Speaker 1: Life audio.
Speaker 2: The truth of my sin is that because I have
Speaker 2: become very habituated in hiding and covering my sin, a
Speaker 2: self deception is a serious problem in my life. Some
Speaker 2: sins I recognize in myself, but I don't recognize the
Speaker 2: depth of them, or even the ways in which they
Speaker 2: might actually be showing up and manifesting in my life.
Speaker 2: You need one another to actually see clearly what is
Speaker 2: to be confessed. You need one another to actually see
Speaker 2: your sin in truth, so that even in the privacy
Speaker 2: of your prayer closet, you are drawing near to the
Speaker 2: Lord in honesty. If I'm left to my own devices
Speaker 2: of discerning my sin, I'm going to be in real trouble.
Speaker 1: Hello, Hello, and welcome to the Confessions of a Christian
Speaker 1: Alcoholic podcast. I am your host, John Seidel. This is
Speaker 1: your home for real stories, radical vulnerability, and remarkable comebacks.
Speaker 1: In the end, this podcast is a place for the desperate,
Speaker 1: the downtrodden, the destitute, and especially the drunk. But it's
Speaker 1: also a place of hope and healing. I know that
Speaker 1: firsthand because I'm the Christian who became an alcoholic, not
Speaker 1: the other way around. Today I've found sobriety after decades
Speaker 1: of struggling. But more importantly than finding sobriety, I found Jesus.
Speaker 1: My prayer is that as I interview people just like
Speaker 1: you and just like me, along with professionals in the
Speaker 1: fields of trauma, faith and addiction recovery, you will find
Speaker 1: the peace that is available to you through Christ on
Speaker 1: the other side of whatever you're going through and whatever
Speaker 1: addiction that might be. Because, let's face it, we're all
Speaker 1: addicted to something so welcome. Let's get radically vulnerable as
Speaker 1: we explore what it looks like to be on this
Speaker 1: journey of messy sanctification. So the number one thing that
Speaker 1: I have been asked to speak on in the wake
Speaker 1: of my book Confessions of a Christian Alcoholic is not
Speaker 1: necessarily addiction. It's not necessarily what it you know, what
Speaker 1: it's like to fall or get back up or anything
Speaker 1: like that. It's actually about one of the four steps
Speaker 1: I talk about in the second half of the book,
Speaker 1: and specifically the step on radical vulnerability. And I think
Speaker 1: that idea has resonated with so many people. It's very universal, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, when it comes to radical vulnerability, it's something
Speaker 1: we all need to practice. And especially when I introduce
Speaker 1: it by its other name, which is true confession. And
Speaker 1: confession is something that our guest today knows a lot about.
Speaker 1: He has literally written a book on confession, and his
Speaker 1: name is Jamin Goggin. He spent years on staff at
Speaker 1: Sattlebeck Church with Rick Warren. He is now a professor
Speaker 1: at Talbot Seminary, just connected to Biola, and he has
Speaker 1: written a book called Pastoral Confessions, The Healing Path to
Speaker 1: Faithful Ministry, and this book is specifically written to pastors
Speaker 1: and how they can practice confession. But there is so
Speaker 1: much good stuff in here that I wanted him to
Speaker 1: come on and talk about confession in general, and he
Speaker 1: is going to do that today. This is a incredible
Speaker 1: conversation by someone who is a very deep thinker. So
Speaker 1: we're going to get into why confession is necessary, why
Speaker 1: it has to be horizontal and not just vertical, and
Speaker 1: why it can be difficult as well. So with all
Speaker 1: of that said, I want to get right into the
Speaker 1: conversation because we we go deep, but it's not it's
Speaker 1: still an accessible conversation. So ladies and gentlemen, Jamon Goggin, Jamen,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining the Confessions of a
Speaker 1: Christian Alcoholic Podcast. I don't think you're going to be
Speaker 1: confessing or revealing a secret addiction, although you know I'm
Speaker 1: always I'm always open to that. But you are, in
Speaker 1: a sense a foremost expert, if you will, on confession,
Speaker 1: on that idea and the importance of that. So I'm
Speaker 1: so glad to have you on the show today.
Speaker 2: Well, joy to be with you, John, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: So before we get going, you know, I talked a
Speaker 1: little bit about you in the introduction, but I always
Speaker 1: love people to introduce themselves because I think we get
Speaker 1: a glimpse at what's important to you and whatnot. So
Speaker 1: why don't you introduce yourself to the audience.
Speaker 2: Well, it's wonderful to be with you, John. As you said,
Speaker 2: my name is Jamon Goggin and probably the first and
Speaker 2: most important things to share about myself, I live in
Speaker 2: north San Diego County. For those who know the San
Speaker 2: Diego area, I'm an Escondido. My wife and I have
Speaker 2: the blessing of having five acres. We get to tend
Speaker 2: the land, which is pretty unusual in so Cal. Having
Speaker 2: grown up in so Cal, so that's an unusual thing.
Speaker 2: A creek running through the property. We got large majestic
Speaker 2: oak trees kind of lying the property, but primary investment
Speaker 2: for us into the soil has been my wife's rose gardens.
Speaker 2: So we are most weekends you can find us tending
Speaker 2: the ground. I'm kind of the labor to dig the
Speaker 2: holes and to fight off the gophers. And my wife
Speaker 2: is Truman Rose bushes. We have four kids who love
Speaker 2: to adventure and explore that property, although one now is
Speaker 2: a freshman at Biola University, so we're down to three
Speaker 2: in the home regularly. Our three boys, our daughters off
Speaker 2: at Biola, and I myself am actually a full time
Speaker 2: professor at Biola, teach at Talbot School Theology the seminary there,
Speaker 2: and I've been doing that now for one year, coming
Speaker 2: off of twenty years of full time pastoral ministry. So
Speaker 2: on my background, My primary vocational background is local church
Speaker 2: ministry in a variety of contexts, and now I have
Speaker 2: the joy of teaching and training a new generation of
Speaker 2: pastors and ministry leaders through a Talbot which is really fun.
Speaker 2: And I also am the director of something called the
Speaker 2: Healthy Pastor Initiative, and work was finishing the task and
Speaker 2: Rick Warren and I do retreats and kind of create
Speaker 2: space for pastors both kind of oriented towards training and
Speaker 2: equipping them in vocational health and fidelity, but also just
Speaker 2: trying to create spaces to care for them. And a
Speaker 2: lot of the work I do there is kind of
Speaker 2: connected to some of my recent writing and pastoral confessions.
Speaker 2: That's a little bit about me and where where I'm
Speaker 2: from and what I'm up to. And yeah, it's good
Speaker 2: to be with you.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you, that's you know, thank you for investing
Speaker 1: in the future. Right As someone who just finished my
Speaker 1: seminary degree, I appreciate you. Depending on depending on what
Speaker 1: kind of homework or tester you were, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: that could might change a lot. Just I just hate
Speaker 1: true false questions. Don't get me started on that.
Speaker 2: I have yet to assign anything that required a true
Speaker 2: false answer in eating my classes. So I knew I think,
Speaker 2: I think I'm your kind of prof I knew you
Speaker 2: were good. I knew it.
Speaker 1: But and you you know, you talked about working with
Speaker 1: Rick Wardy. I mean you you really grew up at Saddleback.
Speaker 1: I mean that was that's your background. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I've heard you talk about this another podcast. But I
Speaker 1: mean Rick was Rick was like pastor Rick like he
Speaker 1: was he he wasn't He wasn't the untouchable Rick. He
Speaker 1: was He was the guy that you were just going
Speaker 1: over to his house all the time.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, my my family kind of charter members at
Speaker 2: saddle Bite Church. This is a long time ago. I
Speaker 2: started in in the nursery. Wow, church was you know,
Speaker 2: less than a couple hundred people, and when my parents
Speaker 2: joined as members, and so yeah, I grew up at
Speaker 2: Saddleback and the kind of the the explosion of the
Speaker 2: church and the size of the church, but also the
Speaker 2: explosion of Rick and his ministry obviously through writing purpose
Speaker 2: driven church and purpose driven life. But but my experience
Speaker 2: through all of that was he was a pastor. I
Speaker 2: knew he was my pastor and someone that I had
Speaker 2: close personal relationship with. They grew up dear friends with
Speaker 2: his son. And so as you said, I mean, I
Speaker 2: have many memories of weekends through middle school and high school, uh,
Speaker 2: late night watching movies at the Warren household or swimming
Speaker 2: in their pool. And it was a real, a real
Speaker 2: gift to actually be able to just see kind of
Speaker 2: behind the curtain of his public ministry and to see
Speaker 2: the integrity of life, generosity of spirit, to know his character. Really,
Speaker 2: in many ways, it gave me a vision for what
Speaker 2: it meant to be faithful as a pastor years later,
Speaker 2: meaning in a ministry myself. So yeah, my, my, my,
Speaker 2: My typical answer when someone asks who who has pastored
Speaker 2: you in your life, my first answer is Rick Warren. Mmm.
Speaker 1: And we have another there's an interesting there's another connection
Speaker 1: here Brandon Puffer, who has been on the podcast. His mother,
Speaker 1: I believe, was a longtime secretary there.
Speaker 2: For Okay, okay, yeah, I don't know that. I don't
Speaker 2: know we I know the last name, but I don't Yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I can't remember her first name is her first name is?
Speaker 1: Is failing me right now. But you can go back
Speaker 1: and listen to that. Brandon was a former major league
Speaker 1: pitcher who you know, listen to the siren song of addiction,
Speaker 1: like so many of us, ended up in prison, and
Speaker 1: so when you talk about grace, when you talk about confession,
Speaker 1: his story is a powerful one. So you can go
Speaker 1: back and listen to that episode shameless plug, shameless plug
Speaker 1: to get you know, to have people go back and listen.
Speaker 2: I would hope you would encourage people to listen to
Speaker 2: your your party. There's nothing shameless about that.
Speaker 1: Thank you. But we're talking to you because you've written
Speaker 1: this book and I have it. I have it here
Speaker 1: on on on my kindle. But Pastoral Canfessions the Healing
Speaker 1: Path to face faithful ministry. Why don't you just give
Speaker 1: us a little bit of background on what led you
Speaker 1: to write this book? And I know it's specifically written
Speaker 1: to pastors, but yet I have gleaned so much from it,
Speaker 1: and I think our audience can glean so much from it.
Speaker 1: But what led you to write this book?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, as I shared earlier twenty years in full
Speaker 2: time pastoral ministry and variety of church contexts, I think
Speaker 2: those two decades of ministry were really, I think an
Speaker 2: occasion for me to both as directed by the Spirit,
Speaker 2: kind of attend to my heart and the unique semptations
Speaker 2: and vices that can actually come in the pastoral vocation.
Speaker 2: And without going all the details, there were just pretty
Speaker 2: pivotal kind of inflection pointsments along that journey of twenty
Speaker 2: years where the Lord really invited me to see the
Speaker 2: truth of my heart that while I had embraced, I
Speaker 2: think in faithfulness of calling to proclaim the Gospel and
Speaker 2: shepherd God's people, that even in those places where oftentimes
Speaker 2: I was ministering with good ends in mind, there were
Speaker 2: vices driving and motivating me, whether it was grandiosity, self glory, pride,
Speaker 2: and so you know, along my journey, the Lord really,
Speaker 2: in his grace invited me to see these things in
Speaker 2: my heart, and I think surrounded me with both soul
Speaker 2: care providers and dear friends in my life who can
Speaker 2: kind of invite me into honest confession with the Lord
Speaker 2: and take me a bit on a journey of formation
Speaker 2: in my own kind of engagement with the vocation. And
Speaker 2: so I think one part of the motive of the
Speaker 2: book was really just just to name that name my experience.
Speaker 2: But I think the second maybe element to share there
Speaker 2: is that over the course of those twenty years, so
Speaker 2: many conversations with fellow pastors in particular, that I often
Speaker 2: discovered we're struggling with the very temptations or leading out
Speaker 2: of similar vices that I had unearthed in my own
Speaker 2: life and heart and ministry. And yet oftentimes we're trying
Speaker 2: to kind of manage those things on their own, keep
Speaker 2: them hidden, keep them concealed, sometimes perhaps out of fear
Speaker 2: of what might happen if this is discovered? Will others
Speaker 2: view this as disqualifying? With this, you know, quite literally
Speaker 2: caused me to lose my job. I think for most
Speaker 2: it probably wasn't always quite that extreme, but just that
Speaker 2: kind of that fear of what will people think, how
Speaker 2: will they view me now as a leader? If the
Speaker 2: truth of my heart, the sins of my heart, especially
Speaker 2: as they're kind of coming to bear on the ways
Speaker 2: in which I'm even engaging in the ministry, in the vocation,
Speaker 2: those things are revealed, might it actually cause others to stumble?
Speaker 2: And so I think, through the course of countless conversations
Speaker 2: with fellow pastors, what began to surface in my heart? Wow,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of pastors laboring in what I will
Speaker 2: call just unconfessed sin, and they're trying to manage it
Speaker 2: on their own. They've kind of kept these secrets to themselves.
Speaker 2: But now I've been a ministry long enough to see
Speaker 2: the very kind of lived reality and effect of what
Speaker 2: happens when we keep our sins to ourselves, unconfessed and hidden,
Speaker 2: and try to manage them on our own. And so
Speaker 2: I just really began to have this kind of burden
Speaker 2: of heart? What might it look like to invite pastors
Speaker 2: to kind of come out of hiding, to tell their
Speaker 2: secrets first and foremost to the Lord, but also to
Speaker 2: one another. And so the last piece here. I actually
Speaker 2: started writing the book, and the original kind of working
Speaker 2: title was Temptations of a Pastor. And I had kind
Speaker 2: of yeah, and I had kind of stories of temptations
Speaker 2: in ministry, and we'll probably get into this, but the
Speaker 2: ways in which certain sins and vices can kind of
Speaker 2: disorder and distort the very work the vocation itself. And
Speaker 2: I was kind of narrating those things as temptations, and
Speaker 2: I really felt a conviction from the Lord, like, was
Speaker 2: it the healing that you found in all this jame
Speaker 2: and actual confession and acknowledgment of sin, not just not
Speaker 2: just that you were tempted by these things, but you
Speaker 2: actually have sinned in these ways, and yet you've come
Speaker 2: to know my grace. And and so I that was
Speaker 2: for me. And this is several years ago when I
Speaker 2: began to write the book. I spent a couple of
Speaker 2: years writing it, but I I think for me that
Speaker 2: was a really significant shift. And around that time I
Speaker 2: returned to Augustine's you know, magisterial work, and and and
Speaker 2: and I think the Lord also used his words, I
Speaker 2: mean the confessions. I've read Augustin's Confessions. I've read I
Speaker 2: don't know, probably six seven times in my life. But
Speaker 2: this time I really used it as a kind of
Speaker 2: the Lord used it, I think, just again to kind
Speaker 2: of prod me towards a different mode of writing. And
Speaker 2: so I really felt a sense of conviction that if
Speaker 2: I'm going to call other pastors to confess their sins,
Speaker 2: not just to talk about their temptation, but to really
Speaker 2: be honest about their sin before the Lord and one another,
Speaker 2: then I need then I need to go first. And
Speaker 2: if we're going to take James five sixteen, seriously confessed
Speaker 2: your sins to one another and pray for one another
Speaker 2: that you may be healed, and I'm going to commend
Speaker 2: that as actually a wise way for pastors to live
Speaker 2: their lives, I need to go first in the book.
Speaker 2: And so so that for me became an impetus for
Speaker 2: not just talking about the idea of confession, not just
Speaker 2: hinting at certain temptations I may have had, but as
Speaker 2: you know, having read the book, actually confessing my pastoral
Speaker 2: sins and then inviting pastors to join me in the
Speaker 2: ways in which these sins might be showing up in
Speaker 2: their lives as well.
Speaker 1: So I was going to ask you a question and then,
Speaker 1: like I told you, I just chased rabbits. And so
Speaker 1: then you brought something up that I'm like, Okay, then
Speaker 1: we're scrill there when I talk about radical vulnerability, which
Speaker 1: is true confession, right, And so you know that's one
Speaker 1: of my four steps. In my book, I talk a
Speaker 1: lot about James five sixteen. One thing I appreciated about
Speaker 1: your writing, by the way, is is it's great to
Speaker 1: see another writer who will who will use healthy footnotes.
Speaker 1: I love using footnotes. And so what's so interesting is
Speaker 1: you you talk about James five to sixteen, and you
Speaker 1: have this really lengthy footnote about where you go into
Speaker 1: kind of some of the views on James five sixteen.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's really interesting because when I'm speaking
Speaker 1: on this, I point out it doesn't say confess your
Speaker 1: sins one to another so you can have peace, so
Speaker 1: you can have whatever it says so that you may
Speaker 1: be feeled. And what's interesting to what I point out
Speaker 1: is that I think this is an example of basically
Speaker 1: like where science catches up to the Bible, because as
Speaker 1: studies have shown that in confession, when we actually are
Speaker 1: open and honest about what goes on and what has
Speaker 1: been done to us and what we have done, we
Speaker 1: like there's literally physical health, and like people who confess
Speaker 1: more to go to the doctor less, like there's there's
Speaker 1: actually physical benefits to confession. But it's interesting you kind
Speaker 1: of went on this on on really digging through this,
Speaker 1: and you kind of came to this conclusion I think
Speaker 1: in some ways very similar that what James is talking
Speaker 1: about there is holistic health.
Speaker 2: Can you explain that, Yeah, yeah, well some of this is,
Speaker 2: you know, to put my my theologian hat on for
Speaker 2: a moment. Some of this is, uh probably would demand
Speaker 2: getting into some weeds of exegesis with the whole book
Speaker 2: of James. But in that in that footnote you reference,
Speaker 2: I kind of tipped my cap to Richard Bakam at
Speaker 2: least as I recall, and he he does a really
Speaker 2: good job of kind of just identifying the ways in
Speaker 2: which James talks about persons throughout his letter and to
Speaker 2: put it in a kind of a negative register that
Speaker 2: James is not prone to be kind of reductive, right,
Speaker 2: But he's wanting to think holistically. And I think Bacham's
Speaker 2: reading of the text is a good one on the whole.
Speaker 2: And I think the way it shows up in particular
Speaker 2: in that verse is, Yeah, in the immediate context, you
Speaker 2: have this question about those who've been sick, those who've
Speaker 2: been physically ill, and I think what we would want
Speaker 2: to say is something like, yeah, what you just said
Speaker 2: is true. It turns out human persons are integrated, right,
Speaker 2: Meaning what's going on in our body is not somehow
Speaker 2: kind of separated it from what's going on in our mind,
Speaker 2: our heart, and vice versa. That persons experience life as
Speaker 2: an integrated whole. And so I think we want to have,
Speaker 2: I think a vision of the effects of sin that
Speaker 2: makes sense of some of the other Biblical language that
Speaker 2: we might want to bring in here. So I think
Speaker 2: of the Psalm as talking about envy making the bones rocked. Well,
Speaker 2: there's there's a way of reading that that just kind
Speaker 2: of exclusively spiritualizes, meaning that reads it as a kind
Speaker 2: of maybe exclusively as a metaphor for that which is
Speaker 2: only something that the spirit experiences, or a spiritual experience.
Speaker 2: But I'm inclined to read it actually again more holistically,
Speaker 2: that there is a kind of bodily misery and physiological
Speaker 2: reality that happens when a soul is really given over
Speaker 2: to envy. But that's also not to the neglect of
Speaker 2: the kind of spirit, mind, heart effect as well. So
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, I would just want to affirm what
Speaker 2: you said. And I do think that an unconfessed life
Speaker 2: has an effect on the whole person, and I think
Speaker 2: the healing we're looking for is a healing of the
Speaker 2: whole person. Now, of course, I think we want to
Speaker 2: have a kind of a right eschatological perspective here, meaning
Speaker 2: I think what we don't want to do is suggest
Speaker 2: some kind of form of a prosperity yes hundred gospel
Speaker 2: in connection to confession, like if I just confess, then
Speaker 2: all my physical ailments are going to go away. But
Speaker 2: but again, neither do we want to suggest that our
Speaker 2: sin and what's going on in our inner life, for example,
Speaker 2: has no effect on our body. And I think in
Speaker 2: many ways, as much as there's maybe some some deeper
Speaker 2: theological questions to ask care and wrestle through, I think
Speaker 2: in the lived experience that folks have even even that
Speaker 2: reference I gave earlier envy makes the bones rot. I
Speaker 2: think there's I think there's a sense where people can
Speaker 2: kind of go, yeah, you know, there is a kind
Speaker 2: of physiological, bodily kind of misery, you know, clinched, clinched
Speaker 2: in my stomach, tight in my shoulders. Well, whatever it
Speaker 2: may be for folks, and so I I think even
Speaker 2: maybe as folks here as talk as much as as
Speaker 2: much as uh, there's a lot we can say here
Speaker 2: with theological depth. There is a kind of at handness
Speaker 2: for folks where I think they would go, well, yeah,
Speaker 2: of course, yeah, of course.
Speaker 1: You know, you know, think the common language that is
Speaker 1: used when people confess, like they say, it's like a
Speaker 1: weight was lifted off, right, it's physiological language that anyone
Speaker 1: who has ever hid something or had something kind of
Speaker 1: that they kept secret when it's come out. I mean
Speaker 1: even even you see this on the news, right, people
Speaker 1: who have been caught after so long and they're like,
Speaker 1: you know it kind of it sucked, But man, if
Speaker 1: I'm glad to be free, you know, like there is
Speaker 1: a weight that is lifted, there's a freedom that is found,
Speaker 1: which actually brings me to my next question. You have
Speaker 1: this quote you say, the confessing soul is the flourishing soul.
Speaker 1: Blessed we might say, are the confessors? And so two
Speaker 1: questions there, I guess I would say, how can you
Speaker 1: say that? Why? Why is that true?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: And then what do you say to the person who's like,
Speaker 1: that's great in theory, but you don't know what's coming
Speaker 1: if I confess this, you know, So, how is it
Speaker 1: that we can say that, blessed are the confessors? Like
Speaker 1: what is waiting for us?
Speaker 2: Yeah? And that's really good.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after this.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think where my mind goes here, John is
Speaker 2: maybe to reflect a little bit on Paul's theology in
Speaker 2: Corinthians of power being perfected in weakness. And I think
Speaker 2: the act of confession is in many ways an embrace
Speaker 2: of one's weakness, one's frailty, one's desperation, one's great need,
Speaker 2: one's insufficiency. And in other words, it's not only an
Speaker 2: acknowledgment before the Lord that I've sinned or that there's brokenness,
Speaker 2: But in confession, what we're saying is and I can't
Speaker 2: resolve it. Confession is an act of drawing near to
Speaker 2: the Lord and the truth of ourselves, to declare I
Speaker 2: need you here, I am in need of grace. I
Speaker 2: can't resolve this on my own. And so I think,
Speaker 2: as I reflect a little bit on Paul's theology of
Speaker 2: power and weakness, I think that's in part what I'm
Speaker 2: trying to get at with the language of flourishing, that
Speaker 2: if it really is true that the Christ's power is
Speaker 2: perfected in weakness, that when I'm weak, then I'm strong,
Speaker 2: that the sufficiency of His grace is what actually makes
Speaker 2: for a sustained and flourishing life. Then getting about the
Speaker 2: business of meeting God in the truth of my sin,
Speaker 2: my frailty, as well as just other kinds of weakness.
Speaker 2: We might want to talk about my insufficiencies, my fatigue,
Speaker 2: my suffering, whatever it may be. But all these things
Speaker 2: that often we try so hard to kind of hide
Speaker 2: or cover, avoid, mitigate, actually all these things that we
Speaker 2: might identify as weaknesses in our life now actually become
Speaker 2: places in which we know the abiding presence of God
Speaker 2: in our life and his power at work in our life.
Speaker 2: And I think what I would want to say maybe
Speaker 2: is something like this. You know, the the the only
Speaker 2: powerful life is the life of utter dependence upon the Lord. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And that that is the flourishing life. The only way
Speaker 2: to produce fruit in the kingdom is to abide. And
Speaker 2: I know this is something you talk about in your
Speaker 2: book as well. And apart from Him, we can do nothing.
Speaker 2: And so the flourishing life, the powerful life, is the
Speaker 2: abiding life. It's the life of coming to know God's
Speaker 2: grace in our failure. It's a life of coming to
Speaker 2: know His strength in our weakness and living out of
Speaker 2: that power and that strength, living out of that abiding
Speaker 2: love independence. And I know for many of us that's
Speaker 2: that's counterintuitive kingdom, right, But it turns out that's the gospel. Right.
Speaker 1: It's funny, you know, you bring up you bring up weakness.
Speaker 1: And so one of my is two Corinthians twelve seven
Speaker 1: through ten. Right, it's like, as someone who has come
Speaker 1: to the end of the end of myself and continually
Speaker 1: and needs to it's it's that thorn in my flesh
Speaker 1: is what keeps me dependent on God. And I think,
Speaker 1: what what what? What most people realize is like like
Speaker 1: everyone has a thorn, right, Like we need to be
Speaker 1: dependent on God, right, Like He allows these things to
Speaker 1: draw us to himself. You say in the book, you
Speaker 1: say our confession cannot merely be a secret kept between
Speaker 1: us and God. And you talk about the necessity of
Speaker 1: confession not just to be vertical but also horizontal. Can
Speaker 1: you talk about why confession? You know some people might
Speaker 1: be listening to listen, It's okay, I'll just you know.
Speaker 1: And I did this a little bit too, right, the
Speaker 1: cognitive dissonance, the tricks we play, the theological ways that
Speaker 1: we justify whatever. Okay, I'm being open with God about it.
Speaker 1: He knows, God knows. God knows that I'm struggling with alcohol. Right,
Speaker 1: But why does confession also have to be horizontal?
Speaker 2: Well, I think a good place to start and to
Speaker 2: not look past too quickly is again a return to
Speaker 2: James five sixteen. And I think what I don't read
Speaker 2: in James five sixteen is any kind of opt out
Speaker 2: clause for those who determined not needed for them, whether
Speaker 2: they be ministry leaders or pastors, whether they be faithful
Speaker 2: followers of Christ and congregations. Right, Confessor sens to one another.
Speaker 2: I take it to one another is an all encompassing
Speaker 2: kind of one another, the same as we get throughout
Speaker 2: the rest of the New Testament. The one anothers are
Speaker 2: directed to the whole of the Body Christ. So we
Speaker 2: want to begin there to say, the Lord says we
Speaker 2: need this, and he calls us to do this. Okay,
Speaker 2: So I think maybe to get a little bit on
Speaker 2: the inside of the why question, I think a couple
Speaker 2: of things come to mind here. One is, I think
Speaker 2: it's important to not reduce interpersonal confession within the Body
Speaker 2: of Christ to merely a kind of human or earthly communication.
Speaker 2: If indeed the Church is intwelt by the Holy Spirit,
Speaker 2: and the Spirit is working in and through the members
Speaker 2: of the Body of Christ to build up this body
Speaker 2: in love, which I think the Apostle Paul makes quite
Speaker 2: clear for us. Then in fact, as we're confessing our
Speaker 2: sins to one another, and as we're hearing one another's confessions,
Speaker 2: the Spirit of the Lord is at work in and
Speaker 2: through the body. In other words, it's not like over here,
Speaker 2: I'm praying and talking to God in my prayer closet,
Speaker 2: and that is a kind of distreet act between God
Speaker 2: and I alone. And then over here when I talk
Speaker 2: to maybe a friend at church about my sin, it's
Speaker 2: just my friend and I talking about my sin, and
Speaker 2: God's not involved. That's not the theology of the New
Speaker 2: Testament and what we have going on in the New
Speaker 2: Testament as a vision of God being at work in
Speaker 2: and through the priesthood of all believers. In other words,
Speaker 2: his grace, the grace we need to meet us in
Speaker 2: our sin, the grace that brings healing in our sin,
Speaker 2: is not only to be known in the privacy of prayer,
Speaker 2: but it is mediated in and through the members of
Speaker 2: His body. It is mediated in in through the priesthood
Speaker 2: of all believers. So, in other words, to say we
Speaker 2: need one another and to confess to another is yet
Speaker 2: still to say we need God. And here's how God
Speaker 2: has seemed fit to communicate himself to us and communicate
Speaker 2: his grace to us is in and through his body Church.
Speaker 2: So I'd want to again there as a reminder that
Speaker 2: this isn't a kind of yeah, we need to tell God,
Speaker 2: but also I need to tell a person too, or
Speaker 2: something like that God is involved in all this. Our
Speaker 2: confession is always directed to Him, and noticed there in
Speaker 2: James five sixteen, the reason for confession to another is
Speaker 2: that the other may pray for us. God needs to
Speaker 2: hear our prayers from our own heart, and He also
Speaker 2: needs to hear our prayers in and through the hearts
Speaker 2: of others. He hears our heart through the intercession of
Speaker 2: brothers and sisters in Christ. He hears our cry through
Speaker 2: their shared cry on our behalf. I say this often
Speaker 2: when this comes up in context, for maybe I'm invited
Speaker 2: to speak, I say, I can use all the prayer
Speaker 2: I can get. How about you? And I can use
Speaker 2: all the prayer I can get, And I can use
Speaker 2: all the prayer I can get in particular about the
Speaker 2: sin in my life, which is I take it to
Speaker 2: be the deepest problem of my life. Whatever I've determined
Speaker 2: to be the deepest problem of my life. Sin actually
Speaker 2: is the deepest problem of my life. And I can
Speaker 2: use all the prayer I can get about such sin.
Speaker 2: I think the other thing I would want to say,
Speaker 2: last thing I'd want to say here, John, is this.
Speaker 2: I take it that others who are listening to this
Speaker 2: are like me. And the truth of my sin is that,
Speaker 2: because I have become very habituated in hiding and covering
Speaker 2: my sin, often am very self deceived about the sin
Speaker 2: in my life. Self deception is a serious problem in
Speaker 2: my life. Some sins I recognize in myself, but I
Speaker 2: don't recognize the depth of them, or even the ways
Speaker 2: in which they might actually be showing up and manifesting
Speaker 2: in my life in relationship to other people. And so
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot we could say here, but
Speaker 2: one of the things I would I would want to
Speaker 2: also invite people to consider, is you need one another
Speaker 2: to actually see clearly what is to be confessed. You
Speaker 2: need one another to actually see your sin in truth,
Speaker 2: so that even in the privacy of your prayer closet,
Speaker 2: you are drawing near to the Lord in honesty. If
Speaker 2: I'm left to my own devices of discerning my sin,
Speaker 2: I'm going to be in real trouble. And so that
Speaker 2: the kind of the avoidance of confession to others is
Speaker 2: also an avoidance of the truth of my sin, because
Speaker 2: to varying degrees, we all are self deceived about our
Speaker 2: lives and about our sin. And so part of that
Speaker 2: confession to another as well is to say, can you
Speaker 2: help me see this in truth in my life? Can
Speaker 2: you help me see what's really going on? Can you
Speaker 2: join me as a friend or maybe a sole care
Speaker 2: provider or pastor whoever it may be, in my life,
Speaker 2: can you help me discern the sin in my life?
Speaker 2: And also discern the ways in which it is showing
Speaker 2: up that I can bring all of that before the Lord,
Speaker 2: and you can bring all of that before the Lord
Speaker 2: as well with me. So I think that's another another
Speaker 2: reason why to get at the why why we need
Speaker 2: one another confession of our sin.
Speaker 1: I want to go here for a second because there
Speaker 1: is Chuck to Grott. He's been a guest on this
Speaker 1: podcast as well, which I know you reference him in
Speaker 1: the book, but he talks about vulnerability versus real vulnerability,
Speaker 1: and you have this line that I think is really good.
Speaker 1: You say every temptation was a means of escaping that
Speaker 1: which is at the heart of true confession vulnerability. And
Speaker 1: obviously I give it a qualifier in my book as
Speaker 1: well that it has to be radical vulnerability because our
Speaker 1: we're used to regular vulnerability, right, we know how to
Speaker 1: And you kind of talk about this a little bit too,
Speaker 1: and where where oh, I'm just going to confess my struggles,
Speaker 1: you know, in right, I'm just gonna talk about my
Speaker 1: you know. And and I give that example of the
Speaker 1: book too, like you go around a room and everyone's like,
Speaker 1: you know, Bob's like, yeah, I'm just struggling with LUs today.
Speaker 1: You know, you're like, okay, Bob, like what does that.
Speaker 2: Really look like? Right?
Speaker 1: Are you going to be right? So my question to
Speaker 1: you is what does it look like? And what does
Speaker 1: it mean to be truly vulnerable? Like what does that mean?
Speaker 2: Hm? Yeah, well I do. I have appreciation for Chuck.
Speaker 2: He's a he's a friend, and yeah, just really appreciative
Speaker 2: of his ministry. And I think he has some good
Speaker 2: things to say here. I'd want to commend his writing
Speaker 2: one vulnerability for folks. You know what comes up for me,
Speaker 2: as you asked, that is maybe a brief reflection and
Speaker 2: a brief return to the first moment of sin and
Speaker 2: Genesis three in the garden. What we see immediately following
Speaker 2: sin and rebellion is an attempt to hide and cover
Speaker 2: because of guilt and shame, to kind of now deal
Speaker 2: with the fallout and to begin kind of managing God
Speaker 2: and to keep God at a distance. And I think
Speaker 2: the fear that shows up there for Adam and Eve
Speaker 2: is if I actually come out of hiding and I
Speaker 2: uncover that I'm going to be in real trouble and
Speaker 2: condemnation is coming. And I think it's important to remember
Speaker 2: that this fear is not for no reason as well.
Speaker 2: I mean, the Lord has communicated clearly death is the
Speaker 2: consequence for rebellion and sin, and so I think we
Speaker 2: need to be careful not to just kind of collapse
Speaker 2: the story into kind of psychological struggle. But there are
Speaker 2: real consequences for sin, there's real judgment for sin, according
Speaker 2: to the Lord. And yet what we see as the
Speaker 2: Lord graciously calls them out of hiding with that wonderful
Speaker 2: question where are you? This is not God? Is it
Speaker 2: like bad at hide and seek?
Speaker 3: You know, he knows exactly where they are physically, But
Speaker 3: I take it, but I take it the question is
Speaker 3: not just a question of where they are physically, but
Speaker 3: it is a question that is inviting confession.
Speaker 2: Come out of hiding in all the ways you're hiding, uncover,
Speaker 2: come before me. And the fear there for Adam and
Speaker 2: Eve is that the place of their healing is actually
Speaker 2: a place of harm, and the truth is the only
Speaker 2: way for them to resolve what's going on. The only
Speaker 2: way for them to actually be healed is to indeed
Speaker 2: come out of hiding, drawn nears to the Lord and
Speaker 2: to discover that he actually meets them in grace. And
Speaker 2: as we see the movement in the garden now is
Speaker 2: going to be a movement to promise of resolution for
Speaker 2: this not only for them, but for all of humanity.
Speaker 2: A promised seed, but a provisional covering right is offered
Speaker 2: for them in place of the covering they've tried to make.
Speaker 2: God's gracious presence meets them. So I think what I
Speaker 2: would want to say is something like this, Adam Neive's
Speaker 2: temptations of hiding and covering, these are going to be ours.
Speaker 2: We inherit them in the fall. Their fear of condemnation
Speaker 2: is going to be a kind of perennial now, fear
Speaker 2: for the human heart, especially in relation to sin, this
Speaker 2: is going to be part of our experience. And so
Speaker 2: how do we then embrace the vulnerability necessary for the healing?
Speaker 2: How do we actually continue to come out of hiding
Speaker 2: time and again so that we might actually experience God's grace?
Speaker 2: And I think what I often tell folks is and
Speaker 2: I love your language, John, I love the language of
Speaker 2: radical vulnerability. But what I often tell folks is you
Speaker 2: must begin where you are. And if where you are
Speaker 2: is well, Lord, I still feel like hiding, and I
Speaker 2: don't know that it actually is safe. Then start the
Speaker 2: conversation there, and that's where radical vulnerability, I would argue,
Speaker 2: actually begins, because I think one of the temptations when
Speaker 2: hearing that language of kind of radical vulnerability is to
Speaker 2: think I have to go from zero to one hundred, right,
Speaker 2: meaning you know, I haven't been vulnerable at all. And
Speaker 2: now what you're asking me to do is, like, I
Speaker 2: don't know, show up tomorrow night at an AA meeting
Speaker 2: around the corner and let everybody in that room know
Speaker 2: everything I've ever done, or show up to my small
Speaker 2: small group meeting tonight and finally let it rip and
Speaker 2: tell them every sin I've ever committed since I was
Speaker 2: five years old with great detail, right, and you know,
Speaker 2: and likewise to do the same thing with the Lord.
Speaker 2: You know, if I'm honest, I've kind of lived a
Speaker 2: fairly unconfessed life in prayer. I've done a lot of
Speaker 2: maybe generic sin confession. Oh Lord, you know I'm a sinner,
Speaker 2: forgive me, Okay, thanks bye. There's been a lot of that.
Speaker 2: And now you're asking me to kind of somehow go
Speaker 2: full tilt on every moment of pornographic viewing for the
Speaker 2: last decade and to kind of print off a sheet
Speaker 2: at time stamps and then talk to the Lord about
Speaker 2: every one of those moments like, oh, man, right, and so,
Speaker 2: what I would want folks to hear, and I think
Speaker 2: you would agree with this, what I would want folks
Speaker 2: to hear is this is the temptation for us in
Speaker 2: dealing with our sin, the very temptation of Adam Eve.
Speaker 2: This is going to be the fear for us, the
Speaker 2: very fear of Adam and Eve. And now the I
Speaker 2: think the invitation of the Lord is to begin coming
Speaker 2: out of hiding to hear that question where are you
Speaker 2: and to begin answering it precisely in the place we are,
Speaker 2: and if the place we are is Lord, I think
Speaker 2: the only vulnerability I can do right now is to
Speaker 2: be honest, fatifical with the fact that it's really scared
Speaker 2: to be vulnerable. Start the conversation with the Lord there,
Speaker 2: because the answer to courage is going to be nothing
Speaker 2: short of and encounter with the tryune God, meaning I
Speaker 2: don't want to have any model for maturing and vulnerability
Speaker 2: that is natural. It has to be supernatural, meaning it's
Speaker 2: going to require God's presence actually meeting you in that vulnerability.
Speaker 2: That one half step of vulnerability measure his grace meeting
Speaker 2: you there, his presence and encounter with him. That's going
Speaker 2: to now give you the courage to say, you know what,
Speaker 2: I haven't think I have a little more to share.
Speaker 2: They kept a little more to share, And I think
Speaker 2: I would just say the same thing about confession ever
Speaker 2: since to one another. You know, my book is so much,
Speaker 2: as you said, directed towards pastors. Although much of the
Speaker 2: book I'm talking about sin in all of our lives, right,
Speaker 2: and I narrate the seven deadly sins pride and lust
Speaker 2: and in the avarice. Acadia might be a little bit
Speaker 2: unfamiliar to folks, but I think, here sloth, that's primarily
Speaker 2: what we have in mind with a Kadia. But you know,
Speaker 2: and I narrate in many of the chapters kind of
Speaker 2: the need for us to confess these things to one another,
Speaker 2: for pastors to confess these sins to another another pastor
Speaker 2: another ministry leader. And oftentimes I get questions there, man,
Speaker 2: how do I go from I don't do this at
Speaker 2: all to again showing up in my next elder meeting,
Speaker 2: and just what do I do? Just let it rip?
Speaker 2: I like, share everything, call a friend tonight and don't
Speaker 2: get off the phone until it's all done. Is this
Speaker 2: what you're asking me to do? And I say no, No,
Speaker 2: Begin where you are. Identify someone you trust in your life,
Speaker 2: fellow elder, fellow pastor, trusted friend who themselves are committed
Speaker 2: to falling Christ, who want to embrace this way of
Speaker 2: flourishing a life of confession, and start the conversation right there.
Speaker 2: You know what, John, I think this is something we're
Speaker 2: called to do. That's how I read James five sixteen.
Speaker 2: But if I'm really honest, it scares me to death.
Speaker 2: And I trust you as a friend. But if I'm
Speaker 2: really honest, there's there's parts of me that aren't sure
Speaker 2: I can trust you as really being honest about certain
Speaker 2: things in my life. Can we start the conversation there?
Speaker 2: How do you hear that? And how do you feel?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: You know, Jam And it turns out I feel scared too,
Speaker 2: and I you know, And it turns out, you know,
Speaker 2: I think you're right, this is something we're called to do,
Speaker 2: but it seems really scary to really do that in
Speaker 2: a kind of fulsome way, a full throatd infession. And
Speaker 2: can we just start the conversation there? And again? Now
Speaker 2: we can begin to build trust and begin to take
Speaker 2: half steps maybe sometimes some full steps into greater vulnerability.
Speaker 2: So I love that language of vulnerability, radical vulnerability, but
Speaker 2: I think the journey of radical vulnerability is just that
Speaker 2: it's a journey, and what opens us up. I think
Speaker 2: encourage to be honest before the Lord and honest with
Speaker 2: others about our lives is to begin where we are
Speaker 2: and to encounter God's grace and to experience the blessed
Speaker 2: presence of brothers and assist in Christ continuing to meet
Speaker 2: us faithfully and well in certain places where we can
Speaker 2: begin to cultivate a little bit more courage to share more.
Speaker 1: Well, you're one hundred percent right that we would be
Speaker 1: on the same page because whenever I talk about radical
Speaker 1: vulnerability and people okay, so what And my line is
Speaker 1: I say, just go one step for then you're comfortable going,
Speaker 1: and then and then when you get comfortable there, just
Speaker 1: take another step. And then when you get comfortable there,
Speaker 1: you take it another step.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: So it's like it's like, you know, I had a
Speaker 1: guy raised his hand, He's like, ah, you know, all
Speaker 1: you young people you just post everything on you know,
Speaker 1: social media, and I'm like, listen, I am not telling
Speaker 1: you to go home and post all your sins on
Speaker 1: social media. And that's what radical vulnerability is. It's going
Speaker 1: one step further than you're comfortable going, and then taking
Speaker 1: another step, and then taking another step. And you said
Speaker 1: something there that I just wanted to read because I
Speaker 1: think it's one of the most beautiful few lines in
Speaker 1: the book. But you talked about the place of harm
Speaker 1: being the place of healing. I'm a sucker for alliteration
Speaker 1: as well, so so I just wanted to read this.
Speaker 1: The fear of our heart is built on sins. Great lie,
Speaker 1: that the place of healing is the place of harm,
Speaker 1: that the chalice of confession is filled with poison, that
Speaker 1: the medicine God has provided cannot be trusted. We have
Speaker 1: come to believe that confession is not a place of life,
Speaker 1: but instead a place of death. Of course, as with
Speaker 1: all lies, the devil has sown this one trades on
Speaker 1: something that is true. Confession does entail a kind of death,
Speaker 1: but it is precisely by such a death that we
Speaker 1: find true life. And you know, someone asked me, well, John,
Speaker 1: how would you define vulnerability? And I want to run
Speaker 1: this by you and see what you think. Right, you
Speaker 1: can tell me I'm wrong, right, you can be professor,
Speaker 1: an I'd be seminary student. But is like, I feel
Speaker 1: like if we're going to practice vulnerability, true vulnerability, that
Speaker 1: it has to entail the fact that we could get hurt,
Speaker 1: Like it has to it has to entail the fact that,
Speaker 1: like if you're confessing something in being vulnerable, like you know,
Speaker 1: I joke with someone the other day that it's kind
Speaker 1: of like the Miranda right, like cannon will be used
Speaker 1: against you in the court of law, like it could
Speaker 1: be used against you in the court of public opinion.
Speaker 1: Like if you confess this, it could hurt you in
Speaker 1: some ways. That's how you know you're being vulnerable. How
Speaker 1: does that sit am? I am I off there? What
Speaker 1: does that? What does that sound like to you?
Speaker 2: Well, when I when I hear you say that, I
Speaker 2: think I'm hearing you kind of primarily talking about interpersonal vulnerability.
Speaker 2: So we're not talking about a relationship with God here, right, right,
Speaker 2: We're talking about sharing with another, being honest with another
Speaker 2: about our life, and confessing to another person. And I
Speaker 2: think I think they're I think you're right, and I
Speaker 2: think maybe to move away from the kind of immediate
Speaker 2: context of confessing my sins. This is just true of
Speaker 2: genuine relationship. In other words, vulnerabilities, it turns out, is
Speaker 2: going to be kind of a prerequisite for actual relationship.
Speaker 2: To be known requires a kind of honesty of person
Speaker 2: and a vulnerability of person. And if I'm not known,
Speaker 2: then I'm not going to actually experience love. And so
Speaker 2: I think in many respects, maybe we just want to
Speaker 2: say it this way, even in broader terms than even
Speaker 2: specific to confession, although I do think it applies there.
Speaker 2: The risk of vulnerability is the risk of love, and
Speaker 2: the risk of love with it turns out human persons
Speaker 2: is the risk of being hurt and being disappointed and
Speaker 2: being let down and being rejected, and that's I think
Speaker 2: we all know that to be true in life. And
Speaker 2: the other option is we opt out of genuine relationships,
Speaker 2: we opt out of really being known, and consequently we
Speaker 2: opt out of experiencing love and being loves by another.
Speaker 2: And I think that that's true in dating relationships, it's
Speaker 2: true in friendships all right, It's true in partnered ministry relationships,
Speaker 2: and in the church. It's it's true in all of
Speaker 2: our relationships. And I think without that vulnerability we live
Speaker 2: very I think in the truest sense of the word
Speaker 2: lonely lives in which we are not known and we
Speaker 2: do not experience being loves. But yes, it it brings
Speaker 2: with it a risk. It brings as as as genuine
Speaker 2: love and authentic relationship always does. It brings with it
Speaker 2: the risk of being rejected and being hurt and being
Speaker 2: let down. And I think here maybe I would just
Speaker 2: want to add one note for folks up, kind of
Speaker 2: a pastoral note. I think in all this talk of
Speaker 2: confessing sins and being vulnerable, it's not lost on me
Speaker 2: that some of us have tried to do that. And
Speaker 2: and I'm sure you know these stories as well, John,
Speaker 2: Some of us, you know, have taken the risk of
Speaker 2: being honest and being vulnerable and trusting another with our life,
Speaker 2: whether it's confessing sin or even just sharing a personal wound,
Speaker 2: actually sharing suffering another place of vulnerability in our lives,
Speaker 2: and that has been used against us, or we have
Speaker 2: been gossiped about, or we have been met with condemnation,
Speaker 2: or we've been met a bit like Job's friends met
Speaker 2: him with a kind of fixing, spiritual spiritualized speech, correction
Speaker 2: where comfort was needed, whatever it may be, and it's
Speaker 2: not lost on me that those experiences of rejection, of
Speaker 2: the kind of correction where comfort was actually needed, or
Speaker 2: maybe have just kind of avoidance. Maybe we shared with
Speaker 2: somebody and they didn't slander, they didn't correct or condemned,
Speaker 2: but they just kind of took off, They didn't stay
Speaker 2: with us in it, and they kind of ran away
Speaker 2: when we really needed intimacy and care and presence. And
Speaker 2: those experiences are really painful, and they can we can
Speaker 2: begin to cultivate in the heart a sense of caution
Speaker 2: and suspicion and doubt and hesitancy in choosing to be
Speaker 2: vulnerable again, choosing to trust again. And I think that
Speaker 2: is oftentimes, for many of us, a great challenge. And
Speaker 2: so once again my encouragement here would be two things. One,
Speaker 2: meet the Lord in that, you know, if you've experienced
Speaker 2: that from a friend or a pastor even just someone
Speaker 2: you trusted that you thought you could be vulnerable with
Speaker 2: and it actually it was harmful in some ways. Meet
Speaker 2: the Lord in that in your grief and crowd to him,
Speaker 2: and this needs to be brought into prayer. But also
Speaker 2: as you're able to begin to bring that experience into
Speaker 2: conversation with trusted others, as you said, with a half
Speaker 2: step or a one step measure, like, Hey, I really
Speaker 2: want this to be true of our friendship, but I've
Speaker 2: had some experiences with prior friendships that boy didn't go great,
Speaker 2: you know, And I just can we begin the conversation there, like,
Speaker 2: I know that's not you, but it's hard for me
Speaker 2: not to have those fears of this relationship and allow
Speaker 2: now the experience of vulnerability to the degree were able
Speaker 2: to be a kind of healing bomb relationally to begin
Speaker 2: to recultivate trust. But I take it, you know.
Speaker 4: This is that conversation not long ago with with Ray
Speaker 4: Ortland about some of this and and he shared a
Speaker 4: wonderful line that I think he received from his maybe
Speaker 4: his dad in the years of growing up.
Speaker 2: But people, people will hurt you and disappoint you and
Speaker 2: keep giving your heart away. And you know, because the
Speaker 2: other option is again a kind of loneliness and a
Speaker 2: life of isolation apart from kind of love and care
Speaker 2: and intimacy that I think the Lord intends, particularly within
Speaker 2: the body of Christ.
Speaker 1: Yeah, two more questions as we start to wrap up here.
Speaker 1: One of them would be, you know you write this
Speaker 1: book to pastors, I think one of the great failures
Speaker 1: of the church. And and you know that paints a
Speaker 1: broad brush, but but it's just not really kind of
Speaker 1: understanding grace, right that when people do fall, when they
Speaker 1: when they do confess, when there are things that the
Speaker 1: church and too many Christians kind of struggle with, Well
Speaker 1: what does it look like to offer grace to someone
Speaker 1: and so and so there's this there's this line you have.
Speaker 1: He says, the problem comes when we believe above reproach
Speaker 1: equals without sin. And so I guess my question is
Speaker 1: how do we how does the church come to a
Speaker 1: better understanding of what it looks like to accept people
Speaker 1: in general as they're confessing, but then also pastors and
Speaker 1: those who have fallen, and not just throw these kind
Speaker 1: of trite like well, you're supposed to be above reproach
Speaker 1: and the and the scriptures say that you will be
Speaker 1: judged party, which is true, but first of all, like
Speaker 1: what does that mean above reproach? And how can we
Speaker 1: as Christians do a better job of offering grace? We'll
Speaker 1: be right back after.
Speaker 2: This, Yeah, great question. I think the above reproach is
Speaker 2: that line. I think you know it's used repetitiously by
Speaker 2: the apostle Paul in those texts in the pastoral epistles
Speaker 2: that are often identified as qualifications for the pastoral office.
Speaker 2: So you have Titus one Timothy three, and I think
Speaker 2: the best way to understand what Paul's getting at there
Speaker 2: is actually just to read this surrounding context. Right, Paul
Speaker 2: provides in both those texts of qualification for the pastoral
Speaker 2: office a kind of profile of character. What we don't
Speaker 2: get there is anything about a resume of success or
Speaker 2: accolades or achievements, or even skill set and competency. Paul's
Speaker 2: concern is about character, and so we hear about being
Speaker 2: self controlled and gentle, we hear about being hospitable. Right
Speaker 2: is going to give us a profile in both these passages,
Speaker 2: And I think that's the best place to look and saying, well,
Speaker 2: what does it look like to be a BROP approach?
Speaker 2: In other words, I take above reproach to be the
Speaker 2: kind of summary statement for this kind of person. I'm
Speaker 2: describing what I often say in the classes I teach
Speaker 2: to Talbot is pastors are called to love to a
Speaker 2: life of holy love that is both distinguished and demonstrative,
Speaker 2: meaning it's marked by maturity. It's distinguished. They are elders
Speaker 2: in the household of God. They are those who are
Speaker 2: older and mature in the faith that the rest of
Speaker 2: the body of Christ ought to be able to look
Speaker 2: at and say, Ah, that's what it looks like to
Speaker 2: mature in Christ, to mature in love. And they do
Speaker 2: so in a demonstrated manner, meaning their examples to the
Speaker 2: flock that their lives are meant to be an example
Speaker 2: of it. This is what it looks like to bear
Speaker 2: the fruit of an abiding life in Christ with maturity. Now,
Speaker 2: all that being said, that line you read for my book,
Speaker 2: what this doesn't mean is that a pastor is going
Speaker 2: to be perfect above approach is not without sin. If
Speaker 2: the qualification for the pastoral office was without sin, none
Speaker 2: would be found qualified. To put it simply right, If
Speaker 2: if we say we're without sin, we deceive ourselves and
Speaker 2: we call God a liar. I take that to be
Speaker 2: true for all of us. Okay, yeah, and so now
Speaker 2: I think we're gonna need to think, well about what
Speaker 2: does it mean then for someone to have a kind
Speaker 2: of character, a formed character in Christ by the spirit,
Speaker 2: that is genuinely matured in love, and that is an
Speaker 2: example to all. Then I think there is a sense
Speaker 2: in which we do need at have a high bar
Speaker 2: standard holy life, a life of obedience, but also recognize
Speaker 2: pastors are not without sin. And so I would commend
Speaker 2: those two texts to folks I think as places to
Speaker 2: look at. What is Paul talking about what kind of character?
Speaker 2: Notice in those passages a lot of what you get
Speaker 2: is talk about both the way in which they manage
Speaker 2: and care for their home and their family, as well
Speaker 2: as their reputation in the community. And of course, in
Speaker 2: a first century context, these two things are not as
Speaker 2: easily separated as they are at our day. We don't
Speaker 2: have people driving forty five minutes to an office to
Speaker 2: work all day and driving home where maybe their spouse
Speaker 2: literally never even sees their offers and knows anyone that
Speaker 2: they work with. Right, We're dealing with a cultural environment
Speaker 2: where the way one conducts one's business is family business
Speaker 2: first of all, and the way in which one lives
Speaker 2: in their home is kind of bleeds into the marketplace
Speaker 2: in the community that they live in. And so what
Speaker 2: I what I take that to mean is these are
Speaker 2: the kind of people whose lives, the way they live
Speaker 2: their lives with their family. The way they live their
Speaker 2: lives in the community again models a maturity in Christ
Speaker 2: and demonstrates what it looks like to bear the fruit
Speaker 2: of the Spirit in a way that is exemplary. So
Speaker 2: that being said, I think to answer your other question
Speaker 2: that was attached to it, I think, unfortunately, I think
Speaker 2: we tend to we often, I think, tend to conflate
Speaker 2: a couple of things here, right, pastors caught in sin.
Speaker 2: That's genuinely disqualifying for the pastoral office, according to those
Speaker 2: qualification texts that we have from Paul. Sometimes you'll hear
Speaker 2: folks say something like, well, we want to be about grace,
Speaker 2: and who are we to you know, maybe everything I
Speaker 2: just said, You know, who are we any of us
Speaker 2: to claim we're without sin? And well, yes, of course,
Speaker 2: if if there's genuine repentance and confession, right, we want to,
Speaker 2: as appreciated of all believers, declare the good news of
Speaker 2: absolution in Christ to this brother in Christ who sinned.
Speaker 2: And uh, if there's genuine repentance and confession, then those
Speaker 2: other measures that the apostle actually calls us to, of
Speaker 2: potential exclusion from from the body of Christ and excommunication
Speaker 2: and discipline. Well, if there's genuine repentance and confession and
Speaker 2: a pursuit of restoration in Christ, we want to receive
Speaker 2: them yet still as a brother in Christ. However, that
Speaker 2: does not mean they get to hold pastoral office. Belonging
Speaker 2: to the Body of Christ is not equivalent with holding
Speaker 2: a pastoral office. And what I would say is offering
Speaker 2: grace is no mean they get to keep their job.
Speaker 2: Offering grace means we welcome them yet still as a
Speaker 2: brother in Christ. We receive their confession and repentance as
Speaker 2: genuine and celebrate the good news of the Gospel that
Speaker 2: their sins are forgiven, and we honor the good news
Speaker 2: of the Gospel in Christ in their life. And yet
Speaker 2: if they've proven to be disqualified from pastoral office, then
Speaker 2: I take it they can no longer hold pastoral office.
Speaker 2: And so I think sometimes we can kind of conflate
Speaker 2: these things, right that showing grace means they ought to
Speaker 2: be able to get back on their job, and I
Speaker 2: think being a member of the Body of Christ is
Speaker 2: kind of their first place of identity and relationship to
Speaker 2: the church. Not all members of the Body of Christ
Speaker 2: hold pastoral office, and that's okay, Yeah, so I don't
Speaker 2: know if that's getting at your question enough.
Speaker 1: No, it's helpful because you know, and I say this too,
Speaker 1: is repentance, confession, grace. They're not a get out of
Speaker 1: jail free card. In fact, you may still have to
Speaker 1: go to jail for the things, yes that you do.
Speaker 1: I mean, we talked about Brandon Poffer at the beginning
Speaker 1: of this. You know, a man, it's like, listen, I
Speaker 1: serve time in prison, and I deserve to serve time
Speaker 1: in prison. I was sorry, I was repentant. I did
Speaker 1: what I did, though, and so you know, I think,
Speaker 1: you know, we opened this up a little earlier that like,
Speaker 1: confession is hard, right, and there will be some of
Speaker 1: those who you lose your job. And yet what I
Speaker 1: hope that people get from this going on the way
Speaker 1: back to the beginning, is that there is a beauty,
Speaker 1: There is a freedom. There is a flourishing that you
Speaker 1: you know, you may not see right now, or that
Speaker 1: may not seem like a possibility now, but confession brings
Speaker 1: this this life that you couldn't imagine, right, And that
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily mean like riches and you know all this stuff, right,
Speaker 1: but it brings a flourishing. It brings in a bidy,
Speaker 1: and it brings a relationship with Jesus that you just
Speaker 1: can't put a price tag on. And that's been true
Speaker 1: in my life, and I know it's been true in
Speaker 1: a lot of other people's lives. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe one other note I would add here, you know,
Speaker 2: connected to your question about a pastor who sends in
Speaker 2: a disqualifying way, I think connected to what you just shared,
Speaker 2: it really does Yeah, I think that's what I'd want
Speaker 2: to say it. It really does grieve me that we we
Speaker 2: so often. And I say this is one who's I
Speaker 2: say we because I think I've been a part of
Speaker 2: this and pastoring Egan Church in North America for twenty years.
Speaker 2: We tend to, I think, far too quickly talk about
Speaker 2: a restoration process for the sake of getting back in
Speaker 2: the job, having the job, getting back in holding office.
Speaker 2: And I must say, I actually don't think that is
Speaker 2: gracious to the soul that has sent if the carrot
Speaker 2: is dangled quickly that if you do these steps you're
Speaker 2: going to get back in your job. I just I
Speaker 2: think it presents a real temptation. And I think where
Speaker 2: we want to focus conversation about restoration is with the
Speaker 2: body of Christ. And I think with a kind of
Speaker 2: Pauline vision of how to respond to sin that is
Speaker 2: unconfessed in the community, which paul makes pretty clear about
Speaker 2: what needs to be done in Corinthians. How to respond
Speaker 2: then to sin that is confessed and to receive brother
Speaker 2: sister in Christ and the goal of restoration and right
Speaker 2: relationship with Christ and right relationship with His body like
Speaker 2: this needs to be the I think the focus of
Speaker 2: our energy and caring for those pastors and souls. I
Speaker 2: think oftentimes it's well intentioned, but I actually think it's
Speaker 2: not very caring and gracious to orient that conversation about
Speaker 2: restoration primarily around the vocation, the office, the job, I
Speaker 2: think when that's removed from the table and the conversation
Speaker 2: is about one's relationship with the Lord, one's relationship perhaps
Speaker 2: with their immediate family members that have been infected by
Speaker 2: their sin, if we're talking about in the case of
Speaker 2: adultery for example, or something like this, and one's relationship
Speaker 2: with the Body of Christ. I think there's now everything
Speaker 2: you just talked about, I think now becomes the focal point,
Speaker 2: which is, let's discover here how the Lord is going
Speaker 2: to meet you and let us come alongside you and
Speaker 2: care for you, and care for your family for the
Speaker 2: sake of your relationship with Christ, and for the sake
Speaker 2: of your family right and for the sake of your
Speaker 2: spiritual well being, and not even talk about how do
Speaker 2: we get you back in the pulpit or when are
Speaker 2: you going to get back in the pulpit, and how
Speaker 2: might you get back in the pulpit? I think the
Speaker 2: temptation of that, I think, yeah, I think it presents
Speaker 2: a real challenge for a soul that really does need
Speaker 2: to enter into simply what does it mean to meet
Speaker 2: the Lord here?
Speaker 1: I don't want to open up a can of worms here,
Speaker 1: especially at the end of the podcast, but I'm just curious,
Speaker 1: do you believe that there is a genuine path to
Speaker 1: Do you believe that restoration includes a genuine path for
Speaker 1: pastors who have fallen in those disqualifying since back to
Speaker 1: holding that office. I know we've talked about it's disqualifying
Speaker 1: in the moment and then the what you know and
Speaker 1: they are removed from office. Do you feel do you
Speaker 1: believe that the scripture support going restoring that person back
Speaker 1: to that office when there is genuine repentance. Yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 2: No, you're fine, You're fine, You're fine. Yeah. I think
Speaker 2: i'd want to say a couple of things here. One,
Speaker 2: we're talking, I just want to acknowledge we're talking in
Speaker 2: very general terms and discernment and disqualification. I take it
Speaker 2: to be, you know, something very specific, and I take
Speaker 2: it to be the charge and task of the elders,
Speaker 2: or the presbyteria, or or whatever kind of ecclesial context
Speaker 2: we may be talking about to discern and to render
Speaker 2: a wise judgment with regard to right. I think what
Speaker 2: I would want to say is, as we pay attention
Speaker 2: to the New Testament and all the ways in which
Speaker 2: the kind of authority of that office is described, the
Speaker 2: responsibility of that office, the expected character that that office,
Speaker 2: and therefore the kind of the presumption of being above reproach,
Speaker 2: if indeed you've been found fit for that office. I
Speaker 2: often say to my students, it is very hard to
Speaker 2: become a pastor, and it actually ought to be hard
Speaker 2: in the sense of all the things I just mentioned. Right,
Speaker 2: It's about discerning a life and knowing character, and that
Speaker 2: your character has been tested and proven to be within
Speaker 2: that community, both the church community and the broader community
Speaker 2: that the church is within to be above approach. And
Speaker 2: so I take it if one actually meets that that
Speaker 2: standard of discernment and judgment, that it also ought to
Speaker 2: be difficult to become disqualified. Meaning the New Testament is
Speaker 2: clear on this. We don't just kind of take a
Speaker 2: casual criticism over email, right that there's a there's an
Speaker 2: expectation here of credible accusations and who's bringing those and
Speaker 2: how many and so on and so forth. So I
Speaker 2: take it that it ought to be, in biblical terms,
Speaker 2: difficult to hold the office in light of that, not
Speaker 2: easy to lose the office, meaning you're not disqualified because
Speaker 2: we just decided the enrollment numbers went down, you know,
Speaker 2: last year, or we're not we're not sure you have
Speaker 2: the it factor anymore, or a couple of people complain
Speaker 2: that your sermons go too long or whatever it may be,
Speaker 2: and we kind of chuckle about that. But you and
Speaker 2: I both know, John, some pastors have lost their jobs
Speaker 2: over those things, right, So I think all of that
Speaker 2: being said, I would answer your question this way. I think,
Speaker 2: if indeed you have been found to be disqualified for
Speaker 2: that off, that that standard has been met of discerning
Speaker 2: that indeed, that which was hard for you to receive,
Speaker 2: actually it needs to be taken away. I do take
Speaker 2: it that that is a kind of fixed reality of
Speaker 2: the vocation, because as I read what it means to
Speaker 2: be above reproach, I take it you are no longer
Speaker 2: above reproach as a result of the sin that is
Speaker 2: in your life. And as Paul talks about one's reputation
Speaker 2: in the community being that of above reproach, if one
Speaker 2: has been found disqualified because of sin, that now is
Speaker 2: actually known in the community, not only in the church community,
Speaker 2: but in the broader community. Right like quote, the public,
Speaker 2: so to speak, is well aware that you are a
Speaker 2: pastor who has committed adultery multiple times with members of
Speaker 2: your church. Well, again, you may have entered into a
Speaker 2: kind of restoration process your relationship with Christ and confessing sin,
Speaker 2: and your relationship with the Body of Christ and a
Speaker 2: member of the communion and then the fellowship of those saints.
Speaker 2: But would it be reasonable if you were put back
Speaker 2: in the pulpit from members of that broader community to ask,
Speaker 2: isn't that the pastor who commits adultery, and and isn't
Speaker 2: that his reputation? And is that his reputation now in
Speaker 2: the city he's in, and I think reasonably, I think
Speaker 2: it would be. And so as I read Paul about
Speaker 2: elders need to have a certain kind of reputation within
Speaker 2: their community, that's part of being above approach, I take
Speaker 2: it that once that line has crossed, that line has
Speaker 2: been crossed.
Speaker 1: Well, I didn't mean to spring it, spring that on you, Okay,
Speaker 1: it wasn't a planned question. I just kind of cave up.
Speaker 1: So but I appreciate that. And I'm going to be honest,
Speaker 1: like I'm still trying to figure out where I land
Speaker 1: on that. You know, tell the Indivision has been a
Speaker 1: guest on this podcast, right, and and yet yeah, I
Speaker 1: just I don't fully know, you know, I feel I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm settled on it one way or the other.
Speaker 1: And then I just like, my Lord help me.
Speaker 2: So well, I think maybe my final note would just
Speaker 2: be I think there's reasonable differences of opinion on this,
Speaker 2: and I think, you know, it's going to require some
Speaker 2: interpretation and discernment of how we hold the qualification passages.
Speaker 2: What does it mean to be above reproach once you've
Speaker 2: been found to not be above reproach? Is that just
Speaker 2: true of your life now. And it doesn't mean again
Speaker 2: that you have lost your salvation or you can't be
Speaker 2: a member of Christ's body. But what it does mean
Speaker 2: perhaps is you can't a office. What does it mean
Speaker 2: to say that an elder pastor must have a kind
Speaker 2: of reputation of being above approach within the community, within
Speaker 2: not only the church community, more broadly, is that just
Speaker 2: like an occasion before they take office, or is that
Speaker 2: now kind of true of their life? So these things
Speaker 2: have to be interpreted. That's but I'm giving you kind
Speaker 2: of the way I would read read those passages. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I think appreciate it. That doesn't mean, maybe my
Speaker 2: final word would be here I have I actually have
Speaker 2: dear friends who have been found disqualified from pastoral office
Speaker 2: and no longer in pastoral ministry many years later, And
Speaker 2: what I would want to say, maybe my final word
Speaker 2: here would just be it doesn't mean they can't have
Speaker 2: a meaningful, flourishing life in Christ, and doesn't mean they
Speaker 2: can't meaningfully participate in the body of Christ as one
Speaker 2: member of that body. And what I wouldn't I think
Speaker 2: what my warning would be something like this if if
Speaker 2: the other said of the argument were to say something like, well,
Speaker 2: if they don't get back that that office, then they
Speaker 2: don't get to meaningfully participate in the church, or they
Speaker 2: don't get to exercise their gifts. And I would want
Speaker 2: to say, oh, well, there, I would just have to disagree. Right,
Speaker 2: there are many more people in the church who are
Speaker 2: not holding that office, and I don't think we want
Speaker 2: to say that they are not essential members of the body,
Speaker 2: whose gifts are critical, who play a vital role in
Speaker 2: the fellowship of the Saints. And so, in other words,
Speaker 2: what I would want to say to some of my
Speaker 2: friends who have been found as qualified, that they're still
Speaker 2: a vital part of the Body of Christ and we
Speaker 2: need them, and they play a pivotal role, and they
Speaker 2: can contribute just as meaningfully the church. I don't want
Speaker 2: to view the kind of pastoral office as the kind
Speaker 2: of exclusive place where one gets to do.
Speaker 1: That, right right, Well, Jamie, I appreciate that discussion. I appreciate.
Speaker 1: I mean, everything that you are about and that you
Speaker 1: have said is is so good. It's so important. I
Speaker 1: think this book is essential, you know, as I do
Speaker 1: retreats and as I talk about radical vulnerability, it's definitely
Speaker 1: going to be one of the texts that I recommend.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you writing it. You know, it's not like
Speaker 1: you don't write a book on pastoral confession. If you
Speaker 1: want to be a New York Times bestseller, you know
Speaker 1: you do it because God called you to do it.
Speaker 1: So so thank you for writing. If people want to
Speaker 1: grab it where and learn more about you? Where can
Speaker 1: they go? Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, the easiest place to go is you can
Speaker 2: just go to jamingoggin dot com. My name j M
Speaker 2: I N G O G G I N dot com
Speaker 2: and you can find info in the book there, but
Speaker 2: also just other info about retreats I lead and other
Speaker 2: things I'm I'M about and so would love to love
Speaker 2: to hear from you even if you want to reach
Speaker 2: out Conte there.
Speaker 1: And if you send him a message via his website,
Speaker 1: I can confirm that he does get back to you.
Speaker 1: So it's right. And it was around Christmas time too,
Speaker 1: I think even So, Yeah, it was great Jamin. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining the podcast. I appreciate you.
Speaker 2: Oh, an honor to be with you. John, grateful for
Speaker 2: the time you.
Speaker 1: See what I mean. Jamen is definitely someone that we
Speaker 1: needed to have on this podcast. I mean to talk
Speaker 1: about confession and vulnerability, and I just love how he
Speaker 1: approaches any topic really where he's not looking to give
Speaker 1: a quick answer, he's not looking to give a SoundBite.
Speaker 1: He's looking to truly pursue it from that pastoral heart.
Speaker 1: And you can tell he's had that for twenty years.
Speaker 1: And that was even evident in that final answer that
Speaker 1: he gave, which is an issue that I think is
Speaker 1: an important one to wrestle with, the one that I'm
Speaker 1: still fully wrestling with. I tend to lean one way,
Speaker 1: but I'm still not willing to say it's fully settled
Speaker 1: in my mind. But I think in the end, his
Speaker 1: thoughts and his words on confession are really important. And
Speaker 1: so there's so many good like one liners in the book.
Speaker 1: There's so many good one liners in that interview, And
Speaker 1: so please just pick up the book Pastoral Confessions. I'm
Speaker 1: going to be using it as a recommended resources resource
Speaker 1: on this topic when I talk about radical vulnerability. So yeah,
Speaker 1: go ahead and pick that up. Before that, though, I
Speaker 1: just want to say thank you to everyone who tunes
Speaker 1: in on the regular and has made this podcast what
Speaker 1: it is today. It could not be that without you,
Speaker 1: and so I thank you so very much. You can
Speaker 1: head on over to Christianalcoholic dot com and get a
Speaker 1: slew of resources that align with what I talk about here.
Speaker 1: So thank you, just wanted to just wanted to say that,
Speaker 1: and also a special thank you to our partner Life Audio,
Speaker 1: who makes this possible. If there is just one thing
Speaker 1: that resonated with you, please share this podcast, like subscribe,
Speaker 1: all those things, but really the most important thing to
Speaker 1: me is if you share it, Just share it with someone,
Speaker 1: even if there's just twenty seconds that you think is
Speaker 1: worth it. Love you all. We will see you back
Speaker 1: here next week.