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Paul Miller

In this podcast, Paul E. Miller, author of A Praying Life, invites you into a conversation about Jesus and how he lived as a person. Ministry and conversation partners, Liz Voboril and Jon H., join Paul in exploring the details of Jesus’ earthly life. In attending closely to the cadences of the one person who lived a perfect life, we gain a clearer vision of what it means to be human. Learn more about Paul Miller and his ministry at seejesus.net.

Seeing Jesus with Paul Miller

Paul, Robert, and Liz take a break from their conversations around the passion of Jesus to reflect on Christmas, and in particular, the story of the first live nativity, created by Francis of Assisi.
 
"Francis of Asissi was probably the first person in the church to be completely enamored with, very particularly, the person of Jesus. It just ignited his whole life. He'd been a soldier and had a breakdown after that, as a young man in his early 20s, but then became enchanted with the person of Jesus. By the time he died in his 40s, there were 30,000 Franciscans at their annual conference. His love for Jesus was transformative on the whole medieval mind. He was the first person to create a live nativity scene, and it changed how we celebrate Christmas. Because up till then the book of Matthew, with its portrayal of the wise men, was dominant in the Christmas story, and now, the shepherds came in and got some play."
 "Francis’ nativity shows what can happen if you fall in love with the person of Jesus!" 
"For Mary and Joseph, plans keep changing. I mean, they were going to get married and have a baby, as far as we know, in Nazareth, and they had to return for the census. I'm sure in their imagination they were going to have a baby in a better place and they ended up in a manger. Then were going to stay in Bethlehem and an angel came to Joseph and said, ‘Get out of here.’ They had to go to Egypt, and then, even then, they were going to return to Nazareth and the angel appeared to Joseph again. Joseph gets a lot of angel appearances, by the way!"

[SPECIAL] The First Nativity

Paul, Robert, and Liz resume the Passion series, watching Jesus at Gethsemane.
 
"What saved us from sin and brought joy to the world? It was Jesus' death on the cross. What makes Jesus' death possible? Well, it was his obedience to his father: doing his father's will. When did he set his will firmly? What was the ground zero of his obedience? It was facing the awful sadness at Gethsemane and not giving into it, resisting the temptation to run."
 "Jesus says, ‘Take this cup from me, yet not as I will, but you will.’ I love that Jesus is real about his feelings and what his feelings are pushing him to. And yet, at the same time, he's not ruled by his feelings." 
"This is the trigger for this vast explosion of the new creation. This is the spark. Because he faced his sadness, he didn't run. Because he didn't run, he stayed. Because he stayed, he suffered. Because he suffered, he died. And because he died, he took the sins of the world on himself and was resurrected as the first piece of the new creation."

[PASSION] 9. Gethsemane (POJ 5.5)

Paul, Robert, and Liz continue their conversation about how Jesus loves as the cross draws near, turning their attention to the scene when Judas arrives at the garden.
 
"We can sometimes be fearful of the kind of honest command or these penetrating questions Jesus asks that unmask evil. Sin grows in the dark. And yet here they are coming in the cover of darkness, not realizing they were coming to the one who is the light of the world, who exposes every part of them."
 "Jesus is the light everywhere he goes." 
"This whole scene probably takes no more than 10 minutes. But within that time, we see Jesus moving between all these different ways of loving. He's so very present, so aware. He moves in every quadrant of love from powerfully rebuking to asking penetrating questions to protecting the disciples. It’s a beautiful portrait of Jesus loving."

[PASSION] 10. Symphony of Love (POJ 5.6)

Paul, Robert, and Liz continue their conversation about how Jesus loves as the cross draws near, turning their attention to the trial scene with Pilate.
 
"Pilate is one of the people in the Gospels who we tend to see through a fairly fixed definition. The scene where he washes his hands is iconic: 'Behold, the man!' So we actually don't have a feel for him as a person. What’s this guy like? It was Edersheim’s book, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, that first put me onto what’s going on in this conversation."
 "The beauty of poetry is this ability to condense infinity, and Jesus does it all the time." 
"There’s a degree to which that mocking can help us not take ourselves too seriously, but there's also a way that mocking can prevent us from taking ourselves seriously enough."

[PASSION] 11. The Trial, Part 1 (POJ 5.7)

Paul, Robert, and Liz continue their conversation about Jesus before Pilate, looking at how close Jesus gets to Pilate's heart.
 
"Jesus has taken Pilate from a mocking question into opening up his heart, then he’s received more mocking from Pilate and taken him to truth. The whole thing is kind of a journey, and Pilate follows Jesus."
 "Jesus is very lamb-like, but there's a lion right behind the bushes and you can feel it." 
"Pilate was not a fearful man. He was a crafty politician. He stayed longer, up to that point, than any other of the Roman procurators, so he's got good survival instincts; but here, he's afraid. In the end, he has a choice to save his career or to save Jesus' life; and as you know, in the end, he chooses his career."

[PASSION] 12. The Trial, Part 2 (POJ 5.7)

Paul, Robert, and Liz continue their slow walk through the last hours of Jesus' life, looking at Jesus and the cross.
 
"There are so many things that Jesus says that are memorable because they're pithy. 'Father, forgive them for they know not what they do' is certainly one that has implanted itself in our memories. But it’s very serious. Jesus is holding back the wrath of God. They don't realize that they're crucifying an innocent man, so Jesus is showing mercy on them."
 "The only person that openly defends Jesus is a thief." 
"When Pilate said, ‘Where are you from?’ he was not asking for Jesus’ name. He knew this was Jesus of Nazareth. He wasn’t saying, ‘what's your hometown,’ but, 'are you actually God?' And of course, the main thing Pilate is mocking here is not Jesus, but the Jews, and they know it."

[PASSION] 13. The Cross, Part 1 (POJ 5.8)

Paul, Robert, and Liz finish their conversation about Jesus on the cross, slowly walking through his last seven statements.
 
"Notice how short Jesus' sentences are on the cross. He has to push himself up on his feet to catch a breath and then to be able to exhale that breath without dropping… it makes it all that much harder to talk."
 "Everything about this person is supernatural!" 
"Jesus cries out, 'It is finished!' The job is done. In John 2, Jesus tells his mother at the wedding in Cana, 'My time has not yet come.' But now the battle's over. He's done the will of his father. For the disciples, at this point, it looks like everything has gone wrong, but they'll later realize that this is a cry of triumph."

[PASSION] 14. The Cross, Part 2 (POJ 5.8)

This episode is part of a series titled A Praying Church. Bob Allums, Director of seeJesus's A Praying Life Ministry, joins Paul and Liz Voboril for this series.
 
"In leading prayer meetings, I don't want to overwhelm people. I don't want to make it a pietistic guilt trip. I don't want to go legalistic. I want the prayer meeting to function the same way discipling or mentoring works. I don't even want a prayer meeting to seem like an extraordinary meeting. Because super spiritual makes me nervous. It just sets you up for a fall, I think..”
 "It's not like you're all individual people praying solitary prayers, taking turns. You're not in a lineup. You're praying together." 
"Prayer isn't a time where you shut down desire. You awaken it. There's such fear of bad desire that we go stoic and shut down all desire. But prayer is a time where desire comes alive, and people can speak into that. I will speak into wrong desire that might emerge in a prayer time. I'll do that privately. But when desire come alive it's real, it's you praying, not some spiritual person that you're trying to create."

[A PRAYING CHURCH] 5. Leading Prayer

"This parable is trying to show is the current management model of the church which puts prayer in the periphery is simply crazy. Like you have an organization where you ignore your CEO. It’s just bad management and it comes under the guise of good management."
 "How odd it is that the church worships Jesus spends little very little time waiting and talking to him." 
"He's not just the savior of my heart—he saves my family today. His saving work is active and present. He is the CEO! I think Jesus, by his Spirit, permitted the pandemic to slow the church down. To get us to pay attention to janitors."

[A PRAYING CHURCH] 6. The Parable of the Missing CEO

This episode is part of a series titled A Praying Church. Bob Allums, Director of seeJesus's A Praying Life Ministry, joins Paul and Liz Voboril for this series. 
 
“The rising side is really what makes the J-Curve the J-Curve. Because in Jesus' day and Paul's day, everybody knew about the dying side. I mean that's what paganism was. Paganism was a management system for dying reasonably well."
 “There's a lot of wisdom in stoicism but no hope..." 
"The upside of the J is answered prayer. It's God at work. It's God invading my world... so, Jesus dying on the cross, praying psalm 22 as he's dying... he's requesting resurrection when he says 'my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' He doesn't want to be forsaken. He's not just lamenting. He wants out. He wants to be saved from death. And the resurrection is the Father's response to Jesus. So now the entire Christian life now is a reenacting of that at much less intense level."

[PASSION] 12. The Trial, Part 2 (POJ 5.7)

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