YPT Podcast Episode 48: Avoiding Heresy at Christmas (Todd Miles)
We’re releasing this episode a few weeks before Advent in order to help youth workers prepare well for Advent and Christmas… I think it goes without saying that it’s absolutely essential for us to teach rightly about both the Person and the Work of Jesus Christ.
Who is Jesus? Christians confess that Jesus is the Son of God. But what does that mean about his humanity? It’s important for youth workers to call students to faith in Jesus, and to lead them into conversations about who (and what) Jesus is… fully God and fully human. This conversation with Dr. Todd Miles will help youth workers proclaim the nature of Christ in a way that teenagers can understand.
Excerpt from the Conversation
Mike: Why is it so important for us to really dig into the Person of Christ beyond “God became flesh and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us”?
Todd: Unless Jesus was who the Bible says, He's fully human, fully divine, He can't save us. But salvation, of course, is not limited to a substitutionary atonement. It's at least that, but it's like everything that Jesus does is part of this great salvation narrative. And so I'll throw like just some statements at you. Like everything that Jesus is, He is for.
So we might think, for example, okay, we are supposed to consider Jesus who endured such opposition from sinful men so that we will not grow weary and lose heart, right? Jesus, the one who did no sin, knew no sin, was himself without sin, became sin on our behalf, right? So then in decades past, there was a whole, “What would Jesus do” sort of thing going on, where we would get to the point of some conflict and we're supposed to ask ourselves, well, I wonder what Jesus would do. Unless we have a good Christology, that question is not helpful at all. How is Jesus our help in temptation? How is considering Jesus who endured opposition from sinful people
How is that supposed to encourage our own faithfulness if Jesus was just God in disguise, right? So we might ask well, what would Jesus do if he were in my situation? Well, he'd turn water into wine or he’d touch a person and heal him or He would command Satan to be gone and Satan would obey because Jesus is the Lord of creation, right? And I can do exactly none of those things, right? None of those things…
And so these biblical commands that are supposed to encourage us, if we don't have a good Christology, can actually be discouraging to us. But if I know that Jesus was not just God in disguise, but Jesus was fully human and lived an authentically human life. And when he fought temptation he remained sinless through fighting temptation as a human does. I mean, one of the most dishonoring things that we can think of Jesus is that he was sinless by simple virtue of being God. I mean, how dishonoring that is to the struggle that Jesus fought every single day of his life in fighting temptation? He just never once gave in. We should just marvel. We should fall down at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ because he did something that for so many of us, like for all of us, it's just unimaginable to never give in, not even once. And he fought temptation all the way, the entire time knowing what lay in store for him if he succeeded and what would be forfeit if he failed. And so Jesus fought temptation as a human.
Christian prayer is based upon the Trinity, where we pray to God the Father in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. What does it mean to in the name of Jesus? Sometimes we think it's just the way we hang up the phone, in Jesus' name, amen. No, no, it means something far more. It means Lord God Almighty, I am coming before the throne of grace, not on my own merit, but because of what the Lord Jesus Christ did for me. And so I can approach the throne of grace with confidence on Jesus' merit, not on mine. It also is a way for us to almost like back check. I come with these requests in the name of Jesus, where Jesus had instructed us, pray in my name, ask in my name. Are these the kind of requests that are worthy of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ? Right?
And all of that flows out of the divine nature of Jesus, but also his human ministry here on earth where he taught his disciples to pray. It was like super exciting for Jesus to be able to teach his disciples how to pray. And so I think we should be listening to him. So I run into trouble with this all the time.
…listen to the podcast for more…
Discussion Questions:
What is Christology, how does good biblical Christology articulate the Person of Christ, and why is it important for teenagers?
In your book, Superheroes Can’t Save You, you explain some of the major heretical teachings about Christ by using different superheroes as representatives. Could you share a few examples with us…
What’s at stake when someone accidentally holds to one of these heretical interpretations? Is it really that big of a deal?
As you look around today, what are some of the more common Christological heresies that can sneak into our churches without us noticing, and how can youth workers guard against those?
As we approach Advent and Christmas, what recommendations do you have for youth workers about teaching the incarnation simply and with theological depth?
Todd Miles is a Professor of Theology at Western Seminary and on pastoral staff at Gresham Bible Church, and is the author of some of my most-recommended books for youth pastors - Superheroes Can’t Save You: Epic Examples of Historic Heresies, A God of Many Understandings? The Gospel and Theology of Religions, and most recently, Cannabis and the Christian: What the Bible says about Marijuana.
Order Todd’s books (and read them!)
Superheroes Can’t Save You: Epic Examples of Historic Heresies
Cannabis and the Christian: What the Bible says about Marijuana
A God of Many Understandings? The Gospel and Theology of Religions
Follow Todd on Twitter/X: @TL_Miles
Join YPT's Facebook group: @youththeologian (make sure you answer the membership questions)
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YPT has published an ebook that's a free download for subscribers. Youth Ministry is Theological Ministry collects ten articles from the YPT archives to help new readers catch the heartbeat of Youth Pastor Theologian is written by six different contributors from across America, Mexico, and the UK.
