Ideas Have Consequences
Worldviews shape communities, influence politics, steer economics, set social norms, and ultimately affect the well-being of both your life and your nation. Obedience to the Great Commission involves replacing false ideas with biblical truth. Together with the help of friends, our mission is to demonstrate that only biblical truth leads to flourishing lives, families, societies, and nations. This show explores the intersection of faith and culture, aiming to address pressing societal issues through a biblical lens. Ideas Have Consequences is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance.
Ideas Have Consequences
Book Release "Occupy Till I Come" | Darrow Miller
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Episode Summary:
Christians make up more than half of the American population, but culture is unraveling. The future of the West will not be decided by elections, but by whether the Church rises or retreats. In this episode, we’re launching Occupy Till I Come with its author Darrow Miller and argue that the Great Commission includes discipling nations at the ground level of culture. The real crisis, Darrow contends, is the sacred/secular divide that has confined faith to Sundays and surrendered public life to rival worldviews.
Let’s recover the biblical and historical vision that once gave the West life and order. From the image of God as the foundation of dignity, justice, and human rights to the Reformation’s role in shaping our current cultures. Then we get practical: unpacking vocation as worship, hospitality as discipleship, Scripture applied to public life, and courage under pressure. This is the hour to build. To occupy. To stand with clarity and courage. History is calling. The Church must answer.
Key Endorsements:
“The ideas in this book built our country, and they can restore it as well.”
Dr. Josh Mulvihill
“This book is Darrow Miller’s magnum opus. It captures the urgency of our current civilizational moment, calling for decisive choices that lead either to renewal or decline.”
Nancy Pearcey
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/
🎙️Featured Speaker:
Darrow Miller brings over four decades of global experience teaching the church that ideas have consequences. A former student of the late Francis Schaeffer, Darrow began his worldview training at L’Abri Fellowship in Switzerland, where he first caught a vision for how belief shapes culture. His passion for understanding worldview deepened while serving the poor with Food for the Hungry, where he saw firsthand how lies enslave and truth sets people free.
Darrow is the author of influential works such as Discipling the Nations, Nurturing the Nations, LifeWork, and others that confront the cultural falsehoods that keep people and societies in bondage, offering instead the liberating biblical truths that lead to flourishing. He is a co-founder of the Disciple Nations Alliance (DNA), a movement dedicated to educating and equipping the Body of Christ to fully engage in discipling nations.
📌 Recommended Links
👉 Find the Book: Home - Occupy 'Till I Come
👉 Become a Kingdomizer: Get Involved - Disciple Nations Alliance
👉 Our Civilizational Moment: The Waning of the West and the War of the Worlds: Guinness, Os:
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A nation that I grew up in and loved is dying. Europe is dying. And there are people that want it to die and are working hard for it to die. And then there's people who don't understand what's going on. And then there's people who very often who are Christians who are saying, oh, well, Jesus is going to come back because things are getting worse and worse, and all we need to do is wait. No, we're not to wait. We've been given a commission by Jesus Christ to disciple nations. The church, when it's healthy, it engages in helping to build the nation.
Luke Allen:Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Ideas Have Consequences. This is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. As Christians, we all know our mission is to spread the gospel around the world to all the nations. However, our mission, the Great Co-Mission, also involves working to transform our cultures so that they increasingly reflect God's truth, goodness, and beauty. Tragically, the church has largely neglected this second part of her mission, and today most Christians are having little influence on their surrounding cultures. Join us on this podcast as we rediscover what it means for each of us to play a role in the Great Commission of Discipling Nations and to create Christ's honoring cultures that reflect the character of the living God. Hi guys, my name is Luke. I'm one of the co-hosts here on the podcast at Ease Have Consequences, and I'm joined today by my dad and co-host. Dad, how are you doing today? I'm really great. Thanks, Luke. Yeah, fantastic. Yeah, we just hopped off a fun recording with our usual co-host, Darrow Miller, who today was our guest because he is, he just released a brand new book that we wanted to highlight today and share with you guys. Dad, just coming away from that discussion, uh, what was one of your highlights uh from our talk with Darrow?
Scott Allen:Absolutely. Well, first the title of the book is Occupy Till I Come, Equipping the Next Generation to Break the Sacred Secular Divide and Disciple Nations at the Level of Culture. Uh, so excited with this podcast to be announcing the release of the book and just really talking to Darrow about why he wrote it, what he's hoping to accomplish with it. Um, I thought Darrow just did a fabulous job of sharing the passion that he has behind this book. There's really nobody like Darrow. He plays such an important role in the church on this, you know, exactly what that subtitle says, helping the church to really be the church at this really critical time. I mean, that's that's I think was really the central part of our discussion was just the critical time that we're in and why the church needs to be the church at this time.
Luke Allen:Yeah, I totally agree. Uh like we've talked about a few times here on the show, it seems like in many Western countries we're seeing uh revival right now. A lot of people are coming to churches. Our church is full. We've heard reports of many other churches being uh filling up. Um, but the question is, you know, what now? And that that I think that's what a lot of people are thinking is like you become a Christian, now what? Right? And I think this book comes at just a perfect time to answer that question of what now. And the answer to that is you have an assignment, it's to go and make disciples of all nations and to occupy until Jesus comes back. What does that look like? That's what this book's all about. And I hope that you guys get a better idea of what that looks like for your own uh personal life by listening to this episode and hopefully going and buying the book. Um, so without further ado, let's hop into this discussion with Daryl.
Scott Allen:We're thrilled today to be with uh our dear friend and ministry partner, Daryl Miller, who's often hosting the podcast together with Luke and I. Uh, this time he's in the seat of the guest. Uh, and uh we're doing this because we're so excited to uh be about announcing the launch of Darrow's newest book together with his co-author, Naomi Smith, called Occupy Till I Come. And the subtitle I think is uh really powerful. It gives uh it gets right to the heart of the book. The subtitle is Equipping the Next Generation to Break the Sacred Secular Divide and Disciple Nations at the Level of Culture. Darrow, thanks for being with us uh for this exciting podcast that we've been looking forward to and the launch of your new book. It's a pleasure.
Luke Allen:Yeah, congratulations.
Darrow Miller:Thank you very much. It's been two or three years in the works, so it's good to be to this lunch. Absolutely.
Scott Allen:Um and man, the uh endorsements that have come in, Darrow, for the book have been just extraordinary, just so exciting. Um, I I wanted to read a couple of them just to give people a- I've got some right in front of me right here. Yeah, go ahead, Luke. Yeah.
Luke Allen:Yeah. Well, the the I I I think this one's great. This is from Nancy Pearcy, good friend. She writes, This book is Darrow Miller's Magnum Opus. It captures the urgency of this current civilizational moment, a time for decisive choices leading to either renewal or decline. Again, that's Nancy Pearcy, author of Total Truth in Love Thy Body.
Scott Allen:Well, here's another one, Luke. This book is not just a book to read, but it is, this is from Christian Overman, a blueprint for on the job building or rebuilding of civilization. Christian Overman, founder of Worldview Matters.
Luke Allen:Yeah, I love that building civilization.
Scott Allen:Yeah, so good, Darrow. It's just so great to see these wonderful um uh endorsements that have come in for the book. Um, and it's certainly worthy of them. Hey, I wanted to uh uh our listeners are very familiar with Darrow, but there's a chance that a few people haven't been formally introduced to you, Darrow. And I just wanted to do a little bit more of a background on who you are. Darrow Miller's a uh, you know, first and foremost, he's my friend and mentor, and uh we've been friends for years, and uh uh it's been a thrill. Yeah, exactly. But uh beyond that, Darrow's uh he's a world-renowned author and teacher on Christianity, on culture, apologetics, worldview, poverty, the dignity of women, and other topics. Um Darrow's most well known for his book, Discipling Nations: The Power of Truth to Transform Culture. Um that book has been used all over the world. Uh thousands of copies have been sold, translated into many different languages. And even to this day, I continue to hear people. Uh just this week, I was in fact talking to a leader of a powerful discipleship organization in Washington, D.C., that places graduates uh in high levels of government uh uh service, business, economics. He's friends with former vice president uh Pence. Uh he said that he sends your book, Darrow, Discipling Nations, out to all of his mentees before they even begin the program. And I just hear that over and over again. Uh Darrow worked for 27 years at the Christian relief and development organization Food for the Hungry. He works, has worked at the intersection of worldview, poverty, and community development, uh, which sets him apart from uh other people that are working in this area of worldview. Uh he's he brings a focus on how do we uplift the most impoverished, broken communities, uh the most vulnerable people in our world, um, to you know, in his analysis of worldview. Uh he helped, along with Bob Moffat and myself, launch the DNA in 2007 and uh has taught in, I don't know how many, how many countries have you taught in around the world, Darrell? Do you have any idea?
Darrow Miller:Oh, I've been into over 100, 120. I don't know if I've taught in all of them.
Scott Allen:Um, yeah, amazing. Including like remote Siberia and some really other amazing places, uh, you know, uh Kazakhstan, you name it. I mean, Darrow's been there, he's been teaching. So, anyways, Darrow, that's just a little bit of background. Do you want to add anything, Darryl, to that uh brief bio?
Darrow Miller:No, I'm a father of uh my bride for 60 years. We have four children, 14 grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and one more on the way. So that's an important part of my life. Absolutely.
Scott Allen:Absolutely.
Luke Allen:Yeah, and if I could add to this, now when you're s when you're speaking about families, I wouldn't exist probably without you, Darrow. Well, I I I might exist, but you know, you played a role in helping my parents start dating back in the early 90s. That's true. So you know, that was helpful. And then you were one of the groomsmen at my dad's wedding. So you you've been there since the beginning, and then your wife helped my mom deliver me when I was born. So you know We're connected. We are connected at a pretty deep level.
Scott Allen:It's so true. I know, Darrell. You're you're you're like family. I mean, you know, it's we we I consider you like family, so beyond co-workers and mentors. So it's been a joy and a privilege. Daryl, let's get into the new book. I am so excited about this book. Um, and I just if you could start by just telling us a little bit about it. You know, what uh what's the kind of the core message of Occupy Till I Come?
Darrow Miller:Well, let me state right off the bat the reason that I've written this book is because the church was not ready for the assassination of Charlie Kirk. She wasn't ready for the event, and she wasn't ready for the response. And why was the church not ready for the assassination of Charlie Kirk? Because the church is living within the framework of a sacred secular divide, and she does not understand the Great Commission. So the title occupied till they come was something that Jesus said to his disciples in a parable before he died and left this earth. And he said a certain nobleman went to a far country to receive a kingdom and then to return, and that he gave his servants coins, money of the realm, ten minas, or we would call it capital. He invested in his servants and gave them these instructions, occupy till I come. He did not intend for the church and his disciples to wait for his return. He didn't expect them to twiddle their thumbs and look at the clouds. He equipped the church to advance his kingdom while he was returning. And the church does not understand that. So the title is Occupy Till I Come to help the church be aware of what Christ's command is, and the subtitle is equipping the next generation to break the secular secular bonds. We need the church to consciously understand that she is living within a sacred secular framework, and that is limiting the church to what God wants her to do. And the leadership of the church needs to understand this, and they need to train, raise up the next generation of church leaders, not to be bound by the sacred secular divide. And the Great Commission is nothing less than to disciple nations. We need to disciple nations at the level of culture and not just disciple individuals from nations. So that the title and the subtitle gives an idea of what I'm trying to address in this book.
Scott Allen:Darrell, could we um just for listeners who may not be familiar with some of the vernacular, um, if you could explain when you talk about a sacred secular divide, kind of explain that a little bit more for people that may not be familiar with that language? What it what uh what is this ailment of the church?
Darrow Miller:Well, we often hear the analogy that we're fish in fish bowls, and we don't know we're in the fishbowl, but we are. And the church is the mindset of the church is to desire divide the sacred of life from the rest of life. The church is about the church on Sunday, but there's no concept of the church on Monday. That's the sacred secular divide. I'm a Christian when I go to church, when I go to prayer meetings, and when I go into the world, when I go to the university, when I go to the job, I am bound by the mentality at that point of the secular. And that totally limits what the church is able to do and what individual Christians are able to do. That divide needs to be destroyed. The church has not always been that way, and in fact, the Reformation in Europe was about restoring the concept of biblical wholism, a biblical worldview. A what our friend uh Christian Overman calls a uni view.
Scott Allen:Or Nancy Pearcy calls total truth.
Darrow Miller:Or Pearcy calls total truth. There is only one world view, and that's the world view that God has established when He created reality. Anything else is an illusion. And yet people all over the world base their lives on illusions.
Scott Allen:Right. And the church, yeah, like you say, Dero, it's it's limiting its focus, its attention to the so-called spiritual topics, um, church, Sundays, personal, spiritual growth, personal salvation, devotional life. Uh, and the way it views the Bible, even. The Bible is a book that deals with spiritual topics. It deals with a devotional book, it deals with salvation, spiritual salvation, heaven, how to get saved. But when you ask Christians, what does the Bible have to say about economics or education or business? You start getting blank looks because of the sacred secular divide, the way we've been raised. The Bible, they would think, well, the Bible is a spiritual book, it's a religious book, it doesn't speak to those quote-unquote secular topics. And as you said, Darrell, the problem with this worldview is compounded in this way because Christians live in that world, right? They're in business, in education, in politics, and everything else. And if the Bible doesn't speak to those areas, they're learning about those areas and how to function in them from what? Some other worldview that's not biblical. And as you've said so powerfully, if the church doesn't disciple the nation, the nation disciples the church, meaning we think about and act in those different areas that are kind of what I call below the line in the so-called secular part of life, we we function in those areas like the rest of the culture does, uh, as opposed to the church isn't prepared to deal with the secular world.
Darrow Miller:And so she turns inwards. And her faith becomes an inward faith. It's about being a Christian in the church building, a Christian in my heart, a Christian in my home. But there's little to no thought of what does it mean to be a Christian in the marketplace and the public square? What does it mean to represent Christ at the place that I work, where I have learned to think biblically about education if I'm an educator? I've learned to think biblically about health care if I'm a health care worker. If I work in forestry, I've learned to think about the stewarding of the forest from the Bible, so that I'm not, my life isn't being driven in the secular world by secular thinking. My life is being driven by the biblical framework in my workplace. Another way to say it is we are to work sacredly. And that doesn't mean we're all to be priests or missionaries.
Scott Allen:Yes. And then, Darrell, the second part, you know, is this idea of discipling nations or discipling nations at the level of culture. I know that um when you talk about that as the mission of the church, um, that can be new thinking for a lot of people because when they think of the mission of the church, the concept of nations kind of gets separated out from that. They tend to think of the mission of the church as proclaiming the gospel. They think of indiv people as individuals, individual salvation, you know, numbers of people saved, numbers of churches planted, or people in church on a Sunday. Those are all, I would say, you know, fine and important, but they don't have anything to do with nations. And I I know when um recently, you know, a prominent theologian here in the United States kind of derided the idea of discipling nations as if you could somehow baptize Denmark, you know, like that's just a silly idea, is kind of what he was saying. And uh, how would you r respond to that, you know, Daryl? What what are you talking about when you say discipling nations or discipling nations at the level of culture?
Darrow Miller:Well, the first place would be at the beginning of the Bible in the book of Genesis, chapter 12, where God raises up Abraham. And God says he's going to bless Abraham for what purpose? Not for Abraham, but he's going to bless Abraham to be a blessing to all nations. We see in the very beginning of Scripture that God has an interest in all nations, not just some nations, not just a few nations, not just the nation of Israel. He has an interest in all nations and raised up the Jewish people to be a blessing to all nations. And then we come to the New Testament in the Great Commission, and Christ, as he prepares to leave for, to return to heaven, as it were, to leave earth, he tells his disciples, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. A lot of Christians think that Jesus is King of heaven but won't be king of earth until he comes back. That's not what he said. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of what? All nations. He doesn't say go and make disciples in nations. He says, go and disciple nations, teaching them, nations, to obey all that I have commanded. Why has he wanted nations to obey all that he has commanded? Because there is a natural order to the universe, there's a moral order to the universe, there's an aesthetic order to the universe, and when we deny these things, as atheists do, as secularists do, a whole lot breaks down and goes wrong. But when we acknowledge that God made a universe that is ordered, has ordinances and laws, it's a moral universe, it's a beautiful universe. Beauty is not in the eyes of the beholder. God establishes beauty by his own existence. He is beautiful. And we are told to teach all that he has commanded because when we live in the realm of that order, things flourish. Our lives go better. Yeah, Darrow, we don't think in those terms.
Scott Allen:Yeah, just to unpack that a little more, if you don't mind, what are the hallmarks of a discipled nation, Daryl? Because I think Christians, when we think of Our job in the nations, it's to, you know, the hallmarks would be people that are saved, you know, the size of the church, numbers of Christians, uh, maybe those kinds of things. But when you're talking about discipled nations, especially at the level of culture, what are the hallmarks of that? What are we looking for there?
Darrow Miller:Aaron Ross Powell There would be more justice in society, less criminality, there'd be more uh prosperity, and I don't mean that in merely a material sense, but more flourishing, human flourishing, and less poverty, less hunger. It would mean more social peace and tranquility. None of this will be in their full orb until Christ returns. But these are the things that we should be striving for. We should be living in the reality that Christ is going to return with his kingdom, and when he says to us to pray, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Oh, what does it mean that we pray that his will be done on earth as it is in heaven? Heaven is heaven because God's will is done perfectly there. The earth is the earth the way it is now because people are in rebellion against God, and they're in rebellion against his laws and ordinances. He wants his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. So he is interested in more than individual souls. He is interested in individuals. He's interested in their souls, but he's interested in the whole of their existence. And he is interested in nations. He raised up Abraham and the Jews to bless the nations, and now he's raised up the church to disciple nations. That's right. And that discipleship has to take place at the level of culture. Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.
Scott Allen:And I think we can see maybe most clearly in its absence, Darrow, when we see a nation, and I think of our own nation, or you could think of a country like Guatemala, for example, that um has one of the highest percentages of Christians, church attending Christians on a Sunday of any country in the Western Hemisphere, and yet it's also one of the poorest, uh high levels of corruption, brokenness, criminality, lawlessness. So there's such a disconnect there, right? So, yes, if our goal is planting churches and seeing people come into those churches on Sunday, then that would be Guatemala would be a picture of the Great Commission kind of being checked off the list, fulfilled. But we know that's not the case. There's gotta be more than that, right? It can't be look, it can't look like that. There's gotta be respect for human dignity, freedom instead of tyranny, you know, law and order instead of corruption and chaos, right? These kinds of things have to flow from the mission of the church, don't they?
Darrow Miller:That's right. And they will flow as we disciple on the level of culture. Culture is a reflection of worship. It's important to see that. In fact, the two words culture and cult and cultivate, the three words, are a family of words. They're related to each other. And the word culture is derived from worship, from cult. What is the nature of the God that you worship? And when you worship the living God, he has certain characteristics. He is holy, he's righteous, he's just, he's beautiful, he thinks with reason, he's volitional. All of these things are a reflection of his character. And in fact, the West was born out of the fact that the Bible reveals that we were made in the image of God. The Western world was born out of that concept. We're made in the image of God. Pagan cultures know nothing about the image of God. And they treat people like slaves, like dogs, like trash, like rubbish. People are thrown out all the time. Because pagan cultures have no view of the dignity of human beings, the dignity of children, the dignity of women. And the whole Western culture, one of the things that it is built upon is the fact that human beings are made in the image of God. That creates a culture that reveres life and fights for life at every turn. So we are where we are today in the West because the culture that built the Western world, it's like a, and we talk about this in the book, a cut flower civilization, where you have some beautiful flowers, and you say, I'd like to take those in my house. So you snip them off, take them in the house, put them in water, and it brings beauty in your home. But what happens after a few days? The flowers begin to wilt because they've been cut off from their roots. And that is what's happening in the United States and in Western Europe. We are, on one level, we're committing cultural national suicide. That's one way to describe it. Another way is we're just turning on our back on our heritage. We're turning our cutting ourselves off from the roots of what made Europe and what made the United States great. And now we are beginning to see what happens when the roots are severed and the plant begins to die. And we are witnessing that in Europe today. We're witnessing in the United States at every turn. And some people, some people are realizing what's going on and they are alarmed. Other people are glad that this is happening, and they are out on the streets trying to tear down statues, tear down institutions, bring uh uh what do you call it, uh, chaos on the streets because they want to destroy and bring down the whole nation. They're happy that the nation has been severed from its roots. They hated the roots. And now they're at a place where we are close to bringing this nation to its knees. That is the moment we are. Osgenis calls it our civilizational moment. It's the crossing of a Rubicon. And when you cross the Rubicon, everything is different. We are at a civilizational moment in the United States. That's what we're witnessing on the streets, we're witnessing in our institutions, and it's all because we have turned our back on the living God and the worldview principles that have come from that worldview.
Scott Allen:Darrow, I was just thinking about this in relation to um the state that Luke and I are living in right now, the state of Oregon, um, and the cut flower analogy. I think, you know, when you apply it to a place like Oregon, I think it fits very well. And let me just try that out on you. Oregon um was a state that was built by Oregon Trail pioneers, devout Christians, many of them, Christian missionaries. The founder of Willamette University was a Methodist missionary. Many that came were missionaries. They were hardworking, uh, courageous, farmers, most of them, and they built the state. Um and then that so that would have been the time when the flower was still rooted in the soil of the Word of God. Exactly. And it built, it built the state. It built a flourishing, thriving state. Um uh, you know, the str with strong communities. Not perfect, okay, not perfect, but but they built a beautiful state. Now, fast forward to around 1980, this would have been a time when the when we had separated ourselves from the soil of the Bible, but then but the but the flower hadn't died, right? And this was the time when, you know, Oregon people still loved to come here. There was kind of still a thriving artisan culture, and it was known to be kind of this quirky place that, you know, make Oregon, you know, Portland weird, keep Portland weird. And but still, you know, it was it was still, there was still the nutrients, if you will, that were flowing up. Not they weren't flowing up, but they hadn't died off yet. Um, and and so that the the the culture here in Oregon was still something that people wanted to visit, see, enjoy. That changed in about 2015. I think that was the point where the the cut flower started dying. And if you look at a city like Portland today, it's got the second highest crime rate in the United States behind Memphis, if you can believe that. You see drug addicts all over the streets. Uh the city is literally falling apart. Um, that is to me the picture of the flower that's dying now. It's it's dying, it's completely cut off from those earlier nutrients. So talk about, Darrow, what the the you wrote the book because of the moment, this civilizational moment is. Because of the moment. Yeah. Talk more about that, Darrow. What are you the themes that we talked about in terms of discipling nations, uh, breaking down the sacred secular divide are themes we've been talking about from the beginning of our ministry. But you wrote this book at this time. Talk more about the timing of this.
Darrow Miller:Well, for me, it's recognizing where we are today. A nation that I grew up in and loved is dying. Europe is dying. And there are people that want it to die and are working hard for it to die. And then there's people who don't understand what's going on, and then there's people who very often who are Christians who are saying, Oh, well, Jesus is going to come back because things are getting worse and worse, and all we need to do is wait. No, we're not to wait. We've been given a commission by Jesus Christ to disciple nations. The church, when it's healthy, it engages in the citizenship, being godly citizens, it engages in helping to build the nation. And I think oh, how do I want to say this? In the research for the book, it was profound to see the importance that the Bible played in building Europe and building the United States. And up until the time of the Reformation, the common man didn't have access to the Bible. The Bible was only in Latin, and the priest could speak Latin, and if you wanted to learn anything from the scriptures, you'd go to the priest. And people were non-literate, the average person was non-literate, the average wealthy person was non-literate, could not read and write, they could not read the Bible, and the Reformation came, and the Bible began to be translated into the languages of people, not just in Latin, but from Latin and in some cases from the original languages, be translated into the language of the people. The Reformers were primarily educators, and they started schools. They realized that if you continue in my word, you'll be my disciples indeed, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Well, here's whole nations of people who cannot continue in his word because they can't read and write, and if they could, the Bible was in Latin. So they started translating the Bible into the vernacular of the people, and then they built schools. And in the course of about 150 years, they went from a literacy rate of less than 10% of Europeans to 60 or 70% literate people in Europe in the matter of like 150 years. They built schools, taught people, men and women, not just males but females, young and old, how to read and write so they could read the Bible and be set free. And that changed Europe. And then there was another quirk that I learned, and I had never heard of the Geneva Bible before. I've been a Christian for years, I've been studying the Word of God for years, used a number of different translations over time, but I'd never heard of the Geneva Bible. And I was reading about Bloody Mary in England and how she was persecuting the Protestants, and they fled to Europe. Eight hundred Protestant leaders fled to Europe to seek refuge so they wouldn't be executed. And a whole group of them went to Calvin's Geneva. And Geneva was known as the Hebrew Republic of Geneva. And these scholars began to translate the Bible into English but not from the Latin. They started studying the Hebrew, right translating from the Hebrew and the Greek. And those that were working on the Hebrew were reading commentaries by ancient rabbis who had produced the Hebrew scriptures. And they came across a phrase that I'd never heard of before called the Hebrew Republic. And the point in history where this becomes relevant, if you remember, God was the sovereign God of the Hebrew people. And they stood before him, before the face of God, with God being their sovereign, God being their king. And there came a point in the history of the people around a thousand BC where the Jews said, We want to have a king like all other nations. And so God said, That's not what I think is best, but that's what you want, you shall have it. And so they began to have a monarchy. And these scholars, Hebrew scholars saw in the Geneva Bible this concept of a Hebrew republic, of the people standing before God, their sovereign, without a mediating king in between. And so they they uh revealed this, as it were, in the Geneva Translation. King James didn't like the Geneva translation, which at the time he needed job security. The Geneva Bible, the that was the English Bible at the time that uh everybody was reading. People could read and write now, and they're reading it in English, and they're reading the Geneva Bible. King James didn't like it because of its emphasis on a Hebrew republic. So he had his own Bible, the King James Bible, translated, and that's the Bible I grew up on. That's the Bible I studied for 20 years. But I didn't know any of this history until the last couple years writing this book. And when the pilgrims and the Puritans came across the ocean, they didn't bring the King James Bible with them. They brought the Geneva Bible. They weren't reading secular, they weren't uh reading Locke, they were reading the Bible. And when they came across, they wanted to create a republic. And that's what they did. And that's why the United States today is a republic. And this is the nation that has set the standard, the gold standard, for freedom, for human flourishing, for opportunity, where people want to come from all over the world to this country. Why? Because the founding fathers brought the Bible with them from Europe, and they brought the Geneva Bible and the concept of the Hebrew Republic. So the second part of the book, the book's in three parts. The first part's the problem, which is what we've talked about. And the second part is what's the solution? And the heart of that part is we need to return to scriptures, not as a devotional book, though it can be used as a devotional book, but return to the scriptures for all that it has to say about all of life. The Bible is the owner's manual. And if you read it as the owner's manual, you can ask the question: well, what does the Bible have to say about art? What does it have to say about science? What does it have to say about human beings? Oh, human beings, they're not animals, they're made in the image of God. Oh, what is significant about that?
Scott Allen:And that cuts across every area, Darrow. That cuts across just that one area of, or that one biblical truth of human beings having uh, you know, immeasurable value because they're made in God's image, and every individual matters. Not that communities don't matter and families, but every individual matters. That cuts across medicine, it cuts across politics, it cuts across education. And those should look different if they're shaped by just that one principle. Of course, the Bible speaks to many, has many other truths besides that one, doesn't it?
Darrow Miller:It does. And there's many of the old liberals, not the new liberals. Old liberals believed in truth. New liberals don't believe in truth. But a lot of the old liberals are really upset with what they've seen, the decline in Europe, the decline in America, how these nations of Europe and North America are falling apart, committing suicide. And these old liberals are saying, we don't want to lose this. We like our freedom. We like what this society has been about. And then they go from that to, what is it? Why are we having these problems? And they've realized that the foundation for the Western world, Western civilization was the Judeo-Christian faith. And at the heart of that was the Bible. And so many of these people who were are atheists or were atheists are calling themselves cultural Christians because they realize that it is the biblical culture found in the Bible that produced the Western civilization that is now being destroyed.
Scott Allen:I want to tie this back, dear, to something you said at the beginning of our conversation. You said the church wasn't ready for the murder of Charlie Kirk. And I think this is that you know you're explaining it a little bit here in the sense that now, kind of in this cut flower time, the old biblical idea was that human life has value, has dignity, and thou shalt not murder, right? That's a Ten Commandment. You know, all of our culture was built around that basic respect for other people's life or property or dignity, the new worldview that's replacing it. And here's the thing, when I say that, Darrow, you taught me this. Somebody's always actively shaping a culture. And if it's not Christians with a biblical worldview that's rooted in the scriptures, it's somebody else, secularist, postmodernists, with a different religion. And in this case, this religion doesn't have respect for human life. And so people get murdered, okay? And they don't that that's okay. It's hard for people to kind of believe that. But this is like like you were saying, the church wasn't ready for that. It didn't it didn't see that the times the ground had shifted, and that old respect for human life no longer no longer exists amongst many people in our society.
Luke Allen:Many people. Yeah, go ahead, Louis. I could hop in here. Um when I read the book the first time, Occupy Telecom, I was surprised how often in the first third of the book he used the word pagan, demonic, those kinds of words. And I was like, wow, that's kind of harsh language, don't you think? When I think of pagan, I always think of like, you know, a witch doctor and some kind of crazy ceremony with fire and blood. But the way you're using it in this book is pagan is just anything that's not of God. Anything that's not of God. And it's in it to use our cut flower analogy, what the church doesn't realize, hasn't realized, and why the church isn't ready for this moment is that like a flower, a flower can only go to one of two directions. It either dies or grows. There's no static place for a flower, as we all know. And it's exact same with culture. Culture can either move towards God in his design, his good design, or it can move away from it. And away from it is going to be towards paganism.
Darrow Miller:And pagan culture and pagan culture consequences. Yeah.
Luke Allen:Proverbs 8, 35, and 36. For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the Lord, but he who fails to find me injures himself. All who hate me love death. Love death. Death.
Darrow Miller:All who hate me love death.
unknown:Yeah.
Scott Allen:How many people have been aborted, Darrow, since 1973 in the United States?
Darrow Miller:Well, and that's this goes back to the, I think, what the heart of the issue is right now that we're fighting in the United States and have been fighting for a long time. Is it a culture of life or a culture of death?
Scott Allen:And only the Bible is a culture of life.
Darrow Miller:Only the Bible is a culture of life. And this society was built on a culture of life. And as we cut the tree or the flowers off from the roots, the sustaining roots of the culture of life are gone, and what's left is a culture of death. And there is an epic battle going on now at the at the war of culture, and I am convinced is if nothing happens, soon that culture war will become civil war over this issue. Culture of life, culture of death.
Scott Allen:Oh, it is a cold civil war. That's right. It hopefully won't turn hot.
Darrow Miller:But you look at some of the stuff that's happening in Minneapolis. It's only going to take a spark.
Scott Allen:Darrell, I want to move on to what do we do, you know, because uh this is a book that you there's hope here too, and there's a call. There's a call to action. But at the same time, like you say, the church has kind of lost the concept and certainly the muscles and kind of the muscle memory of how you even do this kind of work of discipling nations at the level of culture. If you if you say to the church, if I go to my church and next Sunday and say, hey guys, we really got to get busy about discipling this nation at the level of culture, I'm just gonna get blank stares. So what how how do we do it? How do we get going in the right direction here right now at this critical moment that we're in, Daryl?
Darrow Miller:Read the book. Yeah, exactly. Read the book. It's not gonna happen by a click of the fingers or the flip of a switch. It's not gonna happen by having all-night prayer meetings, though we should pray. God will do what he's going to do, but we need to do what he wants us to do. And he has told us what he wants us to do in the scriptures to bless all nations, to disciple nations. He's given us in the scriptures killer apps, killer applications about government, about economics, about human dignity, very simple principles. And if you think of killer apps, if you think of you need an app to run your phone, uh to run your computer. Right. There's apps for everything, right? Yeah. There's apps for everything now. God has given us killer apps to disciple nations to build to disciple nations. That's right. And if we will use those killer apps, apply those principles, then something can happen.
Scott Allen:And this isn't just for elite people, right? Or government officials, is it, Darrow?
Darrow Miller:No, it's for everyone. It's for everyone. And that's just part of what I said at the beginning. The church isn't ready for this. It wasn't ready for the death of Charlie Kirk. And one of the reasons she wasn't prepared for it happening, and she's not prepared for the aftermath. Everybody's saying, look at the revival going on, look at all the people buying Bibles, look at the churches are full. Those are all good things. But what are the people who are coming to Christ being taught in the church? Tragically, they're being taught what the church knows, the sacred secular divide. And that's why the church is not prepared for this moment. And that's why you wrote the book, dear, isn't it? That's why I wrote the book. And the book gives, it's more like a guide. It's more like a manual that pastors, trainers, mentors can use to disciple the young people they're working with to understand what's going on, what the solution is, and how to get going to do it. That's what the book is about.
Scott Allen:And if I could just put in a plugged arrow, you know, having read the book, the I I just want to underscore what you're saying. The book is very practical in its orientation. It's designed not just kind of for you to read in some kind of academic way, but it's full of here's next steps of application. Consider this. What are you doing here? It's it's really driving people to a personal and a corporate application, which I really so appreciate that you've done that. And it's got some really specific and practical ideas as well, not just for what people can do individually, but corporately.
Darrow Miller:Corporately.
Scott Allen:Kind of coming together, forming into coalitions to really say, we're going to bring about a change. Let's say we're all in the field of medicine, and at least in our community, we're going to uphold the dignity of every human being in a way that it's not being done right now. We're going to, we're going to before God and by his strength and glory, we're going to, we're going to we're going to make a change. And uh so Darrow, I I just want to underscore that. Luke, uh you've read the book too. What what are your thoughts when it comes to this practical application side of what Darrow's written here?
Luke Allen:Yeah, um, like I said, Darrow earlier, that was my favorite section of the book. Is uh a lot of times it's I find it personally too easy to play the plain the blame game. You know, how did we get to this point in culture? How do we get to this point in the society? You know, the church failed, the church had a sacred secular divide, you know, a hundred years of um not teaching the full counsel of God, and it's it's so easy to play the pointing fingers game, which is all of that is true, but we're but looking ahead instead of looking backward, what can we proactively be doing, each one of us to fill, you know, fulfill the great commission in our lives, which is a big commission, go and make disciples of all nations. How do we actually do that practically? Not just pastors, not just people with large influence, politicians, influencers, those kind of people, but each one of us play a part in discipling the nations. What does that look like? And that's what you really delve dove dove into into the third the third section of the book. And you you made it so practical. You talked about one of the one of the sections I loved was on hospitality, hosting people, and how that plays intellectual hospitality. Intellectual hospitality and just actual hospitality, making people soup. You know, how does that play a role in occupying until Jesus comes back? Because it does. And that's something that we're like, oh, I can actually do that. And you and you actually outline that and you you bring in the Bible verses and you explain how to do that. Out of all those applications at the end of the book, Darrow, could you just give us an example of one of them that you think um is one of the most effective ways that every single one of us can apply this week?
Darrow Miller:Well, the one that I would highlight, but it's not the only one, is the chapter that deals with the uh biblical theology of vocation? We, because of the sacred secular divide, we separate Mondays from Sundays, work from worship. The Bible doesn't do that, we do that. So, how can we rejoin the biblical mind and think biblically about what we do on Monday through Saturday? And how do we band together with others who are beginning to think biblically about their work Monday through Saturday to begin to influence the institution, be it the hospital or the school or the university, to order things around biblical principles. So it's very, very practical. There's a couple of ways you can approach this study, and one thing, all you really need is to have the idea, I'm going to read through the Bible this next year, and I am going to ask one question. What does this Bible have to say about my vocation? And I'm going to keep a journal of everything that God teaches me about my vocation from reading the Bible. That will revolutionize your life. And if you have others Christians who are doing the same thing, you're in the you're in a Bible study or you're in the church, you share what you're learning. And the explosion of energy and ideas that just come from that biblical understanding that the Bible is the owner's manual and God has something to say about my work. I'm to work sacredly, not secularly. There is no sacred secular. I am to work sacredly. And what does that mean for my life? And the simplest thing is just to say, okay, I'm going to read the Bible this year with one thing in mind. What does it say about the work I do?
Scott Allen:Darrell, can you speak as well about just the times that we're living in? Because the church hasn't been discipling the nation, others have been discipling the nation. And that's made the ground more difficult for Christians in the sense that there's greater hostility to Christian ideas, uh, there's greater pushback, greater push for conformity, there's greater injustice, too. Um you see a lot of lawlessness, uh a lot of pressure to conform, especially around issues of marriage and sex. You know, think of Jack Phillips. I mean, you know, famous case of Jack Phillips, you will bake the cake, right? So there's, you know, there's a talk about that side of it, Daryl. We there's a because people are afraid right now. They sense it. Like if I don't go along, I will lose my job, I might even be assassinated, a la Charlie Kirk. I mean, that's an extreme, but it's gonna become more frequent probably. And that that's fearful for people. There's a sense that I can't stick my head out, I've gotta keep my head down, you know. Speak to and at the same time, there's a lot of injustice going on. There's a lot of brokenness that, you know, you think of abortion or you think of transgender surgeries, uh, and just the injustice, the demeaning injustice of these things. So speak to that, Darrow, as well, because I think this is really an important part place for the church to be discipling the nations as well. But what does that mean?
Darrow Miller:We have a couple chapters that deal with that question, but to do a quick answer, uh you're right. We want to be comfortable, we don't want to stick our neck out. But is that biblical? Where in the Bible do we find comfort being the ideal? Where do we find Jesus telling his followers, don't stick your neck out? He didn't. Because those are not virtues, and yet for us they are virtues, and we lean on those virtues and we're afraid. I'm reading, in fact, I'm reading three books right now, all on a German brother and sister named the Scholes, and the little work they did called The White Rose. I know we're gonna be having a podcast, yeah. We're gonna have a podcast on that in a couple weeks, and so I've I'm on my third book about reading about these two young Germans. The Hans was the older, he was three years older than his younger sister. He was just going along as a student. The war came along, he kept was keeping his head low and then he realized how horrible the war was, what it was doing, what was happening to the Jews, and he said, I can't remain silent. What what am I doing here pretending as if this isn't happening? And he said, I can't remain silent. And he realized that when the whole country was going in one direction, for him to say I can't remain silent the consequences of that could be the loss of his life. And these books are about the story of what he and his sister did over the next two years and the other young people who joined them. And what they did was print uh little newsletters, we'd call them today. And they'd print them off and distribute them in the s at night everywhere they could. And this was stirring up people to have courage. What are these kids doing? Maybe I I need to have courage. And this little movement grew. It never became very large, it was very secretive, and eventually um this brother and sister were caught, stood before a Nazi trial, and faced um the guillotine. That's the answer to your question, Scott. We are living within a pseudo-culture of comfort and protecting ourselves, but the kingdom of God is a revolution. It's transforming the world, it turns the world upside down. It was the world view of the kingdom of God that built Europe that is now dying. And is there anyone that's going to understand and be willing to say no but not through me and stand and move in hard ways to begin to change things.
Scott Allen:Or if I could read a quote that I just came across this week and I was like, I can't believe I didn't see this one before. Um I haven't had a chance to verify it. I believe it's accurate. It's from G.K. Chester Chesterton, the famous British novelist. Um he said, a civilization is not destroyed by wicked men, it's destroyed by weak men who cannot defend what is good. This is what we're talking about right now.
Darrow Miller:That's what we're talking about right now.
Scott Allen:He begins this quote. Let me just say the sentence that he begins it with or just is so powerful though. He says, We do not want a church that will move with the world. We want a church that will move the world. Isn't that a great quote?
Darrow Miller:No, it's great. And that's what this book is trying to get the church to see and the church to do. And it's it's not it's not it's not a book just to read like a novel. It's a book to study, to apply. Every chapter has application. We introduce new concepts in every chapter, and in every chapter, there's these paradigm-shifting phrases like discipling at the level of culture. What does that mean? That should be part of our lives, our thinking, and it's not. So we've highlighted those kinds of things uh throughout the book. And there's study guides, there's a Bible study in each chapter, and you can pick and choose of that what's going to be most helpful for you. But it's a book to be read, to be discussed. And if you're a pastor or the discipler of young Christians, it's a book that you can take and use as a guide for you could study it together with a group of young Christians on what it means to be a Christian in this generation.
Scott Allen:And if I could just add, you know, Darrow, for people that study the book, and we want every one of you who are listening to go out, buy the book, buy multiple copies of the book, give it to your friends, give it to your pastor. Um, you can learn about the book at the website occupytilicomebook.com. Is it dot com or dotwillis.com? Um occupy till Icomebook.com. Go go look for it there. If you read this book and you it you have an you you learn what it means to disciple nations and you're fired up about your role in it. This is where I want to invite all of you to come back to to our website, disciplenations.org, and learn what it means to be a kingdomizer. Join with us. This is a way of saying I sign up. I want to join, uh, I want to I want to go deeper in my understanding and I want to connect with other like-minded Christians so that we can disciple the nations together, because that's really at the heart of our mission, and we want to help you do that. That's why we exist. So uh the book is called Occupy Till I Come, uh Equipping the Next Generation to Break the Sacred Secular Divide and Disciple Nations at the Level of Culture. Derek, thanks for writing this really important book. Uh again, I want to urge every one of you to go out, uh, check it out, buy it, read it, and not just for yourself, for those that you know and love, take them through it. Your church, we want this book to get out. It needs to have a really wide, wide uh impact. Luke, any final words from you as we wrap up?
Luke Allen:Yeah, just uh would highly encourage everyone to go check it out. Occupytillicome book.com. Everything that you guys need is linked down in the show notes below, so you can find everything there. And um I'm sure you're gonna get more updates here on the podcast as the book comes out. So excited to watch the release of this and uh you know, excited to see what God does with this book. I mean, I think it's it's coming out at a perfect time, you know.
Scott Allen:I agree. Darrell, thanks for writing it, and uh, we look forward to having Naomi on your co author. Uh she'll come on here soon and we'll get to quiz her all over again. So good. All right, God bless you.
Darrow Miller:Thank you.
