The Apologetic Apostolic. A mission to listen. December 7th of 2007 an answer to insecurity, depression, anxiety, and the other emotions that ground middle school aged kids found me at the age of 13. I “received the Holy Ghost” as I’ve heard many sweaty men behind a tall desk talk about. It was a day that changed my world for the better and I am so thankful for that precious gift from Heaven, though only time truly helps me to articulate the value of what happened to me that night. A rebirth and regeneration of my soul, purpose, life, and pursuit.
People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care
Teddy roosevelt
Unfortunately, the crippling cancer of my teenage pride ruthlessly corrupted the restorative message that I was called to share with my peers. I called them my peers because, in my eyes at least, they weren’t worthy to be my true friends. They couldn’t be my true friends unless they believed and lived exactly as I did. They needed to be a carbon copy of myself to obtain “salvation”. That was the only way.
What could be wrong with that? I’m a walking example of the Gospel lived out because I “had the Holy Ghost” which is equivalent to “I have all the answers.” A teenager. Having all the answers. What could be wrong with that? Alot. It’s absolutely, insultingly wrong on so many levels. I wish I could say that this was realized by senior year of high school but no. That’d be much less humiliating. It wasn’t until my third year of college I started realizing that the paradigm in which I viewed the world wasn’t through the lens of the Gospel, it was through the lens of pride. I was more concerned with being right than being effective. That’s not the Great Commision that Jesus called us to do.
Why Love?
What happened year three? Campus ministry. A ministry that actually aimed to serve students rather than talk furiously at them about why they’re wrong. This was a humiliating lesson I learned the hard way. I did my monotonous spiel and was met with many very articulate counter arguments on more than one occasion. This led me to dive deeply into what I believed and why I believed it. I never doubted what I believed, however, I highly doubted my ability to articulate those beliefs well. This really boiled down to my embarrassingly crippled ability to listen intently to what my disagreeing peer was saying. Once I started to pay attention however, it changed my perspective of what THEY believed in the first place. Who would’ve thought that? Actually listening to what ther person thought could allow you to see things from their perspective? Wild. Just wild.
The Apostle Paul went city to city preaching the Gospel and selling tents. While in the cities he would listen very intently to the people that surrounded him in every city to see where there beliefs were at so he could see in what way they would listen to the message he was carrying and maybe even receive more willingly (See Romans 9). This is what I started practicing, roughly I might add, in college. First I listened to what God was saying through his Word (Romans 10v17) and secondly to my neighbor. The Bible talks of loving your neighbor as yourself. What better currency of love than that of intentional listening. If I may, he was an apologetic apostolic.
Why Listen?
"And he (Jesus) said to him, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets." Matthew 22v37-40 ESV
That is the heartbeat of this podcast. To love God is to listen his Word, His Truth, His principles, and his Laws with utmost intentionality. To love our neighbors is to listen to their heartaches, heartbreaks, triumphs, and ,yes, their divergent opinions. Welcome to the space where both happen, hopefully, harmoniously.
