From Atheist to Christian at Yale - Dr. Paul Lim

[Music] had lunch outside of here actually so I had a graduate student who was from Ottawa no from Toronto then are you sayin oh not Toronto Toronto and he told me about this mythic food called poutine I don't even know how to pronounce it right and that there's a lot of echo back and forth can you hear me okay without right so and by the gracious gracious invitation of one of the persons here in this conference we went out walked around Parliament Hill and took some pictures and it took me to this smoked something like poutine place and really absolutely delectable french fries on and on top of that there is Korean barbecue so I had a Korean that I'm Korean and and Canadian experience and and I looked at the menu I made a mistake of looking at the menu kind of thing it was 1,450 calories so I didn't have breakfast I had lunch I doubt I'll have dinner or so so thanks again for coming back to this afternoon for those of you who weren't here last night my my my day job where my job is I teach at Vanderbilt University in Nashville and the connection between auto and Nashville is Mike Fisher so the Ottawa Senators - volt Reds guy and so I see my role as an academic missionary and I'll get to share a little bit more fully about that so I think the title of this talk is from atheist to Christian at Yale so I'd like to talk about in four different segments about my life journey and how God has kind of gotten a hold of me and taking me to a place that I never ever imagined would be where I am standing in front of you today if I had in my own way I doubt I would a left South Korea if I had in my own way I would have become someone definitely other than a professor in a secular University in the history religious studies and Divinity School but anyway so for segments ones are kind of their magnetic devices I suppose they all start with I incarceration immigration identification and inquiry incarceration so my major life events happened in six year intervals age nine age 15 age 21 at age nine when I was in grade 3 I was a happy-go-lucky boy and I came home one night and one afternoon and my mom said you know your dad won't be home tonight and so I said okay and he was he was entrepreneur but also I knew that he has some political connections and and he was doing things that I wasn't always aware of next day he didn't come home the following day he didn't come home and my mom told us that that our dad was in prison and he was incarcerated under some trumped-up charges and that we don't know when he was coming home so I was never nurtured in a Christian home as far as I could tell that I didn't really have any religion I think a lot of Westerners assume that if you're from Korea or aged particularly Korea you must be there confusion of Buddhists they are I mean preponderant number of people like that but and there are also people who are non-religious and I think ours was one of them occasionally we would have you know church attendance and things up there so there are more like a Calandra called piety rather than anything that was meaningful and substantial so but so think about when you were nine and I saw that there was one young lady who was nine years old and so I was that young lady's age when my father was thrown into prison and one thing that happened to me and I don't because nobody ever really told me about God no one really kind of actually taught me about justice per se anywhere civics and ethics and such but I remember this very distinct moment saying to God God if you're around please send my dad home and I don't know it was some kind of extemporaneous prayer or something like that no one really taught me anything about prayer but just and that was kind of pleading or plea bargaining and then that went on for awhile and then at the end of the particular segment in my life I was basically figuratively speaking shaking my fist at God and saying you can't be real you cannot possibly exist because he threw my dad into prison and threw away the key so to make a long story short my father was released from prison three years later so we were I was in grade six and the next three years are pretty much infernal very hellish so the Korean government made it very difficult for us to live in Korea so although we didn't have the sort of a a Asylum status but we ended up in the United States and I left Korea thinking that okay this is a country though is my putative motherland but it has done nothing less than just nearly destroy my life so I was quite excited about coming to America at age 15 so incarceration and immigration so coming to America I had lots of expectations of the good life that will be awaiting me when I came to the States and as a story would as fate would have it or Providence would have it we ended up at least for the first seven days of our stay in America in Los Angeles my uncle had lived out in Southern California and he took us to Disneyland and Magic Mountain is that what it's called and then was SeaWorld and things like that Queen Elizabeth you know that big kind of ship and so everything about my first seven days of stay was wonderful and that seemed to be a place where you didn't have to speak English much and then we ended up in Philadelphia where my aunt my mom's older sister had lived and my uncle had determined that I actually would be better off I was a ninth grader your grade 9 that I would be better off going to an ESL program but this particular year said ESL program was actually held in the same place as a local elementary school and in grade 9 I was exactly this height and I was kind of I was 15 and and I was deeply mortified about just going to school with at an elementary school right I mean because I it was just a period of trying to figure out who the heck I was right I mean I was kind of you're you're beginning to discover your own kind of sexuality you discover girls and guys and but you know you discover a lot of things about yourself and desires misdirected rightly kind of born and so on and so forth and so my high school years were absolutely miserable it was terrible and we were instead of there weren't that many Koreans but my parents decided to go to church because so often as you perhaps know some immigrants when they come they may not have been religious before but they find the sort of local ethnic Enclave and then in oftentimes religious organizations where their mosques or temples or churches play their role of kind of helping you to be much more integrated so my parents have started to go to church I need nothing about the church I thought I'll give it a go so Friday nights I would have these kind of meetings of Friday night Bible studies and the youth pastor basically called in triple-b BBB right so we had a Bible study and then we'll go to Burger King and then we go bowling and you know it's wonderful if done rightly but I tend to be a very outgoing guy but then something happened to my personality when I came to America like I was really happy go lucky guy I was athletic and I was if I can just be yeah I mean I thought people liked me I like them there is you know I never really felt like skeptical about my own ability relate with people or befriend others but coming to America basically just it just was a traumatic experience but what was really interesting or more traumatic yet was my going to church I felt the sense of alienation even moreso so the Bible study you know okay no one system with you and the Bible study that's okay that's alright I mean it's not ideal and some of your and you finished you please listen up because then we build a Burger King and and I don't know what it was I mean so I thought like their other Korean kids that they would at least talk to me but they're mostly second generation Korean Americans so they didn't speak much Korean and I wasn't wearing the right clothes I certainly didn't speak the language that I have the right haircut I didn't play the right sport whatever so I wasn't part of the cool crowd I was part of the looser crowd right so hardly anyone would sit with me at Burger King but the worst of all experience and this is before Robert Putnam wrote this book called Bowling Alone it was two ball alone and one good thing was you have the whole alley to me sometimes people join you but then a lot of times I'll find myself bowling alone and I was always pray that it'll be an even number of kids so that somebody will join me but sometimes when we had odd number of kids I'll be bowling by myself and one could one thing I could never figure out why wouldn't this white up pardon my french why the hell wouldn't a youth pastor actually come over and pull with me occasionally how I find myself bowling alone a lot right and this is what I'm getting it you see a lot of times we get so heady and I'll tell you about my own life I became a very heavy person I did all the right degrees and went to all the right schools and I teach all day right right right places but more often than not people's problems with Christianity has something to do with the heady issues an intellectual hang-ups and so on but more often than not is the stories of heard the stories of rejection stories of people saying we're supposed to embody the gospel in a more compelling and endearing way they end up doing the very opposite so think about the sense of alienation and rejection you would feel if you go to a triple beefing bible-study Burger King and bowling and you are basically alone the whole time so by the time I was accepted to Yale University and we were driving up from Wilmington Delaware to New Haven Connecticut and my mom had become sort of very excited as a Christian so she read the entire book of Proverbs to me she said you know I want you to gain the Solomonic wisdom and I hope you become a really and then you're going to another nation's finest university I hope you gain that sense of wisdom and from God was i listening absolutely not I was so excited about two things one that I was getting the heck away from the church that that youth group experience really was absolutely the last thing I wanted from the church and until I graduated I really didn't have any any friends and well there was one guy that I kind of got to be friends with because the one that I would after you know the bowling and he and I will go and smoke cigarettes and have a couple of beers that became my friend and there was the only friend I had I mean so think about the irony of what was happening right with a place that you're supposed to find meaningful friendship in Jesus I don't know about the culture of Canadian Christianity but in American Christianity if you're smoking and drinking after your youth group you're not usually looked upon as a paragon of Christian virtue are you so there was me I go to university and I was so excited I was leaving and then so excited that I was gonna plunge headlong into this intellectual pursuit of the good life and this great education so my mom read the entire book of Proverbs and my dad is a cannot laconic man he doesn't say much and maybe the political prisoner experience had kind of made him a lot more reserved he didn't say anything the whole Drive and he's ready to drop me off and then he said to me son I just have a few words to say to you and I said okay and he goes you're at university or your man when it says you can do whatever you want please don't do drugs think about two very very contrast if counsel mom is praying that I'll become like Solomon or you know gain a heart of wisdom my dad says follow any kind of hedonistic desire you want just don't do drugs okay because he he thought like your coming-of-age you're now coming to be in university and I think in Korea much more so when you go to university you're you're supposed to take a lot more ownership of your life and a lot of things that you do and this is what he thought was the best kind of advice he could offer me so I guess whose counsel I took more seriously mom or dad I'm a lot closer to my mom but at that point in my life I took my fatherly counsel much more seriously furthermore Yale as as well and is one of the best universities in the world and they have some of the best professors and one of the requirements for all year Li's is that you take some humanities classes and so I was talking to some of my friends and I play baseball when I was in college so and and throughout high school so one thing that helped my acclimation to life in America was playing baseball so play baseball in Korea play baseball in high school play baseball in college and that really helped me to kind of create my sense of selfhood there was kind of you know in Contra distinction to some of my other friends so my church friends they were cool and they drove nice cars and they spoke English but and they look down on me and I'll kind of look down and they're like oh but you don't really play sports and that's when I got to college I was having a great time and some of these professors were you know people from who took their degrees from Harvard Yale Princeton Cambridge Oxford you know whatever right and they and there is one particular New Testament professor who basically said you know what the Bible is a wonderful book but it's really not the kind of truth that you want to kind of hang your life on and you would talk about the errors and manuscript issues and and what do I know I was an eighteen year old guy we're just taking this religious studies class as a second semester freshman and bought that hook line & sinker why two things I think as I look back one there is an ostensible real presence of authority the professor was gray hair kind of old kind of guy with a tweed jacket and had a kind of right cadence of speech and had a right pedigree and he was after all teaching at one of my you know major vaunted universities and he was pontificating saying that the Bible is a helpful cultural document but you know if you really know the truth that actually you know that's not true but furthermore there is also the desire of the heart for me to want to walk away from anything that the Bible had to say two things about that one because of my experience with some of my youth group friends were friends in scarecrows were alleged friends were people that I hear space with for every Friday night on Sunday I didn't like them they certainly didn't like me if this is a Christianity so I want to dive my personal agenda to reject Christianity or walk away from it and also there is a thing called the lifestyle choices that I was pursuing that if I understand anything about Christianity that I shouldn't be doing I don't know about you but at least for me at that time in my life people were just you know objects of conquest right life was about conquest I gotta go get a degree so get something get a job get get hammered go get du du-de get get this get this get that so is it pathway toward conquest but somehow I understood it as I was you know going to church so my mom said you know what you don't have to do whatever but she always remembered this is a day I was a freshman in 1986 this is the days without and before blackberry or snapchat or it was rotary phones you remember that was rotary phones and so I talked to my mom once a week she never asked me like how I was doing in school she would ask me did you go to church and for whatever reason I'm because my mom had a very difficult kind of marriage and there was a lot of issues of domestic you know whatever and so I didn't I loathe my dad loved my mom and I hated Christianity yet because my mom would ask me did you go to church I decided hung over that I was Sunday morning and I'm not answering like severely hungover I would go to the dining dining hall grab some food and hop on the shuttle bus they will take me to a Korean Church in New Haven there are a couple of reasons that I went one because of my mom - that's the only place you could get Korean food I would go there I remember this one sermon how odd this thing was / like so I go to this church and the pastor college Paris was preaching and I don't know how what possessed him to do it but he was doing some degree in Old Testament at Yale but he was preaching from guess what book in the Old Testament Song of Songs you know anything about song of son he was offering the sort of Bernardin kind of allegorical interpretation but I made a terrible mistake who actually reading the text I was like holy crap this is the Bible and imagine if your first entre point to secret scripture is a woman's breasts I was like this is a great book I'll say oh my god is this that the Holy Bible is I took I turned over is it is this Holy Bible and it went back to the song of something what about this book is holy I don't understand so in college I was genuine you're confused guy hedonistic to the core career is to the core and I just was really and I was excited about being there excited about being a baseball player I was excited about studying all of these things so I died I became an econ major did well love life and life was going just steadily on course until something happened my sister decided to get engaged to a guy who was in seminary and I was like what I mean like nothing could be harder to me than that like why would you ever want to marry somebody who was going into Christian ministry mind you I was going to church every Sunday in them know at night every two Sundays Driessen it wasn't like every Sunday thing but on on average I would go at least twice a month to get Korean food and because of my loving mother who would always ask me did you go to church and I don't know what it is but I could not lie to my mom I mean all I had to do is if I had to kind of as you know heart that was seared as with hot iron I could've just said yeah I went to church no I couldn't do that to her or just that mom on the other line was asking did you go to church so to satisfy her I would say yeah and I did go to church and and were so many times I'd be falling asleep and I wake up and then and out always so when I think about when I was in ministry for a little while I I think back on those days and I did preach a few sermons and a song of songs to see what kind of response I would get from the audience but you know so Yael was a very exciting time period my sister was getting engaged and one of the things that my mom asked me to do and if my dad had asked me if my sister had asked me I wouldn't have done it but my mom my mom said you know what could you go to this retreat that your brother-in-law to be he's gonna be speaking at I said what is that I I don't want to go to retreat and because his Christmas break I was gonna have a great time with some of my friends not my church friends but my other friends and you know and mom said you know this is gonna be held in the Poconos and you know I think he along with other people are organizing this college retreat I think you would and she said she said you don't have to go because of Jesus she said but do it for me and for the family your sister is about to marry a pastor and what what would how bad will look for our family if none of your sisters siblings actually believed in Jesus so here that very little to do with saving faith as an FAI th but it had everything to a saving face of the family FAC a so I I went to the retreat regretting like what am I doing here and everything about the retreat was terrible the food was bad like the kind of people that were there I don't like I don't want to happen but then I was training to be interesting as my brother-in-law was always asked me is everything okay so yeah right secretly I didn't like him and I was like why is my sister marrying this loser guy and and he said he was a medical doctor but he decided God called the ministry and I talked him is like why would you do that is that God call me and I remember telling him with this one one-word answer so like he says God Tommy and I said so and he looked at me and it was his and he stole married to my sister and is a great great guy and last evening of the retreat and I I was so ready to go home I said yeah this is it like you know everything I because I remember I did my duty right just I had to show up to the retreat mom said you don't have to do anything just go stay for the whole time I mean kind of minimal requirement right so I'm going there and then the last night of the retreat and I wish I mean I'm not making this up I'm just the whole thing sucked and the praise team was up here and they weren't like these two bands that were up here last night in today like really great there are a kind of a group of college you know pastors and seminarians mostly from the seminary that I handed up going to later on but anyway they were playing this song and I never heard the song before I had heard of Agustin because of you know see the Western Civ but I didn't really know about Augustine's conversion narrative so this is what happened they're saying this song I later on found out was written by and was Keith Green and I later on found out is from First Samuel it's the song that some of the older people here probably remember or recognize a song to obey is better than sacrifice I don't need your money I want your life bad you know what happened I'm sitting in the back row nothing was good about this retreat nothing about the musical aesthetics was pleasing to me I never heard this song before and guess what happened I began to sob something about that song to obey is better than sacrifice I don't need your money I want your life just spoke into my soul I just began bawling because a week before the retreat I told my sister something that that hurt her but was sincere of coming from me I said you know I don't know what you're doing marrying this loser guy but it's your life you're going to med school and you're gonna be here but you're gonna be married to this poor pastor I'm an econ major at Yale I'll make a lot of money after I'm done I'm gonna give you a lot of money to help your ministry right so that was just a week before any man tried to put yourself in that situation you're not introduced to christianity properly and you hear this song that was terrible but the words are such that to obey is better than sacrifice I don't need your money out on your life and guess what I had heard it as if it was God remember it was I don't need your money I want your life I didn't hear it as if the praise team member was speaking to me I heard it as it was God speaking to me and says I don't need your money I want your life and from age 9 until that moment I never cry I never cry because my dad if he doesn't hear and told me although he did teach me real men don't cry as I said oh yes sir I will not cry but at that moment in my life I just kind of it just all the defenses that I'd built up just broke down I didn't and I couldn't tell you so that's why I couldn't tell you what happened it wasn't by so I'm deal like to have a Calvinist but it wasn't by reading John Calvin it wasn't by reading anything of that sort of apologetic literature it was by listening to a song that I hadn't heard before and it was I and I still remember that experience was what really kind of turned me on to the gospel among other things one could say it was that experience that really basically converted me if you want to use the language conversion it wasn't so it might have been accumulative no I think was definitively that song those words that I heard as God was addressing me and then as I was crying I actually began to like like cry like I began okay and I don't you know and then my brother-in-law came over like rushed over or like are you okay and I said yeah I'm okay and I just like hugged him and said I'm really really sorry I'm really sorry because I hated you and I'm sorry that I and and I feel bad like if you fight if my brother-in-law said to me I would like punch him in the face of what did you say well he's like it's okay man it's okay and and and I told him you know I think it's God speaking to me and I didn't have the right language and and and I was done and then and then I remember that night at the end and I cried so much my eyes are like also I'm like I don't just I was a mess and I'm going to sleep that night and to kind of prominent emotions were one of joy and the other of confusion so if some of you are looking into Christianity I'm oh some of your like some of you would my experience of conversion was Joey and confusion I was like excited that I think God is because all my life since age 9 was trying to get to the next stage trying to get to the next stage trying to get to the next stage because the end will be better than where I am now that's what I was told right and that's and that I was running through and jumping through all these hoops and basically what I came to understand was God was saying you know you belong to me and and I guess is maybe conjecture but I began to think that it's okay there's a sense of joy and security it's almost as if God was saying I got you you don't have to try anymore but then I was confused because the question was now what like now what because if my friends in Alice here if I told my worry was okay I'm going to go back to University in a week and we're gonna talk about our winter like exploit and the highlight of my winter the highlight of my life does far was becoming a Christian and rather than getting excited I was deeply worried so I took the train for Wilmington Delaware to New Haven got off the train tip the cab and went back to my dorm room and and just to give you a sense of what my dorm room was like we are seven guys living together and we are what is called a kegerator you know what a kegerator is a refrigerator with a beer tab attached and you have a keg in the refrigerator all the time just the kind of very slim snapshot of what my life was well among other things we were like we love beer and so just that's what it were and we're always playing cards or backgammon and we had that we all came back and that night and we got some pizza and hanging out drinking beer and they were all talking about what happened during the winter break and there are seven of us but they're surface of other guys joined in so they were about twelve of us or so maybe thirteen and all going around talking about yeah I did this I did that and I got whatever and you know talking about what happened that will you know dream during the winter winter break came time for me and I was kind of you know just going circle and it's like I was trying to figure out okay look and I was actually praying Lord what should I say hey I was excited I wanted to tell my friends about what happened but I was worried that they wouldn't believe me I was worried that like you know you can't be a Christian because to be honest with you when I went to church I didn't tell my friends like because I do now go to get Korean food or because my mom was asking you know that really as we worry boys you go out often say like I want to study in the library something like that but now I have to really face the truth okay so guys are you know getting slightly inebriated but they're all having a great time and it came time for me so hey so they you know my last time being limp they they always called me lemons I blue what you do so you know I had a pretty good break you know and then I conveyed off I'm not mad I said something and then I said you know and and another thing is I became a Christian and it's almost like you know that the record is playing the key right stop the music stops is like but what you say and the one one of my friends mark turned to music what did you say I said I said what I said was I became a Christian and they all kind of stared at me and then one guy said to me yeah but you know you do everything kind of extreme anyways so it'll just but it'll be it's just passing phase and I remember saying yeah maybe but but I think it's kind of different and then II want to hear it and which is understandable response I mean cuz all having a good time and you don't wanna you don't wanna have some Christmas like yeah I became a Christian I like how are you gonna respond to a let's all bow our heads and pray I mean expected I'll likely respond so they're like okay whatever just don't and one guy said to me just make sure do everything in moderation don't go like overboard the irony is that every one of my friends go overboard every Thursday Friday Saturday night what do you mean don't go overboard I mean let's what United srmo but religion don't go overboard now please second semester junior year was my loneliest time people will be partying it up because I I had a cult I had to call it cold turkey because my life that was like this is not compatible with I'm not against people drinking this Christian not at all but like the way that I was imbibing was definitely not the way that would honor God and the kind of thoughts and behaviors and beliefs that I would have while drinking after you know that not good and I began to read a Bible and I did this is just my because he never happened before never happened since that one semester I read the Bibles of my brother-in-law gave me NIV this NIV student Bible I devoured that thing I read that Bible cover-to-cover seven times in one semester you know why because I was so lonely I think I want to know this god I I want to know about this guy I just want to know it's a read the Bible and okay read the Song of Songs but then as I read through those Old Testament weirder stories are popping up you know talking donkey and I was like how do we understand this and go through that you know and go through the Gospel of you know Matthew and then like the resurrection story was that was believable but then you know and I think the Matthews version were like dead people walk around and and my question was like what happened to them do they stay alive what did they experience the second death I don't know if a lot of questions arose from me so 7 times reading the Bible answered a lot I mean it's just kind of a seeping into my being because if you read any book 7 times you're gonna start to kind of believe in and then and I'm not saying that some kind of you know whatever induced kind of a mass hysteria or anything like that but I I began to believe in the person behind the Bible said okay he must be real but I had a lot of questions like but but you know like so what did i do i that was about to finish with my econ major so i I did philosophy as my second major philosophy of religion in particular and one of the courses that I took then that really rocked my world was a course called divine sovereignty and human self-assertion as part of religious studies and I think one of the reasons why I'm doing what I'm doing being kind of in some ways kind of lonely as an evangelical scholar teaching at a secular University is because there weren't that many Christian professors who are what I would call out Christians will see a Gamow Christian you can ask me questions I think there were Christian professors at Yale as there are many other universities like Universiade WA and you know other places but they may not feel comfortable coming out of the closet or whatever and I remember doing taking that class and reading this one book I know the his name was mentioned earlier this morning søren kierkegaard he wrote this book called fear and trembling it's a story of the akhada right it's the story of Abraham being called to sacrifice his one and only son Isaac and again that book buyer car just rocked my world as a woe and I wrote my senior thesis on that book and I recently have some class of 90 so it was I found that paper that was about 40 page paper and I was like oh and it was one of my files and I said because remember that's done before like floppy discus and all that it was hard so I found a hard copy and I was like wow that's what I used to think about the Lauren and I was like I can't believe I got this good oh great I was not that great but nevertheless so I think loving God with my mind was one of the new emmos that I began to have so I began cuz God answered a lot of questions of my heart that I began to understand a little bit better about the Odyssey although why my dad was incarcerated why our family had to suffer that shame and division and move from two-story home to my mom's friend's basement with no bathroom I still didn't quite understand all the thearc old issues but what began to emerge from me was the answer in the person of Jesus Christ and I think the more I think about God in Christ the more I get shivers because I mean I I was like when I think about the immensity of our universe and cosmos I think of those song by Pink Floyd is there anybody out there is there anybody out there and that's a haunting question that could leave you even more vulnerable and lonely because in that immensity of our universe is there anybody there so for me to answer that particular question has to be for me grounded in the person and work of Jesus Christ and then I began to have some comfort so but by the time I was done with my university career I knew that Jesus was my Lord and my god and I knew that my life was turned around lonely though I was confused though I was so if somebody were to say if you become a Christian your loneliness will go away and you will have clarity for some is true I think me that wasn't true I was even lonelier because though guys are you so hung hang around with him girls are you saying around they basically because we weren't doing the same thing I wasn't doing the same and so left University went down in New York City took a job and and did corporate finance and I was starting to wax and wane in my Christian commitment and my sister had gotten in contact with one of her friends who was serving at this Korean Presbyterian Church in Flushing and she signed me up as a youth group teacher she said knowing you you go to this city of New York you're gonna you old habits will come out you're gonna party you're gonna go clubbing you're gonna drink you're gonna do this and that and you're gonna walk away from Jesus I know you so I never had that opportunity I just never so I got a and you know one thing that happened was in this particular church there are a lot of kids about 15 16 I came to America when I was 1516 they were often in trouble with the law I still remember this one guy I mean I don't know why I did it I think he told me later on that he did it to impress girls he actually brought a gun to church he was part of this kind of Chinatown gang and and it's like hey mister come here and he was hey Paul come here I want to show you something I said what is that and he goes hey and then he was it it's a corner I'm gonna be so shocked it was like what what are you doing and and it's being involved with because they somehow like me I was not dating anybody I had a pretty good income so a lot of these guys would come out and we'll go to like Smith & Wollensky or some like nice steak houses and I would they would I think they kind of took advantage of me but it's okay but I was gonna I need so I I hung out with these guys but then I realized and this is what the youth pastor said is a very conservative Presbyterian man and he said you know what mr. Lim I know you have a lot you have good good income but I also know that you went to Yale and study philosophy religion so I don't really trust you so don't teach them the Bible just play with them so I was a guy who has a money and who is some athletic ability he goes I don't really trust your theology so what's gonna just go play with them buy them lunch and dinner but there will be a role that is really needed in our church right now I said okay I'll be that guy so one thing that happened was while I study philosophy of religion but that didn't really answer a lot of the Bible questions that I had so I read the Bible seven times on eight or nine times since then I still had a lot of questions and I was about to go to law school but I remember telling my parents because I had this desire and I remember talking to my brother-in-law and that was a real shock to everybody because when I told my brother-in-law that I actually was thinking about going to seminary to study the Bible just for a little bit and afterward I'll go to look law school my brother in law was really shocked he's like what you want to study I said yeah I just just a little bit I mean I'm not and remember telling I'm not gonna be pastor like you but you know better than the head and but I just ought to go study your Bible a little bit and so I did I went to seminary to study the Bible and I really was fully intent on going to law school afterward and go be a corporate lawyer because as an immigrant family my parents said you know you got to make a lot of money and you know be comfortable and you know live in Long Island and you know have a Beemer and have a couple of kids and couple of dogs and a cat and your life is great you made it in in America and I remember my dad saying to me and it's kind of extreme guys like you know like you know those like like blood promise it's like swear with your blood that you're gonna go to law school I said what I'm not gonna do that like are you serious about that because he goes I know you do everything in Xtreme I said what's look who's speaking here I'll you want me to like and he says it doesn't hurt that much just do it it's okay so I sign with my legacy I'm gonna go to law school and my dad's like okay you better do that now go to seminary God got a hold on me more questions about the Bible arose and theology but it wasn't a question again they were not defeated kind of questions I was like I want to know more I want to know more and the next thing I knew my professors at seminary at biblical seminary they were saying you know I three we think that you really have this intellectual curiosity and the right accoutrements that we think you should go study and get your PhD and come back and teach with us and I never thought about that and I remember telling my dad you know I think I'm and he was like yeah when I knew that when I heard that you're going to seminary I knew that you're lost forever because as far as he was concerned I was a lost cause you know he thought I was doing everything in Xtreme for him Christianity is opiate of the masses my mom's a devoted Christian my dad is not and so and so to fast-forward a little bit because I have not a lot of time that's supposed to last night when I had plenty of time so the experience of you know that that seminary so incarceration immigration and identification that I there is somebody would identify with me and then I went to law not law school or grad school and when I was finishing up I I was at Cambridge in 2001 I thought were gonna go to India and the Lord closed that door and the door was opened up at a school that I and he heard heard of and had a lot of respect for Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary in Boston so I began my kind of journey there and that is the sort of an inquiry for me I think I have a lot of questions about the Christian faith but it's not the sort of questions that would be like yeah I don't believe this anymore I come to realize at least at Vanderbilt where I teach a lot of students were basically I need a lot of them come from the south and they have questions about the Bible or Jesus or Christianity and oftentimes youth pastor will say things like don't ask those questions the ultimately unhelpful or something to that effect and I felt like you know I was thankfully surrounded by people who didn't say don't ask those questions they're like okay let's think about it together and wanted one of the persons was my brother who's an Old Testament professor and in Korea now and this is before he and his my sister left to go to South Africa for their for his PhDs stellenbosch and he said you know what Paul I know you have a lot of questions and they're they're great and he said my prayer for you that you'll be surrounded by people who will not say your questions are stupid and guess what I mean I became a professor I can ask all kinds of questions and I get paid putting good amount of money to raise these questions about the Christian faith and students who said you know doc tell him I also had the same question I said that's right let's think about that together and I often say you know what my journey as an academic my courses are never meant as a faith faith posture courses so I teach about history of Christianity and teach about currently I'm teaching a course on human rights in human trafficking remaking of a global Christianity and courses like that they're not meant as a faith posture course nor as a faith builder of course necessarily as a historian want to see this phenomenon since late Middle Ages - about early enlightenment period critically and and do the best you can and I always say look I'm a Christian that means all that I do and all that I am is as this kind of mode of Fidesz Korins intellect or faith seeking understanding I believe that God is I believe that God exists and we're trying to figure out the ways of God in history and I think for me in my life journey it's been great it's just there's types of inquiry that I have and I still have a lot of questions I think I'm sort of you know I'm really grateful to the Lord that I found my calling accidentally right because I so my wife and I and our son lived with freshmen for seven years at the Ndebele we started this kind of residential college system and so all these 18 year old kids come to Vanderbilt and saying I want to do this that I want to beat had and I have to say you know chillax you don't have to have everything figured out like why I mean because I don't look it wasn't until I was like 25 that I kind of figured out this may be what I want to do with my life and so often I think we're living with so much pressure so much pressure to make something in the world or be be counted for something bigger than yourself and for Christians I think the pressure is even greater for those of you are Christians because you feel like I got a I'm serving this mighty Lord and I want to make a difference in the world in in the kingdom of God but I think as a reformed person as a Calvinist you know what what I come to realize is that it's really not up to you God's got it covered and I regarded as a pure privilege to be playing for the team I mean what's the best NHL team right now Ottawa okay Ottawa Senators how many of you played hockey before I play hockey work okay would you regard it as a real privilege if the Ottawa Senators said can you be our starting like defenseman oh come on myself okay Toronto wouldn't Maple Leafs is that right okay if Toronto Maple Leafs called you can you be our starting defenseman would you not be excited absolutely and you know what the way that I see it is you know what what I do how I see my identity is you know God is the Celest that the best coach ever of hockey or whatever sport you like and God has called me would you like to play for my team I know I don't have what it takes to be on that team I don't yet God has calling me and you're not not only gonna be on the team you're gonna be starting you're gonna be starting and I will never criticize you I'll never make fun of you I'll never ridicule you but you got it brother and no consequence is gonna be asked you do best I got you covered you know what to me that is the joy of being a follower of Jesus being discovered by God coming to realize you know you don't have to jump through so many more hoops to be more acceptable to me or to be more righteous no no no no I think and for me I studying a lot and I guess that's been my my life's goal as an academic and all that right I mean win a book prize and major fellowships all of those things don't mean jack squat because in the end it is this awesome knowledge of knowing Jesus let me finish his illustration so I was invited to give a talk at at at London University and and I was doing some research my field of expertise is 17th century England so I was doing some archival work at the British Library and if you ever been to the but if you ever go to London stop by the British Library and you don't have to go in but you just go in walk up the steps and you will see this huge glass power of stats if you're like five stories high of stacks of all manuscripts and medieval books and so on it's like this tall and this thick and there our of them and I just stood there and I'm thinking like wow you know I had written a few you know a couple of books and editor you know one and all that like we're looking at this thing and now just like completely Pig Mead by the immensity of human knowledge and acquisition contain localized only in this small library the British Library but think about my own arrogance of thinking that I I knew what I was talking about you see God is much grander than that much deeper than that and yet he calls you you belong to me and I want to hang out with you in that journey of fellowship and discipleship may you find true joy that can only come from this God of love and truth and mercy let's pray together if that's okay nor I want to thank you I want to thank you that you are the God of our stories that you are the god of history but I want to encourage my brothers and sisters who are gathered here who have been found by you but I also want to pray especially for those who are outside looking in through their stories of hurt through their stories of betrayal or rejection or loneliness within the church that they may have felt like I don't want to be a part of this or maybe they have a lot of questions about Christian men and women behaving badly or the questions of evil in the world starting within our own hearts god I pray that you'll help all of us to find the truth in you because you will be the kind of God who will say go ahead ask me more questions having those questions can never be defeatist for you to walk away from me help us to experience you more deeply and more really in our earthly sojourn we thank you God in your name we pray amen thank you very much [Music] you

Channel: Dig And Delve

Views: 1,449,454

Rating: 4.8118677 out of 5

Keywords: Dig, and, Delve, 2017

Id: zJ9TfkdgeFc

Length: 48min 16sec (2896 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 24 2017