Kevin DeYoung Wants You to Take Your Daily Doctrine

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Kevin DeYoung
I think a lot of the things I write about are trying to show that being a Christian is both easier and harder than we think harder, and that you do have to make effort, and you do have to try, and you do have to press hard and put to death the deeds of the flesh and easier, and that ordinary people can live a life that is pleasing to God.

Collin Hansen
I have never opened an episode of gospel bound with a book blurb or endorsement, but I can’t say it better myself. Here’s the quote you hold in your hands a smorgasbord of theological delights. Daily doctrine is at one a daily devotional, a mini systematic theology and a reference tool. Now that is an endorsement from Joel Beeke about the new book. From my What can I? Can I say? A very special guest, Kevin DeYoung

Kevin DeYoung
Totally special.

Collin Hansen
Somewhat special, I gotta say, bonus points to be key for use of one of my favorite Swedish words so smorgas hasta Fergus, shout out, Swedish Chef. Now you guys know Kevin as a system act theology professor at reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina. You know him as a conference speaker and the pastor of Christ Covenant Church. You might even know him as the host of a little podcast called life and books and everything, where he allows me and our friend Justin Taylor to banter a few times a year. My family knows him primarily as the guy who wrote the biggest story, which we read together every evening and watch the amazing animated videos produced by crossway with Michael Reeves on the narration. I mean, they bring me to tears, not infrequently.

Kevin DeYoung
I was with, I was with Michael in London this summer, and I just said, so am I what? What’s your voice doing that my voice isn’t doing huh? How come they didn’t ask me to be the voice over for my own video. Now he is mellifluous. Michael has a tremendous voice.

Collin Hansen
Beautiful, beautiful. Well, there is no shortage of what we could discuss today. And don’t worry if the conversation lags at any point, I will just start asking Kevin about the new Chicago Bears. Head Coach Ben Jones, very excited. Very excited. What? What? On a scale of one to 10. How excited Kevin?

Kevin DeYoung
You know, I was like an eight, and then when I listened to, I think he’s just, it’s been a 10 since he’s gotten in front of a microphone. Okay? I told my wife I was, I was ready to suit up. And she said, you’re ready to cheer them up. No suit up. Well, I don’t think you should suit up, since I never was much of a football player. He just, I have lots of Lions fans, friends and family, so I’m sorry, not sorry, but I, you know, when he just, he walked in the room and in his press conference, and when he said, you know, the first thing I said to them, I want to be the bears coach. Now, every Bears fan is saying, why? But you wanted to be the bears coach. So I’m just, I’m it seems like it would have been typical of the bears to hire a coach who had already been fired three times and was getting recited and they can do well. So I’m excited. I should this is the year. This is the year. It’s only been 40 years since the 85 bears. It’s all coming together. Colin, it’s bears chiefs, next Super Bowl.

Collin Hansen
I’ll take it. I’ll take it. I wish I should have given you a scale of ever flu sta

Kevin DeYoung
Yeah. I mean, it’s not dick, but it, yeah, it’s not Mark tressman, if we want to go back into the vault, oh, we

Collin Hansen
could go deep. Yeah. Bear said coaches, we got, we got a matt Nagy out there. We could, we can go. We can go on this one, yeah, all right, well, we may come back to that. Who knows? No,

Kevin DeYoung
we should. We should, if we should go back. Michigan State basketball is doing well, amazing. Really, football is a bus. But yeah, basketball, it

Collin Hansen
is a little odd not to be talking about Nebraska anything on this podcast.

Kevin DeYoung
Yeah? Well, our friend Justin, as we said, may his technology rest in peace. He’s trying to get the microphone turned right side up from an undisclosed location. You know, a hostage video in Sioux City somewhere.

Collin Hansen
We missed you, Justin, we know. We know you’re listening

Kevin DeYoung
cargo shorts, a hoodie in minus 10 degrees. He’s the John Fetterman of Christian publishing.

Collin Hansen
Really. Okay, well, let’s get to daily doctrine. I have loved reading this book. The format makes it really. Easy to pop in and out of the book. But the thing is, your writing makes it easy to want to keep going on the book, not to mention the actual doctrines where we encounter the Lord there. Now I know a father of nine is not supposed to have a favorite child. Kevin, can a theology professor have a favorite doctrine?

Kevin DeYoung
Yes. So I’ve a little bit about where the chapters came from. I’ve, I’ve taught through the st sequence now two or three times at RTS and so, you know, and that helped big time to be able to go through and at least have notes on these different topics, and have researched them and studied them. And as as I’ve taught through the class, I I think my favorite thing to teach is Christology, or doctrine of God. Why is that? I think because you, you know, turitin said that the two most difficult doctrines are the Trinity, one God, three persons, and then the one person, two natures of Christ. So they’re, they’re the most difficult. They have mystery, which isn’t uh contra reason, but it’s Supra rational. It’s beyond full comprehension. But I think I love those because you get to help people learn vocabulary that helps them see more of God and understand and even things we don’t understand. So yeah, maybe the person of Christ and trying to understand all the intricacies of the hypostatic union and the various ways that we need to safeguard that, and to trace out the doctrines or the heresies that led to the different councils you’re studying the person of Christ. So it’s wonderful. Well, just

Collin Hansen
to give you a sense of how my home group was going last night, I ended up having to text out to the group St Patrick’s bad analogy,

Speaker 1
that’s worthwhile, just tells you

Collin Hansen
I could have done that, or I could have just brought daily doctrine out of my office and shared that, shared that with them. You know, there was a day that stood out to me, day 184 remember that one? Kevin, by name 184

Kevin DeYoung
so it’s got to be maybe in the soteriology section, trusting and trying.

Collin Hansen
Part of this entry can be found in one of your your many earlier books, hole in our holiness. And I want to read a couple lines the gospel that frees us from self justification also frees us for obedience. And another line when it comes to growth and godliness, trusting does not put an end to trying. I’m wondering, Kevin, how do the antinomian debates early in our ministry shape your subsequent outlook and work?

Kevin DeYoung
We were both in those debates and now 15 years ago, and those of you who aren’t familiar with them, just as many things happen. They they, they percolate on the internet and and go off into published works as well. And antinomian people think, of course, anti means against, and nomos is law. So people think that antinomian means you just straight up say we don’t have to obey God. Well, hardly, I mean, anyone’s going to say that you know that you just sin, that grace may abound? Well, the Bible says, By no means. So we know that’s but, but there’s an there’s a kind of impulse that is nervous about imperatives, that always shies away from commands, that doesn’t think we have it any possibility, by God’s grace, to be obedient. So it certainly shaped me. And you see, you know, read a couple of those lines from that one, and even the book that I did the previous year, impossible Christianity is about some of that those same themes that I think a lot of the things that I talk about in my books and they they’re probably, you know, we write out of our own issues, probably, but I think a lot of the things I write about are trying to show that being a Christian is both easier and harder than we think harder, and that you do have to make effort, and you do have to try, and you do have to press hard and put to death the deeds of the flesh and easier, and that ordinary people can live a life that is pleasing to God. And I think there’s a tendency to get both half of that wrong that some people only have a Christianity that’s about failureism all the time, and then other people, because they they don’t want that, or they don’t want to feel that, they short circuit any sort of passage that makes them feel bad or talks about effort,

Collin Hansen
celebrity. Story, failure ism, remember that line, yeah?

Kevin DeYoung
Or ecstatic. Failure ism, yes, and celebrity failureism and celebratory? Oh, celebratory, yes. Well, celebrities fail too. All three, all three, unfortunately,

Collin Hansen
were you play in those, in those debates, which, I think when we look back, informed by reformed history, it’s a matter of time before the debates come back at some point. You know, oh,

Kevin DeYoung
yeah, we see them all the time. And when, when people say there’s nothing I can do to make God love me anymore, well, that’s where you need you need theology to tell you, if you mean by that, I cannot become unjustified or less justified, true, but if you mean there’s nothing I can do in my life, that might mean God disciplines me because he loves me, or that he might be displeased with me, or that God is makes no moral distinction between a child of God who’s walking in faith and obedience and a child of God who’s in the arms of an illicit lover? No, he does. He does see and make those distinctions.

Collin Hansen
Yeah. Now you dedicated this book, daily doctrine, to David F wells. Yes, you know, I’ve talked about him quite a bit. You know that if I could have gone back and done a PhD. If Gordon Conwell at the time that had a PhD program they do now they did not at the time, that would have been who I wanted to study with. It shaped so much of my own work at TGC and beyond. But tell us how Dr wells shaped your life.

Kevin DeYoung
Yeah. Dr Wells is now retired. His wife passed away a couple years ago. He’s still living and emailed me just last week. So really keep in touch. Yeah, we keep in touch once in a while, which is really encouraging. I had read while I was in college a couple of the David Wells was a trilogy, and then got even larger than that, but no place for truth and God in the wasteland. And as many of us, especially in that era, had the experience of just this, this is so revelatory eye opening, and he’s so right about what’s going on in the culture at the time, and the need for theology and theological shape ministry, and it was one of the main reasons that I went to Gordon Conwell. I took as many classes as I could, probably five or six of them. Good advice. Yeah. Professors take everything you can. Yeah. And loved all of them. So, you know, I had him, I had I had Rick Lentz, who, you know, Rick for, for systematic theology too, appreciated his class, so I dedicated the book to, I say David, but I feel like I should still say Dr wells, because he was my, my systematic theology teacher. And it was really sweet that. Course, he didn’t, you know, know that I was doing that, but I sent it to him and showed him, and, you know, he was very encouraging, and said, you know, thank you. And then he just sent, you know, these email from a couple days ago, was I saw you won some, some book awards. I said, well, thank you for for passing that on. I pretend to be so humble. I was like, what book awards? I didn’t know that. So, really, where, really, where? Tell my mom, no, it was very encouraging, and I’m grateful for him, and just personally, personally many times as a student and since, was personally encouraging to me sitting in his office, probably being intimidated, and you know, I would feel very privileged if I have anything close to the same influence on a handful of students here or there,

Collin Hansen
special I love hearing that. Tell us, Kevin, about the ministry of clearly reformed. You spent years discerning how the Lord has gifted you, where to devote your primary energies. You got a lot of giftings. You can do a lot of different things, but hard to know sometimes what you should focus on. How are those conclusions expressed and realized in the ministry of clearly reformed?

Kevin DeYoung
Yeah, mostly I’m an athlete. Colin, those are you mentioned

Collin Hansen
I was, I was thinking it actually, so I’ll give you credit. Oh,

Kevin DeYoung
no. And I can’t take much credit for, clearly, reform, you know, my good friend, Barry Peterson, who’s now the executive director, and he’s assembled a, you know, a great team. It’s a very small skeleton crew of, you know, just a couple of two or three full time people, and then some some part time contractors. But I think, what if there’s something I do well, at least listening to others. I think it’s that clarity piece. That’s the thing that I tend to hear from an article, a message book, wow, that was really clear. And so I think about. Self as a translator, not from one language to another, but from one register to another. I love to read Turretin and bavinck and read, you know, as deeply as I can, and maybe because I’m a simple person, I’m always thinking, How do I explain this in a simple way? So I love teaching, and one of the main reasons I love teaching and writing is because I love learning. I love learning things now, part of it is the outlet to then teach others. So clearly, reform started up a couple years ago. It’s, it’s, in one sense, it’s a, it’s a collecting house for articles and videos. You know, all my stuff was all over the internet. So, you know, these folks said, Okay, let’s put it all in one place. New content goes up there, new videos and new articles sometimes, and it’s and then also some individual projects that we try to spearhead, hosting a conference and producing some explainer videos. But when, when you know how important it is to think of a name for something. So we thought a long time. And of course, truly reformed is a, is a, is a name out there which some take positively and most take negatively if you’re a TR. But clearly reformed fits me both, because I hope to be clear in articulating the doctrines of the Reformed faith, and because most people would say Kevin young, well, that guy is clearly reform. So I

Collin Hansen
thought about it that way. But that’s very apt, very apt, very reformed. Now let’s transition over to talking about the biggest story. This started out as a little Bible story book. I remember she used the used to watch the DVD version of that. I think that was in your voice, wasn’t it?

Kevin DeYoung
Yes, that one, yeah, recorded. So it was so successful. They said, let’s get somebody

Collin Hansen
else to do it. I used to watch the DVD version in our garage, long story with our oldest son, who’s now 10 now. I mean, this is, this is a whole curriculum. It’s a board books, a Family Devotional, it’s a podcast, it’s an animated series. And I’m, I’m sure I’m missing stuff. What change did you, Kevin, envision this work would bring about that? You would hope that it would bring about in the church, families, and, of course, and children,

Kevin DeYoung
well, give credit to a lot of other people, the, you know, daily doctrine, just for a moment, that was Justin’s idea five years ago. He has the emails. He emailed me, and he was actually thinking about asking somebody else to do something like this. And he just said, What do you think I’m thinking about approaching so and so to maybe do something like this? And I said, I think that’s a great idea. I don’t want to cut in line if you’ve already asked this person, but what if I did it? So I’m grateful that they let me do it, and I enjoyed working on it. And then the biggest story began. I can still picture. I mean, it was in the old building at university Reformed church across the street from Michigan State. So I don’t know if this was 2010 or when it would have been, but I it was either a Christmas Eve or sometime around Christmas sermon. And I said, I’m gonna do something a little different. I want to, I want to tell this as if we were gathering around the fireplace on Christmas Eve, and I was telling this as if you were my children or grandchild. Of course, I was even younger then, and I said, I can’t draw, so I don’t know my dream is maybe someday somebody can get some illustrations for it. But I just It started out as a sermon, and it only went to Christmas, so it was the basic, the first, biggest story. And then I pitched the idea to crossway. I said, Well, you know, these children’s books are really hit or miss, and they seem easy, but they’re expensive to do, and you got to find an illustrator. So they said, Why don’t you, why don’t you do it all the way, you know, to the end. Okay, so the biggest or went past Christmas. Then we spent a lot of time looking for an illustrator, and I can’t draw, and I knew what. I didn’t want it to look like. I didn’t want it to look Disney. I didn’t want it to look cartoonish. And so they sent a bunch of things by said. And then DOM Clark, who had done some Christian things already, Christian, of course, but amazingly talented, done work for target and NASA and I said that I love that bright colors. It’s unique. You know, of course, Sarah lo Jones and had done the the Jesus story book Bible, and that was a creative approach, too. So this was different than that, and a different, different but some similarities, yeah, some similarities in telling the whole story and Christo centric. So I was so, I mean, it really was a dream come true to see that come out in the first book, and then at some point. Crossway said, What about a big book, a Bible story book, 104 stories? And I remember again, I’ll give a shout out to Jason hilopoulos, my good friend, talking to Jason, and I said I was in his office. We were both at URC, and I said, crossway asked me to do this. It wasn’t really on my list of next things and and he said, Kevin, this, if this gets done, well, this will probably be the best selling book you ever do. You should do it. And I didn’t know if he was right, and he’s, he’s probably going to be right. And again, crossway did amazing jobs, just the product of it, the putting it together, Don Clark’s illustrations, and then, yeah, as they’ve dreamed up all of these other suite of products. So it used to be if somebody came up to me and said, You know, I read, just do something, and I’ll still get that. But now, you know, probably more than anything, it’s, you know, Mike, a kid will come up to me, which is very gratifying. I read your Bible. I’ll say, Well, I didn’t really write the Bible, but, but I get it, and I’m very happy to to take a look at this. And what a, what an amazing thing to to be able to, hopefully, you know, teach God’s word. And what’s gratifying too, is I, I wanted to write in a way, you know, C S Lewis said the best children’s literature is stuff that adults want to read? Yeah, and so I, I’ve been, you know, I heard this was so, you know, wonderful. Someone in my church said, you know, my son, he’s living, he knows a non Christian been evangelizing a long time and wasn’t getting anywhere. And finally said, Would you, would you read this children’s book? And, you know, a great story of them coming to know the Lord. And, you know, obviously you want to get into the Bible, that’s most important. But I think, I think hopefully adults can learn something too.

Collin Hansen
Yeah, I do. I mean, it’s, it’s funny, it’s engaging. I like that. You just cover a lot more ground. You just cover more stories. So there for the for my kids, it’s just a lot more comprehensive. I mean, not nothing against the Jesus storybook Bible, but once you’ve done it a couple times, you can’t keep doing it. Whereas yours, I mean, it goes, how many are entries? Are there feeling that like then, yeah, the 52 in each Right? Exactly. Yeah. So yeah, it takes you a good bit of time, and you’re doing nightly devotions in there, and just gives a lot more, not only the story, which is the whole point, but gets you into some of the granular details of specific stories that helps with the broad kind of long term biblical comprehension. Now another twist here, Kevin, I mean, your output is so tremendous that we could talk about here. You’ve edited a new academic book, new perspectives on old Princeton, 1812, to 1929,

Speaker 1
we’re going anyone would ever mention that we are going deep here, probably

Collin Hansen
not suitable for family devotions. Maybe I’ll give it a shot. I don’t know. We’ll see. What is the academic case that you and your co editors are making. Why is important?

Kevin DeYoung
So published by Rutledge. So it’s one of those academic books that, you know, currently in hardback, it’s, you know, over $100 that’s just how academic publishers do. It’ll be in paperback, and then it’s 50, which is still expensive, but, you know, maybe somebody could read it with Paul hellseth and David Smith. And then there’s 12 or 13 chapters. So old Princeton refers to Princeton seminary from its inception in 1812 until the moderates, or modernists, depending how you tell the story, take over kind of the the end with with Warfield and machen that that’s old Princeton. There’s been a line of thought which, though not entirely critical of old Princeton, has has tended to say, well, old Princeton was the conduit through which a lot of bad things kind of got into the bloodstream of evangelicalism, like Scottish common sense, realism is often one, and maybe that led to a evangelicals fixating on propositions or on a very narrow definition of inerrancy, or simply that, know the famous or infamous line from Charles Hodge that the Bible is like a storehouse of Facts so old Princeton has kind of been a boogeyman in some quarters. And a lot of you know our best historians, people we all have read, respect benefit from Noel Marston hatch you know the best historians of you know generation before us often perpetuated this understanding of old Princeton. And a lot of it, they would say, went back to John Witherspoon. When he came from Scotland. He brought with him, even though he was an Evangelical, he came with Scottish common sense, real realism and and Enlightenment ideas that got in, infused into this. Well, there has been. Been a movement afoot in maybe the last 20 years to rethink that and see that there is, on the one hand, there’s much more continuity with these reformed expressions that go all the way back to turret in Geneva, that some of what they’re doing about reason and rationality and and virtue and natural law, these were not enlightenment things, not that they’re not affected by it, but, but these are part of the reform tradition. So that’s one part of the argument, and then also trying to show that they didn’t fall prey to the worst kind of excess as a an unrealistic view of human reason that’s not affected by this by the fall, or treating the Bible as just frog to dissect. So a number of people have been working on this. Gideon mailer, who wasn’t a part of this project, but he published a really big book on Witherspoon pushing this forward. And then Paul hellseth, who’s one of the editors, he published something a number of years ago on Princeton and write reason. So we have 12 or 13 contributors who are trying to overturn the received historical narrative when it comes to this part of Presbyterian and evangelical tradition. And Mark No wrote an afterword to the book and graciously, think acknowledges some course correction that his previous historiography needs, and he doesn’t agree with everything you wouldn’t expect him to and and still thinks we probably missed some things, but like an academic book, you know, if people, if anyone, talks about it, you feel like you’ve accomplished something. And even if people mount up and disagree with it, we’d be gratified if some people within the guild say, hey, let’s, let’s look at this and see if they’re onto something.

Collin Hansen
As you know, one of my seminary mentors, John Woodbridge, would be quite critical of those historians from his same generation for a lot of the same grounds that you raised right there. And for some people who may not be understanding, well, what is the take home value? I mean, first, there’s a there’s just a value in having correct historiography. That’s one thing. But second, there is a value because of the way, historically speaking, these critiques of old Princeton have been used to undermine the doctrine of biblical inerrancy as being a kind of 18th century enlightenment invention that’s been foisted on evangelicals, as opposed to something that goes all the way back in our Christian tradition. Yeah,

Kevin DeYoung
and one of the there was an article by Sidney elstrom In the 1950s that was seminal in this discussion. But even more importantly, there was a book in the early 80s by Noel and these guys. I’m trying to remember if it was all three of them, maybe, and it was about John Witherspoon and Christian America. And it’s amazing how these these cultural moments trickle down for a long time. So they were responding to Francis Schaeffer. So Francis Schaeffer was it was holding up John Witherspoon as a great example of Christian America. You know, America, Christian nation. Look at here’s John Witherspoon. He was a clergyman. He was a Calvinist, Christian America. So I haven’t read all that Francis Schaeffer did on that. It’s quite plausible he overstated his case on some things. But Noel and others come along, and a big part of what they want to do is to say, no, your Christian America thesis won’t work. And one of the reasons won’t work is because Witherspoon was a much more compromised figure than you think. He had all these Enlightenment ideas. He’s he so there was, there was a vested interest in knocking Witherspoon down a peg or two, which has matriculated through a couple generations now of scholarship. When I first I remember telling Mark dever that I was thinking about doing a PhD, he’s like, I don’t know. Maybe you should, I don’t know. And I said, John Witherspoon. And he said, Well, Don Witherspoon, and he basically the guy who introduced common sense realism into the American system. And I said, that’s what they would have you believe, and that’s not a fair representation. He said, Oh, that’s interesting. Maybe you should do that.

Collin Hansen
Well, let’s, let’s keep down that path. Let’s go to older Princeton before the seminary. Let’s talk about this. Can we expect Kevin more political philosophy and theology from you, given your academic work on this Revolutionary era, theologian, Pastor, academic administrator, John Witherspoon, and also, is He? Is he a role model for you? I mean, is he somebody you just study, or is he somebody that you pattern your life after in any ways?

Kevin DeYoung
So I did my doctoral work on John Witherspoon, and I was drawn to him because I’ve always liked the intersection of theology and politics, and I find him very likable now I think he could be. Uh, easily provoked and prodded into controversy, but he he has a number of satirical pieces which really are quite funny. Some of them are caustic and labored, and some of them really are quite funny. So I do I like him. I think his writing is clear, well organized. So I think he has a lot to teach us now, if we want to make John Witherspoon from, you know, participating at the Continental Congress and signing the Declaration of Independence. Well, we all know what we’re not in Philadelphia in 1776 we can’t expect all the same assumptions, and yet, yes, I do. I do think he’s a model for us in many ways. Now that doesn’t mean we have to try to re christianate the past. I There are several things I hope to do. I I, Lord willing will sometime, I don’t know if it’s two years or five years or seven years, write a proper biography on John Witherspoon. I don’t think there’s been a proper biography in about 100 years. Do Yeah, really since 1925 of John Witherspoon. So I’d like to do that. I wrote a piece last year came out themelios on the why the the Philadelphia assembly changed the Westminster Confession relative to the civil magistrate. So I may write more broadly on the topic of the civil magistrate or or maybe do a small book at some point on on the spirituality the church, or something related to that and more scholarly. If I ever have time, I would love to do some deep, deeper work on the the first general assembly, 1789, and the steps leading up to that, you know, it’s a little bit of Presbyterian catnip, not for everybody, but you know, Chad Van dixorn, who’s is the world’s expert on the Westminster assembly, has said, you know, we really we, there’s not as much to dive into, but it’s amazing. We, we have the minutes and things I could pull them off my shelf. But we, we haven’t had a ton of theological historical retrieval work on who are all the delegates at that assembly? Why did they make the changes that they do? What precipitated so that would be fun for me, and I think twos and threes and fours of people would enjoy reading,

Collin Hansen
but not your mom.

Kevin DeYoung
She she will read almost anything, maybe nothing,

Collin Hansen
almost anything. Well now Kevin, you not only write books, edit books, you also review books. And I think Kevin, in our generation, no book reviewer has made more important contributions than you have. I

Kevin DeYoung
thought you’re gonna say enemies also

Collin Hansen
that, but those two things tend to go hand in hand. Book Reviews. Why do you spend time carefully critiquing books, a wide variety of books, with what you disagree?

Kevin DeYoung
There’s been no master plan to say. How about once a year, I do something that makes a lot of people upset. It’s much more or the madness is much more organic than that. You know, from it, all of these are are born in some way out of pastoral ministry, whether the people are talking about the particular books. So I did a review of Beth Allison Barr book. I did a review, you know, years ago, of Rob Bell’s book. You know, I did Rob Bell because, because I was, I was living where Rob Bell grew up. Rob Bell was ministering where I grew up, right? You know, he was born in Lansing and I was born in Grand Rapids, flip places where about an hour down the road from each other. Literally, there was not a single person in my church who did not know someone at Mars Hill. Yeah, this was, this was not just picking a fight to pick a fight. These were real people in my congregation who and for we’re so old now, Colin, for all the young kids out there, you, can’t you don’t know what a big deal Rob Bell was. Oh,

Collin Hansen
yeah. I mean, probably a parallel today. I’m not saying in all theology John Mark comer would come somewhat close, maybe in terms of book sales, but not all the videos and the church. You mean? I mean,

Kevin DeYoung
yes, and I think what’s different, and I think a lot of people do like John Mark Homer, but I think he still overlaps lightly with our circles, yeah, or at least more lightly than Rob Bell did. Yes, that’s a good point. Yeah, that’s a, that’s a very good point that it seemed like before Bell took this turn, it was like, okay, that’s not exactly the same, but, and they’re just there. You know, there weren’t as many. Maybe circles or tribes at that time. So all that to say that the various books that I’ve it really takes a long time. You know this, you’re an editor,

Collin Hansen
that’s why I’m asking. Why do you spend it takes a lot of time? I mean, largely thankless, because it makes you a lot of enemies and people who already agree with you, in some ways, agree with you and are appreciative, but it doesn’t exactly build your brand.

Kevin DeYoung
Yeah, and I hope that has never been my intention, and wouldn’t be to say, you know, I never want to be and I hope others aren’t. You know, I want to build a brand by knocking down other people’s brand. All of those things are were because I saw concerns, and they do. It takes weeks. I’m not non stop, but really, it takes weeks, dozens and dozens of hours to read it carefully, to have it edited by friends and lots of people go through it and it’s, it’s, I try to discern, okay, I’m not going to convince the people who think this is the greatest book and think Kevin De Young’s a moron, the people who already read Kevin’s books and think they probably don’t need it. So it’s discerning. Is there a with any particular book like this? Is there a pretty significant middle ground where people are saying, huh, I kind of like this, but something doesn’t sit right with me. Or, but I can’t put my finger on I can’t put my finger on it. Or, I I really like this, but I’m not sure what. Yeah, that that’s where I feel like, if there’s that middle ground, and you know, when you’re younger, there’s a temptation to to punch a lot and go after people. Hopefully, I didn’t do that, but there’s a temptation, because that builds your platform. I think, Colin, there’s a temptation as we get older, there’s some wisdom not to do that, but there’s also a temptation to play it safe. You have, you have absolutely more things. You have more people depending on you, more to lose more, more to lose, you know. And some of that is, is wisdom you have. You become. You have a different place in different constituencies, and you don’t need to be a brawler in the same way. And yet, I hope you know. So I’m not out there saying which book will it be this year, but I hope if there’s something that seems to be a real concern for people I know and people out there that I wouldn’t be afraid to try to read and write carefully,

Collin Hansen
I want to go back to where we we met, TG conference, and you were recently In Dubai for the Puritan conference. You’ve been heavily involved with cross conference from the beginning, before that, T 4g where we met, you started the Coronavirus pastors conference this fall. You’ll be in Istanbul for the Nicaea conference, right? 1700 years. Don’t forget, since that Ecumenical Council. I mean, of course, Kevin, it’s pretty nice to visit Christians from around the world in new, exciting locations. But what’s your doctrine of conferences? How do you hope they’ll contribute to the mission of the church?

Kevin DeYoung
I think a lot about that, which doesn’t mean I I have great answers. I would say, on a personal level, I instituted pretty much from the beginning, when I started to be invited to some conferences, when I was at URC, and I’ve implemented it here as well. I have a small group of three or four elders who approve all of my speaking engagements. So anything that’s going to require me to be gone overnight gets put before them. They help me say no to things that I’m tempted to say no to, or rarely make me say yes to something, but they but they might. So that’s one thing. Just personally, I want people to help me think this through. Obviously, as you listed, I’ve spoken at conferences. Host a conference. I believe that conferences can do something important, never in place of the local church. That’s always infinitely more important. Skip every conference before you’re going to skip involvement in your local church. And yet, we see throughout history, not only official Ecumenical Councils, but seasons of revival, awakening, or, you know, a lot of people don’t realize, are the, you know, the revival tradition really probably came out of Scottish Presbyterianism, believe it or not, because they would have these holy fairs, the, yeah, these holy fairs once or twice a year, and it was bringing the whole community together. And they would have for several days, and they would have different local preachers preach. So there’s a long tradition of Christians coming together. There’s a unique experience with a lot of people. And can hear some different, different people preach to you. And I could, I do think the more conferences you’re at, there is something of a diminishing returns. Does you know the conference? I attend. You know, this year, Does it strike me the same way the conference I attended my first year in ministry? Probably not, but I can think of specific messages at conferences that galvanize some truth or moved me in a in a special way. So I never my first love is absolutely to preach to my own people. And that’s not to say that some people might not be called to an itinerant ministry. That’s not me. I don’t love travel for travel sake. Whenever I go to places, I usually get there and I think, why am I here that anybody else could have done just as good a job? And then when I leave, I think, Well, I hope that was helpful and I benefited from getting to meet some of these people. So I think, Do I have something unique to say, or am I, you know, not, any better or maybe worse than the next person on their list that they’re going to ask if I say no, does this hit a topic that I feel passionate about I have some special knowledge about and you know, a lot of times you know this Colin now it’s, well, I got friends there, and I’d like to see them. So you make those personal decisions

Collin Hansen
you can’t otherwise, then get a chance to see them exactly. And a lot of people don’t know that. I think Kevin, at this point, I’m the only person who’s been to every gospel coalition conference. I don’t think anybody else would have been.

Kevin DeYoung
You’re right to go to the last one. Yeah. So you don’t have

Collin Hansen
the same, you don’t have the same kind of experience at different events. And I was just getting numbers from our conference director, and I think, you know, we’re not different from T 4g in the sense that 40 to 50% of the people had never been to the conference each time. So it’s not usually the same people who always go to that conference, though that would be fine if they did, if they found it to be edifying and encouraging to their faith, and they brought friends and family, but it’s usually people who see this as their one chance to experience something like that outside of the church that’s encouraging to their faith. Well, you already mentioned Kevin, some that you things, one thing that you’re thinking about writing, anything else left for you to write that comes to mind? Oh,

Kevin DeYoung
I got lots of things. I have a little book coming out this spring on the Nicene Creed. Lots of people will probably have a a book, but it’s, it’s less than 100 pages, and it’s a little primer on the Nicene Creed. So that is coming out. I am really excited to be working on a two volume church history book that I’m doing with crossway. So I’ve been teaching in our adult Sunday school class for three years, church history I’ll do the fourth year this fall, Lord willing, and each each fall, I do 10 hour long lectures, uh, they’re biographical, but they’re a little different than the Piper biographies, which Are were wonderful. Piper even said those were like sermons. You know, through a life, what I’m doing with these biographies really more history first, and using a life to try to connect the seams. So, you know, one of the chapters is on st Anthony, so I use that to talk about the rise of monasticism. So the first volume will have 20 chapters, 10 from early church, 10 from medieval and then the second volume will have 10 from reformation to through great awakening, and then 10 from so you know, my doctoral work was actually in history. Though I teach systematic theology, and when I look at the books on my shelf, you know that just shows what I’m interested in, and usually 75% of them are history. So I love history. I’m excited to work on that. I’m toying with the idea, just an idea if, if the daily doctrine is a good format, if there ought to be that same kind of thing. But with church history, that’s 260 names, places, councils, topics, I don’t think it would be redundant with the biographical take. So I’m toying around with that

Collin Hansen
well, and if you ever want to do the rest is history, Christian history version. Oh

Speaker 2
yeah, hit me up. Uh huh. All right, we

Collin Hansen
gotta, we gotta plan here. No, seriously. I mean, it’s one of the reasons that you and I get along. I mean, we love talking about history. Sometimes it’s different aspects of it. Sometimes it overlaps. You have interests that I’m just not as engaged with I love hearing about old Princeton and the assembly. It’s just not my tradition. So relate in the same ways, but, ah, there’s so much endless I always, I would say about history comes up in this podcast all the time, and on life and books and everything. It’s just, it’s not that anybody dislikes history. They’ve just never heard it from Mal. GelSo,

Kevin DeYoung
it is so true. Go listen to a lecture. Yeah, it’s really sad when people think history is boring.

Collin Hansen
Can’t be boring when you’re listening to Alan gels. He’s got the voice, the delivery, something for us to aspire to, to aspire to. Anyway, my primary subject here the book daily doctrine. Joel beaky said it well, daily devotional, mini systematic theology and a reference tool, all in one my very special guest, my good friend, Kevin DeYoung.

Kevin DeYoung
Thank you special host for having me on your special gospel bound podcast. I’m a regular listener, so keep up the good work.

Collin Hansen: Thanks, Kevin.