June 21, 2023 Show with Chad Bird on “The Old Testament Guide to Messy Discipleship”

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Introduction and the Theme of Messy Discipleship

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron.

This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today. Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better. It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 21st day of June 2023.

I'm thrilled to have as a first-time guest today someone who, although being a Missouri Synod Lutheran, was recommended to me by several Reformed Baptists, of which I am one, and his name is Chad Bird.

He is an author, scholar-in-residence at 1517, and co-host of the popular podcast 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. Today, we're going to be addressing his book, Limping with God, Jacob and the Old Testament Guide to Messy Discipleship.

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Chad Bird.

Thank you, Chris. Glad to be here.

Oh, it's a thrill to have you on the program. I thoroughly enjoyed your book. There were a couple of disagreements I had with it, which I will bring up at some point. But all in all, I was blessed by it richly, and I recommend it to our listeners.

1517, Reformation Theology, and Teaching the Gospel with an Old Testament Accent

First of all, tell us about 1517.

Yes, 1517. As those who know the history of the Reformation know, that was the year in which we typically say the Reformation began. That was when Martin Luther nailed the 95 PCs on the church door, the spark that set off the Reformation.

So 1517 gets its name from that year. We are an organization, nonprofit, that's based in Reformation theology, and so thus the name. Basically, what we do is we take the good news of Christ crucified and resurrected for us, and we just get it out there in as many ways as we can, whether that's your podcast or your publishing house, through in-person events, through videos, free academy courses, you name it.

We're in all those various areas, taking the message of the gospel to people. What I do is my background is in Hebrew and the Old Testament, and so as I like to say, I teach the gospel with an Old Testament accent.

So whether I'm writing books, such as this one about Jacob, or whether I'm podcasting or in-person events, I will draw upon the Old Testament as a way of confessing the good news and bringing that to people in whatever form that might be.

So apologetics, theology, Bible, all of that is kind of what 1517 is all about.

And for more details on 1517, go to 1517 .org. In fact, some of you, after this live program is over, you might want to go to the Iron Sharpens Iron radio website, ironsharpensironradio .com, and type in the archive, or should I say the search engine for the archive, Scott Keith, and you will hear an interview I conducted with Scott, who is with 1517 as well.

You will hear an interview I conducted with him on January 8th of 2018 on his book, Being Dad, Father as a Picture of God's Grace. So I hope you enjoy that program as well. Well, before we get into the actual book, Limping with God, Jacob and the Old Testament Guide to Messy Discipleship, this book was not written in a vacuum.

Personal Failure, Humbling, and Learning the Language of the Languishing

Your own personal experience as a person who views himself as a sinner saved by grace helped to give birth to this book. I mean, that really exuded throughout the book. And you actually were honest enough to discuss at least briefly at some point in the book some of your own failures as a Christian, as a husband, and so on.

If you care to mention any of that so we get an idea, so our listeners will get an idea, the frame of mind and the experience that you have had as a Christian that led you to write this book to begin with.

Yeah, I'd be happy to. So to tell a little bit about my background, I was raised in a church-going family. As Southern Baptists, we were in church every Sunday. And very thankful for the fact that I had a very godly mother and father who introduced me to the Word of God, took me to church, took me to Sunday school, so that I was immersed from an early age in the scriptures.

In fact, it seems as if when I was even a little boy, I had a fascination with the Old Testament at one point. I memorized all of Genesis 1. And that, I guess, was an early indication of the fact that the Old Testament was always going to be at the forefront of my heart and mind.

Later in life, later in my young adult years, I went on to university and seminary, served as a pastor for a while. And then I was actually called back to the seminary to teach Hebrew and various Old Testament courses.

And it was a great job. It was really my dream job. And to kind of get to what you were alluding to earlier, it was during that time that really pride got to me. And as we all know, pride goes before fall, and mighty was my fall.

I basically ruined my life and was left without many friends, without much of a reputation, without a marriage, and also only seeing my kids a couple weekends a month. It was a very, very dark and trying time in my life.

God used that in order to humble me as well as to work, as He always works, to conform us to the death of Christ and to raise us to newness of life. And also during that time, He began to really put me in the Psalms so that I learned there the language of the languishing.

And I learned that in our darkest times is often when we see the light of Christ most.

Clearly.

So that was a formative period in my life. And it was at the end of that that I began to work for 1517, part-time first and then full-time. And I've been with him for about three years now. And so what I like to say is that I draw upon my academic experience at Hebrew Union College, where I worked on a graduate degree, and my pastoral experience, as well as my experience in what Luther calls the Tentatio and the struggle, the Anfectum, the cross-bearing of life.

In order to pull all these together, pastoral experience and teaching experience and this real-life experience, in order to take the Scriptures and to bring out of them this message of hope as well as the call to repentance that we have in, well, books like Genesis and the life of Jacob and whatever else it might be.

So I'm grateful now for how God used my struggles and failures in the past in order to break me down and to reshape me into what I hope is a faithful servant of the Word and one who can communicate that to others.

Amen. Again, only the Christian can find hope and peace of mind in the fact, in the promise that Romans 8 .28 offers. Romans 8 .28 is often used in a cliche manner, unfortunately. It's used as a placard.

It's thrown out there very often in greeting cards and other things to anybody that may be going through a trial, maybe going through grief, depression, failure, or what have you. But only the Christian can claim that all things will work together for the good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose.

And that's all things. And that includes our sin, doesn't it? It doesn't mean that that gives us a license to sin. It doesn't mean that that gives us a motivation, oh, I should sin because God's going to use it for my good.

But we don't have to look at our past sins and say that I have no hope for a future, I have no hope of being used by God, I am a failure, and I should just be discarded in the trash heap of humanity. We know that God can even use our sins for our good.

Is that correct?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we see that exemplified clearly in the cross of Christ, but we see that already exemplified in the book of Genesis with Joseph. I mean, Joseph makes it explicit, right? You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.

Yeah, so God was able to use these backstabbing brothers who sold their own brother into slavery and lied to their father and broke his heart and did all these terrible things. God was able to use that to put Joseph where he wanted him in order that through Joseph he might bring life to all of those people that he saved by planning for the upcoming famine.

And we see that same thing throughout the Scriptures, where God is using broken humanity, rebellious humanity, and he's using these things in order to work toward his ultimate goal of bringing salvation to us in Christ.

Yes, your views of the sovereignty of God over even human sin are making me wonder, are you sure you're not a Calvinist?

Well, we have a lot in common, let's put it that way.

Well, I'm glad to hear you say that because I have grown to know many Lutherans over the years, and although I think the majority of those that I know have that view, there are some that have a real antagonistic view towards Calvinism and Calvinists.

But I'm glad that you are not among them. As we have a tradition of doing on this program, we have first-time guests give a summary of their salvation story. Although we have one gospel and one Lord God Savior and King Jesus Christ and one Word of God, we do have different stories of how God and his providence have led us to himself.

So we'd like to hear something about your story in summary form, the kind of religious atmosphere, if any, in which you were raised, and the kind of providential circumstances our Sovereign Lord raised up in your life that drew you to himself and saved you.

Salvation Story, Childhood Faith, and the Shepherding of God

Yeah, as I mentioned a few minutes ago, I was blessed to be born into a Christian family, and so as I was just discussing with a friend of mine earlier today, there never was a time in my life when I can remember being outside church in the sense of never going.

So from my earliest years, I was always in the pew singing the hymns, hymns many of which I still know by heart, going to Sunday school, learning these foundational stories. And every meal, my family would have a prayer.

I saw the life of the Christian exemplified in my own mother and father. And early in my life, probably actually very, very young for the tradition in which I found myself as a Southern Baptist, I believed, I confessed, and I was baptized.

I think I was probably five, maybe six years old, which is very, very young, at least at that time, very young for someone who was a Southern Baptist to, as they would say, to make a public profession and then to be baptized.

But I contribute that to the fact that I was hearing the gospel. I was hearing about Christ crucified and risen for me, and the Spirit does what the Spirit does. He uses that word to work faith in the hearts of men and women, as well as little boys and girls.

So as a little boy, the Spirit used that word to work faith in my heart. And even that young, I can still remember the day in which I knew that I believed, and then I was later baptized. So I'm grateful for that foundation that I had.

There have been many times, as I was talking about a few minutes ago, many times in my life where, due to my own sin and rebellion, I strayed from that path. But God, His mercy brought me back. Like the end of Psalm 119 says, I've gone astray like a lost sheep.

And God brings me back. He goes and puts that one lost sheep on His shoulders. Sometimes that has been me, and He brings me back home. So I've always been part of the church's life. There was a period during my life when I was upset, confused, shamed, and did not go to church as much as I needed to.

But again, God was patient with me. He restored me. And I'm grateful now to be one who not only is part of the faith, believes and goes to church, but also is privileged to be able to share that with others, to give them hope, to give them the comfort that we have in Christ.

Amen. I'm going to give our listeners our e-mail address. If you would like to join the conversation with a question of your own for Chad Byrd, our e-mail address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com.

As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence, if you live outside of the USA. We would ask of you to do that, but obviously if there is some kind of a personal and private question that you have, especially since we are dealing with, in this devotional Limping with God, we're dealing with how God uses broken people, that just because someone has sinned miserably and failed miserably in this life, if they repent and return to God, he can use them in many powerful ways.

I mean, even when we view the apostle Paul as a primary example, but obviously that may lend itself if you're listening and you are one of those people, perhaps you just are at a point in your life where you believe God is through with you.

You can never be used of him in any significant way or in any way at all, again, and you have a question that would compel you to remain anonymous. We understand that, but if it's a general question, we just ask of you to please give us your first name, city and state and country of residence.

Jacob is a very interesting character in the Old Testament, in the entirety of the scriptures,.

Actually.

Obviously a Calvinist's heart starts beating very quickly when they hear Jacob, because it's one of the primary figures in the scriptures that we use when we are defending our own understanding of unconditional election.

And Jacob, I love and Esau, I hate it. But why is it that in this book you decided to use Jacob as a poster boy for the average disciple as a person who we can connect with, unless of course the self-righteous among us who likely are not regenerate, if they really are, they're not going to see a connection because they don't view themselves as a sinner.

But we should, as you probably agree, echo the apostle Paul's own words when we view ourselves as the chief of centers. But tell us why Jacob, why is he the poster boy in this book?

Well,.

For reasons, one of the reasons is because we know so much about him. So he is a character, really the first character in the scriptures in which we know everything, not everything, but we know at least a lot about him from the very beginning of his life to the very end.

We know quite a bit about Abraham, for instance, and some about Isaac, but we meet Jacob literally in utero. He's not even been born yet. And then we follow his steps all the way from that moment to his very end, to his death, to his death in Egypt.

So we have a lot of information, a lot of biographical information about him. We meet him in Genesis 25, halfway through the book. And then we hear about his death later in the book of Genesis. So that's one reason.

There's a lot to work with there. We get to really know him as a personality, as a character. Anyone who's read his story knows that he is a fascinating character, fascinating in some good ways and fascinating in some bad ways, but he's certainly never boring.

He's very, he's very helpful. So one of the reasons is, is that another reason, and really the primary reason that I decided to use him,.

As you say,.

As kind of a poster boy for discipleship is because I see him as, in many ways, as exemplifying who we also are as sinner saints, as those who are redeemed by the beloved Christ and made holy by the.

Spirit,.

But also at the same time, we still struggle with our, with our sinful nature. And we see the sinful nature in Jacob exemplified in many forms and fashions and his interactions with his brother, with his parents, with his wives, with his kids, with, with other people as well.

So when I look at the life of Jacob, I see myself reflected. I see a lot of other people reflected. And in the midst of this life, that's got its, its problems, its family issues, its failures. We have a God who steadfastly loves Jacob.

He chose him. He called him. He made him his own. He promised him his blessing. And in many ways, most shockingly of all, he used this guy who has all of these, these problems as also Israel. So the, what we might think of as the head of the Old Testament church, as it were the, the one really after him, the people of God are named.

So that fascinated me. And I wanted to take some time to really immerse myself in his story, get to know him and to get to knowing him, know myself better and getting to know Jacob and myself better also better understand and appreciate the fact that God loves Jacob.

God loves me. God loves us as, as sinners and as failures. And it's not our, it's not our sins that as it were tell, keep God away from us, but rather he, he comes to us. He calls us to himself, calls us to repentance and blesses us as we, as I say, live along in this life of discipleship.

Writing as Revelation and the Death of Chad Bird's Son

Okay. We do have already an anonymous listener. An anonymous listener says, how much of what you know now about yourself and about God and about theology and the Bible came about while you are still in the process of writing this book, or were most of those things predominantly resolved in your mind before you hit pen to paper?

That's a great question. I think that anyone who has taken up their pen or their, their computer and begun to write a book is, is first of all, working with certain amount of knowledge, certain amount of biblical knowledge, theological knowledge, knowledge about themselves.

But the process of writing is itself revelatory in the sense that it reveals things about us. And as we, as we begin to, to go through the biblical story, we're going to, especially you kind of slow down as you're going, as you're writing a book like this, you have to, you're slowing down the biblical story.

You begin to see things that you didn't see before or connections that you, that you didn't see before. And along with those connections, along with those new insights, you not only understand the biblical text better, but you also,.

If you're,.

If you're doing this in a very, in a very honest sort of way, you begin to learn more, learn more about your, yourself as well. And I'll go ahead and add this because this is not in the book. And so someone who's read the book would not have known this.

And unless, you know, my personal history of the last year, you would know this as well. But so this book came out this last July. I wrote it the year before, but it was published in, in July. And it was, it was released about four days after the death of my 21 year old son,.

Luke.

So of course, when I was writing the book in the eight, 12 months before its release, I had no idea that this was going to happen. It was not anywhere on my horizon. Luke died in a, in a hiking accident.

So when he was,.

He was in,.

He's a student at the United States Naval Academy. He was studying abroad in Chile and during a hiking accident,.

He,.

He was killed. Now I say that because what has been remarkable to me is that when I have re read portions of the book, and especially when my readers read the book, many of them reached out to me to say something along the lines of Chad, it seems as if what you wrote here, God had you say, because he knew that you yourself would need to read it later on.

So I, I think that's an appropriate point to, to add that because sometimes we even write things and,.

Okay, yes,.

We're learning as we write, we're learning more about, about ourselves and then by Jacob, but even sometimes afterward, we realize more about the things that are in the book that we never really knew because we had yet to experience.

Things in life that give, give us a different perspective on how God is at work in our lives.

Well, thank you, anonymous listener. I'm not sure why you chose to be anonymous since that was a fairly general question, but perhaps you are going through something very painful in your life. You want to have hope that God can still use you if you have repented and returned to him.

Well, you are going to receive, if you provide for me your full name and full mailing address through an email, obviously that won't be divulged over the air, but you will receive a free copy of Limping with God, Jacob and the Old Testament Guide to Messy Discipleship, compliments of our friends at 1517 and also compliments of our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service who will actually be shipping the book out to you.

And that is at no charge to you or to us. So thank you for your question. We're going to be going to our very first commercial break right now. If you want to get in line and ask a question of your own of Chad Bird on his book, Limping with God, Jacob and the Old Testament Guide to Messy Discipleship.

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com. Of course, we will broaden the field for questions. For instance, if you have a curiosity about his Lutheran faith specifically, you may ask that anything involving his knowledge and wisdom and experience and studies in the Old Testament, whatever the case may be, we'll allow you to ask the question if it is relatively connected to my guest and what we're discussing.

So send us an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com, c-h-r-i-s-a-r-n-z-e-n at gmail .com. And as always, give us your first name, at least your city and state of residence and your country of residence.

If you live outside the USA, don't go away. We'll be right back with Chad Bird and Limping with God right after these messages from our sponsors.

The Theology of the Cross, God's Upside-Down Ways, and Choosing Jacob

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Hidden Streams, A Field Guide to the Bible, and Other Podcasts

Yeah, I'd be happy to.

Hidden Streams is a devotional podcast. It's based on the Psalms, the way it's structured is a psalm will be read or if it's a longer psalm then a portion of that psalm will be read, that'll be followed by a brief meditation by me, which is usually about 5 minutes that is then followed by original music that's composed to compliment the psalm and right now I think that we're.

I don't know how many episodes this is but we're around 100 and Psalm 109 so quite a few episodes are out, we're going to finish the book of Psalms and we're going to move on to other poetic parts of the Old Testament.

So Hidden Streams has been going on for the last, I think, probably 3 or 4 years now. We also have one more podcast out. It's a finished podcast. It's called A Field Guide to the Bible. I did that with two of my colleagues in 1517, it's 20 something episodes and what we did is.