Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Speaker A: Welcome to the Truth Exchange podcast. This is a weekly program with Doctor Jeffrey J. Ventrella, where he answers questions from subscribers around the globe, answering questions about worldview, cultural apologetics, and other miscellaneous items. I'm your host, Joshua Guillotine, and this is another edition of the director's bag.
[00:00:29] Speaker B: First up, we have from Aaron in Wales in the United Kingdom. He asks, he says, talk a bit more about human flourishing. I have heard this phrase thrown out by both conservative and liberal christians, usually meaning totally different things. How are humans to flourish? To what extent? And what does that look like? God in the Old Testament puts a cap on the length of days for man because of the evil in our hearts. So it seemed that there is a cap to how much we should flourish. Jeff, what do you think about that?
[00:01:07] Speaker C: Appreciate the question, because nothing has meaning without a context. And so when we use the word flourishing, we're trying to communicate a few things. One, we're communicating what we're for as opposed to what we're against. There's a whole lot of negative polemics in the world, and there's a place for that. The reality is that Christianity is a faith of abundant life and a faith of eternal life. And so when we use the word human flourishing, underneath that is the idea that humans are exceptional. That means that they are created in the image and likeness of God. They come with an enduring commission, both the cultural mandate as well as, for christians, the great commission. And so flourishing also, then, ties into both of those, in the sense that we need to innovate, we need to cooperate, we need to communicate, we need to publish, and we need to do so based upon the purposes of mankind. Mankind was created free. That doesn't mean without constraint, but it means a liberty to do what they're designed to do, a freedom unto flourishing. And so we do want to encourage this idea of innovation and all those sorts of things. The last or the most recent dicta pointed that out that early on in scripture, God is commending his people to engage in this sort of technological advancement. And so flourishing is that which occurs in these different. And I'll use the word spheres because I think that it's helpful to bring in Abraham Kuyper's view of fear sovereignty. One sphere should not overly constrict any other sphere. And so there ought to be individual flourishing, family flourishing, the institutional church flourishing, as well as the state doing what the state is supposed to do legitimately and restraining from doing things illegitimacy. So I think that's important. I think there's another dimension to flourishing, and that is this theological concept of subsidiarity. It's a big word, but it basically means that those who are closest to the situation should be authorized to make most of the decisions with respect to it. And so family decisions should be made predominantly by the family, and then in this political realm, the county, the state, and then perhaps the national government. So it's the idea that we want to maximize flourishing, but in a recognition that we have a moral universe, it's not anything goes. And we've seen this. We're recording this this week at a particular political parties convention, and they're using all these words like freedom and all this sort of stuff, but they have a very different dictionary as to what freedom is in contrasted with a biblical worldview.
[00:04:09] Speaker B: So, if I could add or add two questions to this application of what you've talked about, is there a point when christians should abandon ship of particular terms? So you talked about having a different dictionary. I remember hearing you at a think tank where you quoted Justice Scalia, where he said, by the term, by the premise.
[00:04:34] Speaker C: By the term, by the premise, by the premise, by the argument. And so language indeed matters. Yes.
[00:04:40] Speaker B: So is there a point when christians should. Should jump off of using terms like. Or phrases like human flourishing, where it has just become then loaded with. Human flourishing means social justice, or human flourishing means pro life is from. From womb to tomb, or.
[00:05:02] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, there's. There's. We are in a constant battle for terminology.
Remember, the entire universe, the cosmos, was created by the word of God. I. And so the word is important. The word is what sanctifies us. We are to be. We are to live not by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
So language is a gift of God. It is part of our rationality. But there are times, I think, tactically and strategically, that we do not want to. By the premise. When we're dealing with certain kinds of cultural engagement, where a term has been radically subverted in its meaning. For example, the term gay, that used to mean something very different than what, how it's being used by the lgbt agenda today.
I've written and I've talked about. I don't like the terminology christian nationalism. There's, like 14 definitions of it, but it's used as a pinata against christians, and we can do much better. We don't have to own that now. There's also times culturally, that we need to recapture the terms and use them correctly. I think liberty and freedom would be exactly those kinds of things, and we need to just acknowledge that you're using that term. I'm using that term. We have very different definitions. Let's talk about them. In other words, don't just smooth it over in those things. Another term I don't use as an attorney is democracy.
I use what exactly? We have a constitutional republic, because those are different things. And so the idea of terminology becomes extremely important to know. To know where that line is. And it can vary. But, yes, I think the general thrust of your question, Joshua, is exactly right. At some point, I don't use the term gender, except when I'm dealing with language studies or I'm labeling gender ideology, which is a thing or a course of study. But I use the biblical term, which is sexed. Male and female, he created in. Those are sexed terms. So I think that in some of these huge issues, we just need to do more from using the politically loaded, subverted terms.
[00:07:29] Speaker B: Yeah, that's helpful. Thank you, Jeff. All right, next up we have SAMaNtHA via mom, and she writes and asks the question, what is heaven like? Now, if heaven has to be made over in the end, what a thoughtful question.
[00:07:48] Speaker C: Very thoughtful question. I appreciate you putting yourself in that position to ask it, Samantha.
Heaven has a number of meanings in the scriptures. Oftentimes it's describing realms. In other words, the biblical realms are the heavens, the skies, the land, and then the sea, that which is on the earth and under the earth, so it's designated how we conceive of what exists. Heaven is also used scripturally to describe the presence of God. Okay, so we are looking at that. So we see, like presence of God, and then we pray, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That is to say, where God is untainted by sin and so on and so forth. From an ethical standpoint. But your question also is, why is there this recreation of heaven? Well, it can mean a number of things. One is that the entire created creation is being redeemed, and that includes the heavens and the earth. And so that's the idea here. It's not being annihilated. Rather, it's being transformed by the power of God and his word, as demonstrated by the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. So it's not a destruction and a recreation. It's a transformation of what exists as to what heaven's like. Right now, you can read the scripture as well as I can. I think God intentionally mutes what we call heaven today because heaven is an intermediate state, that we are designed as embodied creatures, and that ultimately, we will dwell, flesh and spirit, in a new heavens and new earth, as the scripture describes it.
[00:09:48] Speaker B: Those young, probing questions are sometimes the most difficult to answer. Yes, I'm sure you have many stories from just your own children. I can recount of a number of questions that my children have asked me. And you just think you're three years old. You shouldn't be asking that kind of a question.
[00:10:06] Speaker C: That's.
[00:10:06] Speaker B: That's too hard for me.
[00:10:08] Speaker C: Where did Seth get his wife? Right.
[00:10:13] Speaker B: All right, next up we have Reverend Roger from New Hampshire. Pastoral question with the advancement of tech is the blessing and the pain. From hymnals to overhead, from pew Bibles to tablets and smartphones, Jonathan Haight's recent book, the anxious generation, documents how the technology that has that was to connect what has created a chaos in the development of children.
Is there a one size fits all solution to how we can be stewards of tech and not the slaves? Thank you for considering my question.
[00:10:56] Speaker C: No, I really appreciate that in a couple of ways. One, you're reading carefully, and two, you're looking for pastoral counsel. And one of the things that truth exchange does, besides inform the public, is equip the church, and that includes a pastoral dimension with respect to equipping the church. And our truth exchange intensives are designed to actually do that, where we go on site churches and can help the pastoral team as well as the congregates to do this. So thank you for that vector of pastoral interest. A couple of thoughts here. One is, the wisdom literature tells us that a wise Mandeh makes knowledge acceptable. I think that technology plays into how we commend knowledge, how we make it acceptable. The next thing I think on how to think about this is, I don't think it's a binary of either or. And the reason I say that is that we see in the scriptures themselves education, training, occurring both in a digitized way and in a localized way. What I mean by digitized is using technology to mediate communication or instruction or training. Think of the New Testament. They are letters that are written. There's a technology that's incorporated to take something in the present, reduce it to symbolism we call language, and then convey that by, you know, sending that letter off and republishing it and so forth. So that's a digitized way of informing people. And so technology itself is not per se inappropriate. But then we also see the apostle John twice saying that, I have many things to write to you with pen and ink, but I really want to come to you and see you face to face that our joyous may be complete. So we see this localized idea that has even greater benefit and that is producing joy. So there's something that occurs when we have a localized expression that we need to continue. So I would say one size fits all. No, but the rule of thumb is to the extent that technology drives a wedge in or diminishes a localized interaction among families or among church families, that would be a flag to look at and a warning sign. And truly, Jonathan Haidt's book, which I have on my shelf, of course, and I've skimmed it.
He points out that the data is pretty damning to people that just do what we call doom scrolling and just spend a touch and time going through these things and not being actually present with other humans. And it's deceptive. I was writing this morning on the notion of the deceptiveness that occurs when the truth is exchanged for the lie. And one of those deceptions is, hey, I'm connected. I have all these relationships through social media. That's just not true.
I'm not writing on social media, but the deceitfulness of sin is something that's very apparent. So I think that we do need to be sober about informing people about this. And, you know, you can run the rabbit trail and say this is messing up your brain wiring and all those sorts of things, and you're injecting too much dopamine into your body by looking for the next click and all that, which is all true and valid. But I don't think we can say therefore, you know, a hymnal is better than a PowerPoint projector. It could be. I think it depends upon the context there. And are we simply, you know, people don't bring their bibles. They bring their. Their apps for their Bible. Well, that's an interesting. I don't think that's wrong per se, sinful or anyway. But you get the point. The Bible itself is a technological product, the binding, the culmination, those sorts of things.
[00:15:09] Speaker B: So I'm going through training as an elder in my church, and one of the things that we, our session, the plurality of elders for those who aren't Presbyterian is that is house visits. And the younger generation, I have noticed just from my experiences, is. Becomes very awkward. They don't know what to do when somebody comes to your door to come, come and visit, whereas older generation, they pull out tea or beverages and you sit and you talk, and sometimes you just enjoy the silence of just sitting together. And so it's. So I wonder as far as the younger generation almost would seem like there needs to be a type of informing how to be a community again, because they have been so raised by looking at a technological device.
[00:16:06] Speaker C: That's very insightful. Very insightful. You know, I read a review recently of a book and the author, very educated guy, says he was speaking about his pastor. He says, my pastor's pastor x, and I know him personally. The sad part is he had to write that because in the megachurch environment, pastors don't know their sheep at all.
And so this idea of one on one or a plurality of leaders knowing someone said once that shepherds should smell like the sheep, yeah, that's not a bad idea. So I think you're onto something there, that this is part of that localized issue. And, you know, a span of command can do that well by sending folks to engage.
What do we call that? I mean, I've been involved in a number of groups that called that, but it was, this is different than small groups. This is the under shepherds coming and talking to people. And it's not disciplinary at all. It's care. And that becomes very important. It's localized as opposed to. Well, read the weekly email, you'll know what we're thinking.
[00:17:19] Speaker A: One of the things that we practice at my church is house visiting, where the elders will come and visit with the members of the congregation or those who are regular attendees at our church. And I have noticed culturally is a loss of simply the art of just meeting with someone and fellowshiping.
And it's almost as though we need to be reprogrammed how to fellowship, because we have been so deeply programmed by simply looking down at a small device that sits in our pockets.
[00:18:00] Speaker C: Yes, I think that. Well, I think being counterculture has many facets, and I think that certainly could be one of them. One of the things congregations have done, and it's not completely scalable, but after the Sunday worship, they actually gather for feast together, a meal together.
And that can be very, very good. And of course, taking your cue from here's Jesus post resurrection, he's telling them everything in the scriptures that points to himself, kind of closing the loop, filling in the gaps, and they don't recognize him until they break bread together.
It's fascinating, that purpose of just reclining at table as a small r revelational component.
[00:18:50] Speaker B: This concludes a recording of the director's bag. For more resources from truth exchange, please visit us online at www.truthexchange.com. you can follow us on x as well as Facebook. For more updates and content related to Truth exchange. Be sure to join us next week for more questions from the director's bag. I'm your host, Joshua Guillo, and this is the Truth Exchange podcast.
