More on the Midwest and Midlife with Kevin, Collin, and Justin

Life and Books and Everything — Clearly Reformed

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More on the Midwest and Midlife with Kevin, Collin, and Justin

May 19, 2025

Life and Books and EverythingClearly Reformed

The triumvirate comes back together to wrap up another season of LBE. Along with the obligatory sports chatter, the three guys talk at length about the first Midwest Pope (and why they are not Catholics) and about life in middle age (and why they are not too depressed). There are, of course, many book recommendations as well.

CHAPTERS

0:00 Sponsors

1:47 Greeting & Salutations

4:10 The Midwestern Scale Of How Are You Doing?

5:10 The First Midwestern Pope

14:05 Deep Dive Into New Pope Expectations

18:20 Why Don’t We Believe In A Pope?

28:35 From The Midwest To Midlife

32:44 Get A Tattoo And Buy A Motorcycle?

35:07 Sponsor Break

36:55 More On Midlife & Life As A Parent

40:56 Have We Changed In Significant Ways?

52:31 Collin’s Reading List

57:50 Kevin’s Reading List

01:03:01 Justin’s Reading List

01:06:59 Summer Sports Report

01:08:38 Thank You & Goodbye

Transcript

This episode of Life and Books and Everything is brought to you by Crossway, Publisher of a New Book by Matt Smithhurst, entitled Tim Keller on the Christian Life, the Transforming Power of the Gospel. Matt has done a great job in researching Tim's teaching and writing, not just published books, but other articles. And sermons, and be sure to check out the footnotes, just like Keller often did.

There's a whole separate extended conversation of the footnotes, and Matt does the same thing in this book, distilling over 40 years of Keller's teaching topic by topic. So be sure to check out this book. There are others in the Crossway series on the Christian Life and this new one from Matt Smithhurst, Tim Keller on the Christian Life.

You can pick up wherever books are sold or visit Crossway.org slash plus to sign up for an account and get 30% off. We also want to thank our friends at Desiring God for supporting the podcast. You can join John Piper and other DG teachers on June 6 for an evening of teaching and worship.

John is preparing a live look at the book session. Tony Ranky, David Mathis, DG CEO, Marshall Siegel will join him and teach on the topic. You still want to be happy, what it means to desire God.

This event hosted by Bethel Hembaptist Church in Minneapolis, tickets are free, registration is required. Go to desiringgod.org slash be happy. Greetings and salutations, loyal LBE listeners and watchers, followers won and all by the fives and tens.

We are glad that you have joined us. I have back my very, very special guest, Justin Taylor and Colin Hanson. As we conclude this season of life and books and everything, my plan is to take a break for the summer.

Though once in a while I'll find something that really gets me out of hibernation before the end of the summer, a book or a conversation or something. But as one of our producers, Barry Peterson said to me this morning, are you ready for another LBE wrap, WRAP? And I said, well, the three of us are the right guys for wrapping for sure. But Justin and Colin, how are you brothers doing? Justin? Doing well.

Good to be on. Good to wrap up another season. How many seasons has this been, Kevin? Did it start in COVID? It started in 2020? COVID knows all things.

So, you know, five years? It's a maybe 10th season? I don't know. Look at Justin, you have all of your Abraham Lincoln or Civil War books lined up behind you? Yeah, I guess my to read shelf or have read shelf. Some people put very prominently their own books, but you just put Abraham Lincoln.

Or pictures of family or anything like that. Yeah, or a helmet of a football team. There's some Nebraska sign back there that my nephew made me so.

I'm still representing Colin. Colin, how are you? Do we use the Midwestern scale of how we're doing when you say live in the dream? It means that you're terrible in your terrible, worst possible situation in there. Doing pretty well.

Trying to survive May with little kids and activities and stuff. May is only rivaled by December. So, what would you say that Midwestern scale is? So, live in the dream is, yep, I just stopped at Casey's for a hot dog.

Live in the dream is, you better call a mental health expert. Intervention is required. And what about better than I deserve? That's like probably pretty good.

Yeah, pious. Pious. I'm heading to my lake house, but I'll just say better than I deserve.

I'm heading to Michigan. Fine. My son has that one down.

Fine is a don't ask. And good is not good at all, but again, don't ask. You're probably more likely here doing good than doing well.

Yes, it's true. Not a bunch of grammarians around here. No, no.

So, speaking of the Midwest, there is the first Midwestern Pope. First American Pope. First Midwestern Pope from Chicago.

Colin, how do you pronounce his last name? I have no idea. Prezoni was born in the same neighborhood, weren't you? I think it's Leo, isn't it? No, that's his first name. The last name is the 14th.

Okay, sorry. Yeah. He comes from 14th.

I know they didn't teach me Roman numerals. So, I can't tell. Oh, yeah, that's a Roman Catholic thing, Protestants learn Arabic.

Okay. Unless it's Super Bowls. Yeah, Super Bowls, old page numbers, old editions of the Westminster Confession.

You need Roman numerals for something. Kevin, you weren't born very far from where he grew up? Where exactly was he born? Dixon, I thought. I'll have to look this up in there.

That's where Reagan lived, right? Between Kevin, the Pope, and Ronald Reagan. We're off to a good start. Ronald Reagan is the Collins Pope.

That's true. That's true. The Chicago jokes, I mean, they just wrote themselves about, he's a White Sox fan, so he's used to martyrdom.

You can see why I was confused. Okay, yeah, yeah. Yeah, Chicago has produced a Pope before they produced a quarterback who threw for four thousand yards.

Something about the papal bulls. First Pope to save big money at Menards. First Pope to have a concrete mixer at Culver, probably.

It is a, you know, we were talking about this just before we went on the air. Every, for us kind of Midwestern-ish, and you guys are Southern transplants now, but, you know, mostly it's like you hear about the Pope. You've never heard of him before.

And he lives in another country. And he doesn't speak English. And he's an older guy and they all kind of look somewhat similar.

Just like, they just seem like they appear out of nowhere. And of course, if you're Roman Catholic and you follow international ecclesiastical things, maybe you're more familiar, but for us Midwestern rubes, it's an interesting thing to like, hey, he's one of us. We walk the streets of Chicago.

Yeah, you just, you don't think of the Pope as being a real person. As there, there he is in the, in the Fox Sports, MLB Game One, Bobby Jinks on the mound. I remember it well, 2005 White Sox World Series.

And they cut, and there he is in a White Sox coat. I mean, just, if you just insert the Pope in almost any situation that's not Pope-ish, it just seems very strange. But you think, yeah, the first time as an American and someone like us grew up like us speak, oh, well, did he go to a homecoming dance? Did he have a girlfriend? You know, has he had, does he like deep dish pizza? All of these things, which should be obvious to us.

But as you said, when it comes from another faraway land and seems to, you know, live in a little self-made cell somewhere, and then you see, oh, this guy goes to baseball games. And now he's the Pope. You don't think John Paul went to the Bulls game back in the day? No, he liked Reagan, though.

He did like, did like. All right, Colin, bring this home. What do you, what, what did you think when you heard? Heard.

Do you care? Should we, as Protestants, are we making too big a deal of this? Not as enough of a big deal as we should? I was mostly in it for the jokes. I have to admit. But I think, overall, when we consider this- Oh, when the tariffs, you know, we finally got it.

We had to tear it with me. We got a made in America. We didn't go that route.

Again, they were, they were simply endless and they were, and they were wonderful. I do have a question about how did they know to go back in that footage and find him? I know. How does that even? I think, do they have, I wonder if they have AI that now? AI image.

Comb through and find images. Or maybe they could have scrolled through his brother's Twitter accounts and seen, like, that he was at a game and thought, well, let's go check the- Now, I mean, crazy that I'm all the people and, you know, tens of thousands of people in a stadium that the camera is going to zoom in on one guy. I saw, I mean, I did see a photo.

It was not the same stuff from the footage on Fox, but I saw a photo of him. It was like at a White Sox game, maybe even mentioning a World Series. But anyway, I digress.

Going back to the overall thought, I don't think there's anything in this papacy that's going to change our fundamental and severe disagreement with him on theological grounds or the very virtue of the Pope's claims to, to authority over the, over the Western church. At the same time, it's simply unavoidable that a lot of impressions about Christianity are going to be derived from the Pope. And I don't think when it comes to a lot of things that we care about and things that we share in common with a lot of Catholics, in terms of sexual ethics and whatnot, that are, of course, the very pressing issues of our day.

We disagree with them on some things, but some important things we agree on. I don't think Francis was any help whatsoever. When it came to those issues, the nonstop confusion, the seeming deliberate obfuscation with the media, the speaking one way, but that, of course, it's always attributed to interpretations or to translations.

That's part of the part of what it is about the Pope that's so mysterious. Nobody has any idea what he's ever saying, at least in, in our context, because, oh, well, he was speaking in Latin. He was speaking in Italian.

He was talking with the Italian media at the time, something like that. I don't know what that's going to look like because, obviously, Pope Leo can speak many languages in there, but I think there is a significant concern that he would represent biblical sexual ethics in ways that we are pressed in on from a number of different directions in kind of wearing the same foxholes when it comes to that. And then beyond that, one thing I did find to be encouraging, I don't know, I don't want to speculate too much because we're only hearing a few things out there, but if he took the name Pope Leo because of cultural technological transformations and the need to be able to guide through those changes and specifically identifying artificial intelligence, that's a really, that's a significant observation and one that, personally, I agree is that level of concern that we're going to have to be navigating from a thousand different angles and a thousand more that we haven't even thought of in the coming years.

And I don't know that the Pope has a big ability to shape a lot of public opinion, but he has more ability to do that than probably the three of us and many other people do. So I would prefer it be done in a good way and not in a way that Francis often handled things. So I think you're downplaying a little bit the influence of LBE.

Yeah, so you're saying Leo being a more traditional Pope name and Leo the 13th is famous, it's encyclical, I get all the but rarem, no-varum about labor and capital and work and technology and industrialization that you're suggesting maybe there's a deliberate attempt to be a successor. I think he explicitly said that's why he took the name from what I saw. So because, and specifically identified artificial intelligence and I think that's a good sign, not a sign that he'll be, well, it could be a sign of any number of things, but at the very least it's a sign that he's recognizing the way that these technologies threaten basic questions about what it means to be human.

And Protestant or Catholic or Orthodox or whatever, we're all going to be pressed in on those challenges, going to have to dig deep within our own biblical and theological resources, of which we have enough, thanks be to God, be able to find some answers and to suggest some pass forward. But again, I just rather have somebody who's thinking in a rooted way with some continuity over time than somebody like Francis who felt like he was making up a lot of stuff as he was going. Kevin, can I ask you a question? Yeah.

You did an article this week on, was it eight differences? I think reposted it clearly form.org, the eight differences between Roman Catholics and Protestant evangelicals, which is really helpful, overview. As a Protestant, what do you think's the best case scenario for us with regard to maybe not just this pope but any pope? We don't, we could pray that he embraces Sola Fide, but that's not very realistic. So what is a realistic hope for a Protestant when it comes to a pope, you think? Yeah, that's a good question.

And then I'd like to ask you guys and talk about why don't we believe in a pope? What are our disagreements? Yeah, I think Colin outlined some of what a best case scenario, you have someone who is personally doesn't add scandal, who speaks clearly and not confusedly, someone who upholds not just, this is one of my confusions and I'm sure my Catholic friends would have an explanation that would satisfy them, perhaps not satisfy us, but the various confusions of, okay, on the one hand, Pope Francis is the holy father, and you respect for his office, and he is the father of the whole church, and yet we all know lots of Catholic writers or friends or people we respect who had almost nothing good to say about Pope Francis. Incredibly frustrated. So I know the distinction between ex-cathedra and papal infallibility doesn't mean everything he does is infallible but when he speaks from the chair, official declarations and yet that has always felt to me to be really special pleading, and on the one hand the holy father that you're supposed to be, say this is the leader of the church, he is the vicar of Christ on earth, and Pope Francis, while you made a mess of it and you got almost everything wrong.

I know there's a Catholic intellectual tradition that answers those questions and holds those things together, I would say as a Protestant, that doesn't make a lot of sense to me, not that we don't have bad pastors as well, but we don't think of them as the supreme pontiff over the whole church or with the ability to speak infallibly for the church doctrines which all people at all times must believe. So I think that the best case realistically is someone who wouldn't be wonderful to talk in this year 2025 about the Nicene Creed and speak. I find so often even smart Catholic intellectuals who may know Jesus speak in very bland I would say trite kind of way without doctrinal edges I think, and without real biblical, robust language behind it.

I mean there was always, you couldn't tell, I mean that was one of the memes with Pope Francis, you couldn't tell what's Pope Francis and what's a fortune cookie. I know you got the same dynamic with Joel Osteen sometimes, so we got them in the Protestant world as well. But somebody who spoke very forthrightly about the need to believe in Jesus and have sins forgiven in the death and resurrection and the orthodox faith that every Protestants and Catholics would agree on.

And then to hold the line of course on these issues that we're talking about I think would be a win for the church. So let me, I leaned into it already a little bit, but Carl Truman has said before that Protestants should have a reason why they're not Catholic and he's an ordained OPC minister so not Catholic. So this in particular not every Catholic doctrine but why do we not believe in a Pope? What do you say Justin? I think in his Protestants we start with the Bible and you know that's an immediate difference between us and the Catholics and the Catholics respect the Bible but they don't treat it as the norming norm over all other norms.

There's tradition right alongside at the same level as scripture as an authority and we don't believe that we believe in solo scriptura that scripture is alone the authoritative source of faith and doctrine and there's other authorities but they must submit it to authority of scripture. If you go back to scripture you know the proof text of of Peter's confession and Christ saying that he is the rock and the church will be built upon him it just doesn't demonstrate what they think it demonstrates that's not the start of Apple office and succession immediately after that not not several episodes but immediately after that we have Jesus rebuking Peter and saying get behind me Satan and so I don't think Peter is a good example of somebody who speaks infallibly so I going back to scripture we don't find it in scripture therefore we shouldn't believe it I think historically there's all sorts of problems with it I think from the standpoint of reason it's a circular argument why should we believe the Pope because the church says you should believe the Pope and why should you believe the church and it goes around and around so I don't find any compelling reason to believe it and then you've had very corrupt people serving in that office Francis was theologically muddled he may have not have been a morally corrupt man but as you guys know we have very bad examples and not an unbroken perfect succession from Peter to Leo so I think the reasons to not believe in a pope are really legion and significant yeah good summary Colin what do you add to that just add what Gavin Orton emphasizes in his newish book about why to be Protestant that the argument for the Catholic church is typically that against Protestants at least that we come we come late and we have all these doctrinal innovations and of course we reject that argument because we say first if it's biblical that's what matters and then second we find that these are evident also in the church fathers and so we see the Catholic church as having added to the Bible having added and then deviated from the church tradition in a number of different ways over the centuries I think that's the most compelling part for me that Gavin emphasizes are all of the different accretions the additions the add-ons the things that not only to me don't make a lot of logical sense and that has a lot to do with different Marian doctrines but clearly don't have any biblical uh don't have any biblical foundation and it just seems that so much of what the papacy itself is an addition it's it's something that comes later and it's an assertion without any basis it's also an assertion without any ability to be able to enact it which doesn't make a lot of sense simply declaring that you are in charge of the western church actually the whole church but just declaring it at some point and why the Roman pontiff would have that supremacy exactly it's what it feels like pope exactly so why why it would be Rome I mean there are certain things that make sense Rome is certainly a significant city in in the scriptures as well as in history but there's no sense in which a bishop or overseer of Rome we don't see this in scripture and why would that even be the case so I guess fundamental to the catholic view is the sense of the spirits leading in the historical developments through the institutional church and well I can see the hand of providence in a lot of ways working through the institutional church I think there has to be some basis being able to evaluate whether or not every change that comes to the church is a worthy and worthwhile and ultimately a godly change and then I don't see the papacy as any of those and thus I think it's easily easily rejected by Protestants so that's the only thing I would add yeah I think you you can look at biblical arguments you can go to Matthew 16 as you talked about Justin and I don't think Jesus on this rock I will build my church but even if even if you do take the interpretation that he means Peter I don't think that's a make or break for Protestant or Catholicism I think Jesus is actually saying on himself every other use of the word rock in the Testament refers to Jesus Christ but even if he were saying Peter we have Ephesians 220 that the church is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets so it's not something in a general scope that we couldn't agree with that Jesus builds the church and there are human officers that are foundational to that church but apart from Matthew 16 again I think there are really good reasons in Justin you've enumerated some of them you see in scripture the way in which the the terms presbyter, pastor, overseer or bishop are used interchangeably acts chapter 20 most famously all of them also in the pastoral epistles and you see in the early church yes there is an episcopal system and a hierarchy that develops but it's not there immediately and again if you believe in solo scriptura I understand that's a very key difference but if you do you say where is there anything anything remotely like this when Peter calls himself as a fellow elder that there would be that someday you would look and see billions of people would look and say that man right there is the vicar the vicarious representation of Christ on earth and is the supreme pontifex maximus over the whole church and he has the ability ex-cophaedra and speaks infallibly so you said these are doctrines that find development and I know one of the catholic arguments against Protestants is well we we have our own circular reasoning you prove solo scriptura by scripture or that even more commonly well but you don't have an infallible table of contents to your Bible you needed the church to decide what was the Bible you needed the church to establish the canon but even there it's very you know historically when you trace out the development of the canon it's critical they use words like recognized books there's no sense that the counselors are getting together and just saying let's vote all right today we decide what the Bible is they are rather very self-consciously recognizing that which is already has authority and is genuine and you see throughout the scriptures the word of God always forms the people of God it's never the people of God who sit in judgment upon the word of God always the word of God judges in forms and shapes and disciplines the people of God so without that understanding of the magisterium and the development of doctrine from an acorn to a giant oak that looks very very different it's hard to come up with I would say impossible to come up with the the papacy and the historical arguments you alluded to Colin you know when when I teach through church history and I try to be I try to give a sympathetic portrayal of anyone who can be looked at aesthetically so I love Gregory the great in his book of pastoral rule and Leo the great and they did great things and you understand why they're called the great and yet you see the development and in the first centuries if you would have said you know across the Roman world hey everybody knows that Rome is the most important bishopric really more important than Alexandria than Antioch then certainly Constantinople they they never agreed with that that Rome when Constantinople in the east had more money was a bigger city more power that's where the Roman Empire eventually went and lasted another thousand years so one one book that I just read over the weekend from our friend Leonardo how do you say his last name Colin De Currico? De Currico? Okay well you well pause there everyone it's De Currico all right who really does fine work on this area he has a little book on the rise of the papacy you could yeah you could read it in an afternoon it's fewer than a hundred pages you know a Protestant perspective for sure but I think fair and covers a lot of ground historically, biblically, theologically and then looks at some of the recent popes this came out at the time Pope Francis was starting so there's a little book published by Christian Focus if you want a pocket guide to the papacy anything else before I move this move us away from the first Chicago Pope can you get the Olympics to Chicago? Obama I was gonna say even Obama couldn't do that so it does not seem likely all right from the Midwest to midlife we're gonna look reflective just no particular reason for this to to come out but something that I do think about so I'm 47 Justin or are you able to say how old you are? I'm not at liberty to say okay I'll be 49 in July all right so 48 and Colin young man here 44 thank you for showing us with your fingers Colin we can barely see viewers engaged so this will really help our vast middle-aged Gen X audience so you're an old millennial I think Colin true 81 yeah I'm the oldest of the millennials I think they're actually is an easy way to tell the difference between Gen X and millennials if you had Facebook in college and I actually didn't it came the year after but it's close enough I've never had Facebook well yeah that's what I mean it's it's hard for a millennial to imagine a world without social media and Facebook for Gen X it was like maybe something you added later perhaps but one of those differences but yeah 80 81 in there but yeah older older millennial certainly remember most of the Gen X stuff and and listened to a lot of Pearl Jam that qualifies right so I think very distinctly I started to feel like I was middle-aged at 45 and I can explain why that is but I want to ask you Colin at 44 you have you have you have young kids yeah I'm I'm thinking you you still stretch into the the young cohort do do you do you self-identify as a middle-aged guy yeah I think so who's actually talking to my doctor about this and he said some of the later talking to your doctor exactly well I mean also I just saw the sign at my annual checkup saying that now I need the colonoscopy at 45 so I don't know if anything that's probably more middle-aged than that so but he was saying that some of the later latest studies are showing that there is often significant physical decline at age 42 around there and so Kevin you post alright no oh yeah but you'll you'll often hear people say things about well when I turned 40 and in some ways it's just a it's not a thing age is just a number right exactly but at the same time there is something that that happens to you I'll just I just want to have one reflection overall on this and eager to get your guys I'll defer to the wisdom of my elders when it comes to this topic in there but you noticed that a lot of studies about happiness show that these middle-aged years are the least happy of your life you're happy earlier you're happy later but there's this big trough in middle age and it's typically because you're caught between caring for children especially children that are getting older and making a lot of decisions and sometimes there's conflict there and then caring for parents another thing Kevin I've got the young kids but then also my parents aren't that old because they had me pretty young so they're older and retirement age and things like that but I'm not having to care for them at all but it's usually what what makes you feel so pressed in middle age but I saw somebody else comment recently that when you look back on your life is what are your best years it is the middle age years for the exact same reasons because you still had your parents around to care for because you still had your kids in your home and had a lot of responsibility essentially it's like in the middle of it middle age is so hard because your responsibility is at a peak in so many different directions but looking back what you loved about your life were the time when you had the most responsibility just something I've been thinking about lately Justin has has middle age been a thing for you maybe not a crisis but is it you thought huh this feels different yeah for sure and you know our memories are notoriously unreliable but it didn't seem like turning 40 was that big a deal to me kind of in some ways kind of look forward to it you feel like you're just still a young adult and then 40 is like oh this is a turning point I think 50 feels like more of a milestone to me that you know that'll be a year and a half for me till I turn 50 and there's just no way to kind of massage that of like you know when you're 40 you can think like I'm still pretty much my 30s when you're 50 you're like oh five more years and I get the Perkins special discount on the back of the menu you're getting ARP let's get the gray hair and already Culver is giving you the senior discount which is live in the dream magazines might do a 30 under 30 or here's 40 leaders under 40 nobody does 50 leaders under 50 and I was at a home school tracking field thing for a daughter and was talking to a mom that we were running this little event together and kind of like you just think like yeah we're kind of the same age you're a little bit younger and you know what year did you graduate oh 2018 that's graduate from what high school and you thought you might be the same age we're just kind of like yeah we're I'm still kind of young you know kind of actually closer an age to 65 year old than to you so yeah yeah so it's definitely I mean I think you start thinking about health stuff you start thinking about the future you know all those things I don't I'm not gonna get a tattoo and buy a motorcycle but I might get a tattoo of a motorcycle yeah well do you know there one if you had a midlife crisis Justin how would we know what are the sides yeah I think the bandana trying to grow the beard posting a gym selfies I think mine would just be extra surliness again how would we know how would we know we want to take a moment to thank our friends at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary for their support of the podcast Greenville is watching a new podcast with Jonathan Master called the dead Presbyterian society I am told on good authority that Jonathan Master is still alive but the podcast the dead Presbyterian society talking about dead Presbyterians I have already listened to the first episode where Jonathan talks about Archibald Alexander and his book on the spiritual life so I am excited to hear many more about Benjamin Morgan Palmer Charles Hodge and other dead Presbyterians you don't have to be a Presbyterian to listen it helps not to be dead to listen this is a podcast for every Christian from our friends at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary we also want to mention our friends at Westminster Theological Seminary they offer a fully so if you're preparing for pastoral ministry you probably want to go to a place and study with others and get your MDiv and yet if you're struggling to find the bandwidth to grow in your own faith and it's hard to do it alone this online degree might be right for you you can learn from subject matter experts and develop a cohesive understanding of scripture from Genesis to Revelation in as little as one and a half years so join hundreds of other students around the globe in a program designed specifically with busy working professionals in mind learn more at wts.edu slash M-A-T-S so I moved here when I was 39 it's hard to believe it's been eight years and now when you know I meet somebody's 39 I'm like you are so young of course at 39 I'd already been past I'd been a pastor for 15 years when I when I came here and now eight years later it I agree 40 you still kind of stretch and you feel like yeah I mean you just turned 40 a little bit ago and you know people who are 38 they're just coming up to 40 same same so 45 hit me one because you're ticked over toward closer to 50 it was just a lot of things converged I had been that was 20 years I've been in ministry so now you're the and it's good but it's also just you know eye opening if somebody says you've had the same career job for 20 years you're one of the old guys you're one of the you know hopefully I got many more to go but you're one of the guys have been doing this a long time there's no sense in which I'm in the same but there's a full generation and then it started to look around and all of us have by God's grace had you know ability to do various things and have success in some ways but then you you know for most of that we've been the young guys in the room and I still MD young haha but then you realize no it's not just like sort of a stretch you're one of the older young guys you're just a full generation you have to start looking and say you're I mean when I when T4G started how old were all of those guys our age young yeah younger they were light 40s right leg and L and mark and CJ was a few years older but I think most of them are born in 60 yeah yeah yeah so they're yeah early 40s then I mean yeah mid 40s maybe yeah mid 40 so our age and you think back then you think oh well those those are like old guys in ministry right in their prime so now that that's us and the big thing for me yeah you start to get some aches and pains you start to also know people you know my wife and I said how come it seems like everybody right now it's got a scan or a cancer or a possible you know surgery and you realize well even in your 40s when and then if your friends stretch into the 50s yeah it's just when you get more of that than you do when you're when you're 25 and then when my son graduate from high school you know I'm I'm Dutch I'm not known for a lot of emotion I got a couple of emotions in there but man that really hit me a lot harder than I thought it would to oh that was his last track me and sending him off to college and you know each one is hard but but then you're sort of in the flow and you do realize parents out there you do realize you know the good thing about the the college racket as we have it is you go off and you're away for a few weeks and then they come back and then they have a long break and then they have a month over Christmas and they got few months over summer so it is it is pulling the band-aid off slowly but all of that hit me feeling like man you know for for for our whole 25 to 45 year old life you're not there yet Colin it's it's adding it's growing it's building it's new it's new it's in and then you know I think Greg Gilbert said it's like for 18 years you add things and then the rest of it is just taking away it doesn't have to be quite that bad and I was helped but more helped by people who said oh I'm closer to my kids than I've ever been and I love being a grandpa I'm more help by that than the people that say yeah your life will never be the same it's a profound sadness and you know there's truth in in all of that assessment but I wonder just sticking with this theme do you guys think over the last 20 years can you think of maybe the answer is no but are there significant ways you've changed and any different beliefs or views that you have hmm that's a good question Kevin I I don't I mean I'll just change just I'll just throw in the obvious one our political system has changed a lot so I would say in some ways when you don't change is when you feel more alienated from the world because the world changes and the main way that people keep up with the world is they just kind of go along with it and so if you have a sense of rootedness of connection to the past of convictions then you feel increasingly at a step with things and not just sort of in an old man shaking his fist at the sky but in a I don't just it's you just feel a little bit alienated from things and feel like the world I guess feels less like home and I think mainly what I would say is wrapping all of that up Kevin for me I can see more now like the idea of living forever here is no fun at all so what's changed is that I have more of a longing for for the new heavens and the new earth of seeing Christ face to face that feels not necessarily imminent but it feels more like something that I'm looking forward to as opposed to how I'm gonna build this life and now I start to think about a lot of the people who are already there there's a lot more of that than there was when I was younger so those are a few ways feels like I've I've changed Justin I think there's two categories of people one that you know if you were a baptist and become a Presbyterian there's an obvious change if a Republican became a Democrat it's just a very clear demarcation but I think absent from you know kind of conversions are big changes in your your mental belief system most of us tend to think like I haven't changed them like it's just the world around me that's changed or you know people have gotten crazier but I'm I've kind of stayed steadfast in the middle and you know which is not totally true I think Neil Shenvie said if you think you haven't changed go back and read what you were writing on social media or blogs in 2008 and it feels like a different world and maybe that's part of what Colin's talking about with yeah you know the political changes I think there's ways in which I've hopefully matured in terms of how I think about Christ and culture and politics and those sort of things but I don't think there's been massive changes I hope I hope I've grown in patients and kindness and love and courage and conviction and all of those things but I can't point to a lot of things that just you know is like I have a completely different view on this now I think some things I if you know you went back to the 40-year-old me or the 35-year-old me or the 30-year-old me I was more exercised or ramped up about certain things I had to laugh that they could make somebody tweeted I think I'm into this to you Kevin that I don't know when this was 2008 or something Jared Wilson tweeted the gospel freeze you to chill the heck out and like heaven wrote a response to that sentence and I did people yeah and I was I was weighing in and like all these people were weighing in and like the pros the cons and you know like now I'd be like cool Jared said that let's let's move on so I think you know that they younger us was maybe to to plug Colin's book a little bit more restless a little bit more antsy a little bit more sweaty hopefully we've a little bit you do gain perspective you definitely have a sense of I've seen this happen before and I know how this is gonna go so just kind of wait it out you know what do you think Kevin well and sometimes you you think how how do you have all the time to now I wrote crazy busy and and my friends who have known me for a long time like I meet with this group of seminary guys and they have said Kevin we used to we knew you know for the I don't know the the first 12 years or something we met every year your thing was gonna be you're so overwhelmed or so and he said they said we don't you haven't you haven't brought that the last five six seven eight years and I don't think it's the book crazy busy that was more processing through why I was feeling that all the time and I can't point to any one thing except I think part of it or you know some certain skills of learning how to manage schedules some of it is you if you are in a career and you do it reasonably well over time you get a pick and choose a little bit more the things that you want to do and focus on the things that your best at and probably find most satisfying and so that feels less overwhelming because objectively I mean I look back at some of those days that's an example Justin if I don't remember that but the things that I mean I was I found a sheet here in my desk of 10 questions to ask myself this must have been 15 years ago and it's amazing so many of them are still really good questions but one of them was am I going home and blogging every night and this was to be not to do that to be present with my wife I think wow back then you know you had to blog every day and how did I have time to be trying to do that and for a season to do that and so I don't feel as as harried as I did then and yet surely objectively I have more responsibilities I certainly have more kids so hopefully there's some sense of proportion perspective and I think it's it is with getting older it's always it goes both ways you need you know your younger self who's a little fiery a little idealistic who's not afraid to get into the phrase sometimes because you can get older and you have a constituency you have more to lose and so you just you play it safe that can be a danger and yet the flip side is there's a lot of maturity that realizes you know what that's not that important that's going to pass maybe I could say that you know I used to naively think you know I was in college you know what the way to live just always tell everybody exactly what you think well that's like a sociopath who that's just being Dutch by the way yeah well that but there's a there's a way to be smart and there's a way to say you know what I don't I don't need to probably cash in these chips right now I think one of the clear things for me and before I had kids and before I had a lot of kids I know I was more introspective and the bad side of that you know maybe I'm not taking as much time to plumb the depths in my heart no I still take long walks and I take prayer days I think mostly it's for the I think I think I had more time to think myself in a bad mood I had more time before a gaggle of kids to kind of ruminate about the problems in in my heart so there's a danger there's a danger for not doing that but I think overall it's it's just life has forced me to look up look out and again when I see some of the the people mixing it up every day all the time on Twitter like don't you I don't know don't you have toys to pick up at night don't aren't you shuttling your kids to to track me don't aren't you sitting down with your daughter to help her with fractions I mean how do you how do you have time to do all of this I hope that I have changed my mind on core beliefs I don't think that I have but there's certain things I think I've become you know if there's a breakpoint and any see any theological issue to become more reformed I'm sure I slid toward more reformed so I think a more more clearly cessationist than I might have been 15 or 20 years ago more clear on the three uses of the law clear on covenant theology I think a lot of us got better on our doctrine of the Trinity you know I wrote in the 2015 book on homosexuality that I did for crossway and Justin I have talked about this that when that gets a new printing maybe in a year or two I want to change a few things there's people have pointed out rightly so there's some ambiguous lines in there where I think a lot of us myself included were trying to figure out what's the right language to describe same sex attraction and is that is that in a neutral kind of category or a fallen category but not sinful and you know the work that I did on the PCA study committee report I think was more mature on that particular issue and had more theological nuance and categories so yeah all of us hopefully are learning and growing and finding ways to be clearer and sharper and in better on some areas any last thoughts my middle-aged friends before we talk about books just last last thought is that there is a mathematical thing when it comes to the turning 50 that I think is different because the actuarial tables do not suggest that most of us are going to live to be a hundred so you think this is this is the the second half or when you're 240 you think I could maybe I'll you know have another 10 years after 80 but there is that and be the Lord teach us to number our days and redeem the time and be wise and is there bodies wisely yeah thank God for still giving energy and doozy-ism and even though there's a sense of of loss and you can't you're gonna get injured you're just your body's gonna change yet there should be a real sense of excitement too that hopefully Lord willing God gives us sound of mind and body and some years left that these could be the years to to do the most for for the Lord at least humanly speaking who's just to say that a homebound 85-year-old who's praying all day isn't actually doing more for the Lord but may he give us and keep us and guard us and guide us boy we have seen too many too many people fall by the wayside and may God restore them and bring forgiveness and repentance as we've just saw another one in this week and may we all keep a close watch on our life in our doctrine you know as I've said many times my one of my foundational prayers Lord keep me for being sinful or stupid and we got to keep praying that for each other let me ask you then as we as we close give me life and books and everything we're heading into the summer a couple of books maybe you just have been reading finished that you liked or a couple of books for the summer that you're looking forward to let's leave our loyal LBE listeners with some books what have you Colin so some recent books that again would be very interesting for people to pick up office a summer book went through Kevin Van Hoosier's mere Christian hermeneutics that book's kind of a stretch for me this is not my area of strength and that's I try to read outside my areas of strength and my old professor Kevin Van Hoosier in a widely regarded book and of course bringing me up to speed quite a bit on the a lot of recent theological debates in there so especially theological interpretation of scripture and retrieval essentially in that book I've got an interview coming out soon on my gospelbound podcast with Molly Worthen but our new book spellbound very interesting perspective there of using the using the the lens of charisma to explain how we are irreducibly and unavoidably religious as people and certainly look through an American history to trace that all the way through my number one recommendation for my book is never enough on Ecclesiastes I'm really surprised by that book and I think very highly of Bobby it just wasn't really what I expected but I'm a sucker for books on Ecclesiastes last book to remember to mention from actually I'll do actually a two more one I want to read I don't know if you guys I don't know if we talked about it before but Rob Smith's book The Body God Gives so from Lexum yep I mean I it is rare to find the kind of endorsements you find that book today from Rachel Gilson Elmolar Don Carson Sam Albury Greg Allison Abigail Favale I don't know that maybe that book is going to be the one that says okay he did the homework here it is yeah these are the answers yeah so I mean yeah I just I just thought I've heard so many people rave about that book so sometimes you can look and see what are going to be end of the year books that people a lot of people are going to cite that's clearly one of them that stands out and then Bobby's is the other one that stands out I'm gonna leave you guys on this one this is a book that I loved for part of it and then loathed for part of it and I don't have that experience very often this is Christian Smith's new book why religion went obsolete and I just want to make one point about this book that is utterly baffling and it's one of the most consistently confusing points that are run into he roots a lot of his observations and really it is a death sentence for traditional religion that's what he describes it's not that it's become it's decreasing it's not that it's losing some steam it's that it's dead that's the thesis traditional religion is dead in the West and of course who can come out like six months too late well that's another point that I was trying to make that that's one of my observations about the book is it does not seem matched to the moment that's one of the problems and he's of course who can dispute Smith's history in terms of talking to younger generations and hearing directly from them and those kinds of surveys but I just wanted to make this one observation a lot of it is his own analysis of what's going wrong and you guys will not be surprised by the list of of reasons and one of them of course is related to sexuality religion has gone obsolete because younger generations will not tolerate the will not the point that I do not understand and he mentions it in the book I can't remember if it's a footnote or if it's in the text itself is that the churches that have gone the exact direction that he says the generation wants them to go are in far far worse shape than the traditional religious groups that he says are done are obsolete and I I don't understand this if you're making an argument saying that this is why people don't trust traditional religion also if you do the opposite of that thing you're gonna be way worse off I don't understand that at all it actually seems like the only way you will survive today is if you have a traditional sexual ethic it's a death sentence to not have a traditional sexual ethic just sociologically speaking certainly we would argue biblically speaking as well big problem I have with that book I got a lot of other problems with that book but I fundamentally I don't understand that perspective and it colors the rest of the book so let me mention I'll give you the last word Justin a few books I think some of us were sent this book by John will see religious freedom a conservative primer which I'm told is really more the subtitle than the lead title it's more a conservative primer than it is a book just about religious freedom so I've heard friends really like this book so I'll probably give that a read I'm reading the two volumes I'm sure you guys are as well on Princeton and the work of Christian ministry which is that published by banner I think it's edited by James Garrison put together a whole series of so it's like two 400 500 page volumes that just has here's five you know essays from Machen and six from Hodge and it's just wonderful I'm reading that in my quiet time in the morning trying to read some of that the we just are finishing as a staff maybe my favorite Puritan paperback book again I so I've read it a few times Thomas Brooks precious remedies against Satan's devices I recommend that to anyone it is so well laid out it's still readable I think it's one of the best Puritan books every summer I try to read or reread a preaching book and get reignited I am ignited but help fan the flames is preaching so I've often reread Lloyd Jones preaching and preachers I may pick a different one so that's always on the list I am reading a book you guys will love this title it came out I don't know how many years ago it's very handsomely put together it's it really makes a big difference and I so appreciate crossway gets this there is a way to make a book that when it is sitting there on your desk you want to pick it up you want to hold the pages you want to look at it it's a pleasure to turn then there are others that look like I just it's hard to read it's discipline just to look at this one is very well put together it's called going Dutch how England plundered Holland's glory good title so it's about it's about the inter the Anglo Dutch interplay in the 17th century and a lot about William and Mary and it's fair it's very fun history read so that's good and then last I'll just mention I am I am all in I am all in for the next 12 and 13 months getting as much 1776 reading as I can okay I'm gonna make I'm all in for the Nicaea anniversary I'm all in for America couple of good anniversaries so I just finished teaching an elective class on John Witherspoon which most of my dissertation was really on the Scottish half so I actually knew less about the American half but which forced me to do I had great fun you'll love this call and I did I did a lecture on the battle of of Trenton and Princeton and talking all about so I'm all into the American Revolution I've probably read half a dozen books on it in the past year there's a book that came out last year the memory of 76 which is about how Americans have remembered 1776 it seems a little left of center and how it comprises that but it's still interesting America's forgotten founders there's a whole series there's only about five or six of them but this is the one that looks at it has 10 chapters I don't know if you guys saw this book it's a little paperback but they surveyed I think it was 50 or 60 historians just had them kind of rank forgotten founders so they took out Franklin Jefferson Madison Adams who did I miss Hamilton it's six of them Washington Washington and it came up with their top 10 which is pretty fascinating so Witherspoon just snuck in there as the tenth of the forgotten founders so Roger Sherman other people like that so I'm reading that and then the big one which I hope to get to this this summer the fate of the day by Rick Atkinson I'm listening to that one right now Rick Atkinson is so good he's so good so I just wanted Marlon Marlon we'll go yes there we go I listened to the first one and read some of the first one and read carefully the last part of it about Princeton and Trenton and the last half of 1776 and so I'm looking forward to this one so I need to get the audible and listen to it so I can make a dent into it but what you know in another life I am I'm called to be a pastor in a preacher and I love it no no better calling in another life wouldn't that be fun yeah to take you know 15 years and do that and write this massive trilogy on the Revolutionary War Europe trilogy from World War II is amazing so very excited about this one but yeah an audio it's like 30 hours it is a beast all right Justin give us your books I'm looking forward to the 2076 LBE bunch of old men can't figure out how to do the yeah well that would be unchanged yeah I'll take through a few of them I co-edited a series with Tommy Kidd so I had to read the books for this but they've all just came out Grimke on the Christian life and Whitfield on the Christian life he was the African-American Presbyterian pastor and Whitfield of course was most famous evangelist maybe surpassed a little bit by Billy Graham but maybe not and Whitfield was a slave owner so really interesting chapter in there not only a slave owner but loan to plantation and advocated for slavery so how do you reconcile that with warm-hearted evangelical god-glorifying belief and Grimke's approach to theology and social issues was really learned a lot from both of those books I don't know how to say his last name exactly I'll probably butcher but Richard tar war beam righteous strife how warring religious nationalist forged Lincoln's Union so I've just started that haven't gotten that far in it audible listens finished Rick Brookheiser's book on Lincoln founder son and I've known of Rick Brookheiser as a historian for years but he's a really insightful writer elegant writer makes interesting connections and observations and really want to read more from him two more quick ones them before us by Katie Faust and co-author Stacy Manning I think it was one of Kevin's books of the year a few years ago may end up doing a blog post on it but thinking about issues from surrogacy to gay marriage to divorce and how all of those things tend to put the adults before the children puts let's us before them and she's arguing we should put them before us and the the statistics that she complies of what these various things do of not having an intact family and ideally biological adoptive parents it's just it's it's really kind of a depressing read but she makes a forceful case I don't follow everything she says in terms of the rights language but I really endorse the final vision that she has and then one that I've I've started a few times and never gotten through but I'm listening to Joseph or Jonathan Epstein's narration of Moby Dick on Audible it won an award it's like the audiobook of the year and as you guys know if you listen to audiobooks a great narrator makes a big difference tried to listen to loan some dove one time and thankfully I sampled it beforehand because the narrator sounded like he had emphysema like between every sentence he was like I don't I don't think I could do 27 hours of listening to a guy Allison says it will remain the gold standard on this essential doctrine for decades to come Matthew Levering says it's one of the medius books I've read in years and Fred Sanders said it is sure to rank among most important studies in Trinitarian theology published in this decade because it may be right it but Adonis videos the same God who works all things inseparable operations in Trinitarian theology I know Adonis did a breakout at TGC on female substitution and teaches at Kevin's alma mater and is five-point Calvinists of complimentary and reformed and I really liked his writing and thinking so I want to read more of his work that's it all right what's the sporting event you're most looking forward to this summer the NFL schedule release well Nebraska kicks off at C is an arrowhead stadium so I'm looking forward to that with baby comes to a school plan behind playing Cincinnati I mean given I'm a baseball fan I like I like that but it just enjoying my son playing right now that's that's what's preoccupying me for this summer what about you Kevin you know there there are always track events for the for the real aficionado it's true and not Olympic year no but the world championships it'll come till September I've been pretty hard up I mean I have been yeah I can get into the NBA playoffs NHL playoffs so I've been I'll have that on sometimes that night to kind of help with the chores around the house but yeah it's it's a little bit you know you don't want football to come because it means summer is over yeah the draft and that was fun and you get the schedule but you don't want that to come too quickly as a Bears fan you don't want the off-season to end because you guys are always in the off-season years in a row yeah every year yeah we're gonna do it I don't know the the White Sox the White Sox are better than their record indicates and better than the Rockies better than the Rockies yeah you lose by three touchdowns you should probably fire your manager true all right all right well we have did you have a final sports thing Justin or just Nebraska you know that's a competition or something all right well thank you all and to all our listeners hope you have a great summer grateful for Justin and Colin being here and for your friendship thanks for listening to life and books and everything a ministry of clearly reformed you can get episodes like this and other resources at clearly reformed org and next time hopefully we'll be back with some other special guests maybe these very same ones and until then glorify God enjoy him forever and read a good book