Conversations: Biblical Tension

[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome to the YA podcast. Lean in. As we dive into the practicals of life with Jesus as spirit filled young adults. [00:00:27] Speaker B: Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the YA podcast. [00:00:33] Speaker A: I thought you were gonna keep singing. [00:00:34] Speaker B: No. [00:00:35] Speaker A: Damn. [00:00:36] Speaker B: The people don't want that. I am. Here it is. [00:00:39] Speaker A: Chelsea Thomas is also here. [00:00:42] Speaker B: We are here for a bit of a chatty, chatty chat. [00:00:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:00:45] Speaker B: What episode are we on? [00:00:47] Speaker A: Like, seven. [00:00:47] Speaker B: Seven? Wowza. We're almost done. [00:00:50] Speaker A: Almost done. [00:00:50] Speaker B: First season. That's crazy. [00:00:52] Speaker A: Yep. [00:00:52] Speaker B: Um, what are we talking about today? [00:00:55] Speaker A: Tensions. [00:00:57] Speaker B: What is a tension? [00:01:00] Speaker A: Yeah. Um, I mean, and why? [00:01:03] Speaker B: Yes, why is it important, the way. [00:01:05] Speaker A: You say, and how does this work? Um, I mean, I'll just jump into the why first, and then I'll kind of rewind into how this became a bit of a revelation for me. Um, and something that I. Um. Not just revelation, but something that I kind of really feel like needs to be spoken about more. So I think the why is essentially, without holding tensions between opposing opposite things, apparent opposite things. I don't think they are opposite, but they seem opposite. So without holding the tension between apparent opposites, things in life, and particularly the walk with Christmas, we can't experience the fullness of God. [00:01:51] Speaker B: Do you think that's something that the world is good at doing? [00:01:54] Speaker A: No, I don't think it's good at. I don't think anyone's good at doing it. I think it's even something. We're definitely learning how to do this as a church, but it's definitely something the world doesn't do. [00:02:04] Speaker B: Well. [00:02:06] Speaker A: The world, I mean, a classic one is we can't hold relationship in disagreement. That's a very clear tension. We don't know how to hold that tension of. I disagree with you right now, but I'm gonna maintain relationship with you because that's more important. We don't know how to hold that. [00:02:26] Speaker B: Tension well, which I think is sometimes. Why then, when we bring it into the context of biblical tensions, why we sometimes struggle to hold things in tension? Because our brains almost want to tell us, well, if it's that way, it can't be that way. [00:02:41] Speaker A: Yes, and that's why I said apparent opposites. Yes, because to us, they seem opposite. But, you know, we're not God. And I think it would be arrogant of us to assume that God just because our understanding of life is one way, that it has to be that way when it comes to God, because God is God. He is the fullness thereof. And if you are God in his entirety, surely you can be two things at once that we seem to think you can't be two things at once. So it's really that I think for me, in my journey, it's been almost this feeling of being pulled side by side. Yeah. This pendulum swing. That's the best way I can describe it. So, yeah, like, I mean, I grew up in church, as I've mentioned previously, and doing that, you know, I've probably experienced maybe like five or six churches, and not just like I rocked up on one Sunday, but like, I've actually been in them and been a part of them, served in them, or at least been exposed to the serving within those churches, whether that be, for example, I was never a part of your previous church that you were a pastor in, but through your experience, I've experienced some of those things and intending Sundays and that sort of thing. Yeah. When I was young, went to two different churches before I was in youth ministry. Then through my youth ministry years, I again attended two different youth ministries over extended periods of time for both of them. And now I'm in another church as well after that, in my young, as adult years. And I think I've seen this pendulum swing where I think, especially in youth ministry and young adults ministry, you go too far one direction, and so everything gets pulled back and you swing in the complete opposite direction. So I think, you know, one of these kind of examples could be that everything goes hard after, like, Holy Spirit. Just like the freedom of God and the freedom of the spirit, let the spirit move. All very good things and true statements, but then when that, when people get hurt, where we lose control, where we don't necessarily understand, there's people and sometimes entire churches that will swing to the complete opposite. Miracles are not for today. The Holy Spirit doesn't speak. Prophecy is not for today. Speaking in tongues is wrong in these contexts. So they swing as a reaction to going too far in one direction. And so you experience that when you're in the church, right? Like you. It's almost like spiritual whiplash sometimes. [00:05:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:05:36] Speaker A: And I think one very clear example that I can think of for me was when I was in youth, and there was this freedom at play at this. It was particularly at a youth camp that I can remember, and there was just this freedom of movement, and Holy Spirit was moving and everything. But because some leaders decided that it was for whatever reason, and that's their call as leaders to make, I will emphasize I was a youth at this point. There was immaturities in me, but this was the feeling as a youth and a young person that there was this freedom, and then it was seemingly out of control. Now, as a young person in that environment, I didn't feel like that. [00:06:24] Speaker B: You were like, this is awesome. [00:06:25] Speaker A: Yeah. So, like, the spirit was moving, right? [00:06:27] Speaker B: Yeah. And I guess you didn't know any. [00:06:29] Speaker A: I didn't know any different, and. But, so that out of control nature caused leaders to come in and restrict and go. That only happens in this context or in the timeframe that we allow it or. Yeah, there was this. It came back to control of. We need to understand and we need to know how this is happening. And. And there. There can be pure intentions in this of protecting people and helping people and all of those things, but I think the fundamental truth is that we need to be able to hold two things at the same time. Now, let's just get a really tangible example. Faith and works. Justified by faith or justified by works. They seem opposite. And it's a massive debate. Whole denominations split over this issue. Right. And people move churches over there and it's. It's one or the other. And it's like, well, no, I'm saved by grace in faith in Jesus Christ. Right. But I actually still need to outwork that. Right. I still need to outwork my salvation. And I think we've come to this point where it's like you either believe this or you believe that. It's like. But no, I believe both. Why can't we believe both? Because God is full in that. Does that make sense? Have I unpacked that in a way that actually makes sense? [00:08:06] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's. I mean, I guess the practical example that you gave was, like, a very tangible thing where the tensions weren't held of. Like, there needs to be the free movement of the spirit, but also spiritual covering to create safety. [00:08:25] Speaker A: Yes. [00:08:26] Speaker B: But then in the example about faith and works, it's a tension that actually, if we don't hold the tension, we miss the fullness of who God is because we're trying to almost box God into one or the other. [00:08:39] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's it. It's like we're not saved by works, but we actually need to work out our salvation. And I think that's, again, that tension where some people sit in the camp of, oh, I'm saved by grace and grace alone, so I don't have to do anything. And then they don't see any transformation in their life. Their life doesn't change. And then eventually those people often blame it on God. But then the other side of that is, oh, yeah, 100%, I'm saved by grace. But if I don't do, then I'm gonna lose my salvation. I'm like, those are two opposite ends of the spectrum where it's, I'm saved by grace and only by grace alone. I live and I breathe, and all things is from Jesus to Jesus through Jesus, 100%. And I'm in that camp, but because of that, I outwork. [00:09:27] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think I'm almost seeing. The conversation almost comes from two perspectives. The first one being actually us being able to understand the fullness of God through the biblical perspective of, if we're not able to acknowledge, identify, acknowledge, and hold the tensions in the way that we read the Bible, we're going to miss the reason why God put it there in the first place. But the other side of that, I guess the other side of the coin is almost like the practical tensions that we need to hold as a disciple of Jesus that allow us to walk out the fullness of his call for us. So, like an example I can think of, and I can't remember the name. You can jump in because you know who I'm talking about. But the revivalist who essentially, you know, God started to pour out this. His spirit, and this guy literally just went hard for, like, I don't know, five years or something and then completely burnt out. You know who I'm talking about? [00:10:25] Speaker A: Well, it's the welsh revival. Wow, I can't believe I'm forgetting this. Yeah, it's the welsh revival. [00:10:30] Speaker B: Welsh revival guy. [00:10:31] Speaker A: Oh, man. [00:10:32] Speaker B: You guys are gonna be yelling at us because so many people have talked about this. But let's just pause. [00:10:36] Speaker A: I'm gonna find it. [00:10:37] Speaker B: Okay, we're gonna pause. [00:10:39] Speaker A: Found it. I said Edward Roberts, but it's Evan. [00:10:41] Speaker B: Evan Roberts. So take an example. Like, his life, he was passionately zealous after the things of God, but he didn't know how to rest. [00:10:51] Speaker A: Yes, really good. [00:10:52] Speaker B: So he burnt out. And actually, you could argue. I mean, I guess God only knows, right? That's kind of the mystery of God. What would have happened with his life if he had known how to Sabbath and had known how to rest? Maybe that could have been a sustained revival for 2030, 40, 50. Like, we don't know. That's just the mystery of God. But you can point to that thing and go, well, he needed to learn. And same way we need to learn the going after God's heart and being fully sold out for the kingdom in a practical sense, like, we want to work hard. We want to go after the things of God. We want to have awesome services, we want to have awesome life groups, all of these things. But also God gave us a gift of rest. So how do we learn how to navigate the tension of being, being fully sold out for the things of the kingdom, but also knowing how to rest and actually allow him to be in control? So it's kind of. Yeah, that biblical side of things, but also the practical side of things, of taking those concepts and applying them into the way we interpret the Bible, but then also the way that we live out our lives. [00:11:56] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And even in that example, it's our lack of understanding of, or our understanding of rest being unproductive that causes us to lean on one side of the spectrum. Or then our burnt out nature of going hard then causes us to pendulum swing to the entire opposite end where we do nothing but rest. And so we see that pendulum here again, I think a really classic one, that is a constant awareness thing. And sometimes people don't, we don't know how to reconcile it. Again, this is why we feel that pendulum swing often in church is the fear of God and the grace of God or the mercy of God. And. Yeah, I mean, I don't have much to say really, other than there is a fear of God. God is powerful, God is God, and that is the reality. But then Jesus comes and shows us the mercy and the grace of God. How do I hold the tension of God, of the fear of God, and yet call him father? [00:13:04] Speaker B: Yeah, that's so true. [00:13:06] Speaker A: Because some people lean way too far on the side of the fear of God that they never come to as a father. But some people lean so closely on the grace of God that they end up being back in slavery to sin. [00:13:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:13:17] Speaker A: That they use their. They use the grace card of I can go and sin all I like as long as I come and repent for it. But that's a lack. You won't experience the fullness of God like that, like you've experienced his grace 100%. But I mean, I'd argue if you have experienced his true grace, if you keep on sinning and then just come back and repent, but you're going to miss out on the fullness of who God is, just leaning on that one characteristic of grace, because you lack the transformative work of the fear of God and the might and power of God. We need both. We actually need to sit with both and not go one way or the other. Do you have anything to add? [00:14:01] Speaker B: Yeah. On that specifically? [00:14:03] Speaker A: No. Another topic or. [00:14:05] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I guess even another one you could point to is, like, spiritual gifts and holding tensions of different spiritual gifts. [00:14:14] Speaker A: Yep. [00:14:14] Speaker B: And I think this is a big one that we often see in churches and where the fivefold is just the best. [00:14:24] Speaker A: The fivefold is always in tension. [00:14:26] Speaker B: Yes. The fivefold has to be intention. They live in tension. And it's almost like God gave us that design so that his character could be reflected in tension in the church. Because, you know, for example, I can even think of when I was pastoring in Perth, back at my previous church, like, such a practical example. Like, I remember one of our pastors, my campus pastor for a long time, was very, very. He was a massive evangelist. [00:14:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:53] Speaker B: And he was always like, dream big, Kelsey. Like, what can you think? Like, how are we gonna get all these kids saved? And, you know, if you want to buy, like, I remember having a conversation. He's like, what's the craziest, like, idea you can have for an outreach? Like, you know, you could buy, like, a motorbike and give away a motorbike or, like, give away a pair of sneakers. I don't know. Like, anything you can think of to, like, get kids there to hear the gospel and blah, blah, blah. So he was, like, always passionately going after that. And what that did for the youth ministry was, I remember, like, one of the first nights we launched, we had, like, 80 kids just rock up, like, which for a new church like, youth ministry plan is, like, ridiculous. But the issue was that there was so many new people that needed Jesus and so many people from the community that we were able to outreach to. But then there was no one who was able to bring that heart of truth, of the word of God and actually teach them and even, to an extent, pastor them, that a lot of those guys ended up just falling off the bandwagon because there wasn't that solidifying their discipleship. And it actually ended up really shifting the culture of the youth ministry because it was so outreach focused and so evangelistic that even, like, I remember there being some with, like, the church kids that were like, we're too scared to come. It's like, we want to learn about Jesus, but there's just. The culture was so suede. But then I remember a season, like, later on where it almost pendulum swung a complete other way, where it was very pastoral and very teaching focused, but there was almost no outreach. And so it's like, well, then if we're pendulum swinging too hard, even in the way that we do ministry and the way that we do life as christians, we're not actually reflecting the full heart of God to the world because we're leaning too heavily on certain characteristics of God more than others. And I think it's the same in the way that we approach spiritual gifts is, you know, just because you're super crazy prophetic and have an incredible creative gift doesn't mean that you're not responsible also for pastoring people and to show the grace of God to people. You know, if you're getting like, crazy prophetic words that this person's in this cycle of sin, if you're to go and, you know, like, approach that person and be like, you know, you're sinning or like, whatever, I don't know, like crazy vibes, like not biblical prophet vibes. [00:17:13] Speaker A: Old Testament. [00:17:13] Speaker B: Yeah. And you're not bringing the pastoral shepherd heart of Jesus. You're not actually reflecting the character of God to people properly. [00:17:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:17:22] Speaker B: And you bring that higher into the unity of the body. And, you know, you can't say that one person's more important than the other because we all need to hold each other almost intentionally in the way that we do community so that God is actually fully reflected in our church communities. It's like there's so many different scales you can take this to. [00:17:41] Speaker A: And one that I'll touch on, one tension that I want to touch on before we maybe move on from examples is truth and love. [00:17:49] Speaker B: Yes. [00:17:50] Speaker A: That's a huge one. That the reason I want. Yeah, I want to talk about this because I think it's maybe at the moment in this generation, the main one that us as young adults struggle with, because we acknowledge that Jesus is Lord, we love the word of God, we believe that it is truth. Yet how do we love people that are not living lives that are in alignment with the word of God? And there's two ways we can do that. [00:18:18] Speaker B: Either we can, and that's also people not living their lives in, align with the word of God. Both people who are saved and unsaved. [00:18:24] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. [00:18:25] Speaker B: It's actually a twofold. [00:18:26] Speaker A: Yeah, totally. Because the, the unsaved conversation sometimes is easy. We just brush it off and go, well, they're not safe, so they don't have to live in alignment. But then how do we have the conversations about why they should become a Christ follower? Yeah. And why maybe their life isn't as good as they first seem. And then the other side of that is we lean on truth too hard and we cut people off. We don't have a relationship, we hurt people. And this is, you know, we use the word of God without love. We've misused the word of God and we hurt people, we cut people, and then they hate God even though they were never introduced to God in the first place. Or we live too hard on the love side. And we love people really, really well, but we leave them broken and we leave them in their sin, which I question is that actually loving them? So, and this is the example, like you said, we don't, if we don't hold that tension of truth and love, we give the world a false representation of who God is. And we do not. We. We do them a disservice. And I think that's where my heart burden is because, and I mean, I've said this many times in many different ways, but I love the word of God, and I'm contending for the fullness of God that I have read in his word that has been revealed to me time and time and time again. And if I want the fullness of God in my life and in other people's lives, I need to learn how to hold these tensions. [00:19:58] Speaker B: Well, yeah. [00:19:59] Speaker A: And I've been there, like, I've been all truth and I've had to learn how to love with truth, because if you say something without love, you've, it's actually no longer true. And if you say if you love someone without truth, it's no longer love. [00:20:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:20:16] Speaker A: Which is a hard thing to get around. And I think it's something that we need to wrestle with. It's something that we need to learn is how do we say something true but love someone? That's why we need Holy Spirit and a knowledge of the word of God. [00:20:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:20:32] Speaker A: Those two hand in hand. [00:20:34] Speaker B: Hundred percent. [00:20:35] Speaker A: And to rightly handle the word of God. [00:20:37] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think the Holy Spirit, I'm so thankful that we got the Holy Spirit. [00:20:43] Speaker A: How do we live life otherwise? [00:20:44] Speaker B: We really need the helper because the other, I guess, like, interesting side of holding tensions is that we need to hold the tension. But then there's sometimes that the Holy Spirit leads us to lean more from one side to the other. [00:20:59] Speaker A: Yes. [00:21:00] Speaker B: So say, for example, in the conversation of spirit and truth, truth and love. [00:21:06] Speaker A: Spirit and truth is another one. [00:21:07] Speaker B: Yeah. Spirit and truth is another tension. But truth and love, it's like, well, you might go into a situation with someone where they're really, really struggling with, say, their sexuality. Let's just use that as an example. And we can very easily point to the truth about what the Bible says about sexuality. But in that particular context, you might go into that discussion with that person and realize yes, they need to hear the truth, but right now, they actually need my love. [00:21:37] Speaker A: Yes. [00:21:38] Speaker B: And that the issue isn't actually to do with their sexuality, it's to do with their identity, and they don't know that they're loved as a son and daughter. [00:21:44] Speaker A: Yeah, but if you don't love them, well, by listening first, you're not gonna give them the correct truth. [00:21:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:48] Speaker A: So don't be the truth about sexuality in that moment. [00:21:50] Speaker B: But there could also be another situation where you go into a conversation with someone and the context of where that person's at is completely different, and you're going, okay, holy spirit, what do they actually need from me right now as a representative of Christ in this situation? And it could be. No, they actually do need that hard truth right now, still delivered in love, but they need the truth of. All right, we are going to sit down and read what does the Bible say about this right now? [00:22:14] Speaker A: Totally. [00:22:15] Speaker B: Whereas our other friend, it's like, no, they actually need someone to show the mercy of Jesus, of, hey, I love you unconditionally right now. And I know you're struggling with that, and I know that that's, you know, a real challenge for you, but I'm just gonna be here to love you and support you. And so that's the grace of the holy spirit as well. And, I mean, you can put that in literally any of these tensions is there's sometimes in our lives, we know that the fear of God and the grace of God are held in tension, but there's. It's the nature of God and the beauty of who he is, that sometimes he's just gonna pour out his grace on you. And whatever circumstance you're going through or whatever you're feeling, he's like, son, daughter, like, I'm pouring my grace out on you right now. But then there's other times where you're like, oh, gee, like, I'm really having a revelation of the fear of God right now, and it's bringing that humility back to us, protecting us of, like, dang. Like, we need this. [00:23:08] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's. [00:23:10] Speaker B: And it's not that when you're in that moment with God that he's removing the other side of the tension. It's still being held. It's just he's revealing that facet of his character to you in that certain situation. [00:23:19] Speaker A: It's more. It's still. The tension's still. There is just one facet of his character is becoming more salient, more visible, more real in that moment. We could talk about this forever. But I guess before we may move on to a couple of practical things, it was helpful for me to find the positiveness of tensions in the everyday world, because it helped me start to picture why this exists and what God was doing in his perfect design. So one of these things, when I did psychology, and you look at the two hemispheres, two halves of a brain, they actually work in opposition. But because they were. [00:24:05] Speaker B: God literally created our brains to be intentional. [00:24:07] Speaker A: Yes, but because they work in opposition, not necessarily. They're not fighting each other, but they work oppositely. They work in the opposite way to each other. Because of this, we're actually able to do greater things with our minds than what could first be done. So it's in. It's inbuilt into the design of our brains. Is one hemisphere working the opposite to the other? And, yeah, it's built into that design. The other one, which we're now actually working out, is the way AI computing is actually set up. The very most basic AI is essentially you put two computer programs together and you make them fight. So you give them a problem and you go, how can you solve this problem to both of them? One solves it, and then the other person points out the other computer points out all the flaws in it and solves it better. And it's these two computers making each other better because they're working in opposition to one another. The last one, which I absolutely love, is the truth of a married couple, of a male and female together. I mean, there's the gender discussion about males and females in opposition. That's one thing. But when you actually look at into Genesis and the wording behind in Hebrew and the connotations that that holds is that God created not just a helper, but the language points to a helper in opposition to you, an opposing force to you, which is great. You go, why would God create an opposing force to me? Yeah, because the two together can actually go greater, as we've already seen. It's when you actually sometimes oppose me and you sharpen me because you're opposing me. That iron on iron kind of thing is one picture. The other picture. Again, if we go into psychology, because I'm going to keep going back, there is when you are trying to go forwards with something. So picture forward motion, this is easier if we film it, but anyway, forward motion, and you move your finger from left to right, for example, it's going to go forwards, but they might be a bit shaky. There might be a bit of up and down movement. Now, if you have your hand and then put your fist against it. Now move your hand from left to right because there's an opposing force. It's more steady, it's more stable. It's going to actually be able to go where it needs to go with more accuracy. [00:26:44] Speaker B: So we need the tensions of the Bible to help hold us in more steady understanding of who God is to keep us stable. Yes. It actually keeps us more stable when we hold the tensions and gets us a greater result. Result, quote unquote, in our journey towards. [00:27:00] Speaker A: Becoming more like it keeps us closer to the will of the father. [00:27:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:04] Speaker A: And that's the point of tensions. So we need to hold tensions in order to be in the will of the father, not just to know all of him, but to actually outwork the fullness of him. And that's why tensions are so important. Yeah, maybe let's just wrap up with maybe some things that stop us from holding an intention that we can talk about so that we can then start to work through as individuals in our lives with peers, life groups, etcetera. A big one that I've seen in church world especially is hurt. When we're hurt, we go to the furthest side of the other pendulum. [00:27:46] Speaker B: Yeah, so true. [00:27:47] Speaker A: We're hurt by something or someone misusing one character. We're hurt by the Bible, and so we lean on the grace of God, or we lean on the love of God, or we're hurt by the freedom in the room. And so we need to control things. Hurt is a big, big one. Reactionary. We're just reacting the. Oh, I know that happened quick. Do the opposite. A couple of others, maybe just to finish up ignorance. [00:28:16] Speaker B: Yeah. Misunderstanding. [00:28:18] Speaker A: We never understood that God was that we didn't know how to implement that. Perhaps deception. We can actually be deceived. We can. And I think that's. That's strife at the moment, especially when it comes to this sort of stuff. We can be deceived that God is all this one thing and not that, and so we need to be have the word to renew our mind. Yeah. We just sometimes like to be in control. Yeah, true. Yeah. Do you have anything to add on that? [00:28:51] Speaker B: No, I think it could be good to. I don't know, maybe one of your Bible chats can be a bit more on the biblical tension side of things and go into the nitty gritty of some scriptures that might help people see those tensions illustrated through the Bible. [00:29:04] Speaker A: We might put some of these scriptures, some scriptures in the notes of the show. That'd be helpful. Maybe just so they can start to read them. But yeah, I reckon in a Bible chat coming up, we'll discuss that. To leave you with one image because this just changed the game for me. We picture either a pendulum or we picture being held by two ropes and we have to keep them tense and we're being pulled side to side by these ropes. But a better picture is that of a sailboat. And the sail on a sailboat is tethered to two points and must be held by those two points in tension in order to catch the wind and go where it needs to go. Yeah, and if it's not held in tension, it won't go where it needs to go. It'll be harder to control, harder to be steered, all those sorts of things. And tensions help us catch the wind of the Holy Spirit and to be steered by him to a greater degree and to a greater accuracy keeps us safe. Boom. Yeah, that's that. Biblical tensions. We'd love to keep the chat going. [00:30:03] Speaker B: Sometime and I think it's really what we've talked about today has probably been a bit more high level. I think this is probably going to keep coming up because I think this is one of the biggest things to learn as we understand what it is to wrestle totally in our faith. So if you guys do have any questions, we want to hear them. If you guys have any thoughts or feelings or ideas or even things that you notice at attentions, we want to hear about it because it might even give us some direction for future conversations that could be helpful for you guys that are a bit more specific to things that you guys are facing in your world. So we want to hear about it. Hit us up. [00:30:42] Speaker A: We'll chat soon. [00:30:43] Speaker B: Yeah, we'll see you soon. And we love you guys. Bye.