#250: Joshua McNall: How Jesus Saves
Joshua Mcnall wants to help you understand the atonement.
In our conversation, we talk about the importance of good theology, grace, and the importance of understanding Jesus!
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Links:
https://joshuamcnall.com/about/about-2/
https://joshuamcnall.com/my-podcast/
EP. 250
Tony: [00:00:00] Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Reclamation Podcast, where our goal is to help you reclaim good practices for following Jesus. If we haven't met yet, my name is Tony, and I'm your host with over a decade in the local church. I care deeply and passionately about helping you connect with Jesus in practical ways.
Today's conversation is perfect for that. I've got the associate professor of pastoral theology, an ambassador of church relations at Oklahoma Wesleyan University. His name is Joshua McNall and he's got a brand new book out called how Jesus Saves Atonement for Ordinary People. This is the perfect thing to talk about, heading into Holy Week 2023.
If you like this conversation, do me a favor. Hit that subscribe button wherever you listen to podcasts. Leave a rating or review on iTunes or Spotify, and the highest compliment. As always, share this episode with a friend, maybe somebody [00:01:00] who you talk to with about theology, the perfect person to share it with.
Now, without any further ado, let's jump into this conversation with Josh. Josh, thank you so much for being on the podcast today. It's an honor to. Tony, thanks for having me. I'm really excited to talk with you. Yeah. So you, you've done a number of things. You're obviously an author, you're father, husband, and we're gonna get into all sorts of different parts of your story.
But one of the things that I always love to kind of kick off the conversation with is this 30,000 view of how God wired. Jill, how would you describe the calling that God has placed on your.
Joshua: Yeah, I would describe it the, you know, my title here at the university, I teach at a place called Oklahoma Westley University, and the title they've given me is Pastoral Theology.
And that kind of gives you an answer to that 30,000 foot question. I, I like to have one foot in the church world, and so I'm on staff [00:02:00] preaching. Helping in the local church part-time, but I also have one foot in the university setting trying to train up and equip young people in the faith. And that includes people who are going into ministry.
But it also includes, in my context, just regular, you know, first year college freshmen trying to figure out. What the heck do they believe? Not just about the Bible, but maybe everything. And so and so, I wanna be able to talk to just normal, regular folks, but also have a, have some engagement with scholarship in the academy and the university at the same time.
Tony: So I, I know that there are a ton of people who are, who listen to this podcast, who get really intimidated by church words. And so I'm gonna, I'm gonna be super intentional about asking you questions that may seem a little simple, but let, let's start with this idea of like, theology. First of all, what is it and why should we have any That's.[00:03:00]
Joshua: Theology's, just the study of, of God. Like what do you, what do you think about God? What do you believe about God? And more importantly, how does that shape who you are as a person? How does that shape the way you actually treat people and the way you actually live? And so it's just, it's talking about our relationship to God, both with our mind, but also with our habits and, and, and how we treat others.
Tony: As you have been teaching and leaning into the next generation of pastoral leaders and thinking about theology, what are some of the things that you're noticing about the way that people are understanding God or just the way that that next generation of church leadership is coming up? A, any reflections I would imagine that that's a, a super like rewarding but also frustrating job, kind of trying to get people.
To see something different.
Joshua: Yeah. I think, you know, as we move into an age of American history, in my [00:04:00] context, since I live in America, that is increasingly post-Christian there's a hunger in young people who are passionate about the gospel and passionate about ministry to kind of move beyond some of the intramural debates within the church that maybe used to take up a lot of time.
And figure out how do we enga, how do we engage with an increasingly secular culture that doesn't care about those intramural debates, but desperately does want to have a relationship with Jesus and wants to have a faith that gives meaning and purpose. To, to their lives. And so that's one thing I've noticed is this desire to move past some of those maybe you know, internal disputes and, and get it some of the more core issues of the faith.
Well, that, that's
Tony: probably the best transition into this latest resource that you've written, how Jesus saves atonement for ordinary people. So two things I really wanna ask that, you know, kind of off the top [00:05:00] one, how do we define atonement? And two, if you could share the story about how this book came to be.
I know it's in the intro and I, I've read it and I doing some research. I think it's a great story though. So I definitely wanted to give you some time to share it. But let's just start with defining atonement.
Joshua: Yeah, atonement is a really interesting word in theology and it's a kind of a helpful word for the, for people who.
Like a lot of us who maybe only speak English because it's one of the few like genuinely English words in theology. And it speaks to the, at Onement, I mean, that's really kind of a literal way of breaking down the word. The at onement, the way the making one or of bringing to, of union between the believer and Christ.
So taking two parties, two entities, two people who were alienated or separated in making them one or bound together. And that's kind of the origin of the word. And it speaks to what the Bible talks about as [00:06:00] reconciliation. It's bringing together of humanity in God because of what Jesus has done for us.
Love it.
Tony: And I think that that's a super palatable way to understand the concept. But yet this story of how this book got written is even a little bit deeper than that cuz it was born out of just a, a very genuine curiosity. Can you share a little bit about that story and, and what it kind of, what the path it prompted you to go on?
Yeah,
Joshua: so I've got four little kids. They're, they're getting older now from the time when I started writing this book, but I think parents who have young kids or grandparents can attest to these sort of bedtime conversations that a parent has with their son or daughter when you go in to tuck 'em in, and in my case, and I go in and into my daughter or Lucy's room and, and pray for her.
Tucker in and, you know, the, the 14 glasses of water and couple trips to the bathroom that are, that are required for a kid to get ready for bed. [00:07:00] And, and bedtime. Yeah. I mean, we've all gotta be adequately hydrated. And so, so in our house, probably like a lot of other people, bedtime kind of brings out the deep questions from kids, and sometimes those are just stalling tactics to try to, you know, delay bedtime a little bit longer.
But in this instance, the story I start the book with is my daughter asked me, she said, daddy, just kind of outta the blue, she said, How does Jesus save us By dying on the cross. Hmm. And. You know, sometimes you don't know where those questions come from, but in this case, I had a, a pretty good idea of where it came from because we had just got back from a funeral.
The first real funeral that this particular child had kind of been close to it was the funeral of her uncle Daniel, who died when he was 30 years old from a, a really terrible disease called als. And yeah, so even as like a very young kid, my daughter knew like death is [00:08:00] not a good thing. Death at a young age, somebody in their thirties.
I mean, Jesus is, is about that age as well, is not something we celebrate. It's not something that is good news. And so she had hurt her whole life that Jesus saves us and that he saves us by dying for our sins on the cross. And that his death is connected to salvation. And the good news, and this very obvious question that sometimes Christians just completely gloss over to her was just on.
The front burner was like, why in the world is a cross in a violent, shameful death, the way in which God saves us? And so the subtitle of the book is Atonement for Ordinary People. Because I share in the introduction that I should have really had a snappy answer for that question. Cuz I, I had just written a really large academic book on the doctrine, Nova Toman, and it was really well received by other academics [00:09:00] and.
Professors, and I say in the introduction that what that basically means is that you've never read it or heard of it if you're just like a normal person. That's true. And what it, what it also means is for just regular people, or at least for my daughter, like some of those big $10 theology terms. And intramural debates, even though they're important, they weren't gonna help her in in that moment.
I needed a way of talking about how Jesus saves for ordinary people in language that regular people can understand. And, and so that's what this book is. It's birthed out of just a very simple, honest question from a kid who probably at the time was maybe, you know, eight years old or something, and, and I wanted to be able to talk about.
Salvation and the cross and redemption in, in ways that anybody could, could understand.
Tony: Well, one of the things that I strongly believe is that communication is in simplistic terms, is absolutely the hardest version [00:10:00] of, of communication, using the least amount of words possible. And this is, I mean, you cover a really meaty topic and a kind of a really and not that many words.
I mean, people write whole, you know, thesis dissertations on the atone on just one part of the atonement. What did you learn about Jesus and yourself in the process of writing this book with as few words as
Joshua: possible? Yeah, somebody said, I don't know who it was, but they said that you really haven't understood a subject until you can communicate it in a simple way.
And so sometimes we, as academics, I'm a professor, sometimes we hide behind really long, complicated sentences and really large words. To, to sort of gloss over the fact that we really don't quite know what we're talking about. And that's okay. When we're talking about God. That's true. We don't, no, we can't put God in a box.
Yeah. We can't reduce him to a [00:11:00] really well crafted sentence. And so that's okay to not. Be able to wrap our minds or our words around God, but we do still need to be able to communicate the gospel to the kinds of the peop, to the kinds of people that people like Christ and Peter and Paul talked to, which were just normal folks.
And so it was, it was a really helpful exercise for me to take some of the things I have done in a more academic context. And to put them together with stories and illustrations and analogies and even as people will see if they read the book, some of my really bad drawings and artwork to try to, to help the gospel become clearer for, for just ordinary folks.
Tony: Before I, I did wanna move away from this note. I wrote it down as you were talking. You mentioned about praying over your daughter. One of the things that I love to do and our community loves is when I can steal good ideas about how to bring Christ into our [00:12:00] family lives. I'm curious about what your family devotional looks like or any, any good practices that PE people can just, you know, steal from you while they're That, that maybe you've learned from somebody else or you've made up on your own?
Yeah.
Joshua: I think probably the most important thing, and this is not unique to me, is just time. You know we, we like to sometimes say, well, it's, you know, it's not quality time, not quantity time. And we sometimes use that excuse, but the kids wanna be with you and, and they don't. They don't schedule their time with you by talking to your administrative assistant and saying, Hey dad, could I, can I get some time on Thursday?
I know you got a little window there, you know. And so I think when it comes to discipleship for kids, this is a really cheesy, you know, dad, dad thing, but love is spelled t i m e and, and yeah, whether that comes at bedtime or around the dinner table or. One thing that I've [00:13:00] en I've really enjoyed doing, and it helped me when I recorded the audio book for how Jesus saves, is just reading aloud to my kids before bedtime.
Mm-hmm. In reading whether we've, we've done like catechism stuff, we've also just done good fiction sometimes by Christian authors, sometimes not that that connects seeing Jesus in a text, which is really what we do when we read the Bible. To love and affirmation from mom and dad. And so that's something I joked with the audio crew and we recorded this book that I was like well trained to, to do an audio book since I've been reading to my kids each night and doing all the, doing all the voices and the actions and, and you know, being, trying to keep 'em entertained.
So those are just a couple thoughts on that.
Tony: That's great. A, as this book has begun to kinda steep out into the wild, what, what are some of the things that you're hearing back about this? [00:14:00] What could potentially be, it's just that, you know, not many people write about the atonement specifically for people that wouldn't normally read about it.
Like, is that, does that, that, I hope that didn't sound weird. I meant it as a compliment. What are some of the things that you're hearing as this kind of gets into more and more
Joshua: hands? Yeah, I've, I've been just really honored to hear great things from folks. I'm excited, like I said, to have different ways that people can engage with the book.
The audio book is one of those, and a lot of people who, they wanna learn about Jesus, but they just, they're just not big readers or, or maybe they don't have a lot of time to sit down and read a book, but they have a commute and they can listen to God's word and, and learn about Jesus in that way.
So I've heard I've really been gratified to hear people you know, downloading the audio book. And, and we've also got videos that go along with each chapter for church, small groups and, and that are, that are using that to discuss and to talk about how Jesus saves through the video resources that that we've put together.[00:15:00]
So all those have been really, it's really fun. You, you writing a book, you know, it can be kind of like writing a sermon. It's kind of a lonely task. You sit down at your computer Yeah. And your office. A coffee shop and you put your earbuds in or whatever. And so it's, it really becomes a communal thing once it gets out there into the world.
And so it's cool with the book coming out last week or around that time to, to start to hear stories stories like that.
Yeah.
Tony: What, what's kind of your prayer as. You know, as this thing gets out, and I'm obviously you don't write a book like this because you're like, oh, I'm bored. I should write a book on the Atonement. But it's more like a, a conviction or calling, you know, what, what's the thing that you're praying for?
As this gets into more and more hands,
Joshua: there's really two things. So the first thing is that I want to. I wanna make the case that learning more about Jesus and [00:16:00] how he saves, so that's what we call theology, actually fuels worship. It fuels intimacy with God. Like it's not just this cerebral, detached academic pursuit, it's actually the kindling that God uses to spark revival and renewal and deeper intimacy in the hearts of, of regular Christians.
And so that's one thing I'm praying for that. Engaging with this aspect of theology, how Jesus saves. It's not just an intellectual pursuit, but it's the kindling for deeper worship and, and renewal in the hearts and in the, in the church at at large. So that's the first thing is just that prayer about God using it in that way.
The second thing is I've noticed that most Christians, and this is true even for academics, when they talk about how Jesus saves or the cross, or you know, how that affects us. A lot of [00:17:00] us basically just kind of have one angle on atonement or on salvation or on reconciliation. And so for some of us it's the angle where we talk about, oh, Jesus bore the judgment or the penalty that, that we deserved.
And, and that's true and I talk about that in the book in ways that I hope are biblical and helpful. But that's not the only aspect of Ma Toman. And so for other people, you know, the, the aspect, the aspect that maybe they've grown up with is, well, you know, Jesus' loving example inspires us to be more loving and sacrificial.
Right? And that's true. That's part of how Jesus transforms us by his spirit. But it's not the only angle of atonement. And so regardless of where you grew up, whether it was in the church, whether it was in a particular denomination, or whether you just were completely outside of the walls of the church, my argument is that what Jesus does on the cross [00:18:00] and in the resurrection and in the sinning of his spirit, it's almost like this beautiful diamond or this gym that we need to turn and let the light refract out in different ways so that we can see how beautiful.
The gospel is, and how amazing grace actually is. And so regardless of what your background is, my hope is just to kind of turn that stone a little bit to see a different side of salvation.
Tony: Yeah. Ta Talk to me a little bit about intimacy. I, I think that there are a lot of people listening who who understand. You know scripture at a basic level, they understand the gospel. They, they may even memorize some tracks, you know, from, from their, you know, strong Baptist upbringings, whatever, right?
Mm-hmm. There are a lot of people who understand things but lack intimacy. How, how do you recommend people lean into a more intimate relationship with the Lord? And, and [00:19:00] build.
Joshua: In some ways, I think atonement, this is gonna sound weird with people, maybe your associations with theology or doctrine, but in some ways, atonement is the ultimate intimacy term because it's, at one minute, it's taking two parties that were estranged, so they lacked intimacy.
And bring them together in a relationship of union at One Minute Atonement Union. It's a specific kind of union. It's not a codependent relationship. And it's not a union that obliterates the distinctive characteristics of the beloved. Right? It's an empowering union and that's really what that's one angle on salvation is union with Christ.
It, you couldn't pick a topic. That is closer to this concept of intimacy or, or reconciliation, than to look at how Jesus lays his [00:20:00] life down for his bride, the church. And how we are empowered by that when we find our identity and our belonging in him.
Hey
Tony: guys, just pause in this conversation with Josh to remind you to check out my blog.
Actually, it's a subset and it's part of Spirit and Truth. The Spirit and True Sub is perfect for anybody who considers themselves a spirit led leader. Whether you lead at the church or in the. It's a blog that comes out twice a week. That's great for some practical insight on what it means to walk with the Lord.
You can learn more about it by going to the website spirit and Truth, spirit a and d truth.dot com. So what's that look like on a random Tuesday in Dayton, Ohio? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Help us get practical with. Yeah, I mean, I think it,
Joshua: first of all, like this, the first chapter in the book which is a quote from the [00:21:00] movie Jaws is you're gonna need a, a bigger boat Jesus in the bigger boat.
So, practically speaking, we can't see how sweet the gospel actually is until we come to grips with how deep our problems apart from Jesus actually are. And so one part of that's good, the book is just trying to get people to, to understand, myself included, that we have more than just one problem. And once we see how deep the human predicament is, then that sparks greater affection and greater intimacy for God and a very practical sense because we realize how broken and how lost we are.
Apart from, apart from Jesus. And so that's one practical part of it. And it's maybe, it sounds like a downer, but it actually, I think sparks affection and intimacy is coming to grips with the various facets of our problem or our predicament, our sin problem apart from Christ.[00:22:00]
Tony: Yeah, I think one of the things that I say oftentimes when I do funerals is that grief is some terrible kind of privilege because it's a reflection of the depth in which we love. Mm-hmm. Right? And so and I stole that quote from somebody who I, now, I can't remember, but I did not say that, so don't quote me.
But you know, that's, that's kind of what you're saying, right? Is like, Hey when I understand the depth of my sin, full nature, then I can measure the depth of the sacrifice that Jesus made for me to bring me to him. Is that, I mean, am I, yeah. Paraphrasing that back correctly. Yeah,
Joshua: that's exactly right.
And so if we wanna get really practical with it, you know, a lot of times when people talk about atonement, they talk about our sin problem that makes us guilty before God. And that's one facet of our predicament. That's a real facet. But a topic that sometimes we don't talk about is our shame problem.
And there are millions of millions of people just [00:23:00] who are born down by the weight of shame. And the really insidious thing about shame some. Now I'm gonna say, you know, I heard somewhere one author says is, you know, you feel guilt for what you've done, but you feel shame for who you are. Yes. It's like it clings to your identity like an odor, and it doesn't wash out, you know, and, and the really terrible thing about shame is that you can feel shame not merely for what you've done, but for what other people have done to you.
And so there's this terrible story in the old intestine about, about Tamar and how she experiences a sexual assault. And, and she screams out, where can I go to be rid of this disgrace, this shame, right? And so here's, you know, here's the question. How does the cross of Jesus Christ deal not just with our guilt problem, but with our shame problem that people wrestle with on a daily basis?[00:24:00]
And so I talk about in the book, you know this, this fact that we don't really paint or depict in our Christian artwork, but that is that Jesus was crucified completely naked. And we know that from Roman history. We know the soldiers divided up his garment by casting lots in front of his mom, his this mocking crowd.
And his female disciples. Right? There is no more shameful experience for, especially for a modest Jewish man than to sort of be splayed out naked in public and mocked as being a cursed and as being a fraud. Right. And so how does that, how does that connect to the good news? Well, one of the things I think the gospels are trying to say that Jesus enters into our experience of shame.
And, and the scriptures even talk about how he scorned the shame of the cross and he knows what it [00:25:00] feels like. Wow. He knows what it feels like to be assaulted and to be abused and to be shamed publicly in the worst way imaginable. The first Christian piece of artwork of Jesus that we have is not in a stained glass window, and it's not even a Christian piece of artwork.
I have a, a picture of it in the book, and it's a piece of graffiti in Rome itself. And it shows a naked man on a cross with the head of a donkey. And it's clearly, it. It's, it's done to mock this Christian, a guy by the name of Alexa menos Alex, and the inscription says, Alex worships his God. It's meant to mock Jesus.
Like, why would you worship a God like that? Right? That's stupid. It's silly. It's shameful. And yet within just a a few generations, Christians had taken the ultimate symbol of shame and disgrace and turned it into the cross, the ultimate symbol [00:26:00] of victory and of a God who empathizes with our experience of shame and brokenness and even death.
And so, That's just one example of a different angle on salvation, a different angle on the cross than maybe many of us grew up with. But it does speak to a really practical experience of regular people, and that is our, our wrestling match with the shame and not just guilt.
Tony: I think that's a beautiful description and something that so many of us. Can hold on to kind of, in a practical way. I, I am curious to get your thoughts though, on why do you think that the, the, the church, like the big church has left out this idea of, of, of practical atonement, theology. What, why do we stop you?
You know what I mean? That that message feels as equally powerful as [00:27:00] any catchy sermon I've listened to or given. Yet, I'm not necessarily sure that there are many preachers up there preaching about the atonement in that kind of way. Where's the disconnect?
Joshua: Sometimes I think the disconnect is we don't quite know how it works.
You know? I mean, it is a very strange thing to say, Hey, good news, a, a Jewish man was crucified, right? I mean that Paul talks about the foolishness of the cross when he writes to the Corinthians. Yes. And he does that because he recognizes the strangeness of this gospel that he says, you know, the Jews want signs and wonders and the Greeks want their deep philosophy, and here's what I've got, price crucified.
Hmm. And so maybe one reason we struggle with it is it's just kind of, it is, is a strange through the eyes of just human beings and human wisdom. We don't quite know what to do [00:28:00] with it sometimes. And so maybe we're prone to just talk about, Hey you should be a good person. You know, you should love your neighbor.
You should, you know, pay your taxes. Something like, but maybe not that one. But so we talk about something else because maybe we, we struggle with what Paul calls the, the foolishness or the apparent foolishness of, of the cross. That that might be one reason. I'm sure there are others. But. I think we have to stop.
If Paul, if Paul is right that the cross sits at the center of the gospel message, then we can't just skip past the good news in order to get to the good advice because yeah, the good news is, is paramount in its, Importance. And that's a, those are a couple thoughts on maybe why we don't talk about it enough and maybe why we need to wrestle with it a little bit more.
That's good.
Tony: Good. One of the things that I love to do [00:29:00] is read dedication pages. Your dedication page is short and sweet and and it just says, For you and Gregory King in, in lowercase. I, I gotta a tell me, tell me the story.
Joshua: Yeah, so I've written I guess this is my fifth book, and so the first one I wrote was dedicated to my dad.
That's called long story short similar pub, same publisher as, as. And then all the subsequent ones. The next one was for my wife, my dissertation, and then all the subsequent ones are dedicated to my kid. And so Unen is my third kid. I recognize that Scottish name Unen might be a little bit strange in Oklahoma and probably a lot of places in the United States, but you and Gregory is his name.
And maybe other parents are like this. I never call my kids by their actual names [00:30:00] unless they're in trouble. Yeah. So I call 'em, I have all these, Nick, I mean, I probably have six or seven nicknames for each kid and for me, those nicknames are, they're terms of endearment, their terms of affection, and they often don't make any sense except maybe to the kid and to me.
But my son, you and he had a little stuffed animal dog, like a little Paw patrol kind of dog when he was little, and he decided to name that dog King. And I just thought that was a funny name. Like who, who names something king. And I started, you know, talking to him about his little dog and eventually it kind of became my nickname.
For him. I hope. It doesn't mean that he's gonna grow up to be like a third world dictator or something like that, but
he's proud. There is, there is like a theological, there's like a theological kind of connection to it that, you know, one of the things that the New Testament teaches is because of what Christ has done for us that we are. [00:31:00] Joint heirs with Christ. Mm-hmm. And there's like this, there's this royal identity that comes along with being a son or a daughter of, of God.
And so I was hoping to, to maybe touch on both the, the silly nickname and that sort of deeper theological truth there. No,
Tony: it's so good. Okay. So I, I, you know, I have to ask, right? So if we go back to the very beginning, And your daughter were to ask you that same question again, right? What's the answer that
Joshua: you're giving?
Yeah. Well, I don't think it fits on a bumper sticker. I mean, I, I don't think it's not, it's, it's not reducible to a, to a campaign slogan. And I think that's actually a good thing. A good thing. Yeah. You know, but I, but I try to lay out in the book are four answers to that question are really five answers.
The first chapter, [00:32:00] like I said, Is Jesus saves by revealing how deep our problems apart from God actually are. And that connects to what I said earlier about, you know, one of the things Paul realizes when he meets Jesus on the road to Damascus and as he wrestles with what Jesus says to him is, oh man, like I thought the problem was just, you know, Bad Jews who are worshiping this crucified Messiah.
In other words, it's the same thing we do. I thought the problem was this one little group of people that I don't like, right? Politically or socially, or ethnically or culturally or whatever. And he is like, no, no, no, no. It's so much deeper than that. So that's the first answer, is he reveals how deep our sin problem is.
But then the next, the next four chapters are just very simple, historic answers to that question. He saves us by reliving. The human calling or the human [00:33:00] story on our behalf. That's Jesus as the new and true Adam. So I talk about what that means. It means that he saves us through his life and not just his death, right?
The, you know, it's a, it actually matters that Jesus lived and taught and healed and loved. For decades instead of just being killed as a baby under king herd in Bethlehem, right? That, I mean, that would've accomplished the death. And he still would've been sinless. He still would've been the sinless son of God, but his, his life actually matters.
And, and so that's one chapter is he relives the human story with the human calling for us. And then I talk about how he, he pays the penalty for sin and he takes on the judgment that we deserve. That's another angle. And, and then the third one, or the third of those kind of four answers is that he he triumphs over sin [00:34:00] and death and the devil, he, he, it's about a victory and not just a death.
It's about a victory and not just a punishment or something like that. And so trying to zero in on the triumph that comes about by virtue of, of the cross. And then the last one, which has an incredibly strange title from the Harry Potter series. Jesus and Severus Snape. I think I was reading Harry Potter like during the pandemic to my kids when I was, you know, writing one of my buddies is like, there are a lot of Harry Potter references in the book, and it's just, that's what I was reading, man.
So I, I talk about how Jesus reveals the empowering love of God. Through his life and through his death and, and importantly through the sending of his Holy Spirit to transform us. And so that last chapter is about the love of God that is not just witnessed, but that actually [00:35:00] transforms us when we, when we come to grips with what Christ has done.
That's so
Tony: good. So good. One other note that I wanted to make sure I talked about that's not related to the book before we, we run out of time here, is by my estimations, you've been blogging regularly since 2016. Is that accurate?
Joshua: Yeah, I mean, regularly might be a charitable way of saying it.
Tony: Well, I'm, I'm always here for the charity, that's for sure. I've
Joshua: actually had to update my bio cause it used to say regularly, like on the back of the book and now I had them just say blogging.
Tony: What, what's what's been your biggest learning curve about yourself in that process of writing
Joshua: for that?
So one of the things I've learned, and maybe it's part of the reason I don't blog quite as frequently anymore, is, you know, blogging as a, as a practice has gone through these ebbs and flows. Yeah. And you know, it's [00:36:00] been, it's, it's, you know, it's like Christ, it's died and been reborn and you know, it's this kind of up and down.
Probably a lot of younger readers now are like, what's, what is blogging? I don't even know. What's a blog?
Tony: Yeah. What's a blog?
Joshua: But one thing I've I've learned is that back, especially in the days of Facebook when it was, you know, more popular is there's a danger in constantly just responding to whatever the kind of outrage is.
You know, whatever the thing is today that's people are talking about on Twitter or Facebook is sitting down at the keyboard and hammering out my take on that. Even though it sometimes generated a lot of readership, I wasn't always pleased with the fruit of that. Right. And I wasn't always pleased with the way those takes aged over time.
And so one thing I've tried to do with my blog now is to say what do I, [00:37:00] what do I care about deeply that's has eternal value? And that maybe isn't just kind of, Me talking about whatever is in the news, you know, this five minutes. And that has caused me to maybe not post quite as much, but I hope that's for kind of genuine reasons of spiritual growth and discipleship and not just, you know, be me being lazy and, and not taking time to, to type it out.
Yeah,
Tony: that's, Listen, I saw it and I was like, dang, bro's. Been going at it for a while. Like, it's impressive. So okay. I have one more question to ask you, but before I do, I know that my listeners are gonna wanna connect with you all over the interwebs. I know they're gonna wanna subscribe to your podcast.
Where's the best place to learn all the
Joshua: things? Yeah, you can go to my website, which is joshua mcnall.com. It's just super creative. It's just my. And, and that's, that's my blog. [00:38:00] There's, there's some other info on there. And then I host a podcast called Outpost Theology, which is sort of located on the frontier of theology, culture and the church.
And you know, I'm 40 now, so I'm still, I'm on Facebook again. So me and. Me and everybody over the age of 40 I think is who's left. I'm
Tony: 42 and it's my, it's by far one of my most active platforms. It's
Joshua: just me and my grandparents. That's it.
Tony: And my son. So he control me.
Oh, that's great. Okay, last question. I always love to ask people, it's an advice question. I'm gonna ask you to go back and give yourself one piece of advice, except I get to name the season of life that you're in. And so I want to take you back to the end of your very first class that you ever taught, right?
If you could sit down with that younger version of yourself, sit knee to knee with. Look him in the eye, hold his hands [00:39:00] and give him one piece of wisdom for what he's gonna go through. What are you gonna tell him?
Joshua: Oh man. So the first class I ever taught, that would've been in 2009 when I started teaching college classes, which I was entirely too young probably to be teaching col.
I still had hair and, you know, no kids at that point. Yeah, I think I would. I think I would tell myself, I think in some of my younger years, and maybe people can relate to this, your kind of younger profit years where you're calling out maybe imbalances and there's a place for that. But I think there's also a place to not constantly be reacting to perceived imbalances, but rather to immerse yourself in the deep waters of the faith.
So that you can say things that age well and they're not just for a particular, like I said [00:40:00] earlier, a particular kind of five minutes of of history. I think, you know, I want to be, we need to be gracious with ourselves because, you know, you don't know what you don't know in those earlier seasons, and so, I don't wanna be too harsh on myself, but I do.
I sometimes go back and I'll reread something that I wrote a long time ago, or a lecture that I wrote, and I'm like, oh man. I, I wouldn't quite say it that way now. So hopefully that means I'm, I'm progressing in, in one way or another. Amen.
Tony: Amen. Josh, man, thank you so much for being so generous with your time today.
Thank you for taking the time to wrestle with such hard and important topics and for for being a part of the, the seated kind of Wesleyan tribe that I get to call my home. It's always good to, to meet other thought leaders there, so,
Joshua: Yeah. Tony, thanks for having me on, man.
Tony: I appreciate it, man. I love this conversation with Josh.
I think his insights are so important for the church today. I also think it's important to, to look at some [00:41:00] of these bigger theological ideas and wrestle with them, grapple with them, right? Like, I just think that there's some intimacy involved in this. I, I really, really enjoyed the dialogue. So do me a favor, let Josh know that you heard him here on the podcast.
Also, if you haven't yet shared this episode with a friend. And remember guys, if you want to follow Jesus, you must be willing to move.
