Highway to the Theology Zone with Chase Davis of Full Proof Theology DMW#221

Dead Men Walking

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Exploring theology, doctrine, and all of the fascinating subjects in between, broadcasting from an undisclosed location,

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Dead Men Walking starts now. Well, hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of Dead Men Walking podcast.

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Thanks for coming along on the ride. Thanks for sharing with a friend. Thanks for viewing and subscribing on Spotify and Apple and YouTube and all those places you can find us.

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You can find out more about us at dmwpodcast .com. We've also got some snarky t -shirts there that you can pick up.

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Big sellers are the Wynum, Dynum, Romans, Nynum. That's a good conversation starter. We just released our

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How About You Shut Up and Let That Be Your Wisdom, Job 13 .5 t -shirt. People seem to like that one.

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Sometimes you gotta just quote scripture to the pagans, you know what I mean, even if they don't like the verse. But guys, we're at the top of the show.

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I just gotta tell you a couple things and then we're gonna get right into it. Always Jacob's Supply, sponsor of the show. Local guy that owns a construction materials business.

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I mean, he's got doors and roofs and decks and appliances, 30, 40, 50 % off. jacobsupply .com.

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He's a reformed brother in the Lord. His business has exploded because he treats people right. And all of my projects that I do at home here,

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I built a chicken coop, I built a smoking gazebo. I mean, I get all my stuff there. Metal roofing, 4x4s, railings, all that stuff.

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It's half the price. He buys out wholesale nationwide and he ships nationwide too.

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So make sure you guys check him out, jacobsupply .com or you can call him at 734 -224 -0978.

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We got guys coming from 8, 10, 12 hours away. Also, two conferences coming up. We will not be attending these conferences, but I highly suggest that you guys go to one of these two or both of these conferences.

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Works based. Our friend Kyle Hessler met him about three years ago. You're gonna have guys like David Bonson, C .R.

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Wiley, Steve Jeffrey, Dave Reese, Andrew Krapaschitz, all kinds of guys there talking about the theology of work.

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That's gonna be June, what are we, 28th and 29th. You can get tickets in the description if you're listening to this in the description below.

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And then thank God for Bitcoin. Jordan Bush, love this guy. We went to one of their conferences, advertised for him last year, and it's just another great conference on the economy, the glory of economy, like how you use money, why we should be, as Christians, doing these things.

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Michael Foster, C .R. Wiley there too. Dr. Ben Merkle, Dr. Glenn Sunshine, one of my favorite. Shout out to Theology Podcast.

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Nate Fisher, Jordan Bush, all those guys are there. So check that out. That's gonna be coming July 24th and 25th.

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If you want tickets, just click through below. Cool. Now that we got the business out of the way, I usually rant for a little bit, but I don't want to because I've got a very special guest on and I'm excited to get to him.

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Chase Davis. Chase Davis is the lead pastor of the Ministry of the Well Church in Boulder, Colorado, two -time graduate of Denver Seminary.

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Chase is also a PhD candidate at Free University Amsterdam studying historical theology, which I just find interesting.

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I think that'll be fun to talk about. He's the author of the book Trinitarian Formation, A Theology of Discipleship in Light of the

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Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, and hosts the Full Proof Theology Podcast, which is how I came across him.

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It's Chase Davis. Welcome to the podcast, brother. Hey, thanks for having me on, man. Glad to be here. Stumbled over that intro a little bit.

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Didn't have enough coffee this morning. I apologize. Just so the listeners know, we do a bracket every year where we do the best reform podcasts.

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In December of last year, for March of this year, I reached out on Twitter and I said, hey, we're expanding this from 32 to 64.

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I need some other good reform podcasts because I'm busy. I know you're busy. You can only listen to so many podcasts.

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There's a lot that are outside of my circle. And boy, did I get a bunch of texts from people

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I knew to say, hey, include Full Proof Theology. And I go, who is this guy? Why haven't I heard of this?

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All my friends are listening to him. So very popular when it came to, hey, what's a good reform podcast?

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And you made it pretty far into the bracket. And then I said, we got to have mine and talk about it because after listening,

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I just listened to your Doug Wilson episode, which I thought was phenomenal. And Doug is always gracious with his time to get on these podcasts and talk about stuff.

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And I went, yeah, we got to have mine and chop it up. So thanks so much for stopping by. Hey, really glad to be here.

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Yeah, we Full Proof made it through the first round. We beat ABS, Allie Beth Stuckey. I was really proud of that win.

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Our team played well. And then Durbin just came in. He's got those supplements in his system and he just took care of us in the second round.

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But it was fun to see the same kind of podcast team, duo, dynamic team out in Ogden take really the championship.

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I mean, that was very inspiring to say the least. Yeah, they're peaking at the right time.

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So we'll see next year though. Next year, we're going to expand it. It'll be more podcasts. There's going to be some cash prizes for the podcast that wins.

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We got all kinds of ideas because people seem to really, if there's anything that theology geeks love, it's ranking things and competition.

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You know what I mean? Like we're really like one, two, three. We love all that stuff, especially if you're confessional. So tell us a little bit about yourself.

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I know we gave the little interview or the little bio at the top, but you got a family, you married, like what's going on there?

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Yeah, married, been married since 2008. Have three kids, two older, one younger.

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We have a baby at home now because I always joke, I had to pray for eight years for my wife to be ready for our third.

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And so we got a third and we got a girl this time. So that was exciting. So we're back in the newborn phase of things.

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Yeah, pastor at the Weld Church, we planted it. I planted it with my friend and the team up here in Boulder, Colorado.

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Lots of opportunity here in Boulder for people that are lost to know the gospel.

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And so we came to Boulder, planted when I was 24. Matt who was and still is lead pastor.

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But especially back then, I was kind of coming in as an understudy, so to speak when we planted and he was 27.

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And so don't recommend necessarily planting in your 20s. Learned a lot of stuff, a lot of hard lessons with my own immaturity.

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But that's what we did. And I was going to seminary throughout that. We actually started meeting in my apartment Sunday. The next day

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I started seminary at Denver Seminary. Knew nothing about Denver Seminary except that it was evangelical.

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But I had always had a desire to go to seminary and be in ministry since I was around 14 years old.

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And so started there and ended up really excelling academically.

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Not necessarily like best or anything, but I enjoyed it. It's kind of like that joke where, it's not a joke, it's a quip from Chariots of Fire where it's like when

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I'm studying and I'm excelling at these things, I feel the delight of the Lord. I feel the joy of the Lord. I like doing this stuff.

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I kind of like taking things apart, understanding them, going deep on stuff. I've found my limits, what

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I don't like, what I do like. So now I'm in a PhD program with some stuff that I do like. I never thought

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I'd be studying the Puritans because I'd always associated studying the Puritans with being a huge nerd.

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But you know, the Puritans have a lot to offer. It's great.

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Yeah, Puritans are awesome. And unfortunately, I think there's kind of a spurious way that we perceive and apprehend the

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Puritans today. Most of the Puritan devotional writings are very popular. That receives wide acclaim.

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Everyone loves the Puritans on their devotional work. A great example was the book Gentle and Lowly that came out a few years ago.

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Thomas Goodwin highlighted his stuff. But oftentimes the Puritans on their political thought, on their confessional thought, on church and state, very, very, not maligned, but unappreciated.

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And so that's kind of some of my work. I feel like those should be bridged. Our devotional life should lead to a rich social, political understanding of God's kingdom and rule and reign in our day.

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And I want to understand how they thought of it and how one particular Puritan, Thomas Hooker, a New England Puritan, came over when he was in his 40s to New England and helped found

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Connecticut, helped with the crafting of the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, one of the earliest constitutional documents.

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And so by studying his theological anthropology, basically what it means to be human and what did the

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Puritans conceive of that in terms of will, emotions, intellect, liberty, license, all that kind of stuff,

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I hope to better understand some downstream implications regarding Congregationalism, their ecclesial theology, the ecclesiology, and then their political theology.

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So that's kind of, those are consequential, those are further studies, but really the heart of it is understanding

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Thomas Hooker's theological anthropology. So that's kind of something about me. Yeah, I'm really excited that over the last five or six years

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I've kind of seen a renewed interest in the Puritans. I had Dr.

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Joel Beeky on about a year ago and I said, I just want to know everything Puritans. Give us the, we'll talk about the misnomers and what people think.

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It was probably one of my favorite episodes because I don't know, I've hung around him and he lives in Grand Rapids or teaches in Grand Rapids, not too far from me.

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So I see him at like Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary when he comes down for day stuff and him talking about a guy getting dragged out in the middle of town for not rightly fulfilling his intimate duties to his wife as per scripture.

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And he goes, oh no, Puritans, man, they're partiers. And he was like joking, but it was just like to see like this side of him where he gets so excited, like, oh no, they're not like these lamos that just go hide in their house and they're, you know, they were holiness and they, you know, they read the word and they obeyed it and they loved the laws and precepts of God.

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But he goes like no man, there's a fullness in the Puritans that people don't know about. And I just was laughing to myself, but I never thought

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I'd be on a podcast and have Dr. Joel Beeky talking about Puritan sexual relations between a husband and a wife.

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It was pretty awesome. But to get back to your other point too, I'm an late eighties, early nineties kid.

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So I grew up listening to like focus on the family, like with almost every evangelical family did

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I feel like in that time. So when I heard Colorado, I just thought they were all Christians out there. I'm like, cause they, they recorded in like, like I don't know, somewhere out there like Colorado Springs or Boulder.

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Right. So in my mind as a nine year old, I'm like, oh, that just must be a Christian. And then you said you planted in Colorado.

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I don't think, I mean, there's a lot of left and progressive and like, can you talk about that just for a minute?

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Like, you're like, Hey, we're just basically going into the enemy's camp, I guess, because there can't be that big of a evangelical crowd where you're at.

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I mean, it's got to be the minority. Right. Yeah. And, and Boulder County specifically, the evangelical community is just looking at stats.

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It's in the minority. And we wanted to, you know, it's funny.

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I felt originally called to go overseas and be a missionary. And so like, I remember when my wife and I got married and we're talking with one of these missions agencies, and they were like, we're going to send you to to Pakistan and we're going to train you for three years.

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And I was like, sounds good. And my wife is like crying. And I'm like, I think we haven't, we should probably talk about this and pray about this together rather than it just be my dream.

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We ended up going into the mission field for about half a year and doing that in a closed country in South Asia.

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And so you know, going to Boulder was really not that like extreme to us in terms of like, you know, like we can speak the language, we can go to Target or we, you know, used to go to Target, don't as much anymore.

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But, but yeah, so planting in Boulder was more like there's huge opportunity. I was living in Colorado.

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Matt was a pastor in Gunnison, Colorado, which is one of the coldest places in the contiguous United States.

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And so we were living there. I was working in construction. And when we were talking about church planting, we wanted to plant in Colorado.

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We felt like we love this place. We love the outdoors. We love the mountains.

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We love the people. We want the people here to know Jesus. Where can we plant? Talked with a couple, mainly one,

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Acts 29, some leaders here in Colorado, where do churches need to be planted? And they said, well, you know,

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Colorado Springs, Boulder, Fort Collins, Denver, kind of the front range. And we said, well,

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Boulder, that's kind of an interesting town. You know, they're kind of weird and quirky and they used to be known as hippies and we're like, well, okay.

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So we checked out Boulder. We're like, sure. Like, let's try to plant a church here. And we didn't know how

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I think we had a perception of how difficult it would be, but you know, they've had a hundred church plants come in over the last 25 years.

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Only three church plants are still here today. So it's a pretty popular place, but even Colorado Springs, it's interesting down there, you know, they do have kind of in that area, kind of a

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Christian ethos historically, at least like you said in the nineties, but it's kind of fallen by the wayside in terms of their influence on the statewide elections.

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And a lot of that is because of transplants. And I myself, I'm a transplant from Texas. I always joke that I'm a

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Texas missionary to the peoples of Colorado. And so, you know, you get particularly

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Californians that move here, it's lower cost and now you've got open

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Marxist in the state Congress here. And so, yeah, it's a fascinating environment because you've got a lot of rural context here in Colorado out on the

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Eastern plains, even in the Western slope. And so it's a pretty dynamic context.

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It's in flux. It's been moving left. But man, it would, you know, I feel similarly about California, although California, I'm just like, it's so far gone, but there's still a lot of good ministers, a lot of good churches, a lot of good

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Christians. In fact, if you look at the kind of the database on even voting, let's, and this isn't an equivalency, but like the amount of conservatives in California is like one of the biggest contingencies in the

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United States. And so there's a lot of people there who are, you know, that way.

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And I would say it's similar in Colorado. There's a lot of people here, a lot of good churches here trying to do the Lord's work.

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And there's a lot of lost sheep that need to find the true shepherd. And so we're here to do that.

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And by God's grace, truly by God's grace and mercy, we're still here ministering to people. And we planted a few churches out of our church over the last 13 years of ministry.

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We're planting another church this year. We've got a church plant resident applying right now.

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We're interviewing him to come in and plant a church. And so God's favor's been upon us and it's truly by his mercy and grace because we, it's not by our own wisdom or skills that we've done this.

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He's just been a tool in his hands. Yeah. So you do the difficult task of planting a church, you're super busy, and then you decide let's start a podcast on top of it.

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So let's talk about your glutton for punishment, foolproof theology. So how long has that been going on?

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And what, what do you guys cover on that? Cause I've only, I'm only like three, four episodes in, so I haven't done the back catalog yet.

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Yeah. And I thought about releasing all those. I don't know as a podcast or what you do, but like, yeah, I think I started it in 2020.

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Basically what, what happened is we had been part of the AXA 29 network and AXA 29 had been pushing kind of unbeknownst to me,

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I was pretty naive, a lot of woke stuff. And, you know, they brought in Eric Mason to speak a lot and all these other, to Beatty and Russell Moore.

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And I was just kind of like, man, like I'm young, so I guess I should trust my leaders and trust what they're saying. And 2020 hits and I just had kind of have to face reality.

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I think that happened to a lot of people. Like, what is this? What have we been drinking? What kind of, you know, admixtures is that we've been putting in our system, our theology.

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And so once I kind of did a deep dive on a lot of the critical theory stuff, you know, I was staying up late. I was like,

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I wonder what, you know, academics think of this. Where are the academics? These people that we're supposed to respect, where are the

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DA Carsons? Where are the kind of big names in evangelicalism? Why aren't they saying things? I'd like to talk to them.

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So I just started reaching out to professors from seminary or other institutions and I would get on the phone with them to ask them their thoughts.

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And I was like, man, I should publish these conversations. I wonder if anybody would be game to get on a podcast because I think we're thinking at it at a level that's a little bit more philosophical and theological.

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And I'm trying to do it, at least back then I was trying to do it in a way that was pretty like fair -minded. And I would say it's definitely shifted from the beginning as I've learned and grown because doing a podcast, what

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I've found is it's like an accelerant in terms of my own personal growth as I kind of,

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I just want to have people on that I can learn from or I'm curious to hear their thoughts more. Maybe I've had that thought but they're articulating it really well or maybe they challenge something

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I've believed about democracy or something like that. And so I try to do interviews with people that a lot of my friends are reading, whether my elders.

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Hey, my elders are reading this book. Why don't I talk to the author and ask him questions I might have or ask questions that my elders have and people in my church.

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And so that's kind of the impetus for it was kind of self -development, self -learning and then sharing that kind of self -learning with others and come to find out a lot of other people have the same questions

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I have. They're interested in that. It's been weird because some people, it seems like the audience enjoys like when

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I just get on and kind of talk and that's a little bit more like I like to prepare when

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I give a talk anywhere. And so that takes more work. Whereas if I just interview you about a book

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I can read your book and I can have some questions and then I get to let you talk. But some of the bigger episodes have been like when

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I talked about TGC, getting rid of all that guy who was a senior fellow with the Keller Institute or something.

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Anyways, that was like a really popular one. And then most recently like Rigney and Wilson and Oren McIntyre have been popular ones.

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So it's kind of an overlap between theology, philosophy, culture, politics, that kind of stuff.

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Just stuff I'm interested in. It kind of naturally maps onto a lot of the PhD work I'm doing. And it's a way to get,

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I view it as like free consulting because I get to promote their work and I get to learn myself and other people get to hopefully reap the benefits of that.

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So it's just been really fun. It is a little bit of work. It's annoying to get on and go to post and you got to edit out where your guest coughed or the feed dropped and you got to export it.

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Then you got to upload it. Then you got to promote it. And then you got to follow up with people who email. So that's kind of the grunt work that I don't enjoy so much.

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If I could just do conversations all day and then hand it off to somebody else I would, but my podcast doesn't generate enough.

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I don't have the sponsors like you've got to where I can do that. And so maybe one day, but for now it's just kind of a fun ride.

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And now we're up to, we got up to 100 ,000 downloads on the pod and then we're almost up to 2 ,000 subscribers on YouTube.

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And so man, it's just been a really fun way to learn myself. People ask, who's your target audience?

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And I was like, me. My interest, my curiosity theologically as a

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Christian kind of drives the content. So that's kind of the gist of it. Yeah.

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It's so funny because I think we're tracking the same. You could almost use what you just said for what

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I say when people ask me about podcasts. If we start at the beginning of COVID in April, 2020, and I've always said it's almost a little selfish as well too, because I bring on much smarter people than myself.

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I ask them questions and I get a nice 30 to 40 minute boiled down version of whatever it is we're talking about.

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And it's very satisfying in the fact that, like you said, you're learning, also asking questions.

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The listeners seem to like that as well too. So it feels a little self -serving to mirror your responses.

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Well, some of the more popular episodes are me just talking, but also too, you have to prepare for that.

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I've never been a pastor or a teaching elder, but I hold that in high regard, not only because the

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Bible standards do, and I think we have a lot less pastors that actually meet the qualifications of what the

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Bible says than what we have in the United States, but also just a pastor that actually prepares each week.

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That should be usually hours and hours of your week of praying and studying and making sure everything's correct.

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I'm not comparing a podcast to what a pastor does in the pulpit, but I'm just saying

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I understand that study and wanting to be people are listening. You have a responsibility. So about 9 out of 10 of mine have guests because it's much easier just to have

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Chase Davis on and go, hey, tell me about the Trinity, tell me about that, and then put it on you than me having to prepare.

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But with that being said, maybe let's get into that a little bit because what piqued my interest too is church history, discipleship, those are some of the key words that kept coming up when

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I was looking at you, and I feel those two subjects, I've been hitting on that for four years.

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One, we have a T -shirt on our website that says less pastors and more disciples, and it's a little tongue -in -cheek because I've seen in the evangelical church, it's like Oprah giving away cars, like you're a pastor, you're a pastor, you get to be everyone, right?

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Church pastor, youth pastor, associate pastor, children's ministry pastor, and it's like, dude, and men, women, it's like there's no standard for what a shepherd actually is.

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No one's read Ezekiel 37, like no one has, you know, and it's just this weird thing where discipleship is a lot harder.

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It's real easy to be given the title of pastor, but to disciple someone and come alongside someone, something that takes years and years and live by example, and I think a pastor should be all those things too, but to disciple one -on -one or a couple people on one, that is a tough thing, and when we talk about discipleship, when

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I do at least, I have a different idea of what it is than probably what 80 % of the body of Christ in Western Christian church does.

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They think maybe disciples, like teach them a few things about the Bible, be their friend, invite them to church.

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I've discipled that person, or that's being a disciple. What's your thoughts on that, and then maybe we get into church history too, and maybe the lack of knowledge of most

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Christians understanding their church history, but discipleship, what does that mean to you? What's the definition? How do we act that out?

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I don't even think that was on our list of things to talk about, but I'm going there because I'm interested in it. Yeah, it's great.

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It's obviously a topic of interest to me because I wrote my THM thesis on it, and then got it published as a book.

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The question arose similarly for me when we were planting. If churches, one of the functions of a church, according to Matthew 28 in the

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Great Commission, is to make disciples, obviously that's not the core, it's Word and Sacrament, but discipleship is a big deal, and in Evangelicalism in America, discipleship has become kind of this programmatic, pragmatic approach.

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In the megachurch world, it's kind of a get in the right system on the right spreadsheet, heading in the right class structure, and that's what it means to be a disciple.

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In other groups, it's more mentorship, one -on -one mentorship, and then discipleship will sometimes either gravitate towards head knowledge, where it's just learning the right doctrines or the right confession, and others it'll be really focused on the heart, the affections, the desires.

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This gets into the talk of idols of the heart a little bit, and how that's been twisted to where it becomes kind of a self -flagellation, where you're just punishing yourself for wanting things in general.

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And then in other circles, more liberal, but also in fundamental circles, you'll get discipleship as mainly action, social justice for the liberal, and then conversion and evangelism for the fundamentalist, so it has to do with outward obedience and conformity.

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And I was seeing all these pieces, and I'm like, what if they're all right, but they're not complete?

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And I was like, well, okay, what if we put it all together? And we said, you know what, discipleship is much more than just mentorship, finding an older man who can meet you for breakfast at the local

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Denny's once a week and just catch up on life and hear how you're doing, which is a good thing, that's not bad.

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What if it's more than just reaching some credentialed class or knowing the

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Westminster really well, or what if it's more than seeking the lost and having a passion for the lost to be saved and obeying

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God's word in every facet of your life? What if it's all three? And so I riffed off of John Frame.

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John Frame has a big word, clunky word, called triperspectivalism, and there's a lot of heated debate in academic circles about the legitimacy of triperspectivalism, his theology of the

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Trinity, but for me it was more of an epistemological approach, how we know anything, how we know things, and I found it really compelling, and I find it biblically sound in the way that people are formed.

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And so his approach to triperspectivalism, which in the book, and Tim Miller up at Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary has done work on this as well, he wrote a book on John Frame's triperspectivalism and connects it to the

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Trinity. Frame was reticent, not for any probably nefarious reasons, but he had not articulated it as a

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Trinitarian concept until fairly recently, in the last 10 -15 years, it was kind of hinted at in his books, and so Miller did a lot of good work there, and I kind of used

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Miller, and then Frame, and then was like, okay, this theology, this understanding of epistemology, where we don't just grow as people as empty buckets of information, we're actually formed, we're formed by our families, by our church community, by culture, and then we do have to concern ourselves with devotion, and so I talk about discipleship in three categories,

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I use the categories of, discipleship consists of our duty, our doctrine, and devotion before the

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Lord, it's all three, a more simplistic version would be head, heart, hands, but that kind of gets misused a lot, it's almost like too simplistic, so I prefer duty, doctrine, and devotion, because it kind of summarizes all three, and you'll see this, you could also have, another alliteration would be believe, behave, and belong, and I think that's the most kind of, puts the finger on the tension point, because what you saw in a lot of evangelicalism over the last,

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I don't know, 20 years, is this idea that you can belong before you believe, right, you can kind of like, go, okay, well you can come into the community of faith, you can come into the church, and you can feel a sense of existential belonging here before you believe everything, and in a sense that's true, like as children, that's kind of how we experience, but it's been so widely misused, and it de -emphasizes behavior, which is our duty, what is our duty before the

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Lord, what is our duty as men, what are we supposed to be doing in obedience to his word, to be conformed to the image of Christ, and you would never hear a church say, you can behave before you belong, you know, and so it's just a, there's a denigration oftentimes, and there's a, in different ministries and churches and movements, there's an emphasis on one to the detriment of the other, so they'll get really obsessed with duty, or they'll get really obsessed with devotion, or they'll get really obsessed with doctrine, and I'm saying, yeah, all three, all three, and I'm going to point out where somebody might be deficient, or they need to, you know, kind of help offset their liabilities if they're going to focus on just duty and devotion, or doctrine and devotion, there needs to be application, and so that's kind of my understanding of discipleship, it's more,

29:22

I use the word holistic, maybe that's a bolder word, but it's more like a whole human approach to how we grow as people, how we know things, how we mature, it's taking thoughts from church history and kind of philosophy of Christian theology of education and how people are shaped using, you know, the

29:42

Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, the Apostles' Creed, just basic components, and so by no means do we have a perfect discipleship method at our church, we use something called

29:52

DIG groups, and those are just groups of people that meet together to go through sermon series studies, but the questions are always pointed at, how are you applying

30:02

God's Word, what did you learn about God's Word, how does this text of Scripture affect you emotionally, do you hate what

30:08

God's Word says, you should probably repent of that, you know, those are the kind of things we're dealing with in discipleship at our church, and I think any

30:16

Christian should be asking those questions and thinking through God's Word in that way.

30:22

Yeah, no, you make a really good point, and as I get older, I realize a lot of our ills within the church could just be solved with understanding moderation of each thing, part of my testimony is growing up in a very kind, it was a non -denominational church, but very legalistic, and it was more fundamental, okay, it was an extreme, and then in my teens

30:47

I went to a church that was extremely Pentecostal and aligned with kind of the Toronto Blessing and Bethel and all that, and I just went, wow, there might be a place for some of this doctrine and theology if kind of tethered correctly and in moderation, and I'm not, honestly,

31:07

I'm not saying anything, just about everything out of Bethel is insane, so I'm not defending that, I'm saying okay, my listeners are going to start typing right now, you can hear them typing, what, is he defending

31:17

Bill Johnson, no, no, I'm not, what I'm saying is just like you said in discipleship, you've got these buckets, and you find these churches that just focus on one of those buckets so much that it's so out of the scale, so out of whack, that you leave aside the two or three other things that the

31:36

Lord says, you know, you always hear the fullness of the character of God, the fullness of God, and in the Pentecostal circles, that fullness means super happy and super excited, and in the legalistic, it means the fullness of his wrath and the fullness of his anger, to where the full character of God is all those things, love, justice, mercy, wrath, yes, but it's all the exact portion of what it should be in any given situation, which when

32:05

I go back to Proverbs, Proverbs talks a lot about that, right, like a wise man knows exactly when to use anger or a work ethic or a mercy or grace, like there's a place and discernment plays into that, and unfortunately in discipleship

32:19

I think the discernment is lacking, because just what you just said, Chase, it's like they uber -focus on maybe one or two of the maybe three core doctrines of discipleship, and then you get out of whack, you know, and like you said, yours isn't perfect, but you're always looking for that balance that correctly reflects the fullness and character of God, right,

32:38

I mean, that's what you're going for. Yeah, for sure, I mean, you're looking for moderation, even when I'm discipling, because I'll still, we'll still do discipleship sometimes one -on -one if a man needs some help in particular areas, most of the time with the men

32:53

I disciple, it's more of a matter of application, the behaving and the duty aspects,

32:58

I think that's often under -appreciated, because we're scared of being legalistic, you know, we're scared of, but we're so formed by what we do and our actions, and so many

33:09

Christians are hesitant to obey the Lord until their affections are properly oriented, and that is important,

33:17

I'm actually preaching on from Haggai 2 this Sunday about the importance of our heart being pure and our motives being pure and holy, and that can only come through Jesus Christ, and yet that we shouldn't wait to obey until we feel like obeying, we should always obey the

33:32

Lord, even when we don't feel like it, and that actually shapes our affections, same way we love our wives, we love our wives even when we don't feel like loving our wives, and that's going to reinforce that affection, it's going to build the affections, and so for most men

33:45

I disciple it actually has, that's a huge emphasis, even with guys who are like super into doctrine,

33:52

I'll talk about that with them, no problem, give them some resources if they want that, but for most

33:57

Christians it seems to me in America they are anemic on the duty aspects of the implications of God's word, and obeying it in all of life, and of course, you know, legalism is kind of a scare word that's often thrown around, that's not what we're talking about, we're just talking about simply walking in step with the spirit in obedience to God's word, applying it to all of your life, and there's grace and mercy as you go,

34:20

God's grace is sufficient, His providence is before you, and so yeah, having that balanced approach, having that kind of well -rounded approach where you can have a church that's joyful before the

34:31

Lord in all things, that's seeking to obey Him in all of life, that's seeking to know and study and understand who

34:37

He is more, that's a really rich and potent force in my mind, not a lot of churches are interested in this, you know, just because it's easier to run one play, you know, it's easier to focus on, we're the doctrine church, or we're going to be the happy, clappy, devotional church, or we're going to be a very introspective church, or we're going to be the church that's all about seeking the lost, or social justice emphases, or whatever it is, it's easier to run one play, and the

35:06

American church, I've found, is really like, at the top levels, like you mentioned, the pastors are often, haven't really been trained to think about these things very well, there's not a lot of courses and seminaries that are offered on discipleship, or Christian formation, and what it means, like,

35:25

I think actually it's really interesting, because Christian education is a big deal, this gets into issues of public school and Christian schooling for children, but Christian education, we have, there's a lot of resources that we can use as pastors if we would take

35:42

Christian education seriously, because it's actually really robust, and I think pastors are

35:49

Christian educators not as a primary thing, but that's like one of their biggest things that they've got to be about, is educating people in God's ways, and that means all of his ways not just head knowledge.

36:00

Yeah, no, that's so good. You know, and just for anyone listening too, because I've had this, a couple people come to me, the term legalism has really been co -opted over the last maybe 10 or 15 years, just to mean, if you tell me to do anything, or tell me that I have to obey the commandments of God, right?

36:16

The true form of legalism really is taking a tertiary or secondary issue and moving that into orthodoxy, right?

36:22

And then saying, look it, you're not saved if you wear blue jeans, you know what I mean? Or whatever that example might be.

36:30

David said he loved the precepts and laws of God. Christ said, if you love me, you will follow my commands.

36:37

We're in an era now to where a lot of Christians will accuse you, legalism, legalism, if you just say, oh no, the

36:43

Lord requires this of you, and this is what you must do to obey, that's not legalism. So for any listeners who have heard that, because I've had people come up to me and go, oh,

36:50

I think I might be in legalism because of A, B, or C, and it's like, well no, that's just what the Bible commands, and you're doing it correctly.

36:57

You know what I mean? So we're in this kind of weird, woke, kind of soft culture where even within Christianity we're misusing, like many words that have been co -opted, unfortunately.

37:07

When you're talking about legalism, I think that's what you're talking about. We're not talking about loving and appreciating the commands and laws of God and obeying those with a cheerful heart as the

37:18

Bible commands us. But let's shift gears here a little bit as we finish this out too, because and two,

37:24

I'm so glad that you wrote on discipleship too, because like you said, not a lot of resources out there for that.

37:31

For that being one of the most important things probably that Christ talks about, that the Bible talks about in general about discipleship, not a whole lot of literature out there.

37:40

So I will get with you after the show, we'll make sure we link everything up too. So if people want to explore those resources that you have on that subject, they can click through and get to that.

37:49

And also guys, if you're listening right now, go ahead and pause. Go subscribe to Full Proof Theology.

37:55

You're going to love it. I'm only three episodes in, but go listen to the back catalog and then come back and listen to the rest of this.

38:00

Just want to give you that plug too, because I do appreciate you doing that work. But let's finish this out with church history because, like I said 10 minutes ago, discipleship and church history, and I feel like we just don't have that knowledge in the general church, and I'm part of that.

38:16

I grew up in the church. I didn't really start truly understanding church history until my mid -twenties when the

38:22

Lord saved me. I said the sinner's prayer at seven. I truly believed I was regenerated at 24. And I was homeschooled.

38:30

I mean, we learned about Jonathan Edwards and some of the basic stuff and Pilgrim's Progress, but to truly get into church history and what some of these church fathers battled through for theological and doctrinal issues and the splits and I didn't even know that rapture theology had only been around for 120 years at that point.

38:48

I just assumed, oh, that's just what Jesus believed, or whatever. So Constantine believed it.

38:56

So can we speak to that a little bit? Why do you think, or maybe you disagree with me, but one, do you agree that there's a lack of church history understanding in the general church?

39:04

And two, if so, why is that? Why do we not look at our forefathers and really start to understand our own kind of history as the body of Christ?

39:13

What's your thoughts on that? Yeah, I think there's a huge lack of emphasis on church history. There's a lack of understanding it.

39:22

From my own personal experience, I think my interest in church history really sparked in 2020 to a degree that it hadn't been before because I was dissatisfied with the way things are today, and I wanted to understand both how we got here and what other

39:39

Christians thought. A great example was COVID. We are not the first generation, we are not the first group of churches that have ever experienced death, or like a plague.

39:51

So we have things we could learn from how people in church history thought about this, because I saw the government response, and I saw evangelical leaders' response, and I was like, man, there's got to be deeper thinking than this.

40:05

Surely there's some context. So it started with a dissatisfaction. It was also a dissatisfaction with how we talked about ethnicity and race, and so I was like, what if people in history thought about these matters, rather than just adopting the

40:16

MLK Jr. kind of talking points. What did other people think? And so for me, and I just don't think enough

40:25

American Christians are dissatisfied. I'm not trying to encourage a lack of contentment in people.

40:30

I'm not trying to encourage deviation from anything God commands. But I'm talking about a holy discontentment with what is, and I think in order to get a better vision for what could be and what

40:40

God is doing in the world, we have to go back to what He has already done, not only as revealed in God's Word, but also revealed throughout

40:48

God's history of redemption through the church. And so that's kind of what sparked my interest, and I think for American Christians, the importance of church history is really threatened by an unhealthy biblicism, and by unhealthy,

41:02

I mean not kind of a good, healthy approach to God's Word is sufficient, it's inerrant, all this kind of stuff.

41:10

I'm talking kind of a rigidity to where we can't learn from our forefathers, and this also gets back into kind of the unique challenges in the

41:20

American mindset. If you're an American, you highly value your independence, your rationality, your ability to cognitively assess reality on your own.

41:32

And when I came to the end of myself, so to speak, as Ecclesiastes might talk, you know,

41:38

I was like, I'm not, I don't know, I'm not smart enough, I don't know enough, there's other people out there

41:43

I can learn from. And then all of a sudden you start looking at how people preached in history, how people taught, how people thought about husbands and wives, and civil society, and devotional piety, and all this kind of stuff, you're like, there's a lot here.

41:56

It may be a language barrier, you may have to kind of understand how to read Puritans and their context, but there's so much to learn, and it's been so beneficial, and it can be so beneficial.

42:06

I just think most American Christians have a suspicion that when we lean into tradition that's bad, or we're going to be cold and stodgy, and we just do things out of rote memory, and it's like, no man, it's not about that.

42:21

It's about going back to the people who came before us, and honoring the legacy that God has given to us through them.

42:30

One thing I was thinking of last night, man, is like my granddad was born in 1917, and I'm like, man, what would he make of the world today?

42:38

He was a Christian, he was a Methodist, but he was a Christian man, and not perfect by any means, but what would he make of the world today?

42:47

And that makes me sad, that the legacy that he had, he was World War II veteran, and all this kind of stuff.

42:54

Look at what has become of us. How can I better honor my father, my grandfather, the people that have come before me in this country as Christians?

43:04

Well, I'm going to have to understand church history, and so that's kind of a lot of what drives me, and I think a lot of American Christians are just kind of coasting along in the consumeristic mindset, kind of an individualism, hopping from church to church, and they the big thing for me is they want to get rid of any unchosen bonds.

43:24

They want to get rid of anything that would tie them down, that would make them live into a tradition that they themselves have not freely chosen, and I'm like, man, that's not a healthy way to live or approach

43:37

Christianity, because that's just a very Enlightenment mindset, a modern mindset. Yeah, I'll just put my two cents in here really quick, too, in case anyone wants to hear it.

43:45

The two biggest pushbacks I get on church history is one, they have this idea that it's kind of stuffy and boring, right, like history in general.

43:54

I would say the duels and the martyrs and the kingdom takeovers and,

44:01

I mean, it's insane if you look at church history. It's probably the most exciting part of history, so no, it's not boring.

44:08

There's a lot of stuff there. Two, I get people go, look it, man, I have to study stuff that's for now.

44:14

Man, we live in the now. It's new. Everything's changing so quick, and I would go back to your Ecclesiastes reference that there's nothing new under the sun.

44:22

99 % of the time when someone has some idea or some theological thing or some political or cultural thing, it has already happened and been argued and just rebranded as something that we've discussed 500, 800, 1 ,000 years ago.

44:37

It blows my mind that when you have this new thing come out and everyone gets crazy, you go, oh, wait a minute, we talked about that 500 years ago.

44:45

It's Molnism, or that's this, or that's Gnosis, or that's right, and it's like, oh, my gosh, we're so dumb as a people, and I'm including myself in this, to where we think there's these new things, and it's like, man,

44:56

Solomon told us there's nothing new under the sun, and guys a lot smarter than us have already talked about it. Now, it might be in a different political or a different cultural situation, but the principle, the foundation of that idea still holds, and these guys have maybe not figured it out, but they have discussed it and molded over and had arguments about it and wrote pamphlets on it.

45:18

There's all this stuff, so those two arguments don't hold up for me when people say in church history, no, it's for now, and it's also boring.

45:25

It's like, no, it's very exciting, and it's almost like a cheat code. If you know a lot about church history, you can seem very, very intelligent on cutting -edge theological things just by reading some of the forefathers and go, oh, no, they already talked about that, and we kind of figured that out.

45:40

So I would encourage any listener right now, if you're not really into it, I would say it's an important part, and I find it very entertaining and I'm passionate about it, but go back and read that, and if you want a list of who to go to, heck,

45:54

I'll put a list, you don't have to listen to me, but we'll put a list of where you can start, but man, so true, like you said, it's very rich, and I think sometimes people think they're going to get caught in some type of weird tradition or something.

46:06

I mean, knowledge can only help, but yeah, so let's keep reforming, and I agree with you, and get more people into church history as well, too.

46:15

Let's wrap this up, though, because we're going to do a fresh 10 segment. I've already taken up too much of your time, but give us a final word on some of the stuff we talked about here.

46:23

If someone's listening, they just started hearing you for the first time, obviously they're going to go subscribe to Full Proof Theology.

46:31

Sum up what a new listener to you might need to hear from you. Yeah, it's just super important that they understand that as Christians, we are bound to God.

46:42

We are bound to Him. We live before His face, and we should be relentless in our application of His word to all of our life, and we should be curious about how we can form our lives, our social life, our political order, our personal devotional life to His word, and so that's the kind of stuff that I like to ask about on my podcast, and I think many

47:03

Christians should be asking questions. If they look around the world and they see rampant depravity, corruption, tyranny, and major problems, they should be trying to, at the very least, listen to a podcast, but at the best, they should reform their own house first.

47:20

They should get their house in order. Raise up your kids in the nurture and admission of the Lord. Join a good church and commit there.

47:26

Dive deep into God's word and apply it to all of your life, and that's the kind of stuff that drives me, and I think anyone, whether they listen to my podcast or not, should be driven by that if they're a

47:36

Christian. Amen. Totally agree. Alright, we're going to shift gears here, finish this up, but we want you to stick around and do a

47:42

Fresh 10 segment. That's where we ask 10 fresh questions. Personal, kind of fun, just to get to know you a little bit more.

47:48

You down? Yeah, for sure. Alright, let's go. Alright, here we go,

48:03

Fresh 10 with Chase Davis. Number one, what city and state did you grow up in, and how did that affect your childhood?

48:10

Dallas, Texas. It affected me in that I will always be loyal to my state.

48:18

Yeah, once a Texan, always a Texan, right? Is that kind of the thing? That's the thing. Alright, so question number two.

48:24

What's your favorite funny story? That's a great question because I'm not much of a joke teller.

48:37

My wife is more of the punny one in our relationship. My favorite thing to do.

48:42

Wait a minute now. Did you just make a pun out of punny one? Because it could be funny one. That's pretty good. Yeah, I just told a joke,

48:48

I guess. Maybe you should use that. Yeah, you could use that. I like to joke about Doug Wilson.

48:54

My favorite thing when I meet Christian. So Doug Wilson, what do you think of his latest article?

49:01

It's a great way to test how close we're going to be relationally. Yeah, he is definitely a lightning rod right now.

49:09

Yeah, I have a weird sense of joking. Maybe that's sadistic, but that's kind of my favorite way of joking.

49:15

No, I like that. Alright, so you're in the DeLorean. The flux capacitor is fluxing.

49:20

Are we going back in time to visit our great, great, great, great grandfather? Are we going forward in time to visit our great, great, great, great grandkids?

49:27

Grandfather. If possible. Yeah, we're going back. Okay. Yeah. That seems to be the most popular answer, except for some of my post mills.

49:36

They do like going forward in the future to see what they built. You know what I mean? Sure. I'm a millennial.

49:42

So, you know, what's something people would be surprised to know about you?

49:50

Something they're like, what? Really? You've done that? Or that's you? Or, you know, something that they'd be surprised.

49:57

Oh, man, that's a good question. Are you like a secret black belt, like our friend

50:03

Keith Foskey? Or are you really not a jerk like James White told us?

50:08

He goes, people just think I'm a jerk, but I'm not really. That would actually be applicable. I think online, what would surprise people is online.

50:16

And sometimes on the pod, I come across as either a brawler or something like that. But when you meet me in person,

50:22

I'm actually like, you know, I'll make a joke and I'll pry. But like, yeah, let's get a beer.

50:28

It's just not. You know, I can be intense. I've learned that God has refined and sanctified me in that way.

50:35

But yeah, man, it's not. There's not a lot of like, I don't like the interpersonal drama in terms of my own life.

50:42

You know, if I were to know somebody that I perceived wronged me online in real life,

50:48

I'd be like, hey, what's up? You know, like it's just not. It's not a thing. So, yeah, that would be a good one for me.

50:53

All my non -1689 Baptists right now listening went, what? A beer? No, you're fine.

51:01

No, no. We're riding Presbyterians over here. You're good. All right. So next question. What album are you taking with you on the deserted island, if you can only bring one?

51:11

Or what album maybe has influenced you the most in your life? Either question kind of gets to the same point.

51:16

Yeah, people are going to think this is a lame answer. So I just want to acknowledge that before I say it.

51:24

But U2's album, I'm looking for it in my collection.

51:29

Hold on. It's not the one Apple force -fed everyone, is it? Because that would be.

51:35

No, no, no, no, no. This one. Oh, wait. For those watching. Oh, he's holding up vinyl of Joshua Tree.

51:43

Yeah. It's all warped. I've had it too long. But man, like, I know it's cliche.

51:48

And I know U2 is like, oh, they're overrated. I'm like, dude, I love him. I got to see him in Dublin, Ireland.

51:54

Oh, my God. I was like 18. And I was just crying at the concert, you know, just like a girl.

52:00

And I was like, this is amazing. So this is my one of my favorites. No, that's a good answer. All right.

52:07

So when you're playing Monopoly, what piece are you taking? Are you the golden bag of gold?

52:15

Are you the train? Do you play Monopoly at all? Yeah, I'll play with my kids, you know, dominate them.

52:20

You know, if they give me the choice, I try to let them, you know, take the first pick because they're just kids and they're about to lose.

52:28

But if I just take the leftover piece, whatever they give you, whatever they give me. But, you know, if they're like, dad, you can pick first.

52:33

It'd be the there's a train. I don't even know the pieces. That's how little I care when I play because I let them pick.

52:39

But if there's a train, I would pick the train. Okay. Yeah, there's a train. All right. A couple left. If you could sit down for a cup of coffee with any historical figure outside of the

52:48

Bible. Now they can be a Christian, but no one mentioned in the Bible. So outside the Bible, historical figure, who is it going to be and why?

52:55

It would be George Washington. That's a good one. Mainly because when people ask me who my favorite president is, it would be him because he was the first and I am suspicious of every other one after him.

53:09

And I wish he had just become the monarch of America. And I would want to talk to him about his faith because people think he's not a

53:16

Christian. And I'd want to talk to him about why he's not the king. Yeah. No.

53:22

Yeah. Some of his writings are so good, too. You just go, wow. And the fact that he even stepped down and said,

53:27

I'm not going to, I'm not going to keep doing that. Who could do that? I mean, it's a brand new country. You got all this power given to you in the executive.

53:34

Jeez, dude. Just seemed like a man of principle. So that's a good answer. All right. Two left. What's a movie you've watched multiple times?

53:42

Gladiator. That's one of my favorite movies. Yeah. Gladiator. The second would be

53:48

Top Gun, you know, came out the year I was born. But Gladiator is like my go -to.

53:54

It's like, what movie should we watch by Gladiator? My son's still haven't seen it. I think it's a little too gruesome for their age, but that'll be a great day when they can finally watch

54:02

Gladiator. Awesome. All right. Last question. What is the book outside of the Bible? So we're all going to recommend the

54:08

Bible, but what's a book outside of the Bible that everyone should read? And it can even be your own if you want to self -promote there.

54:14

We don't mind. Yeah. I want to self -promote because I don't do that very well. So pick up my book.

54:20

But man, I'm looking at my bookshelf, a book that everyone should read. You know,

54:26

I want to go with like a. Man, there's so many books to choose from.

54:33

This is a great question. You've stumped me. Yeah, it is a hard question, especially if you're a book guy, because it's hard to narrow it down to one.

54:41

So I say everyone should read, meaning generally just a good here. If you read that, you're going to get something out of it.

54:47

It's not pinpointed on a certain theological thing, or it's not a certain type of fiction. It's just it's a good general book to hand to someone, and they're going to get something out of it.

54:56

You got something like that in mind? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I'll look on my desk. I'm looking, and this is one that I always come back to that I think is really underappreciated, and it's

55:04

Social Justice in the Christian Church by Ronald Nash. You've never read it? It's good.

55:10

Okay. It's written ages ago. When was it written? This says 2002.

55:16

So yes, ages ago. Yeah, that's like 100 years in social justice years. Yeah, I know, right?

55:22

That's a good point. Men couldn't even get pregnant back then. It goes through the history of the 70s and 80s and how social justice became such a foothold in our seminaries and in our churches.

55:34

So I'm just going to go with that because it's right here, and I reference it a lot in terms of like, I wish people would read this book more.

55:40

I wish it would be required reading in every seminary. So that's a book I would recommend. Awesome. There we go.

55:45

That is the Fresh 10 with Chase Davis. All right, that's

56:00

Chase Davis on Dead Man Walking Podcast. Chase, thanks for being here and taking time and talking to us. Really appreciate it.

56:07

Yeah. Glad to be here. Thanks for having me on. All right, guys. That's another episode of Dead Man Walking Podcast. Thanks for listening.

56:13

As always, you can check us out at dmwpodcast .com. Find us on social media anywhere at Dead Man Walking Podcast, except for Twitter X.

56:19

They wouldn't give us that. That's real DMW Podcast. Follow us there if you want. As always, remember the chief end of man is to glorify

56:25

God and enjoy him forever. God bless. Be sure to check us out at dmwpodcast .com, where you can purchase the best and snarkiest merch on the internet, support the show, and leave us a review or message.

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Dead Man Walking can be found on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube at Dead Man Walking Podcast and on Twitter X at realdmwpodcast.

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The Dead Man Walking Podcast is part of the Fight Laugh Peace Network. For exclusive show content, be sure to download the Pump TV app and become a member.

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