Episode 401: A Conversation About The Resistance: God’s Plan for Renewing the Human Family

Yeah, so I love the fact that the title's edgy because I want it to be edgy, but it can easily lead people to be confused and to get the wrong idea.

So the title in many ways comes from two different places.

First, from 1 Peter 5, where St. Peter writes, you know, your enemy, or be sober-minded, your adversary, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour, resist him, firm in your faith.

And when Peter writes that, he means a couple of things.

One, to be sure, he means when the enemy comes in all the ways that he comes to try to seduce us or tempt us or steer us away from the way we should live, don't cave.

But he doesn't just mean that.

It's not just a defensive posture.

It's also an offensive posture.

That word that we translate into English as resist him can also mean to oppose him or to take action against him.

And this is one of the reasons that's super important or one of the points that's super important to get clear in the book.

I think we have the enemy wrong.

And especially in our country and in our culture right now, in our world, we need to make sure that we as Christians get this part right.

So one of the messages in the book and in the gospel, most importantly, because that's all the book's drawing from, is we only have one enemy, and the one and only enemy of the human race is Satan and his minions, which means then that, you know, for those who are concerned that this kind of language could steer people the wrong way, it necessarily requires, oh, well, if that's the case, then the quote unquote weapons we're being asked to employ can't be the weapons that the world use.

We're not talking about violence.

We're talking about kindness and love and mercy and forgiveness and truth and virtue and beauty and those kinds of things, right? And the other place where this image of the resistance comes from is C.S.

Lewis in Mere Christianity, where he says, you know, the story of Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed.

You might say landed in disguise.

And he calls us all to engage in a great campaign of sabotage.

And I've always been enamored with that quote.

But again, that lends itself to easily being misunderstood and But sabotage is just a synonym of resistance.

So again, it's not a call to go be violent.

It's a call to get involved, to respond to the lordship of Jesus, to understand what it is that he's done for us, and then to go about the work of of not only sharing the gospel, but of recreating the world which the Lord loves.

And as we do both of these, to go about this increasingly urgent work of understanding that the call of the church is nothing less to rescue, renew, and transform the human family into the family of God.

And that's the reason for the subtitle.

That's what I was just going to ask you.