Mike Bird (7:21)

Yeah, I mean it's a hard one because I have seen some kind of dodgy things like there were a few people claiming to have near death experiences and it turns out they just made the whole thing up and they wanted to make money about it.

Tom Wright (7:34)

Oh really? I didn't know that.

Mike Bird (7:35)

So I think there was one famous story was the boy who went to Heaven that was the infamous story, became a best selling book and movie.

Tom Wright (7:42)

Oh really?

Mike Bird (7:43)

I may be, hopefully I'm not wrong on that. But you know, there is a mystery in death and there is that, you know, mysterious language of, you know, being with Christ or having your life hidden with Christ, which doesn't give a lot of detail. And we have to accept that there is something mysterious of how we, we leave this mortal coil and go to the temporary state, which is not the final state, but there is that temporary place we go to ahead of the great renewal of creation.

Tom Wright (8:12)

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And these are tricky areas, but I think if we stick with what the New Testament says, we're on sure ground. As you say, it's quite possible that people have fantasies or imaginations or even sheer fictions about such things. That doesn't mean that some of the experiences aren't very real and that when sometimes it's not so much a near death experience but an immediately pre death experience that sometimes people as they are dying testify to being able to sea into another world what seems like another world. And I have known close relatives who have apparently as they were dying, said things which the bystanders reckoned were oh my goodness, he or she is on the threshold of a whole other world here. But I wouldn't theologically build anything on that for the reasons already given.

Mike Bird (9:07)

I should add that our sister program, unbelievable, did an interview with John Burke and that is available on YouTube if you care to search at Kathleen so yeah, very interesting, very interesting. Our next question is from Mark Thompson from Dallas, Texas. And here's Mark's question. He says hello from Dallas. For context, I am an early 20s married man and I work as an accountant. But as a Christian I consider my primary calling in life to be loving God, loving my neighbor, and generally serving the purposes of Jesus in the world and being a small working model of a new creation. As Tom would say. While I do think I fulfill these purposes to a degree in my day job, I also obviously seek to fulfill these purposes outside my job. For someone like me who is just an ordinary Christian, not in vocational ministry, what should my life look like and how well educated on my faith in the Bible should I and all Christians be? I read the Bible typically with Tom's for everyone translation and commentaries and pray morning and night. And in between when I find time, I try to read Christian books to educate myself on the history and context of my faith. Outside of my Bible reading, I've often been in and led Bible studies and been active in churches I've been part of throughout my youth, college years and since graduating. I seek to talk openly about my faith in all contexts which I find myself and I find others. I invite others implicitly and explicit into relationship with Jesus. I understand that's all Christian callings and lives look somewhat different. But I guess the crux of my question is what might the typical lay Christians life look like and what is the baseline all Christians have for knowledge and study of our own faith? What do you say to that? Does Mark need to get a PhD? Does he need to quit his day Job and become a priest in the.

Tom Wright (11:11)

Anglican Church, who knows? Mark says that he's in his early 20s and that he's married and that he's an accountant, which already tells me that he's got, God willing, a long stretch of life ahead of him. And goodness knows what twists and turns will come with children or not, with grandchildren or not, as all, all sorts of things develop. And Mark, I think lives in Dallas, which I know a bit. And Dallas is a world of opportunities and a world of many churches and many possibilities and so on. I love Mark's self description of how he goes about his daily life. I want to say, Mark, it may get more complicated than that, especially if and when you and your wife have children. There are all sorts of things going on. But I would say one of the key things, if you're called to be an accountant, and if that is who God has made you, then celebrate that and figure out the ways in which being an accountant is actually serving the purposes of God's good creational activity. I'm very grateful that I am not called to be an accountant. I'm absolutely hopeless at all that stuff. I have an accountant to whom I give all my facts and figures and bank statements and so on, and they sort it all out and tell me what I owe the tax man and so on. I can't stand that stuff. This is a personality thing. And I thank God that there are some people who like, are really good at it, get satisfaction out of it. But I want to say not just the personal satisfaction of hopefully doing a good job, but the satisfaction of knowing that God wants his world to be ordered, not random. God wants his world to be wise and well structured and not chaotic. And accountants, like lawyers and so on, are, I believe, part of God's means of bringing wise order day by day, week by week, year by year, to God's good creation. A world without that would be a world where people would be able to cheat and lie and bully and steal and twist this way and that, and then everybody loses except the few bullies who actually make it to the top of the tree until somebody comes and punches them in the nose as well. So accountants are a necessary part of that. And I think, Mark, you should celebrate that and be grateful to God for that. At the same time as you do all the other things which you're doing. It is perfectly possible that God will gradually or maybe suddenly nudge you into a different direction. Mike mentioned the possibility that God might call you to ordination. God might call you to go and Work as an accountant on the mission field somewhere, somewhere in a very different atmosphere than Dallas, somewhere in a different culture and context where your skills could bring real help to the church and the world and the local community. I'm not saying God would do that, but I believe that every so often, like every week or every month, it ought to be in your regular prayer diary that you say, lord, is this it? Is this where you want me to stay? Is this where you want me to be for my normal working life? Or are there other things that you'd like me to be doing? And I think you and your wife would need to make that a matter of prayer together. You don't say what your wife's vocation is, but there are all sorts of ways in which then as you get to know one another and as together you get to know God and his love for you, that things may open up and in your church as well. When you're doing these other things like leading Bible studies, do you find that people say to you sometimes you really should do this on a full time basis, or are they simply happy that you should be one of the various lay leaders that they've got? There are all sorts of ways privately, but also the word of friends to you, the word of people who know you, which can steer you in a vocational path. And sometimes it may be that when you're leading a Bible study and the passage that you've decided to study is this or that or the other, that you will find yourself drawn into a string of commentaries that might take you places that you hadn't imagined. And then you will want to take time out and study it and see about maybe taking some night courses or whatever it might be. So all of that is to say that there is no typical lay Christian's life. We're all different. We all have different callings, we all have different gifts. Usually our callings correspond to some degree, at least to the gifts we already have. Sometimes we are called to do things which which then draw out of us gifts that we didn't know we had or gifts which had been suppressed by the subculture in which we'd lived, or whatever it may be. So bless you in your quest of a knowledge and study of our own faith. The world is out there. There are more books, helps, guides, et cetera, to living as a Christian, to studying as a Christian today, than there have ever been in the history of the church in the world. So there's a plethora of stuff, probably too much, but pray for wisdom and discernment to know where to break into that circ circle and where it's going to lead you on to. God bless you.

Mike Bird (16:17)

Yeah, I think that's very good advice, Tom. I get a lot of people asking me questions. I love God. I'm happy to be a youth group leader. Should I be going to Bible college? You know, should I simply continue on with, you know, you know, contributing to the church where I am? And if you set down an absolute pattern, what of what every layperson is to do, you can get caught in a bit of a guilt trap because when they realize their own time of life, their own pattern of life doesn't match up up for that. And I think in any church, you know, basically 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people, most of whom are laity anyway. Well, that's probably a good point for us to take a break on, but to our listeners, don't go far. Next up, we've got a couple of great questions about the Bible, like who has the authority to forgive sins in the church?

Justin Briley (17:11)

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Mike Bird (18:17)

Well, welcome back. We're continuing to answer your questions which you can send to us@askantyright.com and now we have a question from Elsie Sifuentes in Guatemala. Tom, this is the second question we have had from Guatemala to all our friends in Guatemala, including Elsie, I want to say a big hola, big ola from Tom and I were very grateful from your for your questions and we're glad to get them. And here's what Elsie asks. She says in John 20:23, does it really mean that I can grant forgiveness to anyone, like a Catholic priest? And like, for a bit of, for a bit of context there, let me read to everyone John 20:23, which says if you forgive the sins of anyone, their sins are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven. Now this is Jesus instruction after his resurrection to his disciples. Tom, does this mean we can go around opening up our own confessionals and going around forgiving sins or telling people their sins are not forgiven?

Tom Wright (19:29)

It's a fascinating passage and I've come back to this again and again partly because I love John 20. It's one of my favorite chapters in the whole Bible. But it is also, I would say, the hardest verse in John 20 by some way. But let me just put it into the context. It's this very short scene, John 2019:23, set in the upper room on the evening of the first day of the week, the first Easter day, when the disciples are there in this room with the doors locked because they're afraid of the Judean authorities and Jesus forget the locked doors. Jesus is going to be there and he comes and he stands in their midst. And they are thrilled and excited and glad when they saw the Lord. And then Jesus breathes on his disciples and says, receive the Holy Spirit. Whosoever sins you forgive, they are forgiven. Whosoever sins in one translation you retain, they're retained. And immediately before that he says the words which I see as paradigm for all Christian ministry and mission. Wherever and whenever, as the Father sent me, so I send you. Now when we read therefore verse 23, we have to read it in that larger context. This is part of the work of the whole church that in the power of the Spirit we are to be for the world what Jesus was for Israel. He came to his own, his own didn't fit receive him, et cetera, et cetera. Jesus came as light into the world and several of them preferred darkness to light. And all of that, that's a major theme in John. It's as though all of that is now transposed into the life of the church. And the church is to be in the power of the Spirit, the people who go out into the world, who declare that when people believe come to Jesus in penitence and faith, then their sins are forgiven. And the church is also to be the people who warn the wider world in of the Spirit that there are ways which lead away from life, which lead into non forgiveness ways in which people can lock themselves into a place where they really have resisted the call of grace and have slammed the door and thrown away the key. And it seems to me that the main thing there is a commission to the whole church. Now, Alce is implying that this is for every individual Christian, and it seems to me that we should be very careful about this because it's every individual Christian as a member of the larger body of Christ. And Alci, I suspect being in Guatemala probably has this context of a typical Roman Catholic system where the priest has the vocation and responsibility of announcing to a penitent that their sins are forgiven. And that is, as it were, a sharpening up of this general vocation of the whole church. The whole church is to be the people through whom the world sees that there is such a thing as forgiveness and that it's there for the taking, but through whom also the world can see that actually they might want to resist that and turn away from God. So that I would say, yes, individual Christians can and must do this. And in a sense, every time an individual Christian forgives somebody, at whatever level it is, whether trivial or massive, then they are embodying the forgiving love of God in the power of the Spirit at that point. But I see this also. Much of John 20 reflects and echoes Genesis chapters one and two because it's about the new creation, which is the eighth day, the first day of the new week. And I see this verse, verse 23, as in some ways reflecting the trees of the knowledge of good and evil, that now that we have the tree of life in Jesus, the risen one, we in the power of the Spirit are to be equipped in fear and trembling, no doubt to announce to the world what is good and what is evil, what is forgiveness and what is unforgiveness. Just as in John 16, Jesus says, when the Spirit comes, the Spirit will convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgment. How will the Spirit do that? Through the work of the church. So yes, each individual Christian can and should be giving to their neighbors, their family members, et cetera, the divine gift of forgiveness, and aware that sometimes they're called to say, if you go this route, there is no way back. That's a very dangerous and difficult verse, but I think it has to do with the vocation of the whole church. And we, tremblingly, as individual Christians, find our own vocations within that.

Mike Bird (24:21)

I think that's right, Tom. I mean, I've had to sometimes counsel people who I think are on the verge of making bad decisions. And I say, look, you know, I think you can get out from where you are, there is, there is a way to redemption. But if you go the other way, you're going to end up in a hole so, so deep you will not know which way is up and which way is down. And you're going to find you're going to be a place where, you know, even, even, even my help, even my grace and love cannot find you. You know, if people go down. And I think there is a place for saying that, that. And I mean this passage is obviously very similar to that one. I think it's in Matthew, Matthew 16 about binding and loosing. Yeah, you know, you got that same. I mean that's sort of the, the, the kind of mirror passage. And yeah, it's got some very interesting things about, you know, what authority do clergy or even Christians have about, you know, sins, binding, loosing. I, I find it a fascinating. I'm surprised more has not been written on this. This is what really baffles me.

Tom Wright (25:21)

I think it's partly because in the Roman Catholic tradition that has been very much sorted out and tabulated as to what the priest can do and what only the priest can do. And then the Protestant tradition has looked at that and said, well, we're not sure about that. That's a system which can easily be abused. And so they've kind of turned away from it. And I suspect that's why there hasn't been as much written as there might have been. And I agree, I haven't seen very much on that. Though Ulrich Lutz's commentary on Matthew is interesting on that passage though that's another matter. But it does seem to me the primary question that Husy is asking is can I then do what I thought only the priest could do? And the answer is well, yes you can, but in the name of Jesus and as a member of the body of Christ. In other words, there is something about being ordained as a public representative of the body of Christ which does give a certain status and authority. Whereas if somebody just approaches you on the street and says, well, God forgives you for that, well, hang on, who are you, on what basis is this happening, etc. Whereas somebody who is an authorized representative of the body of Christ, and in the Catholic tradition that would be probably a priest, there might be others as well, then this gives a sort of weight to it that the whole church from the beginning is a movement of forgiveness. And if you come and say you're sorry for this and that, then we have the right in the name of Jesus, in the power of the spirit to declare you are forgiven. So the answer is yes. But beware, this is solemn stuff that we are carrying in our rather fragile hands at the moment.

Mike Bird (27:09)

I agree, Tom. Well, who knows? Maybe one day we'll do a live episode in Guatemala. We'll see what happens. We seem to have enough of an audience space there. Well, I think that's all we have time for today. Again, we're very grateful for the questions that you've sent us and we want more. We can't get enough of them. So Please go to askntright.com Send us your questions, whether it's about the Bible, theology, faith, or maybe even some of the freeing things you've been too afraid to ask your pastor. Please send them to us because I guarantee, guarantee you, I bet someone else is also wrestling with that same question. Well, that's everything from me, Mike Bird.

Tom Wright (27:51)

And me, Tom Wright.

Mike Bird (27:52)

We look forward to seeing you on the next episode of Ask NT Write Anything. Until then, God bless you and take care.

Tom Wright (28:11)

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