Derek: 00:28

Welcome back to the Fourth Way podcast. In this episode, I want to take a, a different look at discipleship, because it's something that I think, the more angles you can kind of come at it from, the more easily you'll understand, what the propaganda slayer is and how it's distinct from propaganda and why it's so important. So in this episode, at the end, the second half, I'm gonna kind of just lay out a picture of my community for you, and hopefully show you how, how that is going to be something that, is, is different than propaganda and how it's something that's Disciples. But before we do that, I want to first talk about two aspects of discipleship that are gonna be really important here. Two aspects that discipleship, does for us or two things that discipleship does for us.

Derek: 01:31

Discipleship is going to encourage us, and discipleship is going to empower us. So one of the the key indicators to me that the gospels that the Bible is non propagandistic is it really is not an idealistic document in terms of the the characters portrayed. Even the protagonists are the the, people portrayed as kind of the good people, like the people that you're rooting for are really messed up. I mean, David is kind of a key example. Like, David is central to the messianic story, yet David is actually painted in not so good of a light in in quite a lot of ways.

Derek: 02:14

The the sins that he falls into, the things that he does, the way that his life ends, you know, in the story with his his son's rebellion and the way he handles that, it's just not great. The gospels, same thing. Right? Peter, he betrays Jesus all the time. Jesus says, get behind me, Satan.

Derek: 02:32

He betrays Jesus. He ends up, favoring, the Jews over the Gentiles and getting in a fight with Paul. Right? Not not too good. Paul, he was a murderer.

Derek: 02:45

We don't really see him do too many bad things. He kinda gets really angry,

Derek: 02:48

I think, with, I can't

Derek: 02:51

I can't remember who it's with. But, with some of his traveling companions. So maybe he gets in a fight. Maybe he's kind of at fault there. I don't know.

Derek: 03:00

But you don't really see him too much in a bad light after he becomes a Christian, but he's a murderer. Right? And he says that he's the greatest of sinners. You've got Corinth, right? The, the Christians at Corinth, who Paul loves dearly yet who are just really, really messed up and then involved in some really messed up sins.

Derek: 03:20

The churches in Revelation are met in messed up, circumstances, a lot of them. And in first John, right, we see false prophets and, sins and unloved and all kinds of things. Like, the the, religious literature, the Bible, it just isn't propagandistic in that sense. It doesn't prop up its characters, and and paint them to be these heroes. They're fallen human beings who are messed up, but God in his love, mercy, and grace uses them.

Derek: 03:56

And that in turn encourages us by seeing that, hey, you know what? Peter really messed up quite a lot. Paul was a murderer. I'm like, God used them. God can use me too.

Derek: 04:07

And so this, this cloud of witnesses, this, this, this group of disciples, is, is going to encourage us through, that community and through their lives. But not only does, does a cloud of witnesses, does discipleship encourage us, it's also going to be something that empowers us. One of the things that we we have kind of highlighted throughout all of my seasons, including this one, is the importance of making ideal decisions. Right? The the actual morally good decision.

Derek: 04:43

And in this season, that was especially true in regards to lying. Right? We I said that I don't think it is ever a moral decision to lie and ever a good decision to lie. Well, doing the ideal thing, right, standing up for what is right, oftentimes is going to cost you something. Doing the right thing is often costly to self.

Derek: 05:07

A lot of people sacrifice for a variety of ideals. You know, in our culture, freedom is is one of those things that people believe that they're sacrificing for, even if they don't benefit from it. How is it that they can sacrifice themselves for someone else? Well, you know others who've gone before you who sacrificed for that ideal, and you elevate them. Maybe you know others who are currently standing firm for that ideal, and you look up to them.

Derek: 05:38

Or maybe you know the ideal depends on your faithfulness. And you know that that ideal is going to produce more acolytes. Right? If if you stand up for the ideal, it'll encourage others to stand up for the ideal. So there are a lot of ways that people can self sacrifice and stand up for an ideal, but it it often revolves around seeing other people who've gone before you who stand up for the ideal, as well as current people who are standing up for the ideal, and future people who you want to have that ideal, instilled in them.

Derek: 06:13

Right? For all three of those. And those three things are done in communities. Right? A community of people who teach you the stories of those who've gone before you and to exemplify the ideal that you are to, to live out yourself.

Derek: 06:29

And I don't really have too much time to get into how propaganda, subverts this community function, cause I wanna focus more on discipleship here, but I have talked a little bit about the idea of, stalkers and mistresses. I think, I think I've mentioned that before, but you know, this, this manufactured relationship that propaganda, produces. So it can produce manufactured relationship by creating, by using celebrity, or through charisma. And celebrity is really just kind of a form of charisma. And so, for celebrities, right, you can be at a distance and know a whole lot about them and and then seek to follow them, but you don't really have a relationship with them.

Derek: 07:16

Likewise, a mistress when you have, you feel like you have an an intimate relationship. Right? So through charisma, somebody just talks beautifully and wonderfully and tells you the things that you want to hear. They whisper sweet nothings in your ear. That's sort of that's charisma.

Derek: 07:32

And that's sort of that, like, erotic kind of relationship. It's like, oh, yes. That's exactly what I want to hear. And that's how propaganda creates these false communities. Think of a product that, that you that you see other people, celebrities, endorsing.

Derek: 07:48

It's like, oh, I want that too. Well, why? Well, because there's this this other person who has this ideal, and and I want to emulate them. Well, really, what it is is it's, a really, like, plastic ideal. It's it's a really synthetic ideal.

Derek: 08:03

It's not lasting at all. But through celebrity, it's made to look wonderful and made to look like this thing that you also should sacrifice your money for or your time for or whatever. So propaganda subverts this sort of community function, but again, that's not really what's in view here.

Derek: 08:23

So right now, what I want to do is I want to paint a picture of my community, and I have a pretty small community here in Romania. So what I want to do is I just want to I'm just gonna I have a list of names right in

Derek: 08:36

front of me, and I am going to just look at that name, and I'm gonna tell you kind of what comes to mind in terms of

Derek: 08:44

of what we've been talking about. So on this list of names, you have several families who've adopted, a number of children out of orphanages. You have several families who have children who have been or currently are suicidal. You have, single moms represented. You have people who've been dealing with unjust, accusations of of their company and going through the court system and and fines and all kinds of things that are just, debilitating.

Derek: 09:26

You have refugees from a war torn country. You have, single people who are, I'm sorry, married people

Derek: 09:39

who have been unable to

Derek: 09:40

have children. You have a family who's struggling through, how to discipline their children and through just all of

Derek: 09:49

the stresses of working long, long hours and, and figuring out how to run a family and support them at the same time. You've got families dealing with very sick children, and trying to figure out how to best take care

Derek: 10:07

of those children. I mean, almost every family that it that I put on this list of something like 10 families, almost every one of them, I know something intimate about, something some deep pain or struggle that they're going through. And they know many of our families' deep pains and struggles.

Derek: 10:35

Being in a community like this, where you are known and where you know others, just is so strikingly different, than than not having a community like this. I I mean, I think of other communities that we've been involved in and a lot of them are just superficial in comparison. Right? You show up with a smile on your face and you, you're there to play soccer or whatever, a sport, a club, whatever it is. But there's just something different about church.

Derek: 11:09

And sure, if you have a good family, you can you have people who can speak into your lives, but that's kind of, sometimes an echo chamber or a very narrow band that you get. And, in our community, we've got, we used to have Brazilians, we have Germans, we have Romanians. We have Canadians. We have Americans. We have Ukrainians.

Derek: 11:33

We have old people, young people, married people, single people, people, families with kids, families without kids. So it's just you, you get a, a much broader view of the difficulties and the challenges of life, but also the aspects of life in which we have opportunities to be faithful and where we can speak into each other's lives, encourage one another to do the right thing, and exemplify the right thing, or failures and repentance, and what that

Derek: 12:04

looks like as well. Just the other day, my son asked me, he said, why, why do we

Derek: 12:11

go to church? He can't stand going to church.

Derek: 12:14

He said, why do we go to church? And I

Derek: 12:16

said, well, so, I mean, we can learn about God. He's like, well, we have the Bible. We learn about him here at, at breakfast or whenever we do devotions. I It's like, well, yeah. But when you go to church, you also have, people who've studied it more, who can talk about it more, but that's really not the only reason you go to church.

Derek: 12:37

And I told him, you know, from Hebrews ten twenty four, it says, don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together, but, something to the extent of, like, when you meet, you should not forsake meeting together so you can spur one another on towards love and good deeds. That's like, well, one of the primary reasons you meet in church today, it's about celebrity going to church to hear a fantastic preacher or to to see a show, right, from a choir or musicians, whatever. But really, a a big part of church is about community. It's about spurring one another on towards love and good deeds, encouraging one another. And so we go to church to meet with these other people who are broken, whose lives are filled with difficulties and heartaches, trauma, sadness, all of these different things.

Derek: 13:36

We go together to encourage them, but also to learn from them and to have them speak truth into our lives. That's not the way that propaganda functions. Like I said, propaganda primarily, uses

Derek: 13:53

fabricated relationship. It uses charisma and it uses celebrity. And it puts on a really good show, and it's really nice and shiny, and you have to be nice and shiny too when you show up. That's not what church is. You know, I very hard on the church, in regard to to this season.

Derek: 14:15

And I think rightfully so because the church is

Derek: 14:21

terrible so many times. And what ticks me off about that the most is the church is supposed to be, what is it, like a hospital for sinners? Right? Something to that extent. It's not where you go to look good.

Derek: 14:35

It's where you go to get healed yet. And just like with, with abusers and governments and all those things, the church has been taken advantage of. It's an institution that people seek to wield for power. And so they've taken this sick bay, and they've come in, and they've used it as a propaganda machine. And now people have

Derek: 14:55

to be all nice and shiny to come into a lot of churches today. And that's not what a church is supposed to be. The church is supposed to be a place where you are known and where you know others. And through that, where you can be encouraged and empowered to live the good life, to fight the good fight.

Derek: 15:17

It's not a place where you go to just learn more head knowledge about God. That's not practical application. You know, there's a great example of this, in a book entitled The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church. Great, fantastic book. Especially if you're you ever think about missions.

Derek: 15:35

There's, there's a

Derek: 15:36

lot to think through on that. But one of the

Derek: 15:39

things that he talks about is, how theology has just been bastardized, in our intellectual world. And he, the author talks about he's like, you know, take the Trinity, for example. Like, it should have practical, implications. He's he said, it was that theology of the Trinity was formed out of reality. And and we miss this point sometimes.

Derek: 16:05

Right? Because we're like, well, the Trinity is some really heady doctrine that, you know, you have to think long and hard about. And he said, no, like, think about Peter's experience of Jesus. So Peter, right, he meets this, this guy, he was kind of unimpressive, and then he tells him to like, just go catch a million fish. And all of a

Derek: 16:26

sudden he does. Peter's interest is peaked. And then

Derek: 16:29

he sees this guy healing people. He sees this guy multiplying fish and bread. He sees this guy raise somebody from the dead. He sees this guy walk on water. Peter's like, man, this guy is, like, divine.

Derek: 16:47

But then Peter sees him die on a cross. How do you explain that?

Derek: 16:53

And then he rises from the dead all by himself. Right? He didn't need somebody, outside of himself as far as

Derek: 16:59

you could see. Right? He just he comes back to life. And then Peter eats with him. He might've put his hands in Jesus's side and touched his his scars just like Thomas did.

Derek: 17:12

How do you explain that? Well, it took a long time for somebody to kind of formulate it together, but for Peter, it probably just made sense. Like, this guy is divine. This guy is

Derek: 17:24

a human. Like, both of those things have to be true. How do

Derek: 17:28

you die on a cross but raise yourself from the dead? You can't die on a cross unless you're human. You can't rise from the dead unless you're God. So, I mean, for for Peter, the Trinity was a very practical sort of thing. He where he experienced Jesus, he experienced the spirit, and he saw the father.

Derek: 17:48

And he also saw a friend,

Derek: 17:51

a human. He could touch him. I think that's practical.

Derek: 17:57

That's what church is. Yeah. Sure. We go to learn theological concepts about God, but those are concepts that have been first born out in the real world. They're things that have real life ramifications, or they ought to.

Derek: 18:14

If they're not being taught that way or you don't see how to implement them that way, then they're they're not being taught well, no matter how smart the teacher is. And so that's what community is about. That's what church is for. We go to spur one another on towards love and good deeds. And the way that we're empowered to do that and the truth of the world, sure, those can be embodied in, theological concepts, but even more than that, they're embodied in the life of a community that repents together, a community that gives thanks together, a community that mourns together, a community that's human together while simultaneously, experiences the divine together.

Derek: 19:01

And that's what discipleship is. It is a true open community, and it's something that propaganda tries to replicate and mimic, but something that it falls very short of. That's all for now. So peace, and because I'm a pacifist, when I say it, I mean it. This podcast is a part of the Kingdom Outpost Network.

Derek: 19:45

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