The NXR Podcast - THEOLOGY APPLIED - Tim Keller’s Problem Isn’t His Embrace Of Abraham Kuyper, It’s His Embrace Of Karl Marx ｜ with David McLeod & Chris Hwang

00:00:00.000 All right, listen, guys, I get it.

00:00:02.040 Many of you are unable to financially support this ministry because you're spending your

00:00:05.820 cash and your lives on raising young children in the fear and admonition of the Lord.

00:00:10.640 Praise God for you and that endeavor.

00:00:13.760 However, algorithms are a thing.

00:00:16.300 Shadow banning, sadly, is a thing.

00:00:18.900 And one major way that you can help to expand the reach and effectiveness of this ministry

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00:00:31.800 perhaps even more effective than that, you can share our podcast with a friend. We hope you'll

00:00:37.000 take the time to do so. Thank you so much. God bless. The problem with Timothy Keller is not

00:00:43.420 that he's embraced Abraham Kuyper, but that sadly, at least at some level, he seems to have embraced

00:00:51.160 Karl Marx. Kuyperianism is not the problem. The problem is Marxism. This is something that I hope

00:00:59.320 especially some of my Baptist friends may listen to and might at least consider that Abraham Kuyper

00:01:06.540 is not the primary problem. The sentiment of engaging all of life with all of Christ

00:01:15.080 is not the issue. The issue is, are we actually engaging all of life, every realm of life with

00:01:22.700 all of Christ or some of Christ and some of a progressive neo-Marxist, godless pagan idea?

00:01:33.100 That's what we're going to address in this episode with two special guests, David McLeod

00:01:39.440 and Chris Wong. Tune in now. Applying God's word to every aspect of life. This is Theology Applied.

00:01:53.060 All right. Welcome back to another episode of Theology Applied. I am your host, Pastor Joel

00:01:57.460 Webin with Right Response Ministries. And in this episode, I'm privileged to welcome not one, but

00:02:02.880 two special guests to the show. We have Chris Wong and David McLeod. Would you guys go ahead and

00:02:09.280 just share a little bit about yourselves and then we'll get into some Tim Keller stuff as promised

00:02:13.960 as the title showcases. We're going to talk about how all three of us in different ways were shaped

00:02:19.140 by Tim Keller, how we came to eventually realize the problems with Keller, how we overcompensated,

00:02:24.940 but then came back and saw some things that are actually good that the church, even the

00:02:30.040 conservative evangelical realm has thrown out the baby with the bathwater. And it's actually

00:02:35.640 creating some serious problems that we want to address. So before we hop into all that,

00:02:41.060 first, let's just welcome our guest. Could you guys, Chris and David, tell our listeners a little

00:02:45.920 bit about yourselves? Hey guys, I'm Chris Wong, and I'm really thrilled to be a part of this

00:02:52.280 community, Joel. I worked in New York City for, gosh, 12, 13, 14 years of my life. Worked on

00:03:01.600 Wall Street for a few years. And then from there, joined a startup where I helped build that

00:03:07.660 business for over a decade. We sold that business, had a brief stint at a public technology company.

00:03:15.540 And then as of now, I'm the co-founder of Every Good Work with my business partner and artist,

00:03:22.960 David, and I'm also advising startups as well. Great. There's a lot to

00:03:31.580 talk about go ahead david go ahead well um i'm i'm an artist um i've been an artist essentially my

00:03:37.500 entire life um i grew up in birmingham i grew up in the pca um kind of at the epicenter of the of

00:03:46.780 the founding of the pca in the in the 70s i'm a child of the early 80s grew up uh with great

00:03:55.100 Christian family, um, went to school, studied art and have been a portrait painter and paint

00:04:02.140 painting for, um, galleries and personal collectors for about two decades now.

00:04:10.840 Awesome. That's so interesting. Yeah. So I'm excited about this episode and our listeners,

00:04:15.600 you should be excited about this episode because part of what we're going to be talking about

00:04:18.560 is this all of Christ for all of life, this Kuyperian mantra, Abraham Kuyper. He's the guy

00:04:24.620 who was famous for saying, there's not one square inch of all the world that Christ doesn't cry out

00:04:29.240 mine. You guys have heard me use this analogy or illustration several times, but we don't want to

00:04:34.120 do the Mufasa and Simba Lion King routine where they go up to the Pride Rock and Simba's looking

00:04:41.600 at this kingdom that he's going to inherit. And Mufasa, his father says, everything that the light

00:04:46.860 touches is going to be your kingdom. And Simba responds by saying, but what about that dark,

00:04:51.680 shadowy place. We don't want to do that as Christians and say, well, that dark shadowy

00:04:56.840 place, that's politics or that dark shadowy place, that's art. That dark shadowy place,

00:05:01.560 that's culture, that's medicine, that's science. That's no, no, no. It all belongs to Jesus.

00:05:07.060 And so basically the team that we have on the show today is we've got Chris and David,

00:05:10.920 we've got the business guru and we've got the artist. And so we're going to be looking at

00:05:16.000 markets. We're going to be looking at economics. We're going to be looking at art and culture

00:05:19.740 and painting and talking about why, um, business is corrupt and art sucks. And it's because of a 0.95

00:05:26.740 rejection of Christ and how to fix those things. But the first thing that we want to look at is

00:05:31.840 part of the problem has to do with Tim Keller and not saying that it's exclusively his fault

00:05:38.120 or that he's the first guy to make this mistake. But he, the reason why we're going to address it

00:05:43.060 from Keller is because all three of us have been shaped by Keller particularly. And so I want us

00:05:47.600 to talk about that, but then also because Keller is not the original failure in this arena that

00:05:53.920 we're about to discuss. But he's probably one of the most notable guys today. And so what we want

00:06:00.980 to talk about is this all of Christ mantra, redeeming that. But the problem, just to stop

00:06:08.380 beating around the bush, the problem is that Keller actually did that and does that really well.

00:06:13.600 Keller is a Kuyperian. And I think there's a lot of guys who have watched Keller's

00:06:19.340 deconstruction, his theological evolution, becoming more and more politically and culturally

00:06:27.260 progressive and compromising on more and more conservative, biblical, theological issues.

00:06:34.340 And I know, at least in the Baptist world, I have a lot of Baptist friends, pastors, podcasters,

00:06:40.480 you name it authors they think that the problem with keller and and and the the achilles heel

00:06:48.260 that led to his progressive theological progressive downfall is his embrace of abraham kuyper and it's

00:06:55.620 not the problem with keller is not kuyper the problem with keller is that he's a marxist that's

00:07:02.140 the problem and so all that being said let me throw it to you chris and then you throw it to

00:07:06.260 David, but talk a little bit about the ways that you were shaped by Tim Keller, the good,

00:07:10.480 the bad, the ugly. Yeah. I mean, I remember, um, being on my campus and, uh, that was when he

00:07:18.920 wrote, um, I believe his apologetics on, um, what was it? Um, the reason for God, the reason for

00:07:26.060 God. Yeah. I remember that he was on a book tour. I had lunch with him with a group of, um, college

00:07:31.360 students um and and he really he radically changed my understanding of of the gospel um he spoke in

00:07:39.200 a language that i would say really was attractive um you know he had a different type of way of

00:07:46.480 communicating i think he's very gifted in that i think obviously adding his um his intellectualism

00:07:53.200 you know um was was um also very um very attractive and so really i just kind of

00:07:59.520 Yep, fell in love with the whole Tim Keller, you know, mission and what he was up to.

00:08:05.200 And I would say that the impact that he made was he really was able to communicate the gospel.

00:08:12.500 I think that was something good, and we should praise God for that.

00:08:15.160 There's a lot of good stuff about that.

00:08:17.700 I think the really bad stuff that I ended up embracing as a disciple of Tim Keller was I ended up nuancing everything.

00:08:25.480 um i think c.s lewis i believe it's c.s lewis where he said something where you know if you

00:08:31.220 if you start seeing through everything at some point you see nothing at all and and in many ways

00:08:38.640 i kind of became that as a christian and i think when when you when you live that out where you

00:08:44.860 start nuancing everything um you you start losing spine right you start losing witness you start

00:08:53.820 losing the very power of why the holy spirit indwells inside of the believers it's boldness

00:09:01.980 so so i think i i became a i almost i wasn't i wasn't i would say i wasn't a person who

00:09:09.020 mastered apologetics i ended up becoming a person over time who apologized a lot

00:09:15.100 does that make sense yeah so there's a lot of practicing sodom sodomites that we were friends

00:09:20.220 with um and we love right but i found myself in terms of the most effective witnessing that i

00:09:28.000 could do was number one practicing hospitality but whenever we're talking about the gospel it's

00:09:32.740 always always something about me trying to um point a finger with contempt at those self-righteous

00:09:41.520 christians right and little did i realize that those self-righteous christians were actually

00:09:47.100 christians who were being faithful to the text right they actually were being faithful to the

00:09:52.160 lord and they were willing to take nasty stuff from even people like myself um right and and

00:09:59.800 they were willing to be faithful and so i i think for me over time i became that winsome intellectual

00:10:05.860 guy who spoke poetically but then when you double clicked on does this guy have any substance

00:10:12.760 does he have any rock is there anything that he's standing on i would say people would not really

00:10:18.480 know so i would say in short that's a little bit of how tim keller has impacted me positively but

00:10:24.580 also a lot of negative too right and you chris were correct me if i'm wrong but you were a part

00:10:29.840 um a core member of an axe 29 church in manhattan because you lived there yep and that church the

00:10:37.020 pastor there was intimately involved he was a part of what how would you describe it yeah he's

00:10:42.480 part of a cohort, had personal discipleship with Tim Keller. And yeah, I would say Tim Keller was

00:10:48.200 very much like the mayor of New York City when it came to church planting, right? You kind of get

00:10:52.360 the blessings of being a part of that ministry, being a part of some sort of, you know, leadership

00:10:58.960 training, pastoral training. And yeah, so was definitely involved. And yeah, Tim Keller was

00:11:05.440 always just a subway ride away. So my friends, roommates were all part of it. So yeah, definitely

00:11:12.060 had a lot of involvement with Tim. So you were part of the 829 church, but your pastor in many

00:11:16.780 ways was discipled with other pastors in a cohort with Tim Keller, but you had friends who were part

00:11:21.460 of Tim Keller's church. You would attend it sometimes. And it's funny because you were

00:11:25.320 part of an Acts 29 church and you know, I was an Acts 29 pastor and a lot of people don't understand

00:11:30.000 like, um, like I remember going to Acts 29 conferences and, uh, they would literally call

00:11:35.140 like it wasn't, they would say it out loud. They would say, um, uh, here's, you know, every single

00:11:40.340 lecture, you know, um, plenary speaker, you know, would, would give their, their speech and, uh,

00:11:46.220 and the quotations would be, you know, 50% of the quotations would all be Keller quotes and they

00:11:51.280 would, and they would call him Yoda. So even, so even though like Keller wasn't ever in Acts 29,

00:11:57.620 people underestimate, uh, the extent of his influence by Acts 29. I would say Acts 29 has

00:12:05.800 been impacted more by keller than it has by channel yeah i would say like how many times

00:12:10.520 and you probably even preach this message where it's like everything needs to end with like a

00:12:15.140 gospel right the gospel uh hook yeah you're not you're not allowed you're not allowed you're too

00:12:21.080 broken you're too sinful you don't even realize it and how many times have we not been allowed

00:12:27.340 by maybe this is a counseling session between us Joel but but no I'm I can talk about all that

00:12:36.560 stuff but yeah I'm being very serious like how many times do we just feel immobilized as a body

00:12:42.260 like we're not allowed to have dominion we're not allowed to conquer those are actually

00:12:48.740 sensitive words that you should be careful Chris using even though they're very biblical words

00:12:53.960 right like right because it's the the keller gospel twist is what we would sometimes call

00:12:59.040 the keller gospel twist is that uh essentially what it is is that the whole sermon leading up

00:13:04.540 to that gospel twist is a use of the law of god but exclusively only ever in the first use of the

00:13:10.960 law the first use of the law is that it functions as a mirror it reveals to us the holiness of god

00:13:16.340 and by way of consequence our sinfulness and all the ways that we fall short and that we will never

00:13:21.100 ever be able to measure up to God's standard of holiness, which is true, right? All of sin and

00:13:26.240 fallen short of the glory of God, no man will be saved by works as done unto the law. All that's

00:13:31.700 true. But the reformed tradition is not just one use of the law. The third use of the law is that

00:13:37.800 for the Christian, the law, it doesn't just reveal our need for a savior, but having by grace through

00:13:43.040 faith alone in Christ received a savior, the law in its third use is now a lamp unto our feet,

00:13:49.700 a light unto our path. It's a guide. It's a compass. It shows us where to go in the process

00:13:55.300 of sanctification, being formed more into the image of Christ, but also growing in godly dominion.

00:14:02.500 And guys, you don't like the word dominion. Okay. Then in place, you should like it because it's a

00:14:06.160 biblical word, but just in place the word stewardship, stewarding God's world, that is

00:14:11.680 dominion. So all that being said, Keller was good with using the law in its first use. That is a

00:14:16.580 legitimate use of the law of God. People, you know, Spurgeon said, a man cannot appreciate

00:14:21.140 the beauty of Christ unless he first come to see the need for Christ. And the law reveals to us

00:14:26.760 our need for Christ. But the law having received Christ reveals to us where to go, how to grow in

00:14:33.160 holiness, but how to grow in holiness for the purpose of glorifying God by exercising Christian

00:14:39.640 stewardship and dominion in the tangible physical world and not just in the 17th dimension. And

00:14:46.240 that's where keller we'll get there david we'll go to david but we'll get we'll get there so no

00:14:53.960 chris joel awesome insight um i'm probably not going to be quite as eloquent or uh long-winded

00:15:04.280 as either of you guys that's fine nobody's as long until we get to art it's a great compliment

00:15:09.040 in which case i can just i can just go on forever great um yeah i um my experience with keller was

00:15:17.120 very positive for a very long time um and i and i say that even looking back that i i still see it as

00:15:25.120 as positive during that that era of my life as chris said um you know some similar story

00:15:33.040 heavily impacted on my understanding of justification, need for a savior, the beauty

00:15:39.080 of the gospel, my interaction. I didn't read a whole lot of Keller books, so maybe that's why

00:15:46.620 it's still also so positive to me, my history. I remember something about a forgetfulness

00:15:58.840 book is a tiny little a tiny little book um blessed forgetfulness the humility thing don't

00:16:06.200 think less of yourself but think of yourself less yeah yes um he spoke at a church in nashville

00:16:12.620 when i was uh either newly married or a college student so somewhere around 23 24 25

00:16:19.260 um and he just like chris said he had just a great way of delivering making um uh very apparent

00:16:29.780 biblical truths to my modern ears so um talking to mothers in the audience about how

00:16:38.700 um if they if they don't like doing the dishes you know or changing your motivation to to a

00:16:48.560 christ-like motivation um and and again looking back i can see how there was a little bit of

00:16:55.760 jiu-jitsu going on in order to always make everything kind of like the third way yes

00:17:04.840 there's like there's this way which is this the bad ditch and there's this way which is also a

00:17:09.680 bad ditch but this is the right way um and it's and it's like walking a tightrope you eventually

00:17:16.980 you eventually look silly because you're just trying to balance and you can't possibly say

00:17:24.500 one thing to offend these people or what another thing to offend these people um and 0.97

00:17:30.800 in application in my own life i mean being an artist in a very broken world in a broken world

00:17:40.380 in a broken country, in a broken field, the arts, being able to proclaim the gospel in a way that is

00:17:51.120 in your face or winsome or anything is nearly impossible. And I found myself just being silenced

00:17:59.600 whenever the topic would come up. There were times when I would be more bold, but

00:18:07.500 But it certainly wasn't because I had a great Tim Keller quote in the back of my mind to pull out to really convince my pagan friends in New York that they should start going to Redeemer. 0.62

00:18:23.400 It was more boots on the ground, very basic stuff about how sad they clearly were and how fulfilling my life in Christ is.

00:18:37.500 um so yeah i that that's really good and i like that you brought up the third way ism because

00:18:43.440 that's just a classic you know so you got the classic you know tim color gospel twist uh you

00:18:47.800 know first use of the law exclusively never the third and then you know and then at the end hey

00:18:52.060 but thank god for jesus so it's you know you're lawless you've broken the law you'll never be

00:18:57.300 able to keep the law don't even bother trying but jesus kept the law in your place praise god let's

00:19:01.320 go home um so that's a classic you know but the third way thing is a classic too right you know

00:19:05.660 so there's Republicans and there's Democrats and then there's Jesus. And what's implied in that,

00:19:11.760 the problem with that is because the Republican Party and the Republican platform is certainly

00:19:17.500 not synonymous with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Or for that matter, not that it even should be,

00:19:22.380 but what it should be in line with as a ministry of justice with the civil master, it should be

00:19:26.740 in line not with the gospel, but with the law of God. And it's not in line with that either.

00:19:30.000 So the Republican party is not synonymous with biblical law and justice, but what you

00:19:36.340 do, here's what you do is this subtle crafty jujitsu, like you said, David, is that it's

00:19:42.500 not even what you're saying out loud, but by way of implication, what you're implying

00:19:46.020 by your silence, and I think an intentional and careful crafty silence is you're saying,

00:19:52.300 well republicanism isn't uh christian and uh and democrats aren't christian um and and then what

00:20:00.360 you're implying is that they're both they're both wrong but that they're both equally wrong

00:20:05.020 which is not true right when you have one party that recently had 49 out of 50 representatives

00:20:11.560 vote to codify row into law in all 50 states for abortion the murder of the unborn child to be

00:20:18.940 legal all the way through nine months of pregnancy without uh with for any reason at any point in any

00:20:26.220 state and and you have one party that has 49 out of 50 people voting for that to be law and then

00:20:32.000 another party that's voting against it um these things are not equal right they're just they're

00:20:37.520 just not and so that third way ism is is really i think just um it's it's really it's a euphemism

00:20:43.800 for the biblical word, which is compromise, because what you have is, you know, another

00:20:50.480 classic Keller thing was contextualize the gospel, contextualizing.

00:20:54.200 And he would point to Paul, you know, in like in Athens, you know, or Mars Hill, you know,

00:20:59.200 I see you are a very religious people, you know, you have all these idols built to all

00:21:03.000 these gods, but I noticed one over here built to the unknown God.

00:21:06.100 I've come to make him known, to reveal, you know, who this God is.

00:21:09.100 And Keller would, you know, really emphasize that text, which is a biblical text, and there's

00:21:14.580 lots of truth to be preached from it, but he would emphasize it over and against other

00:21:18.480 texts, overemphasize it.

00:21:20.860 And this whole contextualizing of the gospel, what I realized, and it took me a long time

00:21:24.920 to realize this, but what I finally came to see was when Tim Keller contextualizes the

00:21:30.040 gospel, what he means is he means being very acutely aware of the culture that you're

00:21:37.900 preaching the gospel in, and then taking the gospel, namely taking Christ, and instead

00:21:43.700 of all of Christ for those people in their lives, you take the portions of Christ, now

00:21:50.660 being an expert in this particular culture, you take the particular portions of Christ

00:21:55.740 that you think will be most palatable to this particular people.

00:21:59.680 And so it's actually some of Christ, part of Christ, a portion of Christ against the

00:22:05.400 whole Christ, all of Christ for these particular people. And I can't remember who it was, but

00:22:09.680 someone at some point correcting Keller on this, it was a podcast I was listening to a few years

00:22:15.520 back, but it was so helpful. He said, yeah, Paul contextualized the gospel, but contextualization

00:22:20.460 of the gospel in the mind of Paul and in the New Testament apostolic writings, what that always

00:22:26.140 meant was finding, being aware of the culture that you're in, their customs, their culture,

00:22:31.260 those kinds of things um for the sake of making the gospel more clear not less so to contextualize

00:22:38.320 the gospel means to clarify the gospel not to make it more ambiguous right it's to clarify

00:22:44.360 the offense of the gospel right exactly it's to make it it's it's to make it what it is which is

00:22:51.420 a sword and not what it isn't which is syncretism yeah i think that's a good point because for me

00:22:57.600 what I was going to say was, um, it was really weird for me.

00:23:01.200 It was almost like the power of the gospel had to submit to secularism.

00:23:08.580 You know what I'm saying? That's right.

00:23:10.100 It's almost like the gospel was not powerful enough to chop off the head of an 0.96

00:23:16.200 impotent God of secularism, which is so impotent.

00:23:21.000 And yet for some reason we needed to be shrewd and intellectual,

00:23:27.600 and and find the compatible pieces of secularism and mix it yeah and you said david would yeah go

00:23:34.840 ahead no go ahead joel well i was i was just saying finding those compat instead of instead

00:23:39.420 of actually right like i think phil johnson said it like this like i want to engage culture

00:23:43.500 he said but i um i want to engage culture the way david engaged goliath yeah he killed him

00:23:50.140 right so it's like we want to engage secularism um but we want to engage secularism um with the

00:23:56.040 mentality that it's a fight to the death that's right um and and the reason why the left has been

00:24:01.220 winning is because they play for keeps they know it's a fight to the death right exactly so when

00:24:06.280 you just think you're sparring you're wrestling or you're just sitting down and having a charitable

00:24:10.020 conversation and seeing how we can learn from each other you know and establishing this

00:24:14.560 synchronization between secularism and finding well it can't all be bad find the compatible

00:24:19.060 pieces that might fit with christianity and this principled pluralism right a lot of this comes

00:24:23.700 back to classical liberalism. It comes back to, uh, misinterpretations and, and, and some of the,

00:24:28.340 the negative things with John Locke and all, all these kinds of things. Um, when that's your

00:24:32.380 mentality, um, that's a lose, that's a recipe for losing. That's a loser mentality. Uh, the left 0.95

00:24:37.720 keeps winning because, uh, not because they had all the institutions, they have them now. Um, but,

00:24:42.180 but, but they got them. They were at a massive deficit 40 years ago. And yet now they're winning

00:24:48.000 how, um, because they were scrappy, right? Like when, when there's two guys fighting and one of

00:24:52.920 him's a little scrawny dude he knows he doesn't have the physical advantage they were playing so

00:24:57.800 he's biting scratching punching go david go for playing to win yes and playing to win and and guys

00:25:05.560 like we could name a whole laundry list of sort of wannabe conservatives um evangelicals who just

00:25:15.100 want a seat at the table right i think of these men as um they see where the culture is going

00:25:23.580 and they don't have the boldness to proclaim the actual truth to the enemy and as a result they

00:25:31.320 want to be they want to have a seat at the table for now and then when things get really bad they

00:25:37.340 want to be the last against the wall exactly yeah and i think and it's all for the sake of love

00:25:43.060 right and and i think that's the i think i'm curious to hear your thoughts joel like as a

00:25:49.260 pastor but since when can we not still be so burdened by love for our enemies why why can't

00:25:57.000 we still be bold and actually believe that the gospel can destroy the enemy but that it destroys

00:26:06.860 the enemy and we welcome that enemy into the family of god right like why why does it have

00:26:12.600 i think that's the biggest critique that i think is just a straw man um david loves the lost you

00:26:20.020 love the lost i love the lost but we're not going to compromise before the word of god and we're

00:26:26.480 not going to compromise the glory of god what's that compromise that makes that makes it ineffective

00:26:33.060 if we if we are not bold and proclaiming the truth then they're not going to be caught up

00:26:40.560 in the stories we have to tell

00:26:41.980 because they think that their story

00:26:43.820 is better than ours.

00:26:44.880 Their story goes along

00:26:46.800 with the world that they see around them

00:26:49.020 way better than ours does

00:26:50.640 in most cases.

00:26:52.400 We have to call out

00:26:53.900 these giants that are in the land

00:26:56.000 for what they are.

00:26:57.760 And I think that's the most loving thing

00:26:59.880 that we can do.

00:27:00.860 And if a world could see

00:27:02.340 men with spine

00:27:05.880 who believe more than ever

00:27:07.940 that god is god is their lord jesus christ is lord yep but also but also but also see that

00:27:17.460 we're willing to lay down our lives right because we love too like there's something glorious the

00:27:24.940 lion and the lamb but i think for me what was kind of the tipping point was twitter

00:27:29.640 seeing how much um i still believe you know i'm i'm earnestly hoping you know keller i love keller

00:27:39.360 i love him as as as someone who's who's learned so much but on twitter when you're convincing

00:27:45.640 um an entire generation that it's okay to vote it's it's just so nuanced and so complex that

00:27:54.620 it's okay to vote for people who love to murder babies that to me is insane there's something

00:28:01.860 insane about that right and and i think you know lord have mercy on us and thank god for me you

00:28:09.520 know praise god i'm still repenting i was just like that so i completely understand it um but

00:28:16.320 but the the tipping point for me was they would they would point the fingers at the sheep

00:28:22.380 keller would be more focused on blasting his members the lord's the lord's sheep the lord's

00:28:31.560 this is this is the blood was spilt for for his sheep and and here for their self-righteousness

00:28:37.740 or for their as if he knows there are all their hearts that's right and you know we can do our

00:28:42.680 own name calling joel i know you've got an awesome video on who to who we have to be aware of but

00:28:48.500 i mean russell moore right there's all these people where you just look at what they're doing

00:28:52.080 on twitter is they're they care more about bashing they punch right they tickle left they coddle the

00:28:58.480 left cow kowtow left and what that means that's political you know cultural terms what it means

00:29:03.340 in christian terms is that they beat up christians and a particular kind of christian they beat up 0.58

00:29:08.480 blue collar salt of the earth average ordinary christians the christian who believes that god

00:29:14.360 actually made the world in six literal days yep the christian who believes that marriage is between 0.95

00:29:19.320 a man and a woman and that gay marriage is a mirage and that it shouldn't be legal that's right 0.58

00:29:24.460 the christian who who um the christian who's uh such a um primitive neanderthal that he actually 0.97

00:29:32.700 is ignorant enough to think uh that christian nationalism might be biblical because christ is 1.00

00:29:38.360 king you know that the dumb christian the killer laughs and mocks that person russell moore is 1.00

00:29:46.980 laughing and mocking that person. Beth Moore is laughing at and mocking that person. And when I 1.00

00:29:54.240 realized that, Matt Chandler has laughed and mocked that person. And when I realized that, that's when

00:29:58.700 I left Acts 29. I was like, I'm not going to give you my blood, my sweat, my tears, our money,

00:30:04.380 our support. No, because that person that you're mocking is the member in my church.

00:30:11.040 Amen. That's right.

00:30:12.220 And it's me.

00:30:13.220 That's right.

00:30:13.720 And it's my wife and Lord willing, if he would be so gracious, it's the kids that I'm raising. 0.99

00:30:18.620 I hope that my kids are your Neanderthal primitive Christians that believe that God created the 0.97

00:30:24.560 world in six literal days and that Christ is King. 1.00

00:30:26.860 And that Jesus is Lord is the most political statement ever made in all the universe.

00:30:32.900 That's, you know, so no, I'm not going to help build and support your clout and your

00:30:38.200 ministry, um, that, that, that exists for mocking my future children. Um, I, no, I'm not going to

00:30:45.660 participate in that. And so all that being said, my point to segue here for us, um, my point is

00:30:51.720 that like, I had that experience. You guys have that experience. Um, but then the next experience

00:30:57.340 in the leg of my theological development as the Lord was in his sovereignty, sanctifying me,

00:31:01.920 um, producing repentance for things that was wrong. Well, part of the problem is that I,

00:31:06.320 when I started seeing that, right, we left in 2018. I took my church out of Acts 29,

00:31:12.800 the church I was pastoring in California, because that was right after Eric Mason had wrote Woke

00:31:18.780 Church, you know, and so Acts 29 was getting, you know, Chandler had just made his, you know,

00:31:24.280 his notorious statement of, you know, I'll take a African-American six on a scale of one to 10

00:31:32.300 instead of an Anglo seven, you know, and those, those kinds of things were happening. And that 0.96

00:31:37.020 was Keller influence. And so when that happened, I moved out. So this is 2018. And, and when I took

00:31:42.580 our church out of Acts 29, Acts 29 was very Kuyperian. Again, not everything about Abraham

00:31:49.580 Kuyper is great. In fact, Abraham Kuyper has a couple of quotes about art that all three of us

00:31:55.560 would strongly disagree with. But when we're talking about, when we say Kuyperianism, what

00:32:00.320 what the three of us mean and what Keller means and what and we would agree with what he means

00:32:04.680 about Kuyper and what, you know, the quintessential way that Kuyperianism, the term is used in

00:32:11.100 theological realms today is simply meaning all of Christ for all of life. That's what we mean by

00:32:17.560 Kuyperianism. We don't mean prescribing to, just like Calvinism doesn't necessarily mean that you

00:32:22.080 prescribe with everything in John Calvin's institutes, but it means primarily his take on

00:32:27.100 soteriology, right? That the five points of Calvinism, as it refers to salvation, the sovereignty

00:32:32.500 of God in election and salvation, that's Calvinism. Well, Kuyperianism, what we mean is all of Christ

00:32:38.100 for all of life. The recognition that yes, the church is unique. Christ is uniquely head of the

00:32:43.960 church in the sense that the church is the only, it's the only institution for which Christ died.

00:32:50.480 The only entity for which Christ died. It's the only entity that is Christ eternal bride.

00:32:55.860 but Christ is head. So he is uniquely head of the church, but he is not exclusively or merely head

00:33:04.080 of the church, uniquely head of the church, but he is head of everything. Caesar submits to God.

00:33:09.160 He's God's deacon. So Christ is head of Caesar. Christ is head of markets. He's head of arts.

00:33:14.440 He's head of culture. He's head of science. He's every square inch. That's the Kuyper sentiment

00:33:19.040 when we say Kuyperianism. And my point is in 2018, pulling out of Acts 29, seeing the negative

00:33:25.620 impact of Keller with compromise, becoming more and more culturally and theologically

00:33:30.240 and politically progressive, those kinds of things, you guys, me, we started pulling away

00:33:35.720 from this and I don't want to put words in your mouth, but for myself, one of the things

00:33:40.240 that I did as I threw out my Keller books, I also threw out Kuyper and I looking and

00:33:48.000 it took me a couple of years.

00:33:49.320 It wasn't until probably about 2020 when all the stuff started going down with the

00:33:55.120 branch covidians and you know and the summer of love you know where the country was on fire

00:33:59.340 you know like those kind of things is what really started to wake me up where i realized okay wait

00:34:04.480 a sec wait a second because i had thrown out keller and i threw out kuyper with him and and

00:34:09.680 my point is um because i thought the all of christ for all of life every square inch mentality

00:34:14.580 that's what would cause you to cozy up to culture want a seat at the table like you said david and

00:34:20.780 start to make concessions and compromises. But then I realized as I looked under the lid a little

00:34:27.100 bit, it took a closer look, I realized, no, no, no. It's not that Keller is Kuyperian. It's that

00:34:33.300 Keller is Marxist. And I went back and started listening to Acts 29, you know, conference

00:34:37.880 sessions that I had sat in, you know, that I decided, man, I'm going to pull the church out.

00:34:41.940 And I realized, you know, like there were talks about how we should be more socialist in our

00:34:46.840 economic, you know, framework as a country, because that's caring for the poor. And I realized,

00:34:51.200 wait a second, that's not Kuiper. That's Christ has a stake in economics. The problem is they're

00:34:57.440 not applying Christ to economics. They're applying Marx to economics. And so then I went, you know,

00:35:03.440 from Keller to like Kuiper sucks. Let's go radical to kingdom. I started looking at Van 0.98

00:35:08.360 Druden and I was right there, you know, next to Escondido, Westminster. And I started looking at

00:35:12.680 like this, um, no, it's just the church. Let's just do the holy huddle. It's it, let's, let's

00:35:16.940 build the bunker and just practice the ordinary means of grace and Christ will, you know, he's

00:35:21.620 going to return in 50, you know, 15, 20 minutes anyways. So let's just do this and, um, and just

00:35:26.800 worry about that. Um, and, and this whole, you know, we lose down here as, as brother MacArthur

00:35:31.480 would say, we lose down here. And, and that's, you know, and so I embraced that. And then I 0.99

00:35:35.480 started to realize, you know, it was guys like Doug Wilson, God bless him forever. You know,

00:35:39.300 it was that I started realizing, Oh, there's actually a, the problem was not Kuiper. The

00:35:44.480 problem was, um, using a Kuiperian lens, but marks, um, and progressive things as the source

00:35:51.020 instead of Kuiperian lens with Christ as a source. Um, it, it, so it's not the all of life piece

00:35:56.480 applying to all of life. That's the problem. It's the, are you applying all of Christ piece?

00:36:02.700 Is it the biblical Christ, um, a biblical view of government, biblical view of economics,

00:36:07.300 biblical view. And that saved my ministry. It revitalized everything. It brought me into

00:36:14.500 post-millennialism, theonomy, all these different things. And it brought you guys, it caused me

00:36:22.100 practically in terms of practical implications to move across the country. And it did similar

00:36:26.760 things. This testimony that I'm sharing, it did similar things with you guys and it caused you to

00:36:31.960 move. It caused you to start a company. And that's what I want to talk about now, because what you

00:36:37.120 guys are doing is it's, it's so it's exactly the same as what I'm doing and entirely different at

00:36:42.380 the same time. I'm doing like podcasting and right response ministries and preaching, but,

00:36:47.120 but what we're doing, it's entirely different. You're in the business realm, but it's 100%

00:36:51.800 the same. And the sense of that Kuyperian, all of Christ for all of life. When I got that,

00:36:57.740 I moved from California to Texas. Chris, you, you moved from, from New York to Tennessee,

00:37:03.040 New York. No, I wanted more of an adventure. New York to Seattle to Tennessee.

00:37:09.200 Oh, okay. You moved to all the blue collar, primitive Neanderthal Christians who have the 1.00

00:37:17.360 gall to believe the Bible, right? Instead of being the sophisticated, snobbish kind of, 1.00

00:37:22.440 you were like, I'm not, no, man, I've been arrogant. What am I, right? I was raised in

00:37:28.180 Texas and I thought like, no, I'm going to be sophisticated. I'm going to, you know,

00:37:32.360 And I've had to repent and be like, no, these people, some of them, sure, there's religious, you know, religiosity and self-righteousness.

00:37:41.920 Some of that, everybody's a sinner.

00:37:43.560 But a lot of it was like, no, these are the salt of the earth.

00:37:46.300 These are some really sweet people that I took for granted because I thought I was too cool for school.

00:37:52.680 David, how is this coming back to, Kuyper's good, Marx is bad.

00:37:58.520 Let's apply all of Jesus to all of life.

00:38:00.580 How has that affected you and your personal life?

00:38:03.640 And then let's talk about you guys combined with your business endeavor.

00:38:08.220 Probably less of a drastic journey for me.

00:38:12.360 Although my moment of sort of upheaval, I guess it did happen.

00:38:19.760 It just wasn't necessarily along the same lines.

00:38:22.840 It wasn't post-COVID.

00:38:23.960 It was pre-COVID. And it wasn't necessarily because of Kuiper or not Kuiper. In 2016, my wife and I moved our family from downtown Nashville, a mile from the Titans football stadium, to a 50 acre farm an hour south.

00:38:44.900 And it was the time right when she was quitting work with our church, which is a PCA church, mostly because she was having a baby.

00:38:59.340 Our third, it was time for her to quit work and her oldest was five and to be home with the kids.

00:39:05.480 And I don't know. I mean, I don't have, like I said, I don't have quite as drastic of a journey with Keller and Kuyper. Kuyper and Calvin. Kuyper's interpretation of Calvin has kind of always been on my radar.

00:39:26.760 um and i don't think i don't think it's any um fluke that we're all sort of similar ages

00:39:34.600 i think that like coming into like some i have a long way to go but coming into some bit of

00:39:41.340 maturity having a my oldest is nearly a teenager now and you know just the responsibilities my

00:39:49.620 wife and I will be married for, um, 16 years and a couple of weeks, you know, life, life has just

00:39:57.700 gotten, I've just, I'm not a boy anymore. Um, I feel like a boy in many days. Um, but I don't know,

00:40:06.740 I, is that helpful at all? Yeah. It sounds like from, from my interpretation of what you just

00:40:14.160 said is that, um, Chris and I, uh, drank the Kool-Aid maybe a little bit more than you did.

00:40:19.620 in terms of the, you know, Joel and I have more commiserating. We went through more

00:40:24.380 strengths. That's what it was. He's going to New York. I'm going to California. We're going to be

00:40:28.420 sophisticated and influential and sit at the table and, and be nuanced and winsome and

00:40:34.000 contextualize the gospel, AKA make the gospel less clear. And David was awesome. That's what

00:40:41.420 No, I did have that.

00:40:44.360 And it's every good work, man.

00:40:45.560 Exactly.

00:40:47.060 No, I did have that.

00:40:48.280 I showed my work in Manhattan in 2017.

00:40:51.560 Right, right.

00:40:52.200 Okay, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.

00:40:53.280 I went there multiple times.

00:40:55.780 I had shows there.

00:40:57.100 I went and visited my art buddies there.

00:41:00.180 And, you know, so yeah, I thought, okay, I've got the keys to the kingdom.

00:41:05.240 I'm showing in the epicenter of the art world, or at least in America.

00:41:09.280 um but i can i can work my way and and like sort of avoid this um this the world that i was in

00:41:19.700 was so pagan and the way that i was going about it was just sort of pushing aside

00:41:24.520 my personal convictions and um this work that we're doing now so i've always done portraits

00:41:32.380 um even during that time because those gallery sales didn't pay the bills like i needed them

00:41:38.240 I've always done portraits, which is beautiful because I get to depict the image of God in a human face. But this work that we're doing together is something that I did not see coming. Chris might have, but we got to chatting one afternoon at his house, and I told him about an idea to paint people doing regular things, and I want to kind of redeem the art world.

00:42:03.140 and chris was like well how do you feel about making a marketplace and like really democratizing

00:42:08.680 this thing like if you want to make it accessible if you want to paint regular people why don't we

00:42:12.460 actually be able to sell the paintings to regular people and 30 minutes later we were like already

00:42:18.820 sort of drawing up there were no napkins but the proverbial the proverbial pin to napkin moment

00:42:26.480 had happened right um in terms of the business model and what we want so with that let's do so

00:42:33.980 this is different for my listeners if you know you'll probably recognize if you've been following

00:42:37.560 right response for a while i don't typically do this but i think that this will be really special

00:42:41.400 and unique so what i actually want to do at this point is i want to actually start showing some of

00:42:46.080 the paintings that david's done from their website every good work as we continue this conversation

00:42:51.120 so we're going to pull this up and you're going to be able to see some of these paintings you're

00:42:54.960 and be able to see the quality of the craftsmanship with the paintings, but also just the website

00:42:59.180 itself, this Christian excellence in everything.

00:43:02.820 And as we do this, real quick, what I'd like to do is I'd like to have Chris and David

00:43:06.800 now actually reintroduce themselves.

00:43:09.000 So we kind of started as just normal guys in the church world, followers of Jesus, how

00:43:13.940 we've been shaped by Keller negatively, positively, how we relearn from the scripture along the

00:43:19.460 way and set some things right.

00:43:21.640 Personal testimony was kind of the first half of this episode, but now I want you to hear

00:43:26.300 the professional side of things.

00:43:28.960 I want you to actually hear Chris and David introduced in regards to this company that

00:43:34.640 they've started that's significant, that it's impacted Right Response Ministries personally,

00:43:39.420 even with our new studio and our set.

00:43:41.500 David's the guy who painted the painting that's right behind me on the wall.

00:43:44.900 So we're going to do all of that, new introductions, as you're being able to look at the website,

00:43:50.820 uh, looking at the paintings. Um, and I want you to hear because, because I want you to hear their

00:43:56.240 testimony. I want you to hear what they're doing, but I want you to be inspired. Chris and David

00:44:00.500 are inspiring. Um, I want you to hear the inspiration because, um, they've got a good

00:44:05.920 work that they're doing, but the Lord has prepared in advance a good work for you to do. And it's

00:44:11.560 not just the good works of putting sin to death. Yes. And amen. And sanctification, but good works

00:44:16.620 in business, good works in arts, good works in the home, good works in every realm of life. So

00:44:22.360 Chris and David, would you guys just take a moment and, and, and read for our listeners, your bios?

00:44:27.820 Okay. So yeah, I'm, uh, as Joel has said, I'm David McLeod. I'm an artist. I grew up drawing

00:44:33.860 and painting. It wasn't until I studied with a portrait painter for a kind of an old world

00:44:40.900 classical style apprenticeship for four years while I was also a college student that I got

00:44:46.740 the passion and realized this is something that I wanted to do so I've just been an artist ever

00:44:52.060 since mostly painting portraits but doing other things as well and like I said I'm Chris and

00:45:00.720 with David we founded every good work which we're excited to reveal this painting here shortly

00:45:05.880 um i think that the the biggest difference is on post mill uh covenantal um really focused on

00:45:15.000 building the kingdom from the bottom up outside of the walls of the church outside of the walls

00:45:19.520 of the family of course those are priorities but i think i think we can talk about sort of how

00:45:24.320 every good workly synergizes with with that change um and then yeah like i said before

00:45:30.900 worked on wall street for a few years that's where i cut my teeth in the media and entertainment

00:45:35.280 in space back in 2007 which was an interesting time for all of us and then from there decided

00:45:42.880 to roll up my sleeves and figure out how to build businesses from scratch and so joined a small

00:45:48.800 startup we raised you know a pretty significant round of venture capital we scaled the business

00:45:56.640 and we sold it for you know a little over a couple hundred million dollars to a publicly

00:46:00.720 traded competitor. From there, joined a public technology company and was very much introduced to

00:46:08.080 how public company woke culture works. I'm a master at that now. And then the Lord did his

00:46:18.820 work around that same period of time. And it's been three years of repenting, three years of

00:46:23.160 reforming, three years of God's goodness over David's life, over my life and bringing us

00:46:28.360 together i believe the spirit's doing a wonderful work in a specific area in tennessee um which you

00:46:34.640 know that's a whole different topic uh but ultimately you know we're here to build we're

00:46:39.540 here to make a difference we believe that jesus christ is lord and he's lord over art yes he's

00:46:46.060 lord over business he's lord over art amen so we just revamped our whole studio which is kind of

00:46:54.760 cool because i met you guys really around the same time that i was thinking about you know making

00:47:00.880 these changes revamping the studio um which a lot of that here's here's one of the things that i

00:47:06.280 think christians get wrong and one of the hesitancies for other christians because so

00:47:11.480 many christians do get it wrong um there's a hesitancy to pursue christian excellence in

00:47:17.260 every realm of life because people will say it's vain they'll say it's frivolous they'll say what

00:47:22.500 why not you know it should just be the gospel it's just the content or it's just the you know

00:47:26.720 it's just the message it's just the truth it's just just give me the doctrine and and give it

00:47:31.440 to me from a webcam on your computer um don't spend a dime don't don't do anything for it to

00:47:38.100 be you know aesthetically excellent and i don't do anything and and i just reject that because a lot

00:47:45.000 of the message that i'm trying to convey to my listeners is not that everyone should um should

00:47:51.560 should quit their job and become Christian podcasters and not that everyone should,

00:47:56.540 should quit their job and, and go to seminary and become pastors.

00:48:01.120 That one of the big theological messages that I'm trying to convey with right response

00:48:07.320 ministries, theology applied, right?

00:48:09.660 The show that we're doing right now, that's our flagship show.

00:48:12.360 Theology applied to what, right?

00:48:14.640 Applied to every realm of life.

00:48:16.340 So a lot of what I'm trying to accomplish is I'm not trying to get a bunch of people

00:48:20.800 to decide to be pastors or to decide to be christian podcasters but to be christians in

00:48:26.520 every realm of life and because that's that that all of life all of christ for all of life

00:48:32.120 kyperian post-millennial theonomic restoring chrysidom that's the big banner would be chrysidom

00:48:37.680 chrysidom 2.0 and because that's really the mission of right response ministries and that's

00:48:42.840 the message i'm conveying i realized that it was almost hypocritical and in at least at minimum

00:48:47.840 maybe not hypocritical, maybe not malice of intent in my heart, but at least at minimum

00:48:53.360 inconsistent and contradictory and confusing to the listener and in the ministry and the message

00:49:00.420 that I was trying to convey to say Christian excellence in all of life and to do it with a

00:49:05.580 blank white wall behind me and a webcam. And so we were like, man, we want to do a studio and I

00:49:13.160 want it to look like professor xavier meets the apostle paul slash you know whatever i want it to

00:49:19.620 be like ligonier except i'm not as as smart as sprawl and that you know and everybody knows that

00:49:24.400 that's fair um but but you know but presuppositional so better apologetic but i want it to be like you

00:49:30.100 know that's but that's the style now with that leading to you guys i thought um i can't have

00:49:37.160 a piece of wood hanging that says there's no place like home or you know you know what i mean

00:49:43.740 like i can't go to um i can't go to uh to hobby lobby right uh no offense to deck this this studio

00:49:52.500 out to achieve what i'm trying to convey to everyone else and and so then it's like well

00:49:59.660 i don't i don't even know anything about art and i don't i don't know a painter yeah and then god's

00:50:06.640 happy you know favorable providence you know god sent you guys and you found me and i was like yeah

00:50:12.960 i'll partner with you guys because this is exactly what i'm trying and so all that being said like

00:50:18.220 as we're pursuing excellence in all of life and applying all of christ to all of life

00:50:22.600 um part of that has to do with with art and um and part of that has to do with good art

00:50:30.760 talk about that guys yeah so totally agree um if christians aren't going to be making good things

00:50:40.900 and buying good things then there aren't going to be people making good things that christians like

00:50:48.280 like if we want to if we want for there to be better things that glorify and honor god

00:50:56.220 then we need to be spending our money on good things yeah period we need to be hiring crafts

00:51:03.460 people and looking up i mean it's fine to look up where your clothes came from and where the

00:51:08.200 furniture came from and trying to orient all of our purchases around something that is god honoring

00:51:13.640 absolutely and if we just hold our pennies and save them um the world is just going to care

00:51:21.080 keep keep going it's just going to keep building it's just going to keep uh building up its own

00:51:27.460 idols christians especially now i think we've sort of come out of the haze of the last 50 years

00:51:35.780 really since post post enlightenment this has kind of been coming and that if we don't have

00:51:40.880 an alternative a better story to tell we're just going to keep finding bad stories all over the

00:51:47.760 place it's not okay just to you know turn off your netflix or cancel disney plus what are you

00:51:56.060 going to read what are you going to watch what are you going to consume this is where what are

00:52:00.860 you going to create what are you going to create and the creation is it's everywhere because we

00:52:04.700 are made in god's image we are sub creators we're going to be making things no matter what and we're

00:52:10.100 going to be consuming things no matter what which we we have a small slice of that sub creator

00:52:16.480 world and our company every good work intends to make art that is accessible to everyday people

00:52:24.860 not just paintings and drawings but also in other fields as well as the business continues to grow

00:52:31.260 yeah chris would you yeah yeah i was just gonna say i mean that's what very well put um i think

00:52:37.900 for us like we forget god is the best storyteller right david already pointed out stories i think

00:52:43.360 that was really captivating to us like god is god is an artist god is god creates god god is a

00:52:50.820 storyteller and going back to kuiper and kind of recovering the wells of abraham or you know

00:52:56.540 calvinism i think for us we've been awakened to this idea of the sovereignty of god like the

00:53:02.220 sovereignty of god and the very holy spirit that resurrected a dead body like we live in a story

00:53:07.180 in which there's the tomb has is empty like how does that not completely undo every every

00:53:15.400 conventional line of thinking every sense you know how does that not undo or or cause you to

00:53:21.520 repent from laziness or cause you to somehow think life is boring um god god has done something

00:53:29.940 magical you could almost say and so we believe that our task as christians is to tell the best

00:53:37.160 stories and praise God that, um, you know, I'm out of the, out of sort of the world of

00:53:44.500 the best story that only I can tell is the upper level story, right?

00:53:49.720 As Joe put Joe boot on your, on your show, um, praise God that I don't have to be a community

00:53:56.060 group leader in order for me to tell a better story, praise God.

00:54:00.760 I don't have to be a part of the elder pastoral training program and the next discipleship

00:54:07.160 the next 90-day discipleship plan from the pastor.

00:54:10.620 Praise God.

00:54:11.200 I don't have to do that to tell the best story.

00:54:13.200 Praise God that really we can build businesses

00:54:15.900 and we can tell better stories through better art.

00:54:19.600 And so every good work, go ahead, Joel.

00:54:22.360 Were you going to say something?

00:54:23.120 No, I was just agreeing.

00:54:24.380 But if you give me a chance to talk, I'll never turn you down.

00:54:28.980 But as I was listening to both of you guys,

00:54:32.900 David, I love what you were saying.

00:54:34.500 You can't just cancel your Netflix.

00:54:35.620 it's not enough to just cancel your Disney Plus

00:54:37.600 it's not enough to just say I'm not going to give my pennies

00:54:40.060 to people who hate me

00:54:41.500 and who hate Christ

00:54:42.680 you're going to

00:54:44.720 well this is a rush duty sentiment

00:54:46.900 it's not whether but which

00:54:48.560 you're going to spend your money

00:54:50.120 you're going to

00:54:51.260 even if you save it in your coffer 0.99

00:54:53.700 until the day you die

00:54:54.960 even then you're going to get the death tax

00:54:57.780 depending on what state you live in

00:54:59.120 then your pennies

00:55:01.800 they don't go to Disney

00:55:02.640 they go to the government

00:55:05.060 that's right so my my point is what what i hear you saying is it's not enough to boycott and i

00:55:09.740 kept thinking this is the way to phrase it as you were talking um christians can't only boycott

00:55:14.300 christians have to build it's not just boycott but boycott and build um and and really if you

00:55:21.540 i've talked about this in the past but it's kind of like you know five b's um and and christians

00:55:26.480 and conservatives sadly have only done four of them and always left left out the fifth one which

00:55:31.940 is built um the first b is is vitally important and christians are experts i mean just phenomenally

00:55:38.080 successful at um and that first b is getting beat um so christians are great at that get beat right

00:55:43.620 following christ's example right he's the suffering servant like a lamb led to the slaughter right so

00:55:48.620 first it's vitally important you can't miss the first step you must get beat john mccarthur has

00:55:53.460 great notes on that we don't win down here um so get beat all right uh number two is uh once you

00:55:59.780 get beat, bemoan, right? And that's the Christian version of the B word. There's another B word

00:56:04.880 that you could put in there, but get beat, bemoan, right? So whine, complain, complain about getting

00:56:12.180 beat. And then the third one is get beat, bemoan, and then boycott. And that's what you were talking

00:56:18.300 about, David. And that is actually something we should do. So these first two, we actually

00:56:21.880 shouldn't do. We shouldn't get beat and we shouldn't bemoan, but we should boycott wickedness.

00:56:26.980 Uh, we, we should not give our dollars, our time, our blood, our sweat, our tears, our

00:56:31.840 children, uh, to, to, uh, wickedness.

00:56:35.120 Um, so boycott. 1.00

00:56:36.300 Then the fourth one is, you know, and this is again, what Christians have done wrong, 1.00

00:56:40.200 get beat, bemoan, boycott, and then beg. 0.96

00:56:44.160 Um, which typically means a nonprofit and not, there's nothing inherently wrong with

00:56:48.980 this right response ministries.

00:56:50.660 It's a religious organization.

00:56:52.820 It's raises awareness, teaches theology.

00:56:55.400 It is a nonprofit.

00:56:56.380 So there's, I'm not saying that this is inherently wrong, but what I'm saying is, is that I think

00:57:00.640 that if anybody has any ambition at all, and they're a Christian, 90% of Christians with

00:57:06.480 ambition go the nonprofit route.

00:57:08.380 Um, and, and, and so that fourth B is beg.

00:57:11.320 So get beat, bemoan, uh, boycott, and then beg for donations, um, instead of build and,

00:57:19.560 and and and know that people even if they hate you will buy um because because you can hate

00:57:27.620 chick-fil-a because you're a sodomite um but by golly it's a good chicken sandwich that's right 0.98

00:57:33.600 and you and your gay partner are going to be eating chick-fil-a not on sunday right not on 1.00

00:57:39.380 sunday sabbatarian you know but you are gonna you're gonna eat chick-fil-a whether you like 0.93

00:57:43.880 it or not um and consider we do the same thing right so i'm gonna cancel netflix but i've got

00:57:48.300 amazon you know like i mean so anyways that's all i was thinking the whole time you guys were

00:57:52.820 talking is not enough to boycott david nailed it we've got to build we've got to build and it is

00:57:58.520 okay it's not only okay i would say it is imperative that christians build for profit

00:58:05.320 enterprises in the realm of business in the realm of art that is not a sinful endeavor that is a

00:58:12.460 righteous good endeavor what makes it sinful is when you produce a product that's lousy

00:58:17.860 And it rips people off.

00:58:19.420 Making good things to be sold for ethical prices, it pleases the heart of God.

00:58:26.120 And I think, how can we not, like, dead men become new creations, and all of a sudden, by the sovereign spirit of God, we're created to actually worship God again.

00:58:38.220 And we worship God with our total self, our total humanity.

00:58:43.580 And a third of our life is committed towards work.

00:58:47.200 how how could we not as an act of adoration act of worship to this glorious father son and holy

00:58:55.720 spirit where christ is lord overall how can we not see um coding as an act of worship right

00:59:04.520 imagine just imagine if the church would just awaken or you know we kind of we use this term

00:59:10.940 where the church it's almost like every good work exists to break spells the church is under a spell

00:59:18.340 and it's it's living a half-life because of radical two kingdom and forfeiting better stories

00:59:26.700 that god has actually given our generation an opportunity to make make our mark for the king

00:59:33.840 yeah right and and so in many ways we don't jokingly say we mean it seriously that a painting

00:59:40.040 might actually if it could just wake up one person to a better story the story of what it

00:59:46.480 means to be truly christian all the way then we've served our purpose yeah and and so yeah with fine

00:59:54.580 art we want to reclaim art but we want to make it available for everyday people again yeah because

01:00:00.200 art is such a strategic channel um it's such a strategic place because where art goes david can

01:00:08.840 attest to it obviously there goes the culture they're just 10 years ahead right when you're

01:00:14.320 in new york city and williamsburg right you just see what's going on there you'll see that

01:00:20.620 normalize a decade later yep and so for us if we were radical to kingdom about it we would

01:00:28.020 abdicate our role right as an artist or as a business person and and unfortunately we would

01:00:36.040 be so undereducated i would be and i and i'm still learning because of help from the likes of david

01:00:42.140 um we would almost be discipled into actually thinking that um a banana with duct tape tied to

01:00:50.760 it is actually worth me paying 99 bucks to watch to look at and right like like not only is it

01:00:58.160 discipling us um but it's discipling us to be anti-christ yeah right we're actually choosing

01:01:05.540 to accept a story that's based off of evil wickedness and godliness and we're choosing to

01:01:12.820 like you said you'll syncretize with the false god yeah right because art of course is driven

01:01:18.080 by worldview and so if christian artists like david has been consistently doing for his his

01:01:23.540 career if it's an act of worship to god we can't help but want wanted to make it excellent

01:01:31.260 but at the same time it's going to show something about who christ is and we know that the perfection

01:01:39.500 of beauty is in christ and so if we can just awaken a renaissance almost a create a renaissance

01:01:45.760 an emerging class of artists who are willing to be unashamedly christian through and through in

01:01:51.600 their art and be inspired by christ in what they do and create works of beauty works of art then

01:01:58.640 our hope is that we become a platform

01:02:00.920 in which

01:02:02.680 we can create a parallel path

01:02:04.960 and we can create an avenue in which better

01:02:07.020 stories are being told.

01:02:08.840 Every Good Work, in a nutshell, we're an e-commerce

01:02:10.960 marketplace for buyers and sellers

01:02:13.000 of fine art originals

01:02:15.120 and exclusive

01:02:16.960 limited prints on canvas.

01:02:19.420 Can I speak to that?

01:02:20.720 Please, go ahead.

01:02:22.120 The print technology is phenomenal.

01:02:25.400 We have access to a

01:02:27.020 scanner that takes works of art that I think they can do um five and a half feet by eight feet or

01:02:34.140 something like that uh hopefully we can do a painting that size and then um it scans it with

01:02:41.160 the same machine that is used by the Smithsonian to scan any image you see online um in print

01:02:49.520 material that the Smithsonian uses the same exact scanner it's a seven figure scanner

01:02:55.500 so we have access to that machine and then it's printed using a printing technology called

01:03:04.380 a gicle which is it's not it's different from a print on canvas that you just order

01:03:10.300 online a family photo on canvas the archival quality is the biggest difference and the

01:03:17.580 quality of the printing so it's using pigment based inks instead of dye based inks these prints

01:03:24.620 that look identical to the original so we have the original behind us here and joel has a print

01:03:32.140 behind right there right behind very hard to tell apart until you get really close

01:03:37.020 and they're also guaranteed for 100 years so we wanted to make something that is significantly

01:03:44.220 less of a price from the original but also is still an heirloom something that we could pass on

01:03:52.860 you could pass on to your grandkids, your great grandkids, potentially five, six, seven,

01:03:59.300 eight generations from now could own these same works of art.

01:04:03.340 And what is the name of this one, David?

01:04:06.080 What did you name this painting?

01:04:07.640 Well, I'm terrible at naming my paintings.

01:04:11.200 I occasionally, I occasionally strike gold, but for this one, I believe it was Chris who

01:04:17.380 actually gave the name, The Conquering King.

01:04:20.920 The Conquering King.

01:04:22.100 Yeah.

01:04:22.340 so it's it's an allegorical painting and go ahead and then i'll keep going no no go ahead

01:04:29.020 it's an allegorical painting go yeah it's an allegorical painting there's two figures um

01:04:34.840 they're the heroes it's fun because while i was painting this my two and a half year old son

01:04:40.220 would come into the studio and would continually point and say good guys

01:04:46.660 good guys um so joel wanted a painting that depicted light and dark he wanted a painting

01:04:56.420 that depicted war victory struggle we collaborated with joel that's kind of one of the cool parts of

01:05:04.520 this actually that see that's what i was going to say yeah because i want you to talk about the

01:05:08.800 painting you're the artist and you're on the show i want but what was so cool to me about this model

01:05:15.020 is like okay first like because of having access to a seven figure and david just said that just

01:05:20.640 for anybody who you know just to spell that out what that means is this is a piece of machinery

01:05:24.420 that is in the millions that's so this is not just like um a cheap knockoff print this is something

01:05:30.620 when david says it's really hard to tell the difference he means that um i i personally could

01:05:34.940 be a foot and a half away from both of them and probably wouldn't be able to see the difference

01:05:38.200 someone trained uh very highly trained in the realm of painting and arts and texture would have

01:05:44.180 to be very close for them to even be able to tell the difference. So one, what's really cool about

01:05:48.480 the model is being able to take high quality works of art that should cost thousands of dollars,

01:05:54.460 10 grand, you know, maybe more, maybe less, give or take, you know, given the size, the time,

01:05:59.200 you know, all those things, but be able to put them in the hundreds, not thousands, but hundreds

01:06:03.760 of dollars to where your average blue collar family could say, okay, we may not be able to

01:06:10.240 have a painting on every wall of our house but we could have one or two we you know instead of

01:06:15.000 instead of the hobby lobby you know instead of like a bunny you know that that's uh chewing on

01:06:19.440 a piece of grass you know and made out of twisted iron you know whatever like that you get at the

01:06:23.720 um the the big what's the name of that store big that sounds like the big it's uh perfect big

01:06:29.380 something i can't remember the name of the store but you know whatever instead of those kinds of

01:06:32.900 things like we're gonna have so it's it's um incredibly high quality art at a reasonable price

01:06:39.540 But then what was so cool is that that's one piece of the puzzle.

01:06:42.560 The other piece of the puzzle with your model that I love is that Chris and David are actually

01:06:47.400 seeking out like-minded pastors and theologians.

01:06:52.660 And so they're actually, instead of just, we're going to do this.

01:06:55.600 And this is actually humble too.

01:06:57.500 And this is one of the, you know, this kind of proof that David is a Christian artist.

01:07:02.560 Because I don't imagine most secular pagan artists would be willing to do this.

01:07:07.060 um, but David is saying, okay, I'm the artist. He knows, he knows that he's the artist and I'm not,

01:07:11.520 I don't have this kind of skill, but he's saying, I'm going to collaborate with Joel

01:07:15.080 and I'm going to hear his ideas. And I, and I, and he's not going to know what he's talking about

01:07:19.080 at certain points along, along the journey. But what was cool was that me and David got to work

01:07:23.840 together and it wasn't, it wasn't a lot, but a few text messages or a 15 minute phone call here or

01:07:29.280 there about once a week for about a month throughout the whole painting process to where,

01:07:35.480 um, I can't paint, but, but David can. And I was able to say, this is my vision of what I see

01:07:42.260 theologically as, as, um, as the, as the cultural moment that the church is living in right now.

01:07:50.240 And I want to capture it, not just in a podcast and not just in a sermon that has to happen,

01:07:55.520 but I want to capture it on a canvas where you can not just hear it, but you could see it

01:08:00.900 and be moved and and david was able to help me do that and not just do it for me personally

01:08:06.620 but he was able to collaborate with me so you've got the i'm providing the theological vision right

01:08:12.340 and david's providing the artistic vision um and then and then this model that chris has brought

01:08:19.140 in with the business piece means that um not just uh a guy who you know has a podcast that thousands

01:08:24.880 of people listen to and you know it's a little bit not a lot but a little bit of clout a little

01:08:28.660 bit of credibility and a little bit of a budget you know he can afford a painting on his wall and

01:08:32.920 his fancy you know professor xavier studio no but like chris comes in with the business piece

01:08:37.620 and you get to take joel's theology david's artistic gift and chris's business mind and now

01:08:45.480 you can have the conquering king in your house and when people come over you can say yeah this

01:08:51.540 this means something and this will last not not for 10 months but lord willing 100 years and i'm

01:08:56.920 going to give it to my kids they're going to give it to their kids um that's that's beautiful and

01:09:02.180 without that then again it's just the the it's just the the independent fundamentalism bunker

01:09:08.180 that we're just you know we're just on the sinking ship and let's just you know do another

01:09:13.980 do another podcast on lauren daigle and why she's a heretic you know and well um but but the world

01:09:19.620 gets to keep everything that you can see that's right they they get they get that i think that

01:09:23.900 Christians have gotten very comfortable with books and podcasts and filling our mind with things

01:09:29.980 that we don't know what to do with our walls. We don't know what to do with our clothes. We don't 0.86

01:09:35.160 know what to do with our movies. We don't know. We don't know what to do with a lot of our activity.

01:09:40.600 What should our Sundays look like? What should our shopping look like? What should our food look

01:09:44.940 like? We're exploring all of these things. And it really is amazing to, you said it so well,

01:09:52.140 Joel, that the three of us could kind of use our different gifts and collaborate on something

01:09:56.840 that provides, hopefully other people will like this and will respond positively to it.

01:10:03.480 And then we can keep, we can do it again. You know, one of the things that keeps sticking

01:10:09.320 out to me is we're three guys sitting around talking about art and theology. Now it's pretty

01:10:15.880 common for guys to sit around talking about theology nowadays, at least in the circles

01:10:19.380 that i'm familiar with but forgot for us to talk about how that applies to art is very it's unique

01:10:25.960 and and early on in our conversations one of the things that chris harped on before we even

01:10:32.540 chatted with you first joel was i want to make art for i want to make it masculine again

01:10:37.600 i want i want art that men want to buy um because a lot of the decisions in art and in the home

01:10:46.520 are made by women that it makes sense that it would but we want to we want to tap into that

01:10:52.720 part of a man that um is looking for the battle that really is there and not to be told just to

01:11:01.020 go sit back down on this on the bleachers but actually to engage the culture wherever he is

01:11:07.460 yeah we forget that men we're called to fight but as men were called to look to know how to feast

01:11:14.280 right because that because our lord does that perfectly and so we we really want that's what's

01:11:20.600 amazing about being word driven i think right having you joel is sort of the foundation by which

01:11:26.300 david could kind of have a biblical grid and a biblical imagination you know that's something

01:11:32.280 that we would love i think that's how reformation works right artists and farmers they just go to

01:11:38.880 the script and all of a sudden it changes the way in which they do their work and so having that was

01:11:45.260 a really really powerful thing for me to see like seeing it come alive yeah um but yeah ultimately

01:11:51.740 for us like we we believe that men should know what beauty tastes like men should know what

01:11:58.640 beauty looks like right that's that's what it means to be a masculine man and so and so for us

01:12:05.020 this conquering king really really really was a special thing for us um but then ultimately

01:12:11.620 you know what we care about like what David was pointing out is because we're post-mill

01:12:17.140 and because we're covenantal fine art makes so much sense to us yeah you know what I'm saying

01:12:24.980 like like the world is inundating us with inglorious unrighteous images and

01:12:34.520 they're saying look at this on the computer screen look at this on the

01:12:38.000 television screen look at this in the next art gallery and have to have to

01:12:43.220 deal with the fact that this piece of art is supposed to be worth 20 million

01:12:48.920 dollars right right even even and then the average person just going that

01:12:53.960 doesn't make any sense that's right so what happens is our appetite for understanding for art

01:13:01.000 goes very to kingdom we just go into this little hole where everything art is bad because everything

01:13:09.080 that art in the world right now kind of is bad they've taken over this amazing institution that

01:13:15.800 was largely created by christians who seek to honor god and if the best thing that we've got

01:13:21.160 and there's nothing to say i mean from what i know the the ceo of hobby lobby is a brother in

01:13:26.360 the lord and seems to be a man who who's on fire for for him and praise god for that but to your

01:13:32.520 point joel like if the best that christians have is a bible verse that's on a quilt in a very

01:13:40.520 sentimentally way then something is wrong the church is under under a spell could have been

01:13:47.400 made by in a sweatshop for i mean hopefully not right we have no idea how these things were made

01:13:53.160 but and and so how can you be post mill if the best you've got is blessed in cursive

01:14:02.440 how can you how can you deal with how can you deal with all the screens all the unrighteous images

01:14:08.660 that are on your children right that they see on social media that they see on whatever and

01:14:15.680 that's considered glorious that's considered beautiful that's considered righteous

01:14:19.760 well this is for us a faith experiment you know it's a mustard seed it's a startup but ultimately

01:14:28.180 what we want to do is we want to inundate every wall for christ yeah right our mission is that

01:14:34.000 the real mission behind this is we want to reclaim every wall because just like you said christ

01:14:40.620 everywhere everything is mine and so your wall is his so is your television screen whatever your

01:14:47.040 magazine cover shows it's either going to be christ or it's not going to be it's either going

01:14:51.580 to be beautiful or it's going to be ugly and what a what a white space opportunity we've got i think

01:14:57.180 david and i were shocked yeah we're like how how where where are where's the competition you know

01:15:03.340 i'm kind of nervous joel that you have a decent followership you know but but i think you know

01:15:09.520 We really believe that this is our post-mill response.

01:15:14.400 This is our faith in action, and we pray that God will bless it.

01:15:17.980 Yeah, and going back to the start of the episode, I think you made a good point to begin with. 0.54

01:15:27.780 Tim Keller, with his Every Good Endeavor, the Kuyperian sentiment, the Kuyperian mindset is there and is good.

01:15:37.920 that was good yeah yeah he was on to something you know we didn't actually name the company

01:15:44.100 every good work after that but coincidentally it's the same idea right and and not only art

01:15:51.640 but like you go through the scriptures and you look at the word work and where god uses work

01:15:56.240 and workmanship we are we are his artwork that's right our whole lives sort of become a work of

01:16:02.580 art Schaefer talks about that um in one of his books so yeah I I love Chris what you said it's

01:16:10.500 it's per it's a perfect time I think for this because people are starting to look other places

01:16:16.060 and right um do you guys remember this is a little bit random but do you remember David

01:16:22.700 and and Chris the little three minute video and this was years ago but I remember seeing it

01:16:28.640 And I thought, whoa, and this is when I was still in Acts 29, but it was from Keller and it was about how they were going to take over New York and saying right now, statistically, it's like 3% Christian, but we believe if we could get to 10%, it would be a tipping point.

01:16:43.400 But the whole thing was this Kuyperian, all of Christ for all of life thing. 0.52

01:16:47.440 He said art would become 10%, that much salt concentrated in one area.

01:16:52.820 It would affect everything.

01:16:54.580 It wouldn't just mean more churches.

01:16:56.640 It wouldn't just mean more churches.

01:16:57.780 um art would become more hopeful i remember that line that that phrase right there art would become

01:17:03.480 more hopeful this would become like um business would become more ethical um medicine would become

01:17:09.000 more compassionate um you know all these and and i remember watching more just yeah amen exactly so

01:17:16.700 i remember watching that and and and sadly you know it's so ironic i'm remembering that video

01:17:23.140 and now with the latest and greatest you know 2.0 update from keller is the keller institute

01:17:30.100 and i don't know if you guys have noticed but it's it's tragic because it really is kind of um

01:17:34.680 it's it's a it's basically a concession that like um that didn't work we we we failed because now

01:17:41.420 the keller institute is an acknowledgement um that we're in a negative world now we're in a

01:17:46.200 hostile world. Christendom is on decline. We're not going to win, at least not anytime soon.

01:17:54.420 And so we just need to learn how to live in a world that's owned by the enemy, 0.98

01:18:00.420 where we're the minority. And we've been preached to give away. 0.58

01:18:06.780 Exactly. Exactly. And we need to learn how to live in this hostile world where we're the minority,

01:18:12.760 where we lost, uh, basically how to live in Babylon when, when, when Israel gets taken 0.68

01:18:17.740 captive.

01:18:18.480 Um, and, and what that means is with the Keller Institute is we're going to focus on apologetics

01:18:24.080 because we want to make it, you know, we don't, we don't want to just surrender.

01:18:26.520 We want to go down with a fight, but we are the ones who are conquered.

01:18:31.460 They are the conquerors.

01:18:32.660 They are stronger.

01:18:33.420 And so we're going to be doing careful apologetics.

01:18:37.180 And so we're at the Keller Institute is going to train you how to be apologists in a negative

01:18:41.320 world which we both all three of us know what that means is how to be even more you thought

01:18:45.920 we were winsome before you've seen nothing yet we're going to be even more winsome even more

01:18:50.960 contextualizing even more ambiguous even more stephen colbert you know um as an example of

01:18:57.280 great christian witness um and and it was just so sad because it was like the keller institute

01:19:02.000 is is kind of like the the uh the answer to that little three minute video and and that

01:19:08.240 you know endeavor from you know 10 years ago whenever it was and that not working out and i

01:19:13.920 and i see that and i just again i you know you guys are more in the presbyterian world and i have

01:19:18.620 at this point probably more presbyterian friends than baptists but i am still 1689 and i have some

01:19:23.540 baptist you know relationships and and networking and my baptist friends especially don't get

01:19:30.760 kuiper they don't get abraham kuiper and and they look at like keller tried to do this thing they

01:19:35.440 remember that video that i'm referencing um and they look at that and they say and now look at

01:19:40.040 keller and the keller institute the keller institute is the fruit of that and whereas i

01:19:44.080 want to say no the keller institute um is is the um it's the response to that failing um it's not

01:19:51.760 the fruit of that it's the failure of that not working and the reason why that didn't work

01:19:56.620 in my assessment a couple reasons why but one is because uh the all of life piece was not the

01:20:02.320 problem but it was the lack of all of christ it was compromising christ and number two um it was

01:20:07.980 also missing um the art of war um of of just warfare just war theory but also successful

01:20:18.200 war strategy um the decisive point finding a place that's both significant but also

01:20:25.080 winnable um keller went to a place that was significant um but he is right in the sense that

01:20:31.260 Manhattan's not going

01:20:34.160 we're post-mill Manhattan is going to bow to 0.96

01:20:36.380 Christ but probably

01:20:38.400 not in the next couple

01:20:40.280 years. And what did you say Joel

01:20:42.240 like and this

01:20:44.240 does line in with what you're saying

01:20:46.340 and I think every good work

01:20:47.660 I think what Keller was up to 0.89

01:20:50.420 yeah being Kuyperian being Marxist

01:20:52.280 I mean fail that's number 1.00

01:20:54.380 one but also it seemed like

01:20:56.340 it was all about the

01:20:58.300 world. It was always

01:21:00.380 about for the world as opposed to for the glory of god yeah you know the good of all about the

01:21:08.300 good of people more than it's all about evangelizing the lost it was always about being winsome for

01:21:15.100 anything anyone but right but i would say it's almost like um christ was not lord jesus was not

01:21:25.440 lord to your point about just war because jesus is lord we say just war right because it's all

01:21:32.460 about the glory of god we're able to say these controversial things that might you know raise a

01:21:38.640 hair and brother don't be too where's your winsomeness certificate you know that you earned

01:21:44.060 it through the keller institute i i really do believe that if it wasn't about worship

01:21:49.320 yeah it was about it was about you know i'm saying it was it wasn't about that

01:21:54.020 christianity instead of objective christianity yeah it was it wasn't like um westminster

01:21:57.820 catechism question number one what's the whole point exactly the chief end exactly like everything

01:22:02.420 god does he does for his glory and for the good of those who love him are called to according to

01:22:06.260 his purpose yes but it's both of those and and i think yeah you can you can emphasize one or the

01:22:11.960 other you can say everything god does is for his glory and the world's going to go to hell in a

01:22:15.980 handbasket you know and anybody who's post mill is just shining brass on the sinking ship right

01:22:20.040 So that's like glory of God, but not good of, of his image bearing people, or you can

01:22:24.360 go image bearing people.

01:22:25.800 They're good, but not glory of God. 1.00

01:22:27.240 And it's got it.

01:22:28.160 The two have to stay together.

01:22:29.580 Yeah.

01:22:29.880 Yeah.

01:22:30.520 Yeah.

01:22:30.780 And also taking a longer look at it.

01:22:35.600 We as Americans, especially just want to look at every decade is just every generation

01:22:41.420 that Jesus is coming.

01:22:42.680 Now we're also every, we're special.

01:22:44.860 We're the special ones.

01:22:45.720 and to not look at the future of Christendom to be potentially thousands of years before Jesus

01:22:53.200 returns. I mean, it could be that our grandkids are running every good work and it's finally

01:23:01.060 making an impact. I don't know. It's got to do something in order to maintain a functioning

01:23:08.240 business model between now and then. But I don't want to be arrogant to say that God's going to do

01:23:14.620 something amazing but i also don't want to be falsely humble and pretend like god doesn't want

01:23:20.600 to bless work that is honoring to his name yeah i think i think for us like even with the whole

01:23:25.760 worship to the glory of god like our thesis is if if by faith we do this to the glory of god

01:23:33.060 and then then one of the byproducts is it becomes a blessing to the world whether or not the world

01:23:40.300 wants it or not. And I think what's missing is when you're focused so much on the world,

01:23:46.340 and that's what it's all about. And it's about sharing the gospel to the lost so that you

01:23:51.840 actually compromise your entire Lord's Day service, right? Where a pastor, a megachurch

01:23:59.360 pastor, like an Andy Stanley, can tell you, look you in the eye, look the sheep in the eyes and say,

01:24:05.820 church isn't for you church isn't for believers right church if you're if you're thinking about

01:24:12.460 that then you have the wrong idea of why you're here yeah right there's just this obsession with

01:24:18.820 wanting to win the loss that's not the end goal the goal is the glory of god to delight in him

01:24:24.980 and as we worship him yeah everything falls into place yeah we're gonna what good is a man

01:24:31.440 to gain the world that's right we're gonna love yeah so this is this is an

01:24:36.120 act of love just as much as it is an active act of worship and and our hope

01:24:40.980 is that this what this displays actually will be a blessing you know that that

01:24:47.760 there will be pagans who say I don't I don't like Christ I don't I don't

01:24:52.920 understand the Bible verse but but that story really resonates with me and I and

01:24:59.760 i don't know what to say other than it's gonna fit on my wall and then or christians put it on

01:25:06.400 their wall and maybe mom or dad explain it to their kids a couple times and it just goes in

01:25:12.120 one ear out the other they come home in 20 years and they realize in a moment of sanity that this

01:25:20.480 this painting or one like it has been has been catechizing them day after day after day after

01:25:28.720 day into the very things that the first i remember joel very distinctly you wanted

01:25:36.680 first corinthians 15 25 for he shall reign until he makes an enemy his all of his enemies are under

01:25:45.660 his feet right and romans 12 2 that we would be able to test we would discern what is before us

01:25:56.880 You wanted to see a clear light and dark that a man can see what is good, that a man can see what is bad, and that we would also understand that Jesus is reigning and ruling.

01:26:11.220 He is in dominion right now, and he is going to put all of his enemies under his feet, and he's called us to be a part of that story.

01:26:19.680 there's going to be kids that see that and have no idea what that story means because they're

01:26:24.320 children but they're good their imaginations potentially are stirred up by the imagery of the

01:26:29.900 of the demons in the background and their imaginations are stirred up by my like my two

01:26:33.940 and a half year old who just wants to turn the corner and see the good guy standing there who

01:26:38.580 just looks so powerful so serene but yet so ready to fight that image those images that feeling

01:26:47.800 that does something especially on a daily basis for the course of years that we're hoping

01:26:53.620 that we're going to bring we're going to bring up people and and call other christians into

01:26:58.640 similar works where we're just surrounded by good things we can't look around and not see

01:27:06.420 christians doing good things it's happening all over the podcast world it's happening all over

01:27:11.940 the publishing world we want to see it happen in the art world yeah amen could i real quick

01:27:18.740 no go ahead go ahead well i was going to take a minute to describe the elements in the painting

01:27:24.440 but i want to yeah that's what that's exactly what i was going to do but go ahead you don't

01:27:28.340 know i want i want to hear you i want to hear your take on it because i can give the theological

01:27:32.460 side yeah go for it and then maybe yeah so like like david said you know uh looking at first

01:27:38.180 corinthians 15 for he must reign until he has made all his enemies a footstool for his feet

01:27:45.020 and and so that's actually in the painting there's um there's like a monument like a

01:27:50.840 pillow like an ebenezer being raised and you see that in kind of the bottom right hand corner

01:27:55.680 and etched in you know stone you find engraved those words and so the the verse is actually

01:28:01.800 spelled out with a reference first Corinthians 15, 20, it's 25. Is that right? And so you've

01:28:08.320 got that in the bottom corner. But then the two heroes, the figures, what I wanted David to do

01:28:13.560 is like, I wanted to see a Christ figure reigning. So not Christ himself. So it's not, it's not a

01:28:19.080 second commandment violation. It's not, you know, this isn't Jesus, but a Christ figure just like

01:28:22.960 Aslan is a Christ figure in Narnia. I wanted a Christ figure, but then I also wanted the church

01:28:29.140 and the church, you know, um, on earth militant and, and, and, and, you know, dressed for

01:28:34.140 battle.

01:28:34.840 Um, and, and the biggest thing that I told David and David came up with a lot of that

01:28:39.520 stuff.

01:28:39.900 Um, but the biggest thing I said is I want to see Christ reigning this great post-millennial

01:28:43.760 hope, um, a Cochrane King, like, um, but I want, um, but I want to also see darkness.

01:28:49.720 I want to see the enemy.

01:28:50.760 And that's where the cross reference of, of first Corinthians 15 kind of works in with,

01:28:54.640 uh, Romans chapter 12, where, um, good, you know, some of the best stories, at least in my

01:29:00.800 assessment, in my opinion, things like the Lord of the Rings, um, you, you, you know who the bad

01:29:06.300 guys are. Um, because they're literally right. There's this triple braided cord in, in, in

01:29:13.460 theological terms and in just reality, the world that God made. And that's truth, goodness, and

01:29:19.040 beauty these three things are inseparable um as as as creatures right everything god alone is the

01:29:27.580 creator as any creature begins to deny um its purpose the purpose for which god intended it

01:29:34.780 that's glory right a glorious tree is a is a very treely tree a tree that is truly truthful you know

01:29:42.660 it's, it's, um, it's, it's the treiest tree you could ever find. It's, it's being a tree and all

01:29:48.640 the greatness of a tree and all the right ways in the right direction and the, and the purpose for

01:29:52.740 which God intends it. And so too with man, um, you know, the man is the glory of God, right?

01:29:58.820 That man is the glory of Christ, a woman, the glory of man and the woman's hair is the glory

01:30:03.100 of woman. Um, this, this cascading flow of reflecting glory, but part of reflecting glory

01:30:09.460 is being in step with the purpose of the creature for which the creator made it.

01:30:15.800 And so when man is doing what God, being who God created man to be, there's a glory there.

01:30:23.660 And so my point is that the truth is there.

01:30:26.040 You're doing what you've truly been made to do.

01:30:28.920 But along with that truth comes automatically goodness and beauty.

01:30:35.820 And so one of the things that I love about Tolkien in the Lord of the Rings is that you see not just this is a good man, but that good man also happens to be a beautiful man and not a beautiful in an effeminate man, effeminate way.

01:30:52.660 But there are elves and there are orcs.

01:30:56.780 You don't have to ask, you know, 20 questions to figure out who the bad guys are.

01:31:01.840 And that's not to say that the elves are perfect.

01:31:04.420 there are some nefarious elf characters um but but what happens is that the orcs and especially

01:31:10.760 a certain species a certain type of orc is actually even used to be an elf but is now a

01:31:17.200 hybrid because of dark magic there was a compromise in the truth and the immediate result um was a

01:31:24.180 disfiguring of beauty that that as truth went so so beauty went with it and you can see that in art

01:31:32.300 right the unveiling of the martin luther king statue it's it's a it's a pair of hands holding 0.97

01:31:37.480 a penis that's what it looks like it's disgusting it is objectively ugly because as culture denies 0.98

01:31:45.480 truth they can't make beauty truth and beauty are intertwined you can only make that which is 0.99

01:31:52.140 objectively beautiful um for for a very short period if you look at human history as a whole

01:31:59.160 for a very short period after a culture has turned its back on the truth. So all that being said,

01:32:04.600 I wanted the Christ figure and then this lesser good guy, still a good guy, but the shorter guy

01:32:11.080 that you see who's dressed for battle next to the Christ, I wanted them to be good, true, and also

01:32:16.880 beautiful in the light. You see, the light is focused on them. It's beautiful. There's this

01:32:22.180 cascading, you know, above it, you know, with the red garment. But then I wanted bad guys and I

01:32:27.700 wanted bad guys to look like bad guys i want them to look like orcs like let's let's make bad guys

01:32:32.720 bad again you know what i mean that's that's my that's that's my mantra let's make bad guys bad

01:32:36.560 again i want that one of them to be ugly um and and and to depicted uh physically visibly as as

01:32:44.640 such um to to look as ugly as as as they are evil and so so what you see is you've got you know

01:32:52.580 you've got this dragon and, and the theology behind it, as that pulls into the post mill thing

01:32:57.880 is that, um, basically the Christ figure is holding a bow and it's, and it's, you can tell

01:33:02.660 that he's already fired off his shot. Um, and so it's, it's, it's being held down and what,

01:33:07.580 what he shot and killed is this giant dragon over and it's dark. So it's hard to see, but Nathan

01:33:13.660 will pull it up in post. And so you, if you're watching right now, you should be able to see a

01:33:17.740 close-up of of the painting but you see this dragon um and and and the dragon is more than

01:33:24.500 just a singular atomistic bad guy um it's it's like it's like the mothership carrying all these

01:33:31.840 other lesser bad guys and and its belly is like like a hole of of a ship and out of its belly is

01:33:38.380 coming um other monsters and you can see them depicted that david drew in there so you got the

01:33:43.100 the chief monster and that's the monster that the christ figure has already taken out but now the

01:33:48.720 the dragon this mothership bad guy is crashing to earth and and its hole its its belly is being

01:33:57.260 opened up and all these lesser monsters are coming out and polluting the earth so the christ figure

01:34:01.900 said i've already given the death blow to satan is what's being communicated um you know i bound

01:34:07.900 the strong man. But now you church militant, the church on earth. So, so that lesser good guy is

01:34:15.580 not supposed to be an individual person like the Christ figure, but it's supposed to represent the

01:34:20.460 church corporately, the church as a whole and the church militant on earth. I gave the death blow

01:34:26.600 to Satan. Now you go finish the job and round up all his minions. And your eschaton is there in 0.99

01:34:33.300 the background before you always before you a glimpse of the celestial city um and and you can

01:34:39.040 see in the background the celestial city and that so that's the theology piece and and david can

01:34:45.520 you talk about like some of the textures and the colors and things like that yeah um i think joel

01:34:52.000 just complete yeah that was it joel thank you no i mean the only the only things that i would

01:34:59.120 really add are the painting is it depicts a very the the high contrast of what is what is apparent

01:35:09.040 to believers and that is victory is sure yes but also we live in turmoil a lot of the time we don't

01:35:22.360 know our own personal lives can be confusing the world at large can be confusing family life church

01:35:29.100 life, business, finances? Why is this all not working out if Christ is victorious and Christ

01:35:38.340 is ruling? And so the painting actually from a visual standpoint depicts that contrast. You have

01:35:46.940 the stable um sort of calming very uh simple graphic effect of the vertical central figure

01:36:02.300 that everything is around the whole painting is divided in thirds vertically so there's a bottom

01:36:09.580 third that goes from the bottom to the golden hero's feet and then to the top of his helm

01:36:16.140 and then to the top of the painting and then he stands in the exact center of the painting

01:36:22.400 from his feet the ground goes out in a in a like a pyramid shape that just gives structure to that

01:36:33.380 dark object and then around him so he's also unaffected by the swirl the swirling

01:36:43.920 storms of evil the swirling storms of evil have have swept across the foreground and have pulled

01:36:51.900 the cape of the silver hero the church militant along with it he is even affected by it you can

01:37:00.900 see how it sweeps across his figure in some places and then there's this so then you see also like

01:37:09.000 the light side of the painting with the celestial city in the background and the foreground of

01:37:15.380 pasture land is very beautiful and there's a there's a river and a stream that comes through

01:37:20.880 and then on the other side you have chaos demons the leviathan the beasts the the fire

01:37:29.380 and the smoke plumes that come up from the crashing of the beast to the ground

01:37:34.840 um and then the but the final say the final word is god's word the banner of the banner that that

01:37:46.400 matches the same color of the cloak of the golden hero um is god's is god's final word and gives

01:37:54.500 and gives the painting uh it gives it sort of a surreal feeling but also gives it kind of the

01:38:02.480 final say this is this is the way things are going to be the final eschaton is that god is going to

01:38:11.320 bring his people to himself through jesus is jesus is going to present us to him um and the last enemy

01:38:20.100 to be defeated is death awesome yeah so so with that i want to turn to you chris now because

01:38:28.040 I've got some guys in my church that I'm thinking of that I think probably want to get, you know,

01:38:32.840 we've actually, we've already had a couple of people email us, you know, because they've seen

01:38:36.720 the painting and I've talked a little bit about it in some of my other videos as we just unveiled,

01:38:40.620 you know, our new studio. And so we've had a couple of people reach out and say, you know,

01:38:44.000 how do I get one? So Chris, talk about that now. So we, you know, there's theological meaning,

01:38:49.060 there's beauty, there's all the reasons, everything we've talked about thus far,

01:38:52.520 why we need to recapture art, why, you know, it needs to be, you know, all of Christ for all of

01:38:56.440 life. Every good work, art's one of those good works. And what this particular piece of art

01:39:00.660 means, how an artist and a business guy and a pastor collaborated together to make something

01:39:06.000 that's beautiful, but it's beautiful because it's, what I want to say is it's not beautiful and true.

01:39:10.980 It's beautiful because it's true. It's beautiful because it's true. It means something. And so

01:39:17.960 how do people get it, Chris? This is the best part. I got the easy job. So go to

01:39:23.780 everygoodwork.art that's our domain and you'll see either in the top banner and we'll see if we can

01:39:31.420 do this in post but in the top banner we have right response ministries we call out the conquering

01:39:36.540 king and you can click on that and it'll take you to the actual page where you can either get a

01:39:42.680 recap of some of the technical technical things that david had applied to the painting itself

01:39:50.180 some of the theological narratives that inspire joel but ultimately you can kind of get a sense

01:39:55.680 of it i know it's hard to see and i know nathan's going to try his best to get some close-ups

01:40:00.560 but we also do our part we've also done our part to create some good product photography

01:40:05.560 where it'll allow you to kind of get a deeper glimpse of it in a multi-dimensional way um

01:40:11.660 and and ultimately look we're brothers and so we're this is not a a company of 2 000 people

01:40:17.560 it's david and myself and so we'll be personally handling any any questions or or emails or

01:40:24.040 anything like that and then prices are very affordable so this is right this is something

01:40:29.480 that's over ten thousand dollars as an original but we've been able to figure out a way to make

01:40:34.600 this affordable through high quality prints on canvas and so prices start as low as 240 based on

01:40:40.840 a certain type of dimension and then it can range all the way as high as you know six hundred dollars

01:40:45.880 plus to get this real life you know very magnificent looking um print um depending on

01:40:53.320 obviously the wall that you want to put it on and so ultimately our goal was how do we make this

01:40:58.600 a really unique special experience for the right response ministries we wanted to honor you

01:41:04.280 pastor joel and honor um the community that supports you too and so this is made available

01:41:11.080 really on a limited print i think that's the other thing that we wanted to bring up is that

01:41:15.240 you know a lot of people don't realize that declays actually do increase in value over time

01:41:21.480 just because it's a very high quality product but at the same time we wanted to also accentuate

01:41:28.200 the value of this by making it limited as well and so we have a limited print release but we want to

01:41:34.440 expose this amazing work of art in collaboration from pastor joel and david and we wanted to give

01:41:40.760 it to y'all the to the right response community and um it's a one-time discount of 40 off so

01:41:48.640 that's as that's as as as affordable as we would want to make it to be yeah that's that's super

01:41:54.820 generous guys thank you um the community kind of rallies around this and we've done everything we

01:42:03.420 can to hopefully explain to you why this is meaningful um but we also ultimately want to

01:42:10.120 make sure that you see it just as meaningfully and so yeah go to everygoodwork.art there's a

01:42:16.480 top banner or you can scroll down and you'll see the conquering king image click on that and then

01:42:21.460 just like any other simple e-commerce website add to cart we'll take credit cards and all that

01:42:26.800 normal standard right is that going to be 40 off on whatever whatever dimension whatever size they

01:42:32.040 pick or just on a specific size so they can get that like the original which is i have the you

01:42:38.120 know i don't have the original but i have the same size of that 30 you know 30 by 40 inches it's

01:42:43.360 massive you know like it's about they could get that for for 40 off that's right so something

01:42:49.740 so if my math is right go ahead go ahead so something that's 499 you can or sorry something

01:42:55.040 that's 399 you can get it at 240 right and so we're really trying to do everything we can to

01:43:00.700 make it affordable but also we really want to bless um your community joel because you are the

01:43:06.820 first there's a short list of pastors and we wanted to also honor you because you you actually

01:43:13.660 took a risk on us and so this is not something this is not a sustainable business model you're

01:43:19.360 talking to the business guy here but but it's also something where man we really want to make this

01:43:25.620 a special thing that we'll remember for a long time yeah and we also know that this painting

01:43:30.500 hopefully will be present at the upcoming it will conference it will that's the last piece of the

01:43:36.640 puzzle. Yeah. So we've got five. Well, no, no, no, we'll say it. But like 550 people are registered

01:43:42.160 and, you know, and I know that I've had so many people emailing me. And so listeners, I, I,

01:43:47.120 I apologize that we were not able, I've told you, but we were not able to get a larger venue

01:43:50.900 this year. Now that said, we have decided to host this conference again in 2024 and Lord willing,

01:43:57.400 we will secure a larger venue that can seat, you know, around a thousand to 1200 people, but

01:44:01.560 in god's providence we want to be content with what he's provided this year so for 2023 may 5th

01:44:06.760 6th and 7th the theonomy and post-millennialism conference our venue holds 500 we've got you know

01:44:12.980 550 that we've let in so we've already gone over our capacity and we've got another like 150 people

01:44:19.200 on a waiting list so we just we can't take anyone else but if you are one of those 550 people who

01:44:25.000 was able to get through you were able to register you're going to be there at this conference this

01:44:29.980 is a painting that you can get right now. And I would not encourage you to wait, get it now for

01:44:34.500 40% off. But if for whatever reason, just financially, you can't swing it right now.

01:44:39.060 We're living in Joe Biden's recession. I get it. May 5th, 6th and 7th at the Theonomy and

01:44:44.980 Postmillennialism Conference. I'm pretty sure that even if we've sold out, we're going to limit it.

01:44:51.200 But even if we sold out, I think that I might be able to twist David and Chris's arm just enough

01:44:56.100 to say this is this is the post-millennial conference this is the post-millennial painting

01:45:00.780 it's a match made in heaven let's bust it out of the vault one more time so yeah you would this

01:45:05.420 painting will have an appearance at that conference as well the original will be there

01:45:09.780 and we'll have oh awesome yeah and we'll have prints to view and purchase and we've talked

01:45:17.420 about maybe um you know if you've if you've placed an order a week or two before the conference maybe

01:45:24.020 we could deliver it we could bring the print for you um we can figure out some of those details in

01:45:30.340 the time in the time being but for now think about it as limited print run we know that this 100 or

01:45:38.020 200 prints is going to be special um it's our first set so i will be hand signing that's right the

01:45:45.460 front of these i won't be doing that for every i will not be doing that for everything and every

01:45:51.060 good work that is painted by me but i will be doing it for these so this painting um

01:45:59.620 the original is not signed yet i had it scanned without being signed so that joel when they

01:46:05.860 printed yours the signature wasn't done yet i signed it and then i finished it with a clear

01:46:10.660 coat that's that's uv that protects the ultraviolet light and then i'm also going to

01:46:16.180 number them on the back. So if you're in the first of this limited print run, you're going to have

01:46:24.880 those two things. And I'm not sure how often we will be doing that sort of next step. And I know

01:46:31.500 from looking into it that the way as you clay increases in value is the limited print and being

01:46:39.620 signed by the artist. So those two things for sure are going to give you something that hopefully

01:46:46.120 you like just because it's a good painting and that's a good story but also it's going to last

01:46:51.520 and also it's going to go into the valley um that's great that's awesome yeah cool guys well

01:46:58.700 that's it i i think that this episode is great i think it'll be helpful i think people will get an

01:47:02.420 idea of you know all right here's some of the problems with keller but here's the baby that

01:47:06.300 we don't need to throw out with the bath water all of christ for all of life let's reject marks

01:47:11.480 Let's keep Kuiper. 1.00

01:47:12.960 Okay. 0.98

01:47:13.280 With the Kuiperian mindset, how can we apply all of Christ to every single realm? 0.54

01:47:18.780 Art's one of them. 0.97

01:47:20.000 What does that look like?

01:47:21.100 How do truth and beauty relate to one another?

01:47:23.480 And how can I actually put my money where my mouth is?

01:47:26.940 What good endeavor does God have for me?

01:47:28.960 And what good endeavors and good works can I support like what Chris and David are doing?

01:47:34.440 So thanks for coming on the show.

01:47:36.180 Thanks for our listeners tuning in.

01:47:38.200 And I encourage you guys, if you like art, if you like this painting, it means something.

01:47:44.340 It means something beautiful and true about our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who is

01:47:49.540 also king, reigning and ruling right now.

01:47:53.280 So if you can afford it, don't break the bank. 0.99

01:47:55.780 But if you can afford it, don't spend 240 bucks on crap. 0.97

01:48:00.940 Spend 240 bucks in a Christian way. 0.97

01:48:03.440 Get a nice piece of art.

01:48:04.640 So thanks for tuning in.

01:48:05.800 Can I be frank with you for just a second?

01:48:07.640 right here at the end. Look, some of you guys, you're financially supporting this ministry,

01:48:12.620 and from the bottom of my heart, I say thank you. I cannot thank you enough. However, some of you,

01:48:19.440 you just can't afford it. In fact, some of you, you shouldn't afford it. Let's be honest. I mean,

01:48:26.700 we're living in Joe Biden's ridiculous economy. Our nation and our totalitarian political elites 0.98

01:48:34.760 lost their minds over the last three years due to COVID. We have written checks that we simply

01:48:42.260 cannot cash. It doesn't matter if people change the definition of a recession. We are living in

01:48:48.840 a recession right now regardless. Some of you are struggling to afford a carton of eggs at the

01:48:55.720 grocery store. You cannot support financially this ministry at this time nor should you but you could

01:49:03.260 still help us tremendously. I am asking you, please, if you're willing to do so, take one

01:49:10.080 minute of your time. Leave us a five-star review on your favorite podcast platform, iTunes, Spotify,

01:49:17.380 whatever that might be. This is the way the system works. We want to be innocent as doves,

01:49:22.820 but shrewd as vipers. We need to be strategic. You leave us a five-star review and our podcast

01:49:30.040 shows up for more people. And the Word of God and courageous theology applied in practical ways to

01:49:37.820 every realm of life gets out there. Help us get it out there. Thanks for tuning in.

The NXR Podcast - February 28, 2023

THEOLOGY APPLIED - Tim Keller’s Problem Isn’t His Embrace Of Abraham Kuyper, It’s His Embrace Of Karl Marx ｜ with David McLeod & Chris Hwang

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