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Welcome back to the Weird Souls Are We Podcast! Ep 2
We’re going to talk about:
- What is a Weird Soul
- What happened when Paul wrote Romans
- Romans 12
- How do we live a weird soul life
- How to live a Jesus centered life
What the show will look like In EP 3
we’ll talk about what are the areas we need to make Jesus centered to live a weird life
Are you a Weird Soul? Weird Souls live a Jesus-centered life in modern culture.
Got Questions? Leave a comment.
Transcript
today we’re going to be looking at what is a weird soul and how do I become one by taking a look at Romans 12 so here we go weirdos today we’re going to be getting into what is a weird soul and a little bit more of how faith and culture intersect so if you have looked at the Bible at all or heard sermons different things I’m sure you’ve heard a little bit about an upside down kingdom or that we are not meant to live a life what the world looks like but the life Jesus showed us and demonstrated for us when he was on Earth
is a very backwards kind of life AKA weird Soul life so we’re called to be in the world not of the world and I think it a good place for us to start is looking at uh the Bible and the context It Was Written in and then looking at how that translates into today’s world and that’ll help us start understanding kind of where our faith and our culture intersect so first of all one of the major parts of the Bible that helped me kind of decide this is what I wanted weird souls to be was Romans 12 and Romans 12 is just a great chapter on how
do we live a Christian Life some things that I want to talk about before we really get into what Romans 12 is talking about first of all is the understanding that at this time that Paul is writing uh he’s writing to the Roman Church it has already been established it’s not a church that Paul started but one that somehow started through uh the other teachings of the disciples are Paul and one of the people that heard from them wound up in Rome and the church kind of got us got a start from that uh he’s also talking to
a church that’s divided it is still very segmented between the Gentiles and the Jews and people that are smart and study all the things about the Bible uh believe that the Gentiles in Rome were the stronger section of the church and kind of looked down on the Jews where it was reversed in the Middle East area another thing to understand is for the most part it was fairly peaceful there wasn’t Mass persecution happening in this time but they were looked at as strange Christians were the Romans and really all the culture of
that time they were still a polytheistic Society so they believed in all the different gods and so the Christians that were up and coming it was seen as a new religion it was seeing cultish or superstitious it seemed weird that they were looking at one God rather than multiple gods they were just seemed as a weird little sect of people but they didn’t have a ton of power they weren’t doing anything that harmed or caused uh the current people in charge to be super concerned outside the Jews and so for
the most part the Christians weren’t having a ton of persecution happening at this moment especially since Saul had become Paul the Bible even says that after uh Saul’s transformation into Paul the church experienced peace there wasn’t a ton of people against them so kind of similar to where we’re at in at least American culture today it’s not like people are out to literally kill us but we’re seen as weird people don’t necessarily understand us uh we can kind of be a fringe to our community
sometimes and so there’s some similarities between what was happening in Bible times and what we’re currently experiencing so that leads us to Romans 12. and I like Romans 12 because it really just hits all the pieces of how we should actually do the faith thing uh there’s a lot of a lot of times I feel like uh talks and devotionals and things like that can be very inspirational which is great or very theological which is also great but sometimes we just want to know how do I do the thing how do I do this
thing that we’re supposed to and Romans 12 is a really great starting point for this I think now I’m not going to read three Romans 12 it’s linked below if you want to read that or grab your own Bible read that I recommend you read The Entity and the message version because it just gives you a little bit uh it just gives you two different viewpoints on how to live a weird Soul kind of life but we’re actually going to break it down and we’re going to look at it through relationships the longer you’re with me
the more you’re going to hear that we look at everything through relationships because that’s the whole point of everything got started all of this crazy world uh with relationship in mind he’s fixing it with relationship in mind so we’re going to look at a lot of things with relationship in mind and there are three main relationships that everybody should have we have our up relationship with God we have our in relationship with other Christians and then we have our out relationship with our community
and those are the three relationships that are really going to Define how we act and interact with the people around us in our world and our culture so we’re going to start with our up relationship and these are kind of the sections of Romans 12 that I pulled out as being very specific to our relationship with God it says give your bodies to God uh let them be a living and holy sacrifice the kind you will find acceptable it says let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think it says work hard and serve the Lord
enthusiastically rejoice in our confident hope and keep on praying so in our up relationship with God how we interact with him the first thing that Romans 12 lists out is that we are to be we are to give everything to God and be a Living Sacrifice and when Paul’s writing this he’s writing this from the Viewpoint of somebody who grew up as a Jew looking for the Messiah he spent his whole life being dedicated to understanding Jewish scriptures Jewish law Jewish everything so that’s one of the reasons why Paul’s
able to go so quickly from being Jewish into Christian is he had already spent his life studying all the scriptures and when Jesus showed himself to Paul it was kind of like a light bit a light bulb moment where everything just clicked into place and he understood everything he’d been studying to that moment and so when he’s talking about Living Sacrifice he’s doing it through the Viewpoint of somebody who spent his whole life sacrificing and there are lots of rules and regulations around how and when and what you sacrifice and
these sacrifices are what is a good aroma and an appeasement to God to set your sins forward until the time that the Messiah would come so Paul spent his whole life doing all of these sacrifices trying to appease God for the sin that he had done until the time that Messiah would come and now under the new law he is using that same imagery saying the way that we constantly were giving up the things that belong to us to God as a reminder is that it wasn’t ours it was God’s that’s how we need to live our
lives our whole body everything about us is now a sacrifice to God and that’s the true way we worship in the Old Testament the true way of worship was sacrifices to God in order to say sorry for the sins that they were they either knew they committed or the sins that they didn’t know that they committed they were constantly giving sacrifices back to God as a reminder that he was in charge and that they belonged to him and now we give our lives as living sacrifices is what Paul calls it so once we give our bodies and everything we do
to God we also need to give our minds to him and he will transform it and it’s this whole concept of the way we were before God is not the way we’re supposed to be our sinful desires are selfish desires for us are supposed be transformed into God’s desires what does he want us to do what does he want for our lives there’s this metamorphosis process that happens that we should be working towards achieving a mind that is in sync with God and giving up the way we used to think about life Paul also
shows that there’s an understanding with our relationship with God that there is work that needs to be done we’re not supposed to just sit around and read and study our Bible all day long we have work to do and not just Ministry work but all of our work we can’t remove ourselves from the world and from the things that have to be done even though we would all love to not have to adult anymore uh there is this understanding that everything we do can be an act of worship to God and when we work as though we’re working for the Lord that
shows people a different kind of life and a different understanding for the everyday boring pieces but that they can be used as worship to God and then he reminds us to continually pray Paul brings us up multiple times through all of his letters but there’s a constant communication that needs to be happening with God that we need to be constantly going to him and giving him our worries and our wants and our desires and everything that we are hoping for we constantly need to be praying that God is going to meet us
where we are and help us get to what is next and then we rejoice in our confident hope confident hope being Jesus we know and hope for Jesus to come back and we can rejoice in that regardless of the circumstances and so all through this chapter Paul is helping the Romans understand what a healthy relationship with God and what that mindset is especially since it’s believed the majority of the Roman Church were Gentiles which wouldn’t have studied the Old Testament scriptures and wouldn’t have had a clear understanding
of what Jesus as the Messiah actually meant especially for the Jewish Christians in that church which leads us to our in relationships our relationships with other Christians and these are the things Paul listed out in the chapter as how we need to treat each other that call ourselves Christians within the church be honest in your evaluation of yourselves measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us love each other with genuine affection take Delight in honoring each other when God’s people are in need be ready to help them always
be eager to practice hospitality and so these just give us a general outline of how we are to treat each other within the church because the reality is if we aren’t treating each other well within the church who’s going to want to join like nobody wants to join a hot mess Express and that’s part of how we’re different we show people what it is really supposed to be like by the way we treat other people within the church and it’s supposed to be that when we’re doing this correctly people are
intrigued and they’re like I would like to be a part of a community like that it looks like you really take care of each other and that’s what brings people into being interested in a relationship with Jesus is they see how we’re supposed to be they see that we’re weird and that we’re different than the way the world says we should be which is take care of yourself get what’s owed you all of those kinds of things instead we lift each other up and we’re Unified and so that’s supposed to be
attractional so one of the first thing he says that Paul says about our relationships with each other is making sure that we have a right view of ourselves we can’t be looking at ourselves as higher up or more important than others we can’t think that because we’re doing something in the church that makes us better than other people it’s having a clear understanding that we each have a job to play and it doesn’t matter what that job is all of the roles that we have within the church work
together for ultimately the glory of the church as a whole and God and so once we’ve set our mindset right on where our position is in the church then our job is to love each other and again this is an Agape kind of love this is sacrificial love this is doing the best for somebody this isn’t the other types of love that we often have one word for in English but they have many types of words for it in Greek but we’re supposed to love each other and we’re supposed to honor each other which means calling
people um out for the good that they’re doing encouraging them helping them be the best best version of themselves in the community of Believers and that also means taking care of each other we’re supposed to make sure that nobody within our church family is in need and this can be difficult when you especially when you start getting into bigger churches this I think is one of the benefits of smaller churches all sizes have their benefits um and their drawbacks but the benefit of smaller communities is it’s easier to
know what needs truly are and help people with those needs the bigger Church gets the more just the longer time it takes and the more clarifications you have to have because the relationship isn’t there to really understand the need and that’s why benevolence can be difficult at larger churches but at smaller churches we’re in smaller communities like small groups for larger churches it’s easier for people to just be like oh you need this I’m going to take care of it so regardless of the size Church you go to
you as an individual are being called to help those that you see around you with need in your church community so it might be a small group it might be your serving team it might be people that you serve for your serving team it might be from a church-wide perspective of helping other people and being collaborative but the goal is that nobody in your church Community has need so that people see that again it’s an attractional quality that people see oh you’re taking care of the people that you call yours they’re a
part of your community you’re claiming them as a part of your community and you’re making sure they’re taken care of that’s different I like that I’m interested and so by doing this by taking care of each other by having humility and understanding that each of us play a role and not thinking of ourselves as higher up than another all of these things become attractional in the way we treat each other for people outside our community and the weird way we treat each other in the community doesn’t stop at the community once we
are unified and acting the way Jesus has showed us to act amongst each other we take that out into the world and we give people a taste of what that’s supposed to look like here is what Romans 12 says about our relationships out or with our community it says really love others bless those who persecute you pray that God will bless them uh the people that persecute you if your enemies are hungry feed them if they are thirsty give them something to drink and in these things that are specifically to us on how we re um on
how we relate to people outside in our community this is where the weird Souls piece really dials up because it’s one thing to treat the people that are in agreement with you uh well it’s one thing to treat the community that has said we’re all in with you on the same Viewpoint and mentality that’s easier to be unified and treat each other well and with love but when you go outside of your community when we’re outside the church and we’re still treating people well and in fact treating them the
opposite way that the world would say we should treat them that is weird that is something that throws people off and makes it even more interesting what we’re doing so where to treat others worse we’re to treat people that treat us terribly that persecute us that do not treat us well with blessings we’re supposed to help those that treat us poorly and I’ve heard tons of stories about people who help those that are making their lives terrible and in the end they win them to Christ because they’re like there is zero reason why
you should be treating me well and yet you are I’m interested in this person that you’re talking about Jesus because he’s telling you to act in a way that completely makes no sense and so we’re supposed to bless them we’re supposed to pray that God blesses their life even though we may not want to ask God to make the mean people have good lives but that is what we’re supposed to do we’re supposed to ask and show blessing to people and show them how it’s supposed to be in the hopes that when they see a
better way of life they’re like that’s the life I actually want I want this life that we treat each other well and things go well for us and that we’re blessing each other and people don’t have any that’s the life that I want and it destroys the point home with giving your enemies food and drink because in that time they were living in well Romans weren’t necessarily living in a desert culture but in Paul’s area in the Middle East it was a desert culture but there still wasn’t a middle class like
there were a lot of people that didn’t have what they needed and and that was one of the benefits of the church is everybody was helping with everything so the rich were helping with the poor the poor could help with um skills and labor and things like that and just everything worked well together so when Paul is calling people to share food and water with our enemies he’s calling on people that didn’t necessarily have enough for themselves to share with people that didn’t treat them well that might have had what they
needed on more regular basis but he’s saying even when you don’t have everything you need you still need to share with the people that are treating you poorly because that’s us trusting God is going to take care of us and that’s you showing them not only do I believe God is going to take care of me but you can have some of this this is what it see this is what it tastes like this is what our community is like and people wanted to join that and then the last couple things um that kind of go for either like it
didn’t seem like these were specific to and in or an out relationship these were the last couple things that it’s like it doesn’t matter who they are you’re gonna you’re gonna do this be happy with those who are happy weep with those who eat live in harmony with each other hold tightly to what is good be patient and trouble do things in such a way that everyone can see you are honorable do all that you can to live in peace with everyone conquer Evil by doing good and I that last phrase conquer Evil by
doing good like that just sums it all up we overcome difficulties in this world and we overcome uh what the world says is how we should act by doing good by showing people how life could be by showing people a better way of life and so he’s just reiterating we need to hold on to good we need to be patient we need to experience life with people and not just kind of avoid it and and especially with American culture I don’t know if it’s this way in other cultures necessarily I think some do warning
better but we definitely as American Christians avoid some of the hard things of Life we’d rather focus on the joy and the hope and the happiness of Jesus and the church but when people have difficulties when they’re struggling when they’re mourning over bad things that happen in their life we’re not always the best at sitting with those people and being with them in that moment and saying I know this is terrible but it will get better and that’s an area I think we definitely can work on that’s part of why I went
with the weird Souls angle and a little bit of a darker side of things because I don’t want us to shy away in our conversation from some of the harder topics some of the things that feel darker to us than the happy bright joyful things that we like to focus on so to be a weird Soul you’re there in the hard times as well as the happy times you’re going to be there for somebody regardless of what they’re going through and that’s how we build community and relationship now in addition to all the
things we are supposed to do Paul also listed some things that we should not do in our out relationships we’re not to copy the behavior and customs of this world don’t curse them the people who persecute you and I think those are two really good things that sometimes we get a little gray on in the church world and sometimes it can be hard that’s why we’re going to be talking about all things of faith and culture and life but don’t mimic the world sometimes we think we have to be like the world for them to be interested in
what we’re selling but that is not at all the way to think about our faith we are attractional because we’re different than them and when we start acting like the world thinking they’ll be interested in what we have we’re no different than them so they think we have nothing different than them to offer and so the important thing with the it goes along with transforming your mind we have to be different than them and not in a mean way not in a you’re doing it wrong way we don’t want to judge them
and say you’re doing life wrong you have to do it our way because they never signed up for our way of life but we can say hey I’m trying something different I’m doing life in a different way and this is all the good that a different way of life offers do you think you’re interested in this that’s the attractional way of bringing people in and not mimicking them still being around them still being in that world showing them that there’s a different option for how we live life and leaving
it up to them on whether or not they want to join in or not but we have to keep some of the differentiation between how we live our life and how the world lives our life and then with all relationships Paul says don’t think you are better than you really are we’ve talked about that never be lazy don’t be too proud to enjoy the company of ordinary people don’t think you know it all don’t pretend to love others don’t pay back evil with more evil don’t take revenge and don’t let evil conquer you
and this is a lot of what we’ve already talked about it’s just the inverse like don’t do these things and I think sometimes it’s good not just to look at what we should do but also look at what we don’t want to do because sometimes it’s easier to see oh I am caring about the hierarchy of who I’m hanging out with or oh I am treating people the way they treat me rather than treating them the way I want to be treated and so sometimes looking at the negative helps us identify when we’re
acting that way so that we can lean into the positive so that’s kind of the understanding behind weird souls and what it takes to be a weird Soul uh obviously the Bible talks a lot about the different ways we’re supposed to live we’re going to get into all of those different things over our course and journey here at weird Souls but Romans 12 is really where I started it also gets into some of our spiritual giftings and how we’re supposed to contribute our gifts to the body the church body but I decided I want to save
spiritual gifts for its own little section because Paul does talk about this a lot and there’s a lot of different thoughts about it so we’re going to get into spiritual gifts um on its own at some other point but give Romans 12 a read this week week or today even and start looking at how do I get to be a little bit more weirder in a way that makes somebody say I I think that’s the life that I’m interested in or tell me more about this because that’s weird but it’s good weird and I think that might be a better way of
living life thanks again for joining me on this episode of weird souls are we make sure to hit that like button and hit the subscribe so you never miss a video we’ll see you next time thank you
