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
Connecting Christmas to Creation Changes Everything with Jessica Shakir
Explore the profound truths hidden in our most cherished Christmas carols.
"Joy to the World" announces the Kingship of Jesus, calling each of us to respond to His rule by pushing back against the effects of the fall. With grace, truth, and love, Christ's reign brings hope to our weary world.
Similarly, "O Holy Night" paints a vivid picture of Christ's birth, a moment that brought humanity a new and glorious dawn.
Our friend, Jessica Shakir, from The Beautiful Mind Academy, shares her passion about the Advent season with us as she thoughtfully connects the Christmas story back to the creation narrative.
Are you ready to revitalize the deep joy and hope found in the Christmas message? Tune in for a festive conversation filled with reflection, celebration, and a renewed understanding of the true meaning of Christmas!
- View the transcript, leave comments, and check out recommended resources on the Episode Landing Page!
And so the world often will be evangelized by beauty before they ever hear about the birth of Jesus. The world may often be changed and wooed by joy before they ever read the Bible. And so we are to bring the culture of heaven wherever we go and bring truth, goodness and beauty into conversation, into board meetings, into Zoom rooms, into industries, into family parties, everywhere we go.
Luke Allen:Hi friends, welcome to Ideas have Consequences. The podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. Here on this show we examine how our mission as Christians is to not only spread the gospel around the world, to all the nations, but our mission also includes to be the hands and feet of God, to transform the nations to increasingly reflect the truth, goodness and beauty of God's kingdom. Tragically, the church has largely neglected this second part of her mission and today most Christians have little influence on their surrounding cultures. Join us on this podcast as we rediscover what it means for each of us to disciple the nations and to create Christ-honoring cultures that reflect the character of the living God.
Scott Allen:Welcome again, everybody, to another episode of Ideas have Consequences. This is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. I'm Scott Allen, I'm the president of the DNA and I am joined today for a very special Christmas Advent edition of our podcast by my beloved team members. Darrell Miller is with us today. Hi, Darrell.
Darrow Miller:Dwight Boe Good to be here, merry Christmas.
Scott Allen:Merry Christmas, luke Allen, and we are thrilled to have back with us a person who's become a regular on our podcast. Yeah, jessica, it's so good to have you back. Jessica Shakir is back with us again.
Jessica Shakir:Hello family. It's good to be a part of the ideas, oh man.
Scott Allen:We are so grateful for the relationship that we've had and been able to build a little bit so great to have you back.
Scott Allen:For those listeners who are new to us and haven't heard Jessica before, let me just give a quick introduction. Jessica is the founder of the Beautiful Mind Academy, which is a global online community of Jesus-loving women who are renewing their minds with the Word of God and transforming their world by partnering with God to usher in truth, goodness and beauty wherever they go. That sounds a lot like what we're trying to promote at the DNA, jessica, so I love that so much what you put down there for your mission. Jessica has a fascinating background. She has worked as a celebrity hair and makeup artist for more than 25 years in California with a clientele that included the likes of Kevin Bacon and Rachel Hunter, the Backstreet Boys, eminem a lot of celebrities.
Scott Allen:She's been featured regularly on television celebrities. She's been featured regularly on television, including segments on TV shows like the Dr Oz Show. But we love Jessica so much because she is so like-minded. She has such a deep kind of a biblical worldview in terms of her thinking, her understanding of mission and particularly when it comes to matters of beauty and aesthetics. We've learned so much from you, jessica, and are so grateful for that.
Jessica Shakir:Wow, I'm honored. I've learned so much from you all. I mean, I told you from the beginning your podcast was one of my favorites, so it's a joy to be here with you. And this morning, as I was getting ready, I just had this huge smile on my face, like a giddy morning as I was getting ready.
Dwight Vogt:I just had this huge smile on my face like a giddy child going.
Jessica Shakir:yeah, I get to geek out over theological aesthetics with my friends, you know, over the ravishing reality of Jesus, as we are in this sweet season of Advent, and so I'm looking forward to our conversation today.
Scott Allen:Yeah, me too, you know, and Christmas is such a time of incredible beauty.
Jessica Shakir:Yeah.
Scott Allen:You know, you just you see it all around you, and I think that's part of the reason we love Christmas so much is just the beauty that surrounds it, and, of course, at the center of that beauty is Jesus himself, the incarnation and just all that that means. So the aesthetic of Christmas is part of what makes it so special, isn't it?
Jessica Shakir:Amen. And you know, I just want to say I love that I can have a conversation, that I could be part of, a conversation on beauty with brothers in Christ. I'm looking at four men of God and we're going to be talking about beauty, among other things. But for so long we historically even just in my world, I have felt and I have seen that beauty is reserved for a feminine or female conversation and my heart was like wait a minute. This is for men too to behold the beauty of God.
Jessica Shakir:And in my work as a makeup artist for 25 years, being able to work with women and men all around the world three times, I'm sure my love for beauty transformed in the stillness of my studies and I shared with you a health journey. I went on a neck injury that really made me look at my life and actually forced me to find a new way to express my heart for God, and coaching and writing and preaching came up from that. And in that injury God shifted the trajectory of my life. And in the stillness of my studies on beauty, I was drawn to a question and definitely inspired by Jonathan Edwards, and this question kept coming to mind Can one truly study beauty without encountering the creator. And in answering, I found myself captivated by a much grander vision of beauty, and so I'm not doing makeup right now, but I do help men and women explore beauty with a capital B the living God.
Darrow Miller:Well, and beauty emanates from the creator. Yeah, that's where the original source of the concept of beauty came from. So you can't separate beauty from the creator, and we see that in his creation.
Scott Allen:Right, yeah, that helping people to pursue beauty, jessica, as you're doing, to go deeper into that, is a pursuit of God. I mean God's at the end of that journey, you know, because, like Daryl said, he's the source of it. And it's the same with truth. If you really are seeking what's true, at the end, you know, if you want to just cut through lies and seek what's true, at the end of that journey you're going to find Jesus himself and righteousness and goodness, goodness the same. But beauty, the pursuit of beauty, becomes so important then, isn't it?
Jessica Shakir:Right.
Scott Allen:Because it's the pursuit of God himself.
Jessica Shakir:Yeah, there's a gravitational pull that beauty has, and it's drawing us into itself, and so you all have had one of my mentors, dr Brian Chan, on the show, and I've learneda lot from him too, and so we've talked a lot about be careful, what you find beautiful I mean what you call beautiful will change you, because what you find beautiful will pull you in its direction, and so even a very welcoming evangelical question that wouldn't scare people off is a question around beauty. Could one study beauty apart from studying God?
Jessica Shakir:And like 19th century Jonathan Edwards would tell you theologian Jonathan Edwards. No, because to study one, darrow, to your point, is to study the other. To study one, dara, to your point, is to study the other. And so when you engage in conversations about beauty, every human longs for it. Every human can maybe describe what they find beautiful. They might not be able to describe what beauty is so clearly, but every human, we long for it. But every human, we long for it. So I have found that it's a really great place to begin when you want to bring people into the gospel conversation.
Darrow Miller:Well, I would say too, Jessica, that the average human being can be awed by beauty, and they may not be able to define it, but they'll see a sunset, or the birth of a baby, or, um, the beauty of a forest, and and they're just, oh my, that is beautiful. Yeah and uh, we're attracted to beautiful things.
Scott Allen:I think, if I could just add one thought, I just finished a book, jessica, I don't know if you are aware. It's about ten words that have been redefined in culture and the idea is to help Christians recover the biblical understanding of these powerful words. And one of the words I chose was beauty, because in the culture, beauty is completely subjective and relative, and I wanted to challenge Christians that it's not.
Scott Allen:There's an objective nature to beauty because it's sourced in God. And one of the things that hit me most powerfully as I was studying and kind of writing that chapter was, you know, the idea of kind of these three Greek words logos, ethos and pathos. Logos has to do with logic, reason, language, the reasoning part that we, you know of our minds, the reasoning part that we, you know of our minds and ethos has to do with ethics. And then pathos has to do with beauty, emotion, feelings, and God created us with all three of these capacities and speaks to us in all three ways. And you know, it's actually a a funny thing, I think, as I was writing on beauty, I'm using my logical brain and it's kind of hard, because beauty actually speaks to us in a different way. It speaks to us with a language kind of of its own that is kind of more rooted in feelings, emotions. It's actually hard to put it into words.
Scott Allen:Right feelings, emotions. It's actually hard to put it into words. I think the thing that brought this home to me most powerfully was when God communicated, when God revealed himself to Israel on Sinai. You know, you see all three of those things very clearly. You see Logos in the sense that he wrote down the commandments, you know, using words and language. That's the logos aspect. But it was about ethos. It was about you know what was good, what was righteous. And then the pathos, the emotions, the feelings came through the setting of smoke and fire and thunder, and you know just this awe.
Scott Allen:You know that people felt and this reverence and even fear, and all three of those were kind of really essential. And it gets to your point, jessica. You said you're talking with these men here about beauty. Usually it's women, and I think there's something. I hadn't thought about this but men tend to be kind of more logical, I think, and so we like to talk logical, theological stuff. Women are more in tune with the pathos, and I'm talking in very general and broad terms here, but I do think there's something to that.
Jessica Shakir:So what you said there. You know, it makes me think of the art of wonder, the art of marveling, and unfortunately it's kind of the lost art of wonder, even in the church. And I heard John Mark Comer quote somebody else, but within his conversation he said there's a delight deficiency in the church, and that broke my heart and for me I thought that that is what I hope to be, even just a small remedy to that problem.
Jessica Shakir:There's a delight deficiency in the church, what we, of all humans on this earth, should be the most delight filled people on earth.
Scott Allen:Why aren't we?
Jessica Shakir:And I think that there's a lot to it. But do we stop and spend time and allow ourselves to be captivated and astonished by the living God? Do we step outside and allow every sense that we have, every layer of our being, to be activated? Because in an attempt to behold the eternality of the living God, we have to not only use our brain, our body, our heart, our emotions, everything.
Scott Allen:Everything. That's the way he made us. That's right yeah.
Jessica Shakir:And when you engage beauty, yeah, you feel it, it changes you, it's healing.
Scott Allen:It's maybe hard to articulate it in the moment, but beauty is healing because it requires and it invites all of you, not just the logical part of you, but the emotional part of you yeah, yeah, my wife and I just watched, uh, the reopening of notre dame cathedral, which happened here, just about a week ago. Um, there was that horrible fire in 2019.
Scott Allen:It almost destroyed that magnificent cathedral at the center of Paris and it's been rebuilt and completely restored and this was kind of the opening ceremony and we were just stunned watching that, because the cathedral itself is just utterly magnificent and at one point in there they kind of revealed the organ, you know, this old ancient organ.
Scott Allen:They had to literally take every single pipe down and there was hundreds of pipes and kind of clean and restore them, you know, and then put them back together. And this was the first time they were going to play that organ since this restoration and everyone was just silent and waiting and then just this sound just filled this cathedral and, you know, everyone was just in awe, like whoa, you know, and I just thought this is so powerful, you know, and this is kind of what we're talking to, you know, just this recovery of something that's powerful, it's beautiful, it speaks to us in ways that kind of bypass we're talking to, you know, just this recovery of something that's powerful, it's beautiful, it speaks to us in ways that kind of bypass our logic and reason and just touch our heart. That's so good. Well, listen, hey, we want to do a Christmas roundtable here today. This was the idea, and so we've been kind of geeking out on beauty, and we'll do that for a long time if we don't get off of that. So not that we are going to get off of that, we're going to continue that, but we have an
Scott Allen:idea. Basically, we wanted to go around the horn here and hear from everyone share some thoughts on Christmas, and here's the basic rules of the roundtable. If I've got this right, luke set this up, I think Luke so. Correct me if I get this wrong roundtable. If I've got this right, luke set this up, I think Luke so. Correct me if I get this wrong. Yeah, the rules of the game are you're going to share about a favorite Christmas carol lyric. It doesn't have to be the entire lyric of the song, but a favorite Christmas carol lyric and why that's so special to you or why you think that's the best one, at least why it's so special to you.
Scott Allen:That's number one, and then number two. Maybe we'll go around twice, so the second time around, so the first time around, will be Christmas Carol Lyric and a little discussion of why that's important to you, why you think that's just so powerful. Second one is, as time allows, just some thoughts on Advent and particularly how it connects to the larger biblical story going all the way from creation to the return, the consummation.
Scott Allen:So, yeah, and I know, Jessica, that's something you're working on right now. You've got a book project in the works on that, so we're looking forward to hearing from you. So, any questions? Are we ready? Who wants to start? So?
Darrow Miller:any questions? Are we ready? Who wants to start? My favorite Christmas carol is Joy to the World, and I'll just read a few things and make a comment. Joy to the world, the Lord is come. It doesn't say has come, and that is very important because we think of has come, as historically in the past, and that is true. But Isaac Watts, who wrote this hymn, said is come. He came at a moment in history and he is still coming. Come on.
Darrow Miller:It's his, the word he gave to the disciples before his death. When they asked him how do you pray? He said pray thy kingdom, come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And so his intention is, with his death and resurrection, is to inaugurate a new era in history, the coming of the kingdom. And so the Lord is come.
Darrow Miller:The second stanza joy to the world. The Savior reigns. It's not just, he will reign in the future, when he comes back. A lot of Christians think that, well, he's in heaven, but he'll come back someday. No, the Savior reigns. And then the verse.
Darrow Miller:The stanza that I love the most is no more let sin and sorrow grow. Nor thorns infest the ground, nor thorns infest the ground. This is the reality, a common reality today, since the false sin and sorrows grow, but we're not to let that happen. Thorns infest the ground, but what are we supposed to do? We are to pull out the weeds and the thorns so that things will grow, and I would simply say that for me, this isn't simply a Christmas carol, it's more of a New Year's hymn, because this is the marching orders for Christ's people, and we have a task that's been given to us by Jesus in response to his death and resurrection, and that is to be moving the kingdom of God forward in this time.
Darrow Miller:And just the agricultural image of don't let thorns infest the ground, tend to the garden, make it flourish. So this is more of a New Year's hymn than a Christmas carol, and I'll just stop there. There's, I think at one point I did three or four or five sermons on this hymn years ago, so I'll stop there, but this is my favorite, and those are some of the reasons why.
Luke Allen:Yeah, that's just a small anecdote of Darrow's deep wisdom on this song. If you want to go into the episode page, I've included a bunch of blogs that he's written on this song. Specifically, At one point you did a nine-part series on your blog, Darrow Miller and Friends, about this song.
Jessica Shakir:Oh, I did, huh.
Luke Allen:If people want there's plenty of deep diving to go after this.
Jessica Shakir:I've learned so much from you, darrow, in this, and I love that distinction. Not the Lord has come, the Lord is the Lord has come. And if I may, I may be breaking the rules on the round table here, guys, but if I may, one of the lyrics from joy to the world that really tugs at my heart in a personal way is let every heart prepare him room and let heaven nature saying and I know you guys love to delve into that part heaven and nature saying and and uh, connected to Romans eight and such.
Jessica Shakir:But let every heart prepare him room. You know, we typically think of Bethlehem in that in that day as a quiet, tiny little town five miles or so away from Jerusalem. Nobody wants to just stop in Bethlehem, they all want to get to Jerusalem. But on that night, when the emperor demanded a census where then every person from King David's line had to go back to Bethlehem, bethlehem would have been really loud and really crowded that night and people would have been putting up pop-up tents or pop-up shops and, you know, people would have been making money, selling rooms. And so I think about, when I kind of read about the cultural aspect and the context of that night in Bethlehem, I think wait a minute, there were a lot of rooms there. They had room, they just gave it all away and they didn't save any for Jesus.
Jessica Shakir:And so I think about just you have room in your life, you have room in your day. Do you give it all away and fill it up with every other thing you know? And so I like, let every heart prepare him room and we think why wasn't there any room in Bethlehem? But really, why wasn't there any more room in Bethlehem? There was room. The rooms were just given away to everybody else but Jesus. And how often do I do that in my own life?
Darrow Miller:Well, and to follow up on that you talk about, let every heart prepare him room, and then heaven and nature sing, and this is what you were mentioning earlier in the podcast, jessica. The place for beauty. Yeah, and nature sings. Heaven and nature sing, and is there a place in our heart for their singing and the beauty that they are reflecting in their voices?
Jessica Shakir:amen, oh man, one more, one more thing about that, as I've been marveling and pondering on the connecting, the wonder of the beginning, of creation's beginning when the living God spoke the cosmos into existence, and then this beautiful holy night that we're talking about, when heaven came down, and I think about when was the last time that nature would have sang like that, and I think about how the song might have gone in the garden before the fall, and I just picture that being a bit similar to when the cosmic king came into our timeline and was birthed in a lowly, humble place, entrusted to the womb of a woman. You know, I just think about that song might have been reflected to the endemic song well, two responses to that.
Darrow Miller:We're having a, we're having, we're not having a round table here, guys, we got to get back to the round. We are having a seesaw here between jessica I'm
Scott Allen:good with it, I'm gonna dwight, we're bringing you in next. Get ready, you're on deck. On deck. No, no, no.
Darrow Miller:The first is when CS Lewis, in the Narnia Chronicles, presents the creation. How does creation come? Aslan sings, oh yeah, he sings the creation into existence. So it's not simply words that he's speaking, but Aslan is singing the words. There is music, there is beauty, there are lyrics, as God speaks creation into existence through music.
Darrow Miller:And the second thing, and this relates to what you just said, I'm reading Oz Guinness' book, a Civilization Moment, and he's talking about this moment in history, but this morning I was reflecting on that and the creation is a creation. That and the creation is a creation moment. And the birth of Christ is a civilizational moment. And God sung, spoke time and space into existence at creation, and then the God, who is outside of time and space, into existence at creation. And then the God who is outside of time and space was born into his creation, into time and space. And so you have the birth of the universe through God's singing, singing time and space into existence, and then he himself, at the advent, enters time and space, the very thing that he created. And there's just that wonderful connection that you're working on in your book, jessica, and I just you know, when you started saying that earlier and I was thinking about my reflection this morning and, yes, wow, we have a creation moment and then we have a civilizational moment.
Darrow Miller:That is one of the major turning points of all of human history the incarnation Wow.
Scott Allen:Wow, great thoughts guys. Yeah, let's hear from. Can I pick on Luke or Dwight? I'd like to hear from you guys on your lyrics. Go for it, luke.
Luke Allen:No, I want to hear from you actually, dwight, first, since I know we have the same song. I have a feeling we have the exact same lyric. Yeah, I mean.
Dwight Vogt:Jessica has the same one, so it's kind of a roundtable with three of us on the same pitch. You know, yeah, and my favorite song is O Holy Night, and it goes back to the beginning of our conversation, which is about beauty.
Dwight Vogt:For me, there is no other Christmas song that is as beautiful as that one and I can think of three, at least three times where I've heard it and and it's like any memory that's really emotional it comes rushing back in and I can hear that song and I can see that place and I can see the people around me and uh and and the other thing I think that's so wonderful about it is and this goes back to Notre Dame, Scott I was thinking there's something I'm not into.
Dwight Vogt:You know, beauty has to be about the picture of Jesus, or beauty has to be about a stained glass picture of Jesus as the Lamb. But there is something that when beauty is also connected to a symbol that reminds you of God and his goodness, it takes on a special power for me. I mean, a sunset is great, A beautiful ocean is another, but when I hear music that has words, yeah, there's something that's special when it reminds me. And that's what O Holy Night does. I love the words, Just my. And that's what O Holy Night does. I love the words, Just. My favorite lyric is probably O Holy Night. You know just the title of the song. And then, of course, the story of how it came into being is fascinating, because you wouldn't associate that wouldn't be the way I would have done it if I was God to create a really beautiful Christmas carol, but that's what he did. So anyway, there you go.
Jessica Shakir:That's my favorite too, oh really. Yep.
Scott Allen:Well, go ahead. Jessica, do you want to pick up?
Jessica Shakir:Yeah, Well, Luke, I'd like to hear what you have to say. Okay.
Luke Allen:I really do want to go last, because I don't want to steal it.
Dwight Vogt:You want the last word.
Luke Allen:That's it, I do, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jessica Shakir:Oh, my goodness.
Jessica Shakir:Well, I love them all, but historically, and it still moves me deeply, is the lyric long lay the world in sin and error, pining till he appeared and the soul felt its worth and then this line, this lyric carries the profound theology of redemption and restoration and it deeply aligns with my passion for helping others see and experience the transformative power of Jesus, and it paints a picture of humanity's despair without him, what we were before, trapped in sin and error, only to be met by this life altering, grace of God, through the birth of Christ, through the incarnation. And so I have, and I told you I'm writing and doing all this research connecting just the beauty of creation to the beauty of this moment, the incarnation when Christ was born. And so there are a couple layers to this lyric that I want to talk about. And one, the depth of longing, just like deep longing that we all have as humans and the world pining. It captures this collective groaning of humanity, and I love that you guys talk so much about Romans eight. You know even all of creation groans. And so we're, we're waiting and yearning and longing for something greater, for freedom, for restoration, for meaning, and I love it's a yearning that I see and a desire I have to point people in the direction of the beauty of God, to invite them to. This is what your soul is longing for, so that depth of longing in a human to belong, to feel loved, to feel known. Then this beautiful truth of the worth of our soul, the worth of the human soul. The moment Christ appeared, the soul felt its worth. That's how I imagine it. It speaks to our intrinsic value in God as imago Dei, as image bearers. The world's beauty, joy and freedom are fully realized only in the light of his love and his birth and his sacrifice. And the soul felt its worth. The soul.
Jessica Shakir:I don't have the notes in front of me, but Hebrew is nefesh right and Genesis is nephesh right, and in genesis nephesh. And I love connecting the dots real quick on on how my mind enters into a moment of just wonder, being in awe of the god of wonders. I think back to the creation moment, when the living god breathed his breath of life into the being, into Adam, and he became a living soul. And we know that something big was lost in the garden come Genesis 3. And Jesus came to redeem that, to bring us back into our intended goodness, our intended place of beauty, our intended place of communing with him and walking in the pool of the day.
Jessica Shakir:And so when I think of breath and Daryl, you talked about the word of God, not just the word, but the sound and the song of God, and I think of this reverberation and this frequency of his voice and the way I imagine it is that the sound of God's voice, and the way I imagine it is, that the sound of God's voice, that music was the launch for the cosmic ballet. I've grown up taking ballet. I've gotten back into ballet, guys, I feel so good.
Darrow Miller:Good for you, my first love.
Jessica Shakir:And you know ballet, the moves and having to keep track of everything. It can be so complicated, especially getting back into it, but when the music goes on, you feel it in your body. It isn't logic anymore, you feel it in your being. And I think when God spoke and the stars lined up, the cosmic ballet came into play. And it is still that ballet, the cosmic ballet that we see today. That was in the garden. So let me bring it back to the breath of God. The breath of God feeling the body, feeling Adam, making him a living being. And then you see the breath of the living God and that first breath of baby Jesus taking his like, ah, like his breath into the human story, the human existence. And that moment is why and how we can come back to this reality that my soul has great worth. I have been made in the image of a beautiful God, of a good God, of truth itself, and then for me that lyric also points to the power of the presence, the power of the presence of Jesus, the word made flesh and dwelt among us. This lyric it's until he appeared and the soul felt his worth. It restored humanity's relationship with God, emmanuel, god with us, and so I want to read from the word. I have John 1 opened up right now and I'd love to read for us.
Jessica Shakir:John 1, 1,. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God. He was with God in the beginning. All things were created through him and apart from him, not one thing was created. That had been created In him was life, and that life was the light of men. That light shines in the darkness, and yet the darkness did not overcome it.
Jessica Shakir:There is a man sent from God whose name was John, verse 7,. He came as a witness to testify about the light so that all might believe through him. Verse 8, he was not the light, but he came to testify about the light. The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was not the light, but he came to testify about the light. The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world and the world was created through him, and yet the world did not recognize him. And I'll jump to verse 14, one of my favorites. The word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observe his glory, the glory as the one and only son from the father full of grace and truth. And so that's the lyrical share until he appeared and everything changed.
Scott Allen:You know, I I was just quick thought there and I'll let you respond to this idea of the soul feeling its worth, jessica is really powerful, and what it brings to my mind is the fact that God himself I mean we know that human beings have great worth as image bearers of God, as creations of God. But there's something that goes even deeper at the incarnation at Christmas, because God himself becomes, he puts on human flesh, he doesn't separate himself from us but becomes one of us so intimately. And what does that do for us? It adds layer upon layer of value to what it means to be human that God himself would become a man. So yeah, the soul felt its worth is such a powerful thought. There Go ahead.
Scott Allen:Daryl yeah.
Darrow Miller:Listening to you, Jessica, let me give you a thought. That would be good for you to write a book on Christmas hymns.
Jessica Shakir:Oh, I love that idea.
Darrow Miller:Just thinking about your unpacking, what you just unpacked, and this connects to a reflection that I have at Christmas. You know, the image that we have as christians is of the manger scene, mary and joseph and the baby in the stable with the animals. That's been the the image and for a number of years I've. When I've gone to get christmas cards, I couldn't find any. What were the kind of Christmas cards that I grew up with? They're pictures of Santa Claus or the elves or sleighs or Grinch, and we've moved from the nativity scene to Santa Claus, st Nicholas and now to Grinch. And where are these old hymns? Marilyn, my wife keeps saying our kids don't know the old carols, our grandkids don't know the old carols, carols. Our grandkids don't know the old carols. And too often when we sing, even as Christians, we don't sing the old carols as much as we do more modern Christmas songs.
Darrow Miller:So there needs to be a restoration of the churches singing the old carols and a reflection, which you were just doing so beautifully, of the meaning of the carols and why these carols were written and how they need to be brought into the world again today and you could write a book like that, wow.
Dwight Vogt:Thank you for that encouragement.
Jessica Shakir:I'm going to take that and run with it. I'm like a human jukebox. I have a song going in my head at all times, so I'll be singing or whistling or dancing, and I love Christmas music and hymns, and my husband will tell you I start playing it all around August. So you're on to something here.
Darrow Miller:Well, they're beautiful and the story they're telling is so incredible.
Luke Allen:Yeah.
Darrow Miller:And Christmas has become, you know, a materialistic holiday anymore, and we need to restore the story of Christmas, and what better way to do it than through music.
Jessica Shakir:Yeah.
Dwight Vogt:I want to reflect on that as well. At Soul Felt it's Worth, and I think a couple of lines later it says A new and yonder breaks a new and glorious morn. And that takes me back to Isaac Watts and Joy to the World where something new is happening in the kingdom.
Dwight Vogt:There's a new reformation, transformation that's going to take place now in the world through the coming of Christ and his spirit to engage with us. But the first thing is a new the soul felt its worth. And so the first, the starting point, is the soul of the human being, and I personalize that and say my soul felt its worth. So many times I go, yeah, people are really valuable, everybody's an image bearer.
Dwight Vogt:But, like you guys have already alluded, I have to remind myself I am valuable I am an image bearer, my soul is immensely worthwhile and Dwight is going to be around for eternity. You know, god made Dwight, and so I personalize it very much. And it just it strikes me it reminds me too, dwight, of.
Scott Allen:You know we've studied Malcolm Muggeridge's interactions with Mother Teresa and there was that really famous interaction that he had with her when he went to Calcutta. Malcolm Muggeridge is a BBC journalist who became a Christian but before that was an atheist and a communist. And you know he went to observe the work of Mother Teresa in Calcutta and he was puzzled by how she took so much time and care with these dying, you know, hindu men and whatnot, on the side of the street, and what he saw when he looked at them was trash. You know what's the point? And he said it was one of these little parables of a worldview, like how the lens that you have on your eye, from your worldview, you see entirely differently. And she looked at that person and, in her own words, she saw Christ Jesus in his distressing disguise. You know this is so incredibly valuable. This dying Hindu man, you know, this is Jesus, the incarnation, the worth of that you know.
Jessica Shakir:So yeah, Dwight, I love how you make it personal and that speaks to embodiment. And I know, typically for me, growing up, I thought of embodiment as maybe a new age concept. But it's not. It's a creator, it's the living God, it's a human concept and when we embody truth, take it from head to heart. Now we're feeling it in our being and now we're contemplating the emotions connected with whoa. My soul felt its worth because of Jesus, because of what he did, because what was broken in the garden and sin that entered the garden and the curse that followed sin. Now you have this sacrificial lamb of God, god himself, the son of man, the triune God, coming to take that curse from me, to lift that off of me. I can. I can be me, I can be fully me.
Jessica Shakir:And there's a quote that comes to mind, and I believe it's in the book Jesus manifesto and it's this idea. I'll summarize the quote Um, the Christian life isn't about if you are in Christ, your life, the Christian life isn't about striving to become something you're not. It's about learning to be who you already are. And so just that restoration and making it personal. I like that.
Jessica Shakir:It was highlighted to me so I wanted to mention that I think when we take time to make it personal and to allow it to go from head to heart, then we're awakened. We're awakened in wonder. Now curiosity is taking over, you know, and then the mystery of God is an invitation where we lean into, not a sign of oh, I don't, I don't get this, I don't know, this is too big for me, and so I love that. I just wanted to point that out and encourage our listeners to this Advent season and Christmas. Make it personal. Take every lyric, take every scripture, take every moment of the beauty and the wonder of Christmas and contemplate it in a really personal way. That'll help grow our wonder.
Scott Allen:Luke, you're on, man, let's hear it. Last word on this one.
Dwight Vogt:I haven't gone, yet I'm going's hear it. Last word on this one. I haven't gone yet I'm gonna get the last word on this song. You have a new song, I hope.
Luke Allen:I can't follow up you guys. I shouldn't even try reading this song again this morning. A couple verses stood out to me. It's an interesting song it was written in. It was a french poem written in the 1800s, I think, like 1843, and then someone picked it up and turned it into a song and uh it was.
Luke Allen:It has a bit of an abolitionist tune to it, which makes sense in france, coming just after williamforce 1807, abolishing slavery in Britain. This is before the Civil War in the US. And there was, he added in a couple of verses of that, and the chain shall be broken, for the slave is our brother, which I thought was cool and just the way that you can bring about social and cultural change through music and through beauty. And this guy knew how to do that. But that's not exactly the verse that stood out to me. Dwight, you just alluded to it a second ago, um, but just following up upon uh, jessica's verse on where were you? Just got up here at the top till he appeared and the soul felt its worth. The next line to me really stood out a thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, and um that's.
Luke Allen:Christmas in a nutshell a thrill of hope. The weary world rejoices, and that's Christmas in a nutshell a thrill of hope. A weary world rejoices. And when I think about hope and Christ bringing hope, is he brought hope to us? Now we have a purpose, we have a mission, we've been saved and we can now share that hope with others. And I think Christmas is a great time to do that, but we can do that all year round.
Luke Allen:And that word to me reminded me of a podcast we did a couple months ago with a couple. Oh, what's their names? Jeremiah and Mona Ena. They're ballet instructors and we were talking about beauty with them and they were saying that when they watch ballet today, they can tell who Christians are. If the ballet that they're doing has hope in the message, if it conveys a meaning of hope through the ballet, then they know that those people are Christians.
Luke Allen:And that's a good way to differentiate true beauty from its counterfeits. In a way, you know there's a lot of beauty out there that doesn't point to true beauty from its counterfeits. In a way, you know there's a lot of beauty out there that doesn't point to true beauty, and I think one of the underlying necessities of true beauty, god's beauty is hope. So, through beauty and hope, we can share about the Christmas story and the Christmas message, and that message is about, uh, reclaiming a weary world in a way and we still live in a weary world, but because of christ, uh, we can do something about that, which is amazing and um, he's the turning point in history, and before him they were stuck in the law and they couldn't fulfill the law.
Luke Allen:So there was this uh, you know, we're trying, we're trying, trying. We can't do it. Christ comes soon, and then Christ comes and he makes it possible to live the life that he wants us to live, so the weary world can become less weary, which is amazing that we can be a part of that, all because of what Christ did for us. So that one line has a lot of meaning to me. Wow, what is that verse, guys? I was trying to find it a second ago. Um, when christ came so that we could colossians passage, I think so. Is it colossians?
Scott Allen:yeah, he has come to restore, all the restoring and the healing of all things through the cross of jesus.
Luke Allen:Yeah yeah, including a weary world and weary souls.
Jessica Shakir:Oh, I love that.
Luke Allen:All right, Dad, you're up.
Scott Allen:Yeah, just to go back to Darrell, because you know, darrell, you've had such influence on me and the song Joy to the World. The reason that I love it so much is because it really is an anthem to the ministry that I'm passionate about, that God's called me to the ministry of the Disciple Nations Alliance and, you know, if I had to choose one song, you know that would be the anthem of our ministry, it would be this song, and just because it speaks to it so clearly, and you know, I feel like if you had to ask what is the mission of the DNA, I would say it's really to help kind of shift the paradigm of the church. And the paradigm that we want to see shifted is a paradigm that says that Jesus came to save us personally, individually, bring us into the church, bring us into heaven, but this world is fallen, this world is destined for destruction, and we just need to keep our heads down, essentially, and wait until he comes back, and then he will be king, then he will be lord and rule over creation, then there will be, you know, this kind of joy in the world. I guess, right, and so that's this paradigm that I think in some ways defines way too much of the church all over the world today. It's a paradigm of disengagement of Jesus as king of the church or king of my life, but he's certainly not king of this world, he's not lord of this world.
Scott Allen:So the mission of the DNA is really to shift, to do what we can in God's strength to shift the paradigm. And when you look at the lyrics of Joy to the World, we're not trying to change the paradigm of the church to something new, we're trying to return it to something old. And this is what Watts you know he was speaking completely out of that paradigm at an earlier time. Right, as you said, darrow, he's speaking about Jesus is come. I mean there's a past, a present and a future reality. To all of that he is still coming. Just a couple of thoughts. You know the idea that tie into our mission. First of all, the kingship, the lordship of Jesus.
Scott Allen:This is a theme in this song and this is a theme to our ministry. Jesus is king, he's lord, and this is a theme to our ministry. Jesus is king, he's lord, not just when he comes back, he is right now. You know, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me this idea that, yes, this world has been broken, it's fallen, it's filled with sin and sorrow and it's affected the creation itself. But we're not just to be like, uncaring about that. We've been blessed. In order to reverse that right, to bring blessing to this world, right, you know, this is the Genesis, chapter 12. God raises up Abraham. I will bless you, you will be a blessing. That's our heritage. Abraham is our forefather, the father of Jesus Christ. You will be a blessing and all the world will be blessed through you.
Scott Allen:And so we're here in this world not to just wait until Jesus comes back, but to be a blessing, to make his blessing flow. So you know, as far as the curse is found, yeah, of course that won't be completed until Jesus returns, but our job now is to make his blessings flow. And then, you know, he uses the word nations right. He makes the nations prove the glories of his love and righteousness and just this idea that we're here to be a blessing to our nations, the nations are to be affected, to be impacted. So you know again, there's so much about this that of course I love. I think it is the anthem of the Disciple Nations Alliance. I think it really speaks to the heart, is the anthem of the Disciple Nations Alliance. I think it really speaks to the heart of the mission of the church that we want to see kind of the church return to that older paradigm of its understanding of its purpose, its mission, god's mission in this world.
Luke Allen:So those are you know?
Scott Allen:all reasons, I so I guess. One last thought is that you know it speaks, that you know this is about joy. Joy to the world, joy, the wonders of his love. Those two words, love and joy, are very closely connected, and this is something again I realized as I was writing my book recently. We love the things that bring us joy, and love itself brings joy. To be loved is to experience great joy. There is no greater joy.
Scott Allen:And you know, this is actually how I've been thinking a lot, jessica, about how we as Christians change the world. How do we bring transformation to the world? And I've been thinking about it kind of in a negative way in terms of how we don't. We don't do it in this worldly way that we're seeing around us today, kind of power tactics, fear, censorship, coercion. We're going to kind of force our way into this world and make people bow their knees before us and force them. That's a satanic way, okay, and we see that around us, right, you know, in this fallen world, you definitely see that. But that's not the way we change the world. We change the world through love, through joy. You know, it's a much deeper change. It changes people. You're changed deeply by the experience of love and joy and hope. You're not forced or compelled to it, you're doing it willingly and just to me, there's such incredible power in that we change the world through love, grace, joy. These kinds of things that this song speaks to, these kinds of things that this song speaks to.
Darrow Miller:Let me connect back, scott, to let the nations prove. Yeah, because we're talking about nations. The commission given to Abraham was to bless nations. The commission given to the church was to disciple nations. And when nations are blessed and discipled, they prove something about who God is and what he desires for the nations. And you know we've had a number of discussions in the last few months about those people that call themselves the cultural Christians, those folks who are writing about the importance of God's Word for building nations. And I think of Peterson going to the Museum of the Bible and coming out from that and saying the Bible isn't merely true, it's the very foundation for all of truth, the concept of truth. And you have these people who are not Christians or not Christians yet, but they've discovered, they love Western values and they're realizing that these came from someplace. They came from the Bible, from God's Word. And when you take God's Word and you apply the things that are there, nations prove something.
Scott Allen:Yes, prove something.
Darrow Miller:And we're at that moment of the civilizational moment, as Oz talks about it, where it's time for the nations to prove again the glories of his love by applying those things that are true, good and beautiful from the Word of God.
Scott Allen:Yeah, how do the nations prove, darrow, the glories of his love and, you know, of his righteousness? And I think they prove it through the fruit that is born in nations. Things like the rule of law. You know true justice, the dignity of every human being Treating people with dignity and respect, from the moment of conception all the way up to natural death. You know, creating beauty, Things like the cathedral at Notre Dame which is beautiful landscapes, beautiful farm fields and you know taking care of the creation so that it flourishes.
Scott Allen:That's how you know we prove right in the nations. This proof, there's proof, and this is what we're supposed to be about. And this kind of disengaged, disattached idea that Christians have from this world, from the nations of this world, it's so wrong. So again, I'm going to get on my soapbox. That's why we're the DNA.
Jessica Shakir:We've got to change the paradigm, yeah amen, and I love how you speak to the culture of heaven as well. That was one thing that when I first found y'all on Instagram, I thought, oh my gosh, they're having conversations that I'm thinking about, that I don't actually hear very many people talking about, and you all have said and, daryl, it might've been from your book as well, but I've learned so much from all of you. And, just like art, the living God is trying in nature. The culture of heaven is trying the nature to goodness, truth and beauty, and so the world often will be evangelized by beauty before they ever hear about the birth of Jesus. The world may often be changed and wooed by joy before they ever read the Bible. And so we are to bring the culture of heaven wherever we go, and bring true goodness and beauty into conversations, into board meetings, into Zoom rooms, into industries, into family parties, everywhere we go. And that is part of what it means to be an influence to the world, and I think I was thinking about that too.
Jessica Shakir:As many Christians, we aim to be influential in this world, and what are we influencing the world toward? What are we leading them toward? And so the only way that we can effectively do that is, if we remain under the influence of heaven. And so I started to think are Christians more intimately aware of the culture and the ethics of heaven or of this world? And I just think that we don't give ourselves time enough to really ponder and enjoy and meditate on the glory of God through his word, through his creation, through his image bearers. We don't stop long enough to rest long enough to delight, deep enough to contemplate well enough, and no wonder there's a delight deficiency in the church.
Jessica Shakir:But just kind of going back to this idea, and I loved this layer of truth that y'all teach on what does the culture of the kingdom of heaven feel like? We get to bring that, you know. And so thank you all, thank you for having me again. I love chatting with you about the Lord, about his word, about theology. We could probably go for hours. I'm down if you want to, but thank you.
Scott Allen:We probably do need to wrap this up, jessica, but we so appreciate the depth of insight that you bring to this. It's refreshing to us just listening to you today. I'm just man, I'm just refreshed all over again and, yeah, I have so much learning to do in this area that you're an expert in which is beauty. I'm a late comer to that game but, boy, I see the importance of it so much. Well, we were going to go around again, luke. I don't know is if I think we pretty much exhausted it with the first go roundround of our roundtable here. Can?
Jessica Shakir:we do a speed round.
Luke Allen:Yeah, I would like to hear the quick book pitch or idea you have. Jessica, we'll have to have you on again if you publish it, when you publish it, to tell us about it. But it's a fitting time of year to hear this idea, so would you mind telling us a little bit more about that?
Jessica Shakir:Yeah. So in my journey of writing and researching and study and I could just spend hours in all of that I am I've embarked on this journey of writing a book on exploring biblical beauty through the theological masterpiece that is Genesis 1, 2, and 3. And all 50 chapters of Genesis I'm in love with and there's so much we can learn from. And as a Christian growing up in the church, all my life traveling the world, going to various churches, I always wondered why don't people spend more time studying Genesis and the original design of our Lord? I'm studying Genesis and the original design of our Lord and so in that pursuit of writing a book on theological aesthetics where beauty meets the divine, and partnered with my love for Advent, for Christmas and for celebrating the birth of Jesus all year long, I realized you know what? I have an Advent book in me, and so I started just researching and writing and having so much fun connecting the wonders of creation's beginning and Christ's arrival at the birth of Christ, and we're preparing our hearts that he's coming again. And so there's another Advent, there's another arrival yet to happen. And as I began to do that, connecting the dots and researching even from dust from dust we're born to dust. We'll return that man was sculpted from a mound of dust, dirt speaking to a lowly, humble creature, dirt speaking to a lowly humble creature. And God breathed his breath of life and the man became a living being. To the dust of.
Jessica Shakir:Whether Jesus was born in a manger, in a cave and wherever it might be I know there's some different thoughts on that when we were in Bethlehem, our tour guide was brilliant and she showed us a couple different places where the birth could have happened. And so then there's the dust signifying the lowly birth of Jesus, this cosmic king. Why didn't he have a royal birth? There's a reason for that. And gosh going from water water, god parted, separated the waters in the beginning to make way for life. And when we think about the birth, when a woman gives birth, there's also a microcosm of that miracle, a creation miracle, that the waters part in the body of a woman to make way for life again.
Jessica Shakir:You know, there's just so many connection points that all point to awakening on wonder for God, awakening on wonder for his story, theology, this story that I'm actually now a part of. Oh, my goodness. And what to go back? I'm making it personal and so, as I've been writing on connecting the dots between creation's beginning and the incarnation Christ's arrival at his birth. I'm just wowed by how many layers there are, including the stars that we talked about. Darrow, the cosmic ballet that came into place with the sound of God's voice, and that star God used to capture the attention of the Magi who came from the East and took a couple of years to get to baby Jesus, and just how God's creation is also worshiping the Lord. The lyric oh, holy night, the stars are brightly shining.
Jessica Shakir:I mean it connects a day for when God created the luminaries and the birth of Jesus, and so I can go on and on, but I believe my goal for the Advent book would be to awaken awe and wonder and for us to behold the ravishing reality of Jesus, the marvelous story of God that we are now a part of, and live it and have that change the way we love, have that change the way we work, have that change the way we lead, have that change the way we talk and be with our family on holiday parties, just really live out theology well, and a big goal is to awaken the delight that is our birthright.
Jessica Shakir:You know, I think we've talked about this before, but in the Hebrew the word Eden means delight and it means luxury and pleasure, and so when we think about the Garden of Eden, it's the Garden of Delight, and in the Hebrew, when we break down the word garden, it means enclosure, and the root word of garden in the Hebrew means to defend, to surround, to protect. And so when we think about the original sacred place that God created for us, as image bearers, to dwell, it is a place where we are surrounded by his delight, protected by his luxury. He's the king, king, and it's where we belong. And because of what Jesus did, and because of that, oh holy night, we're invited back into that place of delight.
Scott Allen:Oh, wow, I can't wait to read your book. When do you anticipate that to be finished or coming out?
Jessica Shakir:You know the goal, hey, and this will be good accountability here, I'm sharing it with y'all, but the goal is to have the Advent book ready for before next fall so that I can share it with next Christmas. There you go.
Scott Allen:Christmas present for next year. It's already. You've got it already figured out, Isn't that nice? That's going to be awesome. We will definitely do our part, Jessica, to help get word out. So I'm sure our listeners would all love to be taking advantage of your insights, your profound insights. Well, thank you.
Scott Allen:That you're just sharing here a little bit with us. Thank you, that is Well, guys. I want to wish you all a very merry and a blessed Christmas. We live in the midst of such a profound and beautiful story, and this is the very center of the story. It's an amazing, amazing time, isn't it? So experience, enjoy the wonder of it, the mystery of it, and I wish that for all who are listening to this podcast today. So thank you. Thanks for listening to another episode of Ideas have Consequences, the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance.
Luke Allen:Thank you so much for listening to this discussion with Jessica Shakir, as always.
Luke Allen:To learn more about our honored guests, to find all of the resources that we mentioned during the discussion and more, please visit the episode page, which is linked in the show notes. If you've listened to this show for any amount of time, you'll know that Ideas have Consequences is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance and, as a nonprofit ministry, we are blessed to be able to provide all of our biblical worldview courses and this podcast to you completely for free, thanks to our generous supporters. If this podcast has been a blessing to you, we would greatly appreciate it if you would subscribe on Apple Podcasts, spotify or wherever you're listening, and also share your favorite episode with a friend and, as you are able during this season of giving, we would also hope that you would consider supporting this podcast with a donation to the Disciple Nations Alliance. To donate, visit disciplenationsorg and on the homepage, look for the blue button that says donate. Thanks again for joining us today. Merry Christmas, and we hope that you can join us next year here on Ideas have Consequences. You.
