Today on the podcast, I welcomed Dr. Timothy C. Tennent, President of Asbury Seminary, back to the podcast for the third time. So grateful that he could join us today to talk about his new book Foundations of the Christian Faith: A Resource for Catechesis and Disciple-Making. In addition to his book, we talk a little bit about his own faith story, how he was discipled, why discipleship is so important for us as individuals and to the church today, and how we can incorporate these practices into our minds, hearts, and the way we live.
If you haven’t already, I hope you’ll be sure pick up a copy of Foundations of the Christian Faith. It’s available on Amazon or Seedbed.com. So now let’s listen to my conversation with Dr. Timothy Tennent!
*The views expressed in this podcast don’t necessarily reflect the views of Asbury Seminary.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent, President, Asbury Theological Seminary
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent (Ph.D., University of Edinburgh, Scotland) has served as President of Asbury Theological Seminary and Professor of World Christianity since 2009. He is a frequent conference speaker around the country and throughout the world.
Prior to his coming to Asbury Theological Seminary, Dr. Tennent was the Professor of World Missions and Indian Studies at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary where he served since 1998. Ordained in the United Methodist Church in 1984, he has pastored churches in Georgia, and in several of the largest churches in New England. Since 1989, he has taught annually as an adjunct professor at the New Theological College in Dehra Dun, India.
In addition to Foundations of the Christian Faith, he is the author of numerous books and articles. His books include, For the Body: Recovering a Theology of Gender, Sexuality, and the Human Body, Building Christianity on Indian Foundations, Christianity at the Religious Roundtable, Theology in the Context of World Christianity, and Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the 21st Century.
Dr. Tennent and wife, Julie, reside in Wilmore, Ky. They have two grown children, Jonathan and Bethany.
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.
Show Notes
Guest Links
- Connect with Dr. Tennent
Transcript
Heidi Wilcox:
Hey everyone. Thank you so much for joining me for today’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 deep need.
Heidi Wilcox:
Today on the podcast, I welcome Dr. Timothy C. Tennent, President of Asbury Seminary back to the podcast for the third time. So grateful that he could join us today to talk about his new book, Foundations of the Christian Faith: a Resource for Catechesis and Disciple-making. In addition to his book, we talked a little bit about his own faith story, how he was discipled, why discipleship is so important for us as individuals and the church today, and how we can incorporate these practices into our minds, hearts, and into the way that we live.
Heidi Wilcox:
If you haven’t already, I hope you’ll be sure to pick up a copy of Dr. Tenant’s book, Foundations of the Christian Faith. It’s available in a Kindle version, on Amazon, or on seedbed.com for a paperback, Kindle, any version that you like, it is on there. So now let’s listen to my conversation with Dr. Timothy Tennent.
Heidi Wilcox:
All right, Dr. Tennent, thank you so much for taking the time to join me today, to talk about your book, Foundations of the Christian Faith: a Resource for Catechesis and Disciple-Making.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
Thank you, Heidi. It’s great to join you again.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yes. I think this is the third time that you’ve come back, which I said it before we were recording, but it’s quite a compliment when somebody comes back three times. So, thank you.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
That’s great. If I stay here long enough, I’m sure we’ll do it a fourth or fifth.
Heidi Wilcox:
I’m sure you’re welcome back anytime. So before we jump into your book, like I said, because it is about the foundations of the Christian faith, I’d like to start out by asking you about your own faith experience. How did you first encounter Jesus? And when did he become real to you?
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
Yeah, that’s a great question, Heidi. I’m just so thankful to God that I grew up in a wonderful Christian home with mother and father who loved the Lord. My mother, in particular, was very intentional about instructing us in the faith. I was the third of three boys. But despite my mother’s good instruction, we had our own ideas, and so we kind of went our own way.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
But when I was a junior in high school, I was invited over to a man. He was running a Bible study in his home and I went to the home just to join this group that was going. In the process of that time there, this was a Baptist layman, I really heard the gospel. I had a couple of moments in my life. There was one time before that, where I was in a public setting where I felt my ears were open to hear something, of course it resonated with how I was raised. But anyway, when I was a junior in high school is when I invited the Lord into my life. That was a big, obviously huge moment for me spiritually.
Heidi Wilcox:
For sure. For sure. I think everyone has kind of that one moment where the stake went in the ground and then your journey unfolded after that. What was the discipleship process like for you?
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
Well, I had, as I said, a good upbringing in the church and my parents were the kind of folks that the minute the door of the church was open we were the first ones to step across the threshold. So I had Sunday school my entire life coming through. I went through all kinds of curriculum type things that were present in high school, I mean in the elementary school. And then in my early days, I actually went my first five, six years of elementary school, I went to a Christian school.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
Then later I went to public school, but when I actually came to faith, I was very involved in those days with a tape ministry. I know it sounds antiquated a bit was actually cassette tapes that you could check off in an order form and they would mail you the tapes and you’d listen to them and mail them back. It was called River of Life Ministries, or whatever. And I literally listened to hundreds of those cassette tapes. Hundreds. On everything about the Christian faith.
Heidi Wilcox:
Oh, wow.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
I loved doing that. I would just order them three or four a time, and I did that for years. And so by the time I got to seminary, to college, I had a lot of knowledge that way. But then I had people in my life, Bob Stamps that you may know, because he was here on our campus as our chaplain. Forty years ago, he discipled me as a young man. So he was my mentor in the Lord.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
And so I had several key people on the way. In fact, if you actually look at the book, at the opening of the book, you’ll notice. It’s in very small type and you notice inside the cover of the book, it actually has a list of people who were vital to my discipleship. I list, my mother Jacqueline Tennent, Clyde Fortner who’s that man, I mentioned to you in the Bible study that night, who led me to the Lord. Charles Simpson, who was one of the key leaders in those tape ministries I mentioned. Chuck Fair was a very instrumental professor in my college. Bob stamps. And I mention others, Gordon Fee, Christy [inaudible 00:05:31. These were in seminary days. And Kevin Scott is somebody that I talk to every week, even to this day now.
Heidi Wilcox:
Wow. Wow. So what a legacy of folks that you have. As you were reading that list, I was thinking about the Bible verse, “The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places, and I have a good heritage.” And what a tribute to these folks and for to you to have such a rich group, your own rich community of folks as you then made others.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
I’m so thankful for how all those people have poured in my life.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Yeah. So you mentioned your discipleship journey continues even today, which I think is important for people to hear about. That it’s not just as we’re in our twenties or teens or something like that, but it’s a lifelong process. Right?
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
That’s right. So when I was doing my doctoral studies at University of Edinburgh, I fell in with this man that is my pastor, and I never dreamed I would meet him over there. But I met him in Scotland through remarkable circumstances. We became very, very good friends, and we had some wonderful talks. On particularly Sunday night, we would spend time together in the word. And so when I graduated in 1998, I said to Kevin, I said, “Kevin, this has been so good. We can’t stop this.” So we said, “Why don’t we just call on the phone every Sunday afternoon or Sunday night?” And so we started that in 1998, and I’ve done it every week, until this past Sunday I talked to him.
Heidi Wilcox:
Wow, that’s incredible. Yeah.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
I have a weekly time with a dear brother. We talk about what’s going on, the challenges I’m facing. He has his challenges. So we talk through where we are and pray for each other. We still have that to this day, and I’m 63 years old. This all goes on.
Heidi Wilcox:
Wow. That community is a beautiful thing, because I’m guessing that’s not the only person that you have surrounding you to hold each other accountable and help each other on the discipleship journey.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
Well, that’s true. I mean the other obviously really crucial person is my wife, Julie, that you know. Julie and I spend at least an hour together every single day in prayer and in singing the Psalms, and in just discussing scripture. We spend at least an hour, hour and a half every morning.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
I get up in the morning around five. I make tea. Julie comes down. We spend about between 5:30 and 7:00 together in prayer and Bible study. And then at night before we go to bed, we always choose one hymn that we look at and sing or whatever before we go to bed at night. So actually, she’s my main discipleship journey person, is my own dear wife.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that’s, I don’t know, I haven’t been married a super long time, but I feel like that’s how marriage is supposed to be really. You know? Yeah.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
It is. It is.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. So as I mentioned before, your book is called Foundations of the Christian Faith: a Resource for Catechesis and Disciple-Making. So why was now the right time for you to write this book?
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
Well, traditionally the church has had a strong commitment to catechesis and discipleship, but in more recent years, unfortunately, especially in the Western world, we’ve had a growing kind of minimalistic Christianity, which basically asked the question what is the least one has to do to be a Christian? So the result is people being brought into the church, which is a good thing of course. But they were not actually brought any further than that.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
So you basically have people becoming Christians, but not really knowing what it means to be a Christian. So this was really meant to address kind of a growing gap between people who maybe experienced some level of justification, but it never really been brought into the fullness of Christianity. Our founder H.C. Morrison, his favorite hymn was “On Jordan’s Stormy Banks I Stand.” He actually did not view that, crossing the Jordan, as crossing, like going into heaven. He viewed it as going into the deeper life, the discipled life, the catechetical life.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
And so he would call in his sermons to cross over Jordan, meaning don’t just stand the banks and say Jesus forgive my sins. Have the victorious life of being victorious over sin and being transformed. So this book is really about helping the church to be brought into the real rhythms of the Christian faith, and I follow the traditional way the church has done that through the ages.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. I think I would be remiss before we go any further. I mean, of course we’re both familiar with the term catechesis. But for people who may be listening, if that term isn’t familiar for them, could you give us an idea of what that looks like today?
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
Yeah. The word catechesis comes from two Greek words. These are words that, especially you’ll know kate, which the word for down. But the other word is the word where we get our word echo from. And so it really means to sound down. And the idea was that the person who gave the instruction, the one who was being instructed would echo back the response. And the early catechesis was questions and answers, questions and answers.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
So it was meant to be kind of a dialogue between an older Christian and a younger Christian, not necessarily older in years, but older in numbers of years walking with the Lord. And so the bottom line is it’s really meant to be a conversation or a dialogue between two people or two groups of people. And so that’s part of what that is. It’s a passing down of the faith. We receive the gospel, we pass it down. And so this idea is how do we accurately and fatefully pass down the gospel?
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. I liked what you said a minute ago about the Jordan stormy banks, and going into discipleship taking you into a deeper spiritual life. How does discipleship, maybe it’s a personal example from you or maybe just in general, how does do discipleship practices and rhythms help lead us into a more victorious life?
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
Yeah, it’s a great question. The church, it’s amazing. We i [inaudible 00:12:04] the church, we think about it often as being like people who don’t agree about things. But actually one of the most amazing things about the church’s history is that we’ve not actually had substantial disagreement about the content of catechesis, which is amazing. Because if you look at every strand, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant traditions, and you ask, what did they use to train young people, children, new believers in the faith? It was almost always the same three things.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
They used the Apostles’ Creed. They would use the Ten Commandments, and they used the Lord’s Prayer. And the reason they used those three things, because this actually gets to your question, the three things represent doctrine, what you need to know, which is essentially the transformation of the mind. The ethics, that is to say the moral life, the how we’re to live the Christian life. And then the practices, what are the rhythms of practice in order to grow as a Christian?
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
So the early church into today, you can’t neglect any of these. There are things you just need to know about what is the proclamation of the gospel. But also what it means for our moral life, our ethical life, and then the rhythms it takes to continue growing. So the church focused on that. And so this book actually is surrounded around that basic same approach.
Heidi Wilcox:
I like what you said about the oral tradition, because I picked that up in your writings definitely. And was thinking about how in more ancient times that catechesis definitely was oral. But even just storytelling. There were very few books and at one point there were no books. So it was an oral culture. And it reminded me of Deuteronomy six, where it talks about loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And it commands readers to keep these commands, not only in our hearts, but to recite them aloud. And so thinking about that, it reminded me of what you were saying in your book. Why do you think it’s still so important that we say aloud what we believe. Thinking about, especially the Apostles’ Creed?
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
Well, I think first of all, when you verbalize something, it actually encounters your mind and your own ears and the ears of your community. So the church has always believed that the vocalization is important. But I think also it’s just helpful in a church. I look at the Apostles’ Creed, for example, to be both confessional and aspirational because on the one hand, the people there that are confessing what they believe, others may not understand it or know it, but then they’re realizing that’s what it means. This is what it means to belong to Christ. And so they actually can aspire to become more faithful in their Christian walk.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
When I wrote my first little book on the Apostles’ Creed some years back, I got letters from all over, emails and letters from all over. People who said some version of this to me: I have grown in the church all my life and I have recited Apostles’ Creed forever, but I never really knew what it all meant. And so I think a lot of people encounter the creed. They’re very familiar with it. I mean, Nicene Creed, maybe not as much, but the Apostles’ Creed, very well known in the church and yet some of the phrases, they never really thought about what they mean or why they’re important. So this book tries to spell that out a bit.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yes. I definitely agree. Because thinking about the Apostles’ Creed, I have said it my whole life, but if I knew it, wasn’t something that I could have said to you that this is something that all Christians everywhere believe. And I think that is an amazing thing that there is this creed that Christians everywhere. They don’t dispute. It’s just how it is. And so saying that over and over is a form of discipleship and ingraining that into your heart.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
Amen. It’s also, as you said, an amazing point of unity.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yes.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
Because the church over the whole world, around the world and back through time, affirms this document. It’s an amazing thing.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Yeah. So as you wrote this book, how do you see readers using it and what type of reader did you have in mind?
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
Well, it’s a great question because sometimes I found that you have a group in mind, and sometimes the reality is different than you thought. This book has been published, parts of it in different forms over the years. And so it’s being brought together now in one textbook. But I get letters from people who say, “I’m a homeschool mom and I’ve, I’ve used this book,” or people who say, “I’ve used this at home with my children,” or whatever. I’ve had a lot of pastors who’ve said, “I’m using this as a sermon series.” I was especially surprised, The Apostles’ Creed I thought maybe so, but the 30 Questions especially has been used a lot in sermon series. Or people say I’ve used it for a blog series or whatever. And that’s wonderful. But it was really designed actually, mostly, and it’s used this way as well, but for small group, like new members’ classes or those kind of classes in churches. So it is used that way as well.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
So basically, if a pastor or a Christian leader wanted to be a part of a helping a new group of people come into the faith, they would have some guide to go by. This comes with study questions and all of that, so it enables someone to lead someone through a kind of a systematic introduction to the faith in the areas of doctrine, ethics and practice.
Heidi Wilcox:
How does a proper understanding of and participation in catechesis, reading your book, serve as a foundation of our faith?
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
Well, it’s back to the word catechesis, it’s us learning to echo what has been taught by the apostles. And I think today we have a little danger of people who feel like that we have the remit to remake the faith or to just change what the Bible has said. And so this actually puts us back in resonance with what the church has said through the history. There’s a great phrase that comes from the early church called [foreign language 00:18:23]. It means what the church has always taught, everywhere, by everyone. It’s meaning that despite all of our difference about baptism, about church, government or whatever.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
Despite all of that, there is a core shared confession of the church through the ages. And so this actually gets us in resonance with that. And so that’s really, really important because I don’t mind disagreeing about a lot of things, but I think it’s important that we agree about that which the church has said, this is the core kerygma, the core faith of the church
Heidi Wilcox:
As you see it, what does a return to traditional catechesis look like in the church today?
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
Another great question. I do think it’s changed a lot over the years and there’s two ways this book reflects changes. One is that while we do believe that parents need to take the primary responsibility, we think the church today is going to have to take a stronger role and not assume that parents have this covered at home. A lot more fragmentation in the home life in America, a lot more people that are just massively busy with all kinds of events and just traveling around. And they don’t really have the kind of the quiet home life that they had 50 years ago. So the church has to pick up this slack. We obviously have to train parents to train their children, but we have to also do this inside the church.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
The other part is that this book does a lot more with explaining to person what is behind these questions. So in traditional catechesis, it was basically question and answer, question and answer, through the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, everything. But it really involved a lot of rote memorization. And so students would learn the answers. They would be asked the question, they would give a response. But rote memory has changed its function in our society. And so I think now people need to just actually understand something even if they don’t say it the exact same way. Actually the material explains what is behind this statement, and they can use their own words, talk about it, whatever. So it’s a little more friendly for almost any Sunday School teacher, as opposed to the traditional guides, which are a little intimidating if it’s all based on memory work.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, for sure. We were talking about the church in America, but you also teach regularly in India and travel widely. As you look at the global church is the kind of strain from teaching the foundations of the faith and catechesis, is that more a Western culture thing? Or do you see it around the globe as well?
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
Well, all over the globe and all through time, the church has been reasonably attentive to catechesis. I think it’s probably strongest in the Roman Catholic church in terms of traditional kind of ways it’s done. It’s taken very seriously there globally, and the Orthodox church. The Protestant church, because it’s so fragmented has had less kind of shared practices, and so you have real differences, what goes on in a Lutheran church versus a Pentecostal church versus the Anglican church, whatever. So you have a lot of differences there.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
So I would say in some ways the Protestants have a lot to do to kind of formalize this, especially the independent churches today. There’s a lot of new churches that are completely independent and they don’t have a tradition. They don’t have a traditional catechesis guide, like the shorter catechism or the Heidelberg catechism, all these famous guides. They’re just not connected to that tradition. They never heard of it. So this is trying to work with groups that may not have had catechism before.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
My experience in India with the groups that I work with at least, I found that the home catechesis is dramatically better than what I’ve experienced among families in the West. I mean, dramatically. It’s very, very normal in the Indian homes that I’ve worked with for 35 years for families to have devotions every night, to have instruction before their kids go to sleep. That’s very normal in the circles I work with in a way that wouldn’t be as common in the West today.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. I think that’s interesting to the gifts of global Christianity and what we can learn from other cultures and other countries for our own benefit and faith. So I want to get into more of your book. We can’t cover all the sections in our podcast, but one section talking about the Old Testament, I was thinking about this because last year I did the Bible app and read the Bible in one year. And that was the first time that I’d ever read the Bible from cover to cover. And so really, I didn’t subscribe to the belief that the Old Testament has no relevance in our life, but if I was going to read the Bible, I picked the New Testament, right? Because that’s where the exciting things happen. But in doing that, I realized kind of the relevance and the beautiful story of redemption, that’s seen all through scripture. And that was the first. It was really amazing last year, Dr. Tennent.
Heidi Wilcox:
But in your book, you talk about that relationship with the Old Testament and the New Testament, and it’s importance to us importance to us today. So can you talk to us about the relationship, the Old Testament’s importance, and I guess why we should read it, and it’s value to us and our faith?
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
Yes. This part is not a traditional part of catechesis. It’s an added part. So it’s about a 50-page section of the book that you would not find normally in a traditional catechesis guide. But this came out of my own experience as a pastor. So despite how this may shock you, I haven’t always been a seminary president.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
So in my early ministry, I was a pastor of a church. I was working with, it was basically rural people that were a farming community, a rural part of north Georgia. And they really did not have a very good relationship with the Old Testament. A lot of things you said, they would’ve said the same thing. So I struggled a lot with, well, how do I help people in the ordinary pews to understand the Old Testament. And so I finally realized probably the best way to communicate to them is to say if you understand basically Adam, Abraham, Moses, and David, then you can pretty much understand a lot of the Old Testament because those four figures are so crucial for the New Testament and how we relate to Adam, Abraham, Moses and David.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
And so this book is really showing out Christ fulfills the aspirations and the realities of each of those. You know, we relate to Adam in a kind of a racial way. The redemption we relate to Abraham, as father of faith, et cetera. David, king and priest and so forth. So I bring all that out in this section to show the connections of the Old and New Testament, which helps people then to read the Old Testament with more understanding and profitability. And even read the New Testament better, because a lot of New Testament assumes you know about Adam or Abraham or Moses or David. So it also really helps them understand the New Testament as well.
Heidi Wilcox:
How do we see redemption in the old Testament?
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
Well, mostly redemption happens all the time, but it mostly happens through Israel’s history. So you see redemption happening through the people of God, for example, coming out of Egypt into the Promised Land. So the movement of God’s people from slavery and to the Promised Land is itself one of the primary paradigms of redemption in the New Testament. So Christ delivers us from slavery into the Promised Land.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
So the Jewish experience, not just with that, but also with blood sacrifice, all these things that we talk about in the cross were already foreshadowed in the blood sacrifices. And we know now from the New Testament that when an Old Testament person sacrifices blood of like a bull or a goat, it was anticipating Christ’s sacrifice of his blood on the cross. And therefore they are saved by Christ just the way we are. Theirs was anticipatory. Ours is fulfillment. But we’re all saved by Christ. And so we can see the link and how everything ultimately points to Christ through both sides of the redemptive story.
Heidi Wilcox:
I really liked as I read the Bible in a year last year, seeing that redemption because at some time, at some point you hear people say, “Oh, the Old Testament is all about God’s wrath and judgment and people dying.” But in seeing the whole story, I really did see that redemption and how Israel would stray and God in his mercy would, he had a plan like from the beginning to bring them back and redeem them then, and ultimately redeem them. And it was a beautiful thing like you were saying.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
Amen. That’s so true.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Yeah. So another section was the 10 Commandments. What is the role of the 10 Commandments in our lives today as New Testament Christians?
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
Yeah. This is a part that some have misunderstood because Paul used the word law differently. But the Wesleyan view in particular is that Christ is the new law giver. And so when Christ fulfills the law, it doesn’t mean that he takes away the moral mandates of the law. So what we actually find is the 10 Commandments are taken in the New Testament and they’re deepened. So for example, thou shall not commit murder. Jesus says through the gospel don’t even be angry. Thou shall not commit adultery. Don’t look at a woman with lust. All these things are actually deep in the law.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
So when you deal with catechism of children, it’s still very helpful to start out with the concrete realities about stealing, and lying, and honoring your parents, keeping Sabbath. These are very basic things that can be taught to any child. And then as they come into the experience of Christ, which of course the Apostles’ Creed, then they will eventually be able to realize the power to obey these, to live righteously.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
And so one of the challenges, I think this is one of the reasons why I’m a Wesleyan, is that we believe that Christ is not just interested in forgiving us, but actually transforming us in how we live. And so it’s not just justification, sanctification. It’s holiness. And so this whole section’s about just helping someone to begin on the road to holiness. And even though there’s 613 commands in the Old Testament, it’s basically believed that all of the 613 are subheadings of these 10.
Heidi Wilcox:
Oh wow.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
And so these are like the 10 main headings out of which all the moral law flows. And so if you start with these 10, you’re kind of getting yourself in the basic foundation of the moral life in terms of basically, as you know, the first half of the commandments is loving God. Second half, loving your neighbor, which Jesus says, that’s what it’s all about. Love God. Love your neighbor. This is the starting point to that.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Wow. I had never heard that the 10 were kind of the headings for all the 613 to follow in Leviticus and whatnot. That’s really interesting. How is the first commandment, because I know you said this in your book. How is the first commandment, thou shalt have no other guys before me, foundational to all the rest of the commandments?
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
Well, yeah, part of the commandments is an orientation of what it means to have the oriented life. Wesley picks up on this in his own life and work, basically saying that the Christian life begins with having your heart oriented toward God and who he is. So the 10 Commandments begins by saying before we get into anything that we are to do, we first begin with who he is. He is the God of the universe and he is the creator. And so the whole thing begins with establishing God as the center of the whole redemptive plan as our creator and redeemer and sanctifier. So that’s why I say the first commandment in some ways is the one that orients you and empowers you for the rest.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. I had never thought about it that way. That’s a really beautiful and enlightening thing. So as we talk about your book, and you mentioned earlier that catechesis is kind of, I think I’m paraphrasing you correctly. That it is the doctrine, and ethics, and practices that help us grow in our faith. So how do we take what we know in our lives and the ethics for how we believe to live and marry everything together so that we practice “our lives well”?
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
Yeah, this I think, is a great question. I think the distance between your head, your heart, your life, your actions is an important one. And I think in my understanding, in my own experience as a Christian, this is only possible through the infilling of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We cannot do it on our own. So otherwise just basically discipleship for much of the church today is basically sin management. You’re managing sin in people’s lives.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
So the question is, why is that the kind of orientation today, we’re just managing sin? And the reason is because the gravity. There’s a pull towards sin that still happens in our lives. So part of what the Wesleyan message says is that when you encounter Christ and you filled with the Holy Spirit, and you have this sanctifying experience with God in Christ, then there’s actually a gravity shift, where rather being pulled towards sin you’re being actually pulled toward God and toward his holiness.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
So life, even though when I became a Christian, I still felt this pull toward my old life. I actually still long to sin. I would say sin was still my secret lover. You know? And so even though you may be victorious for a while, there’s certain things you would go back and do, because you really wanted to sin. And so what happened was when I got filled with Holy Spirit, I had an orientation in my life so that now my deepest longing is to love him.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
It is actually an unbelievable transformation because all your life you’ve only known the pull the other direction. And then you have this pull now in a new direction and you realize there’s no way that comes from inside of you. That’s the work of God. And Wesley never believed in sinless perfection. It doesn’t mean we never sin, but it does mean that the orientation has changed. And I think there’s just like a holy gravity that pulls you in a different direction.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
And that to me is the power behind all of this, is the fact that we believe in Trinitarian salvation. It’s not just Jesus who justifies us. It’s the spirit who sanctifies us, and really does reorient our hearts. And that’s a message the church really needs to hear today.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, for sure.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
I’m starting to get preaching now here.
Heidi Wilcox:
Well, we’re here for it. I think it’s an important point that you made about how sanctification isn’t a sinless salvation, nor is it an excuse to sin, but it reorients our hearts. Because growing up that was a point that really confused me a lot about what sanctification meant, because I knew my own heart and everything, even after I had had that experience. And I was like, but I still mess up, you know? And so I really appreciate that point that you made.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
Absolutely. I mean, even today, just today, I had to write a note to someone. I said something I shouldn’t have said. And I said, “I’m really sorry for that.” The good thing about it is that I felt the Lord orient my heart to say, you know what? That wasn’t the right thing to say. And so immediately I said I’m sorry. It doesn’t mean that we don’t sin, but we don’t have a pull to want to do that. What we want do is live right with everyone that we come in contact with, and of course, before God. And that to me is the amazing thing about the work of the spirit.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. As my dad said, when he would talk to me about it, he was like, “It doesn’t mean that I don’t mess up. I just have a good reverse gear to back it up.” And I feel that check that I know and I need to go make things right now.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
Exactly.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. So at the end of each of the larger sections of your book, like the Apostles’ Creed, for example. There’s a hymn written by your wonderful wife, Julie Tennent, and they’re of course beautiful. So what was Julie’s role in writing this book?
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
Well, yeah, I really wanted my wife, Julie, to be a part of this because as I said, first of all, she’s been my, the word was catechumen, the person who is catechized, my catechumen partner all these years. But I also felt like it was so important to root catechesis into the context of worship. That ultimately all of this is not about learning stuff or memorizing stuff. It’s really about what it means to worship God.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
And I think sometimes, in our tradition especially, we think about loving God as something happens in our heart or our emotions. But actually it’s all that we are. We learn about things in our heads and we practice things. All this is loving God. And so I really felt like rooting this in worship would help the book be just oriented right. And I don’t really have any gifts in music. My wife is so gifted in that area. I asked her if she’d write a hymn for each of the sections and she did some great work here. That’s a real value of the book, are the hymns.
Heidi Wilcox:
Well, they are beautiful.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
They’re worth the price of the book.
Heidi Wilcox:
I love that. I never thought about, because I also grew up in the church and feel like I had a good theological foundation for how to live. But I never thought about catechesis as being worship, and how I live my whole life is a form of discipleship and an act of worship to God. Wow, Dr. Tennent.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
It’s great. Isn’t it?
Heidi Wilcox:
It is. It is. So as we wrap up the podcast, I feel like there’s a great lot more that we could talk about. There’s Eastern Kentucky coming out in me a little bit. Is there anything else that you’d like to mention that I didn’t know to ask you?
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
Well, there’s two parts of the catechesis which part from the regular, one of which you mentioned, and one of which you did not. I’ll just mention it.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yes, please.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
The first, of course, is the fulfillment, the Old Testament section. That is not often done. This is the last part of the book on the body under the ordinances, because normally that section of catechesis involves instruction with baptism, the Lord’s supper, and then the Lord’s prayer. But I have a section here on the body, and this is because I felt like that the body is under a particular attack today, what it means to have a Christian view of the body.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
And so I’ve argued that part of what we needed to do today in our training people in the faith, is to orient them toward seeing their bodies in a Christian way. I mean, women especially are regularly shamed in the media by the way their bodies are portrayed, billboards and advertisements and commercials and all this. And so we talk about just the way we can help our children to be raised up to think about their bodies better, because there’s so many ways our bodies today are under attack. And so that’s a part of the book which I think is more for the contemporary world.
Heidi Wilcox:
For sure. For sure. So I lied to you, Dr. Tennent. I said, I didn’t have any more questions and I have one more here that I’d like to ask you.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
All right.
Heidi Wilcox:
For someone who is listening to this podcast and is either beginning their discipleship journey or wants to continue it, other than buying your book, because that is a good resource for a new or even a seasoned Christian, what would you say for someone who wants to take the next step in their discipleship journey?
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
Well, it really depends on where they are, but I would say, Heidi, actually what you’ve already testified to, is the best first step before you buy my book or anything else, I would do the daily Bible reading plan. I think it’s a great way, if you read basically three chapters a day, three and a half chapters, you read through the Bible in a year. I’ve done it many, many times. It’s a great thing to do.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
Obviously the other thing is starting a practice of daily prayer. As you probably know, they did a study a while back on some of these big megachurches and said what caused people to grow. And these are churches that had like endless programming and they found out and they spent, by the way, $2 million in this study to find out people grew by two things, prayer and Bible study, which I thought, wow, I could have told that before they did the study.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. They could have sent that check to you, right?
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
Sent it to Asbury, that’s right. So I think there’s a lot of these practices, which I know when I was in college, I just decided, even though I felt so busy I couldn’t breathe, with classes, et cetera. I’m going to get up in the morning and begin the day with the Lord in prayer and Bible study. I’ve been doing that since I was probably 17 years old.
Heidi Wilcox:
Wow.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
Every morning.
Heidi Wilcox:
Wow. [inaudible 00:40:34].
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
I know. And so I think it’s great. Now granted when we had children, young children, we weren’t able to do things together the way we do now. We’ve had different ups and downs about timing and all of us together. But in my personal life, I’ve made a priority to get up and spend time in the Lord with prayer. And I know perhaps some people are nighttime. People can do it at night. I’m more of a morning person. But you need to find some time that’s sacred to just sit still before the Lord.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
I also found singing is a very powerful catechesis, because singing puts the words into your heart. And so I’m not much of a singer, but I like to sing before the Lord, and he doesn’t seem to mind my voice.
Heidi Wilcox:
I love it.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
Anyway, those are things that are helpful, I think. Have a Bible, a hymn book. My wife and I have been singing Psalms every morning since 2012.
Heidi Wilcox:
Wow.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
It’s been 10 years now. We’ve sung a Psalm every morning for 10 years.
Heidi Wilcox:
Wow.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
And even if I’m traveling, we do it over the phone because it’s a big part of our own catechesis. So we’ll sing a Psalm, talk about it and then we’ll read other scriptures and pray. But we always have a Psalm. The Psalms have been a really important part of catechesis. We could do a whole nother podcast on that one.
Heidi Wilcox:
Maybe we should. You could come back a fourth time.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
I think that Psalms are really, really important for growth. But it’s another time, another topic.
Heidi Wilcox:
Well, I can’t let you go without asking why the Psalms?
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
Well, the Psalms are kind of the Grand Central Station of the Bible. The Psalms are where the whole Bible meets. I mean, it’s amazing that God put a prayer book in the center of the Bible. And so this was Jesus’ prayer book. The Psalms of course are, quote, endlessly the old Testament. And then the New Testament endlessly quotes the Psalms. Right? So the Psalms really becomes kind of the nexus, which brings the whole bubble together. And so I just don’t feel like I’ve had a really good day unless I spend a good bit of time in a Psalm. So that’s part of what I think is important. And we can discuss it more another time.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. The next time. I like how you’re baiting the hook there, Dr.Tennent.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
Yeah. Come back for my fourth time.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I’m here for it. So I don’t think I should tell people anymore that I’m on my last question because I have at least one more I’d like to ask you and we have a little bit more time. So when you said that you’d been studying God’s word as a practice since you were 17, I’m curious what you know about God now that you didn’t know then? I’m sure there’s a great many things as you’ve grown, but like if one thing stands out to you.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
It’s a great question. I guess the thing I have learned the most in maybe more recent years is that things I used to run away from, like running away from pain especially, or things that are difficult. I finally realized that the real walk with God is to embrace those things and not to run from them. Our culture’s really based a lot on getting away from pain and suffering, but actually the cross, suffering is at the center of our faith. And so I think if we realize that Christ is suffering at the center of the universe and we want to be united with Christ, we actually get united with his death and resurrection. It’s a part of our whole Christian journey is about learning what it means to die. In fact in Daniel, when the Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego are delivered from the fiery furnace, they respond, the unbelievers respond, “There’s no God, that does that.”
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
And for years I took it as meaning simply that, yeah, I don’t know of any God that delivers people out of a fiery furnace, but what I think it’s also saying is that, as you know the story, God walked into the fiery furnace. No God does that. And that’s the whole cross. And so I think part of my whole Christian journey is about being reoriented to understand the place of suffering, pain, difficulty, challenges in ways that early on I just viewed the Christian faith much differently than I do now, because of just spending time with him.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Because when I interviewed Reverend Tish Harrison Warren, the Anglican priest, she was talking about pain and reading her book. Because I try to avoid pain too. I would rather not deal. But she said something that resonated with me and I think relates to what you were saying. It was talking about the cross and redemption and resurrection, and as long as things are not right, the story’s not over. And I was like, oh, okay. Like there’s so much hope in that, and learning to see Jesus as suffering with us too. Yeah.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
Amen.
Heidi Wilcox:
Okay, Dr. Tennent.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
I also love how her writings, back to Tish Warren. I think she helped me a lot on the whole quotidian mystery and not separating life between sacred and secular, where you’re making up beds or washing dishes or mowing the grass or changing the oil in the car. All those things, she puts those in the liturgical rhythms, which I think is itself catechetical. I really do. I think if I could write another section of the book, I would write it about how we understand the daily kind of stuff of life. But she wrote a great book on that, so I don’t need to do it. But she’s got some good insights.
Heidi Wilcox:
Well, Dr. Tennent, I think now it’s safe to say, this is the last question that we ask everyone who comes on the show. So this is your third time answering it. 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. Timothy C. Tennent:
Well, I said the one practice right now is Psalm singing. I think it’s a great practice. We have a metrical psalter that we put out that’s available in seedbed as well. It’s just actually on psalms.seedbed.com for free. You can learn to sing the Psalms. It guides you. But it’s a great practice for thriving in the Lord.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, for sure. And for those listening, we’ll link to Dr. Tennent’s books, especially his new one and the psalms.seedbed.com that he just mentioned. So you can access all that in the show notes. So Dr. Tennent, this conversation has been such a delight. I’ve really enjoyed it. So thank you so very much.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent:
Thank you, Heidi. It’s been great to be with you.
Heidi Wilcox:
Hey everyone. Thank you so much for joining me for today’s conversation with Dr. Tennent. What a treat to have the president of the seminary take the time to chat with all of us today. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did and learned something that will help you grow in your own faith, and help you as you pass your faith onto others. If you see Dr. Tennent, be sure to thank him so much for being part of our podcast today. And as always, you can follow @Asbury Seminary in all the places, on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as @Asbury Seminary. Until next time I hope you’ll go do something that helps you thrive.
