There’s a been a long history of discussion about living life with purpose. This goes back to ancient times and the works of philosophers, but features more recently in Christian books like The Purpose Driven Life, or in secular leadership and lifestyle books.
There’s something sensible in recognising that purposeful living is better than simply drifting. And yet while many of us think about wanting to live life with purpose, we find there is often a disconnect: circumstances press in upon us, prohibiting us from being as intentional as we might otherwise like. Decisions have to be made on the fly. Or sometimes it’s our sinfulness that steers us away from the purposeful ends we confess that we believe in.
Today on the podcast, we’re discussing convictional intelligence—that is, living life governed by what we believe. I believe in the gospel, what does it mean for me to live like I believe it?
Links referred to:
- Our August event: Learning to forgive with Kanishka Raffel and Philip Kern (25 August)
- Support the work of the Centre
Runtime: 41:17 min.
Transcript
Chase Kuhn: There’s a been a long history of discussion about living life with purpose. This goes back to ancient times and the works of philosophers, but features more recently in Christian books like The Purpose Driven Life, or in secular leadership and lifestyle books.
There’s something sensible in recognising that purposeful living is better than simply drifting. And yet while many of us think about wanting to live life with purpose, we find there is often a disconnect: circumstances press in upon us, prohibiting us from being as intentional as we might otherwise like. Decisions have to be made on the fly. Or sometimes it’s our sinfulness that steers us away from the purposeful ends we confess that we believe in.
Today on the podcast, we’re discussing convictional intelligence. We’ll be defining it more in a moment, but essentially, we mean living life governed by what we believe. So if I believe in the gospel, what does it mean for me to live like I believe it?
[Music]
CK: Hello and welcome to the Centre for Christian Living podcast. My name is Chase Kuhn. I’m coming to you from Moore Theological College in Sydney, Australia, and today, my guest on the podcast is the Reverend Jo Gibbs, who serves as the CEO of Anglican Deaconess Ministries , which is a fantastic organisation serving women not just in Sydney, but all over Australia, really, to be participating in gospel work. Jo, really glad to have you here today.
Jo Gibbs:Thanks for having me! It’s really nice to be here.
CK: It’s a pleasure. It’s a pleasure. You’ve been talking a lot to people—most recently last night at your church, even—about convictional intelligence.
JG: Yeah.
CK: And we’ll talk about what that is in just a moment—
JG: Yeah.
CK: —but the question you’ve been leading with is “What is your ‘why’?” What is that question and why is it important?
JG: Ah, yeah, I actually stole it from a great movie called Collateral Beauty, with Will Smith in it—watch it if you get a chance!—where he asks that question: “What is your ‘why’? What drives your life?” And it’s a question that business writers like Simon Sinek pull out and say, “This is the question”. For organisations, it makes a difference between an organisation that flies and an organisation that goes bankrupt. And so, it’s a really—as CEO, but as, you know, in parish ministry, leading teams as well, it’s a question that I’ve asked. And it’s really asking that question of “what place does conviction have in our lives as Christians?”
It’s a question that you’d want to ask a non-Christian as well: like, what are your core beliefs? You know, those things that you hold most dear. But for us as Christians, it’s saying, “How do those core beliefs flow out into the rest of your life?” And I think we’d given nod to that in terms of—we’d say theology would shape everything. When we look at character, conviction and competence, we’d be saying they’re all equally important. But just thinking about that “why” question is saying, “What’s at the heart of your convictions?” And thinking about how that shapes who you are—how you live.
CK: That’s great. We used to ask people what makes them tick. You know—
JG: Oh, yeah!
CK: —what’s the kind of thing that gets you moving? What drives you?
JG: Yeah.
CK: What gets you thinking? And I guess it’s about the purpose as well: like, it’s what you’re hoping for. But that’s based, obviously, in some conviction—some shaping.
JG: Yeah. And I think it’s not just about passion, because sometimes convictions are things we’re passionate about.
CK: Yeah.
JG: But I think it’s also about clarity, because there are lots of things in the Bible that we could pull out to say, “This is really important”, and I hear different people speak who are Christians, and sometimes they’ll say, “This is the most important thing” or “That’s the most important thing”. So it’s actually looking at the Bible and saying, “What does the Bible tell us is the most important—what are the core convictions that hold the whole Bible together?” And so, there are important things for God; there should be important things for us as well.
CK: That’s great! That’s really great. So you’ve been trying to help people, then, tap into this question. And you’ve given a frame for it, which you’re calling “convictional intelligence”. What do you mean by “convictional intelligence”?
JG: Yeah. I stole it from a book that I was reading—
CK: I like that you steal from so many people.
JG: I do! I—[Laughter]
CK: It’s an ethics podcast, so this is great! [Laughter]
JG: And—and you don’t borrow anything from anyone else?
CK: I plunder anyone that I can. [Laughter] I will steal from this conversation, undoubtedly!
JG: There is no new idea under the sun! [Laughter]
CK: That’s right! [Laughter]
JG: I was reading this book and it was talking about leadership, and, you know, we talk about emotional intelligence—so, emotional self-regulation, interpersonal skills, empathy—we realise how important that is for leadership. People talk about moral intelligence: so the ability to make ethical decisions. But this writer was talking about convictional intelligence: so knowing what your core beliefs are, but also allowing them—how much they shape, how much they are part of your leadership. And so, that’s a big leader question—big “L” leader question. But I think it’s the same for every single person.
And it’s—in many ways, it’s about the connect between those beliefs and your life, because I think most of us are really clear on our beliefs—our convictions. But most of the time, we’re operating in a way—or living in a way that’s different or contradictory to what those beliefs are, because there’s a disconnect there. And so, convictional intelligence is actually that consistency and that connection between your head and your heart. We talk about this all the time—
CK: Yeah.
JG: —as Christians, there’s lots in Scripture that challenges us on this. I found it really helpful, ’cause it kind of pulls into the front of our vision something that we know in the back of our minds as we live life that there might be a disconnect, there might be some contradictions happening in our lives. But it gives us the handle to pull it out into the open and have a discussion about it.
CK: That’s great. Do you give any practical examples just of people, when you’re talking about these things—about where this might be disjointed in our lives or where we see it really mattering in any kind of scenarios?
JG: Oh yeah. I could give you like five from my life in the last two days! [Laughter]
CK: Would you be willing to give us one?
JG: Well, I think we know things about the character of God, but we live the opposite. Like, I remember David Cook saying, “Most people are living the impossible application from the sermon”.
CK: Yeah.
JG: So you’ve heard a sermon on loving your enemies, but on Monday, you’ll go to your workplace and you’ll hold grudges against people that you don’t like and you’ll treat them coldly. So most of us are living the opposite. Wow!
So many different things. Like, I know in the gospel that I am loved and accepted, and there is nothing left for me to prove. So why do I care about what other people think, or why do I seek other people’s approval?
I know that God is generous and sovereign. So why do I worry about—
CK: Yeah. That’s—
JG: —my life?
CK: —such a great example, isn’t it—both of those. I mean, all of them are great examples. But the worry one is one where if you know this is true—like, say, Matthew 6 where Jesus is talking about “Don’t worry about—”
JG: Yeah!
CK: “—what you eat, drink, wear—”
JG: Yeah.
CK: —anything. If you know this is true—that God loves us this way and that God is our heavenly Father—
JG: Yeah.
CK: —then you actually have no reason to worry.
JG: No.
CK: It would be irrational to worry.
JG: Yeah.
CK: But—
JG: Yeah.
CK: —that’s not how I live.
JG: Yeah!
CK: Yeah.
JG: So what are we doing?
CK: Yeah.
JG: What’s the disconnect? Why do we have these core convictions, but we’re living out of a different set of convictions—
CK: Yeah.
JG: —that actually say, “God isn’t trustworthy”? By the way we live, we’re actually giving a very different message about who God is.
CK: Yeah.
JG: And we’re walking around being image-bearers and living out the gospel in our communities, but what gospel are we sharing with people—
CK: Yeah!
JG: —by the way that we live?
CK: Yeah. We’re going to talk today about how we cultivate this a bit more—convictional intelligence. But as you begin [to] motivate people for these things, what’s your “why” and how do you think about convictional intelligence in your life? How do you get people on board in saying, “Why should I care about this?”
JG: I think one of the most helpful things is to think about the downside.
CK: Yeah.
JG: Like, when we don’t get this right, what happens?
CK: Yeah.
JG: So when we live out the opposite of what is true about God, what does that mean for us?
CK: Yeah.
JG: So that means we’re living a disobedient life. We’re potentially living idolatry, because we’re actually saying, “I know, God, you’ve said this. But I believe a different truth is true.” So it’s a question about something—
CK: Yeah.
JG: —whether we need to repent of it.
CK: Yeah! We never want to frame it that way either, do we. So in our failures, we never want to say, “Actually, God, I would rather worship somebody else or worship you as if you were something else, or different than you actually are”.
JG: Yeah. Or “I know better than you”.
CK: Oof! Yeah!
JG: Yeah.
CK: But I mean what if I had to actually say that out loud? “I know better than you, God.”
JG: Yeah.
CK: That would be shocking to say.
JG: Yeah.
CK: But it is how we’re living.
JG: Yeah.
CK: Yeah. So the more we can actually grab hold of what we really believe is true about God and how he interacts with his world, and in particular, with us—
JG: Yeah.
CK: —the more faithful, obedient and, really, joyful lives we probably can live.
JG: ’Cause God’s way is the best way.
CK: Yeah.
JG: So when we’re living outside of that, we’re missing that full life in Jesus—that he’s promised us—that’s available to us.
CK: Yeah.
JG: So we’re settling for second best. And I think our external witness looks hypocritical. If we say—
CK: Yeah.
JG: —as a Christian, “I trust God. He’s the centre of my life.” But then we’re so worried about things that our non-Christian friends see that, or us thinking about this—it has a huge impact eternally. So if we know that the gospel is true—that Jesus is the only hope of the world—there is no hope apart from him—then what happens if I don’t connect that to my life? Then I end up going to the evangelism seminar and learning the tract, but I never share it with anyone.
So it actually has an impact on people hearing the gospel—
CK: Yeah.
JG: Or, yeah.
CK: Yeah.
JG: People coming into God’s kingdom.
CK: That’s great. So how do you begin this conversation with people? When you talk about convictional intelligence, do you find a focal point and say, “This is the driver”? Or [Laughter] do you try to say, “This is what the Scriptures are beginning to teach us about this kind of cultivation”? Where do you begin?
JG: Yeah. I think it’s helpful to see if we can see convictional intelligence in the Bible. So—
CK: Great!
JG: So there’s not those words in the Bible, of course.
CK: Yeah, yeah.
JG: Yeah.
CK: Yeah, of course.
JG: It’s not going to be in the concordance.
CK: Sure. So where you do see it in the Scriptures, then, this idea?
JG: Yeah. I was reflecting on this. So is it Deuteronomy 6—“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength” (Deut 6:5)—is it this wholehearted, all-of-everything living out—
CK: Yeah.
JG: —your faith? There’s heaps in Jesus’ teaching. He’s constantly pressing us about this. So you talked about touching on the Sermon on the Mount: at the end, he talks about the wise and the foolish builder (Matt 7:24-27).
CK: Yeah.
JG: And the wise builder is a person who hears his words and puts them into practice. So that’s hears them, knows them, lives them out—James 1:22: “Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.”
CK: Yeah.
JG: So we’re constantly being pushed to live this. “Faith without deeds is dead” (Jas 2:26). You know—
CK: Yeah.
JG: —like, there’s this constant challenge in Scripture to say, “This is important. Don’t be lukewarm. Don’t disconnect. Don’t be hypocritical.” So we have these constant challenges from the Word and from God. So it’s definitely in there. Maybe it’s just a way of pulling it out and making it more obvious.
CK: It’s great. It’s such a convicting idea. I mean, part of what you said before, but even what you were just rehearsing there from the Scriptures is—
JG: Yeah.
CK: —if this really is something you believe, then it works. Meaning not this—that it works for you, but it actually works itself out in your life—that you actually—
JG: Yeah.
CK: —work according to it.
JG: Yeah.
CK: And you don’t just hear it, but then you actually do it.
JG: Yeah.
CK: You don’t just say you believe it and do something differently. But if you really believe it, then you do it.
JG: Yeah!
CK: If not—if you say you believe in God but don’t, then you’re an idolater. That—
JG: Yeah.
CK: —that’s in one sense, a consequence of these things. Yeah.
JG: Yeah. It’s pretty simple, isn’t it. Like, it’s—it’s—
CK: Yeah.
JG: —it’s not rocket science.
CK: No.
JG: I don’t know why it’s—
CK: So hard, though.
JG: —so hard! [Laughter]
CK: So hard! [Laughter] Yes! It’s so hard!
JG: It’s so hard! So it’s good to sit in that. It’s good to sit in the fact that in Scripture, there are examples of bad convictional intelligence. [Laughter]
CK: Yeah, yeah.
JG: So we’ve got—
CK: Well, give us—give us some. [Laughter] Like, tell me one or two that you’ve seen in Scripture that would be a bad example.
JG: Oh, they’re all over the place!
CK: Yeah.
JG: You know, you’ve got David’s idolatry. Sorry, not idolatry; adultery.
CK: Yeah!
JG: And so you’ve got someone who knows God, who loves God and yet disobeys him. Oh wow. We’ve got the Pharisees: we love to dislike the Pharisees, but, you know, [they] have got the truth, but are actually not living that out. Or they’re applying it in a very different way.
I don’t know, there’s—
CK: That’s tough, isn’t it. Yeah.
JG: There’s so many examples.
CK: There’s so many.
JG: And I think for me, I’ve been just thinking on the parable of the soils—Matthew 13? And you’ve got God’s word being sown and then there are the four different types of soils. And so, I think there’s a lot of competition for our hearts. So you’ve got Satan stealing away—snatching away the Word; you’ve got the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth. So you’ve got competing passions in us. Number two, persecution.
CK: Yeah.
JG: Because of persecution, that falling away. So is it when the pressure’s on, having to choose whether this is the greatest—God is the biggest passion in your life. Then under pressure, do you—
CK: Yeah.
JG: —give up?
CK: Yeah, yeah. Fascinating. I mean, I was just preaching through Habbakuk recently and watching how does faith persist through even really tough times?
JG: Yeah.
CK: And in one sense, that’s a testing of faith, isn’t it.
JG: Yeah.
CK: I mean, what does Abraham do? “You’re promising me lineage and yet I’m old.”
JG: Yeah! [Laughter]
CK: “When am I going to have this chi—I mean, it’s like well past time. It’s impossible now.”
JG: Yep!
CK: But how do you persist in faith against all the odds? Or when things have really gone terrible or—
JG: Yeah.
CK: —you know, is God still there? Is he still caring? Are his promises still true?
JG: Yeah. It sounds like Genesis, doesn’t it.
CK: Yeah! Yeah! But—
JG: Can I—yeah.
CK: —the soils, in one sense, are, if things get tough, do you just throw in the towel?
JG: Yeah. Yeah, and under pressure, what happens?
CK: Yeah.
JG: Does that produce fruit in your life or does it produce thorns? Does it—yeah, that thinking about—I think we often see convictional intelligence growing under pressure.
CK: Yeah.
JG: Yeah. And so, suffering. And—
CK: Yeah.
JG: —like those times, I think we all sit there and say, “Oh”. When you actually ask, “When did you grow the most in your relationship with God?”, it was often during those hard times that you wanted to shortcut and—
CK: Yeah.
JG: —avoid if you could. But they’re the times when everything else gets peeled away, and then you’re just left clinging onto God and testing out whether his truths are real or not. So I think that’s—yeah.
CK: Yeah, I agree.
JG: They’re good times of growth.
CK: I had one friend that died couple of years ago—a little more than a year ago now from cancer—and battles with cancer for a long time. But to watch him have unbelievable clarity about—
JG: Yeah.
CK: —convictions driving him—
JG: Yeah.
CK: —I would never in a million years desire what he suffered. But in some ways, I was so jealous of how truth was shaping him up—
JG: Yeah.
CK: —and the longing and the hope—
JG: Yeah.
CK: —that he’d clung to—
JG: Yeah.
CK: —I thought, “You know truth—”
JG: Yep.
CK: “—in a way that I don’t know.”
JG: Yeah.
CK: “And I’m actually quite jealous about that—”
JG: Yeah.
CK: “—that you really have this in your guts.”
JG: Yeah.
CK: “In fact, that’s all that you have.” I have other things, and in fact, those sometimes crowd out—
JG: Yeah, I’m filling up my life—
CK: —the best thing.
JG: —with all these other things!
CK: Yes! Yes.
JG: Yeah.
CK: Yeah.
JG: And, you know, all those Old Testament verses about, “And when you come into the Promised Land and when God has blessed you—”
CK: Yeah.
JG: “—do not forget.”
CK: Yeah.
JG: Like, I think often comfort—ease—is not the best place for us to grow in this area.
CK: Wow.
JG: It’s actually the hard spots. Yeah.
CK: Yeah. Yeah. Fascinating. So how do you, then, cultivate this? I mean, you’ve shown us that it’s featuring—that we’re supposed to do it.
JG: Yeah.
CK: There’s failures of it in the Scriptures. But how do we cultivate—
JG: Yeah.
CK: —convictional intelligence? What do you tell people is at the core of our convictions?
JG: [Laughter] Yeah. Well, at the core of our convictions is the gospel. As we look at the Bible, it’s all shaped around Jesus. It’s either looking forward to Jesus’ coming and all of these echoes of who this promised one will be. It’s about Jesus and his life and his death and his resurrection. Or it’s looking forward to Jesus’ return. That’s the metanarrative—that’s the big arc of Scripture. That’s what Paul focuses on in his writing. That’s his lens to make decisions or to weigh up the world around him or how he sees himself. So it’s the gospel.
But I think we disconnect that somehow. [Laughter] How do we do that? I think sometimes our temptation is by disconnecting in some way the gospel from Jesus—from a person and a relationship—it becomes this abstract term and something that we’re meant to learn. Or something that we’re meant to learn and attract as we share it with non-Christians, but doesn’t shape our lives. So I think sometimes it’s helpful just thinking, “Okay, I know these things. Why don’t they grip me each day?” I think that’s the question.
So I think it might be a clarity question: is our understanding of the gospel not clear? Is it too big or—you often ask people, “Can you tell me what the gospel is?” and they scramble. You can see them looking nervous and anxious, and thinking, “I know I’ve got to get this right”, rather than something that’s flowing out of their whole life.
Like, the gospel is that Christ died for our sins—1 Corinthians 15. So if you wanted to package it into five words, [Laughter] that would be the easy way to make it a handle. But it’s actually this whole lens that changes how we see ourselves. It changes how we see the world and the people around us. So because of the gospel, we’re now united with Christ. And so, how we see ourself has completely changed: we’re actually a new person.
CK: Yeah.
JG: And I think we forget that there’s a heavenly reality, because we’re united with Christ. We still think we’re living our old life, and then one day in heaven, we’ll become—like—
CK: Yeah.
JG: —you know, it’s the “now and not yet”, but we just don’t get that. We don’t live into that. We don’t realise it’s actually we’ve put off our old self and Jesus is alive in us.
CK: There’s some comfort in Scripture. I mean, the fact that people like the Apostle Paul had to go on and on and on about this [Laughter] with so many different audiences!
JG: Yeah, yeah! He doesn’t just mention it once and he’s moved on. [Laughter]
CK: I mean, it’s like Ephesians: there’s like, “This is your old self—”
JG: Yeah! [Laughter]
CK: “—this is your new self” (Eph 4:22-24). Colossians: “Take off the old; put on the new” (Col 3:5-10). Even, say, 2 Corinthians 5, where we’re thinking about being ambassadors for Christ—
JG: Yeah!
CK: —this is the new self that we are: we are now in Christ (2 Cor 5:26-20). We have to look at people differently.
JG: Yeah.
CK: We are now ambassadors—
JG: Yeah.
CK: —with a message of reconciliation, because we’ve been reconciled.
JG: Yeah.
CK: We’re compelled—
JG: Yeah.
CK: —by Christ’s love.
JG: Yeah.
CK: So—
JG: You are now a minister of the gospel.
CK: Yeah!
JG: Even if you’re not paid at a church—
CK: Yes!
JG: —you don’t have a “Rev”—
CK: Yeah.
JG: —or a title in front of you, that’s because of who you are in Christ.
CK: That’s right.
JG: You’re actually an ambassador.
CK: You now represent Jesus—
JG: Yeah.
CK: —in the world. That’s right.
JG: Yeah.
CK: Yeah. But there is some comfort in the fact that there’s a lot of slow learners in these things.
JG: Yeah.
CK: But what you said is so helpful, because it’s not just about the learning of something that’s true—in one sense, that is important—but it’s actually recognising the reality of what’s true. So we think about it disconnected from our lives. But there is something actually true about our lives in Jesus now—
JG: Yeah.
CK: —that needs to be realised by us.
JG: Yeah. We need to just work out—
CK: We need to get on board!
JG: —that’s it’s already—yeah. [Laughter]
CK: That’s right! That’s right. Yeah.
JG: And I think often the—how you develop the connection is just asking yourself simple questions. So when you’ve sat down and talked to someone about an issue, asking the question, “What does the gospel say to this? Where do we see this in Jesus?”
This week I was struggling with loving someone. I may be the only person in the world who struggles with this occasionally.
CK: I never do. Of course not.
JG: No.
CK: No. [Laughter] That’s a joke. Of course, yes [Laughter], yes, I struggle too.
JG: And my tendency was to think, “I’ll try harder. What can I do to improve this relationship to love them more, ’cause I know that I need to?” And then, instead, asking, “Where do I see this in Jesus? What does the gospel have to say to this?” Well, I’ve been God’s enemy. And how did God treat me when I was his enemy? He was patient, he was gracious, he loved me, no matter how I responded to him. So remembering that I’ve been in that place completely changes how I think about that person. It takes it out of a legalism—“I’ve just got to do this”. It fills it with a motivation and a living out of a thankfulness, and—
CK: Yeah.
JG: —a sense of who am I in Christ that changes things.
CK: It levels the playing field, too. Like, if I look at them and see problems in them [Laughter]—if I’ve thought about what God has done towards me in Christ—the first thing I have to reflect on is that I had problems that needed solving first.
JG: Yeah.
CK: Which then helps me realise, “Okay: I probably shouldn’t just be so hard on them!” [Laughter]
JG: What’s that about the speck and the log and the—(Matt 7:3-5)?
CK: Oh, yeah. [Laughter] Oh yeah. So I had to do a lot of repenting about this in the past. I mean, reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer on Life Together, he says that there is a way that we approach one another just human to human that is controlled by human love that really lets us down because actually—
JG: Yeah.
CK: —I’ll look for something in you that I want or I’ll try to make you into something that I need or—
JG: It’s very transactional.
CK: —or want you to be. Yeah.
JG: Yeah.
CK: But actually, if I think about Christ between us, I think about the grace I’ve received first, which then liberates me to love you differently—
JG: Oh yeah.
CK: —and liberates me to let you grow up in Christ as well as—
JG: Yeah.
CK: —the Word is working in you.
JG: Yep.
CK: Anyways, I know that’s a bit heavy, but I’ve found that really challenging to me—
JG: Yeah.
CK: —that you’re right: thinking about the gospel changes the way we interact with one another.
JG: Yeah. It does! It really does. The other thing—’cause I know Bonhoeffer’s big on discipleship—
CK: Yeah.
JG: —and we talk about a discipleship framework, there’s lots of books on it, I know we love talking about that in terms of church ministry. But if my concern is with every person that I interact with—that they will either come to know Jesus or to grow deeper in him—then when I’m in that situation with someone I disagree with or find hard to be with, if my concern is that they’ll grow deeper in Jesus, then that changes the dynamic: it’s not about me or what I get out of this relationship; it’s actually wanting them to grow in Christ.
CK: It’s great.
JG: Yeah. But—yeah.
CK: Well, flipping that around, I mean, the failures, then, in that moment—the failure to love, then—is actually thinking that it is about me. Or what they say has a bigger impact on me in how I think about my value, how I think about my status—my place—
JG: Yeah.
CK: —how I think about expectations of what I should be getting—entitlement or whatever else—
JG: Yep.
CK: —but actually, the gospel, if we think about that instead, it gives us clarity about who I am, about my value, about my status, about my expectations and entitlement, about—
JG: Yeah.
CK: —what’s really fulfilling. It really changes the game.
JG: It does! It changes the way you can relate to people, ’cause you’re not so caught up in your own agenda or making it about you.
CK: Yeah.
JG: Yeah.
[Music]
CK: As we take a break from our program, I want to encourage you to plan to join us for our next live event in August. We’ll be continuing in our series on community—this time, looking at “Learning to forgive” . The most liberating truth of the Christian life is that our sins have been forgiven. But one of the most difficult challenges of the Christian life is forgiving others as we have been forgiven.
Does forgiving mean forgetting? If we forgive, must we still trust? What about those who haven’t repented of sin? At this event, Kanishka Raffel , Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, and Philip Kern, the head of the New Testament department here at Moore College, will lead us through what the Bible teaches about forgiveness and how we might learn to forgive those who’ve sinned against us. I really hope that you’ll plan to join us on August 25th either in person or on livestream.
One change to this event is that we won’t be having our traditional Q&A session on the evening. Instead, we’re going to be receiving questions in advance to answer on the night. So we’re encouraging you to register early to gain access to the Sli.do information and to begin to submit and to vote up the questions that you’d like answered. For more information and to register, please go to our website: ccl.moore.edu.au.
Now let’s get back to our program.
CK: So you’ve just mentioned convictional clarity: getting clearer about our convictions will change the way that we—
JG: Yeah.
CK: —deliberate in different situations.
JG: Yeah.
CK: What other kinds of things do you encourage people to think through? I mean, are there other areas that we need to grow in for convictional intelligence, or maybe hindrances to convictional intelligence?
JG: Yeah, so clarity’s I think a big one—just having something that you can take into each day and repeat to yourself and remind yourself of each day, and apply to situations.
I think the area to grow on not only is our outward relationships, but already what you’ve touched on in terms of how we see ourselves. I think the biggest disconnect is inward. I think it’s about who we see that we are and whether we’re able to apply the truths of God into our life.
CK: Yeah.
JG: So practising that is really helpful, before you’re thinking outwardly in terms of relationships.
CK: Yeah.
JG: I think there’s a huge disconnect that I see in myself regularly is that the gospel should move me. It is incredibly good news that changes everything about the world. But there are times when I sit in church and I hear someone give a really good solid gospel talk, and I’m close to yawning ’cause I’ve heard it so many times, and that’s just wrong! I think it’s this overfamiliarity with the message and I think that can lead to complacency. But the gospel should move us. It should make us teary in gratitude. It should—the gospel takes off all of the burdens that we’ve been carrying in every way, whether it’s the burden of living up to expectations or the burden of putting myself first, or—like, all of these burdens that we’ve put on ourselves, the gospel removes every single one of those in Jesus. So it should be this incredible relief and joy each day. And I don’t know a shortcut—[Laughter]
CK: Sure. Sure, sure!
JG: —to doing that. But I guess it’s really good to ask, when we’re noticing that we’re spiritually yawning about this, just to spend some time with those passages that remind us of the incredible gift that we have in Jesus—
CK: Yeah.
JG: —of the incredible grace that we have—to think about what life would be like without Jesus. Where would you be?
CK: Yeah.
JG: Where would I be without Jesus? What difference does he make? What’s urgent about this? If I spiritually yawn about this, what impact does it have on my family who don’t yet know Jesus, and my neighbourhood? To get a sense of that urgency and that sense of being compelled again.
CK: Yeah. That’s so helpful. And so challenging. I think about some of the questions I’ve wrestled with recently in regards to this. I mean, if I’m looking for something besides Christ, what am I saying Jesus isn’t enough for?
JG: Yeah. [Laughter]
CK: So what do I need beyond Christ?
JG: And why would I think it’s better?
CK: Yeah!
JG: Yeah.
CK: Now, that’s a hard question to get honest about. But it really is searching. Or if I’m trying to do this because of X reason, what does it actually, then, say about what I believe about the gospel?
JG: Yeah.
CK: Is it that I’m trying to undo sin on my own? [Laughter] Is it that I’m trying to—
JG: That’s an interesting gospel!
CK: —please God in some other way—
JG: Yeah.
CK: —to make him happy with me again?
JG: Yeah. And returning to a works-based—
CK: Yeah, I mean, there’s a whole—
JG: —theology.
CK: —range that I can actually think about. I mean, this comes back to your “Why?” question: what’s driving me? Is it that I’m trying to actually get somewhere that I think I’m not in Jesus already?
JG: Yeah.
CK: Or am I living out the freedom that I have in him? That’s—
JG: Yeah.
CK: —quite searching.
JG: I really appreciate what you’ve just said. I think we tend to have—our lives are a bit like a shopping trolley that veers to one side. Like, we just naturally tend towards—
CK: I hate those shopping trolleys! [Laughter]
JG: Yeah! [Laughter] We tend to veer off to the side.
CK: Yeah! Yeah!
JG: We tend to veer towards works and legalism. We’d be much happier to save ourselves.
CK: Yeah.
JG: We would. And I think particularly with our Australian culture, we [Laughter]—we’re fairly independent. We like to do it on our own.
CK: Yeah.
JG: And so there’s something incredibly humbling about grace that is hard to stomach. I think we can tend towards—I can tend towards—like, the gospel is a combination of resting in extravagant grace and being challenged by radical discipleship. They’re both part of the gospel.
CK: Yeah, that’s right.
JG: I tend towards the radical discipleship: “Tell me what I need to do. Tell me what it looks like to be a passionate follower of Jesus. And spend less on the resting in the extravagant grace.” And you know what? I think the grace needs to come first.
CK: Wow. Yeah.
JG: Like, I think when you listen to a good talk on a Sunday, the person has connected the passage to Jesus, has reminded us of the gospel—the extravagant grace—and then out of that, we’re all on board.
CK: Yeah.
JG: We want to live.
CK: Yeah.
JG: Like, when those connections are made in that way, then we’ll want to go out and live differently.
CK: Yeah.
JG: But if we put the radical discipleship first—
CK: Yeah.
JG: —before the comfort and the rest of the gospel, then it becomes all about us. Our shopping trolley tends to veer that way.
CK: Yeah, that’s very very helpful and wise. Yeah, thank you, Jo. While I have you here, I’m wanting to ask you, perhaps, I mean, you do a lot of work amongst women—a lot of women’s ministry. How does this take shape in common issues you’re facing amongst discipling women today? Do you have any ways that this particular thinking is being applied in the kind of work you’re doing?
JG: Yeah. I wouldn’t want to speak for all women.
CK: Of course not! [Laughter] No. Nor would I want to speak for all men—
JG: Yeah.
CK: —or, yeah.
JG: Things that I’ve thought for myself: someone recently said to me that two of the biggest barriers to women serving in gospel ministry are confidence and conviction.
CK: Yeah.
JG: And I think they’re two really key things. In terms of conviction, I think often women feel uncomfortable talking about theology. It can feel like it’s not a women’s space.
CK: Yeah.
JG: And I think sometimes, not intentionally, we can model that the women’s Bible talk at the women’s event is topical and it’s light. But there’s very few spaces where women can feel comfortable talking theology. And I’m not—
CK: Sure.
JG: —talking, you know, sign up for a Masters and—
CK: No, I know what you mean.
JG: —you know.
CK: Yeah, yeah.
JG: But just “This is our understanding of who God is”—
CK: Yeah.
JG: —“in his word”.
CK: Yeah.
JG: And just feeling comfortable coming and saying, “I actually don’t know the answer to this. But this is a question that I have.” So I think naturally there are not many spheres for women to have those conversations and to develop their convictions.
CK: Yeah. So we need to be better about helping women to really feel confidence in the convictions that they have and keep growing in those convictions.
JG: Yeah! And to want to love God’s word and be able to faithfully handle it themselves and to bring God’s word to bear on the questions that they’re asking—
CK: Yeah.
JG: —in their lives.
CK: Yeah.
JG: So I think we can encourage, provide spaces for women to practise that—
CK: Absolutely!
JG: —and encourage each other in that—
CK: Yeah.
JG: —with men as well. But I think there’s just some modelling that—
CK: Yeah.
JG: —yeah—that might be an obstacle to that—
CK: Yeah.
JG: —that’d be good to change.
CK: Can I just say on that quickly, that has been one of the greatest blessings to my life. I’m not just saying this in a token way, but I mean, legitimately year on year, some of the best insights I have in class with theology students are women helping us to reflect on these things. And in my Bible Study group, week on week, I find the insights of the women in my group so incredibly helpful—both theologically and practically. And so, yes: I just want to say an “Amen”—that we need to be hearing from each other more and more, because not only will women benefit from it, but men will benefit from being able to grow together this way. So, yeah, thank you.
JG: Yeah. And can I say most of my growth has happened in theological study? But also in conversations. And so, creating spaces for those conversations to happen is really important. So how can we do that—
CK: Yeah, sure.
JG: —as the body of Christ better? But then there’s the confidence question. And I think that’s often confidence in themselves: women, there’s often—there can be a lot of self-doubt. Someone told me about a study done of kids in primary school, and they found that the boys—I’m paraphrasing this study terribly, so if you’re the author of this study and you’re listening, my apologies—the boys kept on going with their behaviour until someone told them to stop. So they waited for someone to tell them they were doing the wrong thing. The girls, instead, needed lots of encouragement to get started.
CK: Wow.
JG: So very different. And I’ve heard people echo that in the way they train people for ministry. So for women, the confidence to get started—the confidence to be engaging in church—to be thinking through things, to be considering gospel ministry, to consider theological study—needs so much more encouragement and needs more of a tap on the shoulder. But I think particularly in this case of applying the gospel to yourself, that deep understanding of who I am in Christ is, I think, particularly important for me as a woman—
CK: Yeah.
JG: —because there are so many other voices out there saying, “This is who you are”.
CK: Yeah.
JG: Or making you question your worth.
CK: Yeah.
JG: Or myself, questioning my own worth, more than anyone else.
CK: Yeah.
JG: And the gospel speaks to that so specifically and clearly. So I think as a woman thinking through those things, the gospel is so important for how I understand myself. Yeah.
CK: So helpful.
JG: More than anything.
CK: I mean, you’ve just reiterated some things that I’ve heard from a number of women as well about that confidence. And I just want to ask one final question, maybe, as we wrap up: as we try to drive this convictional clarity to give them confidence so that the more that they get to see the gospel and how it bears upon their life—
JG: Yeah! Yeah.
CK: —who they really are in Christ—how do we actually get women—and men too—to really apprehend that? Because it’s one thing to say it and it’s another thing to believe it. It’s one thing to present it; it’s another thing for them to really take it on board. So how can we help—in particular our sisters, but also men too that would struggle with this? How do we help them move beyond just stating the truth to really [Laughter] living out the truth? Which comes full circle to your whole—
JG: Yeah.
CK: —conversation with me today?
JG: Yeah. I think it’s about retraining habits. We spent a long time getting to this point and developing habits of disconnect. So I think it actually takes a while of reconnecting it. So actually asking that question regularly: “What does the gospel have to say to this? Because I’m in Christ, how does that change this?” So for me in an organisational context, at the end of a meeting or in the middle of a meeting saying, “What does the gospel say to this? How does this change what we’re doing in this space?”
I think in terms of retraining habits, one thing I’ve found helpful is looking back over my week at the negative emotions that I’ve felt. And so, “When were those moments that I’d forgotten a core truth about who God is?” When I was angry or afraid or anxious, they’re often the times that I pick up when things have wandered off track. But I think you’d also want to ask questions about the good emotions you had last week and whether they were grounded in the gospel as well too. [Laughter] “Did I feel great ’cause it was all about me?” [Laughter] “Didn’t I do that so well?” So I think there are good times to catch that and reflect and try to make those connections as well.
I think my natural tendency and my natural shopping trolley bias is towards doing it all myself and remembering that the gospel also tells me that God is the one who initiates. My life is a response to him and all that he has done in Christ—his incredible generosity in so many ways. So to not think, “Okay, I’ve got my list. I’ve got my questions to ask myself. I need to work harder on this area”, but to spend time with him and to regularly ask for his help on this, to identify places where there’s that disconnect, to say “Sorry” and to ask for his help, spending time in his word—all those normal things that we do as part of the Christian life that are key to growing in Christ: spending time in his word, spending time in prayer, spending time with the people of God, growing in that together.
CK: So helpful. Thank you, Jo. And one thing I would say in addition is being honest about these things. I mean, you’ve just been honest with me and everyone listening about real struggles we have and real struggles you’ve had and real struggles—I mean, these are real deals for all of us, and actually being able to speak about that—
JG: Yeah.
CK: —then gives us the chance to actually help apply gospel truth to one another. So you’ve shared about some of your things, but also helped apply the truth back, and that really helps model to us ways that we can better approach these things in our lives. So thank you for sharing with us today! I really appreciate it.
JG: No worries.
CK: I’m so excited for your ministry. You’ve been at ADM now for six months. We’re praying for you—
JG: Thanks!
CK: —thankful that you’re thinking about how the gospel can shape up all that you’re thinking about doing there and in life everywhere. So thank you very much, Jo!
JG: No worries. Thanks Chase.
[Music]
CK: To benefit from more resources from the Centre for Christian Living, please subscribe to our podcast. You also might like to visit ccl.moore.edu.au, where you’ll find a host of resources, including past podcast episodes, videos from our live events and articles published through the Centre.
On our website, we also have an opportunity for you to make a tax-deductible donation to support the ongoing work of the Centre.
We always benefit from receiving questions and feedback from our listeners, so if you’d like to get in touch, you can email us at ccl@moore.edu.au.
As always, I would like to thank Moore College for its support of the Centre for Christian Living, and to thank to my assistant, Karen Beilharz, for her work in editing and transcribing the episodes. The music for our podcast was generously provided by James West.
[Music]
