What happens when your life looks like it’s going to go one way, and then reality hits you up broadside and knocks you a completely different way? This week, we’re going to explore this a little and what it looks like when tragedy and obstacles happen but God still redeems it. Today I interview someone I’ve wanted to chat with for some time, Andy Opie.
Andy and his wife served as FMI missionaries in Thailand for six years. They currently reside in Illinois as Andy studies for his Ph.D. at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. I think you’ll enjoy this episode.
If you’re enjoying this podcast, spread the word by sharing it with your friends and leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. I encourage you to send me your feedback or suggestions for an interview. Help me help you. You can email me at jroper@foursquare.org, or direct message me on Facebook. You can also submit any feedback or questions here. Don’t forget to subscribe in Apple Podcasts or where ever you get your podcasts.
As always, you can connect with me on Facebook or Twitter. It’s your life, now go live it!
It’s no secret that our society and culture are changing rapidly. Sometimes these changes create an expectation for ministry leaders to abandon good theology. Karl Barth used to advise his preaching students to “preach as though nothing had happened.” In other words, do not be controlled by or allow all the things happening around you to distract you from the central issue of preaching the Word of God. Unfortunately, Barth noticed that most preaching in his day was closer to anthropology spoken loudly than it was preaching the Word of God.
CS Lewis modeled this as well when he gave his famous BBC Radio talks that became Mere Christianity. We may argue that we must speak to the times we live in, and that is true, but we must also speak to the Eternal, not just the contemporary.
Life Pacific University recently hosted a webinar entitled, “Outrage Us: Faithful Theology in an Emotional Age,” led by Dr. AJ Swoboda who is a faculty member at Life Pacific University. I thought the content was important enough that I reached out to my friends at LPU and asked for their permission to rebroadcast AJ’s presentation on my podcast. They were excited for this to happen.
Life Pacific University exists for the transformational development of students into leaders prepared to serve God in the Church, the workplace, and the world. For more information about continuing your education, email LPU at LPUOnline@lifepacific.edu
If you’re enjoying this podcast, spread the word by sharing it with your friends and leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. I encourage you to send me your feedback or suggestions for an interview. Help me help you. You can email me at jroper@foursquare.org, or direct message me on Facebook. You can also submit any feedback or questions here. Don’t forget to subscribe in Apple Podcasts or where ever you get your podcasts.
As always, you can connect with me on Facebook or Twitter. It’s your life, now go live it!
I used to think of sin as a crime that needed punishment or I would think of my sin as a weakness and feel shame, or a character flaw, something I need to hide. That somehow, sin was evidence I did not really sell out to God or that I was secretly rebellious. But I came to a point where I began to understand that sin is a wound from which I need healing. It started me on a journey that changed the way I view myself and others. I recently read a book that really captures this called The Pastor by Bradley Jersak and Paul Young.
Brad has authored several books and has been a guest on the podcast before and Paul Young is the well-known author of The Shack. This week we are exploring the perilous human journey from self-will and striving through defeat and despair to hope and the redemption found only through surrender.
If you’re enjoying this podcast, spread the word by sharing it with your friends and leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. I encourage you to send me your feedback or suggestions for an interview. Help me help you. You can email me at jroper@foursquare.org, or direct message me on Facebook. You can also submit any feedback or questions here. Don’t forget to subscribe in Apple Podcasts or where ever you get your podcasts.
As always, you can connect with me on Facebook or Twitter. It’s your life, now go live it!
Today, I want to talk about the Bible. The Bible is a complex and challenging book. In fact, it’s not even a book by today’s standards. It’s a compilation of many books, genres, eras, and authors. So keeping that in mind, reading the Bible and making sense of the Bible can really be overwhelming. The complexity of the issue only increases when you factor in that Christians don’t even agree on how many books should be in the Bible. Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox Bibles all contain a different number of books.
When you look at it as a Protestant, 76% of our entire Bible is the Old Testament and yet, we are a new covenant people. So what is our relationship to the Old Testament? I wanted to explore this and I could think of no one better than Professor Jim Adams from Life Pacific University. I first got to know Professor. Adams while getting my master’s degree there at LPU. He was both my favorite and most hated professor because he really challenged us. But I will have to say, he was my favorite in the whole program. The Old Testament is an area he specializes in. I hope you enjoy this episode!
If you’re enjoying this podcast, spread the word by sharing it with your friends and leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. I encourage you to send me your feedback or suggestions for an interview. Help me help you. You can email me at jroper@foursquare.org, or direct message me on Facebook. You can also submit any feedback or questions here. Don’t forget to subscribe in Apple Podcasts or where ever you get your podcasts.
As always, you can connect with me on Facebook or Twitter. It’s your life, now go live it!
Last week I spent a few days in downtown Seattle hanging out with my daughter, Victoria. I had not been in downtown since before the pandemic. And the protests. And the riots. It was sad to see businesses closed due to COVID-19. It was heartbreaking to see stores boarded up for protection against rioters. It was heartrending to see peaceful protests seeking social justice hijacked by criminals claiming violence as their right. Cries of the spirit for economic justice, social justice, and criminal justice are being drowned out by the screams of fascist agitators and provocateurs of both the radical right and the extreme left.
As distressing as all this is, the most distressing thing I was dealing with was the overflowing crowds of homeless people. It seemed every street was strewn with the homeless: Overpasses serving as shelter from the elements; Green spaces intended to beautify the city and give respite to the soul of the city-dweller have become homeless camps of weather-beaten tents and stolen shopping carts.
I was not angry. I was broken over their condition. And I was overcome with the feeling of helplessness in the face of such overwhelming need. What can I do to fix homelessness?
Homelessness is a complex ecosystem that includes unemployment, poverty, mental illness, family and societal alienation, drug addiction, criminal acts, anti-social behavior, free will, economic injustice, bad luck, and bad choices, all emerging together in lockstep to beatdown and dehumanize image-bearers of God and to further the alienation of human beings from one another. Not knowing what to do, I did nothing, even when a homeless man asked me, “can you help me get something to eat?” I did nothing…
I felt overwhelmed by the immediacy of the perfect storm we are facing: Health care, race-relations, immigration, social justice, police and legal reforms, poverty, and economic justice, all summing a day of reckoning. I simultaneously felt like throwing my hands up in surrender, running to the mountains to hide, and jumping into this mess to make a difference.
The chaos and confusion around me were equally matched with the chaos and confusion within me. I wanted to throw up my hands and say, “What can I do? Am I my brother’s keeper?”
While I was walking around Seattle and thinking these dark thoughts, I was also being haunted by Matthew 25:31-46: You know, that passage that says, “in as much as you did it to the least of these, my brothers, you did it to me.” I have always wrestled with this passage because it is about God judging the nations. Individual judgment I understand, but how will God judge nations? Do we get in the “individual judgment” line, then once we are judged individually, do we get into the “Nation judgment” line? What if I am a dual citizen? Do I get into the line for the United States and then Canada? Lame, I know. But those are some of the questions running through my mind.
Early on that Friday morning, I was sitting in my hotel room drinking coffee and thinking about these societal ailments and the judgment of nations. I was not thinking about them being connected. I was bouncing between the two issues, like flipping between channels on the TV, when suddenly they snapped together like two magnets: God will judge the nations on how they treat the poor, the powerless, the accused, the incarcerated, the stranger (those “other” than “us” in nationality, ethnicity, race, gender, religion), and the sick because it requires the nation to fix these areas.
Economic, social, and legal justice, along with caring for the sick, are not only current pressure points in society: they are the cries of Jesus to the nations, “in as much as you have done it unto the least of these you have done it unto me.”
The whole nation is accountable because no one individual or group can fix poverty, homelessness, race relations, criminal justice, and health care. It will take the entire spectrum of human participation to bring about justice and healing in these areas. The full spectrum: Liberal to conservative; free-markets to government taxation and regulation; for-profit businesses and not-for-profit institutions; families; churches; synagogues; mosques; community centers; private initiatives; government programs, all working together for economic, social, legal, and health care justice for the poor and the powerless.
This is not a liberal thing, a conservative thing, a political thing, or a religious thing: It is a human thing. And Jesus takes it very personal, “for in as much as you have done it unto the least of these, my brothers, you have done it unto me.”
I am not advocating a specific policy, but for an over-arching value system that shapes all policies and practices. If we get the value-system right and we have open, honest discussions and debates based on truth, integrity, transparency, and accountability, we can become a more perfect union, a more just society. It is what He requires of the nations. It is what He requires of me, “For He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8),
Debbie and I serve as the FMI Global Associate Director for MENACA and Europe. We focus on cultivating disciples, leaders, and church planting movements.
Debbie and I serve as the FMI Global Associate Director for MENACA and Europe. We focus on cultivating disciples, leaders, and church planting movements.
