We’re finishing up our mini-series about the characteristics of deep disciples by looking at Jesus as the ultimate Idea Revolutionary.
We’ve introduced two categories of ideas here: Ideas in the Air (in culture and creation) and Ideas in the Soil (in our hearts). Let’s explore how Jesus confronted and transformed both ideas, and how we learn and grow to do the same.
TRANSCRIPTION
Idea Revolutionaries
Ok, we’re rounding out our mini-series on some characteristics of a deep disciple. A deep disciple is someone whose life is organized around becoming more like Jesus, that we are slowly, steadily, being formed to think like He thinks, relate like He relates, and love like He loves. It’s our ongoing journey of spiritual, heart, or character formation.
Hopefully, we’re taking this journey together with our close community. Discipleship is a group effort.
We’re in Season 4, which is all about the Forgotten Kingdom. The Kingdom of God is a primary theme of the Bible, yet many followers of Jesus don’t have a clear picture of it. Understanding the Kingdom is about gaining clarity on Jesus’s purpose and mission, and on ours.
So far this season, we’ve explored some definitions of the Kingdom, and we’ve taken a look at how our ideas about the End Times impact our assumptions about the Kingdom. You may remember our discussion of Splitters and Joiners.
And we’ve explored Jesus and His initial followers, uncovering some qualities of someone whose life is centered on seeking the Kingdom first.
A deep disciple is courageously curious. They invite themselves and others to dig into the ideas and desires that power and govern us. They genuinely want to know people’s hearts and serve them.
They’re particular. They seek out and pay careful attention to the individual. In a world filled with systems, numbers, and obsessions about populations and groups, a deep disciple bends toward each unique, extremely valuable person.
They practice releasing control. They give up trying to figure everything out or control people or situations. Ouch.
They practice being restful even in the middle of difficult tension. They typically don’t find that rest by quoting isolated Bible verses or Christian euphemisms. They find that rest through wrestling, with God and maybe even themselves.
And deep disciples are growing and learning to suffer well. We learn to suffer authentically (we’re honest and open about pain), and we learn to suffer in community, inviting trusted friends to suffer with us as we suffer with them.
The last characteristic of Jesus and deep disciples we’re going to explore is that they are idea revolutionaries. They learn to identify Ideas in the Air and Ideas in the Soil, and they intentionally work to transform dark ideas into light ideas.
The World of Ideas
If you’ve been on the Soil & Roots journey for any length of time, you’re well-versed in the world of ideas. It’s where a deep disciple often lives.
To review, an idea is an assumption, conclusion, or principle in which our hearts are rooted, but of which we’re typically unaware. Ideas and desires sit at the bottom of our hearts, and they power and govern who we are and how we operate in the world. They’re not so much intellectual conclusions as they are experienced realities. It takes a while to get our arms around the concept of ideas, but once we do, we become pretty good at uncovering them.
Ideas oftentimes align with our stated beliefs, but not always.
I know – this is not the way we normally talk about Christianity, theology, and discipleship.
But this concept of ideas is nothing new – it’s been explored, debated, and taught by philosophers and theologians for centuries.
We’ve explored numerous ideas here over the past few years.
One of the most popular examples of an idea that doesn’t align with a belief is the assumption that we need to earn God’s favor. We say over and over again that our salvation, our redemption, our relationship with God is purely a matter of His mercy and grace…and yet many of us function from the idea that we need to do this, go here, hit this mark, attend this conference, take this sacrament, to keep ourselves in God’s good favor.
I was speaking with a woman who runs her own Christian media ministry, and she was convinced that every time she sinned, God withheld donations to her ministry. The only way she could earn her way back into His good graces was to stop sinning and do more ministry. And yet she evangelized all sorts of people, assuring them that their salvation and status with God were purely a result of Jesus’ action, and not ours.
Her idea didn’t align with her belief. And she wasn’t even aware of it.
How did her heart come to embrace the idea that her status with God was based on her performance? It could be for any number of reasons. She probably grew up in a home where her acceptance, her being known, and her sense of security were based on how she performed.
People who grow up in performance-based homes or shame-based cultures will often struggle to live with Christ in such a way that truly rests in Him.
We will swear up and down that we do good works because we’re responding to His love, and yet the signs are there that we’re internally afraid He’ll leave us or reject us if we don’t measure up. I know what that feels like because it’s an idea I still struggle with.
Corrupt ideas can exhaust and deflate us.
This is deep stuff. We don’t unearth these hidden ideas without self-exploration and self-knowledge, what A.W. Tozer called a “painful self-probing.” And for many of us today, that isn’t on the menu.
Air and Soil
We’ve explored two major categories of ideas: Ideas in the Air and Ideas in the Soil. Ideas in the Air are those assumptions that float around culture and creation. We live in them. We breathe them. We’re exposed to them all day, every day. They permeate all seven mountains of culture. We may or may not notice them, but they’re impacting us in a myriad of ways.
If you live in a democracy, you live in an air of ideas that includes things like freedom, independence, autonomy, and rights. But if you lived in any number of ancient cultures, none of these ideas would have crossed your radar. It wouldn’t have bothered you – your heart wouldn’t have known anything different.
This is why studying the prevailing ideas of the cultures in which the Bible was written is so vital for understanding Scripture. From Moses to John, the cultures they were writing in were breathing very different “air” than we do today. If we don’t understand their “Ideas in the Air,” we end up transposing our unconscious ideas onto the text…and then we’re in trouble.
Ideas in the Soil are those that seep down into our hearts, and they form who we are. Let’s say you grew up in a home where you were punished or ignored if you expressed anger or disagreement. That experience formed certain ideas in your young heart. Today, you may rarely feel the freedom to express anger or disagreement (even if it harms you to keep quiet!) because you were formed in the idea that strong emotions and disagreement are “bad.”
As Dallas Willard noted, discipleship is the progressive transformation of these hidden ideas from darkness to light. It’s a lifelong journey, and it involves understanding the times and places we live in, as well as the ideas and desires that power us.
The Great Idea Revolutionary
Jesus, being the greatest Idea Revolutionary in world history, challenged and transformed both Ideas in the Air and Ideas in the Soil. He challenged and defeated all sorts of dark assumptions in the religious and cultural environment He was born into, and He invited scores of individuals to embrace His ideas in their soils…in their hearts.
He was so effective at transforming ideas through His words and actions that He started a worldwide movement that continues to have a positive, relentless impact today.
So, because you and I are on a lifelong journey to become more like Jesus, we may also learn how to identify Ideas in the Air and in the Soil and work to transform dark, deadly ideas into light ideas that lead to greater human flourishing.
An Idea in the Air in AD 30
Let’s walk through a practical example of an Idea in the Air and an Idea of the Soil.
At the time of Christ, what were the unconscious assumptions, the ideas, about the value of women, and how did Jesus confront those ideas?
Writer Rebecca McLaughlin quotes historian Tom Holland about the social assumptions regarding women at the time of Christ: “That every human being possessed an equal dignity was not remotely a self-evident truth.”
She goes on:
In Greco–Roman thinking, men were superior to women and sex was a way to prove it. “As captured cities were to the swords of the legions, so the bodies of those used sexually were to the Roman man,” Holland wrote. “To be penetrated, male or female, was to be branded as inferior.”
In Rome, “men no more hesitated to use slaves and prostitutes to relieve themselves of their sexual needs than they did to use the side of a road as a toilet.” The idea that every woman had the right to choose what happened to her body was laughable.”[1]
That was the Idea in the Air – women were worth far less than men and were tools and property to be used by them.
How did Jesus confront this damaging idea of the air when He walked the earth?
“If we could read the Gospels through first-century eyes, Jesus’s treatment of women would knock us to our knees. His longest recorded conversation with any individual was with a Samaritan woman of ill repute (John 4:7–30), and this wasn’t an isolated incident. Jesus repeatedly welcomed women his contemporaries despised.”[2]
He healed the woman of blood and restored her to her community. He had a deep friendship with Mary and Martha. Women were welcomed and allowed to travel with Jesus and His disciples. Female donors supported their movement.
How did Jesus, the son of God, come to earth? Through a woman. The very first people to see Him after His resurrection? Women.
As McLaughlin notes, “Jesus made time for women and treated them with care and respect.”[3]
It’s sometimes hard for us to comprehend the revolutionary way in which Jesus challenged ideas about women when He walked here, because we live, at least in this part of the world, in an area deeply impacted by His ideas.
And He didn’t so much teach ideas of light about women – He lived them. The way He related to women and honored them was itself the catalyst that began to change corrupt ideas.
That’s why women were so attracted to Him and Christianity, particularly in the first few hundred years after His earthly life.
An Idea in the Air Today
And yet…we still suffer from bad Ideas in the Air regarding women even now. Women in our culture continue to be objectified, abused, demeaned, exploited, and disregarded. Is it as overt as it was 2,000 years ago? Perhaps not. Has there been good progress? Yes. Are we there yet? No.
So how might we be like Jesus regarding this Idea in the Air? How might we live in such a way that women are valued and honored so that the dark ideas in culture are transformed into light ideas?
Jesus’ treatment of women was considered radical in His day. Is there still room for us to value and treat women in a radically positive way that will spread through families and into culture?
It starts in the home, of course. How husbands treat females in our homes is crucial to social transformation.
This is where we men are invited to do some soul-searching. Do we truly value women the way Jesus does? Are our assumptions about our wives in line with Jesus’ assumptions about our wives? Or, if we’re honest, are our hearts rooted in some dark ideas? Do we sometimes treat our wives and daughters as less valuable than us? Do we sometimes view our wives as property to be used, rather than fellow image-bearers to be honored?
These bad ideas don’t always show up in extreme cases such as abuse or neglect. They can show up quietly in our Eight Indicators: our thoughts, emotions, relationships, health, behaviors, words, and how we use time and money.
Do we habitually talk over and interrupt our wives? Do we really listen to them when they pour their hearts out to us? Do we value their input on decisions?
Do we trust them to manage time and money? Do we control things in our relationship that we shouldn’t control? Do we value them enough to protect them when they put themselves at risk? Do we invite appropriate conflict because of our love for them?
Ultimately, are our wives flourishing in our homes, or are they becoming less of who God made them to be because of our bad, sometimes very subtle, underlying ideas?
In the broader church and culture, how might we identify dark and light Ideas in the Air regarding the value of women? How are women portrayed and treated in the media we consume? In the books we read? In the conversations we have at work or church?
Pornography addiction is damaging for a host of reasons, but one of them is that it spreads dark ideas about the value of women in what is supposed to be the safest, most secure place – the home.
As we survey the Seven Mountains of Culture (business, government, the arts, media, church, and education), where might we find dark ideas about women, and how might we come together to transform those into light ideas?
An Idea in the Soil in A.D. 30
Let’s take a look at one of the ways Jesus transformed an Idea in the Soil. It seems like virtually every recorded word we have of Him reveals or confronts some idea in someone’s heart.
We’ve briefly mentioned it, but one of my favorite examples of Jesus re-orienting the ideas in someone’s heart is the story of the Samaritan woman in John 4.
Let’s see if we can get a handle on the kinds of ideas that were guiding this woman who showed up at the well in the heat of the day to fill her water pot.
Back in Season 1, we talked about the Six Core Ideas – these tend to be the categories of ideas that have the greatest influence on how we operate in the world.
Identity: who are we?
Anthropology: what are we?
Value: what are we worth?
Power: what authority do we have?
Purpose: why are we here?
Love: what or whom do we deeply desire?
Let’s consider the Samaritan woman’s ideas of identity and value.
Identity: what did her heart assume about who she was?
She was a Samaritan woman of ill repute – three significant strikes against her identity. A Samaritan was a religious half-breed and shunned by the Jews. She was a woman, as we’ve already noted, which placed her lower on the totem pole. And she had had several lovers, most likely resulting in her public disgrace, which is why she showed up in the heat of the day, rather than the cool of the morning when everyone else went to the well.
She assumed she was a religious, social, and moral outcast. That was her identity.
Her ideas of value? That’s pretty obvious – she didn’t think she was valuable enough to be a part of the broader community. She was well aware Jews hated her, and she didn’t feel welcomed among her own people.
Her heart assumed she was worth very little. That may also explain why she had had so many lovers. Women who bounce from man to man often do so because their hearts have been formed in the idea that they aren’t worth enough to stay with one man.
So how did Jesus, the master idea revolutionary, change these two ideas in the woman’s heart?
- First, He spoke to her. Just the fact that a Jewish man engaged her in polite conversation was enough to set her back and cause her to question Him. She was obviously used to being ignored, shunned, and disregarded. The fact that Jesus spoke to her would have been a shock to her ideas of identity and value.
- Second, He honored her by engaging in a fairly detailed theological conversation. Most likely, if she had had any dealings with Jewish men, it wasn’t to dialogue about where God should be worshipped, Jewish history, and the Messiah. Jesus treated her like an intelligent, thoughtful person.
- Third, He invited her into her story. He revealed the number of husbands she had had to encourage her to look into her heart. It may have initially made her uncomfortable because she abruptly changed the subject.
- And fourth, He revealed Himself to her. It’s likely this half-breed outcast was probably the first person outside of His team to whom He revealed Himself as the Messiah. That sounds just like Jesus – finding the least valuable, the most downtrodden person to become His first town missionary. He was always finding the underdogs and lifting them up.
The woman’s ideas of identity and value were immediately transformed from dark to light. We know that by what she did next.
It seems she never did get Jesus the drink He asked for because she dropped her waterpot and headed into town to do what? To engage with the very people she had been avoiding.
Her idea of identity was transformed from a lonely outcast to an insider. She was now in God’s inner circle.
Her idea of value was transformed from a worthless woman unworthy of being spoken to, to a spokesperson of extraordinary worth!
An Idea in the Soil Today (sort of)
So, being students of Jesus spreading His Kingdom today, what might we learn from this story? How might we be on the lookout for people whose core ideas of identity, value, power, and purpose have been corrupted and damaged by their stories, and how might we engage them and invite them to experience the transformation of those dark ideas?
We might start with ourselves. If we were to just take a look at a few of the Six Core Ideas and evaluate our unconscious conclusions about ourselves, what might we find? Do our assumptions about ourselves align with Jesus’ assumptions about us? Like the woman at the well, do we live in a set of ideas that are actually harmful and exhausting, or do we live in a set of ideas that are life-giving and spiritually energizing?
Then we might observe the ideas of those closest to us: our spouses, children, parents, and close friends. If we listen and observe closely, as Jesus does, do we find evidence of dark ideas in our loved ones?
If you’ve ever read Les Misérables, watched the movie, or seen the Broadway show, there are all sorts of examples of dark ideas being transformed into light ideas.
The “idea transformation” that kicks off the movie is the act of mercy shown by a priest to the lead character, Jean Valjean. Valjean has just been released from an awful, painful, long prison sentence for a petty crime, and he is embittered, desperate, and angry.
He steals candlesticks from the church where the priest serves, but is quickly caught. When the police bring Valjean back to the priest to confirm the crime, the priest instead claims he gave Valjean the valuable items and wishes him well. Valjean goes free, overwhelmed by this act of extraordinary kindness and generosity.
The priest’s actions confront and transform the corrupt ideas in Jean Valjean’s heart. He is transformed from a persecuted, worthless, rejected convict into a man of honor and conviction because his heart experiences a relationship that reshapes his damaging ideas.
Becoming an Idea Revolutionary like Jesus requires a very careful, curious heart. It involves intentional listening. It means we pay special attention to the Ideas in the Air in church and culture, while also paying special attention to the words, behaviors, emotions, and habits of those closest to us.
As we grow to become more like Jesus, we learn to spot dark and light ideas in the Seven Mountains of Culture and to observe the Eight Indicators in the hearts of those around us and in our own hearts.
And then, just like Jesus, we may find ourselves with many opportunities to use our words, our actions, our relationships, and our resources to invite someone into deeper discipleship, into the transformation of ideas, knowing that as we become more and more filled with Ideas of Light, our lives will lead to greater blessing and human flourishing in Jesus’ Kingdom.
[1] https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/jesus-changed-everything-women/
[2] https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/jesus-changed-everything-women/
[3] https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/jesus-changed-everything-women/
