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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, Jon, and Liz continue their conversation about learning how to be a person by looking at Jesus.
 
"We've been looking at Jesus' soul, and that's not something that we're used to thinking about. In the church, we sort of generally think of two large categories with Jesus – his deity and then of course his work for us on the cross. So we're actually going to an area that is not well explored by the church. The joy of exploring it is we're looking at what it is to be a person. The big theological word is anthropology."
 "What does the anthropos, the person, the man, look like?" 
"When Jesus says to his brothers, 'My time has not yet come. I'm not going to the feast.' That was the tip of the iceberg, and underneath was a soul saturated in the word of God, a soul in step with the Spirit, in prayer. He was doing nothing on his own. He was waiting for his father's time. He was functionally the most dependent being who ever lived, and that's our model for how to do life as Christians."
 
You can view the chart Paul references on the complete soul (will, affections, mind) here.

[WONDER] 12. A Soul In Step with the Spirit

Paul, Jon, and Liz continue their conversation about the structure of the soul, looking at how the Spirit helps our souls.
 
"If we learn amazing truth at our seminaries but never apply it to our hearts, it's disembodied knowledge. If my will is the steering wheel and my heart is the gas pedal, then it's like never actually putting my foot on the gas or my hand on the wheel. I just aced the written exam but never actually drove."
 "When you're walking with the Spirit, you are walking with Jesus. So He's there now as my friend, guiding me into love." 
"Paul says to walk, not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. So my soul is not alone. By the Spirit, because He dwells and lives within us, there is absolute power and absolute hope that the flesh can be defeated, not in our own strength, but in His."
 
You can view the chart Paul references on the complete soul (will, affections, mind) here.

[WONDER] 11. Your Soul Has a Friend

Paul, Jon, and Liz continue their conversation about what we learn about the soul, sketching out three faculties of the soul (the will, the affections (loves), and the mind) and how they interact.
 
"The modern word for the soul is the self. But people don't think of the self as a spirit. Our world is Spirit-less, so it's soul-less. Both evangelical and secular scholars say that our world is disenchanted. In 15th century Europe, they couldn't imagine a world without God. And now our modern culture can't imagine a world with God."
 "Soul care at its finest is engaged bodily in the world of love. But often the way we care for our souls is by protecting them from trouble, as though the soul is at its finest on vacation." 
"The affections, or the loves of the soul, are the sum total of what we love. And the sum total of what we love is the powerhouse of the soul. The mind is wonderful because it allows us to speak to our soul. The Psalms are full of that! As new creatures in Christ, we are not just slaves to our own desires; we actually have a choice. The mind has the ability to tutor, in a sense, the heart."

[WONDER] 10. The Soul Is Not a Blob

Paul, Jon, and Liz continue their study of how Jesus lives in the world and what we can learn from him about living as God intended for us to live.
 
"Because God loves me so much and has the best in mind for me no matter what, then I want to do what he says. When the Circle of Love is working, it is a beautiful love relationship. For example, a husband loves his wife, and then she loves her husband. You can't tell where it begins, even on any given day. It's a continuous thing, but it always begins with one person. For us as believers, at the heart of it is the Father's love for me in Christ."
 "Romans 8 is Paul's Mount Everest. It's just magnificent. And it's all on our reception of God's love for us. Because input love, that's faith, comes before output love." 
"Think of this as the Circle of Love: 'And this is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and gave himself for us as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.' We couldn't begin with our own love. We have to begin with our Father's love for us."

[WONDER] 9. The Circle of Love

Paul, Jon, and Liz continue their conversation about how Jesus lived, looking at different aspects of the soul and how they relate to one another.
 
"A common image is the iceberg: getting down to my motivations, which are often opaque even for us. The whole experience of Christian life operates both above and below the waterline."
 "When we look at Jesus, we just assume that he wants good things, which is true, but the way that he wants good things is that he desires the will of somebody else. He asks 'What does my Father want?' " 
"Above the waterline is the will. But below the will, below the waterline, is the thing that we love. What loves us and what do we love? What I love shapes what I do and what I want."

[WONDER] 8. Where There's a Will

Paul, Jon, and Liz explore the beauty of submission and why Jesus, fully submitted to his Father, became more vibrant and free.
 
"The modern word that is almost anathema to our culture is submission. Jesus' primary driver for his entire life was his submission to his Father, and he would not call us to do anything that he himself had not done."
 "Jesus didn't get flatter by submitting to his Father. He became vibrant." 
"Jesus appears to be in bondage since he is so submitted to his Father, but he's freed to love an incredible variety of people. And his brothers, who appear free, are actually in bondage to other people's opinions."

[WONDER] 7. Dependence: To Pick Up the Crayons or Not?

Paul, Jon, and Liz continue their conversation about Jesus and how he loves. In the podcast, they reference a chart on the four ways Jesus loves that you can view here.
 
"When Jesus sets up a boundary, it's because people want him to do something that, in the world's eyes, would be way more glorious or easy. He'll put up boundaries to keep to his mission that's actually much harder and more painful. The boundaries he sets up keep him on track to not what the world wants, or even what his friends want, but what his Father wants."
 "We talk sometimes about having our loves rightly ordered, but we also need our fears rightly ordered." 
"The act of gentle intrusion is fading away. People are so fearful of triggering someone. What keeps them from loving is their risk assessment, with the result that people's lives are narrowing around the self."

[WONDER] 6. Expanding the Range of our Love: Good Walls, Gentle Intrusion, and Self-Control

Paul, Jon, and Liz continue their conversation about Jesus, reflecting on one of the ways Jesus loves: receiving what other people bring into his life.
 
"Selfless openness is simply being willing to let other people intrude into your world. With Mary Magdalene in the garden, Jesus stays in the background. He's the receiver of what's going on. Jesus receives Mary's tears quietly. He leaves space for her. Then with Pilate, Jesus receives his verbal abuse and mocking, which gets worse as the trial goes on. And in the footwashing, he receives the disciples' pride by washing their feet. He absorbs it."
 "We can potentially be very productive, but we miss opportunities to love all the time." 
"It's easy to see the seeming 'disorganization' as a problem. Like, Jesus could have benefited from a really good travel agent or team manager. 'He's not able to come help your daughter today, but you can book an appointment using our online form.' But, by design, he's responding to real life unfolding around him. That's something we can learn from him, too."

[WONDER] 5. Expanding the Range of our Love: Selfless Openness

Paul, Jon, and Liz continue their conversation about how Jesus lived as a human, looking at the footwashing scene in John 13.
 
"Though footwashing was everywhere in the ancient world, it's only in John's gospel where we read a detailed description of the process of footwashing. And this account only exists because of the incarnated Son of God taking each step to do it. It's breathtaking: that the humility of the Son of God comes through in the very description of footwashing itself."
 "John wrote his gospel 60 years after the footwashing, but John had been so shocked by it, that he remembered every move." 
"When Jesus washes the disciples' feet, the room is filled with awkward silence. You'd think Jesus would talk as he goes, to get his point across, but it's so like Jesus to leave space. He's so riveting that his silence helps John remember what happened."

[WONDER] 4. Footwashing and the Mechanics of Love

Paul, Jon, and Liz continue their discussion about what Jesus is like as a person, looking at the rest of his conversation with Pilate.
 
"Jesus' authority is so real that he doesn't roll over when talking to Pilate. There are times he stays silent, like at the Jewish trial, but he's actually very active through his passion."
 "Jesus talks about what holds him steady, what his ballast is, and it's his communion with his Heavenly Father." 
"Jesus talks about his communion with his Father all through the Gospel of John. And it's just good for us to know, because we tend to put Jesus in a deity box and not see that we are looking at a fully human person. Jesus is showing us a whole new way of being human: you can love a bully, like Pilate."

[WONDER] 3. How to Love a Bully: Jesus and Pilate, Part 2

Liz and Jon interview our Student Ministry Director, Robert Row, and Mid-Atlantic Coordinator, Christian Graham. 
"I do think the tide is turning, and there's a shift in the middle of the coming generation, in the younger half of it. I wouldn't describe them as an anxious generation anymore. I'd describe them as a generation that's bringing revival to the country, to our country. I can't speak to it necessarily around the world, but I know it's happening here."
 "We have to be ready, because this generation is bringing revival in some really beautiful ways." 
"It seems that evangelism has been based on how much knowledge you have, so that you can answer all the questions that come at you. But we're really training students to study God's Word by asking good questions and then to enter into these interactive studies. Jesus is the King of question-asking, and before he even says a word, you have wise men and shepherds, who come experience this Messiah laying in a manger and then go tell others."

[ADVENT 2025] 2. Fresh Faith Among Students with Robert Row and Christian Graham

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