Everyday Gospel with Paul Tripp

Life and Books and Everything — Clearly Reformed

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Everyday Gospel with Paul Tripp

November 6, 2024

Life and Books and EverythingClearly Reformed

Most Christians in conservative churches are familiar with Paul Tripp’s books. He’s one of the most popular authors in the church today, with a knack for applying the gospel to all of life. His devotional New Morning Mercies has been a consistent bestseller. Now Tripp has a new devotional, Everyday Gospel, that serves as a gospel commentary on the text of Scripture itself. Listen in as Kevin asks Paul about his writing process, his favorite books, and why he does what he does. Along the way, you’ll hear a few dramatic stories from Paul’s life and get his gospel encouragement for pastors and their congregations.

Chapters:

0:00 Sponsors

1:53 Welcome, Paul

4:34 On Mustaches and Painting

11:55 Everyday Gospel

41:30 Sponsor Break

43:10 Life & Ministry

1:07:02 Until Next Time…

Books & Everything:

Everyday Gospel: A Daily Devotional Connecting Scripture to All of Life

Daily Doctrine: A One-Year Guide to Systematic Theology

Desiring God | The Great Eight

Puritan Treasures for Today

Westminster Theological Seminary Biblical Language Certificate

Transcript

I want to take a moment to recognize our sponsors here on LBE, First Crossway, and I just read the ads that they give me. So today, I want to mention the book Daily Doctrine, which is written by yours truly. It is a new daily devotional, a one-year guide to systematic theology.

As I say at the beginning of the book, it's trying to do a number of different things. So you might use the book as a resource to look up. There are 260 entries, and you want to know what is meant by the orto salutis, or how do I understand the deity of Christ, or the mosaic covenant? You can pull it down.

You can look around and use it as a reference. You could read it straight through as a systematic theology. I call it a tiny turretin, a baby burk off, or five entries a week, each of them about a page for 52 weeks.

That's 260. You can read it as a daily devotional. Just 52 weeks.

You could start now. You could start at the beginning of the year, but this is Daily Doctrine, a one-year guide to systematic theology published by Crossway. And then also, thanks to Desiring God, they have released a new content series called The Great Eight, on arguably the greatest chapter in the Bible, Romans 8. And they've bundled a number of articles together as The Great Eight.

These are accessible articles, teachers, and some guest contributors help to walk you through this expedition up to one of the Mount Everest chapters of the Bible. So go to desiringgod.org slash themes, and you can find this theme, The Great Eight, and they can help you walk through Romans 8. Greetings and salutations. My name is Kevin Deung, and welcome to life and books and everything.

And I am joined by my very special guest. I have been waiting a while till we could align all of the schedules. And finally it has to have Paul Tripp live from sunny California.

Paul, thanks so much for being on the podcast. Oh, it's my honor. I'm glad to be with you.

I was trying to think we've, I mean, we've talked before, we've overlapped at some conferences, and I think we had you out to speak at a conference in Michigan before, and maybe the last time I remember us talking was in an airport somewhere, but we haven't had too many times, or maybe anytime to just sit down, or I'm standing, but, and have an hour and have a conversation. So I'm really looking forward to this and grateful for you taking time out of your schedule. So I said you're in California, explain a little bit your six months, Philly six months, California bicostal.

Why that? I bet you have a good reason. Well, we're rooted in nothing Philadelphia. We don't want to be out here all year long, but we do have three married children out here and six grandchildren from ages 11 down to two.

And we want to be in their lives. We love that we can pick our granddaughters who are in school up from school and take them to Starbucks for a minute and go home and have dinner with their parents. And we just feel so blessed that we have the wherewithal to be in their lives.

And I said before we hit record that I'm sure you have chosen the months wisely. Hence you're in California now until the spring and then in Philly I trust. That's right.

And we also can't fly the first of October. It's October to April, because if we're here for six months, we have to pick California taxes. So we have to we fly in one day less.

As very smart. As legalists will do. You know, very smart.

Are you a Philly sports fan? Are you a sports fan, Paul? I am. Yeah. Yes.

Well, better than than me. I was born in Chicago. I grew up in Michigan, but I'm a Chicago sports fan.

And I just don't even want to talk about anything. The Eagles have sort of turned it around this year. It looks promising for you.

But you know, if you look at the Phillies, the Eagles, the Sixers, they all have good seasons and they blow them to playoffs. It's so frustrating. That has been true.

So yeah, you you you have to enjoy the season and then just know it's going to end. I know. All right.

I have a super important question from the beginning that you've probably been asked before. Very important. How long have you had the mustache? I've had the mustache since I was a South Warren college.

I shaved it once on a sabbatical. My children looked at me. They now could see my entire face.

They were horrified and begged me to immediately grow it back. So I did. So your wife appreciates it, I guess.

Yeah, she's. It's been here since I was 18. So man, 18.

I mean, I could do like, but it wouldn't. I mean, it just wouldn't look good. Did you really probably had to commit or at 18? Did you already, you could tell this is going to come in in a real manly Tom selling sort of mustache.

Yeah, I could tell I was going to have a mustache. Yeah. And in seminary, it covered my whole mouth that part twang.

Oh, yeah. Well, the culture has caught up to you because now my sessions are a thing again. So congratulations.

If you're a young reform pastor and you don't have a beard, something's wrong with you. I know. Look at this.

It's crazy. But you do have an artistic bent and so does your wife. Is that correct? Yeah.

I'm a painter by application. I have a studio in the and Luella has been in the art business for years. She had galleries in Philadelphia, became quite respected in the Philadelphia art community.

And now she works as an art consultant because she can do that by closely. She has clients that she works with and provides art for their homes and their families. And so when we travel, we are in museums.

We are always chasing openings of galleries. It's been a really seeking part of our life. And in Philadelphia, we live in a loft.

So we have 16 foot ceilings in the spindest metal stairway to go up to a bedroom. And so we live in a gallery. We have one painting that's seven feet by 12 feet and nine foot sculptures.

And so yeah, we're, yeah, that's a very significant part of our lives. And you live near the famous art gallery, the Rocky Steps. There's a lot of other more boutique places too.

What are you frequent there? Well, there are the two main museums are the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which is a world-class museum with an amazing collection. But maybe the one that we enjoy the most is the Barnes Foundation. Hmm.

Albert Barnes was a very eccentric man, but he was a massive collection of pressiness art where the Philadelphia Museum may have four Renoirs. He has 150. Really? And so the Barnes Foundation replicates the way he hung the art in his mansion.

It's all small little galleries. But if you're a student of a pressiness art, you will come to Philadelphia to the Barnes Foundation because there's no collection like it in the entire world. It's pretty amazing.

And is that what both you and Luella do is your medium painting and impressionist or what's sort of your genre? So my paintings are modern, abstract, they're metallic looking. In fact, they end up looking like weathered metal surfaces and often people want to touch them. And very large.

My last commission was a piece that was six feet by eight feet. So yeah, Luella is a tremendous curator so she understands how art will look in a space and does a wonderful job in finding art for people that fit where they need art. So it's been a pretty significant part of our lives.

Well, I promise I'm getting to the book and other things, but I'm just curious down this rabbit trail. I'm sure you've had people Christians ask you, all right, so abstract art. I don't get it.

I can't tell what I'm looking at, what I'm seeing, what's your quick response as a Christian to help other Christians understand the kind of art that you do? Well, it's pretty easy for me. The glory of God in creation is so deep that it's not just a tree or a bird or a flower that's glorious, the individual elements are glorious. Light is glorious, shape is glorious, texture is glorious, color is glorious, and you can juxtapose those in ways that create interest and beauty.

And so that's what I'm doing. My paintings, although they don't have an object or a celebration of God's glory in creation. And what people mistake when they, their mistake people make when they look at abstract art is they, they're looking for something, they're looking for an object.

And it's non-objective art. It's removal of the art, the object to celebrate the elements of creation. That's a good way of putting it.

So it's not a where's Waldo, help me find what I'm supposed to be doing. But you, you are looking at something, you're looking at, you said colors and lights and textures. And so there's, there's something there to see and to celebrate and a skill that goes into, I mean, if somebody draws a picture of a flower and you say, that looks like a flower.

Cool. I couldn't do that. But the abstract art also takes a skill that I'm sure you've developed.

Abstract art is just, is not done by artists who don't know what they're doing because you have to understand all the rudimentary elements of art in order to do abstract art, just like a jazz musician is not a bad musician. He's employing classic elements of music. An example is there's a famous painting by Barnett Newman, which is this incredible field of red.

And he tells you, don't stand back from it, stand up close to it. And it's almost like you get enveloped in red. Well, the reason is rather than painting a single layer of red paint, he liquefied the paint and painted 40 layers of translucent red.

And it does when you stand close to it, it doesn't seem like you're just getting surrounded by this color. Now, there, there's a lot of thought and a lot of technique to something that looks very, very simple. So you would have the experience of the glory of a single color and how a single color can be such, if I can use these words, an emotional experience.

That's just the depth of what our wise God has created in his universe. That's very good. Well, thanks for letting me take that rabbit tree.

I do want to talk about some books and I want to get into some of your background too, Paul. So this new book, very just speaking of design and aesthetics, Crossway does a great job in this. Oh, absolutely.

Nice. Every day gospel, a daily devotional connecting scripture to all of life, you've written some other devotional books. How is this one different than say new morning mercies? So the devotional that you're holding is an accompaniment, accompaniment piece to a full Bible.

So there's an ESV Bible that has a daily Bible reading plan in it that starts in Genesis, ends in Revelation in one year. And at the end of every daily reading is a devotional by me out of that reading. Then I wrote gospel introductions to every book of the Bible that are there.

The devotional that you held up is taken out of that. So the way it's different is that when I wrote New Morning Mercies, I just was trying to give people the grace of the gospel every day in their lives because I know people like me can be gospel and these yaks. And probably, if you wanted to be a bit of a detective, you could tell what was going on in my life by just reading those devotional books.

This one, I had the discipline of studying passage of scripture and writing devotionals out of those passages. It's a bit intimidating when Crossway came to me and asked me if I would write devotional from the entire Bible. But I wanted to do this project because I'm deeply persuaded that this is deep into my heart.

It's why I do everything I do that other than the grace of the presence of his son with us between the already of our conversion and then not yet of our home one. God's two greatest gifts to us is his word and his church. And my goal in everything I write is that people would come to love God's word more and come to love Jesus more.

And that's why I decided to say yes to this project because I want people to really believe that all scripture is profitable. And I want them to find Jesus in every place in God's word. Yeah.

Well, thank you for doing it and you do it very well. And I wonder your experience in writing it because I haven't done as much, but I so I have this new book, Daily Doctrine, which is a little different. It's really trying to pack in really tight 260 days out of the year.

It's like a mini systematic theology, but it still required the discipline as I was writing it to do about 500 words each day. The biggest story, Bible story book that I did is 104 stories and each of those are like 500, 550 words. And on the one hand, that discipline, the good part about is at least as I found as a writer, I could set it aside.

I could I could be disciplined and try to do I'm going to do one today. I'm going to do one next week. It's not like, you know, writing a PhD dissertation and you got to have a ton of momentum to just keep it going and get all the research out.

And yet, I found it it was harder than I thought because if you're writing a different kind of book, you might sit down and you have a really good day and you crank out 2500 words, you're just on a roll and you got thoughts coming and a story. But when you do a devotional, each one is its own unit and needs to have something of a beginning and an end. I'm sure you found this, especially writing a devotional commentary on scripture.

It takes some research to know what do I want to say in a very succinct amount of time. So I found it to be enjoyable and a bit more challenging than people might think to get that unit of 500 or whatever these are, you know, 400 to 600 words each day. Have you liked that discipline? What's been challenging about writing devotionals like this? So something about my writing process in the business of family and ministry, I thought I'm not going to get writing retreats very often.

And the problem with the writing retreat is if it works, it's great. If it doesn't, you want to shoot yourself. Like I just blew it.

I'll wait till next year. So yeah, so I decided I would write every morning. If it's an hour, it's an hour of writing.

And if you do that, by the end of a month, you have a lot, lot down. So that's been, that's been my habit for many years. And in this project, as I started out, I would, I would study the first section of Genesis and then write a devotional and then study the next section just.

That was, that was too back and forth for me. And it was, it felt like I was seeing the scriptures out of context that way. So what I would do is I would dive in to 15 days of scripture, because I'm following the daily Bible reading plan.

And I would study and research all those, those, that body of scripture. And at some point decide what I want to do right on each of those 15 days, having that done, I would sit down and then zoom through 15 devotional because I made all those decisions. Then I'd go back and that's, and that's how I went all the way through scripture.

That felt like I was seeing scripture more in context. Right. And when I was writing, I could get at it.

And what didn't seem so back and forth to me. I just want to underline something you said at the beginning there about writing each day. I've found that writing is, it is a kind of muscle.

It's a mental muscle. You exercise that you get better at it. You also get tired.

Sometimes you sit down in the words flow and other times you just need to go and take a walk, mow the lawn. It just, it's just not there. But I've found if you can just do something on a regular pace, you really can write a lot.

People will ask me often, Kevin, how are you writing so much? And there's a lot of things to it. I have a lot of people around me to help me. And I do get some, some writing time during the summer, which I, I try to use well.

But a lot of it is just plugging along to keep writing. Is this something that is that natural to your personality, Paul? Or did you really have to develop that as a spiritual discipline? I, I am absolutely wired to be a project oriented person. And I, I'm very aware that I wake up in the morning and I, I have an agenda for the day.

And so I'm, I'm, I'm pretty disciplined to, you know, it's, it's my rowing machine, my time of the Lord, my writing time. I mean, it, they're, they're just non-negotiables for me. And that's very helpful to just have that in your mind.

And, and I, I do like the, the metaphor of muscle memory. I think it's a lot like that. I think for me, the more frequent my writing is, the more natural my writing is, the more comfortable the process is to me.

And that's why I thought, let's, let's make the research a body of time. And then I have 15 of these devotions in front of me and I can get into that, that writing groove and then go back and that's how I work my way through scripture. I don't know this for sure, but I'm guessing that new morning mercies might be your best-selling book or one of your best-selling books.

Have you been surprised how far the reach is? Or did you write that in humbly think, this might do pretty well because devotionals, a lot of publishers don't want to do devotionals because there's so many out there and it seems like they either sort of strike gold and they become Oswald Chambers or nobody reads them. What, what did you think when you did that? Well, Crossway wasn't super excited about this devotional. In fact, they asked me to give them 25 and take a look and when they sell the 25 and they were willing to.

I had no expectations as I don't, with any of my books, if I could take some time to explain why, how I arrive at the titles that I write. Imagine me standing in the middle of a circle and the circle is life. And my writing is mainly me turning toward another area and asking the question if I would look at this thing from the vantage of the gospel, how would it look different? And what would I say to people? How to live in light of the gospel in that particular place in their life? That's always been the way that I write.

And so I could honestly say I write what I believe that I need. And I don't think I'm up above anybody. I'm a man in the middle of my own sanctification.

I need rescuing grace every day of my life. And so I'm passionate about that because of that. And so I don't write things that I think will be popular.

I don't write with expectations of sales. And so New Morning Mercy's has been a wonder. I looked a couple of days ago, it's been out for 10 years, and it was still number 400 of all books on Amazon.

It's the craziness to me. But I think it does depict the deep hunger for the gospel of Jesus Christ that's out there. Because that's all New Morning Mercy's is day after day after day.

It's honest about sin and honest about grace. And as a pastor, I've had people, friends and family, parishioners over the years, especially this time of year coming up to turn to the calendar, people always ask me, what's a devotional? I want to try to do a devotional. And that's a good habit for Christians to have.

And believe it or not, there haven't always been, I mean, there's tons of devotionals that have a little story and a little hook, and they're okay. But that are going to give you some depth in some scripture. So I've often recommended if people want to read the two volumes from Don Carson for the love of God, which is, you know, Don Carson, exegetical, kind of commentary through the McShane plan.

And then, you know, maybe they go back to Spurgeon morning and evening. But yours when it came out 10 years ago, my daughter just recently got the teen edition and started reading it. So it really has been effective and it really does serve a need.

So thank you for that. Thank you for everyday gospel and what you're doing here. So let me jump in before you ask your next question.

One of the complaints has been for pastors about devotions like New Morning Mercy is Mercy's is as good as it is and as biblical is, it often replaces the Bible and people's devotions. And that's one of the reasons I was excited about this, this volume, because even if you don't buy the full Bible, it's available in a full Bible rendition, and you buy the devotional, it's still key to those past the scripture. And you won't get the full intent of the devotional without reading those past the scripture.

I love that that's connected directly to the word of God. It's encouraging people to be in scripture every day. Now that makes sense.

That's really good. I'm going to ask you a question that's maybe hard for an author, if you think of your books as your kids and you don't have favorites, but some books come more easily, some develop a speak to your own heart. So when people ask me, my favorite book, I don't know that my favorite book, I will often say, because it hasn't been a bestseller, I will say I loved working on the book I did with Moody years ago on the Heidelberg Catechism, because I grew up with the Heidelberg Catechism.

It's near and dear to my heart. And so that was a labor of love to go through those 52 Lord's days and write maybe a thousand words on each one. And it's been helpful to some people.

So that's one book. On the other side, I'm very glad I wrote this book, but the book I did on what does the Bible teach about homosexuality was probably the one book I've written that I just did not enjoy doing it. I had written so much, I've written so many blogs and other things on homosexuality.

I thought when I was talking to Crossway, I might just be able to, you know, just pull some sermons, pull some things, paste it together, and there you go. But it didn't work that way. And to research the topic and get deep into the topic, I just didn't, I didn't like it.

It's a difficult topic. When you start looking at some of the Greco-Roman literature, it could be very dark. And the whole topic is so fraught.

So that's one I'm glad I did. And yet it's probably the only one during the whole process I didn't enjoy. Other than editing books, which every time I've edited a book, I tell everyone around me, please shoot me before I agree to edit the book again.

Never, never again. Are there one or two you've particularly enjoyed or were more laborious for you in the process? Well, I can, I can answer both. I mean, I think in the last several years, the book that I enjoyed the most and thought was important for me to write was my book Do You Believe? Where I take 12 core doctors of faith, basically I did a bit of a rewrite of the Westminster Confession.

Each one has two chapters, one defines and explains the doctrine. And the second chapter is about how you live in light of that, that doctrinal truth. I thought it was important for me because I had sort of been in the lane of a topical writer and I want to say, no, no, no, I'm, I'm a Bible guy.

I'm a theology guy. And I want him to encourage my popular audience to be serious about theology. And, you know, to get away from this, you know, theology is for seminary guys.

No, it's not. It's, it's for all of God's people. It's for children.

So I think that book was enjoyable to do. I had a really good research assistant and probably in my whole writing, the most difficult experience for me was my book Forever. Forever is not so much a book about eternity, but how transforming it is to live in light of eternity.

It's a Zandervin book. And I think that I don't mean this in a pejorative way. I think Zandervin wanted a more popular eternity light book.

And that's not what I gave them. And when I got the edits back, I realized my editor was disagreeing with me all the way through the book and wanting to be to rewrite the book. And it's just been, that was just a painful process.

It was very, very hard to work through. And I'm surprised that it even ended up as, as a book. And I walked away from that scene.

I never want to do this again. And that's to be candid. That's why I landed with Crossway.

Because that's a theological home for me. And I just decided, I'm not going to chase a big publisher. I'm going to be happy at this home and trust God to use what I put down on paper.

Yeah. And just to piggyback on that. And I had a good experience when my first few books were with Moody.

And what I'm so appreciative about Crossways is just that is theological alignment. And what a lot of people should realize, but don't realize is, you know, even a very good writer, and I'm not claiming that for myself, but you know, editors, they ask good questions, good editors make you sound better, good editors have in mind different audiences. You can have editors that have a fresh, you know, end up you having a frustrated experience.

But when it works well, and you're on the same page, it really is, it sounds cliche, but really is a team project by the time that gets out the author, you know, in solitude is probably writing it. But to have a good team really is invaluable. I think the first book I read of yours, Paul was instruments in the hands of the redeemer, or redeemer's hands, which we've used.

I've used in multiple churches, so practical. Did that come from kind of CCF lectures or counseling practicum? Where did that one come from? It's so it's a bit longer, but it's really hands-on. Yeah, I wanted to to write a book that was both a theology of and a methodology of biblical counseling, good biblical pastoral care.

And it was actually written to be a text for a course. So it wasn't written out of that course, but I've been working with the material for for several years. And it sort of was my third book, Age of Opportunity, War of Words, then Instruments.

When I wrote Age of Opportunity, I actually counseled someone's teenage son, and they said, what you did when my son, you ought to put into a book. And I'll help you get published. When I got it back from the publisher, it was a paper manuscript we were passing back and forth that she used a red pen.

It looked like a bad transfusion. And I thought, I'm done, I'm never going to write anything. And she said, no, the content's great.

I just need to teach her how to write, which she did. And I realized early, and this is completely okay for me, I wasn't going to be a C.S. Lewis, and it wasn't going to be a Hemingway. But I have things to say, and I have a way of saying those that I think will be helpful to people.

And so my bar as a writer is low. I'm not trying to reach this glorious level of eloquence. I understand my limits.

But I think the gospel is rich and beautiful, and it's a well that doesn't have any bottom, and I just want people to fall in love with the gospel and fall in love with Jesus and his word. And realize there's helpfulness for everything in their life that's right there in the gospel. The gospel is the world's best diagnostic.

And because it's the world, it is, it's the world's best killer, because effective cure is always attached to accuracy of diagnosis. And so that's what motivates me in writing. It's not because I'm going to be this stellar writer.

And I'm never, I'm never upset when my editor sort of criticizes the way a passage in writing flows. I get it. And my books always are much, much better after the writer.

The editor has done his or her thing. What did that woman who left it a bloodbath on your paper copy? What did she do to help you write better? Because lots of people out there want to write better. And it is a hard thing, even as a professor with students, I struggle to know how to get them to write better.

I can spot that's good. That's not good. And to bridge the gap is difficult.

She said one thing that was a game changer for me. She said the problem with what you've written and age of opportunity is you write like a speaker. And when you're speaking, you have gestures, you have tone of your voice, you have look on your face, you have it on time interaction with the crowd.

You have none of that in writing. The words have to bear the phrase, the words have to do everything. That was just like lights going off in my brain.

I got it. And then she said, write like you would talk to a normal human being. For example, I was asked to read somebody's manuscript and it was just a metaphor and you would never talk that way to a person.

He was trying to be flourily and eloquent and it just broke the communication. And so those two things, the words have to bear the phrase, and write in normal human language. Just set me on the course I've been on ever since.

And she edited, she edited the first three books. And so she would keep helping me with that. I'm grateful she did it.

Those first three are great. I've read all of them. How do you compare writing with the other things you do in your ministry? Mainly teaching and preaching.

Speaking would be, I'm sure there's leadership and counseling. How has God wired you? What do you like to do most? How do they all fit together? I'm a multitasker. So I think the most important thing I'm doing now is I have six young pastors that I mentor.

I get together with them individually regularly for about three hours. And we're not talking ministry strategy or preaching process. I'm really trying to speak into their lives as pastors, as husbands, as fathers, as citizens, trying to help them deal with the idolatries of ministry and all those kinds of things, hardships.

I have a thing that I do every year. I choose a passage of scripture and do 52 five minute videos that we shoot throughout the year. This next year is going to be Exodus.

We're halfway through John. And those have all been shot. And I love that process.

I love looking for things in those portions of scripture that people may be unfamiliar with or haven't noticed or so I enjoy doing that. I love podcast conversations. Our podcast conversations are two, two and a half hours.

And we did, we did four of those just on grace and just a really deep dive into when we use this term. What are we talking about? And what does scripture say about God's grace? And so I love that aspect. I love the speaking opportunities that I have.

I can say this to you understand this. I deeply miss regular pastoral preaching. It's it every week, Kevin, that's a pain in my heart.

God has chosen for his purpose and probably my good that my greatest contribution to the church will be in my writing. And I'm fine with that. But my heart is in the local church.

I love the church and I love pastoral preaching. I mean, some of my most wonderful days are when I was there with Phil at 10th and he preached the morning. I preached in the evening and I loved our partnership together.

So I miss that a lot. So I need, I do need speaking opportunities in my life. I like the short hard-hitting video Bible studies.

I like taking deep dives and passes of scripture, which I have to do to do 52 of those. So I love that that mix. I'm working now, what I'm writing now is a book called Restore.

It's the third part of the dangerous calling lead trilogy. It's how to speak grace in the life of a fallen pastor. Relevant.

Yeah. Let me, well, let me just want to underline what you said there. It's absolutely true.

And I say this and I mean it from the bottom of my heart. There's no place I'd rather be preaching than at my congregation to my people on a Sunday. Yeah.

People may think, wow, you get to speak at these other places and there's good things and challenging things about that. But absolutely, I'm always happiest to be preaching the next passage of scripture to those people that you have a relationship with, that you know, even a few sort of bigger church and you may not know all of them personally. You know them and you know some of them and they know you and they can shake your hand.

It's just that. Yeah. So I'm out of your heart and missing that.

When I speak at a pastor's conference, I speak there knowing nothing I will do or say whatever supplant the ministries of the people I'm speaking to. That there's something unique and beautiful about long term pastor ministry. And I think it's a visual metaphor of our relationship with God.

It's not just about knowing God, but being known by God. And so a pastor is now speaking out of his knowledge of that congregation. That's just such a beautiful thing.

And I have to deal with the fact that most of my speaking now is people I don't know. And so the kind of loving, beautiful specificity that a pastor can bring, because he knows his congregation and knows the culture around them. I just I just don't get that.

I want to mention a couple other sponsors. First Reformation Heritage Books, RHB in their series that we've been mentioning Puritan treasures today. You really should read the Puritans.

Everyone should read the Puritans. And it can be intimidating to get into the Puritans. And this series is to help make old books accessible to the modern reader.

So there's updated language, some introductions, you can get into John Owen, Jeremiah Burrows, Puritan treasures for today. If you use the coupon code clearly at checkout, you can get 10% off your entire order at heritagebooks.org to read the Puritans. And then also to mention again Westminster Theological Seminary.

He's been talking to Paul Trip here and went to and taught at Westminster Theological Seminary and grateful for them sponsoring the program. And I want to mention their 100% online biblical language certificate program. So it's a way right where you are to learn biblical languages with the discipline of earning this certificate to read and understand scripture in Hebrew and Greek.

And you can begin to understand things in as little as six sessions, of course not going to be experts after six sessions, but you can start to learn and that keeps you wanting to learn more and more. Go to wts.edu slash language. So we've been starting sort of at the end, or at least what people would know Paul Trip, the writer and speaker.

I'd love in our last, you know, 20 minutes here to go backward and talk a little bit. How did you become a Christian? Because if I remember hearing you or maybe your brother talk about this in a conference and you're willing to share, I mean, you grew up in a home that was church going, but with challenges. Yeah, yeah.

So how did you become a born-again Christian? So this is, this is how God brings his grace and glory into tragedy and hardship. There was one summer where my parents emptied the home. I don't still know why that is.

I was nine, my brother, my younger brother Mark was seven, my two older siblings Ted and Barbara Joe, all of us. They got us out of the house. We went to a Christian camp called Harmony Heart camp in Pennsylvania.

My brother and Mark and I for six weeks. We were way too young to be gone from our parents for six weeks. So they sent you to this camp away from us for six weeks? My brother Mark made it a couple days was so homesick that he spent the rest of the summer living in the cottage of the director of the camp and his wife.

My brother Ted and sister Barbara Joe, they went and worked at a Bible conference on the staff there. So I'm there for this, this six weeks and my particular counselor, he seemed like a very old man to me, but he was probably 30. I presumed to read and teach through Romans with nine year old boys.

And by the time he got to Romans three, I was deeply aware of my sin. And all of that raised a Christian home, pride just bled off me. And he would have the devotions before we went to bed.

And I was up on the third high bunk, three, three high. And I went to bed that night and I was weeping. It was conviction.

And as a I'd laid their thinking, I need to just confess my sin to Jesus and just plead first forgiveness. And I thought, I can't do this laying down. So everybody's asleep.

I crawled down to the floor, knelt down on the floor in the middle of that cabin. Nine year old boy. And nine year old boy, and cried out for my Savior's forgiveness.

And I would love to see this man in eternity. Because we underestimate, I think, the power of the gospel, even with little children. And there's so much I didn't understand and my life has been just a journey of learning since I'm still learning and I'll never stop.

But to be rescued by grace before I made any of the major decisions of life. And as I was in this very troubled home, it's just such a beautiful grace to me. And so I'm very, very thankful for that.

I think it's one of the reasons I came out of this home, not just broken and insane. Because you understand that the the wrenching contrast between the belief system on Sunday and the experiences inside the home during the week was just like an everyday schizophrenia that was very confusing. And yet there was a belief that I had been saved by grace, that Jesus was with me.

Once in high school, it was graduation and there's a graduation party. I didn't go to any parties. But they invited me to this party.

I thought I'd go and Kevin, I knew I shouldn't be at that part of the minute I walked in the door. I ran out and walked through for miles home because I'd gone with other people. And it was that fear of God and love for God and desire to place him that was planted at nine years old, that was operating there as a teenager.

And you know, I grew up in the 60s and when culture exploded and I'm so thankful for God's rescue at such a young age. And so what did your your parents then you said this was a very difficult almost spiritually schizophrenic environment. Did they tell that something had changed in you? Do you think they had where Christians were born again and had that same experience of grace? Yeah, I mean, all of us have ended up in ministry and some form.

And again, that's just the rescue and power of God's grace. My mom was very serious about her faith on one hand. I mean, Kevin, all my first year texts other than for Greek in seminary, I took off my mom's shelves.

Oh, yeah. Amazing. And so she was a serious reader and yeah, and her ability, I could say, give me passes on divorce.

And she would quote the addresses of 10 passages, but was broken in many ways. She had been raised in a dramatically abusive home. So there was that that thing when my mom died, she was in an out of coma for a week.

We we sang hymn store because she loved the great hymns of the faith. And I think we completed the hymn book. I can remember Lino Ramana said, Mom, we're out of hymns.

We're going to sing to the Beatles. We made it to the Trinity hymnal. Yeah.

But there still was that dysfunction. And I think that's why one of the things that God has used to give me the passion for what I do. Because my mission statement is connecting the transforming power of Jesus Christ to everyday life.

I want people to understand that what you live is what you actually believe. And that this is scary, but I want to say this, the enemies of our souls, who gladly give us our theology, who'll give us our biblical literacy, he'll give us our Sunday morning attendance, if he could capture our hearts. Right.

And I want to be part of his work of capturing the hearts of people where they live every day. So they're self-consciously living in a way that's stepping in accord with their with every demon. So you were had this experience in going through high school.

You said Pennsylvania. So did you grow up in Philadelphia? No, we we actually lived in Toledo, Ohio. Oh, okay.

Yeah. One stayed over from Pennsylvania. Yeah.

So where did you and so I can't strip this great big long drive to free them from our us for us. You're giving me ideas. And so then when did you you went to college, seminary, called a ministry, trace out where you went after leaving home.

So I went to Columbia Bible College. It's not called Columbia International University. I then was left with as many questions about scripture as I had answers.

And it was also the Vietnam War. I didn't want to go to fight and I could get a ministerial deferment. And so I wanted to go to Westminster, but they weren't accepting people from Bible colleges.

And they wanted me to go and take another a year of liberal art somewhere. And I didn't really want to do that. So I went to reform the fiscal seminary in Philadelphia.

And then went after there to join with my brother Ted at a church he was pastoring. I was just part of the congregation and we were doing a sort of a parachurch minister on the side a little bit like Lebri. And there was a small group that was a Bible study, wanted to plant a church in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

So the church that we were attending there in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, sent us up to Scranton every Sunday after about three years of being an itinerant preacher there. They asked me if I would become their pastor. And I was ordained there for 11 years.

I began to realize that Scranton was a place where the American Dream died in 1950. And I was doing a lot of pastoral counseling. I don't want to help to do that well.

And Westminster had a doctoral program. So I enrolled in that program. When I finished that program, I was approached about becoming part of the faculty.

It was a very hard decision because I was there to just become a better pastor. So went back to this garden. This is the 80s, 90s.

So I enrolled in 1980. Okay, so who did you learn counseling from there? So I was it was young new faculty members were Ed Welch and Dave Paulson and Wayne Mac, John Betler, and smattering of others. And this is just really at the beginning of this counseling revolution that would come to the church.

Yeah. And in fact, we I immediately became part of the faculty at graduation. I was actually before I graduated.

I became part of the faculty. And we realized that if this this movement was going to really infect the way the church was doing counseling, it needed a model. And so Ed Welch and who came who had a PhD in neuropsychology, David came out of a psychology degree at Harvard and me out of pastoral ministry.

So we had a theorist and apologist and a pastor. We got together to build a model of what it looked like in council biblical. And that was the early days was like being a study research center center.

Yeah. And actually, instruments came out of that. We needed some kind of easy to understand methodology that people get hold of.

And when you look at say the instruments book and what you're do you agree with it entirely? If you had any change of mind, it's not a leading question that I think you should have. I'm just curious. How do you look back on that that model and what came out of this now CCF world? I'm pretty happy.

I think you have to leave books in their historical setting. That's a setting of culture and the setting of my maturity. Kevin, I want to rewrite everything I wrote, of course, because God has continued to teach me.

And there's always nuances that I now understand that I would I would embed. But I love that book and I love that people are still being helped by it. I was just at a pastor's conference with focus on the family.

And I had people bring that book to me and say, we're discipling mature couples in our church. They can help younger couples using instruments. Well, I love that.

So, sure, there are things I've come to understand that I would have put more in that. But it was written when God called for me to write it. Yeah, I like the way you put that.

There's nothing wrong with sometimes doing a second edition. But when people have asked me to do a second edition, you know, if there's a mistake, this is an absolute, I got that wrong. Well, let's try to get that fixed in another printing or something.

But otherwise, I'm like you, I feel like, yeah, I'm a different person or not entirely the same. And I know something different. And that was in a context.

But I feel like that needs to remain there. That's who I was when I wrote that, leave it there. If it's not a, you know, heresy or a mistake in the Bible or something that needs to be corrected, you leave it and you trust people that there's always bad faith readers, but good faith readers can understand and hopefully they've progressed with you to read some of those things.

So I feel like that perspective, we're always learning, I mean, unless you're writing the Bible, you're gonna go back to some things and say, ah, I could have said that a little bit better. Yeah, I rest in God's sovereignty, which means his timing is always right. And that was the right time for me to write that book.

It was in terms of church. It was culturally needed. And it's okay.

And you have to do that with everything you write. You know, you're a better preacher in terms of communication now than you were in the beginning. You have a deeper understanding of God's work and his grace.

And that's the way God works. Yeah, I tell in my past from ministry class, I'm teaching right now at RTS. I look at that verse in 1 Timothy 4 that others may see your progress.

Now I said, you can look at that and be discouraged because I'm telling you, right now, you're preaching sermons that 10 years from now, you're going to be embarrassed by. And I've preached those sermons. But the good thing is, it means you've grown and people should see your progress.

That's not a bad word. And churches need to allow their pastors and pastors need to allow themselves that you are going to see progress. And that means you're going to look back and say, man, I do, I look, and I'm sure that means I'll look back at some of the sermons I'm doing now.

But certainly, when I was first in ministry, I think, wow, I preached way too long. I had no business preaching that long. And that was a gracious congregation.

Can I tell you side by that? Sorry. Can I tell you a story? Please. So I was about three years into pastoral ministry.

I was so beaten down and discouraged, criticized whatever that all I want to do is run. I didn't want to face another sermon. I didn't want to face another meeting.

I was just spent. And I had found, I had an education background and I found a Christian school that was looking for a principal in Southern California. I thought, Jesus in the beach, what's better than that? I went to my elders and said, I want to resign is that we would really, we don't think you should resign.

I would not. Brilliant. And finally, there was a Sunday where they stood up with me and I announced my resignation.

It was very emotional for the congregation. I stood up front as people came, cheerfully talked to me. Many people in congregation had never had a pastor other than me.

And as the case on small church, I was the last one out of the building. I turned to lock the door and on the porch of the of that church building was the oldest men on our talk to anybody. But I thought I should respect him.

And he said, you know, Paul, we know that you're immature. I thought, well, this is a good start. And then he said, words that were just God's grace to me.

Where's the church going to get mature pastors? If immature pastors run, don't go. We'd love you. I immediately began to weep.

And I walked home because we were in walking just to the wall. I walked home with our children. And I came in weeping.

She asked me, I was wrong. And I said, I can't go. And the metaphor I used was God just nailed my shoes to the porch of that church.

And I called my elders. I confessed my panic. I said, can I unresign? And they said, that's not typical, but we would love for you to do that.

Next Sunday, I confess my panic to the congregation. And I stayed for many years after that. Just think about that.

One sentence of grace changed the entire trajectory of my life. I needed a time to grow up as every pastor does. And I realized God had given me a place to grow up.

Well, I'm still doing that. But I'm so thankful for that moment because this wonderful ministry life wouldn't have happened. No books would have been written apart from that man speaking love and grace into my life at that moment where I was so discouraged because of my immaturity.

It's just an amazing story. And praise God for men like that and women like that. And there's lots of them in the churches if we can listen to them.

And notice what he said. I'm just giving you, it wasn't mindless flattery. It wasn't Paul, you're you're amazing.

Please don't go. You know, that might have felt good, but that probably wouldn't have changed your mind. And that's not what we mean by grace.

Grace doesn't just mean you're awesome. Go get them. I love everything about you.

It was real grace. It said something true and hard. But then with such, I mean, after the opening, we know you're a mature.

Oh, great. Where is this going? But we love you and we want you here. I mean, to hear those words and I hope pastors find encouragement in that and maybe I'll just throw this to you for a final comment.

And we have lots of people listening to this who aren't pastors, but I'm a pastor, you're a pastor and I love helping pastors because I think that helps the church. As you think about, you know, big question, all sorts of challenges from coast to coast. Here we are recording this the day before the election.

This will probably come out after the election. So if Paul and I aren't talking about whatever everyone's talking about is because we don't know what everyone's talking about. So just here we are speaking from the past and but you talk to a lot of pastors and I remember reading Dangerous Calling and you get these stories.

So you have a real front row view to the heart of pastors. What is it that you really want pastors out there to know and to hear and to understand about themselves, about God, about the gospel that they might keep going and minister effectively? Well, the first thing I would say is that no one's more enthusiastic about the use of your gifts than the giver is. God knows who you are, he knows where you are, he knows what you're doing and he's in you and for you and with you and that is such a beautiful, beautiful thing.

And you know the most of pastors in America are not pastoring big, well-known churches. They're pastoring and obscurity but imagine the glorious honor of being called to be the caregiver of the souls of 75 people and you give your life to that. And 75 people are able to be saying in a gospel sense of that and courageous and hopeful and make good choices and spend their money well and live in a culture that's gone crazy well and be evangelist where they are because you have been there Sunday after Sunday after Sunday what a beautiful thing.

And to people who are in those congregations I would say your pastor needs encouragement. Not when does your pastor need encouragement? Your pastor needs encouragement. Pastoral ministry is hard.

With pastors I say you just have to come to submit to the fact that a call to pastor be a pastor is called to suffer and you go through ebb and flows of wonderful times and very, very hard times. Your pastor needs encouragement. I'd say one other thing to the pastor is find somebody godly, mature in the faith.

You can be totally candid with who will comfort you, who will rebuke you where necessary, who will counsel you but will stand alongside you. It's really important. Amen.

You know when sometimes people will say they'll start, they'll preface a comment to me maybe in the handshake line afterward. Now pastor I don't want to give you a big head and I always think well just try me. Just go ahead.

Let me assist that temptation. I can handle it. Yeah don't be too concerned but I have very encouraging people and thank you for sincerely Paul thank you for using your gifts and speaking and mentoring pastors and writing.

I've been talking to Paul David Tripp and his most recent book Every Day Gospel, A Daily Devotional Connecting Scripture to All of Life and you can also get from Crossway the ESV that has Paul's devotionals wrapped around it so very grateful for this, for Crossway, for you. Thanks for being on life and books and everything. Thank you and thank you.

I just got a copy of your theology devotional and I'm looking forward to jumping in. Yeah well appreciate you and what you do and I regularly watch clips of your sermons and sometimes the whole sermon and I'm very thankful for your ministry as well. Well thank you for that and look forward to being in the same place at the same time hopefully before too long so thank you to all of our listeners until next time glorify God enjoy him forever and read a good book.