Ask the Pastor with J.D. Greear

Show Notes: Matt: Welcome. J.D., here’s a softball… What are your thoughts on the 2024 election? It’s now officially decided through primary votes that we’ll have a re-match of Trump v. Biden in November. J.D.: We as the church didn’t respond well last time… we are getting a gracious mulligan I have a handful of pieces of counsel to that end,  Let me give a CAVEAT before I share them: Some of you will try to interpret these thoughts as me urging you to vote one way or the other—oh, he means that we should definitely not for this person or that we definitely should vote for this one. That is precisely what I’m not doing. Some of this counsel will pull in different directions. Politics is an imperfect process—we are trying to hold different things in tension and weigh out what is overall the wisest or most moral course for our country. So, my counsel to Republicans:   Don’t equivocate about character. Righteousness exults a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people. Don’t equate your secondary strategies with biblical imperatives. Don’t draw straight lines where they should be dotted lines.  What is your proactive solution to help the poor (if you feel like the great society was a failure, where the greatest argument against progressive politics is the state of progressive cities, what is your solution?  My counsel to Democrats:  There are several things in your platform that are expressly evil. Speak out about them.  Be careful not to equivocate about things that are not equal. What I mean by that is you hear some say, “Oh yeah, well we get abortion wrong but Republicans get poverty relief wrong, as if those things we equal. Many Republicans, whether they are right or wrong, believe that the economic policies they embrace are what’s ultimately best for the poor—they might be wrong, but abortion is the state-sanctioned murder of the unborn. It is wrong to equivocate and act like those things are morally the same. They are not. There may indeed be reasons in certain elections that you think make voting left or abstaining from voting is the wisest choice, but be careful of moral equivocation.  Realize that someone can share your compassion for the poor, but disagree with your methodology.  John 17 matters. It was one of the last things Jesus prayed before he gave his life, as he prayed for the unity of the church. I realized that there are things that are deeply emotional. There are things that are clear issues of justice, and we need to talk about them thoroughly and passionately, and we need to never compromise where the Bible teaches clearly. But I also realized that the same Savior that gave us these commandments and the Savior that gave us these moral imperatives, He also He also prayed for the unity of the church and said that this is what he wanted. This is how the world would know him. The apostle Paul, taking a cue from him, was willing to say about a lot of things that, you know what, I know Paul felt like my convictions are correct in this area, talking about eating meat, you know, Romans 14, but he would not hold that position or push that position in ways that disrupted the unity of the church unnecessarily. Matt:  Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and be sure to check out YouTube and subscribe @J.D.Greear.  

The guest Ronnie questions the relevance of modesty in today's society, discussing the impact of the purity culture on women and emphasizing the importance of not heaping shame onto girls for male behavior. The conversation explores the historical roots of modesty in Christianity and delves into the societal shifts in perceptions of dressing. Additionally, it highlights the significance of considering male modesty and the shared vulnerabilities between genders in dealing with sexual temptations.

Show Notes: Matt: Welcome J.D., you’ve heard from a member at The Summit Church’s own Chapel Hill Campus who asked you how to share the gospel with a staunch atheist, which we felt like would be a great topic for this week’s episode. — J.D.: Yeah Matt, I’m sure many of us have been in a situation like this where God lays someone on your heart to share the gospel with, but you know they’re firm in their belief—or unbelief—as an atheist. And it can feel like, “Where do I even begin to share the love of God with them when they don’t believe that any sort of god exists?” A lot of prayer: pray 1st, 2nd and 3rd Don’t overwhelm them. Don’t talk about it all the time Pray for opportunities to show extraordinary grace (Acts 16) Invite them to read the Bible. Heb 4:12: Charles Spurgeon talked about the Bible like a caged lion: all we have to do is let it out because who’s ever heard of defending a lion? Read the Bible…  After you’ve had a couple of intentional conversations, shift more to answering questions 1 Peter 3:15. Trust the Spirit of God to do the work and think of it more like fishing. Now, that said…  Of course, I do think it’s wise to be prepared for conversations like these, and I’ll try to be as practical as I can in that. Theologian and philosopher Francis Schaeffer talked about “taking the roof off” of various worldviews that people might hold.  Everyone has some kind of worldview – even an atheist – and Schaeffer meant that a person’s worldview is kind of like a house that they construct. But there’s only one “blueprint” that can effectively explain all aspects of life, support all the evidence in the world, and be lived out consistently with all of that, and that’s a Christian worldview. All other worldviews are defective in one way or another. So to “take the roof off” of an atheist’s worldview, I’d ask questions.  On that topic, Randy Newman has a great book called Questioning Evangelism, where he talks about evangelizing through questions like these. He even points out how often Jesus asked questions of skeptics and people curious about his ministry. One of the very best questions we can ask people in these conversations, Newman writes, is very simple: “Really?” Questions like, “Do you really believe we came from nothing, and yet life is so meticulously and miraculously held together?” Or, “Do you really believe that nothing happens when we die?” Gavin Ortlund, Why God Makes Sense in a World that Doesn’t Christianity versus naturalism in relation to the basic elements that all stories have: origins, meaning, conflict, and hope. The constant question will be: Which is telling us a better story—a story that better accounts for the strangeness, the incompleteness, the brokenness, and the beauty of our world? A Christian apologist once remarked to me that on university campuses thirty years ago he was asked more questions about Christianity’s truth (Does God exist? Did Jesus rise from the dead? etc.); today he is asked more questions about Christianity’s goodness (Is the church intolerant? Are Christians homophobic? etc.). — Matt:  Next up we’re answering the question, “Does Modesty Matter?” Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and be sure to check out YouTube and subscribe @J.D.Greear.  

Show Notes: Matt: J.D., this week we’re pivoting from our series on spiritual disciplines and we’ll be tackling some one-off questions our listeners have been sending us for the next few weeks. One of the topics we’ve had several people ask about is how to process what’s going on in Israel and their conflict with Gaza… — J.D.: Yeah, Matt, wow. Well, there are a lot of very intense views on this subject. And that makes sense, because it’s a topic that combines worldview with theology—particularly eschatology, or the part of theology that concerns the end times and modern politics. And we won’t get into a full blown “end times” episode here, but we do need a little help understanding some of the terms that get thrown around.  “Premillennialism” is the belief that part of God’s plan for the end times involves a 1000 year reign of Jesus that is still to come, and a physical Israel is a part of that. The relevance to this discussion is this: Many premillennialists viewed the fact that Israel has their own nation – which happened in 1948, in case you failed your history class—as at least a partial fulfillment of biblical prophecy. God was reinstituting the nation. And that’s led to the embrace of the Zionist movement, which, practically speaking, means that anything that advances Israel’s interests is correct and functionally, means you give them an automatic pass on most questions. Their destiny is to rule the world, at least that part of it, so anything they do toward that end we’re in support of. Let me say this clearly: that’s not true. Whatever your view of eschatology, it’s never appropriate to wink at injustice. Whatever God does, we never need to “do evil evil may that good may come.” Where Israel, as a nation, commits crimes or acts unjustly, we should unhesitatingly call it out. We should always be on the side of justice. Now, as a pastor, I typically don’t wade into the finer points of politics or world events—neither called nor competent—and I’m not going to do that here. What I do is talk about the principles that undergird our approach, and that’s what I want to do here: to talk about is a dangerous narrative that has entered the convo that I think it’s important for Christians to identify and reject, and that is:  That modern-day Israel has no right to the land they’re currently occupying; Israel is basically an occupying power–like Britain was in India, or even like European colonists were in parts of N America or Australia—and because they are an occupying power, whatever Palestinians do to get them out is ok. This is a decolonization project. The myth is that Palestinians were living happily in the land until GB came in and forced the colonization in 1948. And then some even like to say that the Jews there are white and it’s another example of white colonization of POC.  But that’s a completely fallacious comparison.  First, the Jewish presence in the land stretches back for centuries. Modern Israel is home to 9 million Jews MOST are descended from people who migrated back to the Holy Land from 1881 to 1949, before Israel became a state.So Britain didn’t bring them in. In fact, Britain had turned against the Zionist movement in the 1930s, and from 1937 to 1939 moved toward an Arab state with no Jewish state at all But in 1947, a compromise was made: the United Nations devised the partition of that area into two states, one Arab and Jewish. It was the “two-state solution” we hear a lot about today, BUT the reason it never happened was in 1948, Arab forces refused the two-state solution the UN sought to enact by attacking Israel. That led to the aborting the quest for a Palestinian state, because the claim was that Israel should have no part of the land, and there would be no rest until Israel as a state cEased to exist. Which brings us to today. On Oct 7, without warning, more than 3,000 Hamas militants invaded Israel from Gaza, killing at least 1,139, including 766 civilians, a large portion of which were women and children intentionally targeted—even mutilating infants. They also took a minimum of over 250 more as captives. Hamas is not a good faith group. It’s an Islamist militant group formed in 1987 whose charter calls for the genocide of Jews and the establishment of sharia law, and a call for unrestrained and unceasing holy war (jihad) to attain that objective, They categorically reject any negotiated resolution or political settlement of Jewish and Muslim claims to the Holy Land As such, what happened on Oct. 7 is no accident; rather, it’s completely in keeping with Hamas’s own explicit aims and stated objectives. The attack was unprovoked, it was unspeakably brutal, and plainly genocidal. So, whatever you think the solution is over there, this was a horrendously unjust act, and Israel has, as most of us would think about ourselves, a right to defend themselves.  This is not to say that all of how Israel has responded has been right or just or appropriately proportional. I’m not saying that at all. I’m just rejecting the idea that any and all violence done by Palestinians is justified because it is the freedom battle of the oppressed against an oppressor. And with respect to those who say that the Jewish presence in the land of Palestine is just another example of white colonization, of course some of the Jewish people there have lighter skin as many Jews have intermarried with some Europeans, but many do not. The Jewish people are not an originally or primarily Anglo-European group–they were middle-Eastern, and then scattered because of all kinds of persecution, and now they have a pretty eclectic blind of secondary ethnicities mixed in with their Hebrew ethnicity. There’s a great article in The Atlantic, written by Simon Montefiore, who writes, “In 2007, Hamas seized power (in Gaza), killing its Fatah rivals in a short civil war. Hamas set up a one-party state that crushes Palestinian opposition within its territory, bans same-sex relationships, represses women, and openly espouses the killing of all Jews.” Of course, the events of Oct. 7 has led to an ongoing escalation in the Israel-Hamas conflict— and my heart does grieve some of the reports of death being brought upon innocent lives in Gaza as collateral. Particularly innocent people caught up in it–especially heartbreaking pictures of infants and children–and then sometimes infuriating Israeli callousness about that. I have a Muslim friend who says that for the last 4 months he’s seen pictures of children and infants killed in the crossfire, and that almost every Muslim he knows has a first or second-degree connection with a non-combatant who has been killed over there. But I do believe that even as we grieve those reports, and as we rightly call upon Israel to act justly in their response, the narrative that Palestinians should have free reign to enact as much violence as possible as a means of decolonizing is something we can and should reject. Some of what we’re seeing in even mainstream places—chants of “From the River to the Sea,” which is just a thinly veiled call for the expulsion or genocide of all Jews from the Jordan River to the Mediterannean Sea—is egregious. To sum this up, I think Christians have a responsibility to pray and advocate for true justice and peace in the Middle East. But we can call acts like those carried out by Hamas what they are—irredeemably evil, inhumane violence that does nothing to reflect the reality of the historical situation in the Holy Land, and does nothing to further a solution towards peace. We can say all of that without considering ourselves “Zionists,” and even without fully endorsing all of Israel’s actions or their regime.  We can call out injustice where we see it. — Matt:  To finish out the spring semester, we’re going to answer questions you’ve sent in throughout the year so far and then we’ll tackle another big series in the fall. Next up: we want to know Pastor J.D.’s thoughts on the Israel/Gaza conflict.  We’re now on YouTube; subscribe to @J.D.Greear.  

A rapid-fire Q&A session on parental involvement in teens' spiritual disciplines, emphasizing guidance over force. Tips on avoiding guilt while practicing disciplines. Importance of instilling disciplines in children through dialogue and book lists. Focus on Scripture and prayer's anchoring role in spiritual growth. Discussion on interconnectedness of disciplines and perseverance in practice.

Discussing the essence of worship as the heart of the Christian life, emphasizing the importance of loving God with all aspects of our being. Exploring the significance of in-person worship and personal connections within a church community. Highlighting the importance of physical community engagement for spiritual growth and connection.

Discover the spiritual significance of giving in Christianity and how it reflects our faith and devotion to God. Money reveals what we treasure and trust most; Jesus frequently addressed money to reveal where our heart truly lies. Reflect on the concept of giving as stewardship over a fixed percentage and prioritize church contributions for further giving.

Explore the purpose and challenges of fasting for spiritual growth. Discuss the misconception that fasting is only for 'super-Christians'. Emphasize the importance of sincere intentions and repentance in fasting to deepen one's connection with God.

The podcast discusses the challenge of practicing Sabbath in a fast-paced world, emphasizing the importance of rest and worship. It explores the counter-cultural nature of Sabbath, the rhythm of work and rest in creation, and the significance of corporate gathering for discipleship. The conversation delves into practical applications of Sabbath, choosing the Sabbath day, and intentional rest for overall well-being.

In this podcast, J.D. Greear discusses the importance of Christian community as a spiritual discipline. He emphasizes that commitment to the church is essential in showing love for Jesus, drawing from biblical teachings on the significance of relationships within the body of believers. The conversation dives into personal connections, accountability, and the value of authenticity in building meaningful community, while also addressing challenges such as hypocrisy and judgment within Christian circles.