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How does one truly live a reconciled life within the dynamic tapestry of Christian duty and neighborly love? Neddie Winters, Austin Hoyle, and Brian Crawford unravel this profound conundrum, grounding our exchange in the scriptural wisdom of Romans 13:8-10. As we navigated the passage, Neddie eloquently presents it as the ultimate law of relationships, encapsulating all commandments into the soulful act of love. Austin, celebrates love's unrelenting nature, indeed an endless commitment that shapes our daily interactions and pushes us towards grace-filled living amid diversity.
The conversation illuminates how love, exemplified by Jesus and championed by Paul, transcends the rigidity of rule-based ethics, freeing us to act not out of mere obligation but from the heart's genuine longing to reflect Christ's love. Laughter and personal stories pepper our discussion, bringing warmth and humanity to the philosophical debate, underscoring the joy and sometimes hilarity that accompanies a life steered by love.
Special thanks to our sponsors:
Nissan, St. Dominic's Hospital, Atmos Energy, Regions Foundation, Brown Missionary Baptist Church, Christian Life Church, Ms. Doris Powell, Mr. Robert Ward, and Ms. Ann Winters
We would love to hear from you! Send us a text message.
How does one truly live a reconciled life within the dynamic tapestry of Christian duty and neighborly love? Neddie Winters, Austin Hoyle, and Brian Crawford unravel this profound conundrum, grounding our exchange in the scriptural wisdom of Romans 13:8-10. As we navigated the passage, Neddie eloquently presents it as the ultimate law of relationships, encapsulating all commandments into the soulful act of love. Austin, celebrates love's unrelenting nature, indeed an endless commitment that shapes our daily interactions and pushes us towards grace-filled living amid diversity.
The conversation illuminates how love, exemplified by Jesus and championed by Paul, transcends the rigidity of rule-based ethics, freeing us to act not out of mere obligation but from the heart's genuine longing to reflect Christ's love. Laughter and personal stories pepper our discussion, bringing warmth and humanity to the philosophical debate, underscoring the joy and sometimes hilarity that accompanies a life steered by love.
Special thanks to our sponsors:
Nissan, St. Dominic's Hospital, Atmos Energy, Regions Foundation, Brown Missionary Baptist Church, Christian Life Church, Ms. Doris Powell, Mr. Robert Ward, and Ms. Ann Winters
This is Living Reconciled, a podcast dedicated to giving our communities practical evidence of the gospel message by helping Christians learn how to live in the reconciliation that Jesus has already secured for us by living with grace across racial lines. Hey, thanks so much for joining us on this episode of Living Reconciled, episode 47, season number two episode one. I'm your host, brian Crawford, with my incredible friends Nettie Winters, austin Hoyle. Gentlemen, how are you doing?
Speaker 3:I'm great. I'm great that I'm back into the saddle of being your friend.
Speaker 2:I too am happy that I'm your friend although I don't think I ever left the saddle of being your friend. I too am happy that I'm your friend, although I don't think I ever left the saddle.
Speaker 1:Good to have both of you guys in the saddle and good to have both of you guys as good friends. We want to first give a shout out to some other good friends that we have great sponsors and friends folks like Nissan, folks like Atmos, good friends like Ann Winters. Brown, missionary Baptist Church. Mr Robert Ward, st Dominic's Hospital, regents Foundation, christian Life Church. Ms Doris Powell. Thank you guys so much for everything that you do to support the work of this podcast and the work of Mission Mississippi. If you would like to join these individuals and support this podcast or even support the work of this podcast and the work of Mission Mississippi, if you would like to join these individuals and support this podcast or even support the work of Mission Mississippi, it's really easy Go out to missionmississippiorg and click on the link at the top that says donate, and you can contribute to the work of reconciliation in the state of Mississippi and beyond, and we would love for you to do that.
Speaker 1:Today we are talking about we're going to unpack a passage Romans, chapter 13, verses 8 through 10. And there's a reason why we're unpacking this passage on today. Our theme for 2024 is living reconciled by loving all of our neighbors. Living reconciled by loving all of our neighbors. It is a passage that is really drawn from the many occasions that we hear in scripture where Jesus, or even the apostles, or even our Old Testament writers, would encourage us to love our neighbors as ourselves. And there are multiple places in scripture in which that is highlighted and this year we wanted to take time looking at those different places that that particular ethic, that particular tone is captured loving your neighbor as yourself. One such place in which it is captured is Romans 13.
Speaker 1:The apostle Paul, paul, writes to the church at Rome and he says in chapter 13, verse 8, that we are to owe nothing to anyone except to love one another. Adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet. And if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law. Nettie Winters, when you hear Romans 13, verses 8 through 10, this passage in which Paul encourages us to owe no one, anything except to love, what comes to mind first for you?
Speaker 3:You know what comes to mind, first of all, the first seven verses of what he talked about the law itself and how rebelling against the law and all of that is is a rebelling against god and you ought to be afraid if you're doing the wrong thing. And and if you're doing the right thing, you have to be afraid. And then you know, oh, no one, anything except the love. You know, to me it's it's talking about do what you're supposed to do at the right time, right moment, all of those things in terms of that. But yeah, he comes for me, especially when you go into verse 9, it's love fulfilled the law, love fulfilled the law. All of those things had to do with that.
Speaker 3:So he's talking about, really, as I define it, the law of relationships, the law of how to do this, because when you're loving and maybe I'm going too far in what you thought, but for me love is like the commandment. He pointed those out. Well, if you love, you're going to do those things. So it takes care of all of this stuff. So love is the lasting debt. As I see it, it's the lasting debt, forever debt you owe is love, yeah, love. Everything else, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:The lasting debt. I'm glad you said that because of course, we're recording this episode during tax season. Hopefully you guys are getting your taxes done. By the way, he are getting your taxes done by the way he says pay your taxes. Pay your taxes is what Paul says in chapter 13 of.
Speaker 3:Romans. He's in loopholes in there about all these other things that we try to figure out how to avoid paying taxes.
Speaker 1:Verse 7, right before verse 8, which we read. It says Render to all what is due to them, tax to whom taxes due, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor. And so Paul basically has a very nuanced and complex way of just simply saying pay what you owe, pay what you owe. And interesting because, Paul, the Christian ethic, according to Paul, would be that we always should clear ourselves of outstanding debts. And then he leaves us with a debt that cannot be cleared.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh no one anything except to love. You know origin. One of the early church fathers once said that the debt of charity, the debt of love, is permanent and we are never quit of it, for we must pay it daily and yet always owe it.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, I call it the debt of love. Amen, amen. You know he got about three Ds in there for me. One of them is the debt of love.
Speaker 1:Amen, amen. Austin, you're leaning in what you got to say.
Speaker 2:I've got a lot to say about this. And I love it. I agree with everything said thus far. I have no qualms with anything.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but y'all got that out of the way. Now Let me get to the deep stuff. That's what you just said. No, no.
Speaker 2:You said everything correctly and I'm properly praising y'all for that. Thank you, because it's right, because that word debt, that word O, I think that's pretty significant. Because, I mean in the Greek, it's ophalo.
Speaker 1:Talk to me about what ophalo means.
Speaker 2:Okay, so usually it means obviously you know money-like or kind of giving up of some sort of goods amongst one another.
Speaker 2:And what he's saying is you know, typically when we think about our relationships, most relationships we have with persons are going to be fairly superficial. We're just kind of exchanging things with one another, such as you go into a place, you buy something, you give money. You don't just walk out because then you'd have a debt to that person. And what this passage is pretty much saying is that have none of that amongst each other, except for that you love one another. I mean, he's obviously saying don't do away with monetary transactions entirely. What he's saying is he's bringing this from kind of the monetary realm into the spiritual realm, using monetary language so that we would understand what they're talking about, but applying it to a spiritual conversation, so that now you have this moral duty for one another that is coming directly because of your relationship with Jesus and because you have this relationship with Jesus.
Speaker 2:You also now, and the only moral thing that you have for one another is love. So what that doesn't mean, I mean think about some of the moral obligations that we could have to certain persons we no longer have the moral obligation to. For example, brian, you think that I should be or act in a certain way, or that I owe you something significant, just based on whatever criteria you may have. I'm not held to whatever criteria you personally have in that regard.
Speaker 3:Unless you borrowed my money.
Speaker 2:Unless I borrowed your money, but that's something. But outside of, obviously I owe you money. That's not what it's talking about.
Speaker 1:It's not saying do away with all debts and that way, right, right, right, absolutely.
Speaker 2:But what I hear it saying is the only expectation of Brian or Nettie that you really should rightly have from me is really the highest expectation that we can have as people, indeed, which is the expectation of love.
Speaker 2:Indeed expectation that we can have as people, which is the expectation of love, and that's because our relationship with Jesus is so strong that then I only anticipate, brian, for you to have a loving response to whatever I do. I don't expect you to agree with me, I don't expect you to on everything, I don't expect you to say things or use language in a way that I want you to use language, but what I do expect is anything that you do happen to say to me that is rooted in that ethic of love.
Speaker 1:As a follower of Jesus. The expectation that you should have of me is that I will love you, because that is the continual debt that I owe, and I owe it to you, but I owe it to you because of Christ. Yeah, you know, in Matthew 18, when Peter's having that conversation with Jesus and Peter's being Peter and he says you know Lord, how many times should I forgive somebody? What's the?
Speaker 1:number you know one, two, three, four, five, six. What's the number? And Jesus gives him the seven times 70, not because he is, uh, basically trying to highlight a number for peter to count to 490 and say, oh, I think I think we parsed this out in an earlier episode early episode, but he's he's highlighting this, this maturity, this fullness, this completion, and he tells a story about a man who owes a debt.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And he owes a debt to a king that he cannot repay. And yet he then goes to the friend or the colleague and he says no, no, no, you're going to pay me what you owe me, while he owes the king. I think that same sentiment is at play here for Paul, which is here, who has, who has paid something that we could not pay, and so we are forever indebted in love because of the greatness of the great love payment that has been made on our behalf exactly.
Speaker 3:You know, paul set this up I think he set us up for verse eight by verse one through seven. He set this up as though there are some people saying to him we need to get rid of the police, we don't need them, and he said well, whoa, before you do that, now these are ministers of God. God has appointed them for your benefit. Let me tell you how this benefit you. You have a role toward man and a role toward God, and your leaders have got a God with responsibility and accountability as well as the people have. And here's how you ought to do. You ought not be concerned about fearing them if you're doing the right thing. Now, if you're out there doing stuff that you're not supposed to be doing, then you need to fear them, because that's simply why they're there. And then he goes on, he gets into this pay your taxes so they can have the money to do what God has appointed them to do. So he's setting this up in a way that now we get down to the brass tacks of how we ought to be living as Christians.
Speaker 3:So evidently, there was some issues with government. There was some issues with paying taxes. There was some issues with government. That was some issues with paying taxes. That was some issues as we're having chaos in our society. Today Sounded to me like the Roman folks was having some chaos, that Paul was trying to help them understand that, and then he moves to this. Well, you know you talk about Owen folks. You know you need to understand that love has a debt to pay, love has a duty and love has a desire. That you know.
Speaker 2:Neddy willis, you got to put them d's in there you know, yeah, any edi, I'm about to throw in another d alliterating neddy alliterating yeah but that's he says here man, you gotta pay your debt and no way you can pay off the debt of love exactly.
Speaker 3:You know, sometime I have people want to reciprocate. You know you done that for me. Now we're going to reciprocate. It's like you know, this is not a one-ups thing. This is that, my authentic love for you. I want to express in a way, to express the love I have for you. And as Austin was saying earlier, that's my duty to do that in a way that expressed the love and what God has put in me. Now your expectations may be different on the end of it.
Speaker 1:But it doesn't require the one-upsmanship again because it's flowing from an infinite love. It's like for me every time I look back and I see what Christ has done, then that energizes me to continue to love like I'm loving.
Speaker 2:And I think it's also because this is also in the context of Paul he's, you know, the abolition of the law.
Speaker 1:And I feel like this is also kind of the abolition of the law.
Speaker 2:Because, what I see. Oh yeah, I realize that, oh wow, okay, no, but because in this passage I see kind of two competing ethics and I think the two ethics I see that are competing. I'm going to throw out two fairly technical terms. One is virtue, so virtue, ethics, which is what I think is the prevailing one, that Paul ends up saying orient yourself in this way. And then there's another one.
Speaker 2:It's a D word, it's called deontological, very big word, but what that means is deontological is just a rules-based ethic, such as we're going to give you a rules, external rules to who you are, and you need to follow them in all of your social interactions. I call it legalistic yeah of them. And all of your social interactions. I call it legalistic, yeah, legalism.
Speaker 2:So deontological, and that is probably what most people think of when they think of morality because that is let's be frank, that is how morality and ethics is mostly conveyed in our society is just being very rules-based. You act in this way. You do these certain things. You're either going to be able to have the right of saying you were right, you had moral agency in that, or you just be like well, you didn't do what you're supposed to do, you didn't check off this whole list of things. You ate pork if we're going to be looking at that legalism from the Old Testament, but what that does, that actually doesn't create a way in which we can have a relationship with one another.
Speaker 2:And I think this is what Paul is saying. So you have this ethic of love that is virtue-driven, that is, as you're talking about, flowing from the love of Jesus. That is something that, yes, is happening external to us, but we also know that Jesus resides in our heart. So Jesus's virtue of love is something that then comes and resides within us and then it becomes internalized.
Speaker 1:We experience it and as we are experiencing this love, we are then energized to share this love, exactly so.
Speaker 2:Lists, that deontological, that list-based ethic, that list-based morality, legalistic, legalistic Does oftentimes come from a good place. They can establish good order, but usually it's a description that is being used to prescribe behavior.
Speaker 2:Like we can say that if you do certain things in your marriage, you love your wife, you, yada, yada, uh, you, you wake up every morning and have a devotional with her all of that all of that stuff that that you're going to be good and you can turn that into rules-based, but really at its conception it was really just virtue-based, forgotten, or it's just been kind of so you know how we relate with one another has become so mechanical that we've reduced it down to a set of rules.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:I know.
Speaker 1:Nettie, you got something.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I want to jump in. You know it's interesting that Paul begins this again. It just stands out to me.
Speaker 3:He begins this with the law and how that works and our responsibility toward them and their responsibility toward us and the law and, as Austin was saying while he was talking about that, he says the highest law that you can have is love, and so it's interesting in my notes I have him love rules every area of our lives as Christian. You know he talked about rules, he talked about this so easily for us. We want to check the block, dot it, cross the T. We want to become rigid, religious and legalistic and ceremonial and routine and all of these things that you know it's like the one us one is the whole deal and this is not out of simple obedience, but it's also out of the Christ love that Austin was talking about. This is out of obedience to Christ. This is out of what Christ put in me, not so much I got to do all these rules, but if I love the rules going to be kept, yes, in a way, with enthusiasm, with joy, with all of these things, sometimes we obey the rules and it's like we swallow a side of grapes and you know it's like man. You know it's like I heard a commercial that says you know I'll do it, but I won't guarantee it. Yeah, or something like you know I'll do it, but I really don't want to, absolutely.
Speaker 3:You know I heard somebody says the other day about they had to go to the field and the daddy could look at them and tell that they were not wanting to go because they was kind of like dragging. Well, we're supposed to go with enthusiasm and excitement because we get the chance. This is what I thought I said we get the chance To live out this love fest continually. It's a lifestyle. Yes, this is living out the reconciliation, living reconciled. We're talking about loving our neighbors. Well, as part of living reconciled, we get the exciting opportunity to love fest folks on a lifestyle.
Speaker 1:The reason why Nettie Austin, which you guys are highlighting, ties back to something that was really important to me in sharing this devotional word. Nettie, you heard it the other day when I talked a little bit about this in one of our prayer breakfasts in Unpack, romans 13. Austin doesn't like when I do devotions, so he doesn't join whenever I do devotions.
Speaker 2:Oh, come on.
Speaker 1:I noticed that.
Speaker 2:No wait, no, Anyway. I joined whenever I do devotions. Oh, come on, I noticed that. No wait, no man, anyway I joined. I was there this past tuesday. He was there, he was there and I was there the last time he was there, he was there. Come on, man, I'm gonna leave. Take it back, take it back.
Speaker 3:I'll take it back. I'll take it because I love austin all right now.
Speaker 2:Look at it, man, that wasn't that wasn't broken man, that was in, that was. Those were words that were contrary to love. In my opinion, that's how I took it. I love Austin, it's going to take a while for us to repair that breach of that relationship.
Speaker 1:right there Doesn't it say the wounds of a friend is what so Romans 13, one of the reasons in the devotion that Austin was present and apparently he enjoyed Very much so.
Speaker 2:Forgot about it entirely, but enjoy it thoroughly in the moment.
Speaker 1:But when we talked about how do we do it, I mentioned two things One, continually relying on the Spirit and two, continually remembering Jesus. Continually remembering Jesus Because, again, if you think about these laws as things to do that aren't flowing out of anything, that aren't flowing from somewhere, then that's not sustainable. Right, you know the ideal of, okay, I'm not going to steal, I'm not going to. You know, I'm not going to lie, I'm not going to cheat and commit adultery, I'm not going to steal, I'm not going to lie, I'm not going to cheat and commit adultery, I'm not going to covet, because I'm just not going to do those things. That doesn't have any sustaining ground, because I want people to like me.
Speaker 3:Because I want people to like me, but also in Matthew, jesus said that. He says you may not actively participate in adultery, but if it's in your heart, right and see what you're saying is that words, deeds and thoughts. When you talk about these commandments, it all had to do with our words, our thoughts and our deeds. And so when you talk about that, it says love will overcome and overpower that where you don't need the rules and you don't need the law, because the love fulfills the law.
Speaker 1:Love is the driving factor. So, even in Mission Mississippi, when we talk about reconciliation work and there's a lot, of, a lot of people that you know that that will drive towards reconciliation work in the midst of great tragedy, in the midst of great anger and great frustration, in the midst of great pain and and and all of those things can be motivators. I'm not saying that pain can't be a motivator to drive us towards something, and anger, even passion, can be a motivator that drives us towards something. But love is the sustaining force, exactly, it's the force that keeps us coming back to the cause and not souring or poisoning our soul as we engage in the cause and love is also.
Speaker 2:It's the only way we can establish order within our relationships without having the law, without having legalism, without having, you know, the law Right, without having legalism, right, right, because love I mean theoretically. If everybody's acting in this way of love that is described by Paul, then people's relationships are going to increase, they're going to become better.
Speaker 1:Have no choice.
Speaker 2:We're going to have less of a need to have just onerous laws on the books, because there's going to be fewer people who are testing the limits of our civility. Yeah, so I mean, this is a way in which we order our society.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. King would argue that love. And he talks about Dr Martin Luther King. For the uninitiated who was wondering if I was talking about Bobby King or somebody.
Speaker 3:Jack King, someone, dr Martin Luther King, would argue you could have been one of my favorite blues players BB King, BB King BB.
Speaker 1:King would argue no no, no, no.
Speaker 2:Or the British now have a king instead of a queen.
Speaker 3:So Dr Martin Luther King, Most people in the South, when you talk about the king man, they talk about the blue suede shoes guy. You know what?
Speaker 2:I'm talking about Elvis.
Speaker 1:So let me be clear, since I got some people that will pick this apart.
Speaker 3:Dr Martin Luther King. Did we not just pick that apart, junior? Did we not just pick that apart, junior?
Speaker 1:Junior would argue. He would argue that in Matthew 5, we are to love our enemies. Argue that in Matthew 5, we are to love our enemies. And when Jesus says love our enemies, it's not just some pious speech that Jesus is offering us, but it's the sustaining force that is what keeps the world moving, that if you don't have people committed to loving their enemies, you cannot have a civilization. You cannot have a civilization without this love ethic flowing freely through some people, you won't have one another survive anyway.
Speaker 2:No, yeah, exactly, and I don't know if y'all know, but just in the past couple of days I think it was just right before the weekend, maybe Friday there was an interview with one of the most I guess with one of the most, I guess prominent atheists in the world, richard Dawkins, who has probably done more than any single living person today to kind of break down society's reliance upon the church.
Speaker 2:I mean, if you guys notice, he's looking out at the landscape now pretty much his life's work and he's seeing the destruction of civility. And I even heard in another interview, probably about a few months ago, that he was just flat out asked. He was just saying look, the work that you did in breaking down Christendom in the Western world, the work that you did has created this chaos pretty much. I mean not those exact words, I don't have the interview right in front of me, but it has created this chaos. Now what do you say about that? And then he was just left flummoxed to a degree and then finally, this past weekend he flat out said I feel like I'm a cultural Christian. And then he started decrying the dwindling down of civility. He's decrying the, he likes the hymns, he likes all of these things he likes the cultural aspects.
Speaker 2:Of course, he's still an atheist in the sense that he's saying I don't believe any of the supernatural stuff, but I like how it brings people together, you know.
Speaker 1:Which is interesting because that's part supernatural too.
Speaker 2:Exactly. So yeah, you can't have the cultural stuff without the supernatural stuff.
Speaker 3:Now listen now. He says you know there are some aspects of our belief that say you know, these denominations talk about that kind of thing all the time.
Speaker 1:And they're not atheists.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know there are people that talk about speaking in tongue, laying on hands, the whole deal, right? Yeah, Well, you know there's no more apostles, but you got apostles running around. That's a whole new level.
Speaker 1:All different kinds of arguments. Yeah, but you got apostles running around.
Speaker 3:That's a whole new level. All different kinds of arguments, you know. It's interesting, though, when we look at what he says in verse 10.
Speaker 3:He says love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law. Yeah, you know that caught my attention. And then I go to 13 in Corinthians and he talks about though I speak you were speaking earlier about. You know that you can have all these wonderful things happening, but then you know, love is the highest the ruling he said, though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but I have not loved. I have become sound and breath. I see this guy, dawson, walking around. You know they showed a picture the other day about how far rolling funk had come since the storm and they showed how it looked after the storm. And today I can see Dawson walking around like it was right after the storm.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:He's looking at the road. He's walking around like man.
Speaker 1:I had no clue.
Speaker 3:And so we have this thing of love as Christians and we have missed the mark with it. We have missed the mark in terms of expressing the love of Christ, not only. Hey. This thing for me is like if we would have just done it with the people we say we love, or the people we say we're supposed to love, if we'd have just done it with them, if we didn't even have to cross the line to go into our enemies. We ought to just love one another, right, right.
Speaker 1:The power if we simply just obeyed it amongst ourselves. Yeah, like you said, the household of faith. Like you said, we haven't even tapped into how powerful that actually could be.
Speaker 2:Exactly, you know I mean think about it.
Speaker 1:Think about even just what you articulated in verse 10. Love does no wrong to his neighbor, his or her neighbor. Love does no wrong.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but he just articulated all that thou shalt not. I was about to say exactly, Exactly.
Speaker 1:It's love does no wrong. What does that mean? That means I don't exploit right, I don't exploit my neighbor or I don't covet my neighbor's goods. I don't grow envious because my neighbor sees success. I don't lie or bear false witness against my neighbor, because my lies can have an impact not only on my neighbor but on the community around me, that my lies can have an impact on my family, and thus I don't want to do any wrong to them.
Speaker 3:And so I'm going to be truthful with them.
Speaker 1:I'm going to speak truth and, as one preacher would say, I'm going to not just speak truth, but I'm going to do truth. I'm going to live a truthful life because I don't want to do harm to them.
Speaker 3:You know what would it look like? I'm sorry, go ahead. Oh, no, you were fine.
Speaker 2:No, I'm saying what would?
Speaker 3:it look like? What would it look like in your neighborhood, on your block, across the street from you, down the street from you, if everybody within that was expressing love the way you express?
Speaker 2:love. How would that look? Yeah, I think it would look like MLK Jr's dream, in my opinion.
Speaker 3:I mean, that's what he visioned. You would think that would be the ideal way of how it would look, but then, when you look at the chaos within the people that say they love God and love one another, you look at how they're treating one another. I don't know that the block would look any different from what it looks like.
Speaker 1:Well, no, you said, what would it look like?
Speaker 3:if I know If, if it's on me, yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I had these people.
Speaker 1:I had.
Speaker 3:these people used to come to church and talk about their neighbors, about they boogity, boogity all night man, they juked and joked. The police came to hold the whole nine yards Boogity.
Speaker 1:boogity is code for uh dancing and going going to a club. I'm assuming.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that was a complaint.
Speaker 1:Everything they would do at the club was happening next door. Have to translate these words. What was the word that we had earlier from Austin Deontology, deontology.
Speaker 2:Deontological Deontological.
Speaker 1:Deontological and boogity boogity.
Speaker 3:These are big words. I would not put boogity, boogity in that category. I think it is just as sophisticated a concept Very much, very much.
Speaker 2:Boogity.
Speaker 3:I think it is just as sophisticated a concept as a book. Very much Bookity bookity, Very much Bookity bookity. My wife has a term that her teachers used to say She'd call it buck jumping, but anyway.
Speaker 2:That might border on having to be edited. That's off the rails at this point.
Speaker 1:I'm sure you had a point somewhere.
Speaker 3:Somewhere it got lost.
Speaker 3:But my neighbor had fun along the way, yeah well, you know, my neighbor would complain about how these people are really turning it up in terms of party and drinking and doing all kind of loud music, the whole deal, right, yeah. And they just keep complaining about that and they even call the police and you know they don't do anything. And I say, you know, I said, you know what I said. You've been talking about this for a while. What would happen if you go over and tell them about Jesus? How would that work If you told them about Jesus? Or, more and more importantly, how would it look if you go over there and love on them? I don't want to have nothing to do with them, them folks. And I'm thinking to myself again. This is where it came in a minute ago. I'm thinking to myself now if everybody on your block was acting like you just told me why you won't go share Jesus, how would your block look?
Speaker 1:I think the block.
Speaker 3:I think the block will stay the same, and that's why it's the same because you don't think enough of the another human being that lives next door to you to share the love of Christ with them.
Speaker 1:Well, our love, our love has to be. We shortchange the definition of what love really is. So that's so that's where we start. And getting back to our our, so that's where we start, and getting back to our earlier thought in terms of this love being a virtue, we don't ponder, we don't rest in the love of Christ enough to flow from that virtue, so our lives are hectic, paced, move about from here to there, and so the only thing we can do is operate out of rule. Just give me what am I supposed to do? 10 things that may be right, exactly, and so that's why we're looking for the sermon that, hey, well, here are six ways you can fix my marriage. Okay, okay yeah, yeah thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3:Give me some instructions to fix this thing. It's interesting, when that type of sermon is preached or that lesson is taught, how eager people are to write down.
Speaker 1:Oh man, they're writing them down.
Speaker 3:They're writing them down Like they're going to follow them, like when it's done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And also I love it when they say well, I followed it all and I'm still miserable.
Speaker 3:It did work, right yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's just like, because you weren't following it from the right intention.
Speaker 3:No, it's not a formula.
Speaker 2:It wasn't you living out God's writing upon your heart, right, absolutely. And that's the difference.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. That's the difference between virtue and deontology, the way of Jesus formation. I heard two theologians that I love pondering this recently. They said that Christians love to think about the way of Jesus as something that is quick, easy and controllable, but the way of Jesus is far more slow, hard and uncontrollable.
Speaker 2:It could also be rapid, absolutely, it can also. Yeah, it could also be rapid, absolutely, it can also be rapid.
Speaker 1:It can also be rapid, but oftentimes it is slow, methodical. You don't have complete control of it. Right, it's being with God in prayer, it's having moments of rest and peace to reflect on the goodness of God and allowing those reflections to shape my day-to-day interactions with Austin and with Nettie. But we want a hurried hey, let's get this character form, let's get it shaped, let's get it molded. Give me some rules, Give me some instructions, Give me some steps. You know one, two, three, so I can go about my life. And what it is? Way more often than not what it is is a slow, methodical formation in which we are daily growing and coming in contact with the love of God, growing as a result of it and being able to share it. And coming out of that overflow comes a decent person and decent relationships.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and I'm also thinking to a degree, because the ethic you're talking about that's the ideal. Yeah, exactly, exactly, you know, and I'm also thinking um to a degree, because the the ethic you're you're talking about that, I mean that's, that's the ideal. Yep, right, and you know, we, we know, we can all see that, yeah, we, as Christians, we fall short and that's that's.
Speaker 1:that's part of the faith we do fall short.
Speaker 2:It's, it's very much so written in the scripture that we're going to fall short. We are not we're not absolutely perfect in everything that we do. We like sheep, you know, and and me, us in the wesleyan tradition we call it we can be perfect in love. That just means our intentions are perfect. That doesn't mean we, we, we are perfect in everything we do and say. That doesn't mean that we don't cause problems or pains sometimes.
Speaker 3:You know, even in spite of that, even in spite of the that's why you gotta have love, man, that you gotta have that love. He's going to forgive, absolutely.
Speaker 2:But even in spite of all that, all of our imperfections I guess I'm going back to that observation by Dawkins Even in spite of that, he's saying that it's still a preferred ethic than what he's seeing elsewhere. Even with our imperfection, even though we can't quite get it all right, it's people who are actually striving towards that Absolutely Right, and I think that striving towards that is really the point we need to get at.
Speaker 1:Amen that striving towards.
Speaker 2:That is really the point we need to get at, because if we're going to sit around and say, well, we as a people need to be perfect, and when we're finally perfect, then we can say our job is done. Two thoughts on that. First of all, your job is never going to be done and if that's what you're waiting for.
Speaker 2:You're never going to experience that and you are going to get. You are going to get disappointed. You just, you just are to, to, to wait until the point where you have arrived entirely and there is no more work to be done. It's, it's just, it's just not going to happen.
Speaker 1:We're in the not yet, not the. I mean we're in the already, we're not in the not yet.
Speaker 2:So that that striving, that striving for it is, is, is important and significant. Um, you know, I, I, I, I, I, I realized there's a, there's a, uh, I'm guessing, when you get into communion language a little bit, but there's a lot of traditions have what's called a closed table, Um, but there are certain what do you mean by closed table?
Speaker 2:Closed table means um, you know either membership or you have to be a professor, you have to be a believer in Christ, and there are other traditions that have what's called an open table and what that open table means that you desire to know Christ, not necessarily that you are a believer.
Speaker 3:Anybody can take it that you are a believer.
Speaker 2:Anybody can take it, but the question, with the caveat that do you in this present moment, is God somehow stirring you in your heart? You may not be a believer yet, but do you, in this present moment, desire to know Christ? You may not know him, but do you have that desire? And that's what allows them to come and partake in the communion. That's probably mostly in kind of the more I guess Wesleyan Methodist traditions they do that. But I think there's beauty in that. There's beauty in that I perfectly am fine. I'm fine with closed tables for certain traditions and I think that's good for how they ordered that. So I'm not critiquing that, but I'm just saying there is a virtue and there's an ethic that is good behind knowing and consciously supporting people who strive to know God and experience God.
Speaker 3:Did he just sneak in my take on open tables? Yeah, he snuck it in very well. He snuck it in very well.
Speaker 1:He snuck it in very well but his point is well taken in terms of this pursuit of love and this drive of love and, interesting enough, in a place where we're all genuinely bona fide pursuing love, there's room for us to stumble Right. Because, again, what does Paul tell us? That out of love, we should be bearing one another's burdens?
Speaker 3:right.
Speaker 1:And being quick to see the restoration of one another when one falls short, short when one stumbles, um, we should be. We should be out of love, restoring when, when love is the ethic, even in an imperfect community, you still see flourishing, because when one person is operating out of their imperfection, they have a community that's loving them to come alongside and to see them restored in whatever way that they're being restored. So, even amongst imperfect people, which we all are, the better ethic is love. Can you imagine trying to highlight or trying to live in a community where love is not the ethic right, but still having all the imperfections Right?
Speaker 2:That's just chaos. But what we're striving after for normally in the secular field, what people who are outside the church, usually, what the secular culture is striving after is pursuant of your own desires, yep, culture is is striving after is pursuant of your own desires, yep Um, either either that's desire for my own self identity to be manifested or for, uh, you know this, this or that, um you know social program to be seen, or anything along those lines.
Speaker 1:Like we, we operate, um, oftentimes from that, from that place which is why Paul says in Romans 13, verse 10, what is at the heart of love? Do my neighbor no wrong. There is a posture towards the other that is shaping love. It's moving beyond myself and it's thinking about Nettie and saying I'm not going to do Nettie any wrong.
Speaker 3:Nettie, you pointed me what you got. I'm pointing at you because now we go back to the lawyer that said to Jesus, now, okay, I buy all this stuff. Now who is my neighbor? So I can shoot the rest of them but I'll shoot my neighbor, all right once. I define who.
Speaker 2:That is right you see what he's saying there. He's saying what are the rules? I followed all these rules absolutely. I have day and toxic day, ontologically, yep I'm perfect, yeah so what's?
Speaker 1:what's the problem? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that we, we have. We have already combined day ontological and boogity boogity.
Speaker 2:I say we do boogity, boogity for now on, and we, we need to, uh, that that needs to be, you know, when we do teach, when you'd be like you need a boogity, boogity, I guess absolutely.
Speaker 1:Or we need to, not boogity, boogity for now on and we, we need to, uh that, that needs to be, you know, when we do teach, when you be like you need a boogity.
Speaker 2:Boogity, I guess absolutely, or we need to not boogity, boogity, that's not the way to do things, not the way to do things.
Speaker 1:Don't go boogity absolutely all credit goes to netty winners, so we appreciate that yeah, I don't know if I want all credit yeah, well, it's, regardless of whether you want it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you got it, you uttered it, it's yours, you got it.
Speaker 1:You uttered it, it's yours, you got it, I own it, I own it. Close us out. Nettie Winters, austin Hoyle. Final thoughts on Romans 13, 8 through 10.
Speaker 3:Final thoughts.
Speaker 1:Yes, sir.
Speaker 3:Well, my final thoughts is on thoughts, words and action our deeds, because verse 9 wraps it up. He says all of this is in what you couldn't do under the law, but you can do all this because you owe no man anything except love. Yeah, so I pointed, I pointed at it like this Love is the debt I owe that I can never pay.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So I got to love folks, because that's just my duty to do that. I got to pay my debt, and my debt is love. Yeah, I got to obey the commandments, because obeying Christ in love covers the commandments. And then the desire of love is just to fulfill the law by loving and not have to keep the rules.
Speaker 2:That's my final thought Amen, yeah, wrestle with God. Strive after the perfection that God is calling you into, because if you strive after it, jesus will offer it to you, and I think that's the number one lesson I'm hearing in this passage.
Speaker 1:Amen, amen.
Speaker 1:There's a necessity for us to rely deeply on the Spirit, and we see the Spirit's work in driving us towards this pursuit of love and filling us with the love of Christ that allows us to love freely others, even when it finds itself incredibly difficult to do, and so continue relying and depending on the Spirit to do this work, and continue turning your eyes and fixing your gaze on Jesus, because as you turn your eyes and you fix your gaze on Jesus, seeing Him and how much he has loved us energizes and fuels you to love in ways that you never imagined you would be able to, and so we are grateful for this opportunity to share from God's word and have a open Bible study together with you guys listening in.
Speaker 1:We pray that, if this has been a blessing, you would like share and subscribe to Living Reconciled. Feel free to go out to any podcast app, feel free to visit us on missionmississippiorg or any of our social media mediums and share any thoughts, comments, feedback for how we can continue to grow and improve this podcast, and hopefully, you guys will join us for this season. We got a whole bunch of wonderful things that we're lining up, and we can't wait to continue to unpack them with you. So until episode two. This is Brian Crawford signing off with my friends Austin Hoyle, nettie Winters saying God bless.
Speaker 3:God bless. I love you Austin. I love you Nettie. I love you Brian. I love you Nettie. God bless I love you too, brian. I love you too Austin. Hey, you can edit that last part out.
Speaker 1:Thanks for joining Living Reconciled. If you would like more information on how you can be a part of the ongoing work of helping Christians learn how to live in the reconciliation that Jesus has already secured, please visit us online at missionmississippiorg or call us at 601-353-6477. Thanks again for listening.