Purpose and the Image of God | Feat. Dutch Christian Psychologist Paul De-cock

We are beginning are new podcast series that sees us interview a variety of special guests that will be exploring some big and important topics!

Our first guest is Paul Ducock, a Dutch christian psychologist who works for an organisation called 'Keys.'

In this podcast we explore what it means to be made in the image of God, how that connects to our purpose and Ephesians 4:11 profound impact on all our lives.

If you want to understand the image of God, purpose, identity, giftings and why you think the way that you do... this is the podcast for you.

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Wildfire podcast is an extension of Wildfire, which has a focus of igniting men and women of God into a deeper discipleship with Christ, instilling people with a passion to radically and relentlessly pursue Christ wherever that leads.

That God's truth will spread like a wildfire.

Hello, Paul, how is it going?

It's going well.

Yeah, good, good, good.

Very exciting to be here.

You're excited, I'm excited.

So, well, I should say, welcome back to another podcast.

I've just bypassed the audience, but that's because I am so excited.

I was actually sent at you before I hit record about you're our first real official guest, and you're the first guest of this new interview series that we're embarking on.

I feel very honored.

You're forced, you've been forced.

I know, I know, I know.

It's like playing like this, but yes, I feel honored.

It's great to be part of this at the very start.

It's fun.

Yeah, yeah, it's exciting.

So we're starting a new interview series where we're going to take a series of special guests like yourself, and we're going to be talking about specific things, such as what does it mean to be a young leader?

What does it mean to be a part of a church, amongst many other things?

And we've got special guests coming in, pastors, teachers, people of different professions.

So on that topic, what about yourself?

Who are you?

Tell the audience a bit about yourself.

All right.

Okay.

Well, my name is Paul.

I was, I'm a Dutchman.

So I was born and raised in Holland.

Moved here in 98, got married to a dairy girl.

And so I've been doing a lot of work in churches.

And so I started off with helping in Cornerstone City Church.

Yeah.

I did that full time for a few years and then went and studied psychology on the side.

And when I started doing on that track, that eventually led to a PhD in psychology.

And I started working in academia then for, well, it's a total of about 12 years, you know, where I did research and lecturing and that kind of stuff.

So, work wise, that's what I've been involved with.

But two years, two, three years ago now, I started a organization or I went to start work with a very, an organization called Keys, where we have developed like a coaching framework to help people discover who they are and how to activate that in their lives and really live a life of contribution, you know, where you can be really able to contribute from what is really inside you into the world around you.

And so, that's what we've been doing.

So, I left academia to start doing that.

And in the meantime, I've been living in Coleraine, you know, the center of the universe.

And yeah, I have four children.

A wife, a dachshund.

Important, get that in.

Get that in.

He's a significant part of the family.

He contributes as well.

That's right.

So you are a Christian psychologist.

Would you take that title?

Yeah, in a way, yeah.

I'm not a clinical psychologist, but I'm like a research psychologist, and I'm a Christian, by all means.

And then you work for this organization called CASE.

Tell us a bit more about that.

So the practicalities, like where are they located, or what's their scope, their reach, their mission?

Yeah, okay, so we are based in the Netherlands.

So that's a little awkward, because I live in Colerain.

Yeah, it's a big commute each morning.

It is, it is.

It's doable.

No, so I go up and down every month or so for a couple of days, and do most of my work then from home.

And being a scientist, for me, it's a lot of the validation work, a lot of the development work was on my shoulders.

And so what we do is we train coaches to use our coaching framework.

And so that's what we do.

I'll be going to Germany next week to start training our first batch of coaches there.

And so, yeah, so this is what we're trying to do.

We're trying to equip people with this particular coaching framework to help them sort of roll that out and wherever they are.

And that's an incredible amount of fun.

It's really, really good fun.

Incredible, incredible.

Okay, so, well, the topic of this podcast is purpose and the image of God, which is huge.

But I can think of no better person to unpack it than yourself.

And we were talking about it.

You said you were gonna go and speak in Germany.

Yeah.

Next week.

And these are just like off the cuff statements.

You say this all the time.

You say, oh, I'm going here and I'm going to do this.

But I need you to understand how cool it actually is whenever you say like, I'm just going to go and speak in Germany about this topic.

Does that or is that just normal to you to go to this school?

Yeah, it's very normal now.

Yeah.

So I've had to travel so much within the last three years.

Even during lockdown, I kept on traveling quite a bit.

Yeah.

So rather than it being really awesome, I find it a real hassle.

Oh, okay.

I don't like airports.

And the travel is always a little bit dysregulating.

Yes, of course.

No, it is great.

It's in the south of Germany this time, close to the Alps.

I love it there.

It's beautiful.

It's gorgeous.

We'll be with a team of absolutely wonderful people.

I know most of them myself.

And just spending a few days together to really dig into the stuff that we have and making them part of it.

It's a real privilege.

It's wonderful to do.

Perfect.

Well, we get to save the money on flights to go and hear you.

We've got this podcast right here right now where you're going to expand or explain this topic.

So the first question I want to ask you is, what does it mean to be made in the image of God?

You know, that's a really, really good question, right?

So if I want to think about that from the psychology perspective, right?

So we all ask ourselves this question, who am I?

What is the main thing about me?

You know, what is it that's inside me that really makes me me?

And different people give different answers.

And I've looked for a lot of answers within psychology.

There's a lot of personality tests you can do.

You can just go on Google Personality Test, and hundreds of personality tests that will tell you a little bit about who you are, what makes you you.

And a lot of these personality tests, I started working with these, started working with them for coaching purposes and for consultancy purposes.

And what I found over the years is that it's very hard to really get at the core of who somebody is with one of these tests and not trying to diss the whole testing, personality testing industry.

But I think we need to take a little step back.

And as a Christian, I take a step back into into Genesis.

You know, so with Genesis 126, it says, you know, and then God says, let us make man in our image.

And then in God's image, God created man.

And that was that.

It would be nice to actually quote it properly.

But in the very first chapter of the Bible, the very first time that humanity is mentioned in the Bible, at the very beginning of what is functionally time for us.

You know, there is this statement that God says, okay, I'm going to make this.

I've made this decision.

This is what I'm going to do.

I'm going to make mankind.

And mankind is going to be made in my image.

Right?

That's a very, very big statement.

Right?

So we're not made in the image of anything else.

We're made in the image of God.

And if that's true, then that's the main thing about us, right?

So and if that's true, if it is true that we're made in God's image, then the most important thing about us is how you and I reflect that image.

Right?

So we all, if this statement is true, that humans, that every man and every woman is made in God's image.

And the most important thing about us is that it's the extent to which we reflect that image in the world that we are living in.

Right?

And so reflecting the image of God has become, for me, a real point of looking at personality and looking at what makes me me, what makes you you, is that what makes you you, what's my main thing about you is that you reflect God.

But you reflect God in your way.

I reflect God in my way.

But the best thing about me, and the main thing about me, the thing that goes deepest in all of us, is the extent to which we reflect our maker.

And so for me, Imago Dei is one of the most absolute core principles of Christianity, the fact that we are made in his image.

I'm gonna pause there.

Imago Dei, for those who don't know.

Yeah, Imago Dei just means image of God.

It's Latin for image of God.

Theologians use it a lot, because it's a very important part of actually how we think about God, and how we think about ourselves in relationship with God, right?

So Imago Dei just means image of God.

But yeah, it's a term that you would sometimes come across whenever people talk about this.

It's the basis of a lot of stuff.

It's the basis of human rights, you know?

Because if we're all humans are made in the image of God, then all humans are inherently, innately valuable, right?

And we're all equal.

Yeah.

You continue, because there's some in the building that aren't going to lock this door, but keep going.

I'm going.

It's no problem.

No problem.

Oh, here we go.

Lock us in, eh?

Yeah.

Lock us in.

Sorry, continue.

Yeah, no, that's good.

So, yeah, so that's...

That's what I think it means to be made in the image of God.

And I think when you think around this, right, that it's...

It's...

In many ways, once you know this, and once you start exploring this, it says something about purpose.

You know, if you know that you're made in God's image, and or, you know, if you accept the fact that you're created, you know, with everything that we have, you know, the purpose of a particular thing is very much caught up in the Creator, who made it, right?

Who purposed it.

So, for my purpose, my purpose lies in front of me, but to understand it, I need to look behind me.

Yeah.

You know?

So purpose is understood backwards and lived forwards.

Right?

So there's this sense in which if you, if you want to understand your purpose, you need to look back at the Creator who made you.

And when you look at the Creator who made you, he decided to do one remarkable thing.

And that is, he made you like him.

He made you to look like him.

And to be able to interact and have a relationship with him.

So God is all about relationship.

Why would he make humans in his own image?

It's because he wanted relationship.

And so it's for this relationship of God that we are all made.

If we understand anything about Christianity, that's the very core of it.

We have a God who made us in his image to have a relationship with us.

And so those are two huge things.

It tells us something about our identity, about what makes us us, and it tells us something about purpose.

What are we for?

We are for community and relationship with God.

Perfect.

Great summary.

So you're just saying that if it be true, the statement that we are made in the image of God, then that has profound implications on our life, because it's the most important fact in our bio, in what we are to describe ourselves, what's the most important thing about you, I'm made in the image of God.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It, you know, when you, when you can say that about yourself, I think your back goes a little straighter, your chin goes up a little bit, your eye brights, brightens, because there's nothing, nothing as beautiful as to know that, that God purposed you and made you in his image.

Yeah.

And that because of that, you're made well.

Now there's not to discount the fact that we have, we are living in a fallen world and humanity fell, right?

Yeah.

But the image is still the image.

Yeah.

It can be distorted because of sin.

It can be distorted, it can be broken.

But it remains the same.

But it remains the image.

Yeah.

And if we can come to the heart of that image in each and every individual, and start discovering with that individual what it means, to what extent do they reflect their maker?

Yeah.

And people begin to see that in themselves, it starts to release them to live the life that they really are purposeful.

Yeah.

I like the analogy of several different paintings.

And then it's about where do you derive the value of any given painting?

If you go into a museum, for example, there's various different paintings, but each of different values.

So you get a painting of an artist and then you get a painting by Picasso.

And it's because of that name that's attached to the painting, it gets its value because that's a Picasso painting.

And we're God's painting, we're God's design and we derive our value because of the author, the creator.

I love it.

Yeah.

Isn't that a great analogy?

Just want to say I just came up with that there now as you were speaking.

So that's my analogy if you ever want to use that.

Taylor.

Okay.

So you briefly touched upon it, and I don't know if you want to elaborate on it.

That's okay.

About what is the relationship between purpose and the image of God?

Yeah.

Yeah.

As I say, I think the essence of this is just to remember that to understand purpose is to look back.

And some people find that a little awkward because when we think about the purpose that lies before us, we want to see that in terms of our choices to walk in a particular purpose.

And when you say, well, your purpose lies is best understood from behind, it feels a bit deterministic to some people.

It's like, oh, is it all?

Do I have free choice?

I don't think that's the point.

But I think it is very true that if you want to understand any item, you need to look behind and ask what it's made for.

Of course.

If you find, sometimes you find these antique shows and they come up with this item and you're looking at it and you're like, I have no idea what that might be for, right?

It can't be understood forwards because what purpose could this possibly have in our lives?

Of course.

And then some historian starts unpacking what it's all about and he says, well, this is what it's for and this is what its purpose was.

And then you're like, oh, it's amazing.

And the point is, the maker knows the purpose and makes everything for a particular purpose.

This is a very common thing.

We all get what it's for.

But it is with everything is that the maker who originally created it is the container of the purpose.

And to understand our purpose, we need to understand our maker.

Yeah.

And I think when it comes to purpose, knowing God is knowing purpose.

Right?

So that's where it starts.

You got to go to the source.

You can look inside.

This is what psychology tells us to do.

Look inside, and that's when you find your purpose.

I think it's very faulty, and it's very difficult to do.

Of course.

To decide and find your purpose.

What we need to do, I believe, and what I would encourage people to do is actually look to God.

And within God, your purpose becomes much clearer, much quicker than when you do some level of introspection and try and look inside yourself.

So you'd say a key part of the makeup of finding purpose is not so much in looking forward, but it actually begins by looking back, which is actually quite a revolutionary thought, because at least for me, and I know in our generation, whenever we think of purpose, it's almost synonymous with future.

People think about their purpose.

They look ahead to try it.

And that's why you can't, people are like, oh, what is my purpose?

They don't know because it hasn't happened yet.

It's ahead of them.

Whereas you're saying you can't know your purpose because it's behind you.

Yeah.

You know, you pull out a wee hair out of your head, right?

And then that hair, if you found it anywhere in the world, you know, and put it under a microscope, started analyzing it, you would find out it's my hair because it's got DNA in it.

Yeah.

I'm completely unique, right?

I had that DNA from the moment of conception.

Yeah.

Right?

From the very moment that I was one cell, I had that DNA.

Right?

So my living forward is very much connected to that DNA.

If I begin to understand how I am made and how I'm put together, I can start becoming much more deliberate and aware of how I should live forward.

So I think that understanding your DNA is a part of this.

So we are made with a very unique set up of gifts and talents and natural inclinations and ways of looking at the world that is just ingrained in us.

It's like hardwired in us.

And if we are made in God's image and we are created by Him with our own unique DNA that sets us apart from everybody else in the world, then looking at and beginning to understand that is a form of looking back.

Yeah.

And of course, talking about purpose is such a huge topic and more could be discussed about it.

We've done a podcast on knowing the will of God for my life, which is a key component of purpose.

But I think that's so okay.

And it's something that people completely miss with purpose is understanding the image of God and looking back and again, applying what you've said, which is I think important to highlight.

So we'll move on to the next question, which is just Ephesians 4 11.

And that's just a verse that can be found in the Bible that helps us understand this idea of image, the image of God and how we bear that image.

And also understanding purpose and how that's all connected.

So I'm just, I've just thrown you several, several grenades there that I'm going to allow you to.

Yeah, there's an image of God, purpose and Ephesians 411.

And now I have to sort of create something beautiful.

Sort of knit that together.

Yes, just you create it.

Just go.

You heard what's happening here.

Yeah.

We like to throw people under the bus in this podcast.

Throw them under the bus.

This is what's good about having such intelligent and godly people.

You really just don't really have to do too much.

We just hand the platform over to you.

Very kind of you.

Yeah.

I hope this goes well.

I mean, in comparison to myself, Peter.

No.

Peter's not here with us.

Peter's not here.

No.

It's an interesting one.

When you look at Ephesians 4, it's a fascinating piece of writing, right?

There's this huge depth within that.

And to unpack that actually probably needs a bit of time, right?

But what does it say?

Okay.

Well, we'll start with what it says.

I'll start with verse 7, okay?

Okay.

Perfect.

And verse 7 here is the ESV.

But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift.

Okay.

So grace was given to us.

And it's a portion to us in the measure of Christ's gift.

So Christ gives something in his grace to us.

And then therefore it says, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives and gave gifts to men.

Now this is a little quote from the Psalms, right?

This is about like a victorious king going up to Jerusalem, distributing gifts to the people.

And then Paul says here in verse 9, in saying he ascended, what does it mean?

But that he also descended into the lower regions, the earth.

He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens that he might feel all things.

Now, very simple.

What Paul says is, Jesus ascended on high and gave gifts to men.

He connects this to the ascension, right?

God, Jesus going back up to heaven to sit at the right hand of the father.

And so, this image of Jesus had been walking on earth and now is going up to heaven to sit at the right hand of the father and in his going up, he gives gifts, right?

This is the image, I believe, that Paul is trying to get, right?

So, gifts from a victorious return.

And then he says, but you know, he also descended.

So, first of all, Christ was in the heavenly realms.

And you know, the Trinity was together.

And then Christ came down to heaven, to earth, to accomplish his work, and then went up to heaven.

So Christ, and this is the very important part of it, of this understanding, Ephesians 5, I think, is that Christ made God visible perfectly on earth, right?

So Jesus, when he walked on earth, was God in perfection.

I think it's Hebrews 1, it says something like, you know, he was the exact image, the exact representation of his being, you know, the image of God.

Several other verses in the Bibles make it very clear that Jesus was the exact representation of the Father, right?

It's not an approximation.

It was God, God walking in human flesh on earth.

So what that tells us is that God can be made completely and utterly perfectly visible on earth.

And what does that look like?

Jesus, right?

So Paul says Jesus in his godly perfection, divine perfection, comes down to earth and makes God completely and utterly visible on earth.

And then he says, and then once he's accomplished his work, he goes up back up to heaven and gives gifts to men, right?

So that takes us then to finally verse 11.

So we've done all this.

We've done the gift giving, then connected to the ascension, and then the ascension being connected to the incarnation.

It's called the incarnation, God becoming flesh.

It's called the incarnation.

So the incarnation then go back up to heaven, go sit at the right on the father.

And then he says, and these are the gifts that he gave.

And verse 11, he says, and he gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, the building up of the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the son of God to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

Let me decode that piece of scripture.

Yeah.

Do you like that?

That's, oh, I love it.

I love it.

But what the hell does it mean?

Because you've got, you've got like, you know what I mean?

Whenever we read that, we've got shepherds, you've got apostles, you've got pastors.

I find it very difficult to resonate with the past.

What is that applicability to myself or a, and again, I don't want to be egocentric, that shouldn't be the lens to which you look at scripture.

How can this help me?

But it's about how then do I understand that?

Or how does that fit into my knowledge or theology?

Yeah, yeah, so I think for me, I thought about that verse quite a lot in the past, you know, because we hear these words, these gifts bandied about quite a lot.

When you, if you've been in Christian circles, you know, you hear the word pastor and teacher and evangelist and sometimes the apostle and prophet.

But you know, these are, especially the apostle prophet, they even like into territory where, okay, what does that, what does that really mean?

You know, in practice, you look at these gifts, right?

There's five gifts that Paul mentions here, these five gifts.

And he uses other gifts in other places, you know, Romans 12, he uses seven gifts in 1 Corinthians 12, there's nine gifts.

And there's other gifts sort of distributed and mentioned and identified throughout the word of God.

So when I look at Ephesians 4, the question I ask myself is why these five?

What is it about the ascension that these five gifts are mentioned and then as part of the ascension?

These are grace gifts in God's grace.

He gives us these gifts and it's associated with the ascension.

Did you figure that out?

Have you ever thought about it?

I feel like I'm at a disadvantage here because I've had conversations with you about these, where you have explained it to me.

So I could give you the perfect answer and I love it.

And I could look so good like I thought about it.

Show off.

No, no.

For me, the point then became that, what is it that God, Jesus gives on his way to heaven?

So he gives these five gifts.

What are these gifts?

And then one day, it just clicked with me, it's himself.

He gives his own ministry to us.

So when Jesus operated in his full godship, in his full divinity on earth, he operated with these five roles.

He was the apostle, which means sent one, okay?

So it just means one who is sent from heaven down to earth to establish something.

So it's the establishment, the sent one, that's the apostle, who Jesus was.

He says it of himself.

He says, I was sent by my father.

I do what the father, I do what the father who sent me.

Yeah, he uses that language all the time.

So he is the apostle.

He's the prophet.

Everybody identifies him as a prophet.

When the disciples are asked at one stage, okay, so guys, who do you think I am?

And what do they say?

Well, a lot of people say, you're probably one of the prophets, maybe Elijah, come back from the dead, or something like that, you know.

The woman at the well, she says, he starts talking into her life.

She says, okay, obviously you're a prophet sent by God.

And so a lot of people recognize him as the prophet.

He was the evangelist.

Evangelist literally means the bringer of good news, the one who tells, who spreads the word, you know, that's the evangelist, gets it outside.

And that's what he says of himself.

I have come to preach the good news.

This is why I have come.

So he calls himself the evangelist, the one who has to do the evangelizing.

That's his mission, his purpose.

Then he's the shepherd.

And in John, he makes it very clear, John 10, I think it is, isn't it?

He makes it very clear.

He says, I am the good shepherd.

I look out for my sheep.

So he self-identifies as the shepherd.

And then finally, he's the teacher.

You know, the Hebrew word for it was a rabbi.

And whenever nicodemus comes up to Jesus at night, you know, he's his teacher or rabbi, rabbi.

I know that you're a teacher of who has come from God, right?

So he calls him rabbi, teacher.

He understands this guy is a teacher.

When you see Matthew 5 and the Sermon on the Mount, that's Jesus in his full teaching flow, right?

So he's a teacher.

So what we know about Jesus in his incarnation, in his becoming a man, you know, he is the sent one, he's the apostle, he's the prophet, he's the evangelist, he's the shepherd, and he's the teacher.

These are sort of his human roles.

The way God looks when he walks on earth, that's his five roles.

And so then he says, okay, now I'm going up to heaven, I'm going to give this to my church.

I want to give my church these five gifts.

And what happens then?

And it says in the verses that come after this, it's like, if the church put these gifts together, guess what will happen?

They will start looking like me.

That's what it says.

We'll just go look at those verses again.

So he says, again, and he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and the teachers, he gave them to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.

So we as a church with these five gifts, build up the body of Christ.

Body of Christ obviously is Jesus.

He's the head of the body, but we are supposed to be the body.

We are supposed to be that presence on earth, of Jesus, correct?

Yeah.

And then it says, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

So we have to, we put these together so that we start maturing and growing, and coming to full maturity.

Like literally, it gives us the gifts, and then it tells us, this is what the gifts are for.

This is what the gifts are for.

This is what actually automatically will start happening.

Start putting them together in an atmosphere of unity, love and mutual respect and honor.

Right, if that's in there, then in that context, start putting these five gifts together, then that will just happen.

That will be the outcome of it.

Maturity, health, growth, the fullness of Christ, visible on earth.

So by operating in these gifts and doing so, in order for the gifts to flow, it has to be an environment of love.

So you need the environment of love and of unity.

And whenever you have that environment, you get the gifts.

And whenever you have the gifts, you get that maturity in Christ.

And whenever you have that maturity in Christ, you reflect the image of God perfectly.

And the image, you reflect the image of God perfectly, which is why we are here, to reflect the image of God and bring him ultimate glory.

That's just, what a beautiful, wow.

That is the purpose of the Ecclesia, you know?

When the Ecclesia, that's like a word, a Greek word for it.

Yeah, yeah, you can't be thrown about those terms.

Let's just do this without you explaining them.

Ecclesia is a Greek word for like congregation, or like church.

Yeah, assembly.

So it's like a group of people gathered together.

So that's what that means.

The word church is a bit of a weird church, weird etymology.

I like, I prefer the word Ecclesia because it gets this sense of the gathering.

We're gathered together, but it also means it's called out.

Ecclesia means the called out ones, the ones who are called out to gather.

So you're called out for something and gather towards something.

And so I love that word.

And etymology is the study of words.

Is that correct?

Entomology.

What did you, what's the study of words?

What's the, because I get my mymologies all mixed up.

I could be saying you're an egyptomologist.

Yeah, entomology, that's insects, isn't it?

What is it?

Oops.

What's the word you just used?

Etymology.

Etymology, which is the study of words.

I hope so.

And Honebschen is.

I just used it, I really hope it does mean that.

Honebschen is, yeah.

What did I say?

Ent.

Entomology, and it's etymology.

I found it, she confused, nobody was confused until I started speaking there.

I start questioning myself.

If I was wrong, it's because I'm Dutch.

Threw them under the bus.

Okay, so you're saying, just so I can, that was beautifully summarized.

Were you surprised?

You said that you're gonna be talking about this for three hours in Germany, and you've just unpacked it in about 10 minutes.

I thought it was incredible.

That was great.

So you've got Christ, Jesus, Jesus came to this earth, and he was fully man, and he was fully, fully God.

And by operating in these gifts, being the apostle, being the shepherd, the teacher, evangelist and prophet, was that reflect, well, Jesus does reflect the image of God.

He's literally, he is the image of God.

So a part of that image, a part of that Godhead is Jesus, and Jesus is fully man, fully God.

And the way God looks on earth, is these five operating in perfect harmony?

Yeah.

So these are divine attributes, would you say?

Or how would you?

That's a good question.

Yeah.

How would you describe it?

Yeah, because I'm trying to, what I'm trying to understand is a part of the godhead, so part of the image of God is Father, Son and Spirit.

Okay, so we're talking about the Son aspect of the godhead, and a part of the Son, Jesus, is this fully God, fully man.

And so are these gifts in the category of fully God, or are they the attributes of fully man?

Yeah.

How I would describe it, look, is that it is what God looks like on earth.

Amazing.

Yeah.

Wow.

That's what God looks like on earth.

So through those five giftings.

Working in perfect harmony together.

Obviously, when Jesus did that, that was perfection, right?

So that's what it looks like perfectly.

And Jesus has these seven giftings in himself because he is God.

He was the only one who's ever given shape to those five perfectly.

You and I, anybody I've met, we can only operate really practically in maybe one or two of them.

Yes.

We will understand the value of some of the others, but I like to look at it as sort of your perspective, right?

It determines your perspective.

Each one of us tends to have a look from the angle of one or two of these.

Whereas we cannot manage all five of them, right?

So if you're, let's say, a pastor, you've quite a pastoral lens where you look out for the well-being of people, right?

That's one aspect.

And your teacher, you're looking out for the, people have the right knowledge and truth to operate properly in this world.

You can imagine that you have a sense of both of these.

But when you can look through the perspective of those two lenses, then often you cannot really see the perspective of the others, unless you invite them.

Yeah.

So you have a particular lens that you look through.

I have a particular lens.

And the point is that I need to start telling you what I see and asking you what you see.

And then when we start putting it together, we get much brighter light.

It's like five different color lenses and shining light through five different color lenses.

But when you shine in the middle and let them all shine, then you get white light.

Yes.

If you keep one of them out, you never get the white light.

Yes.

So you want to get a perfect perspective of what's in the middle.

You need to begin to invite all the lenses.

And this is what the church is meant to do.

Yeah, of course.

And doesn't do that well.

Usually.

Yeah.

But you look at how we do church, right?

And then I look at what it says here that we can actually display the Christ's perfection here on earth.

Yeah.

Through the church.

And I'm like, I'm looking at the churches around me.

I'm like, OK, guys, I'm not getting it.

Yeah.

We're not getting it.

Yeah.

And that's not to judge, but it's just it's just disappointing sometimes that we don't see Jesus.

Incarnate in our church.

Yeah.

So let me attempt to summarize here.

So you've got God is the image.

That's what we're talking about.

And a part of that image is Father, Son and Spirit.

The Godhead is the Trinity.

And so you've got the Godhead, which is the image.

And then connected down is the Son.

And a part of the Son is God on Earth.

That's one of the main attributes of Jesus.

He's a part of the Trinity is he's God on Earth.

And a part of what makes Jesus God on Earth is these five giftings and how that fits into the fully God, fully man.

Again, is beyond us.

But that is the image of God here on Earth, perfectly personified through Jesus.

And we're seeing the practicalities of what makes that image, which are these five gifts.

So image of God, Jesus, who's God on Earth, a part of what makes God on Earth, is these five giftings, Apostle, Teacher.

And just as God on Earth, as Jesus, he reflects the image of God.

We too are made in the image of God.

And we are called to reflect.

Jesus.

Yes, we're called to reflect the full God head.

So the same way Jesus reflected the Father.

And give us that perfect example.

We too are to reflect the God head, the Father, Son and Spirit.

And we can do that through these gifts.

Reflecting the ministry.

That Jesus has distributed for us.

And so that's one part.

That's the real theology of it.

And the other part in summary is the, practically how that looks in our own life.

That's the question, isn't it?

Yeah, about how there's one or two of these really, like nine times out of ten is that we will habitate in.

There's apostles.

You either are an apostle, shepherd, teacher, prophet.

You have a specific gift that God has given you that will allow you to reflect the image of God, allow you to personify the image of God.

And so you're saying that people need to, yeah, how do they do that?

How do they identify those gifts?

You talked about the church.

The church clearly plays a role in mentorship, other people highlighting.

Well, this is the thing.

I think this is given to the church, first of all, right?

So Jesus gives these to the church.

So, but it's where the rubber hits the road, isn't it?

If I think of church, you know, I see that the church has historically struggled to figure this out, right?

Especially when it comes to the apostle, you know?

We tended to be okay with calling people a pastor, right?

That's fine.

We can deal with that.

We can deal with somebody calling somebody a, or somebody calling themselves a teacher.

We can deal with somebody calling themselves an evangelist, you know?

But when I think about the churches have been part of in throughout my life, you know, that that's sort of where it stopped, right?

We were happy identifying the pastors, the teachers, and the evangelists.

But once it started coming to the other two, then we started struggling a little bit, you know?

Because once you start calling somebody an apostle, it sort of carried the weight of the 12 original apostles, right?

Yes.

And then that comes with like its own authority and, and, and that starts-

Apostolic authority and-

Apostolic authority and you get all these kinds of words going, right?

And, and then the prophet, it's like when you start calling yourself a prophet in these terms, it's like, you know, a lot of churches are being very, very shy about actually using these words because once you started using these words and there's this, this scope of, of abuse and misinterpretation and it's just not worked very well.

Yeah, of course.

And so what I, what I think is whenever you start unpacking this is actually looking at, okay, what, what does it, what did this look like in Jesus, you know?

So when we, when we look at, I think the apostle is a good one, you know, we do who, who in the world calls himself an apostle from certain Christians.

But the word apostle is very much a, yeah, it's, it's, it's a simple term.

It means an envoy, you know, it's somebody who represents something and establishes on behalf of that, something elsewhere, you know?

So if you were an envoy or an ambassador, you know, ambassadors back in the, back in the time of Jesus, it was for big crews of people that would go to, to another country, another nation, and then they would, as a group, represent that nation.

So the Roman Empire, when it sent ambassadors, it sent not just one person, it sent a whole team, and that team sort of represented the Roman Empire wherever they were going, right?

And if you then establish yourself there, then the Roman Empire became established in that particular area.

So, it's the establishment.

It's somebody who goes and establishes, it's the sent one, your sent, so you've got somebody who sends you, and then you go and establish on behalf of that person.

But what has become when we talk about apostolic authority and things like that, and people start talking about apostolic gifting, it starts to take on a very different kind of a category then.

And this is sometimes difficult.

So I like to actually unpack the words a little bit and use very simple, straightforward words.

You know, the apostle is the establisher.

Of course.

The prophet is the visionary.

Yeah.

The evangelist is the marketer, the one who speaks to the outside.

The shepherd is the people.

Yeah.

The people focused person and then the teacher is the knowledge, the knowledge focused people.

So we use these words, establishing, vision, marketing, people, and knowledge and sort of renaming the lenses a little bit so that you take the weight and the historic weight of these terms away and start looking again at what it actually is.

Yeah.

So it's about, yeah, because whenever you would say, oh yeah, Paul, you're an apostle.

All of a sudden people are starting to say, oh, that's heresy because there was 12 apostles.

And yeah, so it is important.

And that's what we're, we're not trying to override that thought.

We're just trying to say that.

Yeah, and you have people who have historically want to identify themselves as an apostle.

Yeah.

And then basically say, I'm the boss because of them, I'm the apostle, I'm the boss.

Yeah.

And the box stops with me.

And it was like, well, but that's not really in the spirit of putting the five gifts together.

Exactly.

And together, you know.

Yeah.

So there is room for saying about the disciples and the authority that they carried and the canon of scripture.

And then it's stopping.

And then Revelation 22 talks about like, there's 11 or 12, like apostles or something in the courtroom.

And so there's, it's important to understand that.

And then separate, that's what we're trying to say.

We're trying to take the apostle and separate what that means over here.

But also what's happened is people have just took away the Ephesians 4 11 apostle, that gift and what that means practically for us today, because they don't want to blur the lines or they've seen the dangers of what that could be about.

And it's been abused.

But that's why I like to think about the word apostle and prophet.

I tried to talk about apostle with a small a and apostle with a big a.

There were only 12 apostles with a big a, well, with a capital A.

Yes.

Or probably a few more.

Paul identifies certain people as apostles in his epistles as well, but there were a small group of apostles and there were 12 originally.

Yeah.

And so in the birth and the early years of the church, you know, you can see that this apostolic ministry was very significant.

And so, but we still have this same role.

We still have that operation of apostolic gifting, and we need it everywhere we go.

We can't do without it because we need the establishment around us.

Of course.

And so, but when we then start using the word apostle, then the mind flits back to Paul and Peter and John.

Yeah.

And then there's a misuse and an abuse, and they attach onto the gift, which shouldn't be.

No, exactly.

And so it's better to...

In practice, it's maybe better to use different terms.

Yeah, exactly.

So, yeah.

But that actually, it sparked something for me, like in the future, getting you back to do a series and to take us through each of the giftings highlighted in Ephesians.

So where you have a specific time, like 45 minutes to talk about apostle and to clear out all the language so people don't think that we're saying, oh, Paul thinks like they're still apostles today.

That means that we can create this new canon of scripture and divine teachings and this extra biblical authority because that's not what you're trying to say.

No.

So again, we could use that again in the future about apostle and what that means in New Testament and the canon of scripture and what we talk about and what most people think.

But then we also need to bring back apostle in the sense of in simple terms, what it means to be a carrier or an envoy, an ambassador.

Yes, so, but in summary about the purpose in the image of God, it is important that we understand the theology behind again, the Godhead and how that image is reflected on us and how that image is reflected in Jesus.

And a big part of that was the Ephesians 411, how he operated those gifts.

And then number two, as you said, is take these individual gifts, the apostle, pastor, teacher, and simply take them one at a time and explain biblically what each are.

So people can then understand how that applies to their own life.

And then thirdly is how it's demonstrated and walked out for us in Jesus and how we're called to emulate him.

Would you like to add anything else?

Yeah, so I always like to go in depth, right?

And I'm a teacher, so I want to go to all the knowledge that lies under it.

But ultimately, it's about where the rubber hits the road, right?

So these, the point of the gifts, these five gifts in Romans is that we need to stick them together.

I need to invite you to share what you see, and you need to invite me to share what I see.

And together, when we are together in a setting where we pursue a common goal together, we need to make sure that we have made space for these giftings.

And if anything, that's the crux.

You know, when it comes to my gifting, I, and everybody does this, right?

I am aware, I'm aware of what I see and the truth that I see and how important it is.

But I only ever see a part, whereas I think I see the whole.

And we all do this.

We all think we see the whole, where actually we only see a part.

And when you become aware of this fact that actually Jesus wants us to put the thing together and invite each other in an honor and love, put it all together.

That's when the rubber hands are out.

And that's when you actually can see real transformation.

You can see Jesus coming visible in the middle of it.

Okay.

So to finish off the podcast, we're going to do two things.

And that is number one, your main takeaway.

So you think about that.

What do you want?

What's the one thing you want people to take away?

And then whenever you do that, you're going to just conclude it, this podcast for us, with a short summary.

Okay.

So you're going to get a main point about what you want people to take.

And then you're just going to summarize just all the main points in about 30 seconds, or summarize what you want, whatever way you want to summarize it.

Oh no, you're just changing it again.

No, so those are the two things.

So how about you start with...

One main takeaway?

Your main takeaway that you want people to take away.

What's the main thing?

And I want you to speak, because you've got the best podcast voice I've ever heard.

So I want you just to take the mic and do it in a real podcast tone.

The main takeaway.

I'm going to do the um first.

No problem.

Proper amateur.

The main takeaway is that you are made in God's image.

And when you begin to understand that, you will also begin to understand that the better you know God, the better you will begin to understand yourself and what you are for.

I would say that's the main takeaway.

You are made in the image of God and therefore you are beautiful.

You are incredible and God has put amazing things inside you.

And discovering that together with God is an incredible journey that will release the life that's inside you to the world around you.

Well, there you go.

Amazing.

And then the summary, if you had to just build a point, what we've discussed in this podcast.

Okay, you're not making this easy.

I would summarize it like this, that what we just said about that you're made in God's image, you're made in the image of God, you know, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

And the way in which Jesus, the Son, revealed himself on earth was through these five identities or characteristics, you know?

And so, Jesus was the apostle, the prophet, the evangelist, the shepherd, and the teacher.

And if you take anything away from that, just realizing that those giftings were our God's, God's incarnational ministries here on earth.

You know, that's sorry for the terrible language that I used there.

But God, when God becomes flesh, he reveals himself on earth in these five particular kinds of ways.

And when we begin to understand that, it also helps us fill these categories with the right content, which is Jesus.

It's all about Jesus, ultimately.

It's making Jesus visible here on earth.

And according to Paul and the Book of Ephesians, it's possible if we do this by honoring the gifts that God has placed in each and every one of us and drawing it out, inviting it in the mix.

And so together, putting it together so we can glorify God.

Boom.

Paul, thank you so much.

Honestly, amazing pleasure.

Thank you.

I'm sure that was just full for everyone that will listen.

And that's it, guys.

And we'll see you on the next podcast for another interview in this little series that we're doing.

Thank you.

Bye.