We're doing a free community event at my workplace, socahom Melescien University here in
town on Thursday night to sort of sync up with LINT as Christians turn their
eyes toward the Cross and toward the resurrection, and to ask some questions of
well, how does that work when we say that Jesus saves, especially through
the unlikely means of death and through across how does that actually work? And
that's what the book is trying to unpack for just regular folks. Well,
that's great, and especially in this time of our world, having that understanding,
I think is very important and very beneficial for people to really understand how
it is that Jesus saves. And you know, I don't want you to
divulge too much information on your book because then people won't come to the community
event. But you are having this discussion about how long is the discussion going
to be happening on Thursday? So on Thursday night, it starts at six
thirty and it's going to last from between forty five minutes to an hour,
so it won't take your whole evening, but we do want to give some
time for questions as well as a presentation it's going to be accessible, so
there won't be a test afterwards, and we're going to try to make it
accessible for anybody. You don't have to be a pastor a theologian to come
and enjoy it. Doctor mcnawll, What made you have the decision or the
want or desire to author this book? Well, several years ago I wrote
a big academic book on atonement doctrine, which is just essentially looking at how
Jesus saves and it was well received by professors and things like that, which
is I jokingly say that means that nobody read it. And so one night
I was praying with my daughter before she went to sleep. And if you're
a parent, you know that bedtime often brings out kind of the deep questions.
And sometimes those questions are just stalling tactic to try to put off sleep
a little bit. But never do that. Never. Just yeah, Well,
this particular, my daughter asked me, She said, Dad, how
does Jesus save us by dying on the cross? And she's a smart girl
and she knows that death is not normally a good thing. We had just
been to our first funeral as a family. Her uncle died when he was
thirty years old from Louke Grigg's disease. And so here's a guy that she
loved who had passed away about the same age as Jesus. And so she
was wrestling with We say this every night when we pray, Jesus, you
know, thank you for dying on the cross for our sins, thank you
for saving us. She sees the cross at church, but even at a
young age, she was like, wait a minute, Like this doesn't really
make sense. Death is a bad thing, not a good thing. How
does an innocent person dying for guilty people fix anything? I mean, that
seems unjust and kind of backwards when we think about how justice or penalties work.
And so, whether she knew it or not, she was asking,
how does atonement doctrine actually make any sense once we get past just kind of
the bumper stickers or the things we say without thinking about it. And so
I wrote this book to connect not just with my daughter, but we just
ordinary people who have those sorts of questions. And I want to try to
help them make sense of the Cross. Not that I've entirely figured it out,
sure, but to help it connect with ordinary people so that we can
have more confidence in the Jesus that we say we worship, not necessarily the
understanding of the Jesus that we worship, in the faith in which that we
have in him. I think you open up very important topics because the concept
of death as a reward almost I hate to use the word of reward,
but that is a very difficult thing for most humans to understand. And so
I would assume that your book, I haven't read it yet, I look
forward to reading it delves into that topic a bit about how death can be
seen as a reward, especially whenever our Savior did it on behalf of our
of us. Yeah. I think one of the things I try to argue
in the book is that human beings have more than one problem. And we
know that because we know we're fallen, we know we're frail, and death
is one of the biggest ones. And so I would say that Jesus comes
to address all of our problems, but he doesn't solve them in the same
way. Right, And so we say that Jesus bears our penalty. We
say that Jesus conquers death and the devil. We say that Jesus reveals what
love looks like, and all of these are important, but you mentioned the
death question. That's the one that my daughter was short was kind of spinning
around in her mind. And so I think what I would say for Christians
is that Jesus transforms death. The death is not a penalty right for those
who are in Christ Jesus. Death is a gateway to the presence of Jesus.
Paul says, to be absent from the body is to be present with
the Lord. And ultimately death is just part one because the hope that we
have is what happened to Jesus, that the God who raised Jesus from the
dead will raise our bodies also, And so the end of the story is
not death. The end of the story is not even living as like a
ghost up in the clouds in heaven. The end of the story is what
happened to Jesus, which is resurrection. And I think that's one of the
things that makes the good news good news, is that death doesn't get the
final word. That's very true, and you're right, your daughter unknowingly asked
a deep question that I think every human struggles with, especially if you are
within the faith, and even more so if you are outside of the faith.
And what is your goal besides really explaining how the atonement for ordinary people
to take from your title of your book, what is the goal that you're
hoping to accomplish for maybe even non believers. Yeah, I have a huge
heart for people who are interested in Jesus. They find him compelling, but
they're kind of on the fence, and they have questions they have maybe they
have church hurt, maybe they have baggage like all of us do. And
so I would hope that even those folks would come to the event. It's
really designed for them, just as much as it's designed for people who consider
them selves Christians. I want them to come with their questions and things like
that. So really my goal is to illuminate how Jesus saves from more than
one angle. Most Christians have some sort of answer that they give, but
in most cases I think they fixate on maybe just one angle, one angle
of the problem, but also one angle of the solution. And so one
of my goals is to say that the good News is actually better than we
think, and it's greater than our attempts to explain it. And so I
want to illuminate some historic answers that Christians have given throughout the centuries to expand
our appreciation for what Jesus does. And again we're talking here with doctor Josh
mcnawll and Associate Professor Pastoral Theology at Oklahoma Wesleyan University. He has authored a
book, How Jesus Saves Atoned for ordinary People and again just touch again on
them. In the event that you're going to be hosting this week, where
is it at on campus? Where are you going to be doing? What
time? About? How long everything's going to be? Well? Thank you
again Nathan for having me. So it's Thursday night, it's at six point
thirty and it's on the campus of Oklahoma Wesleyan University here in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.
It's going to be in the Lion Performance Hall, which is in the
Chapel Fine Arts Center, is the big building that you see from Silver Lake
Road. There'll be plenty of parking there. So six thirty is when it
starts. There'll be copies of the book for sale. There's small small group's
curriculum, there's video curriculum, and so folks want to pick up a copy,
they can do that with check or cash or Venmo. And we just
want to serve the community. It's free, it's for people from all backgrounds,
from a variety of churches or denominations. We want to bless Bartlesville and
not just the students who attend our campus or suing their degree. We want
to serve the community, and so this is our chance to just say hey,
we love you, we want to help you out as we wrestle with
How Jesus Saves Well, Doctor mcnaell, I tell you great things are always
coming out of Oklahoma Wesleyan University. This is just another thing. Your book,
How Jesus Saves Atonemed for Ordinary People, will be available at that discussion
that you'll be having on Thursday at the Lion Performing Arts Center on the campus
of Oklahoma wesley University six thirty pm. Doctor mcnawell, thank you so much
for sharing your story and sharing your book with us here as well. Thank
you, Nathan, You're very welcome.