Transcript
[sung hymn] We worship Christ, God's son most high, Who fears our sad and mournful thrive, He will himself our Savior be, And from all sin will set us free. People told us that if we really wanted good preaching and to learn the Bible, we should come. It was the first time I'd ever heard a real expository sermon when the preacher would go deep into the word, go into the original language, the Greek and Hebrew, and make it come
alive, and that was just amazing. He talks about theologians like Bonhoeffer and C.S. Lewis and Pascal, and he just really brings it all together in a way that makes sense to me. And a personal style that was really remarkable. We're in the book of Romans. St. Paul in the fifth chapter says these words at the very end of the fifth chapter. Where sin increased, the grace of God increased more. There's a certain speed and momentum
of evil and sin. He's very good at understanding culture, very good at showing how it connects to faith, and then communicating the relationship between the two. Grace has a greater momentum. He's been someone who's helped me along the way in my journey as a senior pastor. Those words are still ringing in our ears. What Earl brings in a very, very special way is just a tremendous scholarly understanding of the scripture, but also just a great delight
in the scripture, a love for scripture. Well, if all of that is true, then what effect would that have in my life where I'm living today? He is a well-respected preacher. I mean, he's in great demand, but then he does not mind coming to someone's home with some of these people, just very few. I remember probably seven or eight of us. We kind of meet regularly, and he comes and then he just encourages us and
answers questions. When we founded Earl Palmer Ministry, the vision was that I would be kind of like a minister-at-large. And based, obviously, in Seattle, but a minister-at-large with most of our things in Seattle, like the Kindlings Muse on a Monday night. Will you join me in welcoming Earl Palmer to help us get started in our conversation about Letters to Malcolm? If you look at what we're doing here in the Kindlings Muse at
Earl Palmer Ministries, he'll take a book every week that we do a show, and he'll give a brief outline of it, and then show how it relates to contemporary life and contemporary faith, and he'll draw out some key issues. The night sky suggests that the inanimate also has for God some value we cannot imagine. His ways are not, therefore, like ours. If you ask why I believe all this, I can only reply that we are taught,
both by precept and example, to pray. And prayer would be meaningless in the sort of universe that Alexander Pope is talking about, where everything is just a general law, and nothing changes because of our prayers. And I've heard pastors say that. I remember one pastor said, do your prayers change anything? He said, no, they only change you. They don't change God. Lewis doesn't agree with that. I don't either. The greatest thing prayer does is it brings
us in contact with Jesus Christ, who is on the journey with us. Yeah, the theological dialogue is every month. My wife makes pastries in the morning, which we have there, and then we have an hour and a half to talk theology, and they're pastors from all different denominations. I'm Ken Sinu. I'm a pastor at Wallingford Presbyterian. Lean pastor of Missoula Lions Church. Carl Harris. I'm a retired Episcopal priest. I'm a youth director at Church and Sumner.
And layman. I'm a police officer here in Seattle for the past 12 years. I'm a CPA. I'm a physician here in Seattle. And professors. The executive director of the Pacific Association for Theological Studies. And young seminary students. My name is Jeff, and I'm a candidate for ministry here in the Seattle Presbytery. I graduated from Princeton about a year and a half ago. I'm an aspiring theologian, and we'll start in Fuller in the summer. Then this year,
we did Mere Christianity, Lewis's broadcast talks that were given during World War II. Because they wanted somebody to address the question of what was happening in the battle for Western civilization. Probably the largest soul book that Lewis wrote is Mere Christianity. The style is Lewis can't think about anything without saying, what's it like? He's the master of the parable, like our Lord was. Jesus, have you ever thought about how much of eternal truth our Lord was
willing to invest in perils? I find it important to have some significant theological dialogue. To keep my mind fresh as I seek to provide theology with integrity in the local church. Interpret good theology to the everyday life of the members of the congregation. But even the best Christian that ever lived is not acting on his own steam. He is only nourishing and protecting a life he could never have acquired by his own efforts. We do know
that we can go adrift. Can we ultimately go adrift? Wow, that's in God's hands. Lewis uses that in The Last Battle, right? When that one character doesn't know that it was Aslan that he was serving. It was a different name. He got criticized for The Last Battle, but I think he's right in The Last Battle. That it's in Aslan's hand, it's in Christ's hand, and there are going to be surprises. He's helped me to understand not
only theologically a lot of the books of the Bible, I like his style of going through a book and preaching through a book, and that way at the end of the sermon series I have a much better understanding of the whole book. Earl's been helpful to get my head around the idea that we don't fill our life with Christian activity. We fill our life with people, and those people are part of the curriculum that God has
for growing our lives. It's just by word of mouth. People come, they find out about it, and they come. We don't publicize it in a large way because the room can only hold about 25 people, and that's what we have is about 25. And then right away, the National Presbyterian Church asked if I'd be willing to be the preaching pastor in residence. No governance responsibilities. I'm not the moderator of the session of the church, just preaching
and teaching, but living here most of the time. And so in a way, I'm here serving the National Presbyterian Church from Earl Palmer Ministries. The ministry here has been very, exciting. Sunday we preached this year on the book of Revelation, and now the book of Romans. And then comes a very famous line from St. Paul. Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God, through Christ Jesus our
Lord. And it would be nice if he ended there, but he doesn't. He goes one more sentence. So then, with my mind, I am a slave to the law of God. In my mind, I am a servant aiming toward Christ and toward life, but with my flesh in my body, my arms and legs, I still struggle. Also, I've had other ministry things here that have been totally exciting. I've made three trips now to Annapolis to the
United States Naval Academy. I did a weekend retreat with their faculty, and then I've spoken twice to midshipmen on C.S. Lewis themes. And then this wonderful group of young men and women who are fellows at the Buxton Initiative. It's an organization that provides opportunities for dialogue between Muslims, Christians, and Jews to sort of increase understanding between the three different communities. And I have been meeting with those interns every single month for the whole year. So
our Jewish fellow, this girl named Sarah Jacobson, she, I would say more than the other two, always came with a long list of questions for Earl. What is the atonement? How does salvation work? Why do we always talk about the blood of Christ? All these kinds of things. And Earl would just explain it in a very winsome way. And she ended up, Earl has this one whenever he talks about the atonement, and I don't know if
you've ever seen him do this, but he'll say that Jesus absorbed our sins. And so Sarah would walk around the office being like, my sins have been absorbed. And that was like her way of sort of, you know, remembering what the atonement is all about. And of course, yesterday, the wonderful thrill of being with the International Justice Mission. International Justice Mission is a Christian human rights agency that rescues victims of violence in the developing world, victims
of sexual exploitation, slavery, and other brutal forms of oppression around the world. He says, to all things without rumbling or questioning, so you may be blameless, innocent, children of God, without blemish, in the midst of a crooked, that's the Greek word scolia. You know, we talk about getting scoliosis, is a bentness in the spine. It's the word bent. C.S. Lewis was intrigued by that word to, in understanding the evil. Evil is bent. There's a bentness.
Earl today, I think, in his speaking on Philippians 2 and speaking specifically on Jesus Christ and his work, both his work here on earth and also God's exaltation of him, was just such a clear reminder for us here at IJM on what we actually need to do as the lifeblood of our mission. And frankly, I feel that studying a great book like Romans or Revelation, when you think of what was the reason why was the book
written, it was written by Paul to help lay people live their lives in the Roman world in the midpoint of their century. And the book of Revelation, a book written also to comfort people who are struggling against great stresses in the Roman world. Well, I think that means the book is relevant to people who are suffering great stresses in our world and different kinds of stresses. Critically important, if there's one prayer that our staff that are
going into the darkest places in the world need is to have a sense of God's presence. So this is one of our most regular prayers at International Justice Mission. And he reminded us today from the scripture from Philippians just how God makes his presence just readily available to us by the of himself. And so in a way Paul's asking these Philippians to count on the fact that over the long haul, truth will outlast bitterness. When Dr.
Palmer spoke about the Philippians and their sufferings and crisis sufferings, I think it helps us to, it reminds us really that our Savior is a sufferer as well and he understands our pain and what we're going through and what our clients are going through and that he's going to bring us through all of that into a place of glory. And so he helped us today in the way that really only Earl Palmer can and that is
to take a passage of scripture, take it apart, delight in the words that God has given to us and make them vivid and alive and make it clear how they are given to us to make us more alive. And there's just very few people who can do that with both the sort of scholarly rigor but also the vividness and the love that he manifests for us in doing that. I would have hoped that Paul said and
you stand as soldiers or you stand as athletes, you know, because he used the athletic imagery earlier, or you stand as courageous crusaders instead you're like children and it just doesn't seem fair, it doesn't seem fair. So these last months like say this year 2010 has been highly focused on Washington except that when I came here I didn't think I'd be here a year and a half so that's why I have the Antarctica trip that I
did in January because I had already committed to that. It turned out to be a fabulous experience to go to Antarctica. My son went with me, I gave lectures there on the doctrine of creation, that's how I got to go and then also the Asian trip I had planned that because I had postponed that from the year before. I think all those Chinese scholars it doesn't matter whether they are Christians or non-Christians they just love
him. But national was pleased that I went. This most recent trip we made a little bit more extensive. I made an arrangement for him to be able to make a presentation of C.S. Lewis to the Peking University Ph.D. students and then also to another university, it's Beijing Normal University and then he also had a time that just a very informal time. But also went to Chiang Mai in Thailand where this church has a mission relationship
with Piap University which is a Christian university in Thailand and a seminary there that this church has been highly involved with. I mean 1989 I think we all know the very significant things happening in China and then I think when that happened all of us were involved in the China ministry was greatly discouraged so we kind of lost our heart you know we just said well we don't want to get involved anymore. Some of our board
members resigned you know I feel very lost I did not really know whether this ministry should continue but during that time I remember we still had like our board meeting and Earl came especially and Earl to tell us this is the time that ERC especially need to be involved in China. He said Christians does not go to a place which is easy and comfortable you know Christians go to a place that's you know facing you know
kind of challenging situation. So I think that that talk changed the board and myself our heart and we are excited to continue with the ministry even though it's a very difficult time you know not very many American Christian teachers are willing to go. I'm Susan Phillips the executive director of New College Berkeley and as many of you know Earl Palmer was one of the founders with David Gill of New College Berkeley, a school for the Christian
I go once a year always to New College and do a class. Last year I did the book of revelation in one day and this year I did the book of Romans not quite the whole book in a Friday evening Saturday morning. Would you please welcome the Reverend Earl Palmer. I found it breathtaking last night two hours three chapters of a book we've all read many times. Paul's going to take you into a courtroom and the
opening part of Romans we'll see tonight Romans one chapter 18 through 3:21 is a courtroom and he's going to endeavor to catch every one of you and me in our guilt. It makes the book of Romans a little grim as a start off and some people say you know Dale Carnegie would probably not approve of that approach because he alienates you a little bit at the beginning. He brought it alive he made us eager to hear
what Paul was saying. The question is how are we as Christians going to make it in the world? What is our strategy? What is this strategy for the Christian in a world like we live in today? And I love the way Earl brings in contemporary culture and literature. All of this all of life is relevant to how we live as Christians. The Gnostic movement was basically the spiritualization yearning. It's Greek philosophy sort of brought into Christian
faith in an attempt to capture Christian faith. They loved Christ and the idea of Christ but they wanted to turn Christ into a phantom Christ who was not in the turbulent line but a few inches above and so you get Christ in the Gnostic teaching that he didn't die on the cross he only appeared to die. You can see what an influence it had in Western thought because so many modern cults and movements are Gnostic which
is a yearning to be spiritualized a yearning to have a ladder that would get me above the turbulent line. He is very very generous. He doesn't just retreat into some sort of easy retirement. Well I really appreciate how Earl also brings humor into his ministry and I think that's very important because it shows that there is vitality and joy and life in the life of faith. Plus he has amazing energy. He completely runs circles around all
of us that are you know his protégés and younger than him. He's constantly opening things to me and I have heard Earl preach on Romans. I have read Earl's commentary on Romans and yet I feel as though I learn new things each time. It was really interesting. Was it interesting? No it was. I always say to a young person trying to figure out what their goal in their life is stay close to Christ grow in his
love his faithfulness. That's the best part of the Bible is the Old Testament in anticipation and the New Testament in witness surrounds its living center and that's Christ. The same savior as Bart as Bonhoeffer as C.S. Lewis. Earl Palmer has got a heart so he's got an active mind. He's very intellectually active. It could look like Paul's a universalist and I my mind wondered a little bit is there was there a specific statement by Paul
that cancels that out? No, no it's just that he says to all who receive and he in the middle of 9, 10, 11 he says it's impossible to please God without faith. You've got to have faith. I'm grateful that Earl keeps on teaching and writing and traveling and taking his message to people all over. When you get a pastor's heart combined with a keen mind and a love for people and the ability to communicate you've
got a rare person and that's Earl Palmer. Big hugs and kisses. I love you guys oh I will. I called her on the phone this morning I said that I saw you. Yeah I'm going theology of spiritual gifts. What are you good at? Now go for it and then do it to the glory of God. To be honest this role I play with International Justice Mission today was heavily influenced by some things that I heard Earl
preach about in I think 1973 or 1974 where I was first exposed to the idea that the health of the community is measured by how it protects those who are most vulnerable in the community the orphan the widow the dispossessed the weak the alien in our midst. One thing that he always says is that God is not fragile and therefore we should not be afraid to bring our questions our doubts before God and to struggle together.
It's that connection that he's making for us as we sit under his teaching and sit under his mentorship it's that connection that into eternity I think would not be an overstatement. He continues to do the good work that God has given him to do and that blesses me it blesses so many people and it serves I think as a model for us for how to live. I mean he's got an amazing love for people love for
God and the capacity to bring together the intellectual and creative and spiritual legacy of Christians in a way that is in the tradition of a J.R.R. Tolkien or a C.S. Lewis who were intellectually rigorous loved God and were able to communicate well and and that's what her Palmer brings to the to the party. Well my goal as a as a pastor and hopefully friend of the people I know is I want to be a
person that points them to their own walk with Christ so that they can come to know Christ and know his love and know his faithfulness and put their weight down on it that's faith and then be assured of it that's the ministry of the Holy Spirit in their lives I want to see that. Lord thank you for this time to be together and for Romans it's such a great book it takes our breath away and we
thank you that because of the good news of Christ we can live our lives on the turbulent line we can make a difference we're not victims and we can make we can we can share your love with the world that really needs to hear it thank you for the realism of Paul but also for the goodness and the humor May we experience it in Christ's name we pray. Amen.