Jen Wilkin and J. T. English on Why We’re All Theologians

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Collin Hansen
Jen Wilkin and JT English have given you an invitation they want you to know and love God. Well, what? Sounds good, right? It’s hard to imagine any of us turning down that offer. There’s just one catch. You need to become a theologian. Oh, but you can do it. You were built for it. That is the theme of their new book. You are a theologian, published by b&h. They’re bringing theology to the masses, something they’ve been doing together for many years. You know, Jen Wilkin as a Bible teacher from Dallas, Texas, and author of many books, including women of the word how to study the Bible with both our hearts and our minds. And like Jen, JT is a repeat gospel bound guest he’s passed. He’s a pastor in Colorado, and author of deep discipleship how the local church can make whole disciples. Now this paragraph sums up their work in you are a theologian, quote, theology is not done exclusively, or even primarily in the classroom. It is done in everyday life, every minute of every day. We are doing theology when we preach, pray and sing, but we’re also doing theology. When we go to work, when we take a vacation, as we care for an aging parent as we fight sin as we raise kids, as we mourn the loss of a loved one as we spend our money. And as we grow old, you are a theologian, and you are always doing theology, and quote, they deliver on the premise in this book that I think works well in Sunday schools, youth groups, college discipleship, Leader Training, and more. And so I’m eager to talk now with him on gospel bound about misunderstood doctrines, favorite doctrines, favorite theologians, theological training in the church, men and women together in the church. And more all in just half an hour or so. Jen, and JT, thanks for joining me again on gospel bound.

Jen Wilkin
Thanks for having us on. Colin

J. T. English
Glad to be here.

Collin Hansen
All right, Jen, let’s start with you. What is a theologian?

Jen Wilkin
Well at theologian is anyone who has words about God, I mean, the word theology or theologian is the combination of two words that just mean words about God. And so whether you’re an agnostic or an atheist, or a Christian, we all have words about God, or thoughts about God. And so it’s important that as those who call on the name of Christ, that we be distinctly Christian theologians in the words that we say now, I think most of us know there are people who are vocational theologians who live in academia, and who devote hours and hours to studying theology. So I think sometimes we can think that’s a term that doesn’t apply to us. But in a very real sense, every single one of us is a theologian, who’s responsible for making sure that the words we have about God are as accurate as possible.

Collin Hansen
JT is, as theologian always been kind of a dirty word in some sections of the church, or is there something peculiar to our, our own age, or even just American evangelicalism that makes people think hot? It doesn’t seem to match? I can’t imagine myself being a theologian.

J. T. English
Yeah, I’m not sure if it’s always been a dirty word. But for lots of us, it’s always been an intimidating word, a word that we didn’t identify ourselves with. So part of my story is coming to faith in college, and then eventually going to seminary and being really intimidated. I really felt like an imposter. And my first class was there with a bunch of students who came from Bible colleges and other universities. And it seemed like they belonged. And it was just systematic theology. 101, I was the kind of student that didn’t even know what that meant at the time. I could understand and put together the word systematic, but theology just felt like this intimidating term. What is that? Am I that? Am I supposed to be doing that? Do I have to do that in order I wanted to be go be a missionary on a college campus? Do I need to be a theologian in order to go reach college students and the professor came in and he has, you know, a PhD from Cambridge and a master’s degree from Trinity, and I was just so intimidated by him that I thought I should probably, you know, endure this class, but leave as soon as soon as I can afterwards. And, you know, unenroll from seminary, but he really helpfully in that class helped me define theology. And if we define it, it’s not intimidating, and it’s not a dirty word. It’s just, it’s just a, it’s really two Greek words put together that hope many of your listeners know but if you don’t, it’s just two words they asked and Lagace which mean God, and the study of or words about Lagace being words. And the truth is, is if we understand theology, with that basic definition, words about God, we come to the realization that it’s not intimidating. The truth of the matter is we are are already theologians. There is no person living today or in the past or in the future, that doesn’t have thoughts about God ideas about God understandings of him whether they be Evan Jellicle Christians, or whether they be postmodern secularists or atheists, everybody has a word or thought and idea about God. So the question isn’t, are you a theologian? It really is. Are you a good theologian? And that’s really why we wrote the book because we wanted to say, you’re invited to this task, you shouldn’t be intimidated by it. You shouldn’t think it’s not you. We want to invite you into thinking about God and knowing and loving him. Well.

Collin Hansen
I’m gonna ask both of you this next question. But JT, you don’t get any time to prepare? So Jen, you can prepare your answer here. JT, in your work through the church? Which doctrine is most commonly misunderstood?

J. T. English
Oh, man. Yeah, yeah. Which, which, yeah, this is a tough one to pick,

Collin Hansen
just pick one.

J. T. English
What’s it gonna land on? I’d say all of them. If I was picking one, right now, if I’m pressed, I would say the doctrine of what it means to be a human. You know, the church, over history has thought really well about the doctrine of God at Nicaea. The doctrine of Christ counseled on the Reformation doctrine of soteriology, and the Bible and its authority in our lives. And so we need those thoughts. We need to keep reading those thinkers and invite those into the life of our church, one of the things that I don’t think we’ve done as well as we could is the doctrine of what it means to be a human, or anthropology. So what it means to bear God’s image and be a person of dignity, value and worth, not because of what you contribute to society, because of what you do, or because of some fundamental identity, whether that’s race, ethnicity, could be socio economic status, or education. But Christians have this unique idea that every single human being is made with dignity and value and worth. And that should be democratized. And we’re entering in gentlemen had this conversation a bit entering into phases, whether it’s whatever angelical has been really pressing on the last several decades about the right to life, but also thinking about that from not just the womb, but all the way to the tomb or to the grave, but also some of the pressing challenges around artificial intelligence and what it means to be a thinking being and what it means to have function in society. So I think the church over the next several decades, is gonna have to give a lot of time to thinking about what it means to be a human. Alright, Junior up.

Jen Wilkin
Yeah, I’m gonna cheat a little bit, I actually don’t think it’s a misunderstood doctrine so much is it’s just a neglected doctrine. And that’s the doctrine of God. It’d be no secret to you that I would answer that, because I’ve written a couple of books. For that purpose. Yeah. But I do think that, you know, in an age that is starved for transcendence, we need the restoration of this doctrine in the church, and particularly within the church, where just the whole therapeutic approach to faith that has crept in individualism and instant gratification, or is every bit as much a hallmark of believers as they are of the culture at large. And we need a vision of God high and lifted up, we need something to right size us and to direct our focus on what is most important, and really what is most beautiful. And so it’s the reclamation of the doctrine of God and restoring it to its proper place. And I think it’s interesting that my answer and JTS answer and we didn’t get together and talk about this beforehand, are both like the two doctrines that you start with, like the most, the two most basic doctrines would be the doctrine of God and the doctrine of humanity. So we were we were talking earlier and saying you could pretty much throw a rock and hit a doctrine someone needs to know one need to know better than they do. But yeah, those that would be mine, that comes to mind was Calvin’s,

Collin Hansen
dual focus, right knowledge of God and knowledge of self starting right there. General stick with you on this one? This is a I think it’s it’s connected what we just been discussing, but what are the most important implications of routing our identity in God?

Jen Wilkin
Well, I think, you know, it means that we’re not self defined. Anybody would know if you think about even a book or a piece of art, any creative act that we understand in a human sense, we know that we don’t get to assign meaning to something that someone else made. So for example, I don’t get to tell Ernest Hemingway what his book means I don’t get to tell DaVinci what his painting means. Now, it may be that we speculate about the meaning and we take time trying to find out what the meaning is because we no longer have access to the person who created that thing in the first place. But when it comes to God and His creation of which we are apart, we do have access to his thoughts on the why behind our creation. And so understanding our identity is rooted in him in the sense that our origin is in him is going to shape the way that we understand our purpose and where we belong.

Collin Hansen
I like it. I’m gonna go back to you JT on this one. And but Jenna, expect to hear from you on this one as well. Adam’s first response to Eve as you guys write in the book is closer. Is there a question?

My first response to Eve is to observe their similarity, not their difference. What do you want to see for men and women working together? As theologians in the church?

J. T. English
Oh, man. Yeah, we this is a question that Jen and I’ve tried to devote a lot of time to, not just in terms of writing, but our lives really. And even in some sense our relationship as being brothers and sisters in ministry contexts. We also want to emphasize, it’s important to recognize differences. We’re not We’re not suggesting that men and women are the same entirely. As you just noted that God created Adam and Eve, male and female, God created them. So we want to emphasize those things. But Adams first instinct, I’ll never forget this moment. I’m not I don’t want to relive it in deep ways. But I’ll never forget, I was talking about Genesis two with one of my colleagues. And we went to Jen’s office, and we were like, Let’s talk about anthropology and gender and roles in the church and all those things. And we were at a church that was thinking through some of this, and we were like, You see, it just shows how different they are. And she was like, Guys, sit down for a second, she got her lectern out and started giving us a lecture. It is a little fake. It is all fake. It was more collegial than this. But she showed us and helpfully in this, I think demonstrates the point of our need for each other. Of Jen just helpfully helping us see that Adams first instinct is to say bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh, she shall be called a shock, because she was taking each like, these are two of the same thing. Right after Adam has gotten done taxonomy using the other animals is lions and tigers and bears, oh Ma, he realized he’s he has no complementarian ally, he has no nobody like him. And so one of our instincts and evangelicalism, rightly so should be there are differences here. But that difference only makes sense as we first understood each other as same which means image bear, which means ministry partner, we often talked about in our previous ministry context that the Great Commission does not go forward through one gender alone, either male or female, it actually goes forward through both male and female, whether that’s in a marital relationship, or in a brotherly sisterly relationship in the life of the local church. And so one of the things that Genova Jen and I have worked hard at trying to create in the life of the churches that that we had the opportunity to participate in was environments that allowed men and women to do theology together for the very reason of the relationship that Jen and I and Kyle our colleagues and others have developed of men, we, we didn’t realize our need for each other until we realized it. And now we don’t know what we would do without it. Go ahead, Jen, did I pass any part of the quiz

Jen Wilkin
I was gonna say, and one of the sweet things about the environments that they came to be in the churches where we served was, you know, if you look at what happens in Genesis three, collaboration gives way to competition after the fall, right, and the man and woman are created to collaborate. But after the fall, they compete with one another, they seek to rule each other instead of to work with each other. And so in these environments that are in the church, it’s almost like a little bit of a taste of what it might have been like in Eden, or what it will be like in the New Jerusalem, where it’s collaboration, it’s an opportunity for there to be shared dialogue and celebration of what’s true about God, what’s true about humanity, our shared understanding of what went wrong, what’s the solution? What’s the nature of the church, where’s it all going, what’s going to happen in the end, and when you remove the competitive element out of that space, and it becomes spurring one another on in good deeds, and also in learning, you just see some really nice collaborative results happen. In many cases, people have never experienced it before, because they’ve only ever been perhaps in a single gender space. For women in particular, there have been a lot of doors between us and theological education of any kind. If you think about how common the advice is to a man in ministry, that he should be careful in his relationships with women who are not his wife. And it’s not that there’s nothing to that. But if our first foot forward is, this is a risk category instead of a disciple, then it’s no wonder that we find so many female spaces in the church starved for good theology. So this is a remedy, hopefully, to start to address that.

Collin Hansen
Give me the first thing you’d recommend to a church, Jen, they bring you in, they want to grow in this area. First thing you tell them to do?

Jen Wilkin
Well, we always say that it’s a good idea to start with Bible study. That’s a good space to start introducing theological concepts. But then our next step that we usually recommend is to have a space where you’re learning theology where you’re learning systematic and biblical theology in a in a structured way with a with a person who is able to run that conversation and invite people into dialogue. And this is a really significant piece of it. JT and I talk a lot about the importance of restoring to the local church the active data cated learning environment. For many of us, our experience of coming to the church and learning is of a passive learning environment where we sit and we receive content from an expert on a platform. And we’re essentially the amateur in the pews. And we don’t want that to be the case, we actually think that there is a lot of work to be done to diminish that expert amateur divide, that the person on the platform should be inviting the person in the pews toward them by giving them tools, so that they can be better thinkers and better educated in what the Bible is teaching. And that means that we are asking the student to do work, we’re giving the student things to do to partner in the learning process. Everybody who’s ever taken a class that really had an impact on them knows that it was because it wasn’t just sitting and soaking it was that you were invited into discussion and that you had work that you did on your own, and that you talked about with peers, and that you heard from a well equipped teacher on on what was happening. So that’s what we’re hoping to see.

Collin Hansen
Are these always mixed gender environments? Jen,

Jen Wilkin
not always no. In fact, in my own church, we have maintained single gender spaces in our Bible studies. And it’s partially by design, but also has to do just with space limitations. Frankly, I always say that it’s important to have both and I know JT agrees with that, as well. Everybody knows that if you’re in a single gender small group, you’re going to be able to have different kinds of discussions around sin patterns are around challenges that you’re facing in life than you do in a mixed gender group. But in our case, we have the theological training spaces as mixed gender, you could have mixed gender Bible study, but it’s important to ask, just strategically, where are we going to maintain spaces for just men or just women? And then where are we going to cultivate spaces where men and women are in dialogue with each other?

Collin Hansen
Jen, I don’t know where this answer is going to go, which are the best questions. So you know, you and I have known each other a long time, I’ll just just hop right in on this one. I think almost every church environment I’ve been in, and it might be because of the age or class or I don’t know, it could be a number of things. There are a lot more environments for women to do this. And women are much more eager to be able to do it. I’ve seen very few environments where when men are doing this. And I’m wondering if this is coinciding in some ways with how women are excelling in so many ways in education now compared to men, especially as they’re receiving those environments. I just I can’t really make sense of this. Like, why maybe was there at some point we we were doing a lot of this is this trailed off. For men? Do you think? I don’t know what what do you see I just said, I don’t know where this answer is going?

Jen Wilkin
Well, I actually think that what we saw over the last 30 or 40 years was an increased emphasis on community as the primary focus for gathering. And I’m all about community, I love community, I want to be at a church that has community groups. So this is not everybody ditch your community groups. But it became pretty much the standard for any gathering that the highest stated goal was going to be to build community. And in the course of that, I think that all of the discipleship, true training environments sort of trailed off, a lot of people just straight did away with Sunday school. They thought that the mechanism was broken instead of that perhaps the delivery of the content was the issue that was at stake. Another factor that I think that plays into this is assuming that women’s spaces are led by women and men spaces are led by men. Yes. For the for the sake of the argument. What I find often is that men in ministry have been trained out to preach but not always had to teach. Yeah. And so when they step into a classroom space, you get the expert amateur dynamic instead of a dialogic space. So I think that contributes to it.

Collin Hansen
Makes a lot of sense. JT, I

Jen Wilkin
imagine you got some thoughts.

Collin Hansen
Yeah, go ahead. JT.

J. T. English
No, yeah, no, I think I agree with all of that. I, I would, I would emphasize more and just spend one more time specifically on the relationship between an active learning environment and a community driven space. And how given specific gender dynamics again, normativity normatively that a community driven space means one thing for a woman and a different thing for a man. And when you have an active learning environment, you’re inviting perhaps both genders into dialogue together that isn’t so much built around community, but it’s actually built around content. And so what we found both at the church that I currently lead and and at the village is we found that I was expecting just to be candid when we started the training program at the village, which was our mixed gender active learning environment. My expectation is nine years ago now, which feels crazy to think about. I was thinking, this is going to be 30 people, probably 27 men and three women who are just extra motivated. Like that was kind of just where I was kind of like a young guns, just people who want to read bobbing and systematic the ology and memorize Scripture. And what we had was the exact opposite. I was expecting 30 people or so we had 429 people apply that first year, about 60% of them being female. Because what we did is we tried, we didn’t realize we were doing this we we stumbled into something is that when you democratize this kind of theological educational life of the church, is though education might be available to women outside the context of the church, theological education is often not available to evangelical women. And so what we found is, is these, both men and women, but women specifically, were flocking to these training spaces, because they had been used to devotionally driven feelings based learning environment that actually didn’t help them grow, but help them feel. And we said, we actually think you’re a thinker. And we want you to develop a love for God that is based upon a knowledge for God, what they sort of saying to Jen and I and our other colleagues were, is they were saying, finally, it wasn’t like we had to, like market this for them and convince them to do it. They were saying, why has this taken so long? We’ve been asking for this for a very long time. So I do think obviously, in kind of the secular world right now, there’s a huge gap between male and female and educational divide in the church. I think it’s candidly, my experience has been it’s a little bit opposite, is men have far more access and ability to receive that kind of education where women have, have kind of had some barriers. But when you democratize theological education to the life of the church, you actually allow both men and women to participate together.

Jen Wilkin
And I’m, I was sort of the poster child for this like, for years, I had told myself, I’m going to go and serve a a class down at DTS, you know, in Dallas, I’m in but that’s, that’s 4550 minutes from my home, and I kept thinking, I’m going to find the money, I’m going to find the time, and I’m going to do it. But I had, you know, kids of a certain age or whatever, well, you put it in the local church, and you say, Hey, this is going to cost you, you know, $200 Instead of whatever it’s gonna cost you to take a class at a at a seminary, we’re gonna watch the kids for you. And it happens right here in your neighborhood. And all of a sudden, these these these spaces that I never could I and so many other women just never could get past the hurdles to get into our open wide. And we just had a huge response.

Collin Hansen
I think, Jen, this is connected to a question I was planning to ask a little bit later, but I’ll bring it in here. In a changing world, we need more doctrinal training in the church. I think we’d all agree on that. But Western lifestyles seem to make this goal less plausible. Jen, you’ve taught me a lot about this. I’ll start with you. What do we do about this?

Jen Wilkin
Well, I think it’s counterintuitive. I think that what the church has done for 30 or 40 years is apologize for asking for people’s time, and then continually lower the bar on what we’re asking from them when they do show up. And we all know that discipline is not dead at all. We watch the people in our churches commit to run marathons and do whole 30 Discipline is not dead, it just follows the most compelling message. And so what we as church leaders have probably failed to do is to give a compelling vision, and then offer something that’s substantive enough that people are drawn to it. And so what JT and I have seen repeatedly is that people actually, like when you raise the bar, it’s what everybody else who’s asking for their time, or their money, whether for them or with their kids is doing. And so when people seek to allocate their discretionary time, they want to give it to something meaningful. If the church stands there apologetically, and says, Well, would you just try this? And maybe we’ll have you don’t, you don’t have to do any homework, just show up, just show up. We communicate a value and you know, the scariest place that I think we do this is with students. Yeah. Right at the point that their, their high school teacher is telling them to speak a foreign language and learn physics. We’re telling them, you know, what, if you’ll just have a 10 minute Devo and, you know, maybe come to student night for some games once a week, that’s going to be spiritually formative enough for you where, you know, the whole rest of the week, you’re being formed by every single other thing in your environment. JT,

Collin Hansen
um, anything? No. Very good. Well, I’ll give this one to you, then. You say exile is not just an event, but a biblical pattern. I’d love for you to give some examples of that and explain what difference this perspective makes in our interpretation or application. I’ll go ahead and offer a bit of a leading answer on this because this most definitely comes up in a lot of conversations about theonomy Christian nationalism, all that kind of stuff. So but you don’t have to go that direction. That’s just one of the things that I thought about. We can we can make this as unsafe as the listeners Come on. I got to build the brand. JT,

J. T. English
exact No. I want to think about exile for a moment but one One of the things that’s been fun of my partnership with Jen is she is she’s trained in literature. I’m trained in systematic theology. So we kind of have the Bible in theology side by side, always I have the Nicene Creed out and she has, you know, Colossians one out. And so it’s been really good to think through theological issues and biblical issues together as the Bible and theology is obviously two sides of the same coin. And we want to be thinking biblically as we do theology, obviously. And so when we define sin in our book is we didn’t want to just think in categories of total depravity, or original sin, those things are true. We also wanted to bring in other elements of the present human state that being exiled, which basically means separation from God, and what our expectations of separation with God and so obviously, in Genesis chapter three, humanity is sent into exile for the first time guarded by a flaming sword and Jeroboam, and they’re now living outside the presence of God, something they’ve never lived before. And I think you could argue the entire story of the Bible, there are themes that run throughout, this isn’t the only thing. But one of the main questions from Genesis Chapter Three moving forward all the way to Revelation chapter 22, is how is God going to restore his presence to his creation? And we see that happening in Genesis chapter 12, in his covenant with Abraham, or in Exodus 19, to 24, in his covenant with Moses, and eventually the giving of the tabernacle, and his presence, or first Kings, chapter eight, when, when he indwell dwells in his temple, again, built by Solomon, and everybody rejoices. And then this question after the exile that happens in with Assyria, and Babylon, in the fifth century BC is, oh, my gosh, is God is God, or God’s promises going to be real and true. And then the great news of the New Testament opening up with you should call him Emmanuel, because He’s God with us, which is a promise that our exile is coming to an end. And what a joy that we have that Jesus then was with his disciples and with his people, and then the shocking news that he’s going to be crucified, dead, buried, resurrected. And before he does that, he says, and I’m leaving, I’m leaving again to his disciples and He leaves and ascends into heaven. But he says, it’s okay, because the Holy Spirit is coming. And the Holy Spirit then fills the church. And we are now as Paul says, the tabernacle in presence of God or the temple of God with his people, which is great news. But then somehow, paradoxically, Peter also calls the church elect exiles. So we’re living in this already not yet are between two worlds of, of feeling the joy of life with God, and delighting in him because we have the presence of the Holy Spirit. But we also feel the ongoing effects of Genesis chapter three in this world. And that’s something that we wanted to highlight is not just something that we experienced now. But all humans since Genesis Chapter Three have, and since we have this exile, we have this ongoing hope of what the Bible ends with Maranatha, come quickly, Lord Jesus. So we don’t place our hope and socio political ideologies. We don’t place our hope, in personalities or in social media conversations. So those things are good, and we can have beauty in this world, and we should rightly order our societies. But we all have to come to the realization that no matter how well a human rightly orders a society, the best ordered society is by King Jesus. And he’s coming back to order society. Well, an end our exile forever.

Collin Hansen
I love it. All right. So we’ll do we’re gonna do a few questions here. We’ll go back and forth. Give you both chance here. Jen, we’ll start with you. What is your favorite doctrine? For me, it’s atonement, which you highlight, do a great job of highlighting for its multifaceted accomplishments. That’s what I love about it. But go ahead. What do you say?

Jen Wilkin
Well, I’m gonna say the doctrine of God again. I’ll give you a different one. I mean, I love the doctrine of God. That’s the one I’ve loved the longest, I would say, but probably the one that I’m coming to appreciate with, with new interest is the doctrine of the Church. I just think, you know, we we’ve got the I mean, my mind’s in this age, and the Church gives us we, us, and community. And so I think that when we understand ourselves as, as more than just having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, which I think has been an over emphasize, it’s a beautiful message, but when you overemphasize it, it loses some of its beauty. And people begin to believe that all they need is them in a relationship with Jesus Christ, but we’re all saved into relationship with the church when we’re saved into relationship with Christ. And we’re going to need the church if we’re going to make it to the New Jerusalem. And so I’m the doctrine of the Church has taken on increasing beauty to me as I see how it is such a guard against individualism. And not only that, but how it’s such a celebration of collaboration and have standing shoulder to shoulder to advance the work of the Kingdom.

Collin Hansen
Great, JT.

J. T. English
Yeah, I’m kind of going to combine a little bit so I wrote my master’s thesis on the doctrine of atonement and Edwards, but I wrote my doctoral work specifically on Trinitarianism. And how a category called speech act theory, which sounds super complex, it’s not it’s just that God acts in his words. And I haven’t gotten over this idea that when I read the Bible, God is with me. He’s communing with me and, and so the relationship between the doctrine of Scripture and God, the Father, God, the Son as speakers, to me, they’re communing, and I can abide and enjoy communion with them. That’s something that maybe I’ll get over someday, but Lord willing, I won’t. I just love the idea that God speaks to me and acts upon me and enjoys competing with me.

Collin Hansen
Music to the soul of this person who studied systematic theology with Kevin Van Hooser. So

J. T. English
Kevin was my actual reader. So I admitted that I was like, Oh, Kevin.

Collin Hansen
I got my lowest grade in that class, let’s just be clear, didn’t go too well for me. All right. Each one of you again, what’s the next book someone should read after yours. You can say even one of your other books, that’s fine. If you want to do that, whatever.

Jen Wilkin
You know, I have the I have the twin heartburns of theological illiteracy and Bible illiteracy. And so I would probably ask that would read women of the word next. And if you’re not a woman, I would ask that you just gently cover the first two letters in the word women, and go ahead and see what you can find in there. I do think, you know, these these, these are two conversations that that are, that are either helping or harming each other. It’s not enough to simply be theologically informed, we also have to be biblically informed. And those two things strengthen one another when they’re done well. So yeah, I would love to see us grow in both theological and biblical literacy.

Collin Hansen
Yeah, I think I think that’s why I said you can say your own thing because I think they are pretty well designed to follow up on this book, they go into greater detail and depth in both of those different areas. And by the same token JT deep discipleship gives you a good vision or broadly the church but you can go a different direction if you want.

J. T. English
I’m so thankful that the Lord, let me write that book. I still believe in it with every ounce of my being, and we’ll be glad for people to read it maybe. And I would also I really, genuinely would say gents book. Both men and women should read it. It’s a really helpful primer into hermeneutics and how to read the Bible. Well, if maybe somebody is wanting like kind of more highbrow, given the conversation we just had, I would suggest Kevin Van Hooser is the drama of Scripture, or the drama of doctrine. It is a really helpful combination of like how to read the Bible well, and some philosophical categories that help us read the Bible. Well, that was the book that really for me personally, got me in flamed for the Word of God, and how I could then take it from being kind of a more academic theologian to being a church based theologian, believing that doctrine was for every day people.

Collin Hansen
Can we just make sure I don’t want to get some nasty emails here, can we make sure that there’s a lot of levels between those books that you just recommend right there, like gents are great. Kevin’s is also great, but let’s just say there’s a few years of theological training, it’s a little bit of a job, okay, I just don’t want those nasty emails from people like, I just got this drama doctrine, after I finished women of the word, and it was a bit of a leap.

J. T. English
But the thing is that they’re trying to say there’s actually been some online dialogue this week about this, like, what’s the relationship between academic theology and church based theology, and one of the things that Jen and I want to say is both matter. This does not be an either or conversation that wherever you are in your relationship with the Lord, you should be taking the next step and growing. Once you’ve enjoyed, hopefully, you’re a theologian, or deep discipleship or women of the word or others that are written at more of kind of an ecclesial level. And we’re thankful for that. And we’re thankful for publishers that are focused on that. But all of us are called to continue to grow and take that next step and you can’t grow. Unless you’re reading things that create dissonance for you. If you’re reading something you already agree with, then what I’m not sure that that’s useful or helpful. Reading is for the development of the disciple and so we want to make sure that we’re putting out resources there that allow people to kind of work muscles that they’ve not been working in a while.

Collin Hansen
And I was gonna say it’s a little bit of like working out, you’re gonna strain is what makes you grow.

Jen Wilkin
That’s what yeah,

Collin Hansen
that’s what you’ve been told. Alright, so last question. I’ll give you a little bit of time to ponder on who is your favorite theologian and why but Jenna is thought I check him Am I gonna see you at ETS again, this year you making the trip or I’m

J. T. English
so glad we’re talking Should I get your intro here? I was wondering if there’s gonna be a window and I’ve been waiting for my moment, the last time the three of us were together. We were in San Diego. And I kind of thought we might lead with this because it’s the Evan Jellicle Theological Society, what is theology? Who’s it for? Because at that conference, there’s about seven of us.

Jen Wilkin
JT was going to give a paper and so to be a good supportive friend, and also because it was in San Diego, I was like, JT, I want to come and I want to hear you present your paper.

JT’s like, you know, he kept trying to wave me off. He kept trying to wave me off. And so I’m like, No, I’m coming. And so then, so then JT was like, he had this terrible thing he’s always done, where if someone wants to take a picture with me, he tries to take a picture of them taking a picture with me, and he called his cell inception. It’s just thing. So he says, I’m gonna really enjoy getting all these selfie inceptions at ETS, and I said, JT, you’re not gonna get a single one, because nobody is going to know me there. Nobody’s expecting to see me there. It’s a it’s a gathering. It was it was theologians. I mean, I was like, no one’s looking for me at this thing. I’m way too lowbrow for that. So. So we get there? And I’m checking in and the woman who is running check in says, Are you? Are you the spouse of a presenter? And I said, No. And I’m like, dying. I’m like, looking at JTM already owe me 50 bucks. And then I said, and she said, Well, are you the assistant of a presenter? And I’m like, I am not the best. And I was like, Yes, she is. Then she asked me my name. And I said, I said, I’m just here to you know, to participate. And she asked me my name. And I said, I’m Jen Wilkin. And then she disappointingly says, Oh, I have done, I’ve done your Bible study. Then JT gets all hyped up. So we go walking from there into the bookstore, where I see my longtime friend and editor call in Hanson. And what does he yell at the top of his lungs? He says, What are you doing? Who will let you in? And then JT had to pay me $50.

J. T. English
I was just afraid that Colin was talking to me. I was like, I guess I’m not gonna leave.

Jen Wilkin
So if anyone out there has a little bit of imposter syndrome and calling themselves a theologian, just know, Gordon Hanson is here to heighten that sense.

Collin Hansen
To put you in your place, the guy who got a B minus in Vanhoozer system. Couldn’t understand speech act theory. Oh, goodness sakes. All right, Jen, who’s your favorite theologian? English. You can? No, it can’t be anybody on this call

Jen Wilkin
much of what the one, the one who’s given me the most practical help is RC Sproul. He’s not only my favorite theologian, but he’s been the greatest model to me of how to teach. And so yeah, I’ll just I’ll never be able to work off that dead.

Collin Hansen
And clearly, you guys are writing in his wake at some level he has everybody’s a theologian, right? That’s the title or everyone’s a theologian. That work. So yeah. Okay. And JT.

J. T. English
I’m thankful for Sproles ministry as well, I would say personally, I’ve benefited the most from Herman bavinck. And there’s a couple of reasons for that, that I highlight. The first is he was able to write at an academic and a relatively lay level. I mean, he wrote for volumes, reformed dogmatics. But he also wrote the wonderful works of God, which was intended to be kind of more of a pastoral resource. And I appreciate him doing that. But I also just really appreciated more of his academic work. He’s able to weave in multiple disciplines. And that’s what systematic theologians are ultimately intending to do. It’s not just, you know, categorizing the Bible, that’s part of it. It’s also interacting with church history and philosophy and contemporary cultural issues. And he more than anybody that I know is able to weave multiple disciplines together, that I find really helpful. And I read him and I’m like, I’m reading philosophy, history, cultural analysis, all at the same time, and it’s really enriching for me.

Collin Hansen
That’s good stuff. Oh, it’s been fun. The book is you are theologian. It’s new from b&h. I saw it on a best seller list recently. It’s done really well. Very excited about that. I think you’ve gotten a good sense here for the kinds of groups that would benefit from it. I mentioned early on, it’s just about everybody. I mean, church training, youth ministries, college, all that sort of stuff. It’s works really well especially to do in a group and I appreciate you guys and everything that you’re doing. And I just, I’m always eager to amplify that vision that we need to ask more for doing for people doing theology in the church. It’s absolutely necessary if so much of the work I do in cultural apologetics along the lines of what you said, there JT on Herman Baba and get it Absolutely goes hand in hand. You need a strong confessional base, you gotta understand the Bible. You gotta understand sysmac theology before you’re gonna be able to effectively engage the culture. That’s a necessary building blocks. So, you are a theologian from b&h guests have been JT English and Jen Wilkin come check us out and say hey at ETS. Thanks, guys, for joining me today.

Jen Wilkin
Thanks for having us on, Collin.

J. T. English
Thanks, as always, Collin.