1 Peter & a Changing Culture with Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer

The New Testament book of first Peter packs volumes of hope into just 105 short verses. Today we'll explore what First Peter has to say to us in our troubled times. Joining us for this conversation is the Rev. Dr. Dale Meyer. Dr. Meyer is President Emeritus of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis.

Transcript

Elizabeth Pittman (11s):
The New Testament book of first Peter packs volumes of hope into just 105 short verses. Today we'll explore what First Peter has to say to us in our troubled times. Joining us for this conversation is the Rev. Dr. Dale Meyer. Dr. Meyer, or Opa as many of his students and grandkids call him, is the President Emeritus of Concordia Seminary St. Louis.

Elizabeth Pittman (48s):
In the interest of full disclosure for our listeners. Today, today is a special day here at CPH as it's take your dad to work day, Dr. Meyer or Opa is also my father. So welcome to the show. Okay.

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (1m 7s):
Wow. I'm I'm, I'm glad to go with my daughter to work. Oh, great. Thank you, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth Pittman (1m 17s):
Well, thank you for being with us. It's it may be a little bit of a comedy hour here, but I promise we will get some substance involved as well. Now we, we woke you up from your nap for this. So we'll dust the cobwebs off, you know, life is

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (1m 36s):
I'm retired now I'm retired.

Elizabeth Pittman (1m 38s):
So in addition to afternoon naps, what's keeping you busy.

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (1m 43s):
Well, it, it really is a grueling schedule. And I do know why retired people say, I don't know when I had find time to go to work because I've got, you know, usually in the afternoon I have shuffleboard, but I put it in the morning this time. And then, you know, getting together with the old people, we play doubles tennis and, and that's, that's really a hoot. The paramedics are always on hand. So, but I rearranged my schedule to be here and talk about first Peter, take your dad to work day.

Elizabeth Pittman (2m 19s):
Well, we're so glad that you could rearrange that busy schedule because I've never seen you play tennis, but I don't think it's a pretty sight. So we're glad that you're here before we dive into first Peter, one question that I've had different people ask me about you and believe it or not, this is a serious question. This is not, you know, an unbelievable story, but people have been curious in the last year, how you handled leading the seminary through the onset of COVID-19 and how, what challenges you faced with that and how you approach that.

Elizabeth Pittman (2m 60s):
So before we go diving into the heart of scripture, tell us a little bit about weaning this, leading the seminary through this.

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (3m 8s):
Well, that is, that is a serious question. And I'll give you a serious answer. God thing. About a year ago, we hired a new health and wellness coordinator, and that person takes care of our athletic programs, our murals, a general promoting of health and wellness on campus. And her name is Julie Gary. So I went and introduced myself to Julie and I find out lo and behold, she has a PhD in epidemiology from st.

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (3m 47s):
Louis university. She's a army veteran. She commands missiles in the middle East. She saw the advertisement for a position that Concordia seminary and she applied and received the job. And that was a God thing. All of a sudden we have an epidemiologist on our staff. So when this crisis started to unfold in March, we had daily meetings for several weeks and dr.

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (4m 22s):
Gary guided us through the things we need to do, and she's been wonderful. I mean, it truly was a God thing. Now that I'm retired, she is still spearheading the seminary's efforts to keep our students, faculty, and staff safe and, and sure that even while we are on campus now, learning in person that it's being done in a safe, socially distanced sanitized way, like so many other things, these last 15 years, I didn't do that much, but, but the right people were there and I thank God for them.

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (4m 59s):
And that's why I think earthly wise, we had a good 15 years.

Elizabeth Pittman (5m 2s):
That's good to know that you have the right people there to take care of our future pastors. So in the midst of shuffleboard and the hypothetical tennis matches and naps and making your basement office for our listeners, OPA is currently sitting in his beloved basement office. That is like any other pastor's office you've probably ever seen. And that's where he's talking to us from you.

Elizabeth Pittman (5m 33s):
Haven't abandoned all church work. And a lot of people know you as a very talented preacher teacher. And they may not know that you are quite the scholar for the book of first Peter. And I said that with a straight face. So, but in addition to all of your other things, I've heard you say that your priority for retirement is what

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (6m 2s):
My first priority is writing the Concordia commentary on first, Peter Concordia has put out these commentaries for some years now, and there's a good number left to publish. The general editors is dr. Christopher Mitchell. And I have been engaged years ago, years ago to do first Peter, but the duties of seminary administration got got in the way. And now I've got a clear deck to do this study and the writing on this commentary and first Peter, which I'm thrilled to do because it is so relevant to our times today.

Elizabeth Pittman (6m 43s):
What was it that first got you interested in the book of first Peter, I know you've been studying it and you've been teaching on it for decades now, but what was that first kind of tug towards that being a special interest?

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (6m 58s):
Well, honestly it was assigned to me to teach at the seminary. The previous teacher first Peter to our students was dr. Martin charlatan. And he retired in the past away and they didn't have anybody else. So they gave the young kid, me the assignment of teaching first, Peter, that was in the 1980s, my first sentence of seminary. So it was just happenstance, but I've come to really love. So it was just happenstance.

Elizabeth Pittman (7m 30s):
Was that the video I showed you yesterday from 1982 of a young Dale teaching theater,

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (7m 38s):
That was the video and don't pay any attention to it. I've got a lot more to say, 30 years later, 40 years later,

Elizabeth Pittman (7m 46s):
I do appreciate the resources that Concordia seminary has made available for the average lay person, as well as pastors and students to access and to learn from. And that, that was a gym that I came across. So you've come a long way. So you mentioned that first, Peter has a lot of applications for us today. Tell us about what you're learning and what we should be looking for.

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (8m 15s):
Well, a couple of overarching comments, first of all, let's recognize that Christian America is gone. I grew up and a lot of people in the Lutheran church, Missouri Synod, and in other denominations who attend church, but are older. We grew up in quote, unquote, Christian America. The public generally knew the Bible, the public set aside Sundays for worship.

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (8m 46s):
Now whether they went or not. That's another question whether they really read the Bible and believe it that's another question, but the public culture and church life were

3 (8m 56s):
Complimentary. I went to a small Lutheran grade school outside of Chicago and then to a, almost 4,000 student public high school. And while the, there were different emphasis in teaching at those two schools, there were largely complimentary. That was quote unquote Christian America that is gone. And so now the church finds itself in a, in a very, very new time. And people who are older are often be funneled by this, you know, they're grieving what has been lost in church life and American life, but they're not sure what to make of it.

3 (9m 36s):
Well, the answer to that is simply the time marches on and, and, and the Lord of the church is with us in this new time. So that that's one overarching concept to keep in mind, Christian America is gone and it's not coming back. At least not in most of our lifetimes. Secondly, the devil is in the details. We read the Bible and we hear a lot in church with cultural blinders on.

3 (10m 12s):
So in the case of first Peter, for example, we can read first Peter, and that's about this. And it's about that when in fact our American Western culture makes it very difficult for us to really appreciate or imagine what those people were living in. And, and so one of the things that the commentary will definitely do, and if, if you asked me Elizabeth, in the next minutes, I'll, I'll, I'll start to do is to show the assumptions that we have the donut fly.

3 (10m 48s):
When we're reading a first century biblical book, like first Peter, the devil is in the details. And I am convinced that the devil does a lot to weaken the church because we don't, because we take some things for granted. We imagined that 2000 years ago, some things were a certain way. And in fact, they weren't. And if we learn what was really going on in the culture 2000 years ago, then the word of God has to be much more powerful to shape and grow the church.

3 (11m 22s):
So tell us about some of these assumptions. Thank you. The first one, and there are many could be this, when people today hear the word church, we tend to think institutionally, okay, so your mom and I go to eight o'clock church, meaning the worship service eight o'clock. We are members of Holy cross Lutheran church in Collinsville. And that's an institution that has a, a budget payroll constitution, et cetera.

3 (12m 0s):
We're members of the Lutheran church, Missouri Senate. That's a denomination. Those are all institutional understandings of the church. I have asked people more than once I said, what pops into your head when you hear the word church, and most of the time, it's one of these institutional manifestations of, of, of, of the kingdom of God. If his presence in this world, they also say it's the body of Christ.

3 (12m 30s):
And that is a true, pure theological answer. My point is we tend to think institutionally when first Peter was written and I assuming it was written by the apostle Peter in the year, in the early to mid sixties. And that's a very defensible scholarly position when Peter wrote his a pistol, there was no, or at least very little institutional church, the way we think about it.

3 (13m 8s):
I mean, there were congregations, but they were buying large Jewish synagogues. And the people who identify themselves as followers of Jesus were within Judaism in the book of acts five times, the Christians are actually called people of the way in acts chapter 23, it's called the sect of the Nazarenes, the word Christian first pops up in acts chapter 11 at Antioch.

4 (13m 39s):
So even then

3 (13m 40s):
Naming of, of, of what we today call Christians was something that grew up over time. There was very little institutional church. It began to take on the semblance of an institution, obviously, and, and, and that was necessary. We, we see that in the book of acts, but the first thing I would say is get the idea of this institutional church out of your head. If you want to get closer to what Saint Peter is really talking about, it was a movement in his day.

3 (14m 17s):
Yes, there were some institutional trappings that were just starting to show up, but it was basically a movement of people who had heard about Jesus and said, yeah, you know, I'm a member of the synagogue here, but that's the Messiah. So that that's one thing. And I think if we're going to regain vitality in the church today, and there is vitality, but not always to be seen by us or not always caused by some of the things we think are going to cause vitality one is to understand that these institutional trappings are simply things of this world.

3 (15m 3s):
So when I grew up quite a few years ago, now, you know, there was the institutional church, but we still have the institutional church and it's important. And no doubt about that. And it needs to be strong in this time. But this 21st century is showing us that no, this is ultimately a movement that does take on manifestation in institutions. It is after all a reflection, the church after all is a reflection of the incarnate Christ.

3 (15m 34s):
He is embodied, the sacraments are embodied. And so the kingdom of God takes on, you know, bodily shape and institutions. But it is, it is a far more than just an institution as we're prone to think of it.

Elizabeth Pittman (15m 51s):
I've listened to you talk before about the church as a mediating institution. Can you explain what you mean by that?

3 (16m 1s):
Yeah. Thank you. That's, that's a really important point. Let's go back to Christian America. And so little Dale goes to st. Paul's Lutheran school, unearned, 80 kids, the township high school with almost 4,000 kids. And as I said earlier, the public culture and the church culture were complimentary. They kind of reinforced each other. You know, there were some times when they disagreed, we were taught evolution. And we had learned in Lutheran school, not to believe that, but, but generally the culture reinforce the message of the church.

3 (16m 40s):
Well, some things have happened since then. One individual ism has gone on steroids and we see that every time we look at the news, you've got some individual insisting on his rights, or maybe a group of people insisting on their rights as the rest of you get out of the way, because we're going to get our rights. The second thing that has happened in these decades since a little Dale was growing up was that the central government has become far more powerful.

3 (17m 12s):
The declaration of independence says that all men are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. And then it lists life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and a footnote. Is that happy today? Does that mean what it meant in the 18th century? The declaration of our independence says that the creator gave us rights. Well, look at the presidential campaign today, look at the demands that hyper individualist and their affinity groups are making today.

3 (17m 45s):
We seem to act lack of rights are a grant of the government. That's not the American way. The American founding said that the creator, our rice and, and, and the role of government is to preserve those rights. But what we have now is centralized government. There's one scholar who said, we have the state stepping in for Yahweh Yahweh, being the Hebrew term for God. The state is stepping in for Yahweh and, and other, other observers of our culture of said, you know, even Christians today easily are, are functional atheist.

3 (18m 26s):
So you have, hyperindividualism a centralized government. And one of the results of that is that institutions in the middle have been weakened. I mean, across the street here is the American Legion. Okay. And what does the American Legion do? It's a place where veterans can come. Dr. Gary is a veteran is a member of the American Legion and they come and they share their life events, big things, and small things.

3 (18m 56s):
They socialize with one another. Yeah, they have a beer and they also reinforce one another in a, in a relatively safe, welcoming place. That's a mediating institution. The rotary Kawanis lions. Those are mediating institutions. The family, the nuclear family is a mediating institution. And long answer to your question that local congregation is a mediating institution. It's where an individual can go with his or her wants needs, joys, hopes, problems, you name it can go and learn how to live in this impersonal, highly individualized dependent upon the impersonal government world.

3 (19m 45s):
Back in Christian America. You didn't need that so much. So now when I talk, especially in front of pastors, it kind of look at me like, Hmm, well, of course the congregation is where you gather around the word and sacrament says that has not changed, but what we have now in the 21st century, which we didn't have in quote unquote, Christian America, is this, this opportunity for the church to be a welcoming place where it says, Hey, here are your welcome.

3 (20m 15s):
This is special. Come as you are, receive the love of God in Jesus and the love of everyone else and learn with us how to live faithful lives in this impersonal often hostile culture. So that's a long answer to your question, but this is a tremendous opportunity. And Peter wrote to congregations throughout Asia minor, which we today called Turkey. And they were all mediating institutions.

3 (20m 45s):
You can read those hundred and five verses through the lens of mediating institution, and you see what he's doing. He's telling them how to live as God's beloved hope, filled people in a very hostile culture.

Elizabeth Pittman (20m 59s):
So what I'm hearing you saying is that in our culture today, post-Christian America troubled times, it's time for the church to really step up and reclaim its role as a mediating institution, correct?

3 (21m 14s):
Absolutely. Yes. So how can we do that? Yes, absolutely. And that is not to the neglect of word sacrament, faithful ministry. And the way we can do that, I think one thing is for pastors and teachers, deaconesses and other church workers to, to intentionally show how we live in a change public culture.

3 (21m 44s):
So historically the Lutheran church, Missouri Senate is especially emphasize the first three commandments the first table about God. Okay. And again, in Christian culture and Christian America, you know, commandments for, and I am the ones about our duty to other people. They were important and they were taught, but the public culture, wasn't antithetical to commandments four through 10. Now we have to teach them and we have to teach what it means to honor parents and authorities, what it means to promote life.

3 (22m 20s):
The fifth commandment, what the sanctity of marriage and change living means the six commandment seventh commandment, the sacredness of a private property, eighth commandment reputation in this world of social media, where you can tear somebody down. These are things that we need to intentionally as pastors, teachers, and other church workers teach our people being a mediating institution. I think also involves programmatic elements.

3 (22m 50s):
A congregation will in some way, have some kind of program that helps people navigate life in this world. You know, it might be a host of an AA group. It might be that you participate in meals on wheels. It could be anything in the local congregation. And leadership has to decide what to do that. But I think it also has a programmatic element, but we've, we've, we raise up in our time. Now the second table of the law, as, as important as the first today table, Jesus says Matthew 22, you know, love thy neighbor as thyself.

3 (23m 34s):
And that, and the first table of the law are the sum of all the commandments.

Elizabeth Pittman (23m 38s):
So if we have our congregations intentionally reclaiming their role as a mediating institution, that's one side, how do we stress the importance of attending church on a regular basis to the people in the pews? Why is that important?

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (23m 57s):
Well, that's a really great question. And when we come out of COVID, whatever coming out is going to mean, it's something that we're going to have to wrestle with in the past. We could say you come to church to hear the word of God. Jesus says he, that is of God here with God's words, either for hear them. Not because you are not of God, please indulge my King James memory.

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (24m 28s):
You don't have to go to church anymore to hear the word of God. One of the things that COVID has taught us is that I can sit here in my basement and stream the Sunday service and I get the word of God. So, so no longer can we say, well, you're not coming to church. You're not hearing the word of God that doesn't work anymore. And, and, and let me tip my hat to all that the pastors and so many others in CPH is doing this. Your broad podcast here is proof are doing to utilize this modern technology in this time of crisis, we're being pushed 15 years into the future making progress that we would not have made otherwise.

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (25m 13s):
However, when we come out on the other side, what is the compelling reason for somebody to actually get up and go physically to the church? Now we said before that the church still is an institution. And that's important. One of the concerns that I have as a pastor is are these institutions going to come out of COVID strong? The indications are that we're going to have a lot of congregations. And I can't quantify a lot that will close because they were weak going in and they don't have the wherewithal to even strong.

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (25m 50s):
Congregations are taking a hit, no doubt about that. The center, which has been blessed to be in a good financial position, that's taken a hit. It's going to be okay, but this is a hit. So the institution has to be strong post COVID. I think a lot of that work has to happen right now. You need people to come physically. You need people to come and socialize with one another, encourage one another. You need people to contribute.

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (26m 20s):
I don't need to have a dime to tell somebody about Jesus, but as an institution, you have to have money. The mission is in the margins. So I think the great challenge that we're all going to face is what is the compelling reason to come to church? When I can get the word online, I don't have the silver bullet answer, but I do know that one component of it is this the institutional church, a local congregation.

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (26m 55s):
And when I talk about church now in this podcast, I'm talking local congregation, not the denomination, not the big judicatory, I'm talking the local congregation. That has to be a qualitatively different place than any other association people have during the week. I could go over to the American Legion on Friday and buy some fish and have a beer. Okay, fine. Tons of people. Do you remember that from growing up right across the street? Tons of people do, but what is different about the church?

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (27m 31s):
Why is that different than any other association a person has during the week? Why are its values different? How are the people different? What is so compelling about this group of people called the local congregation that no, I really want to go. I think that's where the answer is. Now. There's a New Testament scholar, John Barkley, and he wrote about st. Paul, a very scholarly book. It's about 600 pages long. It's a great book.

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (28m 1s):
But what he says is that St. Paul founded his congregations to be different, different than anything else that people experienced in life. And that's what the gospel is. You don't experience the gospel at the American Legion or the VFW or the rotary. I mean, you'll deal with Christians, but, but the congregation that is really centered around the gospel around forgiveness, around love, around, and Peter just like St.

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (28m 33s):
Paul shows that these mediating institutions in Asia minor, these congregations are compelling places to come first, Peter four, seven, two talks about the life of the congregation. And it's positive of not being, which is what we want in our churches

Elizabeth Pittman (28m 51s):
And with all of the chaos and the uncertainty and the unrest that we're all singing outside of the church, whether that be on the news online in the workplace to have that church be that place of hope and love and welcoming. That's a compelling reason to have people come because we need that. It's also a place where the relationship matters. We did an episode earlier with Robert, Reverend Mark Kiessling and we talked a lot about the importance of relationships for keeping our young people connected to the church for a long term.

Elizabeth Pittman (29m 33s):
And I suspect that that need for relationship doesn't and that applies to all of us, no matter our age, we need the relationship that we get in the church, more than many other things that we can grab, just randomly surfing the internet. And you don't it's, it's great to have the online worship service availability, but you miss out on that one on one relationship.

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (29m 55s):
Yeah, that that's correct. Let me give you a couple of cultural assumptions that are, are blinding us to what's going on in first, Peter and that are hindering the relationships that you just well-described. I have some times in my sermons as the crowd, this, and I'll set it up, I'll say, you know, I could preach on and on and on, but there was a football game today and you want to get there.

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (30m 28s):
So, so let's see if you get these two answers, right? I'll let you go early. I'll cut. The sermon short. The first question is, does God judge sinners according to their works? Well, Lutherans do not react insurance, but eventually, I get them to react. I said, does God judge centers, according to their works bowls, souls shake their heads. No, I said, Oh man. Yes, God does judge sinners.

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (30m 58s):
According to their works. First Peter one 17, second Corinthians five, 10. It's all over the Bible. God judges, sinners, according to their works. Okay. I think that in Christian America, a lot of people forgot that because we learned that we're saved by faith. Not by works. So getting back to my question to a congregation, I said, okay, you missed that one, but let, let me give you a chance to redeem yourself with question number two, question number two.

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (31m 37s):
Is, are you saved by good works? Well, now they're lubricated next shake. No, no, no, no, no. And I said, Oh man, you're going to miss the football game because the answer is, yes, you are saved by good works. Jesus' good works. Not your own one. He says, thy works, not mine. Oh, Christ speak gladness to the heart. They told me all is done. They did my fear depart to whom saved the who can stay alone for Senator and Lord, shall I?

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (32m 10s):
Fleet and Augsburg confession, article five says the gospel teaches us that we have a gracious God, not by our merits, but by the merit of Christ when we believe this. So what's gone on and these, these are were trick questions, I guess, but they're revealing. What's going on is in Christian America. We knew the short hand we knew. Yeah. We're not saved by good works. We're saved through faith in Jesus today. Don't know the short hand think of a balance.

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (32m 44s):
One of the nice things about being retired from the seminary is I don't have to read financial statements and worry about where the next dollars are going to come from. Okay. But a of a financial statement has line items in Christian America. We didn't have to read all the line items because we knew what the bottom line was today. People. And that's a lot of people in the church don't know how we get to the bottom line.

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (33m 16s):
And the bottom line we don't get to the bottom. The bottom line is we are saved through faith in Christ and in his merits. But to get there, we have to understand that sin is sin and God's judgment is God's judgment. And each one of us is responsible for our salvation. That's another question that I ask people and Whoa, their eye brows go up. Each of us is responsible for our salvation. The problem is we can't pull it off by ourselves because we're fatally, flawed individuals, flood original sin.

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (33m 52s):
We commit our actual sentence. So going through the line items, so use that accounting image will take us in a new way to the bottom line. We're saved through grace through, through faith in the grace of God. That's given to us. Now, this is going to make us view the world differently. The studies by the Barna group and others indicate that people think Christians are judgmental.

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (34m 24s):
And a lot of us, when we understand that we're judged by our works and our works, don't cut it with God. That's going to take a lot of our holier than now off of us, St. Peter encouraged his, his listeners. And there there's a question that you can push me on st. Peter encouraged his listeners to be out in the community with good works, but to always live their lives in the fear of God who judges each one impartially, according to his works chapter one, verse 17.

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (35m 1s):
So that's the first part of, of relationships know that you are being judged according to your works. And that doesn't promise to be good. Therefore, the only thing we have is Jesus. I blood and righteousness, I beauty are my glorious stress.

Elizabeth Pittman (35m 19s):
Would you like to continue on assumptions or would you like me to ask the question that you just teed up? Okay.

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (35m 26s):
Ask the question that I just teed up.

Elizabeth Pittman (35m 29s):
You're such an easy guest. So what do you mean by listeners? When you talk about the people that were listening to what Peter was saying,

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (35m 40s):
I was an easy father to, well, we won't go there. Well, this is another assumption that is, is weakening us again. The devil is in the details. Scholars have estimated that only 10 to 15% of the population in the first century, Roman empire could read to repeat that only 10 to 15% of people in the Roman empire could read.

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (36m 11s):
We have a lot of literature from Greece and Rome. In fact, I think we have more literature from that ancient society by far than any other civilization, but that comes from the, the literate people, most people, and most of the early Christians could not read or write. I think most of the apostles could not read or write. I would not be surprised if Saint Peter himself could not read or write.

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (36m 44s):
He did author the epistle and no doubts about that. But whether he was literate or not acts chapter four, verse 13, the religious establishment are amazed at how eloquent and powerful the disciples were in their speech because they hadn't gone to school. The Greek word is I grabbed my toy. They weren't at that school. So how did they learn about Jesus?

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (37m 20s):
Well, let's go back. We're talking about churches in Asia, minor synagogues in Asia minor. And some of those synagogue members went down to Jerusalem for Pentecost. And people traveled in those days a lot, a lot more than we might assume now travel was slower, but it was common and went down and they saw Pentecost. They heard Peter preach and they returned home and they told their synagogue, Whoa.

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (37m 52s):
You know, we heard that the Messiah has come Jesus of Nazareth. Remember in acts chapter 23 is called. The Christians are called the sect of the Nazarenes. And so they told the story and they related the story to old Testament texts, which is a tee up for another question about the old and the new Testament. Okay. But they went back and they told what they had heard. Most of them couldn't read.

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (38m 24s):
I mean, they, they, they had a functional literacy. They could go to the marketplace and see the fish sign and see the store that had some sign for bread. And they had their version of Starbucks and they could make out those sides, but they didn't read and write the way we do. So how did they, how did they learn the faith? Romans 10:17 faith comes by hearing. Literally faith comes by hearing.

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (38m 55s):
They didn't read it. And one of the ways that we have lost vitality in the church today is thinking that the word of God is mainly a printed book that we put on the shelf. If we're not reading it, you know, that that came centuries later. The vitality of the word of God is that it is spoken. It's, it's a living voice, the Viva Vox, Avon Gailey, the living voice of, of teh Gospel and for the church to have vitality today, there are a number of things that are important, but one is for more and more of us get scripture passages into our head, into our hearts, into our memories.

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (39m 49s):
And yes, pull the Bible off the shelf, read it, study it, learn it. But the main thing is to have it become part of our DNA. And that's where the work of the Holy spirit. He does that through the word. So let me give you two scenarios. We have two church members. The first church member is one that, you know, reads marks learn, learns. And as the colleague says, inwardly digest the scriptures in head in heart, in memory.

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (40m 21s):
And that person is at work. And some conversation leads to an opportunity to win. You know, what a gentle sharing of the faith, that person is prepared at that unexpected moment to say why church and why Jesus matters to him or to her first, Peter three 15, always be prepared to give an account for the hope that is in you. And so the person that that has faith comes by hearing has the word in head, heart and memory is able to give a witness in that unexpected situation scenario.

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (41m 5s):
Somebody thinks that the word of God is just the Bible. I mean, if there's got any preachers listening, you can try this sometime with a Bible class or, or, or, or sermon ask people to show you the word of God. Again, this is a deal kind of a tricky question. You know, where's the word of God, the word of God, I've done this. And eventually the people pull up Bible out of the Pew rack and show it to you. You explain?

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (41m 36s):
Yeah. Okay. But no, that's just the bound word of God. So we've got the second person that thinks that the word of God is simply that bound volume that sits on a shelf unless we once in a while read it. And that person <inaudible>, it comes into a witnessing opportunity. And so a coworker says, you know, you know, I don't go to church because of this, that, or whatever, or what is it about you, Christians you're da whatever. And, and, and this person, the second scenario is this person is going to have to say, well, listen, let me research that.

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (42m 11s):
And I'll get back to you. Or I'll ask my pastor this regarding the Bible as a research value. Okay. Which one of those two scenarios is going to be the most credible the church today? I think generally thinks that the word of God is found in that Bible, but we have a prayer that says that I word may not be bound, but be preached to the joy and edifying of Christ's Holy people.

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (42m 45s):
So this is an assumption that we have today that just does not fit the first century. They couldn't read. They did not have Bibles. Like we have faith came by hearing.

Elizabeth Pittman (42m 58s):
I think he just made a compelling case for the importance of memory work. In addition to being intentional about how we approach our study of the Bible. I know after you and your colleagues started doing the gospel of Mark, I made it a point to more, more often listen to the Bible readings from my devotions on the app and have it read to me versus straight up reading, because you do hear things differently when you listen. So thanks for that.

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (43m 28s):
So you're welcome. I didn't really answer the question about Peter's listeners and the answer is that they didn't get the epistle and read it. Somebody probably in many cases, Silas or Sylvania has read the letter to the assembled congregation and they heard it. They heard it, they didn't have copies to read stylist and some literate people would have had copies made, but most people just heard it.

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (44m 5s):
So that's why I referred to them as Peter's listeners.

Elizabeth Pittman (44m 9s):
I think we could probably cover quite a bit more. And having heard you talk before, I know that you could keep talking for hours and hours, but we may have to save that for a part two. As I look at some notes, you gave me, you wanted me to end with a, a grand ovation, you for our listeners. He asked me to reference that he was the greatest and most generous and wonderful OPA and dad in the universe.

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (44m 39s):
Yeah. I'm losing it,

Elizabeth Pittman (44m 42s):
My job being to keep him humble. I don't know, but, but thanks for joining us today and to talk a little bit about what we can learn from first Peter and how we can kind of rethink some of the things that we experience in the world today. Do you have any final thoughts for us before we go?

Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer (45m 6s):
Well, it was my pleasure to be with you, and I'm glad you took your dad to work on this day. And a final thought is, Hey, let's not grieve what we've lost in church life or in  American life. If we really believe that Jesus is the Lord of the church that he's alive, he's guiding us through this time. And so as seminary students have known for many years, Opa says it is a great time to be the church.

Elizabeth Pittman (45m 33s):
It is a great time to be the church. Thanks again, OPA for being with us and listeners. We'll catch you next time.