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
God’s Plan to Transform the World and How You Fit In
Episode Summary:
Here’s the full video: God’s Plan to Transform the World and How You Fit In
As followers of Jesus, what is our mission until He returns? As many see signs of revival in America, we’re exploring this central question. Personal salvation is foundational, but it’s not job done—it’s job begun.
In this episode, Scott, Tim, and Luke break down one of the Disciple Nations Alliance’s core training videos, God’s Plan to Transform the World and How You Fit In, showing how the tension between the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness impacts every part of life. Once we are saved, what comes next? We stand firm against evil, lies, and ugliness, and cultivate God’s truth, goodness, and beauty in our lives, our homes, communities, and nations.
This episode offers a compelling perspective on the Christian mission. Our faith isn’t just about personal salvation, but about working in God’s strength to bring healing and hope to a broken world.
Who is Disciple Nations Alliance (DNA)? Since 1997, DNA’s mission has been to equip followers of Jesus around the globe with a biblical worldview, empowering them to build flourishing families, communities, and nations. 👉 https://disciplenations.org/
📌 Recommended Links
👉 The Video: https://youtu.be/_CiYeCjUoYA?si=m6NeEzX0SWoDu7HB
👉 Biblical worldview Course: Kingdomizer 101: Truth and Transformation
👉 New documentary: Truth Rising
💻 Follow Us:
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📸Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/disciplenations
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📩 Ask us anything: info@disciplenations.org
It's. The central mission of the DNA is to remind the church that this is what it means now to walk as a child of God. You know, now that you're redeemed, this is what's next. You put on that uniform of God's kingdom and he sends you out with missions to do. I just heard recently in the United States the Evangelical Church in the United States, one of the largest groups, but it has some of the least amount of influence on shaping the culture. Why? Well, we don't understand our mission.
Luke Allen:There's a lot of Christians in the world right now, like the missions movement of the 1800s 1900s. There's a lot of Christians in the world percentage-wise, but the impact he didn't create us to be, you know, wallpaper.
Scott Allen:He created us to be vice regents, right. He gave us rule in this kingdom, right, and so get to work.
Luke Allen:Hi friends, welcome back to Ideas have Consequences. This is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. Thank you so much to each and every one of you guys for joining us today. We are so thankful for all of you guys and the time and attention that you put into listening to this podcast, whether that's every episode or jumping around to topics that sound interesting. We're just so thankful for each and every one of you guys for spending your time with us.
Luke Allen:As you all know, our mission here on the podcast is to tell Christians that our mission is to spread the gospel around the world to all the nations, amen. However, our mission also involves working together to transform cultures so that they increasingly reflect the truth, the goodness and the beauty of God's kingdom. Tragically, the church has largely neglected this second part of her mission, and today many 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. Hi guys, my name is Luke Allen. I am the acting host today here on Ideas have Consequences, and I am joined by my two co-hosts today, my dad, scott Allen, hey Dad, hi, hey, good to have you, and Tim Williams is also joining as a co-host today. How's it going, tim?
Tim Williams:Good, great to be here.
Luke Allen:Glad to have you Today's episode I'm really excited for. I'm always excited for episodes. This is one of my favorite things we do all week. But today's episode we are going to be doing a reaction to a video that was put out by an organization called the Disciple Nations Alliance. Big fan of the organization, I highly recommend checking them out.
Scott Allen:Such a great organization.
Luke Allen:Yeah, isn't it a good organization.
Scott Allen:They have such great videos.
Luke Allen:Anyways, we're joking, but yeah, we put out this video last year. It is currently called the Transforming Story. It is a short animated training video that really gets at the core of our mission here at the Disciple Nations Alliance and what we believe is the core of the mission for all Christians throughout all of time. Unfortunately, youtube has buried this video, so it's very hard to find currently on YouTube and we've noticed the numbers significantly drop off in the last few months. We're not exactly sure why that has happened. I never received any notifications telling us what was going on with this, but we're hoping to relaunch this video by the time this episode comes out. It will be relaunched. However, we're going to have to put a new title on it, update the description, so on and so forth. So if you want to find the video we don't currently know what the new title is. We're hoping that this discussion will help us find a good title for it, but it will be very easy for you guys to find. The best ways to find it are just click the link in the description that says watch the video. You can also head over to our YouTube. We'll make sure that is pinned on our channel the first video that you'll see. You can also find it pinned in our Instagram and Facebook, so we just want to make sure that it's very easy for all you guys to find. And, uh, as always with youtube videos, it really helps if you guys engage with it, like share, so on and so forth. That helps us spread the message. Um, but as such, it's currently up on youtube.
Luke Allen:We haven't relaunched it yet so we're going to be watching the video today in its entirety and then we're going to be breaking it down. We're going to break it down into about eight different segments, uh, and discussing those here on podcast. It's a dense video. It's meant to be a training video that's meant to be digested in portions. It's just a lot of content. It's a great video. It's beautifully animated by our good friend Samuel Felix, but, I will admit, it's a little bit dense. So, hopefully, this discussion of breaking it down will be helpful for all of you guys. So, without further ado, let's just hop into the video, let's watch the whole thing, and then we'll be breaking it down from there.
Video:The gospel is not about how to escape the world. The Gospel is that the crucified and risen Jesus is the Lord of the world and that his death and resurrection transform the world, and that transformation can happen to you. You in turn can be part of the transforming work. Nt Wright World War I was called the war to end all wars. Then came the Second World War, followed by the Cold War, followed by hopeful assurances that lasting peace were around the corner. Yet, no matter what we say or do, brutal outbreaks of conflict and slaughter intrude on our hopeful fairy tales of lasting peace. Anyone who follows the news can see we live in a world of conflict Between light and dark, good and evil, truth and lies, freedom and tyranny, life and death. Behind these opposites are two realms or two kingdoms perpetually at war. One is the kingdom of God, the kingdom of light, where Jesus Christ reigns. The other is the kingdom of darkness, ruled by Satan and his demonic forces. The other is the kingdom of darkness, ruled by Satan and his demonic forces. As Billy Graham said, god's forces of good and Satan's forces of evil have been engaged in a deadly conflict from the dawn of our history, unless world leaders and statesmen understand the true nature of this warfare. They will continue to be blind leaders of the blind. The kingdom of God is centered around the love and worship of God and humble obedience to his ways. Satan's counterfeit kingdom is defined by a prideful rebellion against God. This idolatry is organized in a myriad of ideologies. Our very lives and our cultures are caught up in this great conflict. We experience it daily, not only in the world around us, but also raging inside of us and in our closest relationships.
Video:We are introduced to the true king and his kingdom in the first two chapters of Genesis. Out of darkness and chaos, the king creates the realm of light, life, order, beauty, diversity and abundance, declaring it all to be good. His magnificent creation culminates with the formation of human beings, male and female, made uniquely in his image and likeness. He gave them a distinctive task to rule over and care for creation as his vice regents, to cultivate it. In short, to create cultures that reflect the truth, goodness and beauty of the king. We are first introduced to the usurper and his rebellious kingdom in Genesis 3. This father of lies, as he is sometimes called, appears in the form of a mysterious serpent who deceived our first ancestors, tempting them to rebel against the true king and grasp power for themselves. In foolishly grasping for selfish autonomy, they succumb to the dominion of darkness and reap guilt, fear, shame, alienation, conflict, murder, destruction and death. They remain vice regents, but now their offspring exercise their authority selfishly, in pursuit of glory and power. Instead of protecting creation, they pollute and abuse it for selfish gain. But instead of abandoning his rebellious vice regents to their horrible fate, the true king reaches out to them, offering undeserved mercy. He embarks on a rescue mission, pursuing reconciliation, restoration and forgiveness.
Video:The great turning point in this war of the ages came some 2,000 years ago, when the true king himself entered into creation in human form, as a humble servant. In Jesus, we see what it means to be truly human and to worship God in perfect obedience. Jesus came to show us what life in the true kingdom looks like. He came to show us that true authority is marked by love and sacrificial service. He came to make a way for us to enter his kingdom. He took our disobedience upon himself and paid the penalty we deserved, dying on our behalf on a Roman cross. His broken body was laid in a tomb. Jesus came to defeat the ruler of this dark world, disarming the counterfeit king of his most potent weapon, the fear of death. In accepting this unspeakable gift of forgiveness, we are welcomed back into his kingdom and adopted children of the king.
Video:Those of us who have entered God's kingdom and surrendered our lives in service to the true king are sent into battle against the kingdom of darkness, with missions to accomplish. We're not going into hiding, passively waiting for the return of the king. We are to enter into the darkness just as our king did. Our mission is to fearlessly advance God's kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, to overcome evil with good, hatred with love and lies with truth. We are to herald the good news to everyone.
Video:We are to fulfill our task as vice regents, as God originally intended, by creating cultures that honor and reflect the character of the risen King. We are to make disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey everything that our King has taught. So the cultures of the nations increasingly reflect the culture of God's kingdom. Our king is with us in battle. He fills us with his spirit, leading us deeper into the ways of the kingdom of light. We wait his certain return, knowing that when he comes he will bring the war to an end in his own time and on his own terms. Until then, we work in his strength, we fight with his weapons, we do it all for his honor and glory Thou to the rightful king.
Luke Allen:All right, there it is, guys. I am very sorry right now that this is an audio-only podcast, because I wish you guys could have watched that with us. But again, just hop down to the link in the description and you can go watch it for yourself on YouTube. Dad, just before we hop into breaking this video down, you're the one that wrote the script for this video. What was your hope? That people would? You know the benefit that you were hoping people would take away from this video back when you wrote this script?
Scott Allen:Yeah, I think that kind of the purpose of this video, luke, is that it's to address the problem that we often have in the church where people, christians they see their faith, christianity, as a message of salvation, personal message of salvation, which, as this video indicates, it is. But what they don't see is that it's part of a larger story, a story that makes sense, going all the way back, from the beginning, all the way until the end. And it's that larger story that we're trying to kind of break down in a very simple way in this video. It puts the gospel in the context of its true story. In other words, as Christians, we have to understand the Bible as a worldview, as a story, as a transforming story, and that's the story that makes sense of our lives. So it's more than just a message of personal salvation. How to escape this world, how to get to heaven after I die, I mean again, that's the central chapter of the story. But what we've got to recover is all of the story not just the central chapter.
Scott Allen:So that's what we're trying to do here.
Luke Allen:Yep, and knowing that people learn both in an audio way, a visual way, and so on and so forth, we wanted to just put this in an animated format because it really is a good way to encapsulate ideas in a way that engages your eyes and your mind and your ears all at the same time. So I highly recommend that you guys go check out this video. The animator that made this again, our friend samuel felix, put a lot of thought and prayer into this video. Um, so, again, highly recommend checking it out. Yeah, all right, let's, let's jump back into the video here the gospel is not about how to escape the world.
Video:The gospel is that the crucified and risen jesus is the lord of the and that his death and resurrection transform the world, and that transformation can happen to you. You, in turn, can be part of the transforming work. Nt Wright.
Luke Allen:All right, let's stop it right there. Dad, why did we start out this video with that quote? What about this quote? Do you think a lot of Christians are missing? And therefore we thought that we should kind of lay the premise with that NT Wright quote.
Scott Allen:Well, first of all, I know NT Wright in certain circles can be a bit controversial and I recognize that, acknowledge that. At the same time I think he's saying something really profound and true here, Truth to truth.
Scott Allen:Yeah, I think that the reason that this quote is so powerful is that it challenges one of the kind of the key distortions that I think exist in the evangelical church that prevent us from having the kind of impact that God wants us to have in society, and that is that, you know, this kind of narrow gospel idea that God saves us to get into the church and into heaven, but disengaged from the world, and that the kingdom of God is only something that's external to this world or, after Jesus comes back, it has no relevance to the here and now, and so he's challenging that, you know, in a very direct way, I think in a very clear way, with this quote.
Scott Allen:You know, he reminds us that, you know, jesus isn't just Lord of the church but he's Lord of the world, and that he came to transform not just our hearts but the whole world, and that he invites us into that, to be a part of that work of transformation. And that starts in our own hearts through salvation and you know, the work of the Holy Spirit, of regeneration, but then it's meant to go out from us into the world to bring change to the world, and so it's very core to the ministry of the DNA and I just I've always appreciated that quote for that reason.
Luke Allen:Yeah, yeah, it's a great quote and I love that.
Luke Allen:It just really lays out our mission is to transform this world, and it just brings to mind verse we say all the time, colossians 120 uh, where it says in god through him, jesus uh was sent to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood on the cross is it's a plan of reconciliation that started on the cross and is moving out there, outwards from there, and we're a part of that, as we say every week at the beginning of this podcast. Right, our mission is also to work to transform culture to increasingly reflect the truth, goodness and beauty of God's kingdom. So great place to start the video. Let's uh, let's jump back into it.
Video:World War. I was called the war to end all wars. Then came the Second World War, followed by the Cold War, followed by hopeful assurances that lasting peace were around the corner. Yet, no matter what we say or do, brutal outbreaks of conflict and slaughter intrude on our hopeful fairy tales of lasting peace. Anyone who follows the news can see. We live in a world of conflict between light and dark, good and evil, truth and lies, freedom and tyranny, life and death. Behind these opposites are two realms or two kingdoms, perpetually at war. One is the kingdom of God, the kingdom of light, where Jesus Christ reigns. The other is the kingdom of darkness, ruled by Satan and his demonic forces.
Luke Allen:All right, let's unpack this section right here. I think this is a very clear section, but I will say that, as we all are, we're affected by the worldviews that are around us. I know for myself, as an American, I'm heavily affected by materialistic worldviews, by atheistic, naturalistic worldviews, worldviews, essentially, that like to dismiss, ignore the spiritual forces that are at work in this world. So, as such, it's easy for Americans to have blinders to that. And yet there are two kingdoms, a kingdom of darkness and a kingdom of light that manifests themselves, as you're seeing here in our world, in real ways. Where we started this clip was, you know, world War I, world War II, cold War, so on and so forth. This world has conflict and beneath that conflict is a spiritual war that's taking place. Just to make this, you know, bring it close to home, just in the last few weeks I think, we've seen this war in our own country in very obvious ways. How, in the last few weeks, let's say, just to put some real cultural context on this, have you seen these two kingdoms clashing?
Scott Allen:Yeah, I think the way that I wanted to get into this was just these binaries and there's many more. You know the binaries between truth and lies, between light and dark, between life and death, or violence and love, you name it. I mean, we all know these things, we struggle with these things internally and we see them in the world around us and I wanted people to kind of say that, hey, behind these things that we all know and recognize and struggle with, there is this spiritual war that's going on. There's two realms, there's two kingdoms, and that is the truth, that's just the biblical truth of things. And, yeah, so, of course, you know, we are in the week where Charlie Kirk—we're one week today from when Charlie Kirk was assassinated.
Scott Allen:I think for me, the reminder of the darkness was obvious on that day, but even almost more so in the days that followed, with just the callousness that we are seeing on online.
Scott Allen:And you know, even amongst family members, people that we wouldn't necessarily expect, who are so free and open and just going wonderful, I'm so glad he died, he was so terrible. We should kill more people like that. And I thought, oh, that's really dark, you know. And I thought, oh, that's really dark, you know, and I thought and I didn't realize there was just such a large kind of group of my fellow Americans who would come right out and not just think the thought that's bad enough, but but go to the you know bother of posting it online, you know, and sharing it with lots of people I'm like what in the world? But of course, behind that is exactly what we see. You know, this is, this is a battle of light and dark, you know, and um, you know it, it, it affects us every day, all the time, and it's as it has from the beginning of of time and uh, so yeah, I think, I think.
Luke Allen:for a lot of people, though, it just feels really real right now.
Video:Yeah, absolutely.
Luke Allen:This is dark, you know, and it feels spiritually dark in a way that a lot of us aren't really comfortable with thinking about.
Scott Allen:Yeah, no, I 100% agree with that, luke. I think we're at a time where people are looking at the evil and they're going gosh. There's something beyond kind of human choice and decision in this. Even non-Christians are saying that they're feeling the spiritual element to it, and you hear them say things like this is demonic. And so you're hearing that more and more, which is, I think, a realization. That kind of beneath the materialistic lenses that we have in the West, is this acknowledgement and this awareness somehow deep inside of us that there is a spiritual war going on between light and dark, and good and evil. And it's the encouraging thing is it's causing a lot of people to go. I don't you know that darkness is so repelling to me. I want to. I want to escape that, I want to flee from that.
Scott Allen:Tell me more about the kingdom of light yeah and uh wow, this is so, so that's super exciting, you know yeah, what is that it's?
Luke Allen:it's like an apologetic uh, where you see evil and where you see demons, that you have to admit that there's probably an opposite. So when people see that, they say, wait a minute, if, if there's real evil, then there must be real good, and then you're gonna flip it on its head and lead you to Jesus, which is a sad way of getting to Jesus, but a real way in our fallen world.
Scott Allen:I think another thing, luke, if I could just jump in on this. You know, you look at the events and the response to the events of, like, the murder, the assassination, cold-blooded assassination of Charlie Kirk and the response to it, and you go. I always think it's helpful to go. What if everyone in the world acted like that, spoke like that, picked up guns, murdered their enemies, rejoiced over the murder of their enemies? What if everyone did that? What kind of world would it be? And you know, I think if you're honest, you would say you wouldn't have a world at all. Everyone would just murder each other. It would be just utter destruction. And of course Satan that's what he wants steal, kill, destroy. But what if people were acting in a way that showed love to each other, didn't kill, didn't murder, you know, looked out for the well-being of each other? What kind of world would that be? And then the question just is what kind of world do you want to live in? What kind of world do you want to be a part of building? You know, so Yep.
Luke Allen:Let's move on on that note.
Video:As Billy Graham said, God's forces of good and Satan's forces of evil have been engaged in a deadly conflict from the dawn of our history. Unless world leaders and statesmen understand the true nature of this warfare, they will continue to be blind leaders of the blind. The kingdom of God is centered around the love and worship of God and humble obedience to his ways. Satan's counterfeit kingdom is defined by a prideful rebellion against God. This idolatry is organized in a myriad of ideologies. Our very lives and our cultures are caught up in this great conflict. We experience it daily, not only in the world around us, but also raging inside of us and in our closest relationships.
Luke Allen:All right, yeah, any reflections to that segment?
Scott Allen:I definitely have some, but I'd like to hear from you guys well, I think that one of the profound things that's being said here is that, um, you know, this battle between light and dark, good and evil, um, it's, you know. We see it out in society and in the world around us, but we also see it inside of us and you know it brings to mind the famous quote from Alexander Solzhenitsyn that the line between good and evil, you know, runs through every human heart. So this is a battle inside of us, in our closest relationships, right, you know? So it's, you know it's right there in our homes, our families, our friends, our churches, and it's also in the world around us.
Luke Allen:So, yeah, I mean with that in mind. I see I wonder if you guys have wrestled with this. I see kind of two wrong responses that I have sometimes. One response is to ignore that fact that the line of good and evil run between my heart and I think, oh, I'm a Christian, I know God's law, I know you know right and wrong he's revealed to me, you know what sin is and so forth.
Luke Allen:So it's easy to kind of play that moral superior like, oh, look at all the evil out there, you know, look at all that wrong, you know all that wrong out there, and you come at it from this like real place of, like superiority and condemnation of pride, right, uh, that's a wrong view when it comes to looking at this, this. But I I think the other wrong view which is probably more right but also is is is recognizing the evil in you so much that you don't feel like there's anything you can really do. Because who am I to call other people sin out if I'm a sinner myself? Right, like you know, it can cause me to feel like I shouldn't even say anything because I'm just so messed up and dark myself. And yet that's obviously not what us Christians are called to do, we're called to engage in this world, but it feels prideful in a way, sometimes Like should I really be the one calling out evil Because I'm so evil myself?
Scott Allen:Have you guys wrestled with that? You know, for me, luke, the antidote to that is just the realization, the constant realization that the evil that exists in my heart isn't something that I fixed on my own.
Scott Allen:you know the evil that exists in my heart isn't something that I fixed on my own, you know I didn't. You know I didn't see it and turn away from it and, you know, kind of abolish and, you know, eradicate all evil in my life or in my heart. You know, you know that's something that Christ offers freely on the cross. I'm just a recipient of that gift that. He was the one who forgave me, took my evil, my sins upon himself, paid the penalty for them on the cross and then granted me standing before him in his kingdom as a forgiven person, and then calls me to live in that light, you know. And so it continues to be a battle, battle, but it's filled us with his holy spirit, given us a heart to do what's right, to move in the direction of the light. So, again, just the fact that this isn't something that we do, but it's something, as we're going to see later in the video, that god does because of his love for us. You know it gives.
Scott Allen:There's that passage in the scripture. I'm going to just paraphrase because I don't remember it exactly. But Paul is calling out all the wickedness and the evil and then he says and remember, such were some as you. It's that, and you were there too. But you've been washed, you've been cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ. You know, you're no better. In other words, is what Paul's saying you're just the same, you've just been washed and cleansed. So that to me is a bit of an antidote maybe, to that kind of yeah, that's super helpful.
Luke Allen:Yeah, yeah, tim. Any thoughts here before we move on?
Tim Williams:You know, I think one thing that stands out to me here is as we think about culture. Culture came up in this. You know, our very lives and our cultures are caught up in this great conflict. I think that there's been a temptation of the church, you know, to again like we, we come inside our walls like here's, here's where church is, church happens here. You know, this is what's important. And now we turn over education, governance, civil society, culture, that's all neutral and that the world does and we do this church stuff and um, and there's, there's no neutrality. And God's interested in all of that, you know, there's no, no part of it. That isn't his realm in which he's. He's interested in, uh, how people are flourishing, how they're thinking, how they're operating and thriving in every area of common and communal life.
Luke Allen:What do they call that? Approach, the hiding in church? Approach the bunker. The church is a bunker. Approach we hide here from the storms of the world, waiting for Jesus to come back. No, that's definitely not the mission of the church, Dad, you were going to say something.
Scott Allen:No, I just wanted to underscore what Tim was saying. I think it's a really important point. Tim, you know the idea that this battle is something that only kind of exists in our hearts, and you know, no, it exists in. You know, in us and outside of us, and you know it runs through all of culture and ultimately, the idea that you can kind of hide away in your church and then just engage in the culture and education, business and things outside the walls of the church in some kind of a neutral way, as you're saying, or it doesn't really matter is a lie, you know, because it's also part of this battle. And unless you're consciously kind of aware of the battle around you in all of those realms and standing for the light, you're just going to absorb the darkness in those realms, you know. So that's a really great point.
Luke Allen:Yeah, all right, speaking of what to do, that's what this next section is about.
Video:We are introduced to the true king and his kingdom in the first two chapters of Genesis. Out of darkness and chaos, the king creates the realm of light, life, order, beauty, diversity and abundance, declaring it all to be good. His magnificent creation culminates with the formation of human beings, male and female, made uniquely in his image and likeness. He gave them a distinctive task to rule over and care for creation as his vice regents, to cultivate it. In short, to create cultures that reflect the truth, goodness and beauty of the king.
Luke Allen:All right, there's a lot there. There, I like how this video hops right into genesis and uh starts the story from there. But then, just in that that little segment what was that? 38 seconds. It kind of explains the totality of our mission as humans. Uh, created in the image of god. So there's a lot there that we need to break down. Tim, what are some of your takeaways from that segment?
Tim Williams:I love it. Out of darkness and chaos, the King creates a realm of light, life, order, beauty, diversity and abundance, declaring it all to be good. And then he creates us in his image to do the exact thing. He puts us in a place of leadership, of stewardship, of care to cultivate, and over and over again, we see the word to multiply. You know where we're to do. Likewise, you know to create things and to be able to declare them. It is good, it is very good, and to do it in community, yeah, I love it.
Luke Allen:Dad, why did you use, when you're writing the script for this? Why did you use the term vice regents when describing us as humans?
Scott Allen:Well, it's just that profound. You know truth from the scripture that human beings you know far from being, you know, products of a purposeless process of evolution. Right, you know, we are created by God, a good and loving God, and we're created, not just created by him. We're created in his image. And this concept of being a vice regent is so central, okay, that what it means is that God is, he's a king, he rules, he rules over all of his creation by virtue of the fact that he created it. It is his and he rules over it.
Scott Allen:That's regent right King is regent, king is regent. Yeah, well, said Tim exactly. And when he created us in his image, part of what that means, amongst everything else, is that we also have a kingdom and a realm. We're under him, under his kingdom, so we're vice, vice kings, vice regents.
Scott Allen:I think this is one of the most important truths that Christians have kind of neglected or forgotten in our day that God created this whole world and then he put us in charge of it, under his authority, not just to kind of rule over it, but to continue this process of creation. God's creative, he created everything. And then he says to us take all that I've created and continue the work you know, continue the work of creating things, and those things become cultures, right Families, societies, agriculture, farming, education and everything else. Those are things that we create in God's creation and that's exactly what God created us to do. That's your most basic job description.
Scott Allen:And again, when I often go to church, I hear people say what's it mean to be a Christian? Well, to love God, love your neighbor and preach the gospel, and all that's true. But what I don't hear is to go out into God's creation with the skills and the gifts that he's given you and to create truth and goodness and beauty and create cultures and families that reflect the goodness of his kingdom. That's a much bigger, broader mission, but it seems like that's been forgotten and I do want to remind the church that that is our mission. That's our most basic job description.
Luke Allen:Yeah, I shared this quote a few weeks ago and I just love it. It's from Michael Novick and it says quote Creation left to itself is incomplete. As humans, we are called to be co-creators or you can put vice regents in there with God bringing forth the potentials that creation has hidden. Creation is full of secrets waiting to be discovered. So, yeah, I just think that's helpful, just that concept, and it's throughout the Bible, right, kingdom, king, rulers, ambassadors. This verbiage is so helpful. The analogy of the kingdom, right, there's a king. We are invited into his kingdom to be vice regents, to be ambassadors of the kingdom, so on and so forth. So understanding that analogy is super helpful when reading any of the Bible. Really, it's just good to keep in mind. All right, let's jump back into the video here.
Video:We are first introduced to the usurper and his rebellious kingdom in Genesis 3. This father of lies, as he is sometimes called, appears in the form of a mysterious serpent who deceived our first ancestors, tempting them to rebel against the true king and grasp power for themselves. In foolishly grasping for selfish autonomy, they succumb to the dominion of darkness and reap guilt, fear, shame, alienation, conflict, murder, destruction and death. They remain vice regents, but now their offspring exercise their authority selfishly in pursuit of glory and power. Instead of protecting creation, they pollute and abuse it for selfish gain.
Luke Allen:All right, tagging you on this one, dad. What are your thoughts?
Scott Allen:Well, this is explaining why we live in a broken world. You know, this previous section talked about the world that God had made, that God desired, intended, wants for us, this world of beauty, of light, of abundance, of diversity, of goodness, of love. But we don't live in that world anymore. You know, there's rumors of it, there's hints of it around us, but we live in a much darker world. Why is that? And the Bible gives a very clear answer to that question that everyone struggles with why is there evil in the world? Why do bad things happen to good people? All of these questions.
Scott Allen:And it's because, again, we live in this world of conflict between light and dark, between God and Satan. There's a usurper, satan. He is an angel. And this battle that exists, it actually goes back before Genesis, chapter 1. There's some hints of it in other parts of the Bible that talk about a war on the heavenlies. That existed even before creation. But when we get to Genesis 1 and the story of creation 1 and 2 and 3, we see the battle manifest itself in the Garden of Eden in the form of the serpent. And what does the serpent say? He wants to tempt Adam and Eve to— this is the great temptation of all time. Right, you know, it's the temptation that he himself fell into, and that's the temptation to reject God and be God. I don't want to be under your authority, I want to be my own authority, I want to be God.
Scott Allen:And that's exactly what he attempts Adam and Eve to do you know, you can be like God, and that's the same thing we see all around us today. This word, today, autonomy, is just so popular. Autonomy is just another way of saying I want to be God, I want to be a law unto myself, autonomous. You know, I don't want to be accountable to God. I want to be God, I want this world to revolve around me in the way that I want it to be. So it's just that. It's you know. And when you do that, when you rebel against God and turn away from him and his order, there's consequences that come with that Alienation from God, that most basic relationship. Alienation, secondly, from one another. You know that. You know this conflict, this conflict, violence, bloodshed, charlie kirk getting assassinated, and alienation from creation itself. You know weeds, you know grow in the garden. There's pain, there's suffering. So all of this brokenness happens as a result of our turning from god.
Luke Allen:Yeah, I think. I think it is helpful to boil it all down to that, that lie. You can be like god, you, you can be autonomous, you can be free in a wrong understanding of freedom. And that's really what it all comes down to is there's really two kingdoms, and at times when the world seems dark, as it kind of as it does right now, it's so clear that there's only two options. I remember the first time that I learned about worldview. I found it confusing because I was like you're telling me I got to memorize all these worldviews and all their beliefs and all their statements of faith and all this and that and the other thing, and I'm like, geez, this is a lot of work. But the fact is, worldviews are helpful to learn about, but there's really only one worldview, there's God's worldview, and then all the other worldviews are a rejection of God's worldview. That are all trying to answer that question of how can I be like God?
Luke Allen:And they're all varieties of answering that same lie from the serpent in the garden Just if I could add, luke.
Scott Allen:I just think it's so important to realize you know, we talk about divides, you know, and right now we're kind of fixated on divides of skin color or sex or these kind of different divides, but at the end there is a divide, and there's only one. Ultimately, that is important and that matters. There's only one and that's the divide we're talking about now, the divide between those who humbly bow the knee before the true king and worship him and those who shake their fist at the true king and say, you know, I reject you in their kind of human pride, I want to be God. I mean that's the only divide at the true king and say, you know, I reject you in their kind of human pride, I want to be God. I mean, that's the only divide, at the end of the day, that matters.
Luke Allen:Yep, let's hop back into the video here.
Video:But instead of abandoning his rebellious vice regents to their horrible fate, the true king reaches out to them, offering undeserved mercy. He embarks on a rescue mission. Offering undeserved mercy, he embarks on a rescue mission, pursuing reconciliation, restoration and forgiveness. The great turning point in this war of the ages came some 2,000 years ago, when the true king himself entered into creation in human form, as a humble servant. In Jesus, we see what it means to be truly human and to worship God in perfect obedience. Jesus came to show us what life in the true kingdom looks like. He came to show us that true authority is marked by love and sacrificial service. He came to make a way for us to enter his kingdom. He took our disobedience upon himself and paid the penalty we deserved our disobedience upon himself and paid the penalty we deserved dying on our behalf on a Roman cross.
Luke Allen:All right, the good news, that is the good news.
Tim Williams:Tim, you were a pastor, let's put you on the podium Preach. Yeah, I mean, you know it is an amazing rescue story, right? I mean, like what? What a situation. You know, I mean, here it's, it's. We've made these decisions, we had everything laid out for us. For you know, beauty, reality, goodness. You know, you think about the garden and it's like you can do anything. You have purpose, you have meaning, you have fellowship, you have community. You know there's one choice, you know that you need to avoid, and what is it in us that wants to just have absolutely no limits, no restrictions, unlimited choices for ourself, even if it means our own destruction, and that God in that space doesn't leave us there but pursues us at great cost to himself? I mean just unspeakable cost. I mean it's one thing to say, oh, I'll do for you, luke, I would make a sacrifice for you. It's quite another thing to say, luke, I'm going to give you, I'm going to give my child for you, my beloved child give my child for you, my beloved child.
Scott Allen:Yeah, tim, I think like you. I think in some ways the most powerful thing in this section is right at the beginning of it, where Adam and Eve have turned their backs on God. They've followed the serpent, they've rejected God, shake their fist at him, essentially. And what would you expect God to do in that moment? What would you do? Right, how do you respond when people do that to you? But what God does in that moment is not to destroy them, which he had every right to do. But he does kind of a surprising thing he pursues them, does a kind of a surprising thing he pursues them. He pursues this amazing process of redemption and reconciliation.
Scott Allen:And the Bible says that he did it because of love, for God so loved the world. You know, right at the very heart of God's character is love. If it wasn't for that, he wouldn't have. If it was only wrath, we would have been toast a long time ago. But because God so loved the world, he embarked upon this journey of redemption. And you know, here in this video, obviously, the journey of redemption in some ways it begins at the end of chapter 3 of Genesis and it's a journey that continues all the way through until you know, we get well into the book of Revelation at the very end. So it's this long kind of story of redemption that has multiple chapters to it, but what we're talking about here is the central chapter, the culminating chapter, with the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, everything in the Old Testament pointing up to this moment and here you see God's amazing, what Paul calls mystery.
Scott Allen:Like I can't believe God would do this to redeem and restore us. What did he do? He sent his only son To do what? Well, first of all, to show us what it means to be human, to truly live as we were designed to live, but beyond that, to do this amazing thing on the cross take our sin because he's just take our sin on himself and pay the penalty we deserved, and then, in exchange for that, to take his perfect holiness and righteousness he never sinned and credit that to us, even though we don't deserve that so that God could the Bible uses the word justify us, so we could be just before God, just holy and righteous, and only then could that relationship with God be restored. And so he brings us back into relationship with him, calling us his children, adopting us. I mean, it's just on and on. The depth of the beauty of this is incredible. All because of Christ Again. This is the true story. Because of Christ Again. This is the true story.
Scott Allen:There's no other story that has anything approaching this, this culminating chapter of the transforming story, this story of redemption. It's unique, utterly and utterly, utterly powerful. Yeah.
Video:All right, let's keep going his broken body was laid in a tomb. Jesus came to defeat the ruler of this dark world, disarming the counterfeit king of his most potent weapon the fear of death I mean that's the problem that we all face right.
Luke Allen:every human, everywhere, from the beginning of time till the end of history, has faced one extremely difficult problem we all die.
Scott Allen:We're all going to die, that's right.
Luke Allen:We're all going to die. It's a real issue that we all have. And yet on the cross, christ defeated. That Reflections any thoughts there.
Scott Allen:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the Bible is very clear about Satan's using the fear of death as his greatest and most potent weapon. You know, just we. He keeps us enslaved because of that fear and you know, you still see this today. I think of kind of some of these people behind the AI revolution, you know these Silicon Valley bros that are that's what I was thinking of. Yeah, they're. They're still working to try to figure out how to overcome death, you know, and live these eternal lives, just because of what the fear of death and Satan uses that. He uses that fear to keep them in his kingdom, his dark kingdom, and under his rule.
Scott Allen:Darrow often says what would you do, how would you live, if you didn't fear death? What would you do if you didn't fear death? You could live a courageous life. You would do things you wouldn't otherwise do. Again, charlie Kirk's death, I think, illustrates this. He was willing to go into places that were very hostile, where there was a real chance of him getting assassinated, just like he did. He did it willingly. Why? Because Jesus defeated death On the cross. He defeated Satan In the resurrection is where he defeated death. He rose from death dead and he's alive for all time. And he says in the same way you know, you will be raised up as well and you will live eternally with me in my kingdom. That's your destiny. And if that's true which it is, and we believe that deeply in our bones you can live an entirely different kind of life than you could otherwise.
Luke Allen:To live is Christ, to die is gain.
Scott Allen:Right To live is Christ, to die is gain, gain.
Luke Allen:I love what to quote Billy Graham again. At least the video quoted him earlier when he at the end of his life. He wrote I think it was a letter and he said something like the time's coming, but it's not goodbye, it's just a letter. And he said something like the time's coming, uh, but it's, it's not goodbye, it's just a change of address, something like that.
Luke Allen:And I love that view is like I'm just changing the dress, you know, I'm just moving up upstairs and I'll see you soon, and I love that, just kind of laughing in the face of death, because he's just excited to see Jesus and knows that you know that to live is Christ, to die is gain again. So he was excited for the game. Let's uh, let's keep rolling.
Video:In accepting this unspeakable gift of forgiveness, we are welcomed back into his kingdom and adopted children of the king. Those of us who have entered God's kingdom and surrendered our lives in service to the true king are sent into battle against the kingdom of darkness, with missions to accomplish. We're not going into hiding, passively waiting for the return of the king. We are to enter into the darkness just as our king did. Our mission is to fearlessly advance God's kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, To overcome evil with good, hatred with love and lies with truth. We are to herald the good news to everyone. We are to fulfill our task as vice regents, as God originally intended, by creating cultures that honor and reflect the character of the risen king. We are to make disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey everything that our king has taught. So the cultures of the nations increasingly reflect the culture of God's kingdom.
Luke Allen:All right, I love this section. I love the music. Right, it's so inspiring. I love watching it too. Again, make sure to watch the video guys Link in the description. I mean, this is our mission, this is the mission of this podcast, this is the mission of the Disciple Nations Alliance. This is the mission of Christians that was given to us in the Great Commission. Let's break it down.
Tim Williams:Yeah, I mean we're not to go into hiding passively waiting for the return of the King you know, we're to enter into the darkness. Herald the good news. Fulfill our task as vice regents, as God originally intended, by creating cultures that honor and reflect the character of the risen King.
Scott Allen:It's the central mission of the DNA is to kind of remind the church that this is what it means now to walk as a child of God. You know, now that you're redeemed, this is what's next. You put on that uniform of God's kingdom and he sends you out with missions to do. There's just today we have so much theology of passivity. You know just, this world's going to be destroyed, you know, don't try to. You know, rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic, just wait till Jesus comes back.
Scott Allen:Consequently, you have Christians all over the world. You have churches doing almost nothing, very little. You know.
Scott Allen:I just heard recently in the United States the Evangelical Church in the United States, one of the largest groups, but it has some of the least amount of influence on shaping the culture. Why, well, we don't understand our mission. We have this kind of theology of passivity and waiting and this kind of, you know, almost despair. No, okay, no, okay. Now you've been enlisted into this army of God and you're to go out in his name and in his strength and fulfill missions that he's called you to do in this dark world.
Scott Allen:Right To counter lies with truth. Right, as it says, to ugliness with beauty, wherever you see it, make the world better, reflect the culture of the kingdom. So, boy, I get a little animated about this because I want us to do what God's called us to do, to have the kind of impact and to enjoy that, to rejoice in that. You know what a privilege that God gives us a place, a role to play in this process of redemption, to come alongside him, you know, co-yoked with him, and be part of this work of redemption. What a privilege. Don't miss that by hiding out inside the church and just waiting. You know, don't miss that by hiding out inside the church and just waiting you know, for him to come back.
Scott Allen:No, you have a specific assignment to carry out. Ephesians says good works that God prepared in advance for you to do. Sorry, preaching man.
Tim Williams:It's comprehensive you know, I mean it's whether we're at home and you know making our home beautiful wherever we are Exactly.
Scott Allen:Yes, wherever there's lies, ugliness, it is comprehensive, it encompasses everything. Tim, sorry, I'll be quiet here. Shut my mouth.
Luke Allen:Yeah, I mean, probably our podcast listeners are going to be like.
Luke Allen:I don't know I don't see this. You know I know my mission, but there's still a lot of people, a lot of Christians out there we see it in the comment section on our social media channels of people that think this is not the mission of the church. I got this comment this last week. This is what you're. He called us heretics. What you're saying is heresy. The mission of the church is purely spiritual, was the quote, and it's like like it's people still believe it and we and you know a lot of people are like no, it's not that crazy. Out there people don't really believe that. It's like, yeah, look at the countries, look at the countries around the world. There's a lot of christians in the world right now, like the missions movement of the 1800s, 1900s. There's a lot of christians in the world percentage wise, but the impact?
Scott Allen:I mean just look at our own country, you look at the key institutions that you know that exist in our nation, whether it be government, business, law, education, is it being shaped by biblical truth, biblical principles, or by some other false and destructive ideology and worldview? Okay, the answer is obvious. Well then the question is why, if there's so many of us, why, okay, and I think the answer to that question is we have failed to understand what our mission is, we've narrowed it down and we've said it's as this gentleman did. You know, it's just spiritual Just preach the gospel, get people into the church, job done. Spiritual Just preach the gospel. Get people into the church, job done, job done. Get them into heaven. And when you think that way, then okay, what about the rest of your life? You're out there, we're out there all the time in the world as teachers, as lawyers, as you know, whatever that vocational calling might happen, to be farmers. What about all that?
Scott Allen:And the way that Christians tend to think is God doesn't care about that. Okay, no, god wants to take every area, every square inch, and see that it is redeemed from lies and ugliness and death, and you have a role to play in that. He's going to use you to do that. So, yeah, the idea that God's only concerned about spiritual things is so wrong. I mean, god is spirit, but he created a physical world. Right, he created a material world. He's the Lord of it all. He created us with a soul and a spirit, but a physical body. So this idea of separating the material, the physical, the cultural, from what god is concerned about is not at all biblical, if anything. That's more a kind of an ancient greek idea you know, so yeah yeah, big paraphrase here.
Luke Allen:But saint augustine said if god's not lord of all, then he's not lord at all and you know, we easily say that yeah, yeah, I. It's like, well, let's apply this then. How about in your bedroom? Is God Lord of your bedroom?
Video:And what does that look like?
Luke Allen:I know from some of the listeners here on the podcast they want us to get more practical about this. Like, what are examples of how to do this? I mean, the examples are endless because it's all of life everywhere, so we could it's kind of exhausting for us to break it down for you but just individually, this is the part where we need to kind of reflect on our own lives. I need to do this more myself. Everyone listening needs to do this as well is just how do I live out the truth of God, this kingdom, that God's Lord of all, in every area of my life, in my relationships, in the way I interact with God's creation, this world, the way that I raise my kids, the way that I educate my kids Exactly my work, so on and so forth.
Luke Allen:So the application are endless and it's you know the Holy Spirit will lead us in that. But we just need to kind of break it down that way, like, how do we practically do this? That's going to be a question for each of us to ask on our own. Any more thoughts before we wrap this thing up?
Video:Our king is with us in battle. He fills us with his spirit, leading us deeper into the ways of the kingdom of light. We wait his certain return, knowing that when he comes he will bring the war to an end in his own time and on his own terms. Until then, we work in his strength, we fight with his weapons. We do it all for his honor and glory Thou to the rightful king.
Luke Allen:I love that ending. It's such a powerful ending. Bow to the rightful king and do it now. Don't do it later, because, as we all know, there will be a day when every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, philippians 2. So bow to the rightful king. You're not going to have a choice later on. Tim, the mic is yours. I'll let you wrap it up.
Tim Williams:Yeah, I mean, I guess you know, one final comment from me would just be like man, his culture, his kingdom, his leadership is so good, you know, I mean, it's it's light versus darkness, it's light versus death, it's love versus hate, um, it's truth versus lies, um. And so you know, one wonders why does he tarry? You know why are we waiting? And we know what Scripture answers to that. It says because of his patience.
Scott Allen:Yes.
Video:He doesn't want any to perish.
Tim Williams:Yeah, that's not his heart, you know. So his heart is patient, his heart is in pursuit, and that's the position that he's put us in to be on that same mission with him, to draw others in to the kingdom, to demonstrate, to model, to show with our lives what is this kingdom of life and goodness like, so that others can be rescued from the kingdom of darkness, from the hate that dominates. I want to just add one thing on this too.
Scott Allen:If I could Luke, just because there's a lot of confusion. I still hear it in the church about like people will. Often I'll hear it in terms like this we don't advance God's kingdom, god advances his kingdom. And there's just a lot of confusion around this kind of what I call God's work and our work. You know, if God is kind of all-powerful and all-sovereign, does he do it all you know? Or you could go to the opposite end of the spectrum and say, well, god's kind of this deistic God who's sitting up in heaven on the couch and he's given us the assignment to, you know, to get to work, and it's all up to us, you know. But what I wanted to do in this section was just to kind of clarify, you know, the biblical picture of this is that we work together you know, now, not equally.
Scott Allen:Okay, god's got the strength, he's got all the power, but he calls us to work and he fills us with his spirit, you know, and he gives us assignments, and so we have to work in his strength, right?
Scott Allen:So it's this kind of—the imagery I like is the imagery of the, you know, being co-yoked, right, pulling together in the yoke with Christ.
Scott Allen:Jesus says my yoke is easy, my burden is light, but we're together in the yoke, pulling, working together, and I just think this is I still think there's confusion about this, you know, but it's so important to understand this too. You know, this is something that you need to be busy about, not on your own, in your own strength, with your own ideas, praying, you know, in the power of God's Spirit, seeking Him in all ways, and when good things happen, when you see progress, answered prayers, always thanking Him you did it all right. And so, even at the end of time, when we stand before the king, there's this kind of imagery in the Bible of crowns and rewards and statements even well done, good and faithful servant. That's what God says to us. And then we, in turn, bow to him, lay the crown back at his feet and said, I couldn't have done anything, anything without you. It all belongs to you, and so that's the picture there.
Luke Allen:Yeah, I can't really add anything to that. The way I love the co-yoked idea. I love also this quote. I sent it to you this morning, dad, but it's a little bit contested on who said it. But most people think it was St Ignatius and it's this idea of you know, are we the ones bringing the kingdoms of God? So on and so forth. And St Ignatius said pray as if everything depended on God and work as if everything depended on us. And then some people think he said and in all things give God the glory. And I just like that mindset, like pray as if it's all up to God.
Luke Allen:Come on, God. You know we need you, we need you, we need you, and then go to work.
Scott Allen:Get to work.
Luke Allen:And work as if it's all up to you.
Scott Allen:Like work hard and that's because that's how we create, that's how create us to be, you know, wallpaper. He created us to be vice regents right. He gave us rule in this kingdom, right. And so get to work. Yeah, sorry, again we're—the DNA. We're really wanting Christians to understand that we cannot be passive. We have to be active and live out our faith in this world, in his strength, but we cannot be sitting in the church passively waiting for him to come back. That's just not an option.
Luke Allen:Yeah, I like the way that we that you Dad describe this as a story. I know a lot of people also say that, but it is a story and we're all characters in the story.
Luke Allen:There's an author. The author is good. The author wrote a um. He wrote the story in a way that creates um, the guidelines for the characters in the story to live, in a way that leads to their flourishing. That's good for them, that's healthy for them. Now we're constantly taking the pen from God and trying to rewrite our own stories and mess it up. Uh, but through Jesus, we, we can live in this story appropriately and we can live in it in its, and we can live in its fullness, which is incredible. So just understanding your role in the story, who you are in the story, who God is the author of the story, so on and so forth, I think it's a helpful analogy. It makes sense to me.
Scott Allen:Well, it's really important. You know, I think very often I think, as Christians, we get into you know, rightfully so we get into particular passages or books of the Bible and really go deep and unpack them. But we have to always remember that those trees, if you will, are part of a much bigger forest and you have to see the whole forest. You have to understand the whole story in order for the passages and the particular parts of it to make sense. I think we don't yet know that whole story as well as we should. And it's not just Christians that have a story. I mean, Jordan Peterson's been very good on this. Everyone has a story.
Scott Allen:God kind of made us this way. We're story-loving, story-creating people and we all live out of a story. The story makes sense of our lives. So you could be a Marxist, you could be an atheist. That's a story. There's a beginning to it, there's an end to it. It makes sense of your lives. It's false, it's destructive, but it's a story. I could tell that story, you could tell that story, or any story. You know, an Islamic story, whatever. Everyone lives out of a story and the Bible is no different. It's a story, it's just the true story and it's the most beautiful, most powerful story of all.
Luke Allen:Yeah, as far as just practical applications for anyone listening to this, I'll turn this over to you guys in a second. But I really enjoyed going through this video today and I think there's a lot of helpful nuggets in here. But I do think it works well to break this video down. So, you know, for anyone listening who's in a Bible study small group, any of those types of groups, this is a great tool. Just, you know, watch it as a group, maybe watch it before your group, take some time to reflect, and then it's a lot of good discussion starters in this video. So I would just encourage people to do that. I did that with a small group that I'm in and it was, was fun, led to a lot of good discussions. So, again, link it in the description. Make sure to go check it out. What about you guys? Any takeaways?
Scott Allen:just excited to come back to this video that really is describing the, the most basic and fundamental truths of all. It's just, you know, this is the, this is the very essence of our lives, isn't it?
Tim Williams:I'm enjoying unpacking it with you guys and I'm reminded reminded of, you know, how our co-founder, darrell Miller, would talk about the transforming story and he'd often kind of talk about this kind of message of salvation and he'd have a book. It wouldn't be the Bible, but you know he'd have a book and he'd kind of rip out a few pages from the center, you know, to kind of symbolize here's the salvation story, and then he'd throw the book across the room, you know, and he'd just be hanging on to the salvation story. Because that is so much of what we do in Western Christianity we just here's our little segment right here and we ignore the rest of it. We don't really look at the comprehensive nature of the rest of it. And that's what this video is trying to help us do. It's saying there's a big picture, there's a beginning and there's an end.
Tim Williams:Okay, pay attention to both. The whole thing is important. So you know, in the beginning God created and it was good, and he created men and women with purpose and with dignity and with a task to do, and and with relationship. And he's coming back again and he's going to set it all right again. And here we are, in this midpoint. You know now there's there's uh, yeah, a struggle. There's opportunity, um, there's help that we've received from him. Uh, there's a job to do.
Tim Williams:So, don't miss the whole narrative, the meta-narrative.
Scott Allen:Yeah, absolutely, and you know, we see this around the world, tim. I mean Darrow's illustration there with the book ripping the pages of the gospel, quote-unquote the gospel of salvation Matthew, Mark, luke, john, if you will out of the book and then throwing the rest of the book away. It really resonates when you're teaching in a continent like Africa where missionaries came and they said you need to believe, you're a sinner, you need to believe in Jesus' salvation for your sins. And Africans believe that. You know, and they accepted that, and churches are growing rapidly in Africa.
Scott Allen:But they didn't bring a comprehensive story right. And so the Africans had a story. You know, everyone has a story. Africans had a story. It was an animistic, very fatalistic story. They kept their story, their animistic story, but they believed that they were going to go to heaven when they died because of Jesus. You know, and consequently you know that story because it's a false story. It entraps them in poverty, brokenness, corruption. You know when Daryl says no, you know, listen, the gospel is super important, but it's part of this larger story and we've got to take the whole story to the whole continent, to the whole nations, to replace the false story. People are like oh my gosh, yeah, I never knew that, you know? And?
Scott Allen:it was really life-changing, so yeah, we do the same here in the United States. Yeah, it's not just Africa.
Scott Allen:Yeah we have a story that dominates our culture. It's post-modern, it's you know, it's, you know, secular. There is no God. You are God, you know you can define reality for yourselves. You can. If you're a man, you can be a woman, whatever you want to be. That's our story, and I suppose you can be a Christian. In the midst of that, I believe Jesus died for my sins and I'm going to go to heaven. I still think like a secular postmodern person.
Luke Allen:The amount of studies that I'm seeing coming out of the Barna group. We need to get George Barna back on, it'd be so fun. But there was one recently that the question was do you believe that humans are basically good at their heart? Yes. And the amount of Christians that said yes to that was staggering. You know, it's one of these things, where the Bible clearly says that humans are evil and yet so many Christians just believe that.
Scott Allen:But they're living out of the dominant story of our culture, which clearly says yeah, you know, people are basically good and it's society that corrupts them, or whatever it is you know.
Luke Allen:So, yeah, so we're affected by the worldviews around us as well. That's why we need to be discipled in a biblical worldview. If you would like to learn more about how to be discipled in a biblical worldview, we'd highly recommend checking out a few of our trainings, including the Kingdomizer training program, which I have linked in the description, which is kind of a basics of what worldview is, why it matters, why there's only one worldview that works, and that that one is the biblical worldview and how you can grow in that. Also, these core training videos are just a great way to unpack what a worldview is and the importance of it. The first video in this series of short animated videos we have three of them out now there's going to be five in total the first one is called why Does your Worldview Matter? That's a great video to just help anyone get started in this idea of understanding worldview and the power of it, the importance of it for us as Christians. So I'll also have that one linked down in the description below. So, again, just highly recommend checking out some of those resources if you would like. We found them to be helpful ourselves as we've all gone through all of the training when we first started working on the DNA. At least Tim and I did. Dad, you created the training, so you never did that, but we think these trainings are helpful.
Luke Allen:I'd also like to take this time to recommend a resource that I watched a couple days ago called truth rising. It's made by focus on the family as well, as I believe in partnership with the colson center, um oz guinness and john stone street both friends of the podcast, were kind of the hosts of that show. Uh, very helpful right now in discussing this. Uh, what we discussed today is kind of the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness and how we're at a moment when it seems like those two kingdoms are really creating a lot of friction, like they're right next to each other. So it's about an hour and a half. It's free on YouTube. Again, truth rising recommend that. We'll also link that down in the description below. Tim, dad, thanks for your time today. Really enjoyed the discussion.
Luke Allen:Great to be, here, luke Great, and for all of you guys listening, thanks again for tuning in to another episode of Ideas have Consequences. This is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. Thank you.
