Is the church serious about justice? 

Join Denison Forum’s podcast host, Mark Turman, as he engages with author, pastor, and speaker Skye Jethani in a profound discussion about justice, faith, and the teachings of Jesus. They explore the theme of taking Jesus seriously, particularly in the context of the Sermon on the Mount. Skye shares insights from his book, What If Jesus Was Serious About Justice?, highlighting the biblical principles of justice and righteousness. 

The conversation covers the historical and cultural influences on American Christianity, the intersection of God’s wrath and love, and the role of justice in God’s plan. The episode aims to equip listeners to think biblically, live beautifully, and serve eagerly in their communities.

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Topics

• (00:32): Introducing Skye Jethani and the Topic of Justice
• (01:41): Exploring the Sermon on the Mount
• (04:18): The American Church and the Concept of Justice
• (06:00): Historical Context: Revivalism and Social Justice
• (08:04): The Role of Slavery in Dividing the Church
• (12:59): Justice and Righteousness: A Biblical Perspective
• (16:50): The Interplay of Justice and Mercy
• (20:14): Personal and Social Dimensions of Faith
• (24:42): The Parable of the Prodigal Son: Cultural Perspectives
• (28:02): Understanding the Judgment of Nations
• (30:48): Disney Princess Theology
• (34:12): The Subtle Nature of Revenge
• (37:50): Active and Passive Wrath of God
• (44:58): The Intersection of God’s Wrath and Love
• (49:14): Making Theology Accessible
• (50:53): Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Resources

• What If Jesus Was Serious about Justice? By Skye Jethani
• What If Jesus Was Serious about Heaven? By Skye Jethani
• If Jesus was serious . . . then our view of heaven must match his: An excerpt from “What If Jesus Was Serious about Heaven?” by Skye Jethani
• The Holy Post podcast
• More about Skye Jethani
• What does it mean to hunger and thirst for righteousness?
• What is biblical righteousness?

About Skye Jethani

Skye Jethani (MDiv, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) is an award-winning author, former pastor, and speaker. He is cohost of the popular Holy Post podcast. Jethani has written numerous books, including the What If Jesus Was Serious? series, and served for more than a decade in numerous editorial and executive roles at Christianity Today. He also writes a daily devotional called With God Daily. He and his wife live in Wheaton, Illinois, with their three children.

About Dr. Mark Turman

Dr. Mark Turman is the Executive Director of Denison Forum and Vice President of Denison Ministries. Among his many duties, Turman is most notably the host of The Denison Forum Podcast. He is also the chief strategist for DF Pastors, which equips pastors and church leaders to understand and transform today’s culture.

About Denison Forum

Denison Forum exists to thoughtfully engage the issues of the day from a biblical perspective through The Daily Article email newsletter and podcast, The Denison Forum Podcast, as well as many books and additional resources.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

NOTE: This transcript was AI-generated and has not been fully edited. 

[00:00:00] Dr. Mark Turman: This is the Denison Forum podcast. I’m Mark Turman, the host for today’s conversation. Thanks for joining us as we seek to understand God’s plan and purpose for us. He wants us to thrive by faith rather than live in fear. And we want to do that at the Denison Forum by equipping you to just understand what his plans are, to help you think biblically, to live beautifully.

And to serve eagerly to help build cultivating cultivating flourishing families and churches and communities. And we want to do that today by way of a very interesting and important topic, the topic of justice and my dialogue partner and friend is Skyee Jethani. He’s been a part of our podcast before many of you probably know him.

through his own podcast called the holy post. He is also a pastor, a speaker, an author, and has written a number of different things. And today we’re going to explore some of his recent work on the question of justice. But Skye, just welcome back to the podcast. And just want to give you the chance to say hello before we get started into various conversations.

[00:01:12] Skye Jethani: Thank you. I’m looking forward to being back and having this conversation. It’s always good to be with you, Mark. 

[00:01:17] Dr. Mark Turman: We’re looking forward as well. Skye, one of the themes that kind of runs through a lot of your work is this idea of taking Jesus seriously. And I just wanted to kind of back the train up a little bit and say, where did that idea, that theme come from for you?

Do you think most people take Jesus seriously, too seriously? How did you come to put it into this framework? 

[00:01:41] Skye Jethani: It came about because many years ago when I was a local pastor, I taught a, an adult class at my church on the Sermon on the Mount. And on the very first day of the class, I don’t know, there were 30 or 40 adults in the classroom.

In the first day, we read through the Sermon on the Mount, which is Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7. And the first question I asked the class is, do you think Jesus was serious? Do you think he actually expects us to follow these commands that he’s laid out? And I was kind of shocked to discover that no one said yes.

Oh, wow. Nobody raised their hand. And, and then I said okay, if you don’t think he was serious, then how are we supposed to understand this sermon? And I got all kinds of different weird, but common answers like nobody can actually do this. Or, he only taught these things to show how we couldn’t fulfill God’s expectations, so we need a savior, and we need to rely on him, and what struck me was everyone in this classroom had been a Christian for decades.

These are not brand new Christians, these are not non believers, these are not people who don’t believe the Bible is God’s authoritative word, and yet they were all giving loophole reasons to not have to take the Sermon on the Mount seriously, despite the fact that the Sermon on the Mount ends with, Jesus giving a parable of the wise and foolish builder, which is all about the one who does what my command is like the man who builds his house on the rock.

The whole point of the end of that sermon is this Jesus saying, I’m serious, actually do this. And so it made me aware, even as a young pastor, that an awful lot of people, even within the American church, even leadership in the American church, had created a theology that made it possible to excuse the commands of Jesus.

So that was my introduction to this. Wait a minute. We really don’t take him seriously. And so the first book in the series. What if Jesus was serious is about the Sermon on the Mount and that became the catchphrase for everything that’s followed 

[00:03:39] Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah, it’s interesting how we we take him in a lot of ways But we often don’t take him the way he intended to be taken which is to be taken seriously Right at every front and that includes this very in at least for me very intriguing idea of what Jesus meant What the Bible means when it talks?

about justice. What was it that kind of drew you in this direction? Obviously, things within the Sermon on the Mount have a lot to do with the idea of justice and that part of God’s nature. But what is, if there is, what is the larger backstory about How you came to this topic. 

[00:04:18] Skye Jethani: I gosh, there’s probably multiple avenues into this topic, but one of them was I’ve traveled overseas a lot and I’ve been engaged with Christian communities in different parts of the world a lot.

And one of the things I kept bumping into were Christians in other parts of the world, basically saying, what is wrong with you Americans? Because we are the American church, particularly the white church in America has a tendency to bifurcate Reconciliation with God and justice. As a human endeavor in the world, and when you get outside of the American context, you realize that most other parts of the world of the global church, they don’t separate those two things.

They don’t see them as existing in opposition to each other, and so I kept having those kinds of encounters around the world, which led me a number of years ago into a deeper study of why has the American church developed this allergy. to justice and this allergy to social engagement. Some people want to say social justice, which I know raises red flags for all kinds of people, but it’s a uniquely American dynamic.

And I wanted to figure out what was behind that. Why have we bifurcated these things? When the global church hasn’t, the historical church hasn’t, and scripture certainly hasn’t. And that’s what led me into this topic and decided, okay, I’m going to do a What If Jesus Was Serious book about this and hopefully can build an argument biblically for why the bifurcation in the American church between, say, evangelism and justice or evangelism and compassion

[00:06:00] Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah, so let’s let’s run down that road in a kind of a macro way, a big way of because when I started getting in and listening to some of your work on this, it’s just the idea of, I just kind of started thinking It’s the result of revivalism that really kind of caused this focus in this bifurcation.

And I can remember even going back to my college days talking about the movement of the social gospel 120 years ago, 150 years ago. And then, of course coming out of various traditions, I come out of a Baptist tradition. And the idea of revivalism and that type of thing and the individual focus on, on the salvation of a believer, the emphasis on evangelism what did you, what are some of the two or three of the big themes of what you would say?

Where did this, this bifurcation happen? Did it happen? A hundred years ago? Is it 500 years ago? Back to the Reformation? What are the kind of the big picture takeaways that you have? 

[00:06:59] Skye Jethani: Yeah, no, I mean, it’s not within our lifetimes, so we have to go earlier than that. But it’s not really that long ago either.

I would put it in the middle of the 19th century. So you’re talking the 1840s, kind of in that framing. When you go back and you look at the great revivals in American history, the First Great Awakening with, with George Whitefield, the Second Great Awakening, Charles Finney is often identified with that in the early 1800s.

Yes, a lot of evangelism, a lot of proclamation of the gospel, a lot of people turning to their faith, repenting of their sins. But what always accompanied those Revivals was great social reformation. It was you know, changing of the prison systems. It was ending the abolitionist movement really was a, a, an outgrowth of the second great awakening in the early 19th century, in the early 18 hundreds, like there was Christians leading those movements as their souls were transformed.

Their outlook upon, you know, their. Their communities was transformed, their brothers and sisters, the enslaved, the forgotten. Now all those great social movements happened out of Christian revival. And then it all came to a dramatic end in the middle of the 19th century. And the reason is simple, slavery.

There were significant numbers of Christians who realized if we take these parts of the scriptures seriously, it has deep implications, economic implications. for us because we can’t maintain our view of slavery. And there were a number of states in the, in the border region between the North and the South that were really caught in the crossfire of this whole thing.

There were churches where people, there were abolitionists in these churches, they were pro slavery people in these churches, and, and the leadership of these churches was being divided over this. And a lot of pastors and church leaders were desperately looking for A legitimate reason to dodge the topic, not deal with it.

And right around that time in the 1860s, especially at the height of the Civil War they’re introduced to a, a theology that comes over from England. And really takes off in these border states and in the 1870s and after the Civil War during Reconstruction when people are debating, what do we do with all these emancipated slaves now and do we really believe in racial integration and do they deserve equal rights and the vote and jobs and things like that?

These were issues tearing the country apart and a bunch of pastors and maybe you can relate to this who just didn’t want to rock the boat were looking for a theology that said, You can avoid this, so along comes this theology from the UK that gets spread through some very influential leaders in the US that basically teaches this world’s gonna burn, social justice doesn’t matter, slavery doesn’t matter, racial justice doesn’t matter, caring for the poor is a kind and good thing to do, but ultimately it’s not that important, doesn’t matter, because all that matters is rescuing souls off the sinking ship.

[00:09:56] Dr. Mark Turman: The 

[00:09:56] Skye Jethani: world’s going down, so only focus on evangelism. Even though that had not been the historic view of the Christian church, it had not been the historic view of even the American church, it came at a time where pastors were eager for an excuse to not talk about these things. And so they latched onto that theology and said, Thank you.

Now I have a reason to only quote unquote preach the gospel. and not worry about these social dynamics. And ever since then, the 1860s and 70s, we have been running with that view in the white church. And then you get to the 20th century. So some of what you were referencing, and there were some Christians are going, no, no, no, no, we really need to care about this social stuff.

And then this other side going, no, we don’t. We just need to care about saving souls and you get the bifurcation. So to this day, now we know churches that will preach the gospel, but take a very different. Attitude when it comes to social issues and there are some churches that engage deeply on social issues But they’ve given up on orthodoxy and they don’t talk about the resurrection and they they don’t talk about salvation And that’s a weird unique dynamic in American church history that you just don’t see much in the global church 

[00:11:01] Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah, it’s so many things.

I mean, we could spend more than an hour just on, on those ideas, right, of I mean, I, I remember learning the story early on in my Christian faith that of a medical missionary in the early 1900s who had done, like I said, medical missions overseas, but came home and was asked about it, and he said you know, yes, we did help people medically, but most of them have probably died now, which means that the most important thing we did for them was spiritual, which is both true and untrue in some ways Skye, when you talk about the historic position being that Christians have normally pursued both of these at the same time.

Is that to say that historically in the Christian movement, Christians have pursued by intention the bettering of the world while they were also trying to evangelize people on an individual basis relative to their relationship with God? Or were some of these things that you just articulated, were they, were they just kind of, The outflows or was there a side by side intentional effort?

No, God wants us to try to make people’s lives better on a daily basis while we’re also talking about their spiritual needs. 

[00:12:19] Skye Jethani: Yeah, it’s both. And, and the reason there’s both is because you see both in Jesus. Just on Sunday at my church, we were looking at Mark chapter six, and it’s the story of Jesus walking on the water.

And then after that story, they get to the other side in Gennesaret. And it says that all the people came to him and they brought all the sick and they laid them in front of him, hoping that they would just be able to touch the hem of his robe and be healed. And it says he healed all of them. And there’s no, there’s nothing in Mark chapter six about Jesus preaching or proclaiming anything.

But he healed people, and of course he proclaimed the kingdom of God as well, so it’s not that he did one or the other, he did both, because both are a manifestation of his kingdom. So this gets to the kind of heart of what I’m arguing in this book, and I think what scripture argues is the words for justice used in scripture, both in the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament, is the exact same word that’s translated as righteousness.

And I don’t know too many Christians who freak out when you use the word righteousness, but there are some that freak out when you use the word justice, but they’re the same word in Greek and Hebrew. And what it means in the scriptures is justice refers to a right relationship. It’s putting things back into the right order.

the way things are supposed to be. And so when we speak about that, as we relate to our creator, we talk about what we should repent of our sins and be reconciled to God the Father through the redeeming work of Jesus on the cross. We speak of that as evangelism. It’s putting The right relationship back between us and God, right?

Great. That also exists in our relationship with one another. We are to be reconciled to each other. Paul talks about this in Ephesians 2. We are to forgive those who’ve wronged us. We are to make restitution for those we have wronged. We are to be reconciled with one another. Both of these things.

are what Jesus comes to proclaim. He even says in the Sermon on the Mount, if you’re going to offer your gift at the altar, there, remember that you have, your brother has something against you. First, go be reconciled to your brother, then come and worship. That’s Jesus talking about justice. Don’t, you cannot have a right relationship with God if you do not also seek a right relationship with the people around you.

This permeates the Bible, Old and New Testaments, but for some reason in America, we only want to talk about the vertical dimension, our relationship with God, and we think it’s. Utterly disconnected from the horizontal dimension. And that’s what I’m trying to help people recognize in this book is these things are Perpetually and inexorably Linked together and they are never separated in scripture And therefore we ought not separate them when we think about our individual lives or our mission as we seek to yes Call people to be reconciled to God through Christ.

We are also trying to heal them physically, spiritually, emotionally, relationally, economically, so that they also are in right relationship with the community and the world around them. 

[00:15:15] Dr. Mark Turman: And as you said, you just see this when you start looking at it through this kind of a lens, you see it everywhere. You see it everywhere.

When, when somebody asked Jesus, what’s the most important thing? He says, love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And almost without taking a breath and and love your neighbor as yourself. And, you know, for years I pastored a church and every time we held a membership orientation, we had that same phrase.

You cannot be right with God and wrong with people or right with people and wrong with God. These two things. are dynamically and forever connected and there’s, there’s no reason why we should have to choose between the two in terms of emphasis, right? 

[00:15:54] Skye Jethani: That’s 

[00:15:54] Dr. Mark Turman: right. 

[00:15:55] Skye Jethani: Yeah. And it’s exactly what we are living now, almost 200 years into the bifurcation of these two.

Parts of the gospel and I think it’s done incalculable damage to the church and its witness And we have to take jesus seriously and bring them back together 

[00:16:10] Dr. Mark Turman: and it’s really crazy when you think about how Many how many different ways these things work together how we meet physical needs and hopefully by that gain an opportunity to meet spiritual needs and vice versa at times it can go in both ways but Skye as you kind of set the table for this conversation How does this idea of justice and righteousness both on an individual and on a more corporate communal level, how does it relate to this bigger idea that we have a good and loving and all powerful God, but we’re also living in a very broken, evil world?

How does it relate to that conversation? 

[00:16:50] Skye Jethani: Yeah, I mean, this is where you get into how, how does God’s justice interplay with his mercy? And if you take a modern American or Western view of justice, we tend to associate that word with. With judicial justice, meaning you stand before a court and you’re innocent or you’re guilty and you’re punished or you’re released, and that’s kind of our understanding of justice.

That’s not entirely the biblical view of justice. It’s part of it, but it’s not all of it. As I said earlier, justice biblically is about the right ordering of relationships. And so when you understand that God’s desire for justice is that things be put back into their proper order. Then sometimes that requires punishment.

Sometimes that requires intervening where evil is happening and stopping it and punishing it. You see this in the Exodus story. Right. And the Egyptians are mistreating the Hebrew slaves, and God’s judgment comes upon Egypt. And it’s dramatic and immediate and powerful. That’s one element of it, but if your goal is the reconciliation and restoration of the right ordering of relationships, then sometimes mercy is called for.

And people are experienced forgiveness and reconciliation. One, one example that comes to mind is the story of Zacchaeus in the Bible, where if you remember the wee little man who climbs up on the tree and wants to see Jesus. He was a tax collector. And in that role, he would often collect more money than was required because he would pocket the difference.

He was a scoundrel and a thief. And when he encounters Jesus, he says, I’m going to return to everybody what I’ve taken fourfold. That’s restitution. He’s, he’s making up for the wrongs he has done. So on one end of this reconciliation, we have to repent and make right to the best we can what we’ve done wrong.

But then there’s many passages of the gospels where Jesus talks about forgiveness. He talks to Peter, where he asks him, how many times must I forgive my brother when he’s wronged me? Seven times? And Jesus says, no, 70 times seven, which is kind of a euphemism for, you know, without end. Right. And that’s where you also have to recognize our Heavenly Father as he interacts with the world and with us in it.

And we are all evildoers and sinners. There are times where his discipline and judgment comes because it’s what’s best for us. But sometimes we’re met with mercy and forgiveness because his goal is ultimately reconciliation and the right ordering of things. So I don’t want us to see mercy and judgment as antithetical to each other.

We think of it sort of as fire and ice, but I see them more as peanut butter and jelly. They, they go together and they’re both employed to bring reconciliation and restoration of relationship. 

[00:19:36] Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah, and it’s such a, a needed message. And let me, let me go down the road of a gross overstatement here for a second, because we, we see, so I came, I was born into a very large Roman Catholic family for the first decade of my life.

My Family was extremely committed to that community of faith. And then the second decade of my life, I ran into and had an intersection with the Evangelical Baptist Church. And that’s where I’ve spent the rest of my life. But it just seems like, my experience has been that Roman Catholic side, and maybe we would add the mainstream, quote unquote, the mainstream church today.

It’s all about the social justice part of this, and the evangelical side is all about the individual conversion and restoration of relationship with God among the individual, and I keep trying to figure out how do I, how do I put these two pieces together in my own experience and also in ministry.

If you find yourself realizing that you’ve been on one end of this spectrum. Either side of this, what would be some suggestions for you about how do you move toward a more holistic biblical, fully biblical approach to understanding and engaging in your faith? 

[00:20:53] Skye Jethani: I mean, the easiest way would be leave the United States.

Relocate. Go to a global church. Actually, that’s, that’s an exaggeration, obviously. This is not universally the case in the American church. When you go to, for example, Black churches, this has not been the case typically. When statistically speaking, which Americans hold the most orthodox and biblical theology?

African Americans. Which Americans read the Bible more than anyone else? African Americans. Which churches and denominations have historically combined personal salvation and reconciliation with God with social engagement? It’s the black church in America. I’m not saying every black church, but historically, and it makes sense when you give, understand the history I talked about earlier.

It was the white church that was split over this issue of slavery. It was not the black church. So the black church historically in this country has not bifurcated these things. And. A lot of immigrant churches in the US that have been coming from other parts of the world tend not to bifurcate these things as much as the white church in America does because they have a different history.

So one thing I would say is find sisters and brothers who aren’t white. Who are following Jesus, who come from a tradition that’s not been part of this bifurcated history and learn how they see the Bible, how they understand the faith, how they practice their Christianity. That’s one way to broaden your vision of this stuff.

The other one is, of course, just get your nose in the Scriptures more, 

[00:22:25] Dr. Mark Turman: and recognize 

[00:22:26] Skye Jethani: how much of what Jesus is saying in the Gospels is very congruent with what the Old Testament prophets were saying. Read a passage like Ephesians chapter 2 where Paul talks about how through the cross we have been reconciled to one another and then as one new person reconciled to God the Father, he actually prioritizes the human reconciliation.

Before our reconciliation with God, it’s the complete inverse of what a lot of what white evangelical Christianity does, which is no, no, you have to get right with God first, then worry about what’s going on around you. So once you see this, and your, your blinders come off a little bit. You’ll read the scriptures very, very differently.

[00:23:07] Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah, that’s a great segue into talking about that aspect. It’s just the way that you hear and read and understand the Bible. Because I’ve seen part of what you talk about is just understanding that fundamental to us As human beings, is this I believe the terminology that you use was craving for justice.

But let me, let me set that up for you a little bit. Like I had this conversation with my own mom when she said, you know, I, I love reading the New Testament. I don’t really. I don’t think any of us should be reading the Old Testament anymore. And then I’ve heard people do that even in a New Testament context where they’re like I love what Paul says but I really don’t really want to spend much time with James because James is just too much.

You know, kind of in your face about some of this stuff. Yeah. And I’ve had people on the opposite who say, you know, I just love James and it’s, it’s just about doing all these good things. And I kind of get lost in some of that stuff that Paul talks about, especially if you’re in Romans 9, 10 and 11. I don’t get any of that, you know, so you see these kinds of.

Of conflicts within people, but I loved what you talked about in your work about just kind of this undergirding reality that we long for justice. Sometimes we’re, we’re way too focused on the idea of justice for me, but not for the people around me. Unpack that. I know I just put a lot there. There’s a lot that under unpack that in terms of how we hear read and respond to the Bible.

[00:24:38] Skye Jethani: I’ll give you an illustration that’s not in the book that I think highlights this. There was a group of scholars who took Luke 15, which is just the parable of the prodigal son. They took it into different cultures and they invited people to read The text, and then close the Bible and retell the story from memory.

Oh, wow. And they were looking at what details did different cultures remember about the story, and which ones did they forget. 

[00:25:05] Dr. Mark Turman: Mm hmm. 

[00:25:06] Skye Jethani: And one of the findings of this study was that people from the United States, or from other very wealthy cultures, always neglected a detail in the story of the prodigal son that people from poor countries almost always remembered.

Mm hmm. And the detail was That when the sun goes off to a distant country, Americans would always talk about how he wasted his money on alcohol and prostitutes and wild living and ends up, ends up feeding pigs because he goes broke. But Americans almost never remember the detail that a famine arose in the land, but everyone from a poor country remembered that the text says there’s a famine in the land.

Now, why is that important? Because in an American setting, we think our, our circumstances are the result of our own decisions. And so we project from this story that the young man was a bad steward of his money, and he was foolish, and that’s why he suffered. People from poorer countries realize that it has nothing to do with whether I’m making good or bad decisions.

I’m in conditions that are beyond my control that have made me destitute. So when the text says he made bad decisions and there was a famine in the land, what it’s saying is, yeah, he was personally foolish, but there were also conditions beyond his control. That led to his circumstances. Now, the reason I share that is because it shows that we end up seeing in scripture what we already know, and we are blind in scripture.

To what we don’t know. And so if you come from an experience, a community, a culture, a country where you have not known poverty, where you have not known injustice, where you’ve not known persecution, where you’ve not known war or starvation or you know, deep, humiliating injustice. Then it makes sense that you’re blind to those messages in the scriptures.

It makes sense why you’re not comfortable reading James. But if you’ve been poor, and destitute, and mistreated, and abused, and segregated, and enslaved, and, you know, if that’s been your experience, you’re going to read James and be like, Thank you, Lord. Yeah, tell these rich people to pay a fair wage. You’re going to read different texts in the Old Testament and go, Yes, Lord, when is your vengeance going to come against those who have wronged us?

So I get it that a lot of people in an American context are uncomfortable with these justice passages of the Bible because we’re more likely to be the ones judged than the ones liberated, and that’s a really uncomfortable position to be in, you know, one thing again, we forget this Matthew 25, a lot of people know this part, this story where Jesus talks about the final judgment, 

[00:27:55] Dr. Mark Turman: and he 

[00:27:55] Skye Jethani: talks about The separating of the sheep and the goats, 

[00:27:58] Dr. Mark Turman: a 

[00:27:59] Skye Jethani: lot of people love that, you know, all right, that’s great.

What we often again overlook is we assume that the sheep and the goats are referencing individual people, but that’s not what the text says. What the text says is on the day of judgment, the nations will come before me and I will separate them sheep from the goats. There’s ambiguity here of whether he’s talking about individual judgment of people or he’s talking about judgment of whole nations.

That collective idea of judgment. Is like anathema to the American way of thinking, but it was not foreign to the ancient way of thinking because in the Old Testament, God judges nations all the time for the way they treat the poor, for the way they treat the foreigner, for the way they treat orphans and the widows, not just Israel.

But foreign nations as well. So anyway, my point is, we have to realize that we have a bias in the way we read scripture. And we’re going to favor those texts that make us comfortable, and we’re going to often just be completely blind to those texts that make us uncomfortable. 

[00:29:06] Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. And, you know, and let me just stop.

There’s so many great things about being an American, right? There are so many, so many great things about being an American, but there are also some challenges. And one of those is particularly when you come to matters of faith and matters of Christian faith revealed in the Bible and other things as well.

But We are so hyper individualistic in our nature as a culture that we struggle to see the communal nature of the way the Bible story is presented to us. Because we want to see ourselves as an individual rather than as a part of this group. And that plays out in a number of ways. But one of the things that, that as you were talking, just made me think about is that particularly as Americans as well, we just have.

Almost a bias against hearing the Bible when it talks about God’s favor for the down and outers. Whatever way that you might want to define a down and outer. Am I, am I reading the way you describe it? Is that, is that what, is that what we need to understand? That because we, you know, we have a hard time.

We, we, most of us haven’t been born in poverty. We have not been an ethnic minority. Help, I guess the question is, is I guess those of us who have been enormously blessed and privileged in this country and most of whom are going to listen to this podcast, honestly, I think need to realize we probably need to get to a place where we expect to be uncomfortable when we come to read or hear the Bible spoken, preached and taught.

Is that fair? 

[00:30:48] Skye Jethani: Oh, totally. I forgot who coined the term, but somebody talked about how we suffer from Disney princess theology. And what that means is in every story. In the Bible, we think we’re the hero, so pick your story. You know, the good Samaritan story. Of course, I’m the Samaritan. I’m not, I’m not the priest or the Levite.

I’m the Samaritan. I’m the one who would help or in the prodigal son story. I’m, I’m either the younger son who comes home or the father who welcomes. I’m not the older son who’s self righteous. That’s not me. So we always put ourselves in the hero position and sometimes we need to slow down and go wait a minute.

What if, yeah. What if I am the bad guy? What if I’m the one who’s got problem? And there’s a part of the book that I address some of this and it again goes back to the Exodus story and for those Who are familiar? Moses encounters the Lord through the burning bush and God says to Moses, you know I’ve heard the cries of my people and I have come down to rescue them from, from Egypt and then the story unfolds and God rescues his people and it’s this beautiful tender moment where God is responding to the cries and the suffering of his people in slavery.

You keep reading in Exodus and you read through the rest of the Torah and the Lord gives his commands to the Israelites after they’ve been freed and he says to them, don’t mistreat the foreigner among you because he will cry out to me and I will hear his cry and I will come down and I will punish you.

He uses the exact same language that he used in judgment of the Egyptians, but now he’s saying I will do this to the Israelites. And the reason I bring it up is because sometimes we fall into this trap of thinking I’m a Christian. I’m, I’m on the good team. I’m part of God’s people. Therefore, I get a pass and his judgment is only coming on those.

We’re outside. I’m an Israelite. They’re Egypt. No, what God is saying is, Hey, Israelites, you know what it’s like to be under the boot of a tyrant. And you know what it’s like when I punish those who do wrong to the weak and the vulnerable, you know, better don’t do this. Otherwise I will do exactly to you what I did to Egypt.

And we need to hear that because it isn’t. About identity for God. It’s not about which label do you wear or what nationality do you have or do you call yourself a Christian or what it’s about. Are you reflecting his character? Are you mistreating people? Because if you are, if you are a Christian and you are mistreating a Muslim and they cry out to God, he will hear the Muslim.

Not the Christian. That’s what scripture teaches us over and over and over again. It’s not about your identity. This gets back to the the Good Samaritan again. It was the heretic, the Samaritan, who did what was right by his neighbor. Not the Jews in the story. So we got to get past this identity, this princess theology that says I’m automatically the good guy because I’m the Christian.

Therefore all these passages about judgment or mistreating the poor or the orphan or the widow, that doesn’t apply to me because I’m a good guy. Sorry, God does not look out at the world and see black hats and white hats. What he sees are people who reflect his character, bear his name, or people who don’t.

And even if you claim his name, if you don’t reflect his character, you need to wrestle with those hard passages of the Bible. 

[00:34:12] Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah, and Scott, what I hear in that, in some ways, is a pretty important warning for us about the subtle nature of revenge. That we, we tend to think of revenge as being highly emotive.

But there are realities, especially on the level of a communal type experience where it’s easy for us to to create what one pastor called an internal vow, which is if I ever get free from this, if I ever get. Liberated from whatever it is that I feel like is oppressing me or holding me down.

If I ever get to the place of power and privilege, then this is what I’m going to do and it can become a form, not really of justice, but rather of self created revenge. 

[00:35:00] Skye Jethani: That’s right. 

[00:35:01] Dr. Mark Turman: To, to, like I said, use your example of God warning the Israelites, I am going to free you, but when you get free, don’t start acting like the Egyptians.

[00:35:09] Skye Jethani: Right. 

[00:35:10] Dr. Mark Turman: Which is exactly what they did. 

[00:35:12] Skye Jethani: Exactly what they did. 

[00:35:13] Dr. Mark Turman: Right. And, and that is very much a sub, sometimes a very subtle kind of revenge that can creep up on us. Right. And we find, we find ourselves being just as bad as the people that were oppressing us. 

[00:35:27] Skye Jethani: Yeah. And, and, but the irony is they were even worse because what seeps in is it’s not It’s not just that.

Now I, I’ve got the upper hand and I’m going to have revenge. It’s I’m God’s chosen person. I belong to God’s chosen people. Therefore, I have the right. To be on top and suppress others and when you, it’s one thing to be evil, it’s a whole another thing to be evil in the name of God. And that’s what gets them in so much trouble.

And Carmen Imes is wonderful Testament professor at Biola and she’s a holy post pundit of ours and she’s done a lot of work on this idea of what does it really mean to to bear the Lord’s name in vain. Commandment from the Ten Commandments. And a lot of people think it’s about, you know, don’t misspeak God’s name or don’t use God’s name as a curse.

It’s actually not what it’s about. The literal Hebrew says, do not carry the name of the Lord in vain. And what God is saying to his people is you bear my name. My name is on you. The world knows you as the people of Yahweh. Don’t misrepresent me by your behavior in the way you treat one another. The same applies now.

We call ourselves Christians, little Christs. We bear the name of the son of God, if we think that gives us license to be mean and brutal and vengeful and to persecute others and to mistreat the poor or the foreigner, if that gives us license to do those things and we are bearing the name of God in vain, and that brings his judgment and wrath.

Yeah. Especially upon people who should know better. So that’s, that’s the warning here that don’t, don’t take your Christian identity as an excuse that I get the license to not pass on mistreating people. It’s precisely the opposite. You have a higher expectation to represent God and Christ accurately, especially to those who are weak and marginalized.

[00:37:20] Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. And that, and that’s one of the greatest testimonies of grace, right? Would be that. You would be the person who once once you were delivered, once justice came your way to not show a vengeful attitude in response when you now have a place of opportunity, position, power to not be a person of revenge is actually one of the greatest examples of, of grace that we can demonstrate.

And that makes us so much reflective of the nature of God. Scott, let me move the conversation a little bit further, which is just this what I would call often misunderstood reality of what the Bible calls God’s wrath. That the intersection of God’s wrath, the knee, I think it was Tim Keller who said, you know, you don’t want a God who doesn’t believe in justice and wrath.

Unpack that a little bit for us because we, we seem to live very much in a time where Christians often banty about the phrase out of first John, God is love. God is love. God is love. God is love as if. The Bible doesn’t equally say God is holy, God is holy, and God is just. 

[00:38:30] Skye Jethani: Mm hmm. 

[00:38:30] Dr. Mark Turman: So, help us understand how these ideas of God’s wrath and God’s love, God’s holiness and God’s love, how do those go together?

[00:38:38] Skye Jethani: Yeah, I mean, there’s been so many people who’ve done great work on this. You mentioned Tim, Tim Keller. Miroslav Volf has written some wonderful theology about this as well. And he lived through the decimation of Yugoslavia, his homeland, and war. And, and he talks about how He was not, he did not like the idea of God being wrathful until he experienced war.

And then he realized a God who isn’t wrathful cannot be loving and cannot be just because a God of love must be angry when the creatures whom he loves are mistreated. When they are abused, when they are murdered, when they are raped, when they are, you know, enslaved, that has to, love means it must provoke God’s anger and wrath against these things.

So you can’t have one without the other. And that’s what scripture testifies about from beginning to end. It is, yes, he is love, but that love will manifest itself in vengeance and anger against those who harm those whom he loves. The question then is how does this get manifested? And I think it’s helpful to think, and other theologians, again, have done the work on this, that God’s wrath tends to manifest itself in two forms, active wrath and passive wrath.

Active wrath is what gets all the headlines. It’s kind of, you know, there’s some stories of this in the, in the scriptures that people get really uncomfortable with, like, In the New Testament, there’s Ananias and Sapphira in the Book of Acts who lie to the apostles and they just drop dead on the spot.

It’s like, whoa, like God’s judgment. There’s a whole backstory to that we could get into. I mentioned God’s wrath against Egypt in the Exodus story. God’s act of wrath, right? He sends these plagues upon, upon the Egyptians. As dramatic as those stories are, they’re actually the minority in the scriptures.

Far more often what we find is God’s passive wrath. Again, both in the Old and New Testaments, passive wrath means God isn’t the one actively punishing somebody rather he’s allowing that person or that nation to experience the natural consequences of their own sinfulness. So he warns Israel for years and years and years and years to turn away from their sin.

Of of injustice of the way they’re treating the poor and one another, he warns them for a long time and finally says, okay, that’s it. I’m going to remove my hand of protection and you’re going to face the natural consequences of what you’ve done. And it means an invading army coming or in Romans chapter one, Paul has this incredible dialogue or this discourse about people broadly all humans and how God’s wrath is being revealed to them for their idolatry.

But then three times in the verses that follow, Paul says the Lord handed them over, dot, dot, dot. He handed them over to their lusts and desires. He handed them over to their evil desires. It’s God’s passive wrath saying, okay, if this is what you want, you go for it. And the bitter fruit of what you have chosen for yourself, I’m not going to prevent you from experiencing.

Far more often in scripture, that’s the kind of wrath. we experience. It’s, it’s God saying, I’m going to not protect you from your own evil, and you will reap what you’ve sown. 

[00:41:55] Dr. Mark Turman: So is it a way of even talking in some ways, Skye, about Miracles that we wouldn’t normally call miracles. We, we sometimes talk about miracles as only resulting in what we would perceive to be a positive outcome, right?

The feeding of 5, 000, the healing of a blind person. But when God in various ways, I’m thinking of some old Testament stories where. God actively stepped in to kind of interrupt the laws of nature and that type of thing and, and those stories were stories of wrath. I think of the, the walls of Jericho coming down, right?

It wasn’t about the nation of Israel walking around the city seven times with their trumpets. God miraculously intervened and he brought judgment upon that city. But that’s not normative or even particularly predictive of the way that God would normally bring about judgment or or justice in a situation is a way of thinking about it.

[00:42:54] Skye Jethani: It is. And it’s, it goes all the way back to Genesis chapter three with, you know, there’s different views of this, but I think a really legitimate way of reading what happened in the garden with Adam and Eve. If you remember, there’s two trees in the garden, there’s the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and there’s the tree of life.

And after they rebel against God and they take from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we’re told that they are prevented from accessing the tree of life. 

[00:43:22] Dr. Mark Turman: So 

[00:43:23] Skye Jethani: one way to understand that theologically is that Adam and Eve were always mortal. They were created from the dust. They were mortal. They were going to die, but God had given them access to the tree of life that would give them life eternal.

And once they were cut off from the tree of life, Because of their rebellion, they would surely die because they were no longer going to get access to it. And so, it’s another way of saying, God was showing them his passive wrath. It’s not that he killed them the moment they rebelled against him. He basically said, okay, this is what you want, then you will face the natural consequences of your choice, which means you’re not going to get access to me and you’re not going to get access to eternal life, which I alone possess.

You are going to follow the natural course of things that come from the dirt. You’re going to return to the dirt. That’s why the wages of sin is death. It’s why John 3 16, he gave his only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish. He interrupts the natural outcome should be that we perish. So this idea that, you know, God is up there like smiting people with his finger, lightning bolts from his finger left and right, isn’t exactly accurate to what you see in scripture.

It’s far more that he is saying to us. Your will be done. You’ve chosen this, you want this, go for it, but the natural outcome, and I’m not going to interfere, the natural outcome is death. But you can turn to me, I’ve opened the way now. You can come back to the tree of life. And live forever with me, but the choice is yours.

[00:44:58] Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah, that’s so good Yeah, and let me let me get you to chase that out one step further just a couple of questions before we need to wrap up, but just part of what you have worked on in this area is just how The justice of god and the love of god intersect at the cross and I I think one of the ways you expressed it was the cross is really god defeating us before It’s god saving us I grew up in a church, or, or my, my pastor used, his favorite hymn was Victory in Jesus.

I mean, we just sang Victory in Jesus all the time. But it’s, it’s kind of what you allude to, that the cross can’t be good news to you until it’s bad news to you. Right. And, but the framing of that in, hey, the cross is about God defeating you so that he can save you. Unpack that idea for us a little bit.

[00:45:46] Skye Jethani: Yeah, there’s a very old theology going back to that hymn of victory in Christ. There’s an old theology called Christus Victor, which is just Latin for the victory of Christ. And the argument is that on the cross and Paul talks about this in Colossians chapter one and elsewhere on the cross, Jesus defeated all of his enemies.

All the powers of evil and darkness were defeated on the cross. I was also defeated on the cross because I was one of his enemies. I have rebelled against God. And another way of thinking about it is every. usurper of the throne of God. Every false king, every false God is disarmed and destroyed through the cross of Christ.

I am one of those false gods. I have put myself on the throne. I have acted as if I am the rightful king of the universe and my sin and rebellion is on that cross. I was defeated and disarmed as well and that understanding that the gospel is bad news before it’s good news has to be reckoned has to be faced.

It has to be dealt with. I have to recognize that I am not God. I am not king. I am not in control. I am one of those who have perpetuated evil in the world through my selfishness, through my greed, through my lust, through my anger, through my divisions, all those things. I am what’s wrong with the world.

And so I was defeated on the cross as an enemy of God. But thanks be to God, he has also opened the way for me to become his child again because of the cross. So until we see the cross as both the manifestation of God’s wrath and his love, We only see part of it, and we’ve got to see the whole thing.

[00:47:27] Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah, and that’s, and that’s how the Bible can say that we are all sinners, right? Right. That if we had been in the Garden of Eden, if we had been Adam or Eve, we would have made the choice that they made. If we had been 2, 000 years ago at Calvary, we would have been in the crowd yelling for His crucifixion, most likely because we are all a part of that same nature, which also means we are also available to this, we have the same grace accessible to all of us which is just absolutely the core of the gospel.

It’s got so much more in this, in this work, in this book. Just want to, before we go, I want to give you a chance to speak to just how this book is uniquely framed because there’s two elements in here that I think make this idea of justice. that we often don’t spend enough time on. You make it very accessible through two different things.

One is drawings. There are illustrations. And I imagine people are already spinning in their head about, okay, what kind of illustrations do you come up for God’s justice? Talk about the drawings that illustrate the truths that you’re trying to get at. And then talk about how this book is Is accessible almost in a similar form to like what we would call a devotional resources.

Yeah A devotional resource many of the thoughts are unpacked in a very concise way matter of fact I I got I just gotta tell you I even played with this of like if I were reading this book for a morning devotional How would that work? And at least for me, it works in a very good way because again, it’s each of these sections is not particularly long and there are related scriptures that you can go to after people have read your thoughts.

Talk about those two elements and what you were trying to achieve. 

[00:49:14] Skye Jethani: Yeah I mean you’re you’re getting to the genesis of this whole series this this five book series now What if jesus was serious? I write a daily devotional I have for almost 11 years called with god daily It’s available with god daily.

com and I jokingly call it the devotional for people who hate devotionals, right? And That’s where I do a lot of my early writing on these topics. And so they’re short. And then I transferred a series I did on justice there and expanded it and tweaked it and everything and into made it this book. So each chapter of this book is two, three pages.

They’re not long. They’re, they’re relatively short. And each one has this drawing or illustration that captures the idea. So I’m trying to take what Many would consider pretty complicated theological ideas and make them very accessible. Put the cookies on a lower shelf, a couple pages and a doodle to illustrate it.

Because I think these are ideas that every believer needs to grasp and understand. And I mean, I get messages all the time from people who’ve read this series of books about how they, they read these with their middle schoolers and their high schoolers. And like, you don’t have to have a, you know, seminary degree to understand this stuff.

And that’s, that’s been my goal is to stand on the shoulders of much greater theologians like many of whom we’ve mentioned and bring those ideas down in a way that makes sense to an average reader and they can take five minutes a day and read one of these and reflect on the scripture passages that are linked to them or if you’re a visual learner to have that image of that doodle of a bridge or You know, a scale or peanut butter and jelly or whatever it might be.

And oh, yeah, that reminds me of God’s justice and mercy go together. And so that’s what I’m doing here is just making it accessible. 

[00:50:51] Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah, really, really helpful. So if you’re looking for a great resource, I’ve already Skye. I want you to know I’ve already recommended it to a few people. Thank you. The book is called what if Jesus was serious about justice, because here’s the deal, folks, you can never truly have a deep, deep appreciation for what Jesus did for us on the cross until you really understand how bad you needed it and how bad all of us need it.

You know, it’s kind of like when you go into the jewelry store, you can’t appreciate a beautiful diamond if it’s not laying on a piece of black felt. That’s the reason they have black felt in the jewelry store. Because that’s the way the beauty of God’s love comes out in vivid colors. Skye, thank you again for the conversation today.

Thank you even more for the work that you did on this topic and the ongoing ministry that you have. People can find you at the Holy post. Give us your devotional website again. withgoddaily. com And you can follow Skye’s work again. It’s Skye Jethani And that is what if jesus was serious about justice in a series that is now five books long About taking jesus seriously.

We hope that you’ll check out all of that Thank you again for being a part of the denison forum podcast We hope that this has been encouraging, helping you to walk by faith and not by fear. And we hope today’s conversation has equipped you to do that a little bit better. And we’ll see you next time on the Denison Forum podcast.