Why We Never Find Our Identity Inside of Ourselves

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | This week on the Ask Pastor John podcast,

00:00:07.560 | we are joined by guest Dr. Richard Lentz,

00:00:10.600 | who serves as the Vice President for Academic Affairs

00:00:13.240 | and Dean of the main campus of Gordon-Conwell

00:00:15.720 | Theological Seminary just north of Boston.

00:00:18.680 | Dr. Lentz is also the author of a fascinating book

00:00:21.400 | that releases this winter titled,

00:00:23.080 | Identity and Idolatry, The Image of God and Its Inversion.

00:00:28.280 | It's published in Don Carson series,

00:00:30.200 | New Studies in Biblical Theology.

00:00:32.240 | And it's, in my opinion,

00:00:33.560 | one of the better ones in the series.

00:00:35.480 | And Dr. Lentz, thank you for joining us.

00:00:37.440 | Of course, you know, biblically,

00:00:38.640 | we become like what we worship.

00:00:41.200 | We become like what we behold.

00:00:43.220 | That's a biblical paradigm in scripture.

00:00:44.760 | We see in Psalm 115, verses four to eight,

00:00:47.680 | in Romans chapter one, verses 18 to 27.

00:00:50.640 | We see it in Romans chapter 12, verses one and two,

00:00:53.520 | and we see it in Colossians 3.10 and 2 Corinthians 3.18.

00:00:58.080 | It's really all over the place.

00:00:59.440 | We become like what we behold.

00:01:02.600 | Negatively, of course, this is called idolatry.

00:01:05.680 | So to start out our week,

00:01:07.440 | can you summarize the Bible's explanation of idolatry

00:01:11.080 | and how idols shape us and change us

00:01:13.680 | to the very core of our identity?

00:01:16.160 | - Yeah, it's a great question to start with

00:01:18.080 | because our attention, especially of late,

00:01:21.320 | has been to think about the way in which

00:01:24.320 | that dynamic of our identity is formed negatively.

00:01:29.040 | That is the way in which our desires are drawn

00:01:32.000 | to certain objects, which in turn shape us.

00:01:35.440 | That's the core dynamic of idolatry,

00:01:37.560 | but it's also the core dynamic of worship.

00:01:40.720 | It's the same experience, but flipped upside down.

00:01:45.720 | And of course, the scriptures start not with what's wrong,

00:01:49.560 | but with what we are created for.

00:01:51.680 | So worship is also the experience of becoming

00:01:55.760 | like what we behold, like what we desire,

00:01:59.280 | in the positive sense of that word,

00:02:01.240 | created, if you will, to reflect God, to behold God.

00:02:04.480 | So idolatry is kind of turning that dynamic upside down,

00:02:09.480 | but it's still a pretty natural dynamic in all of us.

00:02:13.960 | We still find our identity outside of ourselves.

00:02:18.600 | We don't find out who we are by looking inside.

00:02:23.280 | Idolatry is the honoring of things as ultimate,

00:02:28.280 | which are not ultimate, and which therefore reshape us

00:02:33.360 | after their own image.

00:02:36.120 | And the key question for us as we wrestle

00:02:39.200 | with our own idolatries are simply the questions

00:02:43.160 | about where does our hope lie?

00:02:45.520 | What do we think gives us significance?

00:02:48.400 | What do we really at heart desire to become?

00:02:51.880 | And so though it's a incredibly personal matter

00:02:56.600 | that is of the human heart to wrestle with,

00:02:59.160 | it's also very much a communal question

00:03:04.160 | because it lies outside of ourselves.

00:03:08.720 | It is not simply an individual decision.

00:03:12.960 | And therein lies the complexity of idolatry.

00:03:17.600 | Idolatry in any age, and we're gonna talk a lot

00:03:21.480 | about our modern idolatries in this conversation,

00:03:25.640 | but we need to be reminded that idolatry is not peculiar

00:03:29.200 | to our age, but it's present in every age.

00:03:32.920 | It just happens that we have different kinds of idols today

00:03:36.600 | than we had in earlier times.

00:03:39.800 | - Yeah, so fill that out for us a little bit more.

00:03:41.640 | For good or for bad, we never find our identity

00:03:44.960 | by ourselves, in ourselves.

00:03:46.880 | Explain that.

00:03:47.920 | - Yeah, I think the way in which we have been created,

00:03:52.000 | and it really has to do with this fundamental

00:03:54.960 | biblical conviction that we are reflectors,

00:03:59.560 | we are images, we are mirrors, if you will.

00:04:03.640 | And so that whole metaphor of the human being,

00:04:07.480 | that which reflects its environment, reflects its context,

00:04:11.480 | reflects its idols, reflects its God,

00:04:15.520 | is absolutely core from the beginning

00:04:18.200 | to the end of the canon.

00:04:19.760 | And so in the beginning, ordinarily,

00:04:22.360 | what we call worship, worshiping God faithfully, truly,

00:04:27.360 | is also a matter of our identity.

00:04:30.440 | That's what we're created for.

00:04:33.240 | That's who we are.

00:04:35.080 | And so it's not a matter of discovering

00:04:37.960 | that critical dynamic of identity.

00:04:40.840 | It's a matter of coming to grips with it,

00:04:42.600 | realizing that our identity is part of that,

00:04:47.600 | I don't wanna call it an equation,

00:04:49.240 | but part of the dynamic between ourselves

00:04:52.080 | and the world outside of us.

00:04:54.240 | And so lots of implications on that.

00:04:57.640 | It's no accident that we are not created

00:05:00.960 | as simply individuals, but we're always individuals

00:05:04.600 | in a relationship.

00:05:05.720 | Relationships remind us that identity lies outside of us

00:05:10.280 | in this community.

00:05:11.880 | And of course, the fundamental relationship is with God,

00:05:14.840 | but there are obviously lots of other relationships

00:05:18.280 | that take place.

00:05:19.320 | And I think the mythology of the early part

00:05:23.240 | of the 20th century, and it still resonates

00:05:26.080 | to some extent in our time,

00:05:28.520 | is that the individual in isolation is who they really are.

00:05:33.520 | And we've recognized that that really is a myth

00:05:39.280 | that we find ourselves in community.

00:05:42.280 | That is, we find ourselves in the reflections

00:05:44.960 | of the context that we are in,

00:05:48.280 | rather than simply in the privacy of our own,

00:05:52.120 | you know, our own internal introspective thoughts.

00:05:56.360 | As the adage goes, we are not who we think we are.

00:05:59.000 | We are not who other people think we are.

00:06:01.160 | We are often who we think other people think we are.

00:06:03.760 | There is that dynamic of recognizing ourselves

00:06:08.280 | when we recognize others.

00:06:11.800 | And of course, the core character in the plot,

00:06:15.720 | if you will, in this novel of ours,

00:06:17.920 | in this great story, is God.

00:06:20.840 | God is personal, God is relational.

00:06:23.200 | God, we find ourselves in relationship, ultimately,

00:06:27.120 | to him, and that's the missing dynamic

00:06:30.480 | in our own contemporary experience

00:06:32.680 | of being defined by our context.

00:06:35.240 | We forget that the mega-context,

00:06:37.360 | the actual context of our lives, is God.

00:06:39.920 | - Yes, I wanna return to this point later.

00:06:43.360 | In your book, "Identity and Idolatry,"

00:06:46.040 | you develop an interesting connection

00:06:47.680 | in Romans chapter one, that idolatry is connected

00:06:50.680 | to our inclination to become control freaks.

00:06:54.200 | I wanna pick that up tomorrow.

00:06:55.960 | Thanks for joining us on the Ask Pastor John podcast

00:06:58.120 | with guest Richard Lentz.

00:06:59.680 | We'll see you tomorrow.

00:07:00.840 | (upbeat music)

00:07:03.440 | (upbeat music)

00:07:06.040 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Why We Never Find Our Identity Inside of Ourselves

Chapters