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How Do Ideas Disciple Nations? | Otter.ai

How Do Ideas Disciple Nations?

disciplenations.org48min

Luke Allen

00:08

Hi Friends Welcome to Ideas have consequences the podcast of the disciple nations Alliance. Why did we choose the name ideas have consequences? It's because someone or some set of ideas is always actively shaping culture. And if that isn't followers of Jesus with biblical principles, it will be by default someone else with worldly destructive principles. Hi, guys, my name is Luke and I am so happy that you are joining us. Today's show is going to look a little different because we wanted to take some time to introduce our new listeners to the show. And therefore it takes some time to introduce ourselves, and why we are so passionate about ideas and what they have to do with our ministry here at the DNA the disciple nations Alliance. So if this is either your first or your 40th time listening, after this episode, we hope you have a clearer understanding of why we have this podcast what we are passionate about here at the VNA, and how you can better represent Christ in His kingdom to your world. As always on the show, we examine how our mission as Christians is to not only spread the gospel around the world to all the nations. But our mission also includes to be the hands and feet of God to transform the nations to increasingly reflect the truth, goodness and beauty of God's kingdom. Tragically, the church has largely neglected the second part of her mission. And today, most Christians have little influence on their surrounding cultures. Join us on this podcast as rediscover what it means for each of us to disciple the nations and to create Christ honoring cultures that reflect the character of the living God.

Scott

01:35

Well, welcome again to another episode of ideas have consequences. This is the podcast of the disciple nations Alliance. And I'm Scott Allen. I'm privileged to be the president here at the DNA. And today I'm joined by my beloved team members, Darrow Miller, Darrow is co founder of the disciple nations Alliance. So much of what we teach here and around the world was sourced in Darrow and in his life and his experiences being discipled by Francis Schaeffer at Labrie. And working for so many years at food for the hungry and Christian relief and development Darrow, it's great to have you here. And Dwight Vogt, longtime friend and colleague, as well, from food for the hungry, who's really spent his life in very practical work to uplift poor communities, and bring about positive change what we would call bringing the kingdom of God into a dark world. And he does that in all sorts of ways, including ways that are very practical. Also, our producer, Luke Allen, and Luke is the one who has the vision behind the ideas have consequences podcast, producer, and proud to call him my son. So Luke, great to have you with us today as well, today, we're gonna Can I just

Darrow Miller

02:56

Yes, something in here. You may, as you introduced us. And for the audience, we have been together, Scott, Dwight and I, for 40 years.

Scott

03:11

Yes, a long lifetime.

Darrow Miller

03:15

We've known each other we've been friends, and we've been working together for 40 years,

Scott

03:19

it's been such a blessing for me, Darrell, one of the great joys of my life is, is to be friends with both of you guys, and Luke, obviously, to be your dad. And so what we want to do today is we want to talk about just, we want to give new listeners in particular kind of an idea of why we do what we do, why this podcast is important. What is the disciple nations Alliance? Why should I maybe kind of keep listening to this podcast. And so hopefully, we'll be some will be successful at giving some vision there. First of all, I guess I would just like to start with the idea that we are the disciple nations Alliance. And I want to start there that God is a God who loves you created the nations, he has a vision for the nations and He wants to see the nations of this world transformed. He wants to see them healed, restored, he wants to see them flourish and to thrive. That's a vision that goes all the way back to Genesis. And we read in the very beginning of Genesis, God's creation, and then there is the fall, and then God, he doesn't abandon this fallen creation because he's a God of love and mercy and forgiveness. So he engages in a plan to redeem this fallen world. And that plan really encompasses the rest of the scriptures all the way till the very end of the Bible and revelation or all the way until the end of, of this age. And so this plan of God is one that we're all living in. It's it's the context of the of our lives, this plan of God, this redemptive plan. And you can see that specifically in Genesis, again, chapter 12, verses one and two, where God makes he calls Abraham. Just this individual person who's living in a pagan culture, a pagan family, doesn't know God. And God comes to him, calls him, listen to the call of God to Abraham, I will make you into a great nation, I'm going to make you into a nation. And I will bless you, and I will make your name great. And you will be a blessing and all the nations on the earth will be blessed through you. It's such a powerful kind of encapsulation of God's history encompassing plan to bless the nations. How does he do that? He does it by raising up a person, Abraham, or we might even say, by raising up Darrow Miller, or Dwight Vogt, or Luke Allen raising up people to carry out this plan that he is unfolding. He does it by raising up a nation, Israel in the Old Testament. And then in the New Testament, we see how we, as Christians, of followers of Jesus Christ are actually grafted in. That's the word that the apostle Paul uses were grafted in to that nation and its promises including this great promise. In other words, we as Christians are part of this plan, to bless the nations to be a blessing to the nations. So God does it by raising up a holy nation by blessing them by revealing Himself to them, and then through them, blessing all the nations. That's where this is going. Now, if you ask most Christians, evangelical Christians, you know, how does this blessing of the nations happen? They would tend to kind of immediately think it happens through a proclamation of the gospel of salvation as we share the good news that Christ died for our sins, and we can be redeemed through faith in Jesus and His work finished work on the cross, our sins can be forgiven, and we can go to heaven. That's how we bless the nations. Okay. To that, I want to say Yes, amen. Right. That's very important. That's how we bless the nations. But what I want to draw your attention to is that there's a whole lot more to this blessing of the nations than just this message of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. In other words, what we have to share with the nations isn't just a message of salvation, it's actually a comprehensive story of reality, the story of reality, the story that defines what is real. And in that story, we read very powerful truths. Let me just share what I share with a few of them. So you know what I'm talking about. First of all, here's one of those powerful transforming truths, there is a law that transcends manmade laws. There's a law that defines good and evil for all peoples in all times, that's God's moral law. And even the most powerful king or emperor is accountable to that higher law. That's a powerful truth or principle that God has given us to share with the nations and when they, when the nations believe that or build institutions build their nations around that truth, their systems of, of justice or law, for example, they will be blessed. Here's the second one all human life is sacred. All human life has God given dignity and purpose and worth, and God given rights to life, and to liberty. That comes from this story, the story of reality, if you will, and from no other. There's no other religion or worldview, on tap in this world that will have any kind of answer approaching that one. And again, when you build a life, a society of family around that idea, it brings blessing, it brings transformation. Here's the third one creation is God's magnificent handiwork. And human beings are to wisely rule over creation, and to bring forth its vast potential. We are here in God's creation, to do something with it to make something with it. That brings honor and glory to God and actually leaves this world better than we found it. And we have the capacity to do that because we're made in God's image. A fourth one as image bearers of God. We are creative, and we're called to be creative work. because God is a creative God, and that human creativity and innovation are the source of wealth and resources in this world. I mean, that one, probably more than any other brings about change when people understand this, especially in context of poverty, that brings about enormous change. Guys, if you want to speak into any of these, feel free to do so I just, I, I'll continue to kind of go through them a little bit, a little by little bit. Dara, when I heard you share these with me many years ago, you ended each one of these statements of principle from God's story, the true story, the real story of reality by saying, Hey, isn't that good news? Isn't that good news that God created us in His image with dignity and with purpose and with worth? And the answer to your question is, yes, that's good news. But we don't often we being Christians, we don't think of that as our good news. We've limited it to the message of salvation. Right. So

Darrow Miller

11:15

let me chime in here. When God called Abraham, to leave Earth of the counties, he wasn't just calling him to leave a geographic place. He was calling him into something new, that had not existed before. He called him into a new space, a new concept, a new set of ideas. And that's what you're talking about here a specific things that are related to that. He, up until this point in history, nations had largely are tribes, because that's what it were tribal nations were animistic. And they had an animistic worldview. And that animistic worldview had a certain way of seeing human beings, and work and time, and all of the things that you're listing, but they had a content to it, they had a view of the world. That was from a local tribal deity. And when Abraham was called by God, it was not just to loot leave a place it was to leave a culture to leave a culture.

Scott

12:36

Yes, I involved in worldly culture, if you will, right as

Darrow Miller

12:40

well with a small g god,

Scott

12:43

right, an idle an idle right.

Darrow Miller

12:47

And to go to another place, not just another geographic location, but a another space, another space in the mind. Another way of seeing reality. And that is what happened when Abraham left or the Kaldi something. There was a new way of seeing reality. Oh, there is a Creator God, who is the unifier. He's the creator of the whole universe and creates a reality that is a unified reality. And these are some of the things that have been revealed, Oh, were made in the image of God. Wow, what does that mean? Is that good news. It means that our lives are significant, it means the weak the weakest life, this has importance has value the oldest life has importance has value.

Scott

13:47

And God revealed these to Abraham and to the Jewish people, for a reason. And I think I didn't understand this as a young Christian. And when I finally understood it, it just really gave so much meaning to my own life. It wasn't for them alone. It wasn't like God picked out Abraham or this people, the Jewish people and said, I'm going to kind of specially bless you with this divine revelation of reality. And then you're to just kind of enjoy this privileged relationship with Me know, you were to be a channel of blessing to the nations. That was God's strategy, if you will, is to bless a people bless a nation and through them to bless all the nations of the world. And you see this in Scripture Actually, many times even in the Old Testament, you see examples of this, for example, with the Solomon at the dedication of the temple, you know, he recognizes in that great prayer of dedication of the temple that the temple wasn't just a gift for the Jewish people, but it was a temple that was to reflect the glory of God and just reality to all the nations and He prays specifically for all the nations. Why does he pray for all the nations because he understands that Israel is a As a nation that has a purpose, to be a blessing to the nations right after that prayer is done, who comes to the temple, but none other than Sheba from a foreign nation. And you see Israel living out that purpose that God had called for it, or Psalm 67, where David begins, Lord, bless us, bless us that, that your ways may be known among all the peoples, all the nations of the earth, that's David, reflecting his understanding of this purpose. And that's the same for us today, you know, and I often say to Christians, God has saved you not so you can enjoy some nice relationship with God, for now and eternity. Certainly, yes. But that's not ultimately why you're saved, you're saved to be a part of this bigger thing that he's doing in this world, you have a role to play in that to be a part of the discipling of nations. Now, a lot of Christians don't think that way. And part of the way we we do that is by knowing and speaking, these powerful truths, because Darrow and Dwight, when we say, for example, that all human life is created by God with dignity with worth and value. We have to remember that most people maybe in this world wouldn't affirm that. Even in our own culture, that's not affirm that's not taught to kids in public schools. It's a counterfeit principle, it's being taught human life is accidental. It's it's just a cosmic accident. And you're just a product of this purposeless process of evolution, your life has no meaning. It's just a material. Bunch of energy.

Darrow Miller

16:45

You're illustrating here, Scott, the difference between an atheistic secular worldview and the biblical worldview, right? In the biblical worldview, where we're made in the image of God, there is no place for sexism. There's no place for racism. That's right. These sexism and racism, distinguish people and say one thing is better than another. There's no place for that. All of us are made in the image of God, we may be different, and that's part of our glory. But our worth and value is established by the fact that we're made in the image of God.

Scott

17:30

And that idea is so powerful, it's such good news that when it takes again, it takes a root in a person's life or in a family or culture. It literally changes it, it transforms it, there is transformation is possible. Through the power of these truths that come from the Bible. Luke, you were gonna say so yeah,

Luke Allen

17:51

and just to say that a little simpler, I mean, ideas have consequences. That's the name of the show. The show, yep. That because good ideas lead to good consequences. Yes, God's ideas, God is good lead to good consequences to bad ideas lead to bad consequences. That's where everything starts. It's at the level of ideas. So on the show, what we're going to do is we're going to unpack a lot of these seemingly complicated ideas like atheism, pantheism, woke, ism, feminism, so on and so forth. And we're going to point to how those bad ideas have bad consequences and then counteract those with good ideas that are based in God's Word in the Gospel.

Scott

18:28

Absolutely. Luke. Yeah. Well said,

Darrow Miller

18:30

yeah. We also, as Scott alluded to a minute ago, we are the disciple nations Alliance. Why that name? Because the church today thinks in dualistic categories, what is what is the gospel? It's to go into all the world, preach the gospel and save souls for heaven. We think in terms of the main thing that God wants us to do is to save souls for going to heaven in the future. But what is what does the Bible say? What does Jesus say? The Great Commission is nothing less than discipling nations. That's who we are. And that's why we have this podcast. Because you need to we want to see nations transformed, not just individuals saved to go to heaven. Exactly. Darrow, you

Luke Allen

19:35

know, again, at the beginning of every episode, you guys will recognize this. The intro says, as Christians, our mission is to spread the gospel around the world to all the nations. Yes, absolutely. But our mission also includes to transform the nations to increasingly reflect the truth, goodness and beauty of God's kingdom. That's the intro to this. This podcast, you guys will recognize that and you can't just focus on one of those missions. It's both And the second part of the mission, as we're seeing is being forgotten. And because of that the church around the world is really not having an impact on our cultures, we see that in the US 63% of the population claims to be Christians. But where are those people? You know, where's the impact of that? We don't see it because we are not discipling our nation.

Scott

20:19

Yeah, we don't have people, I think the church largely has lost any kind of vision for doing that. And that's why we exist. I mean, it's because of that loss. And it wasn't always lost. There were times in the history of Israel and of the church, where the church understood this and carried it out in quite profound ways that had real impact on nations. But we've in this generation largely lost it. So we're going to be challenging ourselves and listeners to kind of recover that lost vision so that we can get off the sidelines and be about, you know, doing what God's called us to do. Well, it

Darrow Miller

20:50

was other than this, because the church at another time in history had a bigger vision. They had a vision for the whole, yes, and not the part. Yes, we need to restore the vision of the whole, yes, that God is the God of the entire universe, not just the religious life or the spiritual life. He is the God of all spheres of society, sectors of society. Yes. And if we come into a relationship with Him, He wants not only our soul to be saved for heaven, but he wants all of our life to be transformed, and our culture to begin to be transformed.

Scott

21:36

I think Darrow you're talking about parts and whole are also really illustrative too, because I know a lot of Christians, they don't think in terms of the whole of the biblical story, you know, from you know, and it is a story. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and then he creates man, and then man has fallen. And then there's this redemptive story that goes on. And it's a comprehensive, redemptive story. And at the end of that story, there's a Return of the King, and there's a marriage. And it's a powerful story. And it makes sense of all the parts of the story. And one of those parts is the cross of Christ, and the gospel of salvation. Or even what is the Bible and why should we read it? I mean, I think Christians tend to think in terms of parts, but we've lost sight of the whole of that story. And we have to tell the whole story.

Dwight

22:26

Yeah, even you know, I don't even to narrow it down to say what we've learned it to the cross, the fact is, Colossians, one doesn't limit the cross to our going to heaven. Colossians, one very clearly says Jesus died to redeem all things to reconcile all things. Heavens and Earth things everywhere. So this Good News of the Gospel of Christ dying on the cross is to reconcile all things, and how to, that becomes a blessing to the nation. Because you're you're basically reorganizing things the way God originally designed,

Scott

23:03

the cross is the center of the story, the climax of this great story, you know, everything points to it and flows from it. But it's a part of a bigger story. Yeah, go ahead. The

Darrow Miller

23:13

problem is so much of the church begins reading the Bible with Genesis three.

Scott

23:19

Yes, exactly. That's where the story starts. It starts in Genesis one. That's right. And so what did they miss by doing that, Darrell?

Darrow Miller

23:27

Well, we're talking about the Great Commission to disciple nations before there was the Great Commission, there was the creation commission. And God put us here in Genesis one and two, it's revealed for a purpose. And that purpose was to take what God has made and to do something with it. That is the beginning of the story. But you have to begin in Genesis one, to realize that's the beginning of the story.

Scott

24:02

You don't if you don't begin in Genesis one, you don't understand God, you don't understand human beings. You don't understand human purpose. You don't understand marriage, you don't understand all sorts of things that God built into this world. If you just start with, we're fallen people and we need our Savior. Right. Is that true? Yes.

Darrow Miller

24:23

But that's not started.

Dwight

24:26

What are we reconciled back

Scott

24:27

to? Yeah, no, exactly. So that that's what it means to disciple nations to take this comprehensive story and all the principles that are kind of contained within it. One of the again another one of those principles is that our highest moral duty as human beings is to love our neighbor as ourself, to seek the good of others, even at great cost to ourselves. When that principle is understood and lived out in a relationship in a family in a nation If it will be blessed, what's the opposite principle? Our highest moral duty is to seek our, you know, selfish, well being, or comfort or peace or whatever it is, and that's going to lead to destruction. Okay? So these powerful principles again, they come from our story, the true story. And we are stewards, I like to think of that as we are as to be a Christian is to be a steward of these truths, we have to know them, and we have to steward them so that they can, that means sharing them so that they can bear the good fruit in this world that God intends and God's going to hold us accountable

Darrow Miller

25:40

in Westworld. Yes, in this world, just eternity, the good news is good for eternity. And it is good for this world

Scott

25:49

because God loves this world. And he loves the nations of the world. And he's not contented to see them be destroyed. He wants to see the last nations to flourish and flourish, including our and that's why we're here, right at the end of the day. So yeah, just just to move on, you know, we talked about the true story, we talked about the counterfeit story and why these ideas matter, ideas have consequences. I think I want to from here, I just want to say that all nations are going to be shaped around one story or another. I was reminded of this recently with Jordan Peterson, he talks a lot about this, that we all build our lives and our nations or institutions around some story, we're story were people that need stories, stories that make sense of things. And it's if it's not the true story, the biblical story, it's going to be another story. It's gonna be a story told by Karl Marx, or Charles Darwin, or ancient Greek philosophers, or Confucius, it's going to be some other story. And inevitably, those other stories, because they're false. Because there was only one world, there's not multiple worlds that we live in, there's only one. And there's only one story that makes sense of the world that helps us to see it as it really is. It's only that story that's going to lead to flourishing.

Darrow Miller

27:14

And related to this. We all are, we all need stories. But we were all made to worship. Yes, even atheists worship something we cannot not worship. And there's something interesting here that the word worship is related to the word cult. Cult means to worship. It's a form of worship form. Right? The question is, what kind of a god are you worshiping? What is the character of the God that you worship? If it's the self, you will create a

Scott

27:58

culture of narcissism narcissism is right. Yes. So

Darrow Miller

28:03

worship or cult, produces culture?

Scott

28:08

Yes. And culture or zero? We, you often said this, and I love it. We create culture image

Darrow Miller

28:14

of the God that we worship. Exactly. So what is the nature of the God that you worship? You can look at a culture and say, Oh, let's see what this is pointing to in terms of the nature of the God that we worship. But economics, politics, social structures are all downstream from culture. That's right. Ideas have consequence. Worship has consequences. It's not just religious things. It's what shapes the whole of our life and our nations.

Scott

28:51

It's absolutely right.

Luke Allen

28:52

Yeah, so what I'm hearing you say here is there is no neutrality. That's correct. So often in life, we want to, we want to just live in the neutral zone and feel safe in that area. You know, whether we're at school, or whatever we're doing in life, like, Oh, this is just neutral, this isn't bad or good. But as Christians, we have to recognize no bad ideas. Every idea is either good or bad. There's no neutrality there. And as Christians, what we're trying to do is we're trying to promote God's story, the one that leads to flourishing.

Scott

29:23

Yeah, that's what this well said, Luke, you know, this idea that there's some kind of neutral place where there isn't, you know, a religious kind of underpinning is a that's a false idea that's come about in the secular world in the world that we live in, in the west today. And you hear it, for example, in public schools, like public schools, they can't take aside on any religion. They have to be religiously neutral. It's false. There's no way you can be religiously neutral. What does that mean in a public school curriculum that you're religiously neutral? That means for example, when you talk about math, or science, or history, you never talk about God? That is a religious statement right there that what you're saying is there is no god or if there is a God, he's uninvolved in science and math, that's not a neutral statement. You're, you're, you're discipling young people in a particular religion, this idea that God either doesn't exist or is, is uninvolved in the world.

Darrow Miller

30:22

I grew up thinking that public schools were neutral. And I've come to realize they're not neutral. That's right. They they are religious, their religion is atheism. They don't state it that way. But the teaching of subjects is coming from an atheistic framework.

Scott

30:44

Yeah, they're not another way of saying it is they're not actively teaching atheism. They're just neglecting any teaching about the God who's behind all of those subject matters, because he's the one that created everything. So it's kind of a passive atheists, something that's being taught there. Exactly.

Darrow Miller

30:59

But it's not just a way to get people to God, it's a way to help people understand the issues that you're being taught from the framework of God's existence. Yes.

Scott

31:14

See, what I want to say here too, is that, Luke, your word neutrality is really good, there isn't a neutral place. In other words, another way of saying it is somebody is always going to be discipling a nation always. And if it isn't the church, if it isn't, you and I on the basis of reality of biblical truth and these powerful principles that lead to flourishing, if it's not that if we're not actively out there, championing those speaking those living those out, it's going to be somebody else, okay. Somebody else is going to be discipling the nations. And that's the world that we find ourselves in, particularly in the West. Today, we see a world around us where other non Christian people have a vision to disciple the nation, if you will, to see the nation built around a set of false principles. And were bearing the fruit of that in the chaos and the violence that's increasingly erupting really around us in accelerating in the time that we live in. Somebody's always discipling the nations. So I think I say that because a lot of Christians are hesitant to even get involved in things that have to do with culture, or politics or society. They feel like that's somehow a distraction. It's a distraction from this higher calling of evangelism and just being in church and living a holy life. Don't get sucked into that. And what I want to say to that is, no, those things are obviously really important going to church and praying and reading the Bible. But we're also to disciple the nation. And if we're not doing that actively on the basis of the truth, we're just simply handing it over to other people and their ideas which are going to destroy the nation's and we're just sitting on the sidelines,

Darrow Miller

33:07

over sitting on the sidelines, as you as you know, Scott, because we're dualists. We have a sacred secular divide. It's not biblical,

Scott

33:18

yeah, we've limited God to this so called false spiritual or sacred sphere, period. And he doesn't have anything to do with this other kind of imaginary sphere sphere called the secular world. Right, which is the world of business and politics and culture and everything else. Right. Yeah,

Darrow Miller

33:35

the Christians role. It's to engage in the spiritual world, and not worry about the natural world or the secular world, right. So inside of ourselves, we're dualistic in the way we think, the way we act, we may be Christians on Sunday when we go to church. But are we Christians on Monday? In the workplace?

Scott

34:00

Exactly. Darrell, so what is your job you listener to this podcast? What do you do? Let's say you are in business, or maybe you are in finance, you know, that's your line of work, what principles shaped the way you think about and the way you do that kind of work? A lot of Christians This is what Darrow is saying about the sacred secular divide, they go, Well, listen, business is business. It has nothing to do with God or the Bible. That stuff is important in church on Sunday, or in my devotional life in the morning, but it doesn't speak to business that's below the line, if you will, that's in the secular part of war of the world. Okay. Somebody's principles are shaping the way you think about finance or business, but it's not biblical, right. So in other words, somebody is discipling the nation and you're going along with If you're not intentionally bringing biblical principles into those areas, go ahead Darrow.

Darrow Miller

35:04

Well, you won't as long as you have the sacred secular divide, because the Bible has nothing to do with business. Yes, no. If you have a biblical worldview, a comprehensive worldview, where God is the Lord of all of life, do this is very practical. Do you read the Bible? If you're a business man, or woman to see what it has to say about business? What are the principles of Business and Economics that are found in the Word of God? You're a healthcare worker, you're a nurse, a doctor, a nutritionist? When you read the Bible, do you read it only for spiritual things? Or do you ask the question as you're reading the Bible? What does this have to say about health? What does it have to say about nutrition? This is the practical way that if you think biblically, it will change the way you begin to see the scriptures. Oh, they do apply to all of life, and they apply to that part of life where I am engaged 4050 hours a week.

Scott

36:17

Yeah, I just mentioned some of those principles. Darrow you all human life is sacred and made in God's image, with dignity and purpose and worth. And the highest moral responsibility or obligation that we have as human beings is to love our neighbors ourself. Those two principles alone, and there's so many more that we can talk about. But those two alone, if you built your philosophy of business, or finance, or healthcare, around those two, it would be very different than if you started with their opposites, for example, and our culture is increasingly starting with the opposites. So there

Darrow Miller

36:56

is I'm saying, Scott, it's not just love. That's true. But it is. You could ask as a businessman, how do I love the person that I'm selling things to? Are my employees? Are my employees? That's good. Yes. But does the Bible speak about other things other than love, but we were if you look at Genesis one, going back to Genesis one, God made us to be economic creatures, to take what he has given us this earth, the seeds, and to do something with them to plant a garden and see it being fruitful. There are economic costs consequences, two are being made in the image of God. And the Bible speaks in those terms, if we will see what it says. So

Luke Allen

37:53

go ahead on this podcast, you guys will hear it start saying this all the time, if you if you decided to join us, biblical worldview, we talked about this all the time. And this is essentially what we're talking about. What does the Bible say about everything that we see in the world? How does it shape everything? How does it shape the way we see everything. And once you start seeing the the world this way, it really gives you so much appreciation for God and what he's created. And it really a lot more vision for your life and a lot more purpose for your life. Because you start seeing the sports you play the way God sees them, you start seeing the art that you appreciate the way God sees them, movies, your family, your work, so on and so forth. That's why biblical worldview matters. So that's why we talk about it so much. And I hope that the more you listen to it, the more you join us, the more you understand that and cast a vision.

Darrow Miller

38:41

Yeah, it opens you to a much larger world than you've ever seen before.

Scott

38:47

Yeah, that's right. That's right.

Darrow Miller

38:49

And world that you are called have the opportunity to live in.

Scott

38:53

And I think for some Christians, it's life giving, you know, because all of a sudden things that God didn't speak to or weren't part of my faith, but that were important to me, like, like the work that I do the business that I do. All of a sudden, now I can think in a whole new way, a biblical way about that, and it opens up a whole VISTA that you didn't see before you had blinders on it. And that's life giving. It's powerful, like you were saying, Luke, but I know for other Christians, it's threatening, because they like that sacred secular divide, they don't want God messing around with those areas of their life, it might mean I have to change. So we're gonna be pushing you though, to to, you know, those of you who are threatened by this idea that God is the Lord of every area of life, every sphere of society. We're going to be pushing you to live into that and bring all of your life into that. But the fact is that Christians in our generation for maybe the last 100 years or so, in the West, largely and around the world, we haven't been thinking this way. We haven't been discipling the nations and so others have been actively disciple and donations and things have been going in a really wrong direction in so many ways, not entirely, but in many ways they have. And so now we're in what Aaron hren, this Christian commentator who's become quite influential in our day he calls a negative world. In other words, the institutions of society now are thoroughly non Christian, actively non Christian, shaped by different principles such that to be a Christian is going to lead to persecution is going to lead to hostility in this negative culture. So what does that mean for us? You know, I think what it means for us is we got to recover our vision, we've got to get off the sidelines, get back in the game. And not because we want to, like be victorious or to win the culture, I think that's the wrong way of thinking about it. We want to get back in the game, going back to what I said at the very beginning, because God has called us to be a blessing to the nations. And that starts with our lives, our families, our communities. That's our calling. And if we're not faithful to that calling, and, and faithful to that calling means championing these true principles of the scriptures in every area of life. If we're not faithful to that, then we're failing in what God's called us to do. It's that parable that we were talking about earlier, the, the parable of the talents, God is capitalized as he's invested in us. And he wants to use that investment to carry out this purpose that he's got to bless the nations to bring his kingdom. Now, are we the kind of people here who believe that if we do this, somehow we're going to have the kingdom of God perfectly on Earth, some kind of Kingdom utopia? through human effort or whatever? No, we don't we this is going to come to its culmination. Its consummation, when Jesus returns and not before then till then, there's going to be weeds in the garden, right? They're gonna go grow right alongside the wheat. So we're not some kind of crazy idealists that said, that that is no excuse for saying, hey, things are going to get worse and worse, let's just sit on the sidelines and just wait, no, that we know what we're called to do. Let's keep doing it until he comes back. And then he's going to bring it all to its conclusion. So that's, that's what we're all about here at the disciple nations Alliance. That's why we care so much about biblical ideas, powerful, biblical truths. And we want to see those ideas. take root in culture in and that culture could be as small as a marriage relationship, or a friendship, or as large as an entire nation. But we want to see those take roots, be nurtured, be cultivated, and bear good fruit for the glory of God and the discipling of nations. If that's something that you're interested in, like, hey, I want to learn more about that. I want to learn how to do that more. In my world, you know, the world that I'm called to, then I just want to invite you to tune in because that's what we're going to be talking about how do we how do we do that better? How do we understand this more? We're going to be pushing into that. Guys. Final thoughts from you on on this whole subject area that we're talking about here?

Dwight

43:29

I hope folks join us.

Scott

43:31

Me to Luke, how about you?

Luke Allen

43:35

Yeah, I mean, this is what you can expect. You can expect us wrestling with ideas trying to learn from each other, seeking out God's framework for how to live in every area of life. Because we want to promote that we're not doing this because we want to point in other people and say they're wrong. We want to do this because we want to show that God's framework for life is the one that we're all supposed to live in because He created us. So it's a really positive view on how to live and how to promote that as Christians. week to week, you can expect your discussions to sound pretty similar today, as we unpack good and bad ideas that are affecting each of us with my dad, Scott Allen, the host of this show, as well as our CO hosts Dwight VOGT And Darrow Miller, and some of our team members who join on occasion, including Tim Williams, Shawn Carson, and John Baltimore. But unlike today, we are often joined by a variety of special guests, who are usually experts on various cultural issues that we see around us today. A few of these guests names you might recognize including Nancy Pearcey, oz Ganis Owens drawn Monique Dishon, Krista Bontrager, Neil Shan, V, and many, many others. And if you're new to the show, I would recommend going back and finding any of the episodes with any of those guests I just mentioned, because that's a great starting place. Or of course, you can always go back and start episode one but you don't really need to because this isn't really a chronological show as much as a topical one. Again, we are the DNA the disciple nations Alliance and as you heard today, our mission is to help equip you with a powerful biblical word worldview, because we've seen how God has used it to empower Christians to practically bring God's kingdom into their personal lives, their families, their societies, schools, businesses, teams, the list goes on, and how God has even worked through people with a comprehensive biblical worldview to transform their nations. And on that point, as our name says, we are an alliance of like minded brothers and sisters from around the world discipling people in biblical worldview in over 93 different countries and more than 23 different languages at this point. And we would love if each of you would join us in this movement. And the simplest way that you can do that is by listening here to our weekly podcast. But if you already do that, and you'd like to take the next step, you can learn more about us on our website, disciple nations.org. Or you can always find us on any of our social media pages, including Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. And all of those are linked down the description to this episode. So yeah, that's it for me back to dead.

Scott

45:58

Yeah, excellent, Luke. And I just want to underscore what you said about guests, because very frequently, we're gonna have guests and many of them are our friends. But not only are they our friends, they're also kind of leading kind of thinkers in the world, on the subject of biblical worldview, and very often as it relates to a particular subject area education arts business. So you can expect to hear some really wonderful thinkers. I know I sit on this podcast, and I'm just blown away by the depth of insight that people have of living out biblical truth in these different areas. So I think that's another really rich part of the discussion and there's something that you can really benefit from. So with that said, we invite you to be a part of what we're doing here. It's exciting and to be a part of the disciple nations alliance by by just by tuning into and subscribing to this podcast, which is called ideas have consequences.

Luke Allen

46:59

Thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to learn more about this show, you can find the episode landing page linked in the show notes. There, you'll find everything that you need to know to dive deeper into the show. If you're wondering where you can find ideas have consequences. It's available on pretty much every major podcast platforms, including Apple podcast, Spotify, Google podcast, as well as many of the rest. If you have any questions, comments or concerns about the show, we always appreciate hearing from you guys, so please feel free to reach out. The best ways to reach us are by commenting on the episode landing page. Or you can message us on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook, and those are all linked in the description below. Ideas have consequences is brought to you by the disciple nations alliance to learn more about our ministry you can find us on social media or the best place is on our website, which is disciple nations.org. Thanks again for listening and we hope you're able to join us next Tuesday here on ideas have consequences.

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