Dr. Ken Collins: Jesus the Stranger

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Overview

Dr. Ken Collins, Professor of Historical Theology and Wesley Studies, joined the podcast today. He joined the Asbury Seminary faculty in 1995 and received the Professor of the Year Award for Excellence in Teaching and Learning in 2008. Prior to coming to the Seminary, he was recognized for exemplary teaching in a national competition among United Methodist schools in 1994.

Dr. Collins is a past president of the Wesleyan Theological Society and a member of the editorial board of the Asbury Journal. Beyond this, he currently serves on the faculty of the Baltic Methodist Theological Seminary in Tallinn, Estonia. He has lectured and taught throughout the world and is known for his engaging, critical-thinking style. Dr. Collins serves as the Director of the Wesleyan Studies Summer Seminar which fosters research, scholarship and publication globally in the broad field of Wesleyan studies. The program began in June 2011 and continues today.

Dr. Collins is a member of several professional organizations and has published a host of books and scores of articles exploring topics ranging from Wesleyan theology to Christian spirituality.

In today’s conversation, we talk about Dr. Collin’s most recent book Jesus the Stranger that takes readers through a journey that allows us to see the love, beauty, goodness, and yes, suffering of Jesus in a new way.

Let’s listen!

*The views expressed in this podcast don’t necessarily reflect the views of Asbury Seminary.

Dr. Ken Collins, Professor of Historical Theology and Wesley Studies.

Dr. Kenneth J. Collins is professor of Historical Theology and Wesley Studies. He is the 2008 recipient of the Professor of the Year Award for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at Asbury Theological Seminary.

Before coming to Asbury in 1995, he was recognized for exemplary teaching in a national competition among United Methodist schools in 1994. Earlier he received the Black Student Movement Award for Excellence in Religious Education at Methodist University.

Dr. Collins is a past president of the Wesleyan Theological Society and a member of the editorial board of the Asbury Journal. Beyond this, he currently serves on the faculty of the Baltic Methodist Theological Seminary in Tallinn, Estonia.

Joining Asbury Seminary’s faculty in 1995 as professor of church history, Dr. Collins has lectured and taught throughout the world and is known for his engaging, critical-thinking style. In May 2008, he taught a course on The Theology of John Wesley at the Moscow Evangelical Christian Seminary in Moscow, the Russian Federation. He has also lectured on the theology of John Wesley in several diverse settings ranging from Costa Rica to South Korea, from England to Australia, from Finland to Japan.

Dr. Collins serves as the Director of the Wesleyan Studies Summer Seminar which fosters research, scholarship and publication globally in the broad field of Wesleyan studies. The program began in June, 2011 and continues today and it will have a special celebration in 2023, the centenary of the seminary.

Dr. Collins is a member of the following professional organizations: The American Academy of Religion, The Oxford Institute, The Wesleyan Theological Society, The Wesley Historical Society, The Historical Society of the United Methodist Church, the Editorial Board of Wesley and Methodist Studies, the Editorial Board of Australasian Centre for Wesleyan Research, the Board of Directors, the Institute on Religion and Democracy (Washington, D.C.), and the Editorial Board of Methodist Review: A Journal of Wesleyan and Methodist Studies. He has published a host of books and scores of articles exploring topics ranging from Wesleyan theology to Christian spirituality, including recent publications:

• Collins, Kenneth J. Jesus the Stranger: The Man from Galilee and the Light of the World. Franklin, Tennessee: Seedbed, 2021.
• Collins, Kenneth J., and Robert W.  Wall, eds. Wesley One Volume Commentary. Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press, 2020.
• Collins, Kenneth J. and Jerry L. Walls. Roman but Not Catholic: What Remains at Stake 500 Years after the Reformation. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2017.
• Collins, Kenneth J. and Jason E. Vickers. The Sermons of John Wesley: A Collection for the Christian Journey. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2013.
• Chilcote, Paul Wesley, and Kenneth J. Collins, eds. The Works of John Wesley: Doctrinal and Controversial Treatises II. Vol. 13. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2013.

Heidi Wilcox, host of the Thrive Podcast

Writer, podcaster, and social media manager, Heidi Wilcox shares stories of truth, justice, healing and hope. She is best known as the host of Spotlight, (especially her blooper reel) highlighting news, events, culturally relevant topics and stories of the ways alumni, current students and faculty are attempting something big for God. If you can’t find her, she’s probably cheering on her Kentucky Wildcats, enjoying a cup of coffee, reading or spending time with her husband, Wes.

Transcript

Heidi Wilcox:
Hey everyone. Welcome to this week’s episode of the Thrive with Asbury Seminary Podcast. I’m your host, Heidi E. Wilcox, bringing you conversations with authors, thought leaders, and people just like you, who are looking to connect where your passion meets the world’s need. Dr. Ken Collins, professor of historical theology and Wesley studies, joined the podcast today.

Heidi Wilcox:
He came to the seminary faculty in 1995 and received The Professor of the Year Award for excellence in teaching and learning in 2008. Prior to coming to the seminary, he was recognized for exemplary teaching in a national competition among United Methodist schools in 1994. Dr. Collins is a past President of the Wesleyan Theological Society and a member of the editorial board of the Asbury Journal.

Heidi Wilcox:
Beyond this, he currently serves on the faculty of the Baltic Methodist Theological Seminary in Estonia. He’s lectured and taught throughout the world and is for his engaging, critical thinking style. He currently serves as the Director of the Wesleyan Study, Summer Seminar, which fosters research, scholarship, and publication globally in the broad field of Wesleyan studies.

Heidi Wilcox:
This program began in June, 2011 and continues to this day. Dr. Collins is a member of several professional organizations, and has published a host of books and scores of articles, exploring topics ranging from Wesleyan theology to Christian spirituality. In today’s conversation, we talk about Dr. Collins’ most recent book, Jesus The Stranger, that takes readers through a journey that allows us to see the love, beauty, goodness, and yes, suffering of Jesus in a new way. Let’s listen.

Heidi Wilcox:
Dr. Collins, it’s delightful to be here with you today to talk about Jesus, the stranger. It’s delightful to meet you in person, I’ve known of you for quite some time, but it’s delightful to officially meet you. Thank you for being on the podcast today.

Dr. Ken Collins:
Well, thank you Heidi for inviting me. I’m happy to be here.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Well, I want to talk about your new book, Jesus The Stranger, the man from Galilee and light of the world. But before we get to that, I just want to let folks get to know you a little bit as a faculty member at Asbury. So how did you experience your call to ministry? And did you know what it was going to, that professorship was in your future when you experienced that calling?

Dr. Ken Collins:
Well, it’s interesting that you ask that. When I was a Midler here at Asbury Theological Seminary, I had a definite calling to be a teacher, a professor. I originally had come to Asbury thinking I would be a pastor, but once I got involved with the academic dimension of Asbury Seminary, I saw a whole new world.

Dr. Ken Collins:
And by the time I was a Midler, I never looked back and I geared my whole curriculum to that end. And so I did a THM after Asbury at Princeton Seminary, and then I did a PhD AT Drew university.

Heidi Wilcox:
Wow. I think it’s interesting that you came for one thing, and then because of your interest, like the Lord led you a different direction-

Dr. Ken Collins:
That’s right.

Heidi Wilcox:
… but getting you here, and to the next step was the important part, you just didn’t know exactly what that was going to look like.

Dr. Ken Collins:
That’s right.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Since your calling has morphed and changed, I think as all of ours do, we just don’t know that in the beginning, how do you define calling?

Dr. Ken Collins:
Calling is something very personal, it is our sense of God in our own life, and where God is leading us, and what we are to do, how we can serve God, and the gospel through the gifts and graces that God has given us. And so I think it’s a deliberative process, it’s something we think about, pray about over time, and I think it has to do with discernment.

Dr. Ken Collins:
Friends and people in the church can be very helpful in terms of this because sometimes they can see things that we might miss. I know early on in my journey, a small Bible study that I was a part of, recognized that I exercised a prophetic office because I’m a truth speaker and that has stayed with me for the entirety of my journey.

Heidi Wilcox:
Wow. That’s really cool. What does that look like? The prophetic office and being a truth speaker?

Dr. Ken Collins:
You are richly acquainted with suffering and pain because lots of people don’t want to hear the truth. And so you have to accept that you have to learn to make friends with that, so to speak, that is your calling. But people who exercise a prophetic office, they cannot do otherwise, it’s in their bones, it’s in their blood.

Dr. Ken Collins:
And when they’re, especially suffering and ostracized and Jesus, by the way, exercised a rich prophetic office, which is why he was ostracized, ridiculed, slandered, criticized, et cetera, et cetera. There’s always great comfort, always great comfort in the holy spirit, you know that you are in God’s will, you’re doing God’s will despite the negativity that you’re experiencing. So it’s a tough place to be and it can be lonely, it can be lonely at times.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Definitely, I would imagine that. Now, you are the professor of historical theology and Wesley studies at the seminary, but as you mentioned, you first came to Asbury Seminary as a student. So could you tell us a little bit about your journey to Asbury Seminary as student and then how you returned to be a faculty member?

Dr. Ken Collins:
I came as a student because I had a powerful, what you might call evangelical conversion. I was fellowshipping when I was 22 years old, just having graduated from college university, I was having fellowship with a retired free Methodist minister, who was 69 years old at the time and I was 22 and he had me read John Wesley’s 52 standard sermons.

Dr. Ken Collins:
And when I read those sermons, I saw a whole new world that I never saw before. I mean, I had grown up in the Roman Catholic church, I even won the Religion Award in school, but I never quite understood the gospel the way Wesley presented it in these sermons, because what I saw there was not only the beauty of the gospel, but also the freedom, the enormous freedom that we enjoy by God’s grace because of what Jesus Christ has done on our behalf, yes.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. So that was your catalyst to coming to the seminary?

Dr. Ken Collins:
Yes. And then everything else is great. Jesus is color, ministry is multicolored, everything else is great. I was actually working for the federal government. I took a civil service exam. After college, I was working in social security actually.

Dr. Ken Collins:
And I remember I told my boss that I was leaving, I was going off to Seminary, and he said to me, you’re leaving a good job with a good career and a good future. But everything else was great and ministry and seminary was multicolored. And so people know about that, who have calls, you cannot do otherwise.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. That’s that’s incredible. So then you were here as a student?

Dr. Ken Collins:
Yes.

Heidi Wilcox:
You mentioned you were on for some other degrees after that. How did you come back to Asbury Seminary as a professor?

Dr. Ken Collins:
Yeah. I was a professor of philosophy and religion at a small United Methodist College in Fayetteville, North Carolina which was called Methodist College. Now it’s Methodist University. And I was there for 11 years and I had been publishing, especially in the area of Wesley Studies, so I was known, and then I realized there was an opening at Asbury Seminary, and so I decided I would apply, not thinking that I would actually get the position because the competition was very, very tough.

Dr. Ken Collins:
And as a matter of fact, I had a close friend who said, “You’re not going to make it.” One of these other two is going to get the position ahead of you and I was accepted and I’ve been here ever since and enjoy my ministry here. It’s been great. Asbury is my home.

Heidi Wilcox:
That is high praise to have a place that you work also feel like home as [crosstalk 00:09:33]

Dr. Ken Collins:
Oh, yeah. This is my home.

Heidi Wilcox:
Wow.

Dr. Ken Collins:
Yes it’s.

Heidi Wilcox:
That’s awesome. Well, we’re glad to have you in our home.

Dr. Ken Collins:
Yes. Glad to be here, glad to be here for a family conversation.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yes. Why John Wesley? Was it because reading his sermons, was so transformative to you? Like why has that been a longstanding interest for you?

Dr. Ken Collins:
Yes, it is because the sermons were so transformative for me because in the wake of reading them, I finally entered in and became the language I use today, I became a real Christian, a real true proper scriptural Christian.

Heidi Wilcox:
So John Wesley, would you say he was the catalyst to you having your own heart strangely warmed experience?

Dr. Ken Collins:
Well, yes. In a real sense, what John Wesley did, he introduced Jesus Christ to me in a way that I had not been introduced to Jesus Christ before. And so that was transformative and I will always appreciate John Wesley for that. See, Wesley’s genius is that he brings forward what is in the new Testament, he brings it forward so that we don’t miss anything or hardly anything.

Dr. Ken Collins:
And I was involved in another tradition where we missed too much. And Wesley would make sure, ah, there’s this here, there’s this freedom here, there’s this here, there’s this about Jesus here. And just filled with riches.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Well, as we have established, you are known for being a scholar of John Wesley. So why a book on Jesus the stranger?

Dr. Ken Collins:
Yes. And Heidi, I was actually setting up to do one last book on John Wesley, which by the way I’m working on now.

Heidi Wilcox:
Okay. When do you have a date when that will be releasing or you’re just in the beginning?

Dr. Ken Collins:
Oh, I’m just in the very early stages of it, but it’s really coming from my perspective, having studied and worked with John Wesley through decades now, and it’s going to be very reader friendly, talk about Wesley in a new way. But I was all set to do that, and the holy spirit laid upon my heart a burden, you’re not supposed to be doing this, you’re supposed to be doing something else.

Dr. Ken Collins:
And I saw how Jesus was presented out there in our North American culture. And I didn’t recognize that Jesus, that’s not the Jesus I know. And I know a very beautiful Jesus. And so I had a sense of calling, we were talking about vocation before, I had a sense of calling by the holy spirit, “Why don’t you write this book that you’ve been thinking about for a long time that will show people both inside and outside the church who Jesus is, especially in terms of his beauty. Why don’t you write that book?” And so I said, yes.

Heidi Wilcox:
Wow. You could do nothing else, right?

Dr. Ken Collins:
Right. Exactly. Oh, yes. Oh, absolutely.

Heidi Wilcox:
So how did this idea for the book come to you?

Dr. Ken Collins:
Well, I had been thinking about this actually for quite some time and I wanted to bring some of my skills as a writer to bear, I wanted to be more reader friendly, I didn’t want it to be, “Academic book,” though, I wanted to do my homework and I did because the book has 82 notes, but I wanted it to be reader friendly.

Dr. Ken Collins:
And so what I came up with is a narrative journey. It’s a narrative journey. It’s a thematic presentation of Jesus Christ focused on his interrelationships with key people, especially oppositional characters who are giving Jesus a tough time. And then Jesus, his personhood, his personality being revealed in those interchanges, yes.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. One of the things I especially enjoyed as I read your book, which I really enjoyed by the way, is being able to see the humanity of Jesus in a way that I hadn’t realized before, because I would read it as a story and know the ending, but never take time to think about the suffering on the many different levels that Jesus experienced. And to think about the people who were giving him a hard time and seeing myself in some of those people unintentionally.

Heidi Wilcox:
And I just found it very powerful Dr. Collins. So I’m really grateful work. One of the things that you mentioned, I believe in the introduction to the book was that you talked about the themes, but you said that you were going to be our guide throughout the book because you had been on this journey before, so you were going to guide us through it. What have you learned about Jesus as you wrote the book or as before that you wanted to get across through the book?

Dr. Ken Collins:
Yes. And I think we begin with the suffering of Jesus, and most people understand the physical suffering of Jesus especially in light of that earlier movie, The Passion of Christ, which I think on some level belongs in the genre of a horror movie. I saw it one time, I would never watch it again.

Dr. Ken Collins:
I found it deeply disturbing, but when people think about the suffering of Jesus, they are thinking largely of the physical suffering. And I wanted to portray the emotional, the psychological, the personal, the social suffering of Jesus Christ as he is encountering various groups throughout his ministry. From hometown folk, even to his own relatives, to religious leaders, even to his own disciple, Peter, who misunderstands Jesus in a very important way. So, yeah.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. What is the importance of story, and the role, and the imagination as we look at the life of Jesus?

Dr. Ken Collins:
Yes. I mean, lots of people today, when they approach a book, they’re at the center, and they’re reading a book as an object, and they’re going to acquire facts, and they’re hardly going to be moved at all. In other words, it’s like a cognitive exercise. They’re reading a book, they’re going to acquire some facts, and they’re never really caught up in the book.

Dr. Ken Collins:
I wanted to write a book that you wouldn’t be able to do that. And it would be very hard to do that, the way the book is arranged, the way the book is written, because it is a journey, it’s a narrative journey, it’s participatory, it engages the reader. And as the reader to see themselves in this larger narrative, that’s playing out and then to see the relevance of it for their own life, as they are confronting suffering in their own lives and they want to remain faithful, they want to be faithful disciples of Jesus Christ in the face of a toxic culture.

Heidi Wilcox:
You call it Jesus the Stranger?

Dr. Ken Collins:
Yes.

Heidi Wilcox:
Why is Jesus the Stranger?

Dr. Ken Collins:
He’s a stranger because for so many people in the pages of the gospels, Jesus is the other, he’s not one of us, he’s not an insider, he’s not someone we accept in our circle of affection and care, he’s the outsider. And therefore, easily criticized, easily rebuked or slandered. We see that, especially in terms of the religious leaders, in terms of how they’re treating Jesus Christ.

Dr. Ken Collins:
But there’s even this incident in terms of his own family, where they think he’s insane because he’s so zealous and passionate for the father and for the glory of the father that he’s neglecting, even maintenance needs like eating. But that’s Jesus, that’s Jesus in his zeal, in his energy, in his passion because of his love of the father.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. How do you hope your book helps readers get to know Jesus as he truly is in the toxic culture that we live in?

Dr. Ken Collins:
Yeah. I think would be from reading the book, and going through the journey themselves, and seeing what happens to Jesus, and what’s revealed in the narrative as he remains faithful to the father as a true human being, my father, your father, my God and your God. Jesus is a true human being remaining faithful in the midst of all the kinds of suffering that is thrown his way. What emerges from this is the goodness of Christ.

Dr. Ken Collins:
We start to get a glimpse of that, the sheer goodness. And goodness is hard to portray, especially in story, and narrative, and literature, but the goodness of Christ starts to come across, but also the beauty of Christ, the radiant beauty of Christ who remains faithful despite the suffering. And so on one level, of course the book is about Jesus because it Chronicles this narrative.

Dr. Ken Collins:
But on another level, it’s about us. It’s about people like you and I who want to remain faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, and we are suffering today. We’re being called all sorts of names by all sorts of people, we are in a toxic culture, we are being persecuted and yet we are called to faithfulness, to persevere.

Dr. Ken Collins:
And as a consequence of that, what will emerge is our goodness, the goodness of God in us, the holy spirit in us, that goodness will be seen by others. And we get to participate in Christ’s beauty as he was beautiful. Yes.

Heidi Wilcox:
I think that’s lovely. One of the themes that you mentioned in this book is how seeing and really understanding God’s love is absolutely transformative. How did you first really understand God’s love and how did that transform you?

Dr. Ken Collins:
Well, I first understood God’s love when I was 22 years old, that’s taken me back to my conversion, which we were talking about earlier, but you’re right, Heidi, that I have seen the love of God in a new way, in a rich way. And I don’t know what this is going to do to my Wesley and Armenian theology, I’m still thinking this through.

Dr. Ken Collins:
But here’s what I want to communicate, and here’s what I want to share. And I did talk a little bit about this in the introduction to the book, that I saw in a flash, the love of God manifested in Jesus Christ for Ken Collins, fill in the blanks with our names here, at Golgotha. In other words, as Jesus is in the midst of this very, very dark place. And I saw that so clearly, so powerfully that in seeing that, it has been transformative.

Dr. Ken Collins:
And so the part that I’m struggling with in my theology as a Wesley Armenian, I almost think if you see that love of God manifested in Jesus Christ for you, fill in your name, Heidi, or John, or Sarah whomever, it’s almost necessarily transformative, you cannot help, but be transformed by that.

Dr. Ken Collins:
Now, I suppose my Wesley Armenian theology’s coming in, it’s kicking in and saying, okay, yeah. And then you can reject that or you can stifle it, ignore it, et cetera, et cetera. But it is so powerful. It is so powerful. There really is a before and after here.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Because when you truly understand how much Jesus does love you.

Dr. Ken Collins:
Right.

Heidi Wilcox:
Can you do anything except return that love, because it’s so great.

Dr. Ken Collins:
Yes. That’s exactly right.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Another one of the things, as we’re talking about discipleship of learning to be disciples of Jesus. In today’s culture, really any time, but we’re living now, so it’s our culture. One of the things that really struck me from your book, and it made me think a lot, was you were talking about those who came to arrest and crucified Jesus.

Heidi Wilcox:
They were the religious leaders, as we all know, but they could very likely have thought that they were doing the right thing, which really disturbed me because I was like, “How often do I?” Now, maybe misrepresent what you were saying. So [crosstalk 00:23:21]

Dr. Ken Collins:
No, I think you’ve got it right.

Heidi Wilcox:
So it made me really disturbed to think, are there times when I think for sure I’m doing the right thing, and I’m actually not. And then, so my question is, since that can happen, how can we learn to recognize the truth and then follow that truth? Because that’s what I want Dr. Collins, I don’t want to be doing this other thing.

Dr. Ken Collins:
I think you actually you’re being very perceptive, you’re not misreading anything, you’re reading what is actually in the gospel narrative itself and what I’m picking up in the book, Jesus the Stranger, that the religious leaders in persecuting Jesus and seeing him executed, believe they are doing the very will of God, they believe they’re the heroes of the story that they’re the good people.

Dr. Ken Collins:
Now, you’re dropping back and saying, “Whoa, how do I know if I am like that today?” In other words, so deceived and they are deceived. So this comes, the whole element of self deception. And the way we can know that we are in fact, in the will of God and doing good is to consider, get back to very basic questions now, very basic questions like the young religious leader who had the conversation with Jesus in chapter 13 on what is the greatest commandment, okay?

Heidi Wilcox:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Dr. Ken Collins:
That’s actually a very important chapter and it’s placed exactly where it needs to be in the book, because it’s dropping back and saying, “Hey, what’s this all about?” And what is it all about? It’s about the universal love of God. In other words, loving God with all our heart, all our mind, all our soul, all our strength, and loving our neighbor as ourself, and that’s universal.

Dr. Ken Collins:
And I’ve argued that even from old Testament materials, that even old Testament materials argue the universal love of God. In other words, not simply Jews, but also the foreigner, the other, okay? And where the religious leaders had gone wrong, they were not in the universal love of God, and the universal love of neighbor, they were in a tribe.

Dr. Ken Collins:
They had set up themselves, and their interest, and their particular provincial desires as the center. And in that world, odd as this may seem, Jesus is now the other. And rightly in their thinking, the religious leaders thinking, rightly persecuted, because he challenges our good, he challenges who we are.

Heidi Wilcox:
Well, absolutely. So how does knowing the true Jesus help us see the truth about ourselves, because I think it’s very easy, especially today to fall into tribes, church, political friend groups on social media. How does knowing the truth about Jesus, help us see the truth about ourselves so that we can then be in right relationship with God and neighbor?

Dr. Ken Collins:
That’s right. And look at Jesus on the cross, he’s having dialogue with common criminals, and he’s making a promise to them, which he keeps by the way, okay? And so there, you have the highest, in other words, Jesus, the logos made flesh, the very highest, God come to us, Emmanuel, at the lowest depths of human existence, what some people would call the scum of the earth, and Jesus is covering the whole gamut, the whole expanse.

Dr. Ken Collins:
There’s the richness, the generosity, the universality of the love of God, there’s the gospel, there’s the good news of the gospel, okay? And so we need to rub our noses in that because we run the same race as the religious leaders of setting up our own Christian faith as just another tribe.

Heidi Wilcox:
Oh, yes. For sure. So we don’t want to do that.

Dr. Ken Collins:
No.

Heidi Wilcox:
No, we don’t want to.

Dr. Ken Collins:
No, we don’t want to do that. We want to love our enemies as Jesus taught us.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. What does that look like? Because I feel like today, we’re more polarized than it feels like we’ve ever been. Obviously, haven’t lived for the entire history of the world, but it is very opposite right now. What does loving our… I mean, I know what loving our neighbor looks like, but does it look like on a heart level as we seek to do this?

Dr. Ken Collins:
I think we have to demonstrate the love of God and neighbor. In other words, be very positive, there’s a lot of negativity out there. Even in terms of the church, we need to focus on Jesus Christ who is positive, and continually speak into that. The goodness of the gospel, the richness of the love of God, it is attractive, it will draw people to Christ if we do that.

Dr. Ken Collins:
So I would argue for a very positive approach, presenting the goodness of Jesus, and the gospel, and show be the light, Jesus called us light, Jesus called us the salt of the earth, to be that light, to be that salt. And that will be attracted in a world where people are suffering, they’re hungry, they’re alone, they’re alienated, and they are looking for the rich level of God and a community which celebrates that, the church.

Heidi Wilcox:
I’m glad you mentioned light, because that was something that I wanted to ask you about too. Your subtitle for the book is the man from Galilee and light of the world. Why did you pick that wording?

Dr. Ken Collins:
Yes. That’s again, Heidi, you’re very perceptive. There’s actually a lot going on in terms of the subtitle. The man from Galilee, he’s not even from Judea and he’s a man, he’s a Jew, a young Jew, a common laborer, perhaps a carpenter. What’s so special about him, why should I pay attention to Jesus of Nazareth? Why?

Dr. Ken Collins:
And what the book reveals, Jesus a stranger over the course of the 42 chapters is that this man from Galilee is light of the world, and it reveals why he is the light of the world. That’s what the whole narrative journey is all about. You come to understand that at the end, why this man and no other, by the way, is the light of the world.

Heidi Wilcox:
Absolutely. As you see the suffering that we’ve already mentioned, but it’s a call for us as disciples of Christ to also be willing to endure suffering as we follow him. So what would you say is the role of suffering today for serious Christian discipleship in today’s world?

Dr. Ken Collins:
Yeah. We need to understand suffering on a number of levels and sometimes Christians can be naive here, okay?

Heidi Wilcox:
Mm-hmm (affirmative

Dr. Ken Collins:
There are different levels of suffering. There’s first of all, the suffering of the human condition, okay?

Heidi Wilcox:
Okay.

Dr. Ken Collins:
And being a Christian does not exempt us from the human condition. We get sick, we age, bad things happen to good people, so to speak, loved ones that we cherish die, people that we love are harmed. This is part of the human condition, this is part of life, but God is with us in all of this.

Dr. Ken Collins:
But then there’s a second level of suffering. And that has to do with being a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ. That Jesus warned us about this, Jesus told us, they hate me, they’ll hate you. And so we have to understand that, that just as Jesus was persecuted, as the light of the world was persecuted, we, as we’re in the light, we will be persecuted as well.

Dr. Ken Collins:
And this calls for maturity, this calls for a kind of Christian maturity that we don’t need God to come in and take all the suffering away, that’s an immature response-

Heidi Wilcox:
Right. And we wish it would happen.

Dr. Ken Collins:
What’s that?

Heidi Wilcox:
We wish it could happen.

Dr. Ken Collins:
We wish it would happen, but we have to be more mature and to understand that suffering is going to be a part of our journey and that it’s okay, we’re going to make it, and it’ll be fine. And that we will be revealed as good and beautiful people if we trust in God and persevere, and continue to receive God’s grace.

Dr. Ken Collins:
And so I think this book on some level is a call to Christian maturity. Some people, and I’m thinking also outside the church now, when suffering comes their way, they’re not facing forthrightly the human condition, and so what do they do? They try to get a fix somehow rather, to fix it.

Dr. Ken Collins:
They’ll run off into maybe drugs, or alcohol, or they’ll run off into a tribe and enjoy all the social comforts of a tribe, but in a sense, despise the other, or they’ll go off into aberrant sexuality all because they can’t face the basic suffering of the human condition and so they try to find these fixes.

Dr. Ken Collins:
And in a sense, they’re living a false life, they’re living a deception, they’re not coming to terms with their own life, with the suffering that’s a part of it. And instead they’re trying to escape it and they’ve come up with all these different escapes, the world, the flesh, the devil, okay?

Dr. Ken Collins:
And that can be manifested in so many ways, and to live, not in an honest way, not in a way that recognizes that suffering is going to be a part of our journey, but it will be okay. And great things, really great things will come through this process of remaining faithful and enduring over time.

Heidi Wilcox:
But that’s not to minimize the pain of the suffering, when you’re saying it’s going to be okay.

Dr. Ken Collins:
Right.

Heidi Wilcox:
Because you have to journey through that.

Dr. Ken Collins:
That’s right.

Heidi Wilcox:
Right.

Dr. Ken Collins:
Yes.

Heidi Wilcox:
Do you think it’s possible, because I feel like in some ways we’re all in a tribe, whether we realize it or not. How do we avoid or at least recognize that we are so that-

Dr. Ken Collins:
I think that’s the first step.

Heidi Wilcox:
Okay.

Dr. Ken Collins:
I think the first step is to recognize that people can be in their Christian meanings, like people are in their sports affiliations.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yes.

Dr. Ken Collins:
It can be that crude at times, and even a kind of interdenominational rivalry or inter-christian, let’s say Roman Catholic, Protestant or Eastern Orthodox, which is the exact opposite of the gospel, if those divisions are just held so sharply in place that I think every Christian would want an ecumenical heart, that we want to be in harmony and communion with our fellow brothers and sisters who are in different Christian traditions.

Dr. Ken Collins:
I think that’s incredibly important because it’s at the heart of what the gospel is. And what does the world think of us? When we as Christians, let’s say Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, and Roman Catholic, can’t even worship the Lord at the same table. What does that say to the world, especially in knowing now what the gospel is, the universal love of God, and the universal love of neighbor that breaks down these walls, that breaks down the tribes, and celebrates the goodness of God in the midst of that.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yes. For sure. How do we, you mentioned the other and maybe avoiding thinking of people as other, but we’re not all the same, there’s differences between us. So should we think of our neighbors who are different than we are?

Dr. Ken Collins:
Right. And I think one way is to love them as we love ourselves, and how do we love them? We wish for our neighbor, however, our neighbor is defined, the very same good that we will for ourselves.

Dr. Ken Collins:
What is that same good we will for ourselves? To know, to love, and to enjoy God, the goodness that is God now and forever more, to have that kind of loving attitude towards every person we meet, that we will for them, the very same thing that we will for ourselves.

Heidi Wilcox:
That’s powerful, I think that’s transformative, if we started to do that.

Dr. Ken Collins:
Yes.

Heidi Wilcox:
One of the-

Dr. Ken Collins:
We have to start talking about it.

Heidi Wilcox:
We have to-

Dr. Ken Collins:
We have to start talking about it in the church, we have to get out of our tribal ways off in the corner somewhere, and really take the gospel seriously as the universal love of God and neighbor.

Heidi Wilcox:
Absolutely Dr. Collins, absolutely. So of course we want readers to purchase your book if they haven’t already, and they can do that, we’ll link to the places they can do that in our show notes. But as they read this book, how would you suggest that they read it?

Dr. Ken Collins:
I suggest they read it with an open mind and to maybe take on the image that it’s like going on a multi-day hike, a multi-day hike in, let’s say an interesting terrain and to have that engaging, attractive, even alluring, understanding in the big beginning, that they’re going on a journey and therefore to be open to the possibilities of the insight and change along the way.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Because it definitely changed me in how I think about things, I mentioned that earlier. So like seeing Jesus suffering on many levels and just seeing the story of Jesus in a new way that I hadn’t experienced before. So that was what I took away from your book. What is your hope as an author for readers to learn or gain as they read your book?

Dr. Ken Collins:
My hope is that people like you and others, I’ve had people contact me right to me, and they’ve told me it’s really changed their lives in so many different ways, that if this book could be brought into the churches, and that there could be Bible studies around it, small groups studies, and whole groups of people can talk about the beauty of Christ, and in doing so be a light, an attractive light that others both inside and outside the church will see. I mean that would be wonderful. Yeah.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. I think it definitely can do that. So Dr. Collins, we’ve talked about a great many things today, but I by no means think we’ve talked about all of them. So is there anything else you’d like to mention that we haven’t already talked about?

Dr. Ken Collins:
One last thing I’d like to say, and this is in line with your last question in terms of the reader and how should they read the book? The book has been carefully structured and so chapters are placed where they should be, there are clues along the way, there is a structure to be discerned there, and that structure is important.

Dr. Ken Collins:
So that I think will create a sense of curiosity and excitement for the reader as well. We’ve already talked about chapter 13, there’s a narrative pause or break in terms of the three chapters on discipleship. But I think it would be interesting for readers to think what chapter is the climax of the book.

Dr. Ken Collins:
And they may differ on that actually, what chapter is actually the climax and that will reveal in a certain way, how they understand Jesus and the gospel story, where they see the climax of the book. Then I should also mention that because this is a very engaging participatory kind of book, I offered readers and opportunity at the end, there is a litany of confession, repentance, and renewal, which by the way, is a summary of the entire book.

Dr. Ken Collins:
And it’s a litany that goes in accordance with four key repeated versus not three, and that that has something significant as well, and readers will think that through, and see what’s going on here. But there is a litany of confession, repentance, and renewal at the end, for those people who have moved.

Dr. Ken Collins:
I mean, there was an Asbury professor who said this, so moved him, he had to step away from it for a while and then come back to it because he was so moved by it. But I wanted to offer an avenue for that… An outlet for those who have been so moved and perhaps would like to praise Christ, and express gratitude and thankfulness for what God has done for us in Jesus Christ by the power of the holy spirit.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. That’s a beautiful way to end this book. So I have one last question that we ask everyone who comes on the show, because the show is called The Thrive with Asbury Seminary Podcast, what is one practice that is helping you thrive in your life right now?

Dr. Ken Collins:
The one practice that means so much to me right now, is running while I pray, I do running and praying at the same time. The other day I ran almost seven and a half miles and my prayers were simply beautiful, they were rich, they were thick, they were deep.

Dr. Ken Collins:
I celebrate, and worship, and adore God as I run, I have a very holistic understanding of a human being for those who know me, the physical, the intellectual, the spiritual, the emotional, all of it, all of it makes us up as persons. And so when I am glorifying God, I want everything engaged. And when I run and pray, that’s exactly what happens.

Heidi Wilcox:
Wow. I love that, because I run to, I’m not the runner that you are. How do you focus? Because I have a hard time focusing on other anything else [crosstalk 00:43:05]

Dr. Ken Collins:
Oh, I find that after mile three and a half, a whole new kind of praying and thinking kicks in.

Heidi Wilcox:
Okay. You get that runner’s high?

Dr. Ken Collins:
Well, yeah, my normal cogitating mind, it just falls away. It’s gone and holistic, seeing big picture thinking, insights, seeing things that I couldn’t see before that God’s trying to communicate to me, perhaps areas where I need to change. I see that also in the context of running. So it’s a very, very positive experience for me, yes. One of my favorite things to do.

Heidi Wilcox:
I love that. Do you feel like you engage best with God when you’re also incorporating movement of some kind?

Dr. Ken Collins:
I do. As I said earlier, all the physical, the spiritual, the intellectual, the emotional, all together. Because I’m a person, I’m not a disembodied soul, I am an embodied soul who has a spirit and I want to worship God as a person.

Heidi Wilcox:
Right. As a whole being.

Dr. Ken Collins:
Right.

Heidi Wilcox:
I really like that, because I have a hard time sitting still sometimes, and so I like hearing about engaging, adding movement to the engaging with God. I’m like that is beautiful.

Dr. Ken Collins:
And I’m going to go running this afternoon too.

Heidi Wilcox:
It’s a great day for it. It’s a great-

Dr. Ken Collins:
It’s a good day.

Heidi Wilcox:
It really is.

Dr. Ken Collins:
And there’ll be few good days. So I’m going to take advantage of it today.

Heidi Wilcox:
I heard someone say once, I don’t know if I agree with it entirely, but they said there is no such thing as bad weather, you just don’t have the right clothes. I don’t know.

Dr. Ken Collins:
Oh, yeah. No, there is such a thing as bad weather.

Heidi Wilcox:
In Kentucky, I can get behind that on most days except if it’s excessively windy, I don’t want to go out and do a ton, run, or anything, or if it’s raining, I draw the line on [inaudible 00:45:03].

Dr. Ken Collins:
How about cold, windy, and rainy, and dark.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. I don’t do that.

Dr. Ken Collins:
There it is.

Heidi Wilcox:
I don’t do that.

Dr. Ken Collins:
There it is.

Heidi Wilcox:
Well, Dr. Collins. Thank you so much for taking time to-

Dr. Ken Collins:
Yes. Thank you. I’ve enjoyed this so much, Heidi. Thank you so much.

Heidi Wilcox:
I have as well. Thank you very much.

Dr. Ken Collins:
Yeah. God bless you.

Heidi Wilcox:
Hey everyone. Thank you so much for joining me for today’s conversation with Dr. Collins. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did, and that you will take the time to get, and read a copy of his new book. It helped me see Jesus in a new and different and yes, transformative way. And I hope that it does the same for you.

Heidi Wilcox:
And also I’m just so grateful for Dr. Collins taking the time to come by today, and for the work that he has given us through his book, and his teaching, and more books to come. As early as you can follow Asbury Seminary in all the places, on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at Asbury Seminary. Until next time, I hope you’ll go do something that helps you thrive.