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Well, I'm here with Peter Bolt, who's a professor at the Australian University College of Divinity, and Peter was also one of my lecturers when I was in first and second year at Mo College. And it's really great to have you, Peter, as we kind of talk through a little bit of Mark's gospel, and we're going to get into really thinking through how we consider world views and how

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the gospel, and especially the gospel of Mark speaks into world views. And I think it's really important thing for us, especially when we think about cross-cultural ministry. But before we get there, just something we really love to do around the satire network is ask people how they came to hear about Jesus, know Jesus, be in relationship with Jesus for the first time. Can you give us your

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your your your short version testimony? Yes, there's always a short version and a long version. If my short version is I was taken along to church as a boy and I would buy my parents, and that gave me exposure to all kinds of things Christian. But when I was about 17, I came across some people who explained the gospel to me, and it was as if I'd never heard anything before like

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that. But in fact, you know, the bits and pieces that of course I heard going along to churches, but it fell into place when I was about 17. And one of the big things was I was interested in mathematics. So at school, and one of the big things was a person just gave me a little sum that made sense to me, went rightly wrongly. And he said, well, you know, if if if if there's nothing

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after you die, and you're nothing before you're born, then life's nothing too, because nothing plus something doesn't equal nothing. And then he explained to me how Jesus makes brings all kinds of meaning to life, which I'm very glad he did. And looking back, it's it's all proof true. So yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's one of the things that we just want to keep. I guess we just want to keep pressing

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that it's really helpful to hear the many different ways in which Jesus threw people around and through all sorts of other ways and means starts to impact a person's life. And it's a big deal, I guess, in the satya space with people from South Asia as much as it is anywhere else. But just really helpful for us to keep hearing that actually in the end, even though we really wanted,

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there's no real silver or bronze bullet in terms of transmission strategy. But just hearing the stories of Jesus doing what he does kind of and every since we're talking about this, every every conversions experience is a cross cultural experience because we're we're moving from the whatever human culture we might think we know well and grow up in or whatever it might be. We're moving

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into the kingdom of God culture, which is which is very different and up sort of upside down in so many different ways. So right side up, I should say in so many different ways when we hear about Jesus and how He restores us to life in this world ready for life to in the world to come. Yeah, yeah, that's really helpful. Yeah, so I guess the main thing I wanted to tell, I mean,

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you in my mind at least are the gospel of Mark expert and I'll be preaching at the satya conference on Mark five. So any tips will be really good here. But also just more broadly, I mean, you know, we with our mission thinking hats on, we're thinking we want to go and tell the gospel to everyone. But we really want the gospel that we proclaim to also be understood by the people. And you know,

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there's one part of that which is language and hard language and all that side of things. But then there's also world views and even just broadly, you know, guilt innocence on a shame fear power. And so I guess the first thing I want to ask is just with that kind of hat on and thinking about different people's world views and cultures, how does the gospel of Mark speak to not just

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guilt innocence but also fear power on a shame? How does it how does it interact with those things and really help us to understand the gospel in a holistic way, really understand what the gospel is? Yeah. Well, I think those things are all rolled up in like they're mixed together rather than saying that I think we don't need we don't need to have a borders that are hard and fast between cultures

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because they're all mixed up together and even in the gospel of Mark, the language or the language that you just mentioned is is found in the text of the gospel. So fear power, you know, is there when when the disciples were in the boat going across the sea and Jesus, you know, as a storm, Jesus stood up and said, "Be still and the storm died down." Well, they're afraid.

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And they asked, "Well, who then is this that can even calm the wave?" So there's a fear of a fear of Jesus which comes from not having faith in him. And so there's a dichotomy fear and faith in in the in the gospel of Mark and certainly the power is there because Jesus instilling the storm, you know, shows that he has power over nature and then in the very next chapter which

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you're going to be explaining, you know, that then comes into the presence of the fear of the demonic, the fear of ghosts, the fear of the grave and he has something to say about that too and something to do about that. Or the language of shame comes up in in the middle of the gospel of Mark where things turn around and it tends to be not just shame in front of our fellow human

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beings but shame in front of the living God on the day of judgment. So if we have the wrong decision about who Jesus is in this world, we might find that we put the shame before the judgment sort of God in the next world. So that comes up in chapter 8 where again Jesus is asking his disciples, "Who do you say that I am?" And just so that I get that answer right, I think there's

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a heavy motivation. So this is not a trivial question. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah, no, it's really helpful to think about, I mean, I guess it's true for South Asians more broadly, like we think automatically on a shame culture that's a big deal for South Asians but so is fear of power. And in one sense, so guilt innocence and even just the idea of punishment and payment that's needed and how to appease

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the gods like there's a whole bunch of stuff that's caught up in a whole bunch of different faces that are around South Asians. And I guess just continuing with this, so I think it's helpful to think of it as all of these are together, no hard boundaries. But often I also think, I mean, because of really wonderful gospel tracks that are out there, when we think about

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articulating the gospel, we think about there's a dead that's there because of your sin. Jesus deals with that dead problem so that you can be in relationship with God again. How might we use the language of the gospel of Mark or the language of the gospels to explain the gospel in a way that doesn't at least for maybe Sydney evangelicals doesn't

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naturally lend itself to kind of a guilt innocence framework. So I get that all the guilt innocence on a shame for your power or in the gospel. But how would we use that kind of language when we are explaining the gospel to someone who maybe understands more of an on a shame culture? Yeah, yeah. Well, it's again, which audience you're thinking of, you know, so there's an ultimate shame

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at the judgment side of God, which is something we're heading towards. And do we want to be ashamed before him, our creator, or do we want to stand with our head up? Because Jesus has made us to forgive us to get there. So you know, I'm bringing in the guilt innocence framework again, but I mean, it's, you know, that's the ultimate audience for the on a shame really. It's not just

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what what we how we looked at by our neighbors. And in fact, sometimes we can be so concerned about our neighbors that we can actually fall out with God. So, you know, like again, chapter 8, Jesus of Mark, Jesus talked about being ashamed of the son of man. And if you were ashamed of the son of man in this world, which some of his disciples at that point had had been really, because

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that's the more more concerned about what their Jewish neighbors might say. And he this is how he answered them. He said, well, if you're ashamed of the son of man, me and my words in this generation, you know, the son of man will be ashamed of you when he returns for the judgment of God. So again, it's a matter of audience and it's a matter of timing. So we're never just in as human beings,

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we're never just in this world. We're in this world passing through this world. And we need to keep on thinking about that final audience before our creator and our judge. And it's, I mean, it's the same thing, you know, he's the one we should be afraid of. And we shouldn't be ashamed of in this world. So that's sort of there as well. But when you talk about fear, the biggest fear that we

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have, and I think this is reasonably cross-cultural, although I can't speak, you know, I can't speak as an expert about Southeast Asian people, but I think it's pretty well universal. It's the biggest fear that we have is the fear of death, fear of the grave. And that's the big nasty in the world too. You know, like it, it's, it's, we know it's inevitable. And we know that one day we'll

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stand at the grave side of all of our friends and family if they don't stand at ours first. So we know that death is there and it marks possible. This is the big thing that Jesus keeps on talking about and keeps on showing. So even that storm that's feeding a scene, his disciples say, they wake him up, he's asleep in the storm, he's asleep in the bearer of the boat. And they wake

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him up to say, "Don't you care that we're dying?" So that's what they were afraid of at that stage. And Jesus still extends up and says, "Be quiet, be still." And he shows that he's got the power over the wind and the waves, but it's like a little picture of his ultimate power, which is the fear of the grave, the grave itself. And by the end of the marks gospel, he's died on the cross for us

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and he's risen again from the death dead and leaves his grave empty to show that he's the one, the only one who's defeated our great enemy death. So if you want to talk about how to expand the gospel in a different sort of way, everybody is afraid of dying. If you scratch the surface enough, you can get people who are bold and think, "Oh, I'm not afraid of dying." I

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don't worry me or whatever. Well, if you just talk to them a little bit more, won't be long before you can find that there's a fear of death there too, or, you know, "I don't have a want to think about it." One of my friends said to me once, "Well, why don't you want to think about something if you're not afraid of anything?" So, you know, that's human beings. That's our, the great

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enemy it's called in the New Testament. And that's Jesus comes to be our hero, to deliver us from from death. Sorry about that. Yeah. Yeah. Comes through phone and computer. So, you know, so, you know, that's what we need to see is that Jesus, Jesus, it asks us to put out trusting him, even at the point of death, or even in the realm of death,

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you want to put it that way. And that's comes through all the way through Mark of Gospel. And because he's the dying Savior who then rises again from the dead, he shows that he's got the power to do that for us as well. And I think that's a way of presenting the message, the good news of Jesus and a way that is helpful for everybody, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I was thinking about this

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just, you know, with context before we get to Mark 5. There's, I think is, I'm writing and saying there's three scenes. So, the calming of the storm, and then the first part of Mark 5, and then when Jesus raises the dead go. In all of those, there's a, there's, it seems like there are two streams of the fear that's going on. There's one fear of them dying. And there's the, the actual fear of

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actually Jesus is a bit scary almost is what it comes across like. So even after, you know, the man who's out of control can't be kept down or anything, and then sits quietly at the feet of Jesus and is listening, the people ask him to leave the area. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I guess that's really helpful for us when we think about fear, power, and just all of these kind of dynamics because

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I guess for South Asians, especially from a Hindu background, I think at least theoretically, or hypothetically, people won't be so scared of death because of the reincarnation concept. But I mean, on the one hand, I think if you dig scratch beyond the surface, I think just people in general are scared of death. But then even more than that, there's actually, okay, let's say it's

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not physical death that you're scared of. Even in the realm of spiritual things, people seem to be more fearful of Jesus than anyone else. So think about Mark 5. I just think it's interesting how freaked out the legion of demons is. What do you want with us? Some of the most high. And in one sense, it's really helpful, like not having a right relationship with Jesus is very

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scary. Then the flip side is having a right relationship with Jesus means you don't have anything else you need to fear, you know, the great moral concept here. Oh, that's exactly right. And that's you've picked it nicely in putting those three scenes before us because the the strong man in chapter 5 has already been referred to back in chapter 3 where where Jesus gave a little

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parable, tiny little parable to his Jewish, the Jewish leaders about, you know, what's he doing here about himself? You know, basically, what's he doing about? What's he on about when he does his exorcism and things like this? And they were saying that it's because he was under the power of the devil himself and he said, well, you know, I'll give you another alternative, you know,

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nobody can bind a strong man unless he's stronger, basically. And he just left that with them to say, well, you know, what he's doing here is a little illustration of binding a stronger man. And then when you get to chapter 5, here's the strong man, you know, with a legion of spirits, you know, that are causing him to live amongst the dead. And Jesus just deals with him.

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So that that strong man becomes the picture of the great strong man who is in charge of all the spirits in the afterlife, that, you know, the devil himself or the Prince of Demons, Jesus causing belesable, multiple names, but the same being in the New Testament. And Jesus is able to bind the strong man's in his works in this world. But he's that's what that again becomes a big

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picture of what he does by the end of the gospel, which is to really by his resurrection, he's showing he's defeated the grave, which is really the ultimate power that the devil has over us in this world. Now, I don't know, you know, I haven't personally talked to many Hindus about the afterlife, whatever but I know that the universe is filled with evil beings that they don't

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particularly like. That's my impression. And so to ask the question, how does this Jesus who dies goes to the underworld and rises again from the dead, how does he relate to all those spirits? Well, the New Testament's pretty clear that he's above them and more powerful than them, and he plucks the ultimate power of the grave out so that nobody, not even the devil,

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has power over you ever again, even into the grave. And I love the, this is getting out of my gospel, at the end of a great chapter in the Bible is Romans chapter 8, where Paul, at the end of it, has this list of things that will never separate us from the love of God, because God did not spare his own son for us. So, you know, that's, I guess you could say that's a guilt innocent,

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on the guilt innocent paradigm, but by the time you get to the end of that, the chapter Paul just lists the things that we don't have to be afraid of anymore. And there's any kind of being, if it's, you know, he goes interestingly, life and death becomes also, there's a realm of death, you know, and even in that realm of death, any kind of being principalities and powers, all the

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things, thrones and dominions, we don't have to be afraid of anything anymore. So, even if the universe is filled up with millions of, of, of spirits that, you know, scare us in this world, we know that Jesus has, Jesus, the risen Jesus has conquered them already through conquering the drive. Yeah. Yeah. And one sense, maybe, I don't know, this is the right way to articulate this,

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but actually the fact that Jesus is more powerful than everyone else actually means that in a relationship with him, it gives us quite a lot of power in that we don't have to fear these things, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, perfect love drives out fear. We've seen this blade. We actually have power in, we can actually walk confidently knowing that we, if God's for us, who's against us.

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Yeah. That's right. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. And the interesting, this brings the power and fear, paradigm and the guilt and innocent things together. And I just think about your quotation there, if God is for us, who is against us. Because that little thing, you know, if, if, who is, where is the accuser, he asks in that same paragraph. And then it's Christ Jesus on our side. God,

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you know, God is the accuser's gone. It's interesting if you asked that question, like, where is this accusation taking place? This potential accusation taking place? Well, my mind springs to back to the book of Job, which opens, like, with a view into heaven. And there's the throne of God. And there's the devil walking around in the heavenly places. We sort of wonder what's that all about,

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no, but, but his role is the accuser there. And the accuser's Job, which causes all kinds of suffering in, in Job's life. But he's, there he is in, in the heavenly places, being the accuser in Satan. That's one of his names, it means the accuser. And yet, when you go back to Rome and chapter eight, there is no accuser anymore. So that's a little picture of an, an heaven that's been

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emptied out from the one who can accuse us for our sins before the living God. And in a sense, properly, if we're sinners, properly demand our punishment. But there's no accuser, because Jesus dealt with our, dealt with our sins already in another way. I don't know if I've explained that in a simple way, but I mean, it's, you know, it's, it's the, because Jesus died for our sins,

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that's, that plucks any power out of Satan's hand, because the wages of sin is death. The devil is the one who, you know, is in charge of death. Well, he's got no, he's got no power out of us anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I guess, I guess as we think about the gospel and articulating the gospel, what I think is really encouraging even so far in this conversation and

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just thinking about whatever worldviews people have, actually, the gospel speaks into the, the bare bones, reality of human life in all of its complexity. And like you said, the, the realm of death, the realm of life, oh, like there's, there's no realm in which the gospel doesn't speak very clearly and give us a very definitive answer. And, and I think that's just

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so helpful. I mean, experientially, it's often the case when you hear testimonies in, in, in where I am at the moment, in, in other places, you often hear testimonies and people say things like, I, I, I, I read this interaction that Jesus had with the woman at the world or this interaction that Jesus had with this person. And it was unbelievable. I've never heard anyone who's like that,

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who says things like that and who can do things like that. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and it's kind of, it's unimaginable just in a frame of reference that people have. This raises, this raises a very interesting thing for me. Then because, you know, we, you asked the question, well, how do we share the gospel? One thing I think is an under, underutilized resource is that why don't we just read

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the gospels to our friends because they have their own way of working on all kinds of different people and drawing them into that great story that Jesus comes for us and does some mighty works to illustrate who he is, to indicate who he is. And it then dies and rises again and that's all for us again. He's our hero, so that we might not, we might go free and whatever, whatever it is. So

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if it's, you know, if it's fear, if we live our, our life in fear of man and God and spiritual beings and death and all these things that, and not just death, but different ways of dying, you know, dying poverty-stricken, dying with illness, whatever it might be. You know, so if we, if we're one who is filled with fear, the message comes from, because of Jesus, there's no need to fear,

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he's our powerful and loving Savior and Lord. If it's one of honor and shame, well, you know, I don't like being ashamed of those around me, but I put to shame by those around me, but then there's the ultimate shame before God, well, I don't, I wouldn't like that either, you know, but here's the one who not only dispenses with shame by dealing with our sins, but he honors us,

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you know, and there's a little expression in Luke's gospel that says that we can stand with our heads held high because of the, you know, because of Jesus' work on our behalf, honor and shame. If it's guilt and innocence, if there's lots of, lots of reasons that people in that framework can go through life, feeling guilty about all kinds of things, how do you get away from your own

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past, you know, how do you get away from the weight of your own actions towards other people, for example, and that can, that can be a real burden for so many. Well, the innocent Jesus died for us, took our guilt upon him so that we might take his innocence upon us. And, you know, so we, whichever way you look at it, whichever paradigm you want to, what to operate within this,

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there's a Jesus story in there somewhere. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah. And, and, and your, your point about why don't we just read the gospel's together? I mean, it's, it's actually, it feels like a lot because you kind of have the whole, the whole Bible with you and you think, oh, that's a lot, like it doesn't pass the two finger tests in terms of how big it is, but I mean,

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I might be wrong about the timing exactly, but I would assume you could knock off Mark's gospel in two hours something like that easily. Yeah, it's about a half to two hours of how fast you read it. And if someone's got a, you know, the gospel of Mark in their own language and you're able to use it, well, no, that's even better because they can hear the, what happens is the language of the

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gospel story strikes against our own, our own language and our own inner thoughts and our own emotional life and that, and that whole package then draws us towards, draws us into the story to start with. Yeah. And then we encounter Jesus in that story and then all of a sudden we realize this is not just for them, it's for us, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's interesting you're talking

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about the, the language draws us in, but I think the language also, again, this might not be the right word to use, but it's almost like the language sometimes gives us anxiety. Like, I remember in the meeting Jesus course, we often use the gospel of Mark. And I remember a couple of friends as they were going through the course saying, the problem is you're flying through this thing.

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I was like, I'm not flying through it. Just immediately is with the Lord. Yeah, yeah, it does it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I guess the, the unsteady words there is and, and leaving us without being able to deal with our anxiety about what the story is bringing up for us or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. It's unsettling. Yeah. It's like, if you're afraid of demons and you

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see someone who's powerful, more powerful than the demons and that you're worried about him then. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. If you're, if you're afraid of dying and you see someone who can, you know, raise the dead or, you know, but he must be stronger than death. You know, so, yeah, yeah. If you're, if you're, if you're, if you're, if you're, if you don't want to be ashamed before

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human beings and that he's, he's called to follow him even if no one else the world does. Well, that's potentially, you know, and take the shame of the world. That's potentially anxiety provoking as well. Yeah. Yeah. I remember, you know, sharing the gospel in a small group setting and there's a guy who didn't say a word. Everyone had their chance to ask questions and that went for

00:26:55.040 - 00:27:15.520

hours. A really powerful sort of, you know, question after question sort of evening. And this guy sitting next to me just over there that he hadn't, he hadn't said a word all through the whole thing. And then everyone started to leave at the end and, and he was still sitting there. And I thought, what's going on here with this guy and said, well, are you going to go to or start up some

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conversation with him? And he said to me quite simply, he said, how can I leave having heard what I just heard? And he was sitting there. I think riveted. And I think it would be okay to say, anxiety's stricken, in a sense, because if he left, what would happen? You know, now that he heard the good news of Jesus, he felt like he had to do something right there and then. And

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and there's a story in the Bible like that too with with Peter, where the whole crowd, you know, leave Jesus because he said something difficulty to understand. And he turned to his disciple and said, do you want to leave as well? Give him the option out. And Peter said, well, where would we go? You've got the words of eternal life. He knew he had to stay there. He didn't know what what it might

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bring, but he knew he had to stay as a follower of Jesus. And that's the same as this man at that night. Years later, I met him again in the city and I was so good to see him serving, serving Christ after meeting him in that awkward moment where he knew he couldn't go. Well, the only thing he knew was he couldn't go anywhere else except find out more about this guy right now and do something about it.

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Yeah. Yeah. And even in that, I mean, we see the reality of the power of Christ that just hearing a message that's been recorded by eyewitnesses many, many, many years later, it's so powerful that it just stops a fully grown adult man in his tracks. He just can't. Yeah. No, it's, it's very good. And you know, you talk about our Hindu friends and, you know, quite

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often people say to you, well, every religion has its own book. So why should I, you know, you might say to your friend, you want to read the gospels, you know, well, why should I read those when I've got books over here and books over there and books over there. There's lots of religious writings. But it seems to me in talking to people who from those particular religions that they

00:29:14.720 - 00:29:44.720

don't have the same experience of their book. When we read the gospels, it is so powerful that we can't do anything except go where it wants us to go. And that's, that's the power of, of this particular book. And as it says, Paul says somewhere else, we have to receive the words of men as the words of God. And that's not an incense. It's not a mental decision. It's actually something

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that happens when you hear the voice of God powerfully through these stories. Yeah. There you go. I just want to, maybe I guess I just want to bring things in a little bit to a little bit of application. And I'm just thinking this was actually a question that came from one of the other members of our Satya group. And she was asking, especially in, what do we say,

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especially in a place like Sydney and with Sydney evangelicals broadly speaking, it's really easy to maybe even if we don't want to do it intentionally to kind of dismiss a little bit spiritual attack and spiritual things. I remember, I think I'm pretty sure as in first year, I did the essay in Mark's Gospel on exorcisms in Mark's Gospel. I remember coming across one of your books on

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exorcisms and spiritual things. And I remember the forward that you had written or the little dedicated too was I think to your daughter's or daughter about being afraid of the dark. And so I thought that was really helpful, easy thing that most people could relate to. But I guess let's play out a hypothetical, say someone comes to your church on a Sunday and they say,

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"Oh, I'm really battling with a lot of demons and I think I'm under spiritual attack." How do we think about that kind of thing? How do we approach that? What might the Gospel of Mark help us to think through when it comes to how we then provide a solution in one sense? I mean, I just think that the short answer would be Jesus more powerful. Whatever it is,

00:31:25.040 - 00:31:47.600

you're dealing with Jesus better. But yeah, but how do we think about that and engage with that rather than maybe dismiss it very quickly? Yeah, yeah. That's a good question and a very significant one. The first thing to say is that our answer shouldn't be just intellectual. But there's all these sort of questions they raise, all kinds of questions, intellectual questions,

00:31:47.600 - 00:32:09.840

those are questions we'd like to know because our intelligence says, "What's going on here?" What's the rational explanation of what's going on here? And I don't think that's where we should go to start with. Even though there are plenty of good rational explanations for all kinds of things in the scriptures. But we need to deal with the person who's in front of us. And so a question

00:32:09.840 - 00:32:40.560

like, "Well, what you're saying is I'm really taking me by surprise. I wonder how you're responding to all that." Because how are they responding to it? What does it mean to them that they think they're, "I forget which scenario you put, but they're troubled by a demon?" What does it mean to be troubled by them? What's tell us about that trouble? And here's where I think, again,

00:32:40.560 - 00:33:03.040

when I talked before about scratching where people are under the surface. See, well, I would think that you'd find fear there and power. A power that's greater than them, perhaps they might feel. So what are they going to do? They're feeling helpless. They're feeling afraid. They don't really, it's mucked up their life. Quite often if someone has an experience of what they think is a ghost

00:33:03.040 - 00:33:30.320

moving their furniture around in a house, for example. So they can't, their home is invaded. They're unsettled. There's all kinds of things. So play to the person is to start with and find out what they're experiencing in this encounter. If you really want to be dismissive, you go straight into these things, don't happen like that. Or don't go, find out from them how they're experiencing

00:33:30.320 - 00:33:57.360

what they're describing. And then the next thing to know is that we don't really need to have an explanation in terms of a rational explanation. Sometimes a lot of people really want to know what's going on with this. Can you explain this? Maybe we can't. Maybe the world is bigger than our own little lines. Maybe the spiritual spaces in this world are not something that's been explored

00:33:57.360 - 00:34:22.880

fully and explained to us fully. We can only say what the Bible tells us, that God has revealed what we need to know to live and to serve Him. So these things we don't know and these things we may never know. And I think in these encounters where people feel that there's a spiritual presence of some kind harming them or out to get them or whatever, play to the person and then admit you

00:34:22.880 - 00:34:50.880

don't really know what's going on here. But it must be awful because it will be awful. It won't be pleasant. And then you ask yourself the question, how does the gospel of Jesus speak into such a situation? And that's where your answer might be. One that you pull on, whatever is out there, Jesus is more powerful. We know that because he rose from the dead. And we can talk to him now is

00:34:50.880 - 00:35:16.800

the risen Savior and hand this problem over to him. So which would be that you're entering into the realm of prayer, which we're invited to do about it. We're invited to pray about anything bigger, small. And we can hand our anxieties over to him because he cares for us. So that's the moment. You know, what we're doing is inviting our friend to pray to our other friend, the risen

00:35:16.800 - 00:35:40.800

Savior friend, about this particular situation that's a problem at the moment. And we could do that with him if they're not used to prayer. And believe that that prayer will be answered, you know, and ensure them that it's going to be answered in some way. And be with them for the long journey, if you need to have another conversation with another prayer with them or something like that.

00:35:40.800 - 00:36:03.600

So it becomes an experience of between two people about a problematic experience with the other world, the beings of another world, whatever it might be. And the assurance that the Jesus is already above all those things is something that they need to hear strongly. You might be that you're attacking out the gospel of Mark and read a paragraph for passage from Paul. He talks about

00:36:06.240 - 00:36:33.840

Jesus is high above any principality in power and whatever it might be. And the word of God will speak into that situation as well. I don't know. What do you think of that? Yeah, helpful. I mean, I mean, in one sense, that is you kind of speaks of the heart of all ministry or cross cultural ministry is that you're dealing with the person in front of you, not a hypothetical scenario,

00:36:33.840 - 00:36:57.360

or kind of textbook answer to things. And I find interesting that the Alchuracities often get in a pastoral care 101. Alchuracities often get in the way of actually dealing with the thing that's there. This is from the gospel of John, but I find it fascinating that in the Lazarus account where Jesus asked Lazarus to come out of the, come out of the tomb and he's raised from the

00:36:57.360 - 00:37:20.080

dead and everything that's amazing. I figure that most people and if I was there, I would want to know you know, what did he look like? Like is this, you know, out of the living dead zombie apocalypse kind of vibe or what's going on? But actually, John, when he records it, just kind of says he was wrapped in linen. And he walked out and Jesus had given someone to eat, and that's the end.

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I think it's helpful for us to just be aware that actually there's there are things that are significant and important to speak into the life and difficulty and anxiety of the people that issue. And I think the other thing is that the reality of people, I think, is that you can't, the dismissing thing doesn't work. As in I think it's been my experience that if we were to dismiss

00:37:46.560 - 00:38:10.800

someone who is a slightly less extreme example than demonic possession, but every once in a while we'll get someone who come and say, "Can you pray for our car?" They just got a new car whatever it is. Now in one sense, my brain says, "Well, what will we pray for a car?" It doesn't make any sense to do that. But the negative of that is that one, if I don't do anything,

00:38:10.800 - 00:38:35.600

they'll just go to the next religious site because either way, there's inevitably some kind of fear of, well, you don't want it to be a bad omen. You want to make sure that it's spiritually protected. I guess it's true, maybe, of all sorts of different things that we can do, rituals that we can do to make sure that everything's protected in just a just-in-case. But actually, that's an opportunity,

00:38:35.600 - 00:38:58.800

if nothing else, to have the conversation and give thanks to God for the provision of a car that they can... There's so many ways to go about this, but it starts with the listening to the person and then with the felt need, then bringing the gospel to bear. Whatever that issue is, yeah. Yeah, and what is Christians believe that there's... If we believe what's in the scriptures,

00:38:58.800 - 00:39:21.600

we believe that the world is filled with spiritual dimension. Sorry, there's a spiritual dimension, that spiritual dimension is filled with spiritual beings. But the next thing, the most important thing to realize is the Jesus is far above every throne, principally, and power, and dominion, and even the devil has been defeated by him. So that's how that's how that's the bit that's different,

00:39:21.600 - 00:39:43.440

and that's the bit that speaks into any of these kinds of situations. But because we believe, you know, as the scriptures tells us the world is like this, the universe is like this, we sort of can throw up our hands to say weird things happen, you see? And when the weird thing happens and someone comes and says to you, look, this weird thing's happened to me. Well, you're not

00:39:43.440 - 00:40:06.880

surprised that a weird thing's happened in a sense. And there might be reasons why the weird thing happened to them rather than someone else, you know, because sometimes there's been... They've been playing with something they shouldn't play with who knows, you know? But we can deal with the person in front of us and listen to what they want from us, but we know that we've got good news

00:40:06.880 - 00:40:31.440

for them, whatever it comes from. Yeah. One more question, I'm just going to end with maybe a bit of a weird one. It's something that I'm a little bit wrestling with trying to work out how to articulate an answer to this, but often we will get testimonies from people who are from a Hindu background who've now come to know Jesus and in a relationship with him or Muslim background,

00:40:31.440 - 00:40:58.480

whatever the case might be. And often their story of conversion has a miracle in it that's beyond the very amazing miracle of Jesus changing the heart of this person. But just, you know, I prayed about this thing and got answered, or God spoke to me and this thing happened, or whatever it might look like. I guess how do we... And then, sorry, and then my brain immediately

00:40:58.480 - 00:41:22.960

goes to, okay, but can you articulate the gospel? How are you with this doctrine? My brain automatically goes there and says, I can't just rely on the experience, it's got to be more. But experience is a very big part of many cultures and in fact, our own culture as well. We just do it in a different way, I guess. Yeah. How would you speak into that? Again, this is kind of a practical thing of

00:41:23.680 - 00:41:47.120

I'm going to say, I'm a Christian, God spoke to me and my cow was healed and that meant that my grandfather was able to continue farming. And so now I'm a Jesus. Yeah, that kind of thing. Yeah. Well, again, I do not know anything in this sense. I mean, I say, I would say something like, well, what does that experience mean to you? Where have you ended up after that experience?

00:41:47.120 - 00:42:09.520

After that dream or the hunch or whatever it was, where have you ended up? And if it's got them to be converted, you can say, well, thank God that I've got you there. Again, you thank God for that experience, you've got something that points them to Christ. If you have an experience that takes them away from Christ, like I'm thinking of them, if the miracles take them away from

00:42:09.520 - 00:42:31.840

Christ, back in Deuteronomy, then it's obviously wrong. But if it's something that leaves them to Christ, thank God for that. Or if they haven't brought them to that position yet, and they're still in process, you say, well, how are you thinking about this? What do you think we should be doing after you experience something like that? So you don't deny people's experience,

00:42:31.840 - 00:42:56.080

but you try and move them on from where they are. Good things. Thank God for them. And you know, I mean, if it's if the miracle they've had a miracle in the that's brought them to Christ, you know, well, thank God that that's that's that's that's that's brought you there. And it's great to have you in the family that I mean too. That wasn't my experience, but you know, I'm glad

00:42:56.080 - 00:43:31.280

to hear of yours. And in fact, many people will, you know, like many people will respond to Jesus having just heard about him, which is a great miracle, don't you think? It's another conversation you're having and the denying people's experience seems to be, well, how can you really, really, if they've lived through something? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's helpful. Yeah, I guess it's the kind of

00:43:31.280 - 00:43:54.560

thing that we want to push against a little bit in kind of maybe the way that sometimes we naturally want to do things. I think every time I think about any ministry principle, anytime I look at the Bible and then look at how that plays out in practice immediately, I think, oh wow, it really does draws back to God's the one who sovereign. We we're really kind of, again, maybe not the best

00:43:54.560 - 00:44:16.240

expression to use, we're kind of along for the ride. The one is kind of doing, who's doing everything and so you kind of, you know, the experience or whatever else it is, is is different to what, what we may be comfortable with or what we would like in terms of how things should be articulated, but but but that's the that's the power of the one who holds all the power. Yeah, yeah, that's

00:44:16.240 - 00:44:39.040

right. You can do this kind of thing. Yeah, we're just we're we're we are along for the ride, we're watching what he's but sometimes someone comes to you, you know, the Lord has already been working in them somehow. So with these sort of stories, yeah. Well, thanks very much. It's been really great to just chat a bit about these things. That's okay. Yeah, and I'm hoping this kind of thing is

00:44:39.040 - 00:45:01.680

helpful for individuals, churches, organizations, whatever it is to just keep thinking about how to keep engaging people with the gospel because again, the mission mindset we have is we want to go and tell everyone and we want to take into account language and world views. But I think, you know, the big takeaway maybe is that we don't need to be so worried about world views and

00:45:01.680 - 00:45:23.840

hard and fast boundaries because the gospel's into everything and anything and has profound power to change. That's right. The kingdom of God culture. Yeah, even better culture. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great. Thanks very much Peter. That's okay. Yeah, pleasure. Yeah.