Ideas Have Consequences
Everything that we see around us is the product of ideas, of ideologies, of worldviews. That's where everything starts. Worldviews are not all the same, and the differences matter a lot. How do you judge a tree? By its fruits. How do you judge a worldview? By its physical, tangible, observable fruit. The things it produces. Ideas that are noble and true produce beauty, abundance, and human flourishing. Poisonous ideas produce ugliness. They destroy and dehumanize. It really is that simple. Welcome to Ideas Have Consequences, the podcast of Disciple Nations Alliance, where we prepare followers of Christ to better understand the true ideas that lead to human flourishing while fighting against poisonous ideas that destroy nations. Join us, and prepare your minds for action!
Ideas Have Consequences
Introducing 10 Words to Heal Our Broken World with Scott Allen
Scott Allen explains the important timing of his forthcoming book, 10 Words To Heal Our Broken World: Restoring the True Meaning of Our Most Important Words. He shares why words and their definitions are critical and how each of us can faithfully steward, preserve, and pass these God-given words and meanings to future generations. We pray God will use this book to stir revival in the Church and restoration of our culture. Words form our thoughts, thoughts lead to action, and our actions can change the world. God's definitions of these essential words create flourishing nations, while their hijacked redefinitions result in destruction.
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Find out more about the book by Scott David Allen, 10 Words to Heal Our Broken World: Restoring the True Meaning of Our Most Important Words at 10wordsbook.org.
We don't create, like God does, out of nothing, but we create a culture, we create a society, and it's shaped by the words we use, again for good or for ill. So words are super powerful. As Darrow has said many times, if you want to change a society, if you want to change a culture, you begin by changing words and language, and we've seen that over and over again in history. Hi friends, this is Scott Allen, president of the Disciple Nations Alliance, and I want to welcome you to another episode of Ideas have Consequences the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. Episode of Ideas have Consequences the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance.
Scott Allen:As we prepare to launch my newest book, 10 Words to Heal Our Broken World, restoring the True Meaning of Our Most Important Words, we wanted to go through each one of these 10 foundational words that are highlighted in the book, discussing their true meaning as well as how they've been fundamentally redefined in our contemporary culture. Now you might be asking why do words matter? Well, it's because words and definitions shape the way we think and feel and that, in turn, determines our choices and our actions, and that shapes the kind of culture that we live in, for better or for worse, and that shapes the kind of culture that we live in, for better or for worse. And so if you want to work for a positive change in culture in society, it has to begin by restoring the true meaning of our most important words.
Luke Allen:Hi friends, yes, thank you for joining us today for another episode here on Ideas have Consequences. My name is Luke and, yes, you heard that correctly my dad, scott Allen, has a new book coming out soon and again, the title for that book is 10 Words to Heal Our Broken World Restoring the Meaning of Our 10 Most Important Words. So over the next few months, as we prepare for the book launch this fall, we'll be doing a mini-series here on the show where we will be familiarizing you with the book and hopefully convincing you to grab a copy when it's out and maybe even share it with your friends and family. So we just want to welcome you to the introduction episode to the 10-word series. And if you're wondering what those 10 words are, they are as follows Truth, human sex, marriage, freedom, authority, justice, faith, beauty and love.
Luke Allen:And, as the book title implies, these words can heal our broken world. But in order to do so, we need to not use these words twisted, hijacked and distorted definitions and as I'm saying this, I'm thinking of words like truth, sex, justice and marriage but instead we need to be a people who seek to restore and to live out these powerful words, god-given meanings in our broken world. Uh, for our regular listeners, you might be wondering why I am opening up today instead of my dad, as is usual, and that's because, as the author, he's going to be in the hot seat today as our acting guest. And Dwight, dwight Vogt, my co-host, and I will be interrogating him for the next 40 minutes or so about the book. So, dwight, why don't you just get us started?
Luke Allen:with the questions for today.
Dwight Vogt:Yeah, thanks, luke. Scott, so good to be in this position. I can remember when we first started. You first started talking about this book oh, it seems like five, seven years ago, and so it's really great to be at this point where the book is nearly completed and we can talk about it. So you know, the first question that comes to my mind when I hear the title about 10 words and restoring them, I could just go words. Why words? That's an interesting focus for a theme in a book. So why words, scott?
Scott Allen:Yeah Well, dwight, I think words are super powerful. We take words for granted, we just use them all the time, but we don't really stop and think about what they are or what they do, how they function. But most basically, I would say that words are and language, but what it does. What they do is they shape the way that we think, they shape our ideas, they shape the way we feel, and so they're right at the bedrock of everything, because how we think and how we feel shapes the way that we act. It shapes the choices that we make, how we live our lives, and that, in turn, shapes the kind of culture that we create, for good or bad. Right, this is the podcast. Ideas have Consequences and ideas, as we know, are super powerful, and at the base of all ideas are words.
Scott Allen:And if I could just say one more thing, you know, I think as Christians, we should understand the power of words just from the Bible itself. You know the fact that when God created everything out of nothing, he used words, that he is a God who speaks and his words are incredibly powerful. They create and, as our friend Darrell Miller often says, we are made in God's image, and part of what that means is that we also have this incredible power of words and language in a way that other animals don't, and that's God's design, that's God's intention. And we also create when we use words. Words have the power to create, they create. We don't create, like God does, out of nothing, but we create a culture, we create a society, and it's shaped by the words we use, again for good or for ill. So words are super powerful. As Darrow has said many times, if you want to change a society, if you want to change a culture, you begin by changing words.
Dwight Vogt:And language, and we've seen that over and over again in history. Yeah, scott, that's great. I don't want to get into the weeds too deep yet, and I know, luke, you've got a question to follow up here, but I was just reading through your intro this morning, Scott, on the draft, and I was struck by what you just said and the quote that you include from thomas cahill uh, where he says most of our best words uh, yeah, uh come from, from jews, the gift of the jews is the title of his book, right, yeah exactly.
Dwight Vogt:He says they are precious gifts that god gave us as he spoke through words and he says, they create mental space that enable people and nations to prosper and flourish and that whole idea of mental space that always strikes me, because if you've ever been to a foreign country and you had to learn their language, you've come across words that you didn't realize existed because you'd never understood the concept behind that word. Maybe you've never had that experience, but it's amazing when you come up against a concept.
Scott Allen:That's only understandable when you have a word.
Dwight Vogt:And I know that's what you're getting at, Scott.
Scott Allen:Again, we take words for granted, but a lot of—this is Cahill. Thomas Cahill wrote a book called the Gift of the Jews. How a—I can't remember the subtitle, but a nomadic band of Jews changed the way everyone thinks and feels. Essentially and what he's saying in his book that's very powerful is that, in his own words, some of our best words. And then he gives a long list of these words, words like justice and freedom, and love and future and dignity, compassion. You know, on and on. These words didn't exist in any kind of indigenous human language until God spoke these words into existence and their meanings to the Jews through the scriptures, in other words, through the Jewish Bible of the Old Testament. And then, you know, during the time of the Reformation, right, the Reformers were convinced that that Bible needed to be put into the languages of people all over the world, and so there was this process of translation into indigenous dialects and languages and new words were introduced, words that didn't exist before in those languages.
Scott Allen:Now, think about it. Think about something that—let's take one example. Think about something that—let's take one example. Let's take the one that most people are familiar with just this idea of love as sacrificial service for the good of another person, even without expecting anything in return. Now, if you're raised in the Church, you might think, yeah, I understand that Everyone understands that. Well, no, they don't. If that concept of love hasn't been introduced into a language, that idea just doesn't exist in this world. You might get something kind of close to it like, well, I'll do something good for you if you do something good back for me. You might get this kind of reciprocal idea, but you won't get this agape idea of I'm going to do something good for you that's very costly for me, even if you never pay me back. That only comes from the Bible and it was introduced into the world through God, through the Bible, through the scriptures, through the Jews, if you will. But it was God's way of helping us shape a culture around that powerful idea. And that's just one word. So you can go on and on.
Scott Allen:We wouldn't even understand, for example, the concept of freedom. Freedom doesn't exist in a fallen world. It's all about power in a fallen world. And if I can maximize my power to get you to do what I want you to do for my benefit, why not? I'll do that? And then you have no freedom, right? This, not, I'll do that and then you have no freedom right? This idea of freedom only exists because God spoke it into the world through these words. And you know, dwight, I'll share one more thought on that.
Scott Allen:You know, in our work of community development through Food for the Hungry over the years, you know, we want to see impoverished communities rise out of poverty and one of the ways that that has to happen is that the people that are living in poverty, they have to have some idea of the future and their ability to control their circumstances. You know, if they feel like they're helpless and they have no control over nature or plants or animals or whatever it is, they can't develop, they're always going to be impoverished. The biblical word for this is dominion, you know, and in the West we understand that, we take that for granted. We think everyone understands that human beings have control to a degree over plants and animals and things like that, and we can shape the world and we can shape a future that's better than our present.
Scott Allen:That idea comes from the Bible and we worked in communities in different parts of the world rural Guatemala where that idea had never penetrated, parts of the world, rural Guatemala where that idea had never penetrated. It was an idea that their idea that they had was actually the opposite, that powerful forces, gods and spirits and nature they control us, not the other way around. So you can't even begin to do community development and help a nation, a community, rise out of poverty until they've got that basic building block in their head of dominion, you know. So we saw that in our own work in Relief and Development.
Dwight Vogt:Yeah, good Scott, good Luke. You had a question.
Luke Allen:Yeah, thanks, dwight. Yeah, before getting to my first question, I as well. When I first heard about this book uh, about words um, it did not seem like a catchy idea to me. This, I mean, ned, this book uh, you started dreaming about this one, probably back when I was in high school years ago. Uh and uh, once you started laying out the format for the words, you got to the word justice right before 2020, which, as we all know, was a. You know, that word was used all over the place in 2020. So you paused writing this book on 10 words and you specifically wrote that book why Social Justice Is Not Biblical Justice, which most likely, most people listening to this podcast have read that book or are familiar with it. So if you have read that book, you'll have an idea of what this book's about. It's this idea of restoring the true biblical definitions to words as an alternate to the distorted definitions like the one proposed by social justice advocates in 2020. So you'll have an idea of why words matter, obviously, if you've read that book.
Luke Allen:To me, this quote that I heard a few years ago really, really helped me grasp the idea of why words matter. This is by Peter Kreeft. He says control language and you control thought, control thought and you control actions, control actions and you control the world. Obviously, as Christians, we're not concerned with controlling anything. We leave that up to God but this idea that language leads to thought is really helpful for me. And thought leads to action, and then from there, you can change the world so it really does start with language, and then, from there, you can change the world so it really does start with language.
Luke Allen:Language is step one if you want to have an impact on the world. We're all called to be make disciples of all nations, as Jesus commanded us, and to do that it means that part of our mission is to bring the truth, goodness and beauty of God's kingdom into the world, and, using God's true biblical definitions, as you just said, dad, is the way that we do that. Yeah, I've really grasped the idea of this book and I'm excited about it and I'm excited to share it. So, just yeah concerning this book, dad, why did you end up deciding to publish this book right now? Why do you think this is an important time for people to hear this message on these 10 keywords?
Scott Allen:Yeah, thanks, luke. I think that, again, as you said you quoted Peter Kreeft there, and Dara Miller has a similar quote about the power of words to change culture If you want to change culture for better or worse, you begin by changing language. I feel like the people that are our opponents, you know, non-christians who really want, who really have a vision to change society. They really understand this and they actually understand this in a way, I think, that we in the Church don't, unfortunately. They really get this basic precept and they, because of that, they've been very active, you know, I would say, for the last several decades, but especially of late. They've been very actively working to change definitions and meanings, to take these powerful words that are so foundational to our culture and to fill them with new and false meanings, them with new and false meanings. And so I'm seeing this real onslaught, if you will, this real battle over words and language right now, where you've got one side in the battle really actively focusing on this, and so that's part of the reason I was wanting to get the book out now. So that's part of the reason I was wanting to get the book out now. The other part of it is that I just felt, like my brothers and sisters in Christ and the church, you know they were not as aware as they should be, perhaps, of what was happening.
Scott Allen:And if you aren't aware of what's happening around words and language and definitions, it's very easy just to go along with whatever you're hearing in the culture, in films and music and whatnot, right, we kind of these definitions are taught in all sorts of different ways, you know, including formally in schools, right and universities, but informally, through music and films, and you know just social media, you name it. So we all absorb these false definitions and I was seeing that in an alarming way in the church. I thought, oh no, if we, the people of God, lose the true meaning of these words, we've lost the battle. Like I don't mean to keep using language of warfare, but there really is. I don't mean to keep using language of warfare, but there really is. I mean it's so—if we want to see the world blessed and healed and flourishing, it has to be based on the true meaning of these words. And if we lose that, we, the people of God, then everything's lost. And so I was very alarmed by that.
Scott Allen:And you're right, I saw that in a particular way around the word justice. That and you're right, I saw that in a particular way around the word justice, you know, I thought, wow, this redefined understanding of justice has been really absorbed. And I was hearing it kind of just spoken back to me by a lot of Christians in the church and I thought, oh no, did they not know the true meaning of justice? They've absorbed this false definition. This is really a problem.
Luke Allen:So, yeah, yeah, I mean, I mean just to speak for myself. When I first read the manuscript on the chapter on faith. At the beginning of every one of these chapters, dad, you lay out the um, the biblical definition, and then, right next to that, you lay out, uh, uh, your best attempt at the, the world's most commonly held definition Right, yes.
Luke Allen:Yeah, the redefinition of culture. And when I read that chapter on faith, when I read the redefinition, I think I read that one first, actually I I just sat back and I was like, yeah, yeah, I think that's right and it's because I had, you know, passively absorbed that definition wrongly from the culture, more than I expected, and especially on a word like faith. That was a little bit of a shock to me and I was like, oh, I'm glad I'm reading this book because faith matters and the biblical definition was really important to hone in on. So that's just a personal anecdote.
Dwight Vogt:Yeah, Scott, you're talking about 10 words. Why these words?
Scott Allen:Well, you know, it was a bit tough to come up with 10 words and that was a bit arbitrary. It could have been 12 or 15 or 5, I guess, but A hundred, yeah, a hundred. But we just chose these 10 because they're so fundamental, they're so foundational, they really are, in many respects, our most important words. You look at the word truth I mean how that word is defined or redefined, you know matters for everything. Or the word human. I mean these are such fundamental words. What we have in our minds when we say and use these words matters so much. The word love what is love? You know, it's going to shape how we think, how we feel, how we act as we seek to love people, right, you know? So these are really fundamental words. So, you know, you could argue with this one or that one, but I, you know, I think probably it would be hard to say, none of these are, you know, are not important. They're all really important.
Luke Allen:Yeah and again. Those words are family, sex, marriage, freedom, authority, justice, love, truth, beauty and faith. Two of those words in particular stick out to me beauty and truth, because repeatedly I hear that truth is subjective, your truth is your truth, my truth is my truth, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder, which is very similar. It's subjective. There is no true definition. But in this book, dad, you propose that there are only one true definition. There is only one true definition for each one of these words and it's the one that was given to that word by God. In a time of cultural relativism, as we come off the heels of post-modernism and the thinkers that tried to do literary deconstruction to words, to books, how do we go about finding that true definition? You know that seems like a very difficult task to find the one true definition to these words. How did you go about that when you wrote this book?
Scott Allen:Well, yeah, just the idea that there is a true meaning right now is a very controversial thing to say in a postmodern world, but there really is. You know, these true meanings? They come to us from God himself, you know, because he exists, because he spoke, and this is so powerful. He communicated to us. He communicated to us in his you know, of course, his creation, but he communicated to us most directly in his written word. You know, he put his ideas. It's so powerful.
Scott Allen:Again, we take it for granted, but he put his ideas down in words and recorded them in the scriptures, and they've been faithfully passed on generation to generation now, in many different languages. So it really is God's word, right, he's the one that has the privilege of defining the true meaning of words, and it's in His Word that we discover the true meaning of these words, and they're very powerful. You know, these words that God speaks to us, they're gifts, as Thomas Cahill said in that book. They're precious gifts because they explain to us what's real, what is this real world that God created? And so we, you know, long story short, we get the true meaning from his word. And so, yeah, just the words aren't just these kind of little passive vessels that we can kind of fill in with whatever meaning that we want.
Scott Allen:You know, when you think that way, then the question is well, who gets to define words right? And we have this battle going on right now. I mean, you know what actual definition gets written down in the dictionary, right? Well, the answer is whoever has power to do it. So you either have God defining the true meaning of words or you have the most powerful. I mean, those really are the two choices.
Dwight Vogt:It seems like also there's two things going on. You're not just giving a cryptic definition or the correct definition, but in listening to you and in reading you, Scott, we also come to understand the depth of those words.
Scott Allen:Yes.
Dwight Vogt:It's not just yeah, here's the definition, but then there's this depth that is so profound when you're into the truth, so I appreciate that.
Scott Allen:Yeah, biblical definitions, dwight. This is something that I learned in writing the book. They're incredibly profound and they're very deep, and so I don't pretend to say here is the definitive, true meaning of a word like love. In fact, when I was—just to take that one word—when I was trying to convey in a concise way the true meaning of this powerful, profound word that's right at the heart of God, I mean, it's at the very heart of his character I realized, you know, this is a word that has a real meaning. I don't mean to say that you can't understand it, but the depth of it is so deep that I felt like I'm never going to get to the bottom of this. You know, there's an incredible richness and depth to you know, as deep as God's character. You know, in many respects to these meanings, these true meanings, whereas the counterfeit, the redefinitions, are often very flat and one-dimensional, if not outright false. They just lack the depth. And you know we'll get into that as we get into these specific words.
Luke Allen:Yeah, I mean, I think of the redefinition of marriage which is actively being redefined it seems like daily but that the new definition is so empty. It's just, you know, it's essentially nothing.
Scott Allen:Let's look at that one, luke. It's a good example. You know the way that marriage has been redefined in the West and really now it's being pushed out around the world. This is the way I articulate that redefinition it's a legally recognized romantic, caregiving relationship between consenting adults who intend to live together as sexual and domestic partners. So that's what's now encoded in our laws. Any country, including the United States, that has a law on the books or a Supreme Court decision as is the case in our country that codifies marriages between any two consenting adults. It doesn't matter about male or female, etc. It's built on this redefinition.
Scott Allen:Now contrast this with what the Bible, god's definition, the true meaning of marriage is given in the Scriptures, and here's how I articulated that. As given in the scriptures, and here's how I articulated that it's a God-ordained, comprehensive, exclusive, permanent union that brings together a man and a woman as a husband and a wife to be the father and the mother to any children that their union brings into being. It's based on the truth that men and women are different and complementary, the biological fact that reproduction depends on a man and a woman, and the social reality that children need both a mother and a father. Notice that the Bible, the true definition of course, is built around. Well, first of all, it's a God-ordained institution that's stripped away in the redefinition. It's about bringing together in a permanent way a man and a woman. Man and woman is stripped away from the new definition. Permanent is stripped away To be a father and a mother to children. There's no mention of children in the new definition.
Scott Allen:So marriage, the way that it's been redefined in our culture, it has nothing to do with children. Nothing Now again, much less their education, their upbringing, et cetera. If you go with this redefinition, just think of the massive, you know the consequences for society. I mean again the power of words. You're going to have a very different kind of society, one that doesn't value children, doesn't care that children have a mother and a father to raise them, etc. Etc. You could go on and on, and that's what we're seeing today. You know, just around the definition of one word.
Luke Allen:Yeah, that's a perfect example. I mean, again, ideas have consequences and the wrong definitions of words, the idea there has consequences. And I think this new definition of marriage, which I mean, I would even argue that it's going beyond just two people. Now, you know, it just keeps changing and morphing Keeps morphing.
Luke Allen:It has consequences and those consequences have been devastating on so many people's lives in our country and it just continues and it seems like a downward spiral and unless there's an alternate definition that is being championed by Christians, hopefully it's probably not going to stop that downward spiral.
Scott Allen:These false definitions they destroy, they all are highly destructive, whereas the true definitions they build. And you know really it's a good reminder, Luke that at the root of the counterfeit, the false definitions because they're false, is Satan himself, right the liar. And you know this is what he wants to do. He wants to redefine God's words. He takes what God has made right, these beautiful, powerful words, and then he lies by redefining them all in the purpose of destroying God's creation. So that's the big picture here. That's what's going on. So how do we fight that kind of satanic battle? We have to know the true meaning and we have to be part of our lives and we have to use that, as Christians, to not destroy but to build strong lives, strong marriages, families, cultures, nations.
Luke Allen:Yeah, yeah, I mean, you just kind of answered my final question. But this message, this book, why does this matter for everyone listening to this podcast, everyone who's going to read the book? Why does this matter for Christians' lives right now?
Scott Allen:Because, yeah, you know again, we're not just talking about society out there. You know how you understand these words will shape how you live your own life, the kind of life that you build for yourself and for those around you, the kind of life that you build for yourself and for those around you, the kind of marriage that you will build. It'll either be a healthy, flourishing life, marriage, society, if it's built on the true meaning, or you'll kind of get into all sorts of problems and get shipwrecked in a lot of ways and broken on the rocks if you build your life on these false definitions, and I'm very concerned about that. They're very destructive. So just to take one example I mean there's so many you could say but again, the word love, the biblical word love, it's just so deep and it's so rich, but at the heart of it is this idea of agape, of sacrificial service for the good of another. That idea is missing in the redefinition of love. Right, the redefinition of love in the culture is simply a source of delight or joy. You know, strong feelings, affection, romance, sexual attraction, period that's the end of it. Wrong feelings affection, romance, sexual attraction period that's the end of it. There's nothing about sacrificing for the good of another. There's nothing about fidelity, faithfulness, these biblical ideas, those have all been stripped away.
Scott Allen:If you are a Christian and your understanding of love is that kind of false, shortened, constricted definition false, shortened, constricted definition then it's easy to say, oh, I no longer love my wife, meaning I don't. You know, I don't have that same strong affection, sexual attraction, romantic feelings. I'm out, I'm out. I mean, that happens all the time right in the church. Why? Because people have a wrong, a false understanding of love, you can't say I'm out with the true biblical definition of love.
Scott Allen:That's just one example. It matters how you live is what I'm trying to get at here, luke. It's the life that you build, and that's part of why I love this book. This is so practical for everybody. You knowing these true definitions matters a ton for you, for your life and the way that you build your life. And so this isn't just about changing culture and society, although that is what's going to happen here but it's about your own life and it's something that you can do. You yourself can apply to. You can understand and apply these true definitions in your life in a way that will bring about positive change.
Dwight Vogt:I listen to you, scott, and I picture a building that collapses very quickly. Or you get a building that stands beautifully strong and resists all kinds of hurricanes and winds and floods.
Scott Allen:Exactly the parable that Jesus spoke there at the end of the Sermon on the Mount is perfect for that Right it is.
Scott Allen:One's a weak foundation that's going to. When the winds come and the storms come and these trials in life, you're going to fall. The other is strong, and it's strong because God, these are God's precious definitions. He defined these words for our good, and so we have to, as Christians, more than anything, we have to know these things to the degree that we're able to, you know, to the depth that we're able to, and not just know them in our heads, but build, live them out, build our lives upon them. So, yeah, this is in some ways a book of discipleship, very basic discipleship, but I also think it's often neglected, I hate to say it, in our churches. Because you know words, definitions, what's the point? Right, we just need to right. People need to be saved, they need to learn how to preach the gospel and whatnot, and all of that is true. But, boy, unless we understand these true definitions, we're susceptible to having these words being redefined in our own minds by the culture around us. I mean we all are susceptible to that.
Luke Allen:Yeah, and nothing's more confusing than a Christian going around spouting non-biblical definitions of God's words to people. I mean, if we're—what's that quote? I love that quote where, if you are saying the same word but you're using different dictionaries, it— oh, John Stone Street, yeah.
Scott Allen:John Stone Street from the Colson Center. He often says you know, we're using the same words but different dictionaries, and that describes well the kind of cultural moment that we're in right Same word, justice or marriage, very different dictionaries. And then the question is whose dictionary do you trust, god's or man's? I mean, those are the two choices. Again, you know so.
Luke Allen:Yeah, I had a conversation exactly like that once. I was talking about freedom with a friend. It was a short conversation but I essentially was talking about freedom, about how great it was, and he was talking about how terrible it was and I was which. How are we defining?
Scott Allen:how do you understand?
Luke Allen:to a standstill yeah, and it was just like we can't go anywhere with this discussion because two different dictionaries.
Scott Allen:We have different definitions.
Luke Allen:Yeah, it's like those worldview glasses or blinders it's.
Scott Allen:We ran into a well, it's a good point. We assume that everyone kind of understands these words largely the way we do. We can't assume that anymore. We can't assume that we're all operating from the same dictionary. We're not. It's the same word, but often with radically different meanings. So we have to be very careful to start there in our conversations, in our interactions. What do we mean by those words, right? What does it mean to be a human being? What is human? What does that word mean? You know, you can't assume that everyone's got the same idea in their head on that. They don't.
Luke Allen:Yeah, I mean that was 2020, is you had two lines of protesters yelling at each other and one side said we're for justice and the other side yelling right back at them we're for justice, and it's like okay, two radically different definitions of justice, right?
Scott Allen:yeah, uh-huh yeah yeah, go ahead.
Dwight Vogt:My last question, scott, because, uh, you know where do you hope to see this book go and what do you want to see it do? And basically, I've heard you say you know it it needs to help us not just say the word but define the word in the way we communicate, and I think that's so true. You know, we're all at the point where, when we say human, we have to say and I mean by that this you know.
Scott Allen:Right exactly, but.
Dwight Vogt:I also know, Scott, you've got some other things going on. We've got some videos connected to the book. We've got a study guide.
Scott Allen:Maybe you could elaborate just a little bit about that, Sure yeah, well, it's such an important project for the DNA and obviously Luke and Dwight and others have played a huge role in this project coming to fruition. And again, the purpose behind it is just the mission of the DNA. We really believe that you want to see impoverished and broken nations, communities beginning to flourish. It really has to be based on an understanding and a living out, an application of biblical worldview, biblical truth and all of that kind of comes down to true biblical definitions of keywords. So this is right in the stream of all that we've been doing over the years, but it's coming at it at an even more basic level the actual meaning of true words. You can't have a biblical worldview unless you define the meaning of these words, these basic words.
Scott Allen:So there's a book, dwight, to your question, but there's also a small group course that we're developing for churches and other small groups, home groups, and that's going to be accompanied by some videos about 10 minutes that describes the true meaning, contrasts it with the cultural redefinition and challenges Christians to reject that redefinition, embrace the truth and live it out. Really excited about these videos. We've been working on these. They're in the final stages of completion now, so we've got a course, videos, obviously, this podcast and a lot of other tools that I think will be really helpful for Christians, and so, yeah, I would encourage people to begin to think about this upcoming material as really important discipleship for yourself, for your family and for your church. That's how we want to see it being used.
Luke Allen:Yeah, well, on that note, that is a great place to wrap up the discussion today. And again, today is just going to be the introduction to this series that we are going to be doing over the next few months, where we unpack each one of these words and the true definitions, whilst also lining them up with the contemporary, often false and hijacked, redefinitions. So, again, the title for this upcoming book is 10 Words to Heal Our Broken World, restoring the Meaning of Our Most Important Words, and one last time. Those words are truth, human sex, marriage, freedom, authority, justice, faith, beauty and love. So, again, I hope you'll be able to join us for these upcoming episodes in this series, and if you want to be an all-star Ideas have Consequences listener, then please consider inviting anyone who you think will find this series and this book interesting and helpful to listen in as well. And, by the way, this podcast is available on all the podcast platforms out there. So, dwight Dad, thank you for your time. I really enjoyed today's discussion.
Scott Allen:It's great. Thanks Luke, Thanks Dwight, Thank you.
Luke Allen:And to you, our listener, thank you for spending your valuable time with us here on Ideas have Consequences the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. Hi friends, just a couple of final pieces of information before I leave you today. Number one in just a few weeks we'll have a landing page ready for you where you'll be able to easily find all the information about the book you could possibly need, including the book trailer, the endorsements, the book's video series which I'm especially excited about, and so much more. So as soon as that page is live, we'll make sure to let you know about that here on the podcast and other places as well. If today is your first time listening to ideas have consequences, then thanks again for your time and attention.
Luke Allen:If you don't want to wait a whole week until our next episode drops, then don't worry. We have 129 prior episodes for you to explore here in the library. And if you're wondering what we're all about here at the Disciple Nations Alliance the DNA, which is the ministry behind this podcast then I'd recommend you scroll back just eight episodes to our recent episode titled Revival plus Reformation equals Discipled Nations with Teo Hayashi, and that episode, which is episode 21 on season two, is a discussion. That will give you a great idea what our mission here at the DNA is all about. Lastly, as always, to find all the in-depth information about the episode, you can find our episode page linked in the show notes below, or you can find that on the homepage of our website, which is disciplenationsorg. Thanks again for listening and we hope you have a great rest of your week.
