is between the acceptance and the application, because I can accept my personal need for it. But in order to apply it, it's going to cost you something. It cost my bank. It cost me money. Like I've got to be willing to put down a down payment on this thing. I got to make monthly. Like, you see what I'm saying? There's a cost that's associated with it. And the same thing with humility. Humility has a cost, and what is that cost? It's honesty. John Stott has a great quote I quoted in the book. I'll paraphrase it. Basically, it goes like if honesty and humility go together, then pride and insanity do as well. You know, and so it's like, the cost here is an honest self evaluation of who you are. And then the next thing is, once you're honest with yourself, it's this commitment to stay in this place of being rooted in the humility of Christ, being planted in that soil, and some practical stuff. I talk about this in the book is maybe the most amazing thing that we could do, and this is very practical. If you're listening to this, and you feel like everything's out of control, and I cannot figure out what to do next, and you're in ministry, you're in leadership, you're like, I can't control. Like, wouldn't it be nice if we could just mind control our people in our congregation, right? Like we just tell them, "Don't fight over these things."
Eddie Rester 45:28
Don't tell people what we pray for.
Joel Muddamalle 45:32
Humility, honesty, I'm just putting it out there, right. But here's what we can do. You can go right now, after this episode is over, you can take your socks off, you can go out and you can put your bare feet in the grass. And if it's day, look up and observe the clouds. Pay attention to where the sun is. If it's night, gaze into the stars, if you can see the stars, and if not just look into the darkness that's out there. And I want you to quote for yourself, if you don't have it, memorize it, John, chapter one: "In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God. Through Him, all things were made. Without him nothing was made that has been made, and in him is life, and that life was the light of man." And you just tell yourself in that moment, that I have nothing to do with keeping all these things together. Jesus does. He's holding it all together. So when you feel out of control, one of the most practical things that we can do is an exercise like this. And you'll be reminded that things might be feeling like they're out of control. And there may really be things in your life that are out of control. But that does not discount or diminish the fact that God is sovereignly, totally in control over all things.
Eddie Rester 46:41
Joel, thank you for your time. Thank you for this book. I hope folks will take the chance to get it, "The Hidden Peace," by Joel. I'm going to butcher the last name. I'm sorry. Muddamalle, I think I said that right.
Joel Muddamalle 46:57
You nailed it. Yeah, you nailed it.
Eddie Rester 46:58 I got it.
Chris McAlilly 46:59
You nailed it. Good job, Eddie.
Eddie Rester 46:59
Just been practicing for, you know, just 45 minutes, been practicing. But thank you for that and blessings on your work. And I just think it's so important to help people begin to think theologically, to think through and with scripture, and not just read scripture, and I think that you're gonna, your work is going to provide fruit for the kingdom and I thank you for that. [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 47:30
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]