Lead Time
Lead Time
Your Body Matters: Ethics and Faith in the Age of AI
What does it mean to be human in an age where technology increasingly blurs the lines between body and machine? Dr. John Pless, professor at Concordia Theological Seminary, tackles this question through the lens of Lutheran ethics.
• Lutheran ethics begins with our relationship to God, not merely descriptive or prescriptive approaches
• Transhumanism views the body as "an assemblage of replaceable parts," reflecting humanity's struggle with autonomy
• The Christian understanding of body and soul sees them as "knit together," not separate entities
• Christ's resurrection provides our model for embodied existence – physical yet transformed
• Christian ethics operates through "reciprocity" – we first receive from God, then give to others
• Luther's doctrine of vocation teaches we serve God by serving neighbors in ordinary places
• Christians can navigate AI and technology by maintaining their identity as embodied creatures
• Spiritual unity comes through prayer, meditation on God's Word, and facing trials together
• True human connection requires discernment that AI cannot replicate
God, doubt, and proof walk into a podcast... it goes better than you’d expect!
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Join the Lead Time Newsletter! (Weekly Updates and Upcoming Episodes)
https://www.uniteleadership.org/lead-time-podcast#newsletter
Visit uniteleadership.org
This is Lead Time.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Lead Time, tim Allman here. Jack Kauberg is on a beach somewhere in the Caribbean, my normal co host and today I get to have on the podcast for the second time Reverend Dr John Pless, currently a professor at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, and he's got he says he's semi-retired. As you listen to his teaching load listener you're going to be like that doesn't sound like semi-retirement. Dr Pless is getting on a little bit later today. He's got catechetics and theological ethics. Let's start with that, Dr Pless, before we get going. How are you doing, brother? Thanks for being on.
Speaker 3:I'm fine, thanks. I am a modified service, as you mentioned, which normally means two courses a quarter, but I had a colleague that had to be away for some family issues and so I ended up kind of at last minute taking on one of his courses as well. But it's a full quarter. But I enjoy it and glad to have the opportunity to teach, to have the opportunity to teach.
Speaker 2:And for those of you who are just listening, not looking, in the background is all of Dr Pless's many, many books, theological books mostly, that have shaped his, his education. You are yeah, you're very, very well respected in the Lutheran church, Missouri Synod and in Lutheranism internationally, Dr Pless. So thank you again for the time here. Let's start. You said you're teaching a theological ethics class. What are you teaching there?
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:And even let's start out what's the Lutheran understanding of ethics in general? I had a similar class with Dr Bierman 20-some years ago at the seminary, so I know he's a colleague of yours as well. So let's talk Lutheranism and ethics, Dr Plass. Start there.
Speaker 3:Well, that's a great question, because you know, to state the obvious, there are all kinds of ethical systems out there. And you know, when I'm traveling and somebody figures out I'm a pastor, and they start talking about, well, what do you do? And I tell, well, I teach at a seminary. And sometimes you even have to clarify you know what a seminary is. But I teach future ministers. Well, what do you teach?
Speaker 3:And if I say catechetics, they have no idea what I'm talking about. You know, I thought you were training ministers, not veterinarians or something you know and or even pastoral theology, and I kind of explained that a bit. But if I say ethics, they are kind of right there with me. Oh, yeah, I'm. You know, I had to take a course in pharmaceutical ethics when I was in pharmacy school, or or we had to have a course in business ethics as part of an MBA degree.
Speaker 3:But you know, when outside the church and in many ways even outside kind of the Lutheran church, when people think of ethics, they basically think of either what we might call kind of a descriptive ethics ethic describes what a moral or good life looks like or a prescriptive ethic. Here are the things that you've got to do if you're going to be an ethical person, and I would suggest that Lutheran ethics starts from a very different perspective. It's not simply descriptive nor prescriptive. It has to do with our life before God, who God has made us to be as creator, what he has done to reclaim us, reconcile us to himself in Christ and the new life then that he gives in by the Holy Spirit, that our bodies might indeed be temples of his presence in the world. So while all other ethical systems basically start from what I would call kind of an anthropological or human being-centered you know way of talking, Lutheran ethics theological ethics at least starts from the perspective of God, and so we talk about that, and you know that ethics is not something that we're doing to achieve salvation.
Speaker 3:So we spend a significant amount of time talking about distinction between justification and life, of sanctification and how ethics really kind of comes at the intersection of justification and sanctification. When we talk about life in the world, we talk a lot about Luther's understanding of the two governments or the two kingdoms, and then a good portion of the course is looking at um, um ethics as it relates to beginning of life, uh, to marriage and to end of life issues and you know, those horizons are always being expanded today, um with um, developments in biomedical ethics and, uh, when I started this course a couple of weeks ago I just asked students to, kind of popcorn style, give me a. You know issues that are rising or have arisen that they think would be ethical issues today and it's interesting a lot of stuff there related to artificial intelligence, that's what I was going to ask yeah, AI, AI and the whole, sometimes called transhumanism or post-human futures.
Speaker 3:You know, can you, you know, could you actually be human without the body? You know your mind being maybe downloaded into kind of a software, things that really kind of sound a little science fiction-like maybe to us but are increasingly becoming, you know, in the realm of reality there Time to be alive, dr Pless, the rate of change, and with change always comes ethical concerns.
Speaker 2:Right, because we are as human beings, we're idol making, our hearts are idol making factories and we're some James K Smith teaching here.
Speaker 2:Right, we are desiring things first and foremost and our hearts are desiring, after the things, of the world and its wealth and power and position and pleasure and kind of kind of uh, aquinas's four, uh idols have you? Obviously you've heard 13, 14th century aquinas on on power and pleasure and money and fame or honor. And and I think ai is, it's a fascinating who's going to leverage the controls around the future of AI, you know, and our Christians, speaking to, hey, human beings created in the image of God, who speak the words of God, who care for humans, who are about multiplying humans, be fruitful and multiply. If we outsource to something other than God, we're going to be up a creek without a proverbial paddle, right, and fortunately for us as Christians, right, we know the end of the story. We know Jesus is coming back to make all things new, new heavens and new earth, and so there's that, which is a very significant that. But, yeah, what are some of your biggest concerns as you look at AI especially in light of our desires as humans, dr Pless.
Speaker 3:Well, I think you know one of the real challenges and it's kind of a perennial challenge, I think with ethics, and especially ethics since the Enlightenment has been the whole conceptuality of autonomy, has been the whole conceptuality of autonomy From two Greek words autos, nomos, law unto oneself and the thought that we could somehow kind of transcend all creaturely limitations, that, rather than understanding ourselves as creatures, creatures that have been endowed with a particular dignity by our creator and, at the same time, creatures who live within finite limitations, but recognizing that our hope is finally not in an escape from the body but in the resurrection of the body to a life everlasting. And I think AI is one more attempt to kind of transcend our creatureliness, so that certainly, as creatures, we do have a calling to make things to create, have a calling to make things to create, to be God's. You know God's mask or God's coverings, that he is doing a particular work in the world but we do that also with recognition of our own limits within creation. I think in some ways, you know, ai is another example of trying to transcend that. And then, in the whole, you know the whole realm of ethics.
Speaker 3:Today it is challenging because we do have technology that is developing far faster than we have time to engage in any kind of moral or ethical reflection. So some of the best writers in ethics today I think of a British American teaching in Scotland, actually Brian Brock, doing a lot of work on ethics and technology, or here in this country. In this country Brent Waters has written a book on transhumanism. You know that the technology has simply developed tools and capacities, but we as a people, and certainly we as church, have really not had a chance to kind of catch up with what is possible technologically, yeah, hey, for those that aren't maybe aware, we have a very astute listenership.
Speaker 2:But transhumanism, define transhumanism and its effect on every human today. And how could it leak into the church in some way, shape or form into our world as Christians, creatures in God's creation? So talk about transhumanism, just with a little bit more depth, dr Pless.
Speaker 3:Yeah, sure, I think that term, as it's been used today, certainly by people like Brent Waters, refers to this kind of trajectory that sees the human body as kind of an assemblage of replaceable parts.
Speaker 3:And I mean, you know, certainly we think of organ transplants and we think of all the good that's done, can be done, you know, by transplant of organs.
Speaker 3:But he also notes there's kind of a dark side there, and one of the dark sides is that it sees the body as just kind of like you know, your car Transmission shoots out, you go get a new transmission, that if air conditioner, you know, breaks down, get a new air conditioner in the car, and that the body then is seen as kind of this assemblage of parts. And then the worry that the ethicists have is you know where does this start? Could a body simply be kind of retooled over and over again so that there would finally be no continuity with the body that you had at conception or at birth, and in that way you would transcend being a creature, you would really transcend being human Kind of you know, fears of even what you know the author of Frankenstein kind of feared back in the 19th century that you would have, you would create something that would really be a monster, would no longer be human.
Speaker 2:Here, you know you have shades also of Cs lewis. Abolition of man yeah, well, we've seen the impact in the last few years in the lgbtq plus sexuality, right, and I mean that's. And then the barbarism, the butchery in that industry as it relates toward, like, there needs to be people going to jail because of allowing young people, apart from parental consent, to make big barbarous. I mean, it is Frankenstein type changes to their body because they don't feel like they're a girl or they're a boy, right, and then you've got a culture that's creating all of these. Just, it's confusion, and the heart of this, dr Pless, is obvious for those of us who have studied and looked at history. It's obviously just repristination of Gnosticism and platonic thought that the body doesn't matter, right.
Speaker 2:And I can conceptualize who I am. No, no, no. God gets to be and this is why the question has God gets to tell me who I am and he doesn't make mistakes. You are created fearfully and wonderfully, male and female. It's wild to me, Dr Pless, asa pastor, I have to make a statement like that from the pulpit and it's seen kind of as a political statement like give me a break, this is the heart of our creator, how he's made us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is not simply a political issue.
Speaker 3:The question is, you know, do we continue to understand ourselves as creatures and I purposefully here use the word creature, because you can't have a creature without a creator and so we acknowledge a creator. You know, very simply, you know the language of Luther's catechism, small catechism. I believe that God has made me, it's very personal. He has made me, given me body and soul, you know eyes, ears, reason, all my members and so forth, and we move away, our culture has moved away from an understanding of being creature, hence transhumanism to now I'm going to be my own creator, and if I don't like the body that I've been given in this case, as you mentioned here, kind of sexually, then I'm free to choose my own gender, I'm free to remake myself and then, when my body doesn't work very well anymore, I'm free to end it.
Speaker 3:Medical assistance in dying, physician-assisted suicide, are, you know, big now? Big issues, but it all comes to kind of a disdain for the body and seeing the body as simply kind of a disposable carriage for the all-powerful human will. And so, rather than, you know, being able to receive with thanksgiving the body that God has given me, now it's my will. That's going to determine what I look like, what I do, how I perform.
Speaker 2:The Bible uses the word soul quite a bit, yeah, and how are we rightly, as Christian Lutherans, to understand the soul as a differentiator for all humans, created in the image of God? Talk about that a little, dr Pless.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, you know we as biblical Christians we have a different understanding of soul from what you would have in you mentioned.
Speaker 3:You know, kind of platonic Greek, dualistic body and soul. You know, like the body is just kind of a container for the soul, but in scripture body and soul are really used, the language from Psalm knit together. You know that I can't imagine what my soul looks apart from my body and my. You know we are embodied human beings, body and soul, body and soul together. And on the last day God will raise not only our souls, giving us eternal life, but body and soul together will, like our Lord Jesus Christ, have life in God's kingdom, his creation, his new creation, his creation, his new creation. And so the soul is not just kind of a life force or a spark of divine energy that lives within you and someday will, like a bird being set free from a cage, you know, fly away. Your soul has to do with your being made in God's image and having the capacity to relate to God, to answer him and acknowledge him as your creator.
Speaker 2:So good. This was probably going to be released in the Easter season, dr Pless, and did some work. I'm resisting the temptation to go down the Shroud of Turin little pathway right now. There's some fantastic research being done on the Shroud and science converging that. I believe it's the burial cloth of Jesus and the flashpoint of a whole bunch of protons and neutrons, a flashpoint of light in the resurrection moment. That's just my belief. I don't need it to be true to know that Jesus has been bodily raised from the dead. But you see Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 saying what was created, a physical body was raised like Christ, a spiritual body. How are we to understand that spiritual body, the resurrected body as Christ was? So will we be on that last day? Because I think a lot of times when people hear spiritual they think non-physical. Could you get behind that word in 1 Corinthians 15 a little, dr Pless?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think there the spiritual body is the body that is raised by the Lord and giver of life, the Holy Spirit. And you know Jesus who? Or as Son of God, of course he possessed the Spirit from all eternity, but as man he was conceived by the Holy Spirit. You know virgin birth. He was anointed with the Spirit. At his baptism resurrection, his body, his very physical body, still bearing the marks of nail and spear, will have the life of the Spirit forever.
Speaker 3:And when you look at, you know, when you look at the resurrection accounts of the Lord Jesus in the New Testament, jesus does with his body after the resurrection what none of us can do with our bodies. And you know reason will say well, how can you do that? Body is a physical. If it's a body, it has to be a physical object one place, one time.
Speaker 3:Well, jesus is Lord and he is not subject to the laws of physics. So he can do with his body now as he wills. You know he can pass through doors and yet he can also have breakfast of fish and it's in his body that he fills all things. And of course in our Lutheran church that's very important when it comes to the Doctrine of the Lord's Supper, that the ascension is not Jesus simply going up to the 34th floor and waiting to the last day, but, as Paul says in Ephesians, he bodily ascends, that he might fill all things, and so he's able to be with us with his body and his blood under bread and wine in the sacrament of the altar. That's so.
Speaker 3:And that really, you know, when we talk about body, and this has all kinds of implications for ethics, one of the key texts of course I use when teaching theological ethics is a passage that I think all of us are probably familiar with Romans 12,. 1 to 2,. Present your bodies as living sacrifice, and we do that by the mercies of God. So this is not a work of offering that we're doing to merit God's favor, merit God's grace, but in light of God's mercy we now present our bodies as living sacrifice. And then Paul goes on to unpack that Don't let. My favorite kind of paraphrase of that is from JB Phillips, paraphrase that he did in the New Testament back after the war, second World War, where he paraphrases Romans 12.2,. Don't let the world squeeze you into its own mold, but rather be renewed from the inside out. So again, the internal. You know who you are inside out, but express bodily, and when that word body, soma, is used there, the body is the way that you are present to the world.
Speaker 2:How else would I be.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I can't. You know, I can't be simply spiritually present, I have to be embodied. And when we speak of Christ being bodily present in the sacrament, this is it. When we speak of Christ being bodily present in the sacrament, this is it. It's the real Jesus, the one who was crucified and raised. He's now giving us the fruits of that redemption with his body and blood.
Speaker 3:And then the turn, I think, for ethics, is that just as God gives himself to us, so completely now we give ourselves to the life of the neighbor in love. In fact, this is exactly kind of how Luther interprets the sacrament, as God's self-giving God giving us Christ's body and blood. And then the liturgy. After the liturgy, as one person has put it, or the worship that takes place after the benediction, is what happens in daily life, as you are living a life turned inside out to love the neighbor. And when you look at the rest of Romans 12, the rest of Romans 12 is exactly about the very concrete shape that the Christian life takes practicing hospitality, doing good to those who curse you, living at peace. You know all the kinds of descriptors there that you have of the life of the Christian who now is living by the promise and power of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2:So good. We love, as Lutherans, to talk about the work of Jesus, right, the gospel is his life, his perfect fulfillment of the law, and you see this summarized in 1 Corinthians 15. Paul basically gives a summary of what he's received. He's passed down, he fulfilled the law, he died our death, suffered for our sins, and three days later bodily rose from the. So we love to talk about the for our sins and three days later, bodily rose from this. So we love to talk about the work of Jesus, his ascension, his reign. Obviously, we are people of the word right, the words of Jesus. But then the way that Jesus lived, his embodied, sacrificial, cross-bearing way, obviously shaped the early church, a group of people who were so bold to say Jesus is Lord rather than Caesar is Lord, at the cost of, potentially, their life. Now their life had been wrapped up in Christ. So speak about the way of Jesus and the sanctified life, because another way to talk about the gospel is the spirit descending right. And they had to go and they had to wait to be fully made, fully right with the world. One of my favorite terms that Dr Bierman would use as it relates to our love in the world, our sanctified Holy Spirit filled life is becoming. It's about becoming. It's not perfection until Jesus comes, but becoming fully human, right, when things are just right and you're living in the proverbial groove of the Spirit. This is the way of Jesus.
Speaker 2:Sometimes, as Lutherans, though, we're reluctant, I think, sometimes to speak more about the way, because obviously we're worried about works, righteousness and things like that. I was speaking with another theologian, michael Gorman, on this podcast a little bit ago. I think it was on another podcast that I lead, but he goes we Methodists are not as concerned about now. They're concerned about works, righteousness, to be sure. But he was like, yeah, that's not. They're way more into speaking about the way of Jesus than we as Lutherans sometimes. And this kind of gets into and I'll just let I'm getting all the words out the debate between the second and third function of the law, and there in some Lutheran circles, right, we're reluctant to talk third function of the law. So, with all that as a preamble, I'd love to get your perspective on looking at Jesus, the way of Jesus, as a Christian today, dr Platt.
Speaker 3:Okay, you know this is a great question and something that Luther also had to tackle. You know, peter, in his first epistle, talks about how Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example, and then Peter kind of unpacks what that looks like in terms of the ordinary places of life and marriage and before secular government and so forth. But Luther used two kind of Latin terms and he said we have to keep the order straight, kind of Latin terms, and he said we have to keep the order straight. Luther is that Christ is first of all sacramentum, sacrament or donum, gift, and but secondly he is also exemplum. But the donum sacramentum kind of, is God to us. Luther says here Christ is sheer gift, nothing about my action, nothing about my work, that my stance is purely receptive by faith alone. And now, though, kind of turn to the neighbor, and Luther holds both together in the communion collect that we often pray after the receiving Christ's body and blood Luther wrote it in 1526, that this salutary gift may strengthen us in faith toward you, fervent love toward one another.
Speaker 3:Those are the two big words, faith and love. When they're confused, we have problems. We are not saved because of our love of God, that we are saved because of God's love for us, which is now received in faith. And now love is focused very concretely toward the neighbor, and so we don't see Jesus as an example in the sense that if we are conformed, if we do what Jesus did, then we would become righteous and worthy. None of us, you know, none of us, can do that. If it were a matter of imitating Jesus, we would all be done for from the beginning, because I don't think any of us was born of a virgin, and so there it is all receptive.
Speaker 3:The way I like to talk about, then, the life of faith is to use the word reciprocity, is to use the word reciprocity. We first of all receive, but then out of what we have received, we also give. You know, paul writes in 1 Corinthians 4, 8, what do you have that you had not received? That the entire stance of the Christian is one of receptivity. We were talking at the beginning of the podcast here a little bit, of course.
Speaker 3:I teach in theological ethics, and one of the texts I use is by a German Luther scholar still living, joel Beyer, living by Faith, and he has another great book or a great article entitled the Ethics of Gift, and he makes the point that, you know, kant started his ethics with the categorical imperative and he says Lutheran starts ethics with the categorical gift, and he cites that first Corinthians passage. And so that the first question is, for Bayer says, is not what must I do, but what have I been given? And then I kind of look at that in light of all three articles of the Creed Talked about the body and soul God created, redeemed, purchased, reconciled, redeemed, won back by the blood of Christ and liberated from sin, death and the devil by power of his resurrection from the dead, enlivened by the Holy Spirit given us in baptism, so that we indeed now are temples, our bodies in fact, are temples of that Holy Spirit. And now, what have I been given? I've been given particular neighbors, and Bayer suggests that we think particularly about what Luther called the three estates or table of duties. You know, you live in a congregation where you're a preacher or hearer of the word of God. You live in the civic community where you are a governor or a citizen. You have, you know, a role in citizenship or in the civic sphere. And then the third, the domestic sphere, the household, which for Luther was not only the family but also the workplace, because in Luther's day most work was done inside the home or family farm. We would probably expand that a little today because most people are doing work outside the home or family farm. We would probably expand that a little today because most people are doing work outside the home.
Speaker 3:But the purpose for Luther is that these are the places now where you serve God by serving the neighbor. So you don't serve God by retreating to a monastery or trying to figure out some, you know, plan or program that you could serve God. You attend to these ordinary places in life and in that way Luther says that we are daily bread one to another and I really like that image that God gives daily bread, but he always does it through other creatures, and so I am, you know, recipient of daily bread, but he always does it through other creatures. And, and and so I am, you know, recipient of daily bread today has done 10 sub and uh, you know, somebody had to make that wrap and pour the drink and so forth. That was daily bread to me. And um, and now, hopefully, you know, by this podcast, by teaching later this afternoon, I can be daily bread to, you know, other people, my students, or, in this case, you know listeners, and so that there's a reciprocity here that God has arranged in the world.
Speaker 3:And, being a Christian, now, you know who the giver is and you know how God then is using that gift the giver is and you know how God then is using that gift, and you're not left on your own to try to figure out how these gifts are best to be used.
Speaker 3:And that's where we would talk about, you know, the Ten Commandments as a third function of the law, that the law doesn't justify, but it shows. It certainly shows and provides structure for the way that you are to live within creation and and and there again in creation I am to. Christ is my example. You know I can't do everything that he did. I can't feed the multitude with five loaves, two fish, but I can feed some people and even as he, you know, reached out to the hurting, I can reach out to those people that he places in my life, who are in need of my care, and so we can talk about living a Christ-like life. Then, to the neighbor, even though before God we still stand as those who are continually in need of the gift of his mercy.
Speaker 2:Hey, that's so good, Dr Pless, Thank you. Let's second part of our conversation love to talk, preaching, and this is a really nice segue. It appears as if at the close of a lot of the Apostle Paul's letters he gives some description maybe not as much prescription, but some description about what the life of faith looks like, and I'm thinking like Ephesians 5, in the home and love and respect between a husband and a wife. And sometimes the preacher's dilemma is and I love how law, gospel, there is an order, to be sure, I mean the sinner is killed, crushed and then raised to new life by the gospel. Faith is created through the preached, proclaimed and believed word.
Speaker 2:But sometimes the preacher's dilemma is well, what happens if I talk about maybe one of those three estates in my work in the world? Am I putting that person right back under the judgment of the law rather than the freedom of a Christian? And I think that I just gave us a key word there the freedom to follow Jesus in love for our neighbor, for our neighbor. So, as a Lutheran preacher, how comfortable and or sensitive should we be toward that struggle in preaching? Third function maybe prescriptive or descriptive life now in love for the neighbor, in a message, in a preaching ministry Am I?
Speaker 2:making sense I hope I am. Let's talk about preaching in a third function of the law.
Speaker 3:Okay, well, I guess. First of all, I think we need to keep in mind that we are not the one who is in control of the law. It's not like I'm in first gear and then push it over to third gear. The Holy Spirit is going to use the law as he wills and that's why we say a sermon preaching needs to preach both law and gospel the law to identify our need for the mercy that is received only by the gospel. And even as the law is doing that, it is also pointing us to the pattern that God would have us live within.
Speaker 3:I think the best example of this is probably the way Luther handles the Ten Commandments in small catechism. Commandments in small catechism that if you want to use kind of those you know Luther himself did not use first, second, third kind of language. It's a little later development. But if you want to use third use language, the commandments are basically third use in the small catechism. Third use in the small catechism. First of all it's directed to Christians. But Luther is talking in most of his expositions there both what the law prohibits but then also what the law prohibits prescribes. In other words, prohibition and prescription is kind of the way I talk about it, but you know, when you look at that, the things that the Christian is to do. Second commandment you know you're not to swear, lie, practice satanic arts or witchcraft deceived by God's name, but call upon him in every need, call upon his name in every need, pray, praise and give thanks. You might be able, with some discipline, to handle that first part. You know, I can watch my lips, I can refrain from cursing, I can. You know, avoiding witchcraft, that's actually kind of easy. I don't mess with Ouija boards and so forth. But when it comes to that second one, do I always, in every trouble, call upon God's name? No, do I always pray, praising your thanks? No, so what Luther does in kind of teaching third use is back to the fact that this law is also always attacking and accusing everything that is not in Christ, even as it is providing a kind of a structure, you might say, for the way that we live within creation. And so I think that would be kind of one aspect that the preacher needs to keep in mind. I think a second aspect is that when I preach the law, I need to preach the law in such a way as every mouth is shot and the whole world held accountable before God.
Speaker 3:One of the things I sometimes worry about in some of our congregations is that pastors can be very bold in condemning abortion, same-sex marriage, so forth, but and you know, think well, by that I'm preaching the law because my people should avoid these things, but at the same time they don't really realize that there are people there whose primary temptation might not be to a same-sex relationship or to go and get an abortion, and they then kind of take comfort in a kind of self-righteousness that I'm not like one of those. You know people, and so I think one of the great gifts we learned from CFW Walther and he got it from Luther is to preach the law with such incisiveness. If even a concrete particular sin is being condemned, it doesn't let you off the hook, you know. Or Jesus, as Luther says, takes the law in hand spiritually in the Sermon on the Mount no longer is it. You shall not commit adultery, it's whosoever lust in his heart is committed, adultery In similar words with murder and so forth. And so I think that is to be the caution we never reduce the law to simply examples of good things that we are to do and leave undone of good things that we are to do and leave undone. It's still God's law and it still kills and condemns everything that is not in Christ.
Speaker 3:But then, with the gospel, the gospel creates and enlivens a life that now has the actual energy and the will to be kind of self-forgetful and start focusing on what the neighbor needs, and I mean, I think, paul's great word in Galatians 2.20, the life I now live. I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me, and how that just kind of breaks the whole thing open, so that we are not resorting to self-justification, which is the default position of all human beings, but we are looking to Christ alone and rejoicing in what he has given us in the forgiveness of sins. We are then freed to focus on what does the neighbor need, what does my congregation here need? What is needed in the community, what is needed in the household? And then the pastor.
Speaker 3:I think the preacher can speak concretely and directly to that in the way that this is the way that this again, this embodied life, takes shape. This is what it looks like there, you know, in the world, but always, you know, rooted and grounded in Christ, and when you look at you know you mentioned Ephesians. Of course that's a great example, because the first three chapters of that letter all about the triune God, what he has done to redeem us, giving us a destiny of glory. And then, in chapters four through six, paul speaks very concretely life, of truth-telling in four, doing honest work with your hands so that you can give something to those in need marriage, children and parents, parents and children workers. It's almost as though Paul had been reading Luther's Catechism.
Speaker 2:Or vice versa.
Speaker 3:Yeah, obviously tongue in cheek there that Luther was reading Paul and has this place. You know, for the doctrine of vocation and I think you know Luther's two great contributions One was the rediscovery of justification by grace, through faith alone for Christ's sake. And I think the second discovery, if you want to put it like that, which flows from the first, is the doctrine of vocation, and I think sometimes we have not fully as Lutherans, we've not fully exploited the treasure that we have in the doctrine of vocation a calling to live by faith in Christ and then the calling to live a life of free service to the neighbor in the world.
Speaker 2:Wow, so much there, dr Pless. I am praying for I was just in Ephesians four unity in the church. Satan loves to steal, kill, destroy and divide and therefore we should put on the full armor of God Ephesians 6. And I think I'd love to get your take on this there are pockets in our church body where we're just not walking together, talking together as well as I pray we do, into the future. We've got some struggles and some people, myself included, who have strong opinions in terms of how we move forward together, from leadership development to what happens on different committees and behind closed doors.
Speaker 2:I think there's room for trust, wider trust, to be built in our church body and I think a re-understanding and gratitude and respect for the doctrine of vocation could play a key role, because there's still the battle sometimes between the office of holy ministry and then every everybody else you know and, and I think, the everybody else who are in our pews, who are sent out into the marketplace, into their homes, into their places of vocation, um as missionaries, as those who hear the word of God and speak the word of God, who are Ephesians chapter four equipped by those who are in leadership for love and good deeds. I think an understanding of vocation could go a long way right now in uniting us in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. Anything more to say there, dr Pless?
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, I think that's true. You know, I think that understanding of vocation kind of goes in both ways. You know, the pastor has a particular calling and the goal is not somebody put it the pastorhood of all believers, but the priesthood of all believers, and that priesthood is actually a higher calling than that of the pastor. Priesthood is actually a higher calling than that of the pastor. The pastor is there to deliver the gifts that will build up the body of Christ, but royal priests have the responsibility of, because of their status before God, of speaking to God on the behalf of people, speaking to people on behalf of God proclamation God on the behalf of people, speaking to people on behalf of God proclamation. And then this life of living sacrifice, which, if we you know, we kind of briefly mentioned Romans 12, present your bodies as living sacrifice, which then kind of encompasses everything that we're to do in, in, you know, in our life in the world. You know, when you sent me the note, one of the things that you mentioned and I realize that we're probably not going to have time to do it this time, but that's an excuse for me to come back another time I guess that's it, it was the Luther's Oratio, meditatio, tentatio and that's something I teach in pastoral theology, and you mentioned about tensions and struggles and even sometimes brotherly nastiness in the church, which, you know, there's plenty of blame to go around all sides there, no doubt. But, as you were thinking, you mentioned the Ephesians 6 passage, the whole armor of God.
Speaker 3:You think about Luther's oratio meditatio tentatio, the oratio, the prayer, the prayer that rises out of hearing the word of God, that in the church we pray our Father, who art in heaven are. You know we are brothers and sisters of the big brother Jesus, who now entitles us and enlivens us to call his father, our father, and to, you know, to come at it really from that perspective that you know we're not adversarial groups here. I mean, that's what satan would like to convince us that we are in competition. We got to get our piece of the turf, our plan, our um, you know, our uh goal accomplished. But you come at it as redeemed children of God, forgiven sinners, praying together our Father and the meditatio meditation, not in some kind of mystical Buddhist gazing at your belly button meditation, but hearing the Word of God and again hearing the Word of God together and letting that word have its way with us.
Speaker 3:And when Luther talks about the meditatio, he focuses it again on the first commandment. You shall have no other gods before me. And he says where the first commandment is meditated on, in that way, there will also be the tentatio, and that tentatio is the spiritual attack. But then what does that spiritual attack do? It drives us back to the meditatio, to the word of promise, and it's that word of promise that enables us to open our mouths to call upon the name of the Lord, call upon the name of the Lord. And so you know, I'm not suggesting that you or me or anybody else design a program for, you know, a new Kononia project or reconciliation project, but it would be interesting if we would just maybe look at Luther's Oratio Meditatio, tentatio and think together about how that might be something of a template to help us, you know, live together in Christian community.
Speaker 3:You know, the other person we were going to talk about and didn't get around to talking about this preaching was Helmut Thieleke, but one of his contemporaries, diedrich Bonhoeffer. Not many people know about Thieleke, everybody knows about Bonhoeffer. But Bonhoeffer wrote that little book Life Together. Life Together, yeah. And he says one of the great temptations with life together is you think it has to be this kind of perfect, we're all going to get along kind of community? No, we are sinners, we sin against each other even as we sin against our Lord, and there's always space, should be space for repentance, forgiveness and newness, newness of life, even as we struggle. And keeping in mind the words of Paul in Ephesians that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, it's not against other human beings, especially other human beings who are baptized and bear the name of brother or sister. It's against principalities and powers. And Satan's main goal, of course, is to silence the pure preaching of the gospel and give us some pseudo gospel.
Speaker 2:Dr Pless, this has been so much fun. I'm sorry we're. At time I made notes and when I get back in six months or so for another learning session with you, both times I've got to hang out with you. I feel like I'm back at school. I took like three pages of notes. You know I forget more things than I remember, and so you're just like sparking all of these beautiful teachings and if someone wants to partner with us at the ULC on designing a framework and it's never prescriptive you've got to do it this way.
Speaker 2:This is the power of invitation. There could be an invitation for us to really deeply look at conflict and resolution using the oratio, meditatio, tentatio, and then back to meditatio and back to oratio framework for coming together as brothers and sisters in Christ, recognizing that the first one to the cross wins Confession and absolution is at the heart of our Christian life together and we have to talk together. The reason we do these podcasts and there are some, as the world has changed and we started out with AI what that means for the written and spoken word that was another question I was going to bring up Like are you seeing this change at all? The next generation of writers. I love to write.
Speaker 2:You're a prolific writer, dr Pless, but unfortunately today and maybe some say it's fortunate you can just throw a couple thoughts into an AI chat, gpt, and come out with pretty well articulated I mean, it's kind of that is scary to me, just to be quite honest, because I think we need to be expressing ourselves in written and verbal form and not letting a robot help us communicate. I think there's something that's deeply, deeply wrong about that, and so I guess I'll just I got a couple minutes. I can be late to a meeting. Are you seeing AI in the classroom at all, where you're like I don't know if a human actually produced this.
Speaker 3:Or, yeah, what's your perspective? I mean, this kind of took us as a faculty kind of by surprise a couple of years ago and now we're asking that Professional journals now a lot of professional journals if you use AI in production of an article, you have to give a little disclaimer that you've done, that you reviewed journals. But then even there questions are being raised. You know, I use Google if I want to find some piece of historical data. Well, that's kind of AI. But if I, but if I have, if I would, you know, try to get AI to write an article on the difference between Melanchthon and Calvin, on the third use of a law. You know that's different.
Speaker 3:And and and I just driving over this morning listening to NPR, they were talking, there was a again an interview on AI and then maybe that's one reason I mentioned it, and they were talking about AI in the legal profession and lawyers actually using AI to write legal briefs, but then AI not always getting it right. And if AI can't get it right with civil law, I don't think AI is probably going to be able to do much with articulation of the gospel, even though you may give it some specs. The gospel from the perspective of Lutheran Church, missouri Senate, or the gospel according to Luther or something it's. You know, there still needs to be discernment in a human brain and eye involved in the process.
Speaker 2:I think I think you're right and yeah, so lots more to share. I can't wait Next time we're going to talk preaching in the age of fear and the article that he wrote. That's going to be a great time, hey, Dr Pless, praying for you and your ministry, for your body and your health and your mind to continue to shape the next generation of leaders in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. We're better for having you on today. If people want to connect with you, how can they do so, dr plus?
Speaker 3:they can do so at my seminary email. Uh, johnplus at ctsfwedu.
Speaker 3:So good and go ahead on social yeah, I, I have a facebook and and what's up and much of those stuff, but uh that the place is there too. I have a couple of pages on Facebook that deal with some of my own interest in Luther's pastoral theology and on two kingdoms and stuff, so they could find it there. Great to be with you. One of the fun things I get to do is continuing ed classes for pastors in the summer and having this conversation reminds me of why I enjoy doing that so much. Always good to be out there and have conversation with brothers who are serving flesh and blood congregations.
Speaker 2:Amen, just trying to be faithful. This is lead time. Please like, subscribe, comment, and that really does help get the word out when you have comments, whether you agree with everything we said or you've got a difference of opinions. Let's grow up together into Jesus, who is our leader and Lord, the lover of every human soul, who is the hound of heaven, who wants his gospel to be heard, preached, heard and believed, and this is a podcast of the Unite Leadership Collective. That is our heart's desire, because that is God's desire that everyone would be saved. The days are too short for us to do anything other than preach the word of God and pray that the Holy Spirit works, that many would believe and come to a saving knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's a good day. Go and make it a great day. Thanks so much, dr Pless.
Speaker 1:You bet You've been listening to Lead Time, a podcast of the Unite Leadership Collective. The ULC's mission is to collaborate with the local church to discover, develop and deploy leaders through biblical Lutheran doctrine and innovative methods To partner with us in this gospel message. Subscribe to our channel, then go to theuniteleadershiporg to create your free login for exclusive material and resources and then to explore ways in which you can sponsor an episode. Thanks for listening and stay tuned for next week's episode.