Success

Welcome to Halting Toward Zion, the podcast where we limp like Jacob to the Promised Land and talk about life, the universe, and everything along the way. I’m Emily Maxson here with Greg Uttinger and Bryan Broome, and we are back for Season 2 of Halting Toward Zion.

We’re talking about success today and I think we will define our terms as we go, but first let’s introduce ourselves. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself, Greg, and tell us one of your favorite poems. You don’t have to recite it on air or anything. Just tell us the title and author.

My name is Greg Uttinger. I’m a high school homeroom teacher – that’s one way of labeling myself – in a Christian school in Sacramento-ish, California. I teach history, theology, and worldview classes, and I’m supposed to be a physics major so math and science occasionally. I’ve been teaching for a long time.

And poems – I’m glad you said “one of your favorite poems,” because it varies. Does anyone really have a favorite poem? Should they? Are they entitled to?

I feel like it’s a Herculean effort to pick one favorite poem, so it wasn’t fair to ask for just one.

I think mostly because I have a mental block on it and can’t seem to get any further, I’m going with Tennyson’s “Ulysses.” Time to strike out for another newer world and find adventure there.

“It little profits that an idle king…” – is that how it starts?

Yeah, that one. It’s especially appropriate to someone who’s getting a little older.

Great, thank you. Bryan?

I’m Bryan Broome. I’m a layperson with an interest in theology and a member of the OPC. I’m a recent Californian expat and immigrant to the great Midwest. As far as poems, the only one that really comes to mind that I have read is the one that has been memed into inanity, and that is “This Is Just to Say” by William Carlos Williams, a tale about regret and plums.

Good choice, good choice. And I am Emily Maxson. I have a background in education and education policy, as well as history. I enjoy running this podcast with our producer, who is my lawfully-wedded husband. I grew up in California and am returning there shortly to continue teaching. My poem of choice today is going to be “The Last Trump” by Banjo Paterson.

Today we’re talking about success and we’re drawing on Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers. Malcolm Gladwell is a Canadian sociologist, if I’m not mistaken, and he talks about two or three main factors that lead to success.

First is time and chance, the fortuitous timing that comes to certain people where they get right in on something as it’s growing, so they’re an early adopter. There is cultural legacy, which almost falls into that category of time and chance, because you don’t really have a choice into what culture you are born. Then also grit or hard work. What are some examples of these three factors working together? What kind of success are we looking at here, Greg?

One of the weaknesses of Gladwell’s book – and it has many, many strengths and is a delight to read – but he never, at least to a Christian’s satisfaction, really defines success. I think he assumes that we know what success is, and I think he would probably acknowledge that it’s a little different for everybody. It involves being good at something, to such an extent that there seems to be financial profit in it.

I don’t think he would say that it’s getting rich necessarily, but in the examples he gives, having money at the other end seems to be a pretty constant factor, maybe not filthy rich money but a substantial increase of where you might be. Let’s say I don’t think he considers poverty as winning the game. But working with that, he’s looking at all kinds of things.

In fact, one counterexample right off the bat that can disprove what I just said is that he looks at a small immigrant Italian community that was remarkable, Roseto, Pennsylvania. It was settled by immigrants who came from a single village in Italy, then worked in slate quarries and blouse factories. They lived largely isolated, aside from shipping out their stuff and taking in such supplies as they needed.

Eventually, a doctor discovered something odd about the community – no heart disease. Furthermore, no suicide, no alcoholism, no drug addiction, and very little crime. No peptic ulcers, either. Most of the townspeople were incredibly healthy and died of old age.

The answer wasn’t diet, because in coming to America they gave up olive oil for lard and added a whole lot more salt and sweets. They didn’t exercise. They smoked heavily. There was nothing in their genetics, because other immigrants from the same village went elsewhere and did not evidence the same kind of vigorous health.

In the end, researchers concluded that what they had was community – peaceable, loving, predictable relationships with people they trusted and spent their lives with, and that lack of pressure from work or from society or keeping up with the Joneses allowed them to relax and to enjoy life and to be healthy. Stress was minimal and hearts were strong.

So here’s a case where Gladwell is pointing at something other than just making money. Here he sees success, it would seem, as being content with life and the lot that you have and enjoying life and being healthy long enough to actually enjoy it for a good long while.

The book starts off, as I recall, with that example but then also something odd about Canadian hockey players. It would seem that everybody who went pro had a birthday around January or early February. The more researchers looked into this, and Gladwell looked into it, it was kind of a puzzle because what in the world does your birthday have to do with how well you can play hockey?

Eventually he came to the conclusion that it had to do with how the various youth hockey leagues were structured in Canada. The cutoff date of eligibility was January 1, so that means that everyone who was born in January gets into the new round of league events and has the whole year to learn at that level. Meanwhile, the kids who come in in December are already facing competition from their peers who have been in for a year.

So you’ve got the best of the 9-year-olds – well, it’s not divided by how old you are, it’s divided by the year you were born, so you have the people born in January competing against those born in December, so you’re already 11 months stronger, 11 months bigger, 11 months more practiced.

So over the course of the coming years as these kids move up through the various leagues for older and older children, the ones who have had that little edge in the beginning begin to develop into a bigger edge because the coaches are going to gravitate to the kids who are already better, so they get better still. Then in the next round, “Oh, you’re so much better. We’ll work with you,” and they get better still.

So by the time we’re done and they’re hitting late high school or college or somewhere in there, they’re really good, not necessarily because they have native abilities better than their peers, but because they’ve had so much more focus put upon them.

This is kind of the “time and chance” thing. These are circumstances that you can’t control. You can’t control when you’re born. You can’t control it before you were born. This is how the hockey system is organized. You have nothing to say about this, and all the native talent in the world will not necessarily fix this or counterbalance it, so the system rolls on. Apparently, it’s true also in American sports to a lesser extent.

So is this systemic discrimination against hockey players born in November and December?

Yes, that is exactly what it is. It’s systemic discrimination. There oughta be a law.

Leagues should be split by birth month. That’s the rule.

So now we’ve got to have 12 different leagues for every year. Oh goodness.

This is how you have to do it to seek justice.

Meanwhile, the small schools have no one to play against because you’ve got one kid in each league. Nobody gets any better at hockey. The small schools are left for dead.

But we’re all equally bad together. That’s it, isn’t it? That we all be the same? We all be equal?

There’s a thought to throw into this. I don’t remember to what degree Gladwell addresses this, but in talking about success, that implies some people get stuff that other people don’t, however you define success. Forget the money rewards of being a star hockey player, but you’re just acknowledged as better by your whole country that happens to revel in hockey.

Isn’t that kind of anti-egalitarian if, as you say, we have an entire system that’s dedicated to promoting something we all love, and yet it is seriously slanted in favor of some people over others, and nobody gets a say in it, particularly the people who are affected? Isn’t that something that people in the 21st century ought to be protesting somehow, some way? Any kind of systemic discrimination obviously is evil and needs to be stopped by blunt force by the government that loves you so much, or so we’re told.

Anyway, I don’t remember your original question, Emily, but something along the lines of what kind of stuff does he talk about, and these are some of the intriguing scenarios that he brings to light. I’ll throw in another just for fun because it’s short – Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and that whole flight of very impressive computer technicians and programmers.

They’re all about the same age, and they were the same age just as local colleges and sometimes high schools getting their own computer systems was a thing. These were young men who managed to sneak out of the house at night, sometimes literally all night long, or sneak over in the summer to the local high school or college and do nothing but program. They were able to indulge their hobby to their heart’s content.

They put in lots and lots of time and they became really, really good just at a point where the computer industry was beginning to take off. They had the opportunity that other people didn’t have. They had an unfair advantage, as this world reckons things, and they parlayed it into millions and billions of dollars.

Those are some of the kinds of things that Gladwell is looking at, and each story is more interesting than the next. I don’t remember all of them by any means, but there are a few others that we can talk about. I’m interested particularly in the ones where national culture or ethnic culture plays a big role. Maybe we’ll end up there eventually.

Right now we’re seeing the time and chance thing, and we’re also seeing the hard work thing. If you can work really hard at just the right time, a time you can’t control, then you may become a monumental success, which may mean very rich but it may mean something else, and we’ll all stand back and wonder at it.

The word ‘outlier’ here is talking about statistical probabilities. How many Bill Gates are there in the world? Not that many. How many rock and roll bands like The Beatles really were there? How many communities like Roseta are there in the world? These are outliers statistically. They’re things that don’t fit the predictability models, but they’re real. That was what Gladwell was investigating, and we can go from there in what direction you like.

Let’s talk about success in the Bible. You mentioned in the article that is the basis for this discussion that success is kind of an odd word. It’s only mentioned in this introduction to Joshua.

Yes. You’ve already said that we’re beginning our second season. Maybe we should define what constitutes a season. The first season was a discussion governed by the Torah, the five books of Moses. This next season, however long it may actually be, will be governed by what the Jews call the former prophets. This is Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings. We might stick in Chronicles, since it parallels, but that’s technically outside the list.

We think of them as history books, but they were called the former prophets because they rendered God’s inspired interpretation of covenant history. That’s not to say there’s a running analysis or dialogue. Sometimes it’s very in the background or to one side and it takes a while to realize, “What is God’s opinion of all this?”

Yes, throughout Judges we don’t get, “And this was very bad. This was the wrong thing to do.”

Right. There are places where we really would like that, because sometimes there are differences of opinion as to whether or not this was a good thing or a bad thing. Was it a bad thing, say, for Samson to reach into the lion’s carcass and pull out the honey? A lot of that depends upon your presuppositions about Samson.

You could say, “Well, the Nazarite laws say that he shouldn’t be touching a dead body.” Okay, granted, but did he? “Well, he touched a lion’s carcass. That automatically qualifies.”

He touched the honey.

He touched the honey with a stick, I believe, and took it away in his hands, so do we simply assume? “We see all kinds of things that he does that are really sketchy and borderline, so this is just one of them. It’s one of the first and it’s just setting the pattern.”

Or do we say, “But wait. He’s the Lord’s Messiah and marked out by Hebrews 11 as a man of faith,” and give him the benefit of the doubt and say, “He didn’t actually have to touch a dead body to do this, and probably was smart enough not do.”

There are lots of things in Judges where we have to, first of all, understand the Torah that’s gone before, to understand God’s broad perspective and narrow perspective on morality. What are the general principles? What are specific applications? How have we seen it worked out in specific life cases before? And then we’re supposed to come with the Bible’s perspective that this is a story about Messiah, so let’s not miss the force of the thing in the details by saying, “But he broke a rule.” Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t, but we have lots of heroes in the Bible who break lots of rules, and that does not necessarily invalidate the bulk of their ministry.

So as we’re passing through the former prophets, we don’t always have “…and this was bad.” It’s kind of refreshing sometimes when we do.

Yeah, it takes the pressure off. It’s such a difficult thing to discern right from wrong in general. We want the CDC to come and tell us what it’s okay to do and not to do, for instance.

Yeah, so it’s nice when you come to say when David sinned against Bathsheba and the writer says, “But the thing that David did displeased the Lord.” Okay, we thought so!

It’s good to know for sure.

He conned Bathsheba and no one’s saying anything bad, but this was wrong, right? This is the man after God’s own heart, but it’s wrong. Yes, it’s wrong. Just in case, God tells us on that one. We’re having to interact with the text, but at the same time realizing there are some things that God tells us. This is the job of any good historian. You’re not simply reciting facts, you’re telling a story. Stories have a point, so we have to look at why did God pick these details rather than other details? Why does he highlight this but ignore that?

An interesting thing here is to compare Kings and Chronicles, which cover much of the same territory, and yet there are some very real differences, the sin of David being one of them. Chronicles doesn’t mention it, but Samuel makes a big deal over it. But actually, if you think about it, David’s later sin in numbering the people cost a whole lot more lives directly, thousands of lives, whereas his sin with Bathsheba cost one life – well, one and a few, because Uriah didn’t die alone in battle, and then of course the baby, and then his sons who died in judgement.

But still, compared to the thousands who die when David numbers the people – most newspaper reporting might make a big deal out of David’s sin at the time. I mean it’s tabloid stuff, but the stuff that’s going to hit the headlines of the New York Times is going to be “Tens of thousands die because of king’s mistake.” Imagine a president. Do we do “The president was unfaithful” or “The president just pushed a button and destroyed a city of 50,000 people” or whatever the number was? The very writing style and the selection of material leads us to ask, “What is God getting at?”

With Kings, appropriately, the emphasis tends to be upon the reign of the kings. In Chronicles there’s much more material about the temple and the priesthood and worship and music in worship. They’re covering the same facts to a large extent, but they’re not the same story and they’re not the same prophecy. They’re not the same message exactly. That’s our goal, anyway.

We’re going to go through the former prophets, so there will be in the background of our discussion some historical context and stories that we simply will have to talk about from time to time.

Here we’re beginning with the book of Joshua, which is the first of the former prophets. Moses has died and Joshua has already been set aside as Moses’ successor. God tells him, “Moses is dead. You’re going to go over and you’re going to lead the people across the Jordan. Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread I’ve given you, as I said to Moses. No one will be able to stand before you. I will be with you as I was with Moses. I will be with thee.

I will not fail thee nor forsake thee. Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper withersoever thou goest.

This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.

Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.

Lots of encouragement going on here. Moses didn’t get this kind of encouragement. Moses got, “Get over there and do this.”

“Well, I have an excuse!”

“Dumb excuse.”

“I have another excuse!”

“Dumber excuse.”

“I have a third excuse!”

“Really? Get over it.”

But God is very tender with Joshua, I suspect because his skill set lay in a different direction than Moses. When we see Joshua, he never seems to be afraid in battle, which leads me to suspect that it’s working with people that’s the thing that scares him, and I sort of relate to him on that level. It’s one thing to give orders. “Go take that hill.”

“Yes, sir.”

It’s something else to sit in this committee meeting and make peace between these people. “Can’t I just fall on my sword and get it over with?” So God is really encouraging, and he points to prospering and good success. He promises to be with him and all that.

The Hebrew word ‘success’ can mean to have insight, to act wisely, or to prosper. Success as God sees it is the wise application of his law. It’s obedience to God’s law intelligently, with the eye of faith looking at the goal of what God’s getting at. It’s not enough to be right. It’s to be right for the right reason, with the right motivation, the right heart attitude. A lot of people pride themselves on how right they are, but that’s not necessarily wisdom, nor does that necessarily lead to the kind of success that God’s looking at.

In this case, success means fulfilling the promises of God. God has promised Israel the land. It’s Joshua’s job to deliver it to them. Yes, there is in fact wealth involved here, real estate, but if Joshua will keep his heart set on the law of God, if he will continue to meditate upon that law day and night, if he will hide the Word in his heart, as Moses suggested in Deuteronomy 6, then he’s going to be able to do this. He’s going to succeed in his mission. He’s going to accomplish the purposes of God for that generation. God will bless him, and he will be a blessing to others.

This is not earning God’s blessing or earning salvation or any such thing. God has blessed him. God’s going to be with him. God is promising him all kinds of great things, but “I need a road map. I need to know how to get from here to there,” and God says, “Know my Word. Believe my Word. Trust my Word. Think upon my Word. Meditate on my Word. Do my Word.”

It’s at this point that we begin to see a difference in how culture affects one’s ethical system. It is one thing to say that in cultures where there’s a lot of hard work, there’s a lot of success. It’s not necessarily true.

It depends on what you’re working on. If you’re working on moving piles of dirt from here to there, you don’t necessarily gain a lot of glory for your people.

Yeah, or if you’re working on building pyramids. Egypt had enormous wealth, but the people remained relatively poor and simple in their lifestyle. Whatever technology the Pharaohs had to raise those things didn’t get transferred down to the lowest level.

We can think of other contexts where the goal of work can be diverted toward monument building, toward liturgy, toward some kind of mystic expression, or it can all be hoarded by your capitalist warlords and used for either making them rich and fat and sassy, or starting wars with your neighbors. So it won’t do simply to say, “If you work very hard you will succeed.” Success needs definition here.

In terms of what God said before Joshua, the definitions were already in place. God had promised Abraham 430 years earlier that his seed would inherit the land of Canaan, and everything has been moving in that direction, and that’s not simply a real estate promise or territorial promise. It’s a promise that leads to Messiah, because Messiah is coming into the real world in time, history, and geography, which means he’s coming someplace.

This is the place he’s coming, and Israel needs to be there and they need to be in control of the land, at least to the extent that they can produce the seed by God’s miracle at the right time in the right place, so that Messiah will be there where the prophecies say he will be. This is the focus of all of this.

Yes, it’s a physical material blessing for God’s people at the time, but far more important is that God is maneuvering all of history to prepare the way for the coming of his son. Again that’s very different from just saying, “Work hard and you’ll get rich.”

Gladwell makes much of Asian math scores, where students of Asian ancestry in the United States tend to work longer at math problems before giving up, so on average get higher math scores. I love your point about the society not necessarily getting the benefit from the hard work. Gladwell ties it back to the rice paddies, of how the dedication to growing rice translates to dedication in a lot of other things, including looking at math problems and not giving up on them until you’ve really tried everything you can. But it’s largely here in America rather than in Communist China where that translates into success. Is that purely the influence of a Christian society? Is that Christendom at play? What’s going on?

I don’t think you can say purely Christendom because there’s never been a purely Christendom on the earth, but there are times and places that have certainly been more influenced by the gospel than others. There was a time when the cultural West spoke of itself subconsciously as Christendom, because everyone pretty well at least acknowledged the existence of the God of the Bible and acknowledged the truth of the Bible and gave some kind of lip service to Jesus Christ.

Along with that traditionally came at least some kind of marginal embracing of the Ten Commandments, of traditional marriage, of the dominion mandate, the value of work, of thrift, of savings, of future orientation, depending on the brand and flavor of Christianity.

It’s much stronger in the Christian West than the Christian East. Russia and Byzantium went after mysticism at a very early time, and we probably have talked about the whole Filioque clause thing, and we could talk about canonic Christianity and all that, but Byzantine Christianity lends itself very easily to mysticism.

Then you can compare the Catholic West with the Protestant West, and again there’s much more interaction in Protestantism with the real world that God has made, both in Calvin and in Luther. But of the two, after a few generations, the Calvinists and particularly the Puritans put much, much more emphasis on work as a priestly function. As Luther before had said, the shoemaker cobbling his shoes is serving God as truly, if not more so, than the monk in his cloister. The Puritans really took to that, almost to the extent of working themselves to death.

You can think here of the Westminster Confession which, for all of its beauty, you come to the Fourth Commandment and it sure sounds like taking a nap on the Sabbath Day is a sin because you’ve got to always be busy. There’s not really a place for rest or recreation. The Puritans never had a good theology of recreation. They were very, very busy.

As Puritanism dies, we get the Yankee, the sharp trader, the good businessman, the man who amasses wealth because of his work. In order for that to work, you do need political freedom of some extent, however you got it.

Again, in the Christian West, more particularly in the Protestant West with its opposition to emperors and popes, we have seen the growth of republican government, of checks and balances within governmental systems, popular involvement in the process of government, and other things that limit the power of government and give people more of an opportunity to prosper in terms of their individual gifts.

Having said all that as background, in case anyone didn’t know that already, you come to America at the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st century, and here we have immigrants who have learned to work really, really hard, and they step into an environment where still it is possible to do very well both educationally and financially by working hard. And, yeah, that doesn’t work in Communist China, sorry.

There are also other considerations. We can look at things like suicide rates. We can look at the culture of shame, where if you don’t live up to the standard your family expects of you, you’re under a tremendous amount of emotional pressure, subject to emotional breakdowns and such because, yes, you work hard, but what if you can’t work hard enough? What if you disappoint your family? That’s not acceptable in these cultures oftentimes.

This is again where we’re saying in God’s world, work can be very productive and can bring about success of various sorts, but in the long run you can never abstract work from the rest of your life, from your family structure, your worship, your mental health, how you look at the world, your future orientation or lack thereof.

As Christians we have to keep coming back to this and saying that there is no simple formula where you can say, “Work really hard for a long time, and hope you just happen to fall into one of those lucky cracks of time and chance which God’s providence has arranged, because if you don’t, oh well. You’re not going to be all that successful, as people reckon such things.” We rather say our treasures are in heaven. We seek God’s kingdom and his righteousness.

And when everything is said and done, many of us will go to our graves and no one is going to remember us, but God will. The final word is his. When we stand before Jesus at Judgment Day, the measure of our success is “Well done, thou good and faithful servant,” because he will see all of the fruit of what we did, which goes far beyond the merely financial and even the material.

We’re working on things that are heavenly and eternal. We’re working on human souls and in the Word of God, so we can’t reduce our measurements to those of the world, while at the same time recognizing that money does “answer all things” and that God gives us the power to get wealth, and that God uses material wealth to establish his covenant, because you’ve got to pay pastors and build church buildings and finance missionaries and all of that stuff.

The laborer is worthy of his hire.

Right, so we’re not disdaining that side of things. We’re just saying that’s not all there is to it. When all the boxes are checked on Judgement Day, that may not in all cases be the most important.

So as the Asian student comes and perhaps gets a B in math – horror, horror! – and his family doesn’t know what to do with that, yet he may succeed in some very real ways that the rest of us would say, “Your family is crazy. You are successful. You’ve accomplished good things. You’ve made a positive difference in people’s lives, but you may never convince your family of that.”

There’s a side story in one of the novels I read last year, which I will not clarify because of spoilers, where basically one character has been attempting to do a thing. He wants to atone for something in his past and he feels he needs to have a flawless track record of the opposite, in order to be counted as worthy. This isn’t so much societal shame as it is personal shame.

Another character gives him a remedy by way of a parable. He basically says there’s a dog who sees a dragon flying overhead, and he wants to be a dragon. So he decides, “Okay, dragons can fly. I just need to fly and then I’ll be a dragon,” so he makes makeshift wings for himself in a way that a dog can. He’s dragging sticks into place in the barn’s hayloft or something, and he attaches it to himself by his collar, and he jumps out, and immediately lands on the ground. The other animals from the farm come around and laugh at him and say, “You’re a stupid dog. You’re never going to be a dragon.”

He’s sad so he says, “Okay, I can’t do that, so dragons have scales. I’ll get scales for myself,” so he makes a deal with a raccoon that has thumbs, who gathers shiny rocks from the river. He’ll put them there, he’ll go and cover himself in mud, he’ll roll in the rocks, and he’ll have shiny scales and he’ll be just like a dragon. He shows off to all the animals and they all say, “You’re a stupid dog. You’re covered in mud and rocks. You’re never going to be a dragon.”

Finally he decides, “I want to be a dragon. Dragons can speak human language, so I will learn human language.” But unfortunately, he is unable to speak. He goes, “I have a dog tongue. Mechanically I can’t do this.” In any case, what he did learn was language. He learned writing instead. So when the farmer’s daughter falls into the well and can’t get out, he runs back and draws “girl well stuck” in the dirt. They go back and forth, they rescue the girl, and the farmer goes, “Oh my gosh, you are the inside dog now. You get the fine cut of meat. You get all the glory and all the honor.”

And as he sits in his bed in the warmth next to the fire at the farmer’s feet he thinks, “I am still a failure because I am not a dragon.”

That was a very long story or metaphor to get to this point, but that’s sort of what these things are. The things that we ourselves or the culture that we live in puts these expectations on us, they are not necessarily in line with what is actually objectively good to accomplish in this life. If you never see a dime of profit, you never start a business and give thousands or millions of dollars to the church in your tithe or as gifts, you never personally fund a missionary to Vietnam, but you shared the gospel with someone – 5 people, 10 people, 20 people – you’re successful by the Lord’s standards.

People sometimes look at Proverbs and say, “Well, this is a principle of Christian life. If you do X, you will get Y, and then your happiness will be Z.” But there’s a lot of times in scripture where you look at God’s chosen people doing X and not getting Y. You especially see it in the church age post-Pentecost – actually, even a little bit before Pentecost – where they are doing the right thing, and they get persecuted for it.

When you look at Proverbs as a list of to-do’s in order for your own personal benefit, 1) you’re missing the point, and 2) you’re turning the Christian life into a system of law rather than something that is driven by the gospel and the law in its proper place.

That’s excellent, Bryan.

The law of God is the most comprehensive, the most demanding of any law there could be, so when we turn the Christian life into this perfectionistic endeavor – I struggle a lot with perfectionism. I will lie awake at night thinking, “Am I a good friend?” and the answer is no, I’m not: but Jesus is and it’s for his sake that I can rejoice in God’s friendship to me, his fellowship. When I am united to Christ personally by faith, God delights in me, not just in my sanctification but in me as a person. That’s the most freeing message because it sets us free from the most comprehensive bondage.

That’s like when Paul says his righteousness is as filthy rags. He wasn’t just talking about himself because he used to be a Pharisee. He’s talking about all human endeavors done with the best intentions, even those done as believers post-conversion. Nothing we do is untainted by sin, and only that which is untainted by sin is able to stand in the Lord’s presence, which is why only Christ’s works stand, which is why we need his works imputed to us and our sinful decrepit-ness imputed to him on the cross instead.

That gives us a very different philosophy of success. We stand before Jesus and hear “Well done.” That doesn’t mean, “Boy, that was close. There were 10 boxes and you checked off 5-1/2 of them, so I guess I’m going to commend you, but don’t pull it that close again, bud. I don’t know. We have more room in heaven, so fortunately there’s a little wiggle room for you, I guess.”

There are Christians who approach the Christian life that way. They think that’s how God is, and they are afraid that, “I have not done enough,” because they do not see that their sins and their righteousnesses are covered by the blood of Jesus.

Since God sees us in him, if we are acting in faith – and this kind of comes back to where we started when we were talking about the histories here – we often look at the heroes here and say, “How are these guys heroes?” I mean Gideon is not my idea of a hero, personally. Samson is no one’s idea of a hero, apparently, except for his super strength, like that’s a big deal. David, the man after God’s own heart, what’s this – he’s a murderer and adulterer and he gets thousands of people killed because of his ego? You could just go through the Old Testament and check them off and say, “These are not people I want to hold up to my child as models of morality.”

You know what? You’re right. They’re models of faith. These are people who trusted Jesus, and in the midst of all of their failures they didn’t ever completely lose their focus on Jesus, the Messiah who was coming. They came close a couple times, but they recovered, they repented, and they threw themselves back on God. You can think of Psalm 51, David’s psalm of repentance. In the long run, they did not let go. They kept clinging to the cross that lay before them, to the blood of the Lamb.

We fortunately just did a podcast on Hebrews 11. What motivated them and what God commends is their faith. “These all received a good report by faith,” not because everything they did was great, but because faith motivated their whole lives, including some really weird things on occasion, like catching foxes and tying their tails together, or sacrificing one’s only begotten son, or abandoning the throne for wilderness, or building a boat in the middle of nowhere. All of these things in their time looked a little bizarre and caused their neighbors to question their sanity, as well as their morality. “Good people don’t waste their time like that!”

But success, what God paints for us in Hebrews 11 and on into 12, is that he approved. Again it was not because they did such great things, but because they did them out of faith. He approves their faith. He approves the focus of their faith, which is Christ himself.

So we come to a book like Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers and there’s a lot we can learn here. We can learn that if you want to be good at something, 10,000 hours of practice probably is what’s going to be required. We can learn that you can’t always manipulate the circumstances to get what you want. Some people get lucky breaks as the world reckons such things, that you don’t. Time and chance happens to all of us, Ecclesiastes said.

We can learn that culture does matter, and we can learn that even partial obedience to God’s commandments can result in some levels of material blessing, like our Asian friends who are really great at math because they work really hard. But we can’t extend that to say, “And success then means if you work really, really hard and you catch all the lucky breaks, you will accomplish things that will do what? Make the world remember you?”

He actually gives a couple examples where people did things and came close and failed and aren’t remembered. You kind of get the idea, “Well, they weren’t successful.” Well, they weren’t remembered, but is that what it’s all about? Did they help a lot of people? In what way and doing what? And is Jesus going to commend that in the end if it was done in unbelief?

For instance, did Jesus use the computer industry in the late 20th and early 21st century to bless his church? Absolutely. We can do a lot with microchips that we couldn’t do 100 years ago, and the church has great advantages because of that. Does that mean that Steve Jobs and Bill Gates get a special pass into heaven because of that? Or that Jesus is going to flash a thumbs-up and say, “Well, you never believed in me, but look at all the great stuff you did for my church. Come on in.” No, that’s not the way it works. Success is a different thing.

Again, I think this is particularly good as we begin the former prophets, that we remember that God looks at things differently. The heart of success is Christ himself. Only insofar as we lay hold on him by faith are we going to be successful as God reckons things. God has his own plan for each of us. He has things/jobs for us to do, tasks set before us for which he’s gifted and equipped us.

For every one of us, we are created in the right place at the right time with the right gifts. The world may not see that, and they may call us losers, but God knows what he’s doing. We’re not to measure by wealth, but we’re to trust God that when all is said and done and we stand before Jesus, if we have trusted him we will hear “Well done.”

I’m suspicious of the song that says, “Farther along we’ll know all about it, farther along we’ll understand why.” God hasn’t really promised that, but maybe he’ll tell us some things. “Why did that happen? Why that financial disaster? Why did I lose all my money there? Why did I get sued when I wasn’t at fault, and the judge decide against me? Why did my health absolutely break catastrophically at this period? What was that all about, Lord?” Maybe he’ll tell us some of the answers to those things.

Or at least the stories. Maybe not the answers, but the stories.

Maybe we’ll find out what happened in the story beyond us, and how what happened to us did affect other people, but again that’s in his hands.

Amen. As we wrap up, usually we close with recommendations. If you’re new to the podcast, usually that’s what happens, but we’ve already told you three of our favorite poems so instead I’m going to put a question out to you guys.

I was chatting with a listener this past week, and the listener commented that the kind of conversations we have on the podcast are something so special, and it’s only at very blessed periods in our lives that we get to sit back and chat with people about books and theology and the sorts of things that we talk about, and that only really springs from community, having people with whom to have these conversations.

For us, we were brought together around this one school. For someone who doesn’t have that community already where they are, how would you go about making one or finding one?

Bryan, you just moved into the hinterlands and you’re engaged in this very thing, so why don’t you share your wisdom while I try to come up with an answer.

Join a church. That’s the first thing anyone should do I think if they’re not in one already. If you’re already in a church, then the best thing to do is just hang around after the service, 20 minutes. Find someone and talk to them.

Right now, just due to morning schedules, I have not been able to do that very much at the church I just became a member at out here, which is slightly annoying, but they do have other opportunities for community growth and conversation with other people. Actually, I should probably ask to get a copy of the church directory so I could be more proactive about that. I’m used to having it because I had one from my previous church.

But even before this church, when I was at my home church back in California, that’s pretty much all I did. I hung out sometimes as long as 30-40 minutes after the service. We only had one service at that church so it was very easy to just mill about and talk with people that you are in spiritual community with.

It wasn’t always about the sermon. It wasn’t always about theology. Often it was, but other times there’s other things that come up in your life. There’s six other days where you’re not engaged in the special time that is Sabbath worship, so you just talk about the things that you’re interested in and the things they’re interested in.

If there’s not line-up there, you talk about God and what he’s been doing in your life, and how you have seen the Spirit make improvements in your life as well, and you just make this a standard kind of topic of conversation.

Another thing that church did that I really, really loved was a program called Supper for Six. Basically you sign up for a group that’s six people, normally three couples. I was always single when I was in those groups.

Yeah, I was the seventh in the Supper for Six.

It was nice sometimes because then they’d be like, “All right, we’ve got two singles. We’ll put them in the group,” and it was just like two guys and two couples.

Yeah--it’s not always a matchmaking kind of venue.

No. You share meals at each other’s house and you get to know them that way. I still have really good memories of my first Supper for Six crew, and I always felt bad because I always forgot one of the couple’s names, but I know what they look like and I’ve talked to them. It’s like, “I know who you are…”

“…so I don’t need to know your name.”

Yeah, exactly, but I did feel bad about that. But that’s my answer. Join a church. For me, I’ve been really blessed. I have two church families that I worship with on Sundays out here in Wisconsin. One is the OPC that I’m a member at, and the other is an independent – I don’t know if they’re officially a 1689 Baptist church, but they’re a Baptist church. In both cases, I just talk with them while I’m there and it’s already helped massively.

The Lord kind of prescribes this community for us. “Go. You need to get with these people.”

Weird. I wonder why he would do that. Speaking of which, that was a major theme in Live Not By Lies. Good book, recommended.

I don’t know that I have a better answer than Bryan. I’m not sure there is a better answer than Bryan’s, so thank you for covering so much ground all at once. I can add a couple things that might nuance it a little bit.

Anybody who knows me knows I’m an introvert, and the kind of thing Bryan is describing is difficult for me psychologically and almost physically, but I’ve learned to do it to some extent over the years, particularly when I became an elder. I was reminded repeatedly by older elders (and by my wife) that this is what elders do, but I have found that I tend to do better talking to older people, people older than myself, and often older singles. And I teach teenagers, so teens and 20-somethings oftentimes. Both require humility of a sort.

With older people you have to be humble enough to shut up and listen. They may not know all that you know. God may have had them on a very different track, but they have wisdom. They have experience, and what you need to do is get them talking. It doesn’t need to be about what you want to talk about, what you want to hear, what tickles your fancy. Sometimes you need to learn to just be quiet, except for a few more prompting questions: “And then?” “Well, how did you do that?” “What happened next?”

Get the older set talking, because there’s a lot there, and often older people will appreciate that someone is actually spending some time with them. We can very easily push them aside.

Then with younger people you need to have the humility to think, “You’re 17. You’re at the stupidest age of your life ever,” but not say that. Just work with them the best you can. Talk to them. Don’t pretend to tell them how they ought to live their lives. They have parents for that. You should be able to just talk to them without setting up this judgmental aura. “He’s just listening to me to see what mistakes I’m going to make, and then he’s going to pounce on me and give me advice.” You just have to be laid back and just see where they’re at and what interests them, and sometimes you find some very interesting things.

There was a student, and at the time I was in college and he was in high school, who first recommended Narnia to me. I’d never heard of it, because in the circles I traveled in when I was very young Christians didn’t do fantasy. I’d heard a little bit about it and I asked him if he’d ever read this Narnia thing and he said, “Yeah. See, there’s this talking lion, and it’s really good, but I don’t know. Maybe it’s a little blasphemous because it’s almost like the lion is God.”

“Wait. I think I may know what’s going on there.”

You can get suggestions, ideas, and thoughts. What are young people listening to? What are they watching? Listen to it and watch it and go back and talk to them some more. “Why did you like this?” Don’t be snappy-judgmental. They found something in it. You found a lot that’s reprehensible in it, okay, but try to understand. Again this involves a certain humility.

The other suggestion I would throw out there, and this is kind of deliberate – create your own culture that you actually do enjoy, like book clubs. My wife has been part of creating two different book clubs. One started with ladies at church, I forget the other one, where first of all in theory you’re getting people who like to read, in theory. It doesn’t always work that way. Some people come along for the wine. Wine and cheese are fun. Here’s a chance where you read a book a month and someone, who hopefully you trust a little, is recommending it.

There are all kinds of clubs, meetings, organizations, and community groups that Christians can create for their own interest. They don’t have to be exclusive. They don’t have to be snobby. They can just be open to anybody who wants to come, but again you have to have the humility. “Oh, she’s not one of us. She doesn’t know these names, these books, these places. I don’t know if she gets in.”

She might know other ones that you don’t.

Yeah, she might know stuff you don’t know. Oh wait, she doesn’t know the books but wow, the hors d’oeuvres she brings! In my wife’s book club, for instance, once a year at least they have a month devoted to cookbooks, and everybody has to bring something from the cookbook that they’ve all read, and make it. That’s branching out into other kinds of things. You start with books, but now you’re going for food, and from there it’s talking about cooking and all kinds of things.

Sometimes you have to take an active role and, to get to where you want to be, the line may not be direct. You may have to, again, humble yourself and consider, “How can I minister to other people? What will make them happy? What’s lacking in this church where I see a need?”

I talked to these older folks and they want a bridge tournament. I have no idea how to play bridge.

There are very few people who have any idea how to play bridge.

Not in this century.

“What is this?”

“It’s a bridge tournament. You have the building supplies right there and we’ve got a little scale model.”

[laughing] So those are generally some thoughts. Emily, what thoughts do you have along these lines?

I would second everything that both of you have said. I think practically as an introverted person myself, what’s been tremendously helpful is finding one friend, and it often helps if that one friend is a lot more talkative, has a lot more energy, and can carry you through other conversations with more people. That’s how you meet other people, is because this person is meeting tons of people and I’m standing next to them.
Greg: That sounds a lot like my life.

“Observe the church-going introvert as it attaches itself parasitically to its extroverted friend.”

Yeah, story of my life.

Yes, that exactly.

We are actually quite a bit over time, so we will wrap up there. Thank you, guys, so much for this conversation. It is a delight, as always, to see you both and talk with you both. Thanks also to David, our producer and my lawfully-wedded husband.

You can send us an email at [email protected]. Let us know your favorite tips for meeting people with whom you can have conversation. Also let us know if you’d be interested in a Discord server. This is something I just kind of thought of today that would be really fun and would give us a way to connect with you and hear your thoughts and have some of these conversations on Discord.

You can Like our Facebook page. You can check out our show notes and transcripts. Any books that we’ve mentioned we link to in our show notes, and we have transcripts if you prefer to read the show rather than listen.

If you’d like to support us financially, you can do that at our website, which is anchor.fm/haltingtowardzion. You can follow me on GoodReads, where I put thoughts about books that I have read, whether they are good or not.

The thoughts or the books?

Both. I don’t know if my thoughts are any good. They are there for the taking or the leaving.

Emily, have you heard of The Story Graph?

It sounds familiar, but I don’t know.

It’s a GoodReads alternative that I have been experimenting with, and it seems to fix a lot of the problems people have with Good Reads as a system that is built the way that GoodReads is. That’s just an aside.

I like a lot of friction in my user interface. It keeps me from getting addicted, so I don’t know if I should investigate Story Graph because I might get addicted and that would be a problem. Tell me more about this later.

Thank you so much for listening. Have a good night.