Top Theology Stories of 2023 | Word First

welcome to a special edition of gospel bound I'm Colin Hansen and I am your host and I'm joined today by my good friend my dear friend and colleague Melissa Krueger I'm I'm sure many of you know her from previous episodes of gospel bound you know her from the Let's Talk podcast and from tgc's National events which she leads now you're listening to our bonus season end or watching our bonus season end episode which is something we began doing in 2020 I guess we needed something to remember that special year and we wanted to take you behind the scenes look back on the on the big stories and trends of 2023 and thank you for listening and encouraging us in this work so Colin are you saying 2020 wasn't known by our podcast what are you what are you saying it was so special 2020 that memorable year when Melissa and colins started doing they podcast that's all I mean what else happened in 2020 I don't really remember um okay so a lot happened and A lot's happened this past year actually we we actually this year did a special episode of gospel gospel bound when we talked about Tim Keller and his life and his legacy um I know we're going to jump into the theological stories um in just a moment but um this is both a story for um all of evangelicalism in some ways Tim's passing um but it's also very personal for you and and for all of us at TGC um how in the past few months have you really seen his continued impact on the church um since his death and just how have you seen his legacy already start to take root I think in some ways Melissa we we see his legacy by feeling his absence and I mean Tim left behind so much he left behind churches he left behind institutions like the gospel coalition that he founded he left behind books he left behind just countless sermons that we can go listen to today thanks to City to city um he left behind so many things and yet the prospect of not having more of it is is still sad and one of the things that I that I really missed this year but also is illustrative of his legacy was of how many things I was reading in preparation for this interview and for this list specifically related to a lot of the questions around identity and seeing um mainstream voices begin to enter the fry in a in a critical Manner and I just kept thinking oh man I would have Tim would have read this book Tim would have loved this book Tim would have been quoting this in essays he would have been emailing me about it or I would have emailed him to tell him he needs to read it or he would have told me he already read it pre-publication months ago or or something like that and already had a conversation with the author and that kind of thing and so I I I I think we we see his legacy of course in those institutions and um coulding the one where we serve and where we're talking about today but um I think in many ways what I tried to do in in my book about Tim is to show that there is a world for evangelicals before and after Tim that he was instrumental in changing so many different things that he was simultaneously an inheritor of a legacy of evangelicalism but actually he himself modified it and proved it and changed it and tweaked it and I'm getting ready to speak a couple times next year at Samford University and then at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary and those are the themes that are coming up in my in my writing for those lectures about his legacy about the ways that he inherited but then also changed that Legacy and and I think Melissa that's kind of just the way that it works for us we inherit these things from Tim but no doubt for decades to come as he knew full well we'll have to modify them in our own ways for a changing time and one thing I've just reflected on was his um personal pastoral faithfulness meaning his life you know was lived well and I think you we'll talk in a little bit we've had so many scandals continued that go through the church and so yes he had this impact but I think I'm I'm so thankful for his personal faithfulness in Ministry I think we'll all look back and and just say wow he was on the edge of this kind of um I hate to even use this term uh famous pasture thing and he he um he always seemed to just remain humble and I'm so thankful for that Legacy that he leaves behind let me let me give you an example of that so um since the podcast we recorded um one of the venues and most uh fun venues where I've been able to speak about Tim has been at Bucknell University his Alma moer in central Pennsylvania where did his undergraduate education from 68 to 72 and we did an event there that was led by Mako fujimura Mako is also a Bucknell graduate an elder longtime Elder at Redeemer Presbyterian Church under Tim and probably just about the biggest um Tim killer fan if you want to ask him about how many sermons he's listened to and everything but um mako's on the board at Bucknell and as we did this event in bucknell's Premier sort of dining space um it was an event to honor honor Tim and his life and we had the board of Bucknell in attendance had the president of Bucknell in attendance the president came up to me afterward showed me his phone and said I just bought your book um and but here's the point in the the end with skip Ryan there Tim's longtime friend on the panel with a journalist from The Wall Street Journal and with moo with me most of what we talked about were not these great intellectual achievements or these great institutions that he built and conceived really it was a gospel presentation over and over and over again about a man we loved because he helped us to love Jesus and just thinking in this non-Christian secular Premier Li Arts institution that in front of all these leaders that's what ended up being the focus of this actually the panel ran for more than 90 minutes as well it just kept going and we just kept talking about that with everybody there listening and that I I hope that's one thing people will continue to remember you mentioned that Melissa that that probably will be something we look back on just that Integrity for a long time that's so good because you know we can't all aspire to maybe his intellect or his reading ability or but can I ASP to be someone who just makes someone want to love Jesus more and I think that what what a legacy I mean that's that's the thing we can all seek to be well um I'm excited to jump in with all my questions about your top 10 theological stories I've always love getting to do this because well yes I like to read and I could just go read your story this is from an article on TGC it's so great that I I selfishly just get to be like well tell me what you really think Colin about about all these things so um one of the stories that you mentioned was the discussion about with the SBC and Saddleback Church about women in Ministry um can you share a little bit about what happened this summer and the impact that you think it's going to have on SBC churches this is definitely a story in in progress and essentially what the southern Bap convention's annual meeting did over the summer was ratify the decision already made to remove Saddleback Church from fellowship the Southern Baptist convention that is a big deal it's a big deal for a lot of reasons including because it's one of the biggest churches in the largest Protestant denomination in the country because Rick Warren is the most famous Baptist pastor in the United States if not probably the world in a lot of ways and so that's a really big deal that he would be just Fellowship but there was another major element of the story that was quite significant and that was that Rick Warren pushed and pushed and pushed for a major change not just in how churches are relating to one another in the Southern Baptist convention but that the southern baptist churches would change their views on women in Ministry specifically as pastors and specifically in lead roles so one of the responses to that came in an amendment that had massive consequences within the convention already and a lot of questions that possibly will change the way churches do relate to one another and that was a restriction on churches from calling women pastors now depending on your your denominational context that you that may be shocking or that may not be surprising at all but the point is within the southern Maps convention there is a wide spectrum of practice it's not a confessional denomination it's not a not a top- down denomination different churches have different views about women preaching as an example as you and I have talked about a lot major differences between them and say the PCA in that regard because of different standards of ordination um so there's really kind of two parallel tracks here the one was about should there be a major change in how women are the positions that women can or should hold within the convention but there wasn't a lot of support for that from from the sunion toward Rick Warren that was that was not a significant um move however the change about wait a minute should the southern Maps convention now proactively seek to remove churches that are out of step with this practice of calling women past or or out of step with not I mean if they're calling women pastors they should now also be removed that now divides people even who agree that they shouldn't because the question becomes what is the role of the denomination in regard to churches that are supposed to be autonomous and in a denomination that's built off shared Mission but not necessarily some sort of strict shared confession which is once again a difference with the PCA in there and I've just noticed Melissa there's a lot of confusion even among my very very highly informed involved friends people that we work with at TGC about this issue so I imagine going into 20124 it'll be one of the issues that we continue to watch very closely yeah it's been really interesting I mean my work TGC with you and with others has been so helpful because when you're in a denomination like the PCA or or something that's very structured and everyone has to kind of you know follow suit it can be very confusing even the wording that other um churches use when they describe the work someone's doing you know and and so we have clear lines just about what's or ordained work versus what's not and we only use the term Pastor for certain things or yeah and so it just it gets it gets confusing so it's it's really helpful to hear your explanation kind of just on how all that's working itself out in a denomination that is more um loosely associated in how they how they manage um right Church governance and things like that so it's it's you know there's a there's a lot there's a lot to learn and and I think it's actually a really good place to even always say oh like it's a good place to say well now what do you mean by that term right you know it's just good to remember sometimes we're talking past each other because we're not even understanding how a different denomination works from the one we're in and I I have found that to be Oh you mean this and I meant this so that's why we're totally talking past each other um I think another thing that's been really interesting this year and I love that you highlighted this in in your top 10 theological stories um I think it's really interesting that we're getting a greater understanding of the de Church in moment um we've talked a lot in these um conversations about um deconversion even but this is a little different um de churching is different from sorry deconversion how would you explain when the difference between the two and we we had our friends Michael Graham and Jim Davis whom Jim Davis were so thankful um is okay because he had a heart attack heart this Sunday um but thankfully he's okay but there work on this has been really impactful even as I listen to a lot of it on the podcast it it's really made me more hopeful and more encouraged to try to ask people back to church um but how are you seeing that work impact our understanding of evangelism or even maybe the hope of rearching someone yeah we've talked a lot about deconstruction and deconversion over the years and also the rise of the nuns people claiming no religion but really think between Mike and Jim and Ryan Burj who did a lot of the research with them one of the leading sociologists of religion um in America today U helpfully he's appeared on our good faith debates at TGC and and elsewhere but they've helped to open this window of of De churching to Simply observe that in the last 25 to 30 years 40 million Americans have left the church that is the largest and fastest shift of religion in American history that's big news in and of itself but the particular angle that I take up is how surprising the reasons have been because you could gather 10 of us on TGC staff in a room and say why do you think this many people are leaving the church and you'll get 50 different answers from them on why and they may all be valid at one one level or another but one of my instincts Melissa is that many of the large trends like this it could be de churching it could be the decline of fertility it could be the rise of anxiety things like that they typically owe to the structures and kind of practices of Modern Life they're not always or even primarily typically stories about ideas or about causitive events or about particular figures uh listeners faithful listeners and viewers of gospel bound remember that I had this conversation with Jean twangy um one of the leading again psychologists working on these areas and one of the reasons that people de Church in fact perhaps the major reason the number one reason they leave the church is because they move simp I mean people don't move as much now as they did a generation earlier but in this generation with the moving that we have our social bonds in the internet age are much Le they're much weaker and so when you move you're less likely to then reaffiliation now it could be any number of different things but specifically we're looking here at the church maybe there was a club or a friend group or a dinner you know you know dinner party or something like that Supper Club that you used to go to but you move and you don't necessarily start a new one you don't look for other ones you just sort of it falls out you fall out of the habit that's what people find with with de churching now the other reasons that people might associate liberal theology um hypocrisy politics abuse scandals they definitely play a role but they do not play the decisive role and certainly not the only role there are a lot of just basic reasons people leave because of things like that social bonds have frayed and and when people move they just they don't institutionalize in this same ways so I think what's hopeful about that is then if we're proactive about this of building those bonds within our churches helping people to connect to other churches when they move and of course part of this Melissa is just because of Life Stage from college to college to you from high school to college from college to graduate school or graduate school to a job or college to a job or anything like that so getting married all sorts of different reasons can be why you move it um and and why you then don't continue going to church but I think if we're more proactive at those different life stages as a church and we're more recognizing that a lot of people who are not affiliate with a church they're not necessarily atheists in fact statistically speaking they almost certainly aren't atheists probably not even agnostic not necessarily hostile to the church though they may have had some difficult experiences in there but mainly they just don't know how to connect they don't necessarily feel welcome they don't know where to get involved they don't really know a lot about churches um even in their area or even where to start to look and they don't hear as much from their neighbors so a little you know being proactive can go a long way on this phenomenon yeah yeah I think that's what really surprised me you I always think if someone stopped going to church well they must just have given up on it and it was I I found the research really hopeful of huh maybe people are just out of the Habit which is really different than they don't want to go and it and it really speaks to me a lot about teaching our kids the habits of church and and the Power of Habit that could have as they go off to college and off into their jobs when that's just all they think of on a Sunday as I should be in church um I think I think it gives us hope in the power of those simple habits of taking our kids to church the impact that that can have um later on in their life um because I think we often just think oh something negative happened and now they don't want anything to do with church and and we have seen definite disenchantment with church but what's been interesting one of your stories I found really interesting was there's disenchantment with secularism as well so maybe maybe culturally we're just disenchanted with lots of things at at this point um but you you noting that it's led to several um kind of high-profile conversions and as well as some signs of spiritual Revival and gen Z where are you seeing those tell us a little bit about more about those Trends um how are people tiring of the kind of secular gospel that's been given to them there a couple different angles here Melissa one of them is in fact a a colleague of ours had just sent me a a book proposal this morning and he suggested perhaps we should have a book that explores why the modern age is so unlivable and this is one thing I've been telling people for for quite some time when you look at the anxiety rates you look at the deaths of Despair the suicides and things like that you start to gain a picture of I mean whatever we think is working does not really seem to be working for a lot of people out there and yet we don't seem to be coming to terms with that um but younger Generations I think are and I I say this because um I'm not sure we all live in this world but but I don't think we all necessarily can recognize just how Stark it is so I put it this way I say imagine that from the earliest ages that you can recall everything in your life is up for grabs um which gender you are what sort of job you will have one day where you work whether you will respect your parents or not whether you will be a religious person and go to church or not whether you will choose a different Rel religion whether you will choose no religion whether you will be attracted to the same sex or a different sex or both or neither um what will you know what kind of work will you find that will be altruistic and and make the world a better place but also still make so much money that you can live a certain lifestyle um how how can you I'm feeling anxious and panicked just because you keep talking Colin yeah so so let's just give one example of this and I think I think people have found this helpful when I mention it to them so we've transitioned into the sort of transgender stage of the sexual Revolution and that was bound to happen ever since the um you know major a Burell decision on gay marriage the next progress you know in that sexual Revolution was going to be transgender but I often need to point out to people that those are entirely different issues and they're entirely different issues for a lot of reasons but among them because of the ages at which they become actionable the trans issue can hit young children um it can affect how parents would you know lead their small children there are legal implications of the child's relationship to the parents versus the school versus counselors versus doctors in terms of consent now all of a sudden you're bringing these most basic questions of identity male and female do I love my body do I hate my body do I want to change my body into really young ages where we where obviously our children are not remotely prepared remotely prepared to be able to make these kinds of decisions and yet there are a lot of powerful economic and political and cultural forces that want them to okay that I think given that that is the world that so many of these younger Generations have grown up in already gen Z this is the world that they've inhab inhabited since about 2014 you know says I mean it's eight years ago nine years ago here um that is that it gives them the sense that everything is fluid that there's no order to things there's no clear path to follow well in a sense reacting against Christianity is easy building an all if it's all you know as a culture building a whole secular world that is better is a whole another question and we're finding that that secular world that is being built is definitely not better and that relates to the second point which is that the group that is definitely not better than better for Melissa is women and so a lot of the high-profile conversions that I identified are women now to be clear there are some things that are better for women but the things that are better for women are continuations of Christian morality applied at accurately about the Dignity of women the worth of women the how how women should be cared for and honored and respected all those sorts of things my point is that's not how the world saw women before Christianity um we've got we've got a book at TGC from from our our our friend Rebecca mcclin Jesus Through The Eyes of women it's a reminder in part of how radical Jesus was and is in his views of women so I don't think it's a surprise that as secularism increases that it's not a good situation for women uh Ross stth of the New York Times would often say if you don't like the religious right you're really not going to like what comes next the secular right um and you combine that with a secular left and you realize wait a minute all these assumptions about how women should be treated now add in a pornographic age that fetishizes abuse and this is not a good situation now maybe the Christian views of pornography is extremely harmful to everyone but especially to women now is not prudish anymore now it's just common moral sense and if you're a teenage woman in particular unfortunately you have probably already experienced those harmful effects and how you've been treated so I think that's why you see the combination of high-profile women converting as well as some spiritual Revival scen among gen Z I mean this is this is the age of your kids I mean what do you see Melissa yeah I mean it's it's just really interesting when you think about um even even looking back to when I was a teen it's it's amazing even these new rules we have to have about consent you know um on on different things when your morality is consent happens in marriage meaning it it just you just don't have those discussions you know I always felt uh you know just saying oh that's for marriage right what the Bible says protects women I mean that's that's just the reality I've seen it time and time again how protective it is and every culture that gets farther and farther away from the Bible women and weak like children are always treated worse if that if that makes sense I mean a survival of the fittest culture is terrible I mean it's just a it's always going to be terrible for just physically weaker in individuals because they're they're yeah children are always um vulnerable to the powerful and people who can do things the same is going to be true in any any conversation we have about these topics and so um I've always just said you you know I you see these stories that make it look like women are being that Christianity harms women and I'm just like my experience of it has been I've been treated with so much respect and and care because my my Christian Brothers view me as created in the image of God with them and so so do we do we have people who don't always do that yes I mean but so do secular people I mean that that's just true in a fallen world so it's um some of the things we're all going to struggle with in whatever system we're in but I just time and time again um the Bible we would say the Bible works because it's true but I mean yeah but but it just proves itself over and over I guess is what I say well if if if abuse happens rape happens the weak are exploited in a Christian system you have a couple different options one you have the power of the Holy Spirit to be able to change and to protect and to redeem but you also at the same time have a a standard to call people back to to call them to account to hold them you know to to to enact Justice against them if you don't have that what do you fall back on yeah what what what what do you claim is is that standard that you're using and I think that's why you're pointing out Melissa well the standard of nature as Darwin himself pointed out is the survival of the fittest as he pointed out that typically does not go you know well for groups like who widows orphans oh right the the groups that the Bible calls out for special protection because they are so weak I think this I think this leads then Melissa into another one of the areas that I that I had covered in my top stories and that was the some of the some of the trends to um change biblical and historical views of sexuality to appease modern cultural Trends and practices and I think now you see this in the Church of England right now looking to bless same-sex unions you see this in in um Andy Stanley's confusing comments about acceptance of gay couples and and things like that and then you also see it in some of Francis Collins or excuse me Pope Francis I mean his um kind of typically confused comments about about sexuality sort of one policy in one way but his words and his his rhetoric going another Direction um the thing that confused me Melissa about all of these it follows exactly from what you just what we just mentioned right there the rationale is always and Andy Stanley has been explicit about this if we don't change we'll lose the Next Generation what if the Next Generation knows better than we do what if they've experienced the effects of the sexual revolution in ways that are more acute than what we've been able to see because a lot of the older leaders were still protected in largely Christian context especially across you know places like the South what if they don't understand what it's really like to be a teenage girl today or to be that child with all that gender confusion um or I mean in so in an effort to try to sympathize with them by actually just removing restrictions you're actually removing the exact thing that would protect them in these cases that would protect children from being exploited by forces outside of their ability to comprehend that would you know produce permanent changes in their body irreversible damage as we've seen to their bodies or or what if people who are confused about their about their sexuality should not be confirmed in saying well we want to do everything we can to appease you um but why do we don't do that with sin we shouldn't at least do that with any kinds of sin um that only makes the burden that much more difficult for people I'm trying to be faithful there so I I mean that's that's what I see is it's underlying theological assumption that well we need to do what will make will appease people in a modern world I'm thinking I mean that's the opposite of what we should be doing and I think it's the opposite of even what a lot of those Generations are saying not to mention the fact that plenty of churches have changed their views but the one thing it's never produced is a Revival of interest in Christianity among youth these are the oldest most out of touch denominations are the ones that have changed their views so I don't know if I'm missing something there Melissa but that's that's what I see on that topic yeah and you know I don't think it's leading to you know Health in our teens as well so it it's just interesting because you know if if if I want to know how you know my car works I'm going to have to you know read like a mechanic or read how my car works from someone who created the car and I think so often we view the Bible as this legalistic keep you from Life Book and I always like this say no no no no no no this is the book from a loving Creator who wants you to flourish and so if if he gives you boundaries these are the way to show you hey this is how you work best um you're not actually created to work that way and so I think we have a real opportunity Unity um with with young people and even with ourselves to approach scripture really differently um that God's law is his grace and that's that's how it's always been it was a Grace that the Israelites received it it was his goodness to them to teach them how to live and um because if you don't if you don't you're going to essentially learn in the School of Hard Knocks it's not going to go well for you um to live in opposition to God's law it it it never will and I think um we're actually passing uh the blessing of wisdom down to the Next Generation and in a world where they are you know left to choose anything that that's overwhelming and and and the irony is we've been sold that their mental health will suffer if we have any expectations of them I think that's what's being sold to parents and I just want to say their full health will be better if lived lived in God God's word it will everything will go better even if we can't always understand how that will go better in the end it will and we can trust that the Creator who knows way more than you or I know um H has put these things into place and has shown us Eternal wisdom through his word that we can rely on in a world that's telling us a new a new Theory every year right um these these truths have helped fast so yeah yeah it's it it it's it's so like we had an article from JD GRE on this actually how downplaying the sin of homosexuality won't win the next generation and I I think it's really true we don't have to lose God's word to win someone it's God's word that's going to be proven true in their life um right and and actually hopefully that will bring them um bring them and awaken their hearts to the gospel okay so you know we've talked about ancient truths hopefully coming more alive in our modern world but we have some Modern things that are changing pretty dramatically um this was the year that chat GPT was introduced to the world um in fact my my son we went on a vacation um we had a lovely family vacation spring break all my kids spring break lined up so we all went on spring break together and the week after I got this amazing poem from my son and my son you know Colin is engineer major like that's what he's into so to receive a poem from him I was like wow this is like this whole side of my son I didn't know he had come to find out he had used you know chap gbt to write his poem about our trip and he just laughed that we all fell for it um so tell us about this new technology how are you seeing it start to impact already clearly it's impacting schools I mean on huge ways um but it's it's definitely impacting potentially our work I mean sometimes I'm tempted to be like let let's just write an article on this topic today and see what it puts out but um how are you seeing it have an impact well it's interesting that this story has been going on throughout the year the rise and sort of the public debut of these forms of artificial intelligence um whether it's images whether it's articles whether it's poetry who knows all these sort of things that you can magically just type in and give some basic parameters with and they'll produce things that are occasionally amazing um sometimes very deeply disturbing and sometimes utterly made up which is one of the interesting Dynamics we started to learn throughout uh later in this year about these ghosts in the system I'm artificial intelligence and I got to say maybe things will change fairly soon and they often do with technology but at this point the old the olden days where we used to complain about Wikipedia Wikipedia is going to be look like the encyclopedia britanica compared to artificial intelligence the way that it will sometimes just fill in gaps just out of nowhere just manufacture facts and dates and ideas that are not remotely true um but of course you mentioned the schools you often have kids who if they're if they're using this uh which they're not supposed to be to write essays and whatnot it'll produce a situation where like they don't know any better so they don't even know if they're handing in something that that it just totally manufactured this stuff and you hope at least the teacher does in that case but what it makes it a theological story Melissa is that there's no realm of work that's going to be utterly Untouched by this and in fact a lot of work is going to be helped in different ways there's no doubt over time a lot of things are are going to be going to be improved with with this technology but you know so many so much of Christian discipleship is understood by people sometimes as data transfer you have information I need information this is quite a bit more true before the internet and before smartphones in particular but that was a lot of the discipleship that we've seen a lot of our sermons sometimes assume that kind of dynamic of I have information about the Bible that you need and if that's what's happening if it's data transfer it's not entirely clear why artificial intelligence while using chat GPT to write your sermons would be a problem because it's better at transferring that data why wouldn't you just I mean it that the artificial mind can access more information instantaneously then we can go ahead and and research and pray over and all that kind of stuff so why wouldn't we do that well of course it all rests on the premise that preaching is data transfer and that the individual is and the individual is irrelevant to the conversation the the personality the experiences the conversations that that person has and then the interaction that person that teacher whether it's a women's ministry leader or a Bible study leader or a small group leader or let alone the preaching Pastor that those conversations are irrelevant to the work of ministry I'm hopeful then that artificial intelligence then instead of having us a wash in a bunch of chat GPT sermons will instead remind people oh yeah Ministry is relational work it's person-to-person work even in large churches even for you know preachers who are talking to large groups of people it's not data transfer it's it's life on life transformation brought about by the Holy Spirit and the application the hearing and the doing of the word and so that's what I hope happens and maybe some of these concerns about the ghosts in the system or things like that will make people um you know make people kind of awaken to that but even the story with your with your son it's possible that that chat gbt will just devalue poetry altogether but maybe the other thing that it'll do is if your son comes around and actually does write you a poem even if it's not half as good as that one it'll be that much more meaningful knowing that a real human being who knows and loves you had had done it for you kind of like the kind of things that your kids made for you in school exactly exactly exactly well and I think when it comes to the spiritual Realm right I mean just like you said we can't discount what the spirit does because the pre presentation of the Gospel we know it's not just facts it's it's a spiritual engagement that the the spirit has to Open the Eyes of our heart so that we understand and so there's a reality whereas maybe it can write us a great email you to send to our church leaders with about the picnic like I mean great you know I mean that's great it probably be something like we use Google Now you use it to generate a churchwide email great but in the transmission of spiritual truths I think yeah we always want it to come with the spirit's power um in any any way we're doing and even even the power of our own lives being changed that transmits something too rather than just the transmission of facts and and data um and I think we see that more and more people people want to see lives changed more more than just receive oh that's really interesting facts about the city of Ephesus that they can find you know anywhere in our on Wikipedia they can they can they sure can and so um Google has changed those type of things uh all the ways we can get information um lastly on on your stories um I think I was hoping this year might be different um but last year we really discussed war in Ukraine and the impact of that it's hard to believe how far how long reaching that war has been um and this year we found ourselves in a very surprising war in a lot of ways to me I mean you know the war with Hamas and Israel and what's going on um there what has surprised you about um this current situation and the reaction around the world particularly in the us as we um deal with these realities I'll tell you a couple things Melissa that doesn't that don't surprise me um the the first that um that there is ongoing conflict over the land um in Israel and Brer Palestine I mean that's that's not new um in there um that people can do evil Deeds I mean that's not that's not new unfortunately in human history and as Christians were were prepared to understand that um what was new this time around was that there was so quickly after this most devastating attack on Jews since the Holocaust you know so last year we had the largest really first land war in Europe since the end of World War II since basically let's just say this if 1945 is the last thing thing you know time something happened it's probably bad you know I mean because you think of things like first nuclear detonation since yeah is bad things bad things happened in 1945 so so if you're seeing largest attack on Jews since 1945 the year after you have first land war in Europe since 1945 as definitely a problem in there but what's so that surprised me I mean surprised us that that particular would happen at that scale it obviously surprised Jewish I mean Israeli leaders it's it surprised American military and intelligence leaders um that caught a lot of people by surprised in there um the reaction though very Swift oh going to say one other thing that does not surprise me is that there's no obvious solution to the problem yeah no obvious like what should Israel do or if you're caught in Gaza you have nothing to do with this what do you do I don't have any easy answers for anybody I it's just all bad like innocent people killed in in Israel by Hamas innocent people dying because they're caught now in this war um in Gaza like it's it's just bad and I don't know what an obvious solution is to that and and I think that's again that's not really surprising but still noteworthy what was surprising was how quickly after the attack there became a lot of support not just for ceasefires but even specifically for Hamas and for some of their overall overall um aims namely the elimination of the state of Israel and the genocide of the Jews now we found in part that when you ask young people about hamas's slogans that they chant in the streets they have no idea what they're talking about I saw one story recently that said you know they don't even know which sea is being referred to from the sea to the river you know and they don't even know what the river they're talking about either well we shouldn't be surprised because geography is not exactly a strength of American students going way back you just watch late night talk shows um and their man on the street kind of interviews to be able to see that but I don't want to do this I'm scared so no judgment and you probably poured over more Biblical land Maps than most people have um over the years teaching the Bible and studying the Bible so um so I I think but nevertheless the mass scale support um from a lot of people in major Western cities did surprise me but I think the simplest way to explain it Melissa is this um and I talk about this more in my top 10 theology stories idea so people can people can um go and check that out I think that'll be helpful to them for further context but uh Jews are in an awkward position in the way that we have framed in Western culture the questions of identity and oppression so I've created this idea that the oppressed have a certain kind of dignity that absolves them of certain moral responsibilities it's a really twisted form of Christianity what we talked about earlier Melissa about how you know caring for the weak and the oppressed and things like that it's a Christian idea but it gets morphed into secularism to actually becoming a new kind of power hierarchy the challenge for Jews is that they are perceived to be both the top and the bottom of this hierarchy they're at the bottom they're at the top of the hierarchy as the most oppressed people over time I me this is a major part of the Bible of course and slavery in Egypt and all kinds of different things like that the Exile and the Conquering of Jerusalem the Assyrians the Babylonians the Persians the Greeks the Romans this is all well known the oppression of the Jewish people and then of course you've got the worst oppression ever the Holocaust 6 million Jews killed but it becomes confusing because Jews are also widely associated with oppression of oppressing other people and that's seen as people talking about Israel as an apartheid state about the United States major support and the fact that a number of Jews are simply successful in the world through communal support and education and and and initiative and Entrepreneurship and all kinds of different things so the whole system that's built off identities and oppression structures is thrown upside down and confused when it comes to Israel and when it comes to Jews more broadly and so what I've been a little bit surprised by and I have to say I'm actually encouraged by is the way that it's Illustrated the inconsistencies and incoherence of this thing that authors have called this identity synthesis this oppression kind sort of pyramid in there that has been such a major Obsession across sort of elite and Elite Western circles the last 10 years or so and that's why it's my top story of this year not just the the just the terrible violence not just the debates about the land which of course theologically speaking go way back for Christians not to mention Jews um but also the way that it's exposed an entire identity Matrix synthesis that is unlivable unworkable unlivable and hopefully will be will be destroyed um I don't think it'll be entirely destroyed but it needs to at least be dramatically rethought yeah yeah well I think it it it also I mean when I just look at what's happening um you think everything feels so wasted like why you know why why the you know I look back to Ukraine the year before why do this why attack a a country um all these lives have been lost I mean and it's just it's just awful and and we see this world is not okay outside of the hope of the Gospel I mean it is we are prone to destruction we are not prone to goodness um we we have remnants of goodness because we're created in the image of a good God but the fall has rendered us just prone to to Terrible Things um and and so it it it really does just underscore what we speak to is that we we need a new home um that these things are going to continue to happen and and I think it just reminds us that the hope of the world is the gospel it's the the what's happening at Christmas that we celebrate um Jesus's return is when when peace will come but in the meantime what people need for peace is not something the world can produce um it's only something that the gospel can produce whether it's peace about my gender whether it's peace between nations what whatever we're we're searching for um it's only going to be found in the hope of Christ and I think um so and we think if we were just smarter we could figure it out and and I think it reminds me again and humbles us just to see how how awful Humanity can be I think sometimes we think we've modernized to the point where we're not that bad and it it just it just reminds us of our desperate need of the Gospel um in every way well you know Melissa that um the project I've been working on for much of this year is a is a book called can we trust a God who is silent about about evil and um I'm engaging with a lot of Jewish thought on that specifically related to the Holocaust and in the course of research one of the books that was really helpful for me in that process was was by um one of my professors from Northwestern Saul Morrison who was also Jewish wrote the book Wonder confronts certainty Russian writers on the Timeless questions and why their answers matter and one of the problems that you run into with the with the problem of evil is that like I said with a Christian background it's easy to say well these bad things happen well must be Christianity's fault because God should have stopped that or else God doesn't exist that's the basic problem that you hear the difficulty is that when you turn it around and say what's the alternative Things become very problematic at that point so what what Saul Morrison does in this magnumopus book is he works through the you know dovi Tolstoy going all the way through to one of my all-time favorite writers vasil grman a 20th century Jewish and Russian writer and he talks about the Dynamics of Revolution and oppression and one of the things that he says about oppression is that you you think that the people who are oppressed would be those who would least likely to do it but history to repeat it the history shows us the opposite it shows us nothing of the sort if if history shows us anything it is two things number one it is that the oppressed will often um they treat oppression as an alibi to be able to justify what they do in response if I'm oppressed you know I can do whatever I want and you can see this I mean this applies by the way of course not just to hamas's attack on Israel but Israel's retaliation against them don't question us we are the ones who got attacked so you can see it can be used by any side and it has been over and over and over again in history but the second thing he points out is that the oppressed often are the ones who know how to do the oppressing because they've experienced it and that is scary um but that's what I'm what I've been trying to get at and I mentioned in the in the top 10 theology stories is that the gospel shines most brightly when the culture is the darkest because it shows you there this is the way out um bonha for used to talk about how Christians in World War II need to be the spoke and the wheel the wheel of Nazism is turning and somebody's got to stick themselves in the middle of it to stop it and I've always seen so powerful from from Jesus is that his death on the cross is that spoke in the wheel of a world that's out of control um that is what stops that cycle that NeverEnding cycle of Oppression oppressed oppression been oppressed over and over again it's the only way to find true dignity for the victims True Justice in the end but also um but help them to not then become oppressors themselves in response in there and so I do think you're right Melissa that that all of these things that we see that are very discouraging should drive us not only in prayer but also in a recognition that it's not like the world is offering better Alternatives we have no reason to be fearful we have have a reason to be confident in the gospel going forward yeah so that's how I process all this stuff yeah no that's good that's really really good well thanks for covering all of those stories with us um you've had a lot of interviews this year as always you've had a good number are there any interviews from your past year that really stood out to you or any ones that are upcoming that you want to tell us about in the in the next year yeah so 17 I think this year which is fewer than I nor normally do mainly because of the the launch of my my book on Tim Keller I was doing so many podcasts podcast for other people that exactly and I knew that was going to happen so we had a a slower year on gospel bound but we might have had our best episode ever present company excluded of course Melissa but um no I will I agree with you I think we're your on this I'm had our best interview ever with uh Molly woran and uh professor history at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill you want to give a shout out right there it's basically Chapel Hill people are just fun to talk to done I've done my obligatory Northwestern shout out so I only thought it was fair that I gave you a a Chapel Hill shout out there too but um yeah so Molly is um I I I've said for a while now Molly's like my Alter Ego because we're both um engaged in historical writing and journalism but I'm a journalist and she's a historian um uh I was I was urged to go study at Yale she did study at Yale did her PhD M was M well actually did her whole education in there um and um but she recently at JD's JD gre's Church there and under the Evangelistic influence um of of JD Greer as well as the apologetic um influence of Tim Keller um and ultimately by the power of the Holy Spirit she was regenerate and you know so I kind of I kind of teased in my gospel bound interview so many of you have listened to it it's one of our most popular episodes of all time but um I I really teased it because I wanted it to be a bit of a slow burn of like so tell me about your work and tell me about all this sort of stuff and and now tell me why you became a Christian because this was the first time that she had announced that publicly apart from her baptism um at the church and so that was an extremely memorable interview but the thing I want to highlight about it is just her palpable joy in the Lord and as a Christian I don't get any greater Joys than seeing other people come to Faith and to see those transformed hearts and I think if you watch it here on on YouTube after this episode or if you listen to it on the on the gospel bound podcast I think I think you can see and you can feel and you can hear that palpable Joy from her so that's um that was just amazing but um that was in fact I would say stop listening to this one and go listen to that one right now cuz it was so good it was so good it was really encouraging to hear and just to hear you know pastors I mean I think you see a pastoral heart too um not only did JD you know talk with Molly and get to know her but he would call Tim and asked him for advice on you know and you just see this cure you these pastors want people to come to life and to to know Christ and and that they're eager to do so that is kind of um um Molly may be may be listening or watching but um Molly certainly got she got the A Team you got JD G doing the evangelism you got Timothy Keller get out you got Timothy Keller on your apologetic speed dial um for any book recommendations and obviously as a as a distinguished professor of of American history and and Evangelical religion in particular no surprise that he would say things like Reed ENT writes um you know thousand pages on the Resurrection The Son of God and of course she goes and does it and finds it to be incredibly compelling so that was uh that was probably the most memorable one of this year and you know Melissa you it's it's been a while let's talk is was sunsetted at at tgcw 22 and much to many people's uh disappointment there but and I think you guys have already kind of hint Ed at this at least through your social media accounts and things like that but not sure how public it is but you and Jackie and Jasmine you actually just got together last month for a project that you're working on and why don't you tell us more make a little make a little announcement yeah it was so fun um so Jackie and Jasmine and I have been working this past year um on a bible study on Ephesians and so we've been studying together we're each writing different chapters and we all got together and so we're kind of doing the Bible study let's talk style which you know really combines my love of how do people learn and I think they typically learn better through group discussions and and things like that um and so I'm really hopeful um that these discussions will be fruitful and that um what I think happens with women around the Bible is just um it's kind of what you were talking about it's much more than just information transfer it's the spirit leading us as we're in the word together and the spirit teaches us that is and by no means to say we do not need the preach word on Sunday of course we do um but that that the Lord does something when we get together in his word and um he speaks through his word and we can kind of feast together on it so that's what it was a great time so for any of our let's talk listeners we hope you'll join us over as we're studying Ephesians um eventually I think it comes out in June so it'll be out right before the Women's Conference that is coming up in June um there's always conference coming up Colin well now that you're now that you're in charge of all of them yes that is how it works to all these conferences I thought I had a year to a year to take off um but yeah I think I think I I might be the only person who's been to all of them Melissa I know I might be but they have been a blessing I will say I just talked to somebody yesterday who once again expressed extreme thanks about how t GGC 23 went and So for anybody who's thinking about coming back to the gospel Coan Women's Conference you know Melissa's role and her huge role in shaping the content the feel I mean everything about that event but um TDC 23 was the first time Melissa was in charge of that and I think so many of the things people appreciated and knew about that National Conference were owing Melissa to your leadership of that and so um if you think if you had things you did like about the conference you can blame me cuz I also played a big role I can't to say it's a team effort I wasn't saying that to blame you but if he didn't like something you can blame me but if you appreciated something about how it felt and music and whatnot you can you can thank Melissa for that no no it it really is a team effort and I'm so I was so thankful to to see how many people were there and just um The Joy I think that's what we all came away from that's what I'm thinking about really just an experience of joy of being together and sweet Unity um among a lot of different people um well we've got we'll talk a little bit more about the conference in just a moment but we have had a year of book reading as always we just did the end of year book awards with TGC um thank you Spence who's now in charge of it for us um and so there's you know there are always articles about different books we've enjoyed but are there is there anything this year that you've read that really impacted you um that you that you've been thinking about well I would encourage people to go ahead and check out the gospel coalitions um annual book awards because you'll see a lot of great work being done by a lot of different people and coming out of Christian Publishers this year and um I I think people are well aware especially listening and watching gospel bound of how much I appreciate Andrew Wilson's remake in the world it's one of my favorite books ever um that came out this year so certainly um go ahead and pick that up but I thought Melissa I just mentioned four books and one of them I've actually already mentioned other I've already actually three of them I've already mentioned or alluded to in this conversation they do well I mean you ask for books that are that have really made me think and changed how the way I think and that's what I was going for in here and um and so the first is the identity trap a story of ideas and Power in our time by Yasha monk um I'm actually not entirely sure that's how to pronounce his name professor at John's Hopkins writer for the Atlantic this book is a lot of the things I was talking earlier about oppressors and oppression uh came out of um things that I was in many ways reminded of or helped clarified in in yasu's work um I'm trying to figure out if I can interview him next year on gospel bound see how that would go many ways that that you and I Melissa would disagree with him as Christians he's Jewish and and um fairly liberal on a lot of different issues but what's interesting about the book is because his critique of some of these far-left views is coming from a left-wing perspective perspective so that's one reason why I thought that book was very significant this year and indicative of a broader a broader change that I'm seeing a number of different places I also mentioned another gospel bound interview theyve already done that's Jee twang Generations the real differences between gen Z Millennials Gen X Boomers and silence and what they mean for America's future go listen to that interview if you're not you know just to to get more a feel there but just has a comprehensive sense for how different Generations view the world and for her basic view that generational change does not happen primarily because of events I.E this is the Kennedy assassination generation or the 911 generation primarily it happens because of technological innovations that makes a lot of sense to me it resonates a lot with my experience and my own study so take did did you read ien no actually I did not read that book I think because I I've read so many because I've I've read so many summaries of it and her her long-term colleague Jonathan height who's a friend of the show um and we'll plan to have Jonathan back next year talking about his book The anxious generation which is building off ien um in there so yeah I mean the big p push that that Jean and Jonathan are making right now is to ban smartphones from schools yeah um I hope it works but everything they're seeing there's even just a recent stat that was showing major declines starting in 2012 in know this is near and dear to your heart math proficiency and some other different areas as as a former math teacher and and Jean and Jonathan were like hm why does this chart like every other chart we have been pointing to Forever seemed to start at 2012 it's the year that most of these students had switched from flip phones to smartphones yeah math just requires such deep thinking yeah and it it it's hard I used to always tell my students it's just hard it's okay it's hard we're very uncomfortable with anything being hard yeah us in our society well that's the Jonathan height thing too is that the belief the kind of safetyism belief that if something is hard it must be wrong yeah I've already mentioned in here uh Saul Morrison's magnumopus Wonder confront certainty Russian writers on the Timeless questions and why their answers matter I do I this was a hard read for me and I have a good bit of background in the subject so I I don't necessarily recommend it for everybody but um just s Morrison's writing wherever you can find it is just positively I mean it's explosively insightful when it comes to a lot of these questions of our of our age and um and what I loved about this book though is the addition of writers like vasil Gman in addition to the 19th century realist novelists like dovi and Tolstoy so last book I'll just mention that I'm interested Melissa to know yours but um and that would be um Paul Kick's book you have to be prepared to die before you can begin to live 10 weeks in Birmingham that changed America of course this stands out to me not only because I live in Birmingham and teach um in Birmingham but then also I do a lot of civil rights tours um what I loved about Paul another example of somebody who's basically on the left but is criticizing a lot of the far-left views he's in an interracial um marriage and family and things like that but um he does a great job of showing the the complexity of the civil rights movement and especially its climactic battle here on the streets of Birmingham Alabama in 1963 in the spring as well as the bombing that came later on the fall so um that that book just very interesting for a formative uh moment in American history but especially for me stood out because of of what I do here here in Birmingham so Melissa you got to give me some recommendations what's on what's on your mind I have a smaller list this year um I'll be honest I was in a bunch of writing projects so I read a lot of fiction um just because it was kind of easy to to take in but um one thing I did read you know I love biography I've always loved biography and there were two Elizabeth Elliot biographies that came out um I think they both came out this year um but there was a Life by Austin and then being Elizabeth Elliot by Ellen vaugh and um the being Elizabeth Elliot was kind of the second in a series by Ellen vaugh I had read the earlier one um which was becoming Elizabeth Elliott and um being Elizabeth Elliot um told kind of the second half of Elizabeth Elliott's life one that I was much less familiar with I would say I was familiar with her the books she published during that season but not very familiar with what was going on in her life and um it's it's I would I would say it's been just a fascinating read it's almost like reading someone you thought you knew and then the story really changes when you when you hear more of the story and so um I recommend both of them um it's it's been pretty interesting it's been a pretty interesting read um to to take in and pretty surprising in some ways yeah I mean that the I read the Austin book before it was published and in part because of her significant role in teaching Tim and Cathy Keller at Gordon Conwell so I wanted to know if there was anything in there but not surprising that in a Keller book you'd learn a lot about Elliott but you wouldn't learn a lot in an Elliott book about the Kell because they were just students yeah um of hers it wouldn't have made a big big influence but a lot of just fascinating and I got to admit fairly disturbing things um reading about her marriages and just lot of the challenges she faced on the mission field um so but but for somebody go ahead well I have to say I hated it for because I I I just finished some of the frustrations she was having on the mission field and you know I was like I was really struck by wow some of the disunity we feel even in our work it's not new it's not new it's not new we think it's always we always think it's kind of worse um we're sometimes it's it's maybe just another iteration of just our well specifically the issue that that um that Austin discusses is the Divide over reading whether you should read books that were not the Bible or direct Christian books about the Bible and and Elizabeth was a very expansive thinker and reader very curious and that's how she was raised as an Evangelical yes but working with a colleague with a more fundamentalist background that was a source of severe judgment and distrust between them and I think Melissa you see that exactly today whether it's movies other form forms of art literature uh things like that very different viewpoints people have but yeah it does kind of comfort you in some small way to know that it's not new yeah yeah it does it does so now you like you mentioned earlier conferences all the time we mentioned TJC um w24 coming up this summer I thought maybe Melissa you could tell us a little bit about that what you're excited about give people a preview of that and also though related to that I want you to tell us about the book that you've got coming out which I've been able to read and have really loved and planned to use very practically in my life go ahead I'm thankful for that um so we have tgc2 24 coming up TGC w24 coming up this summer it's our Women's Conference we're going to be doing the I am statements of Jesus it's a Bible study I I'll tell you I have wanted to write for years and this is the benefit of of having teams right you know Courtney doctor tells me I have the spiritual gift of telling other people people what they should do and so I Courtney doctor good for an editor good for an editor and a conference planner exactly so I'm like oh we should do this meaning hey Courtney and Janna will y'all write the Bible study will y'all do the hard work and then we'll have a conference about it but I'm really excited because I love the Book of John um and I think it will be a wonderful way to outreach shors because it's it's who Jesus says he is in his own words um and so if somebody is asking the question who is Jesus the I am statements to me are just a wonderful way to study who is Jesus who does he claim to be and um it's I I think it's really exciting but seven weeks rather than going through the whole Gospel of John um so it's I think it's our our hope is that women will come hear the teaching be refreshed in it but then feel really equipped to go back into their neighborhoods their preschools you know their work environments and say hey would you like to study about who Jesus is with me that's that's kind of Our Hope um on that the the book I've been working on that we talked about um there we go is parenting with hope raising teens for Christ in a secular age and um I am man I'm so thankful it's written as we we often say the writing was rough it's probably the hardest book I've I've written um I think it's the hardest book I've written because it's such a tender topic um on parenting teens there are so many parents who are going through such hard things with their teens and so I wanted to acknowledge that but I also really wanted to think about what principles can help us as parents as we parent teen what what things just tend to work and what things um can really be what what practices can be maybe harmful um and even and and maybe a little bit of a modern uh Focus you know how do we deal with things like sports and activities and the craziness that's going on with that in our our culture but how do we also deal with self phones you know I mean and and I talk about this in the book when I started at my first teenager cell phones and social media was all new you know and there was no research there was no information and so um my view on some of that has changed dramatically you know Instagram I thought oh sure you can get Instagram it's just an app where you show pictures you know of each other had no idea what it would become and send pictures to each other yeah exact it was just this it seemed so simple at the time but you know I hadn't really thought through what does it do to a a young 12-year-old's heart when she gets 50 likes and her friend gets 150 likes yeah it's like it's like a oh let's keep track on everyone's um you know yeah it's it's really tough on teenagers these things that they're going through and facing and so but what I my my main my main thing thing in the book is to say um the basics of Christianity the word prayer and the church really are anchor points as parents um not just for getting our kids sorted out but for our own Hearts as we're in the season so it's it's really a book more to the parent than it is how to get the perfect teen um but how do we how do we parent in the season and really maintain good relationship with our kids as we're doing so um whomever they might be you know coming up what about you what have you been working on uh well I mean I mentioned earlier and that's pretty much it right now I mean that can we trust a God who is silent about evil that probably will come out topic Colin it's so easy you'll have that small book too it's only about 8,000 words or so but um I I I mean I don't know I I may come back to working on something longer on that in the future whatnot we'll see how this one plays out but it it brought together a lot of my my interests and I'll I mention this Melissa when I teach in cultural apologetics here at um beast and Divinity School the final project is everybody has to answer has to write a sermon and it incorporates the hardest objection to Christianity and they get to choose what the hardest objection is and my point is they need to decide for themselves what's the hardest for them to be able to believe and so for me um it's my hardest objection is the one that I share with the Feer DVI which he just cries the suffering of innocent children the Eternal damnation and suffering of innocent children and um so that's what I I I do a sermon that incorporates that for my students and this booklet really is is is Arisen out of that it's it's completely reshaped and redone but that's where I'm coming from on it so can we trust a God who is silent about evil and then specifically is engaging with Ellie weel's night um which which has this harrowing scene of live Jewish babies being tossed into the Flames um and how so that's um that's what um that's that's what I'm working on right now and it's been a it's been a heavy topic of course but it's been very very um enlightening uh to be able to work through and to to process through not only the I mean the Jewish writing on this on this topic and the Old Testament itself as well as the new test so that's what I've been working on that's great that's great um it's it's definitely it's needed um I don't know how you're going to cover it in 8,000 words but not exhaustively to that much yeah well but it'll be a really I think it is the question that is probably the hardest objection to Christianity for most people so I I'm looking forward to reading that when it when it comes out um so anything else going on at TGC this year that you want to talk about well it's been been a busy year um we launched the Keller Center for cultural apologetics earlier this year and people may or may not have seen we also launched the Carson Center for theological renewal this fall we're still building this Center um we're looking for an executive director to hire to lead that Center we'll have fellows coming along afterward we'll have uh video learning cohorts and things like that you'll be able to study biblical Theology and different disciplines um but this year we've had um a full Bible commentary published uh finally been working on that for a number of years but the the gospel C Bible commentary um one of the cool things that came from the gospel C National Conference was the biggest conference project we've ever had of fundraising full fundraising support coming in to translate that commentary into Spanish and into Arabic thank you to everybody who contributed so generously to that project and and we've um we've undertaken that work and it's in our budget for next year to to complete and all that kind of stuff so this is in addition to a lot of the essays and courses that we've already produced um on a host of theological topics that are already available there as well as our Journal um three times a year themos uh for students of um of biblical studies and theology so that's that's what we I mean just a few things I I don't know exactly what I'm I mean 23 was such a big year 24 feels like a let's just kind of keep it going you know year in a lot of ways of course you got the big conference and you've got the book coming out and everything but uh yeah what are you particularly excited about with with TGC this year yeah I I think the conference I'm always I mean I know that's the big thing we have um but we we we've had these smaller cohorts happening behind the scenes and um they've been wonderful and exciting to see how they almost um the conference has been a place where all the these people who are on these online cohorts meet up and then they come together and get to be together in real person but there's just nothing like seeing um so many people who just love Jesus all together worshiping the Lord together um it's it's really wonderful and encouraging to your soul to see in the midst of a world that looks so divided looks so angry all the time um it looks like everything is in disarray and and and I I have to say it's seeing the younger people you know seeing you know young women who are just so excited about Jesus and there are a lot of them I mean it's there's there's a lot of good things going on you you know with the Next Generation and we're seeing that um and it's really exciting well I mean love what you guys are doing in many ways at TGC this is um mist and I talk about this often I mean you and I we probably do more than we should probably bitten off more than we can chew in there um but any of the small ways that we're able to support people who are watching and listening and um in their in their life in their their fellowship with Christ their their love of the church and their service of the church the the way they love their neighbors the way they raise their kids um the books they read to edify and to learn about the world um we're honored that we're able to do that we're grateful that that you guys make it possible every year for us to be able to do that and we can only do it because of your prayerful support for us this is a year where we needed a lot of prayer it's a year where we saw a lot of answers to prayer so we thank you everybody out there who's done that for us um we also depend on your financial support um we do have things sometimes our books our conferences help us with our budget we're able to to reinvest all of that money back into not only running those things but into the ministry itself into direct Ministry that will benefit you guys we're not an organization that has much overhead at all we have no head headquarters to maintain and things like that so we appreciate you guys and need your support when it comes to um to the finances there's a few ways that you can do that one of the easiest ways simplest ways become a monthly Giver to TGC to tgc.org and um even just $25 a month very helpful to us um we don't have nearly as many people who support us monthly as you might imagine it's actually pretty pretty pretty odd how few people we have who do that but if you can support us with $25 a month that's a good way to keep our ministry going you can also help us with a onetime gift any amount uh large or small is a blessing to us if you're making decisions about end of your giving we would very much appreciate your your support of us there there are other ways that you can support us um you've heard about some of the books that we're working on heard about some of the other things come to our conferences pick up those books share this podcast with a friend who's interested in things that are happening in the news and Trends from a Christian perspective go on to our podcast you know all the let's talk stuff it's still out there it's still able to edify share it with other women in your church and in your community uh like it subscribe to it all that kind of stuff um and of course with gospel bound we've got a big year planned ahead so go ahead leave a rating um Mark a review on there it just helps other people to be able to find it in there so there's ways you can support us you can give a gift um you can become a regular uh donor to the gospel coalition tgc.org so again appreciate everybody's support there that's great well I know because I think sometimes we think um the Internet is just full of bad things and social media is just full of bad things but I just think someone going and sharing your interview with Molly what a blessing that might be I mean it's just a simple way um we can get really intimidated about sharing the gospel but maybe you just share you know that interview and someone listens to it who maybe you would never expect to listen to it um there are just such simple ways we can use um even our personal social media platforms to share the good news of Christ with others and so we encourage you to do that we're going to keep doing that here um in every way we can but um you passing it on to others it's it's always amazing how the Lord Works in surprising ways yeah um one final we're almost done okay because I know we always go too long they have no idea how much longer our real conversations are Colin if they could only hear those they'd be like wow they can really chat but um what so we always used to ask favorite things and let's talk um here's my question for you what what's something you're really looking forward to in the New Year could be family it doesn't have to be work please let it not be work a book no not not a book Yeah just something happy that's coming up you know I think um the experience of being a parent of little kids is that every year somebody that you knew and loved really well disappears forever and somebody else appears for the first time and so you lose that five-year-old girl that you love so much but you gain that new six-year-old girl who's has new interests and excitements and things like that you lose that cute little two-year-old boy that that you just love to tote around with you but you gain the three-year-old boy who can who can talk with you now and tell you what he wants and things like that and so I think that's that's all that I think about in the upcoming year is is I will I will have a 9-year-old and a six-year-old and a three-year-old um coming up next year so um that's what I think about all their different activities my daughter starting piano she's very excited about that and my son continuing on with another year of football and baseball which were so big for him in 20 23 so that's what I look forward to so you need me to give you a Christmas present of earplugs for the learning of the piano well I mean piano piano is bad but I gotta say it's way better than a lot of other instruments oh yeah trust me we had violin I was gonna say I think violin is probably the worst um pepperoni pizza I'm used to I I played piano for a long time so I'm used to that part of it it's not too big a deal but hey give us your your favorite thing 2024 Melissa you know it's funny when you say that cuz you know you've got kids like what you said I feel like yeah you're exactly right I am losing and I am gaining so I will officially lose Emma Krueger this year um I will gain uh Emma Tang um Emma my daughter my oldest is getting married and so I feel like I'm gaining a son-in-law um but I'm I'm getting you know this big transition so it feels like a I I will say it just feels like such a win because we love Andrew and um are so thankful um just for their upcoming wedding and can't wait for it it it will happen the month after the conference and it seems so much more manageable to plan a a wedding for 200 versus a conference for thousands so um but it's it's anybody can do it it is you Melissa it's really fun it's really fun so it's um but man you just praise the Lord um when when you see your kids um loving Jesus and finding other people to walk through life with who also love Jesus it's an amazing it's amazing gift so I'm thankful for it it's always a highlight Melissa as we come toward the end of the year to be able to look back and look forward with you and um it is that way again and we thank everybody out there for for listening to this special episode and watching this special episode of gospel bound um thank you for encouraging us with your your comments over email and in person um when you do that and when you're specific about that it's probably more helpful than you realize um because of this digital divide we don't know who's out there we don't know exactly how you're benefiting from that but if you've listened to that Molly worthin interview or shared it with somebody or somebody who skeptical about Christianity just you know let us know about that we'd love to we'd love to hear that so appreciate that and you can help other people to find our podcasts the two that we've referenced here that we serve on gospel bound and let's talk by rating and reviewing them and um you can also support us again become coming that monthly donor tgc.org $25 a month so well Merry Christmas to everybody and as well as a Happy New Year we will be back Lord willing early next year look forward to joining you uh as you as you watch or as you listen as I typically do washing dishes commuting working out on sort of stuff wherever however you appreciate your podcast merry Christmas happy New Year and thank you Melissa for joining me again great thanks for having me call