Vows, Commitments, and Grace | Disruptive Presence 97

In which David and John discuss Paul's vow in Acts 18. This episode is conversation that covers a range of topics, including their personal experiences, the journey of Paul in Acts 18, the significance of vows and commitments in the Christian faith, and the relationship between Jewish and Christian traditions.

They explore the idea of vows as a way to shape and order one's life in devotion to God, without attributing salvation weight to these commitments. The podcast emphasizes the rootedness of the Christian faith in the Old Testament and the continuity between Jewish and Christian theology.

Episode 152 of the Two Texts Podcast | Disruptive Presence 97

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Music by Woodford Music (c) 2021
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Transcript

David (00:45.998)
Well, John, it's good to be back with everybody. I was thinking through the various different ways that we've done podcasts over the past little while. I think we've had, we've constantly worked through our remote distance across the Atlantic. We've had periods during our recordings that you've been in Canada. We've had periods when I've been in England, but I realized that today the podcast is interesting because you're in England. I'm in Canada.


David (01:15.758)
but I also have two of your descendants in my house. So everybody, to make sense of that, some of John's family are visiting us here in Canada at the moment. And so we're having a lot of fun and John may, you may feel tinges of jealousy in John's recording today because I'm having fun with his granddaughter.

John (01:36.565)
Well, I'm just incredibly grateful you're still friends after having my daughter and granddaughter and son -in -law with you. So there we are. But yeah, I know they're having a great time seeing the pictures, immensely jealous of what they're doing and exploring various aspects of the Rockies. And yeah, they're loving it, having a great time. And thank you so much for your incredible hospitality, you and your wife and your family. So, so grateful and

Yes, I'm glad they're having a great time and you still love me, so thank you.

David (02:10.51)
And unlike you, they've come in the summertime to see us. Whereas your visits have always been in winter, which is a different whole experience.

John (02:14.901)
Yeah.

It's yes. Yes. I think I think they make it to say Lake Minnewanka as an actual lake. The last time I saw it, it was like 15 feet thick of ice, which was the most remarkable things I've ever seen. And, you know, people like riding cars on it and walking on it and fishing on it and doing all sorts. I'm thinking we're on a lake and it's frozen solid. So, yeah, it's tomorrow. I fly off to Singapore.

David (02:25.87)
Yes.

David (02:34.446)
It is.

John (02:47.189)
and trying to explain the concept of a frozen lake to someone who lives in Singapore is very, very difficult indeed. It's just a world apart completely. So maybe one day I'll see Lake Minnewanka without the snow. So there we are. And by the way, what a great name is Lake Minnewanka. I mean, it's just cool, isn't it? I mean, it's just amazing.

David (03:01.902)
get you here in the summer eventually, John.

David (03:08.302)
It's wonderful. So speaking of traveling and water bodies, we're in Acts 18 and verse 18 today and we have Paul in a boat. So we're going to read verse 18 through to verse 23 and talk about Paul beginning to exit Corinth and head on a new stage of his journey, aren't we?

John (03:17.237)
End date. End date.

John (03:33.973)
Mm. Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. So I'll pick it up from verse 18 and we'll read down. There's a nice little nice little segue down to about verse 23. So we're still in X, X, 18. So here we go. Verse 18 says Paul stayed on in Corinth for some time. Then he left the brothers and sisters and sailed for Syria accompanied by Priscilla and Aquila. Before he sailed, he had his hair cut off at Cancria.

because of a vow he had taken. They arrived at Ephesus where Paul left Priscilla and Aquila. He himself went into the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews. When they asked him to spend more time with them, he declined. But as he left, he promised, I will come back if it is God's will. Then he set sail from Ephesus. When he landed at Caesarea, he went up to Jerusalem and greeted the church and then.

went down to Antioch. After spending some time in Antioch, Paul set out from there and traveled from place to place throughout the region of Galatia and Phrygia, strengthening all the disciples.

David (04:51.918)
all of our listeners heard you mention Galatia there and went, my goodness, this episode's gonna take forever because David's gonna talk about Galatians.

John (04:57.653)
Yes, any opportunity to get into Galatians and you're off. Yes, God.

David (05:07.246)
But it's at the end of the text. It's probably about three weeks before we get there. So there's a couple of things instantly jump out to me at this text, but I'm curious, what's your initial impression as you read that text there?

John (05:10.933)
Hahaha.

David (05:26.606)
what lands on you.

John (05:26.717)
Yeah, I mean, again, you sort of hinted on it in the introduction. I mean, you're just you get the sense of, again, the travel in the Book of Acts, the fact that we are we're covering now sort of huge areas moving towards Syria, dropping off at Ephesus and then going on to Caesarea. I love I love the brevity of it all, you know, and he went up.

to Jerusalem and then he went down to Antioch. And again, if if our listeners are following our podcast and have a first century map or if you've got a study Bible and you should have the missionary journeys or the travel journeys of these guys, maybe somewhere in your map catalog, it's worth just digging that out. These are the colossal levels of travel that are going on.

David (06:12.686)
Hmm.

John (06:24.821)
And again, you just get the sense of urgency in both what Paul is doing, but also within the sense of urgency, David, you get the sense of his connectedness. He's returning to Caesarea. He's returning to Jerusalem. He's returning to Antioch. So in all that he's doing, Paul is reconnecting as well as breaking new ground. And of course, you know, it's taken him serious time to do all of this, but you've got this sense of.

of travel moving in and out, having stayed at Corinth for some time. And the sort of implication sort of for some time seems to imply that although we were told earlier on 18 months, it may even imply he stayed there a little bit longer after that. But certainly he's invested serious time at the Corinth and now he's on the move. And in contrast, a relatively short stay in Ephesus as he moves towards what we could.

probably assume is a sort of an accountability visit to both Jerusalem and to Antioch the Sending Church.

David (07:27.726)
Hmm.

David (07:32.718)
And you see it even as you look at the map. I always want to remember, I don't even know if it makes a great theological point, but...

John (07:39.061)
Hold it a minute, sorry. Can you hear the dog barking? One minute, one minute. Hold up.

David (07:45.39)
Yeah, I can. It's alright. It's alright, we can...

John (08:09.621)
Sorry about that. It's Albie. It's one of Elena's dogs. It's sort of, it's coming up to school time, so he gets a little bit edgy and actually there's nobody around. So, go ahead.

David (08:21.614)
sorry I'm just I'm just marking where I need to edit it's okay it's no problem it's all done don't worry these things these things happen

John (08:24.117)
Sorry about that.

John (08:29.781)
If he barks again, I'll bring him in here with me and sort of make sure he's OK.

David (08:33.294)
Yeah. What to do is if, like, I'm not too, I mean, a little barky for now, and people know that we have dogs and stuff like that. What to do is if you hear it, just hit mute. If I'm talking, just hit mute. If you're talking, just take a pause and we can, probably what's easier to do is take the pause and kind of go back a sentence and then sort of kick in. Is that okay?

John (08:43.605)
Okay.

John (08:47.637)
Okay, no problem.

John (08:54.965)
All right. No problem. Yeah.

David (09:00.366)
Yeah, I was just looking at the map as you were saying all of that. And I mean, I'm not sure this makes a huge theological point, but I think it's something we've tracked throughout the podcast on Act. It doesn't look like an entirely fun sailing trip. You know, you're leaving Corinth and there's all sorts of complexity as to how...

you go about potentially doing that. But if you actually, I mean, if most people would just pick up their Bible, there's often a journeys of the apostle Paul map in the back. So you don't even need to, it's not just you get a plane map, you get a map showing you all the movements, but it would seem that he's cutting his way through a relatively dangerous part of the world when it comes to sailing in the ancient sort of context, although commonly sailed. It's quite an undertaking. It's not quite the same.

John (09:31.573)
Is it?

David (09:53.038)
you know, for our British listeners of just sort of jumping on the channel ferry and hopping across the channel to France for the afternoon or something like that. There's a commitment going on here, isn't there?

John (09:59.861)
Mmm.

Yes.

John (10:08.661)
there is absolutely. And you can see that little hop across from King Crea to Ephesus, which looks more or less straight across that bay, but of course, scattered with lots of little islands there, which would have made the sort of journey relatively difficult. And then from Ephesus, sort of skirting around roads, bypassing Cyprus and all the way down to Caesarea, and what is today the

David (10:19.438)
Mm.

John (10:37.557)
the Mediterranean Sea may have been called the Great Sea during Paul's time. So it's a serious, serious journey. And Paul certainly had his sea legs. And undoubtedly, like knowing Paul, I think on those journeys, he would have been incredibly productive or he would have tried to be engaged in some way in trying to do things. So but but again, we read these.

sort of verses relatively quickly in the text. And yet, you know, these are this is weeks of travel that we're seeing sort of happening here. And it needs to be factored into our understanding that all of that sort of going on there and what Paul's doing.

David (11:27.694)
Yes, and that's the thing that I think we forget in modern travel, I think, is that these are quite... I last week was in the US for a few days and I jump on a plane, it flies me down to Atlanta.

And then I fly backwards a little bit towards Tennessee. I mean, our modern travel is so convenient. We fly past the places we're trying to get to just to make it an easier route. And then I was a little complaining to myself because we arrived 30 minutes late into Atlanta. So I didn't get time to have a little snack in the airport. I had to run to my next flight. And then you compare it to what Paul's going through to get from Ephesus to Caesarea. It's quite a thing, isn't it? And...

John (12:01.653)
date.

John (12:20.693)
No, completely.

Absolutely. No it is.

David (12:24.054)
And I think that that sort of journey is helpful for us, I think, to get our our minds into, this is hard. This is dangerous. This is not. It's not a given that the journey goes successful. So when he's making these decisions to move around, like they're obviously very serious decisions. He's feeling very, very driven to make these moves. So then then you get this piece in the story where.

At Cancria, he now has all of his hair cut off because of a vow that he had taken. So you get this sentence in verse 18, before he sailed, he had his hair cut off at Cancria because of a vow he had taken. And it's a really interesting sentence. And I know it's fascinated Pauline scholars at various points throughout the year, throughout the years, because it feels, I think because of how we read Paul, it feels like the sort of thing we don't really expect.

John (13:24.213)
Mmm. Mmm.

David (13:24.686)
Does that make sense?

John (13:28.309)
Yeah, absolutely. And of course, we get a wee echo again later on in Chapter 21 as well, where he's clearly engaging in practices around Judaism. And I think it's because as modern Christians, we just assume that when people like Paul became followers of Jesus in the way that they somehow completely

ditched everything to do with their Jewish culture, identity or even requirements of the law. And I think it's worth us leaning into this, that when Paul is taking a vow, now the frustrating thing is we don't really know what the vow is. We don't know why. We don't know what's going on here. So that's a little bit frustrating. But the fact that he's taking this vow and it's clearly to do with the context of his Jewish worldview.

For me, it's no contradiction at all. And I think it's worthwhile, our listeners thinking about the difference between honoring the requirements of the law that reflect a commitment to ideas within Judaism, but at the same time, recognizing that actually, as Paul would teach, it is salvation by grace and grace alone. I don't think there's any contradiction. So if you think about, for example, if Paul kept...

the Sabbath. There's a sense in which keeping the Sabbath doesn't make him a follower of the way, but actually keeping the Sabbath is a good thing to do as a follower of the way from a Jewish context. And I think Paul is managing that. We had this interesting conversation a million years or so ago about Paul and Timothy and circumcision, and he circumcises Timothy and the whole conversation around why that might be the case.

Here's Paul clearly still committed to dynamically important ideas within what we may call Judaism, which are still healthy and good ideas. But Paul is certainly not and the way Luke records it, Paul is certainly not adding any salvation weight to these ideas. These are practices, disciplines, routines that he's doing in order to

John (15:52.533)
help him in his own spirituality as he follows the Messiah. So I don't feel there's any contradiction. I can understand why people will be deeply concerned about that because it looks like Paul's contradicting himself, but he's not. If you listen to the message of Paul, which is one of salvation by grace through faith alone, that's not contradicted by then fulfilling vows that are to do with honoring the Lord with your life, your body, your...

David (15:56.462)
Hmm.

John (16:21.653)
your first fruits or whatever that vow may entail in that particular moment. Does that make sense?

David (16:26.762)
I mean, it's interesting. Yeah, no, absolutely. I think our reactions against these things are worth pondering. I mean, maybe before even I ponder that, it's interesting to note that what the commentators seem to see on this is that they ask the question, well, what kind of vow could Paul have taken? And...

John (16:50.005)
Mm. Mm.

David (16:51.566)
I think when we read these texts, we tend towards, as moderns reading these texts, we tend towards thinking, Paul has now taken a vow and has shaved his head. Most of the commentators, I'm curious what you encountered on this, but most of the commentators seem to see it as the shaving of the head is the end of the vow, because the only vow that they seem, that we seem to know about that involves shaving the head is the Nazarite vow, which obviously...

John (17:12.245)
Yes.

John (17:19.477)
Yeah, yeah.

David (17:21.006)
You know, we encounter, most of us as Christians have encountered that through John the Baptist type sort of engagement. But this is unpacked in Numbers chapter six, isn't it? And so the vow would be actually a vow to not shave your head and to take a vow for a period of time. And during that time, there's other things you abstain from, alcohol and such, that you would at the end of that vow, having let your hair grow during it.

John (17:30.805)
Mm -hmm.

David (17:47.918)
Once the period of the vow was over, you would then shave your head. So because the Nazarites were seen to be highly devout and the, sorry, rather, let me say that better. The Nazarite vow was a highly devout vow. Some have wondered whether Paul has taken a temporary Nazarite vow in order to, you know, in order to to sort of show his devoutness to...

the law, right? And again, all of the things you've said, no disagreement with that whatsoever. One of the problems I think we often have as Christians is we see the law as salvific and therefore whenever anybody talks about the law, we assume they're also talking about salvation. But I'm relatively persuaded that the Jewish people didn't see the law as salvific. They saw the law as a response to God's offer of salvation to them as a people.

John (18:29.269)
Yes.

John (18:45.557)
Yeah, yeah.

David (18:46.382)
So it's totally possible for Paul to see no tension between taking a vow from numbers while confessing Jesus as Messiah and salvation by grace through faith to use that Lutheran term in that sense. But does that, I mean, do you say it comfortably with that?

John (19:04.213)
yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And I think it's seen it in the context of where we are in world history as well. Remember Paul's world vision, which I think is also the New Testament world vision, is that the Jewish world and the Gentile world would be one in Christ. So so there's it's not that suddenly Paul's going to.

reject every aspect of his Jewishness because he believes passionately and I would be very comfortable with this idea that it's the Jewish root that has prepared the way for this Messiah that has come and therefore there's a whole bunch of practices within a Jewish worldview that have no contradiction whatsoever to an idea of salvation by God's grace through faith. Now of course if people are putting

salvation wait on those ideas? That's a completely different conversation. And I think Paul strongly takes that on and you will know that better than anyone in terms of Galatians. He takes that on. He wants us to avoid that error. But that doesn't take away from the value of certain practices, which in themselves are markers of commitment and piety and love and honor.

the Lord his God through a Jewish worldview. It's not that we as Gentile believers would be required to follow those things, but the fact that Paul is following those things is not contradictory either. And I think it's understanding that for this there's a comfort here in Paul. He's very happy both in reaching out to a Gentile world and making it easy for them, to quote James,

But he's also as a Jewish person still committed to certain ideas as far as spirituality is concerned, which help him focus on the Messiah and on the Lord. And for me, that works. It's not a contradiction for me.

David (21:16.878)
I mean, I think that's a really important thing for people to grasp hold of what you're saying there because for actually the roots of what you're saying, a lot of people will have encountered exactly the opposite having been said to them. So I would say like this, when you hear the New Testament taught as if the New Testament is a decisively different concept,

than that which is taught in the Old Testament, you're almost always going to end up theologically in trouble. So one of the things, in fact, I was in a conversation just recently with a friend and they've actually just written a book on this, Chris Green's book, The Fire and the Cloud actually tracks a lot of this story. And one of the confessions that he encounters in this is that,

I mean, this sounds so obvious, but I think we miss it. Whoever Christians pray to in the Lord's Prayer is the same God that we read about in Genesis 1. Now, we absolutely, nobody reacts negatively to that, right? What's fascinating is that quote in Chrissie's book is made by a Jewish scholar, right? And we as Christians, I think, almost tell the story sometimes, like there's Genesis 1 God, and then there's this big detour.

John (22:22.805)
Absolutely.

David (22:42.062)
around the people of Israel and then everything gets fixed in Jesus without realizing that actually the way Paul sees this story and I think the way Jesus sees this story is one story of God. And so what we need to sit with, I mean this could be podcast upon podcast talking about this, but really I think most of our listeners will realize this is the sort of thing we're always talking about in two texts. There's a reason why.

John (22:42.389)
Mm.

John (22:54.677)
Absolutely.

David (23:08.942)
we look at one text in the New Testament and immediately find ourselves thinking about texts in the Psalms and texts in the Old Testament. It's that we have to see Paul as not seeing attention, and even Luke doesn't see attention. We know that if Luke sees attention, he can talk about it, but he doesn't see any tension. It's almost a matter of fact. yeah, and Paul, this is where he shaved off his hair.

John (23:21.045)
Mm. Mm.

David (23:33.742)
you know, as he was coming towards his vow. I mean, interestingly, as a side note, a Nazirite vow is, is support once you've, once you've shaved off your hair and ended your vow, you go to Jerusalem to make your closing sacrifices. So it's not lost that Luke points out, hey, the end of this little bit is that they're heading towards Jerusalem. So that's fascinating. But I love this notion of remembering that, that, that Paul doesn't see a tension between him being.

John (23:45.333)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John (23:50.813)
Yeah.

David (24:02.638)
a Jewish person and confessing Jesus as the Messiah. That tension, he's encountering that tension in certain Jewish communities. But here's the piece that I think is worth noting. The tension is not, can I say it like this John and help me if this gets a little lost in the trees. We often think as modern Christians that the tension,

is between one form of religion and another form of religion, right? That Christians and Jews are... Actually, the tension is not a theological or religious tension, it's a biographical tension. And Christians say that Jesus is the Messiah, and Jewish people say he's not, right? And actually, that's the point where the disagreement happens. Without that disagreement, there's not... So Paul doesn't say, I found Jesus is the Messiah.

John (24:51.413)
Yes. Yeah.

David (24:57.23)
Therefore scrap the Old Testament. I mean, you can't understand Paul if that's what Paul's saying. What Paul says is Jesus is the Messiah. That now makes sense of the story that I think we're part of. And when he turns up in the synagogues in Acts and says that Jesus is the Messiah, that's their point of contention. Is what does this mean for Jesus to do that? And I think we as modern Christians have almost forgotten that quite often. And that allows us to sort of be very disregarding to...

John (25:08.757)
Absolutely.

John (25:22.517)
Yes.

David (25:26.702)
the Jewish faith that Paul sat in, the Jewish faith that Jesus... In fact, pretty much all of the New Testament sits within. Does that make sense?

John (25:32.277)
Yeah, yeah, totally, absolutely, totally. And it is, you know, we've walked through Jesus as well as through the Book of Acts and Jesus honoured the festivals. Jesus honours Shabbat. Jesus learns Torah. Jesus quotes the prophets. Jesus recites the Psalms. I mean, this is the Hebrew Bible.

David (25:56.174)
Yes. Totally.

John (26:01.781)
It's the only Bible Jesus had and Jesus not only used it properly, interpreted dynamically and lived it out authentically, but he actually points us to himself within it. You know, and it's recognizing that actually the glorious rootedness of Tanakh, Moses, the prophets and the writings are all pointing

David (26:02.03)
Yeah. Yeah.

David (26:13.39)
Hmm.

David (26:17.422)
Yes.

John (26:31.573)
to this glorious, fulfilling moment. From a Christian worldview point of view, my worldview point of view is that Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of all of that. He brings it all together. Every shadow, every nuance, every type, He becomes the absolute fulfillment of all of those ideas and makes sense of all of those ideas. So the festivals.

means something different when we see Jesus at the heart of them. These vows, Paul's vows, suddenly are directed in a different way because Jesus, the Messiah, the I am Jesus that he met on the road to Damascus is now at the heart of this revelation. So you're absolutely right in describing the differences biographical. I have tremendous amounts of both empathy and synergy.

with a Jewish worldview on most things in my Bible worldview understanding. And the more I am growing as a Christian, the more my mind is being shaped by a Hebraic worldview that is shaped in the crucible of Tanakh and is fulfilled in the glorious exposition of the New Testament. And for me, people like Paul are crucial to that step over journey.

He is a Pharisee, or he was a Pharisee, a Hebrew of the Hebrews. This man was absolutely died in the world as far as his Jewishness is concerned. But having met Messiah, he is now translating these ideas to not only a Jewish audience, but to a Gentile audience that doesn't have any of this rootedness. And he's making that that connectedness. So.

So I think your summary of a biographical differences is profound. Of course, it's a great summary, but that is a profound idea. Once you put Jesus in the room, that really will divide the room and split the room. But of course, it is the magnificence of, you know, I am Jesus that ultimately for us, for me, pulls all of these beautiful ideas together and make sense of them.

David (28:55.246)
And that's what I mean, to be to be really clear, because I don't want to take credit for it. I apologize if it sounded like I did. That was an explanation that came to me while I was talking with Chris Green about his new book Fire in the Cloud. Willie Jennings says something, you used the word rootedness, and he says he says that this story about Paul's vow confirms his theological stability. And I love that rootedness. This is this idea that Paul.

isn't seeing a fragility of his own. Paul's not paranoid about being a Jewish man. This is not causing him any concerns about his faith in Jesus as the resurrected Messiah. And I think that doesn't mean, I mean, 100 % that doesn't mean we all as Gentiles need to become Jews now. That's absolutely not what it means. But it also doesn't mean the other way around either. Paul's not seeing in my past life I was Jewish and in my new life I'm not.

John (29:34.037)
No. No. No.

John (29:50.713)
Yeah.

David (29:55.374)
He sees this story of Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, now opened up to rescue the world. For Paul, that's an Old Testament story. That's what Isaiah promises. That's the hope. That's the idea. But I'm curious. Sorry, on you go.

John (30:09.845)
And so, and sorry, and I just had one one we think I think one of the things that is maybe hurt a missional conversation from from the church to the Jewish world is that there is almost been this underlying feeling that they must deny their Jewishness in order to be followers of Jesus and Paul and others.

You know, Luke is the only Gentile contributor to the New Testament. Every other contributor is a Jew. All of them maintain something of their dynamic Jewish identity as followers of Messiah. So if we can help a Jewish world to hear that the Messiah is not asking them not to be Jews any longer, but to allow the Jewishness.

David (30:50.702)
Mm -mm.

John (31:06.388)
of their world to be framed, fulfilled, shaped through the lens of Messiah. And that's the crucial thing. It's not through a Christian worldview that that's going to change. It's going to change through the lens of Messiah. If that can happen, I think then actually you get something of a beautifully, I know this is controversial and dangerous, but of a blended world, a world that can celebrate ancient.

but a world that also understands fulfillment of the ancient and Messiah. Hence, we can celebrate a festival without overweighing that festival with significance that it doesn't carry because Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of all festival. He's the ultimate fulfillment of Passover. He's the ultimate fulfillment of Shavuot. He's the ultimate fulfillment of all of these great ideas of Yom Kippur, these great ideas.

And actually an understanding of Messiah changes everything. So Paul and the early church show that a comfort with their Jewishness, as well as being followers of Messiah, which doesn't seem, David, to negatively impact their ability to reach Gentiles. So I think there's I think I think we could recapture and we could help. We could help those from a Jewish world to be more open to Messiah.

David (32:24.27)
No, that's all.

John (32:35.253)
if actually we realize that Messiah himself, a Jew, could bring a redemptive aspect to that Jewish worldview.

David (32:45.102)
It seems that, like for me, I was thinking as you were saying about this notion of fulfillment, I mean, that's the Christian notion in Hebrews, right? I mean, that's really what Hebrews is arguing as Christians. And I think the balance and where it seems to me that we often get these things thoroughly muddled up is then we either get Christians ignoring the Old Testament completely.

in all sorts of various forms. I mean, you see this both in conservative and liberal scholarship at the moment, almost that, that's a difficult verse in the Old Testament, but that's okay because it's the Old Testament. We don't need to take that seriously. That's deeply dangerous. I think as theologically, it's very dangerous. The idea that you can have a Christianity without the Old Testament is not an idea that the New Testament is aware of. That would be how I would say that.

But then there's another danger, I think, that you often, and we sometimes see this, where you get Christians, Gentile Christians, pretending to be Jews, right? And all of a sudden, despite what you've said about the fulfilments, you get this notion that, we should go and do all of the stuff we see about Jewish. And that, I think, is often deeply offensive to Jewish people because it's like, well, wait, what's actually going on here? I think following acts is a really good thing to do because...

This is what I love about your language of rootedness, Jenny's language of theological stability, that you're seeing the story as a Christian fulfilled in Jesus. And that allows you to hold all the pieces in the right place, to not ignore the history and the story of God and the journey that the scriptures take us on, but also not to play with it irreverently and start pretending.

in different ways. And I feel like I don't think we've ever done that overly well in the church. I think that's been that's been our that's been our problem that that and that's why I'm fascinated. I wasn't I knew that we would get kind of into a conversation about this value thing. And I I think it's really important to frame it like that, because it's almost then I'd want to ask you the question, what do you think? Because I have my own thoughts on this as well.

John (34:42.613)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mm -mm.

David (35:06.51)
the space of then vows in not Jewish vows, but just a committed and ordered life is something I'm curious because I feel like you and I both in different ways have commitments and orders to our life that I think we don't react to the notion of vowing because I think we've explored some of the depths of it. Do you mind if I ask you that?

John (35:15.444)
Mmm.

John (35:30.869)
Yeah, of course, of course, that's no problem at all. And I think I think that there is both a great Jewish and Christian tradition in the area of making certain vows on to God in an act of devotion, worship, piety, love, even self -sacrifice and service. And these these are these are

David (35:49.326)
Yes.

David (35:56.59)
Yes.

John (36:00.821)
wonderful ideas and they mustn't be taken lightly and we mustn't treat them frivolously and we mustn't give them any salvation weight at all. These are expressions of a deep calling to deep. These are expressions of you know that Nazareth vow is an expression of someone surrendering some stuff onto Yahweh.

David (36:18.574)
Mm -hmm.

John (36:29.589)
Someone takes a vow in a Christian tradition of poverty, for example, which we may or may not agree with, but someone takes it. They're taking that vow because there is a deep sense of something within them calling to something that's deep. And actually they're wanting to respond to that. And in a world of selfish superficiality, in a world where it's all about me, in a world where it's all about what I can get, how I can get it, how quickly I can get it.

And dare I say it, even that consumerist grab, grab, grab enters into our spirituality. The world of the vow has almost been completely neglected apart from certain traditions within a Christian worldview. And actually it would do us no harm to think about this idea of entering into an agreement with the Lord so that we surrender something of ourselves to him.

for a greater sense of call. And I think that's a glorious idea. Again, as long as we are not placing any personal salvation weight on this just because I take a vow or I have a period of fasting or I give up certain things or I sell certain things and give it to the poor or these things have no salvation weight. I am getting into heaven because of the righteousness of Jesus and the righteousness of Jesus alone.

David (37:53.838)
Hmm.

John (37:53.941)
But these are all expressions of a deep spirituality and they're expressions of a piety that is calling out on the God and say, Lord, I do want I want to walk well before you and I want to give you my best in this particular regard. And I have no problem with the ideas of those whatsoever, as long as they are done for the right reasons and they are executed in a way that is ultimately about honoring God and not promoting our own piety.

David (38:07.242)
Hmm. Hmm.

David (38:23.918)
And that's, I always think this is a sort of, be careful of throwing out the baby with the bath water sort of situation, that old metaphor that our grandparents loved. And I think, you know, I've thought about it. I mean, I don't know if our listeners would know or not. I can't remember if we've talked about this or not, but I, like I'm part of a neomonastic order where we take vows that are not in any way radical sounding, but.

vows to pray twice a day and vows to take Eucharist once a week and things like this. And what they do for me in that sense is help shape me into an ordered life. And I've tried to think about it and I hear that you're absolutely right. There is no, like I mean this, I mean I love living in this sort of vowed life, but I also know, and I mean this respectfully,

John (39:06.773)
Absolutely.

David (39:22.446)
that God doesn't care any more about me than he does about somebody else because I've taken vows and they haven't. And I love the liberation of that. The one thing this is not doing for me is making God love me anymore. I'll tell you what it is doing. It's helping me love God more. It's helping me create vowed space in my life for Him. And so I've sometimes thought about, John, I don't know if you like this as a way of thinking, you get a couple and they might be...

John (39:38.613)
Yes. Yes.

David (39:52.526)
they might be in love and then one day they choose to get married. At one level the marriage, Dietrich Bonhoeffer said this and I love this, Bonhoeffer wrote to a young couple who were engaged once and he says you think, he said you think that the love that you have will sustain your marriage but actually the marriage will sustain your love.

And so a young couple might choose or an older couple might choose to get married. On one level, they appear to everybody else the day after their wedding the same as they did the day before. But the vow has changed things. The vow holds things in space for them. And I think it's funny how we often react a little bit as modern Christians to the notion of a vow. But yet we're all comfortable with marriage, which is a sacrament that's built around a vow. It's two people making a commitment to each other.

John (40:43.861)
Yeah.

John (40:47.413)
Mmm. Mmm.

David (40:49.678)
So I've tried to think about the vowed life a little like that. It's a commitment that holds me in space to be present to God. But you're absolutely right. It would become so destructive if I thought, not even just if I thought this had salvation attached to it, if I thought it made me better than anybody else, it would be entirely destructive. But if I can put all of those things and actually like I do in my marriage vows, say this holds me as my commitment to this person, I think...

John (40:52.66)
Mmm.

John (41:06.069)
End date, end date.

David (41:18.702)
I think it can be wonderfully. And let me say it like this, I would say, I'm part of a group of Christians who have chosen to vow and pray together in a particular way, working around, a lot of us are in pastoral ministry. But then I would say you always strike me as a very vowed person because you've made these commitments yourself before God. When you and I talk about our devotional lives, which we've done on this podcast, they're actually quite similar. We're aligning with similar things.

I think anybody listening to this podcast could equally decide to get up tomorrow and say, I'm going to make a vow that for the next month, I'm going to get up 30 minutes earlier and spend some time in silence with God. You know what I mean? It won't make you a better, it won't make you more saved, won't make you more loved by Jesus. But both of us would say to that person, that would be probably a really formative thing to do. Does that sit comfortably with you is how I explain it?

John (42:15.061)
No, so yeah, it's so helpful. It's so helpful. And I love that. I love the marriage analogy. And I think that's really, really helpful. It's not that because of these things, we are loved more, but it helps to frame our loving of him. It helps to give free and work and shape to what it means to say,

I will love you with all of my heart, with all of my soul and with all of my strength. The Kote Shema. What does that look like in the everyday, in the ordinary and vows and commitments to spiritual rhythms and behaviors are all part of an idea that says I these will help me love him more or help me love him.

David (42:45.358)
Mm. I love that.

John (43:09.109)
in a way that is at least understandable and outworkable to me. And I think with Paul, you're getting that Paul, of all the things I know about Paul reading Paul, this is a deeply, deeply rooted man in the scriptures, deeply passionate man for the Lord and a deeply passionate man for his world, which includes both Jewish and Gentile world. And this is a man, serious man, a seriously committed man to his cause.

David (43:12.366)
Hmm.

John (43:38.645)
And I think these vows are an expression of his seriousness and are an expression of his deep, serious commitment to being a servant of the Lord and also carrying the Lord to his world. So anything within the framework of biblical spirituality that helps us to do that. And for me, I'm saying, Amen, let's do it.

David (43:51.758)
Mm.

David (44:02.222)
Yeah, I love it. I love it. And.

David (44:08.398)
I think we just leave it there, John. I think that works. That works.

John (44:09.557)
Yeah, leave it there. It was good. That was good.