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Study Gateway's First Listens: Find your next Bible study! Join host Shelley Leith as she curates first sessions of Bible studies on various themes each season, taught by some of the world’s most influential Christian authors, teachers, and pastors. To learn more, visit https://StudyGateway.com.
First Listens Season 6: Episode 8
What’s So Amazing About Grace, by Philip Yancey
Plus interview with Philip Yancey
[MUSIC PLAYING] SHELLEY LEITH: Welcome to Study Gateway's First Listens where you get first listens to the first sessions on Study Gateway so that you can find your next video Bible study. Hi there, I'm your host, Shelley Leith, and today I get to meet one of my heroes, Philip Yancey. Welcome, Philip.
PHILIP YANCEY: Thank you very much, Shelley. Been looking forward to this.
SHELLEY: Well, before we get started, I want everyone to be aware that by just listening to this podcast, you can get a 15% discount on any subscription plan at Study Gateway for the life of your subscription using the code PODCAST15. That code works on any type of plan, personal, small group or church. So go ahead and write that down, PODCAST15. And thank you for being a First Listens Listeners.
So, Philip, we are in Season 6 of First Listens, which we've been calling Explore and Discover. So, we've been featuring studies that either take us to an interesting location or that help us explore and discover something about the Bible that we never knew before. So this is the last episode of the season, and the reason I chose What's So Amazing About Grace for Season 6 is kind of a surfacey one. It's because you filmed your opening remarks out in the mountains of Colorado. So even though it looks like there was some snow on the ground when you filmed, I thought it would fit well with our summer theme of explore and discover because of the beauty of Colorado and seeing things like you climbing up those 2000 steps of the Manitou Incline. So, tell us about your story of choosing to live in Colorado and how your place has informed your practice and your understanding of God.
PHILIP: Right. I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, and then moved to the Chicago area where I went to Wheaton College first and then the University of Chicago. And we lived right downtown, like five blocks from Wrigley Field where the Cubs play baseball, in the center of the city. And it was great. It was a time when we could explore restaurants and go to concerts and see the latest movies and things like that. But gradually over time it got completely crowded. And I found myself going to other places like Colorado or Seattle just to get away, to have some quiet, to have some concentration time.
Finally, I decided we just need to move. We need to go somewhere where we don't know anybody. And we did. We moved to a place with eight acres in Colorado in the foothills. And we've moved since then to a duplex. But we're still in a little town, about 7,200 feet high. And it's in the mountains of Colorado. In fact, if you could look out my window right now, you would see a lake and mountains and just this glorious Colorado scene.
And then actually it affected my writing. In fact, we're talking about grace here and two of my favorite images of grace are the wildflowers when you're hiking in Colorado and you turn a corner and see this whole field of wildflowers just lavished on our planet whether anybody notices it or not. And the other thing that the other image of grace to me was there's a stream behind my house and I’ve been to the place where that stream starts, on top of a fourteen thousand foot mountain, and you can track it all the way down to where I live. And it tells me that the grace like water always flows to the lowest part. It goes to the people who need it. It goes to the marginalized, to the outcasts. And those images, just the beauty of the wildflowers and then grace is not only this gift, God's gift to us of beauty, but also God's gift to us of love, especially for those who really don't feel loved and don't feel grace.
SHELLEY: Now, looking at the arc of your writings, you started off pretty much focused on the subject of pain:
• Where Is God When It Hurts?
• Pain: The Gift Nobody Wants
• Disappointment With God
And then you transition to figuring out who God really is:
• The Jesus I Never Knew
• Finding God in Unexpected Places
• Reaching For the Invisible God
And then comes grace:
• What's So Amazing About Grace
• Vanishing Grace
So ,tell me about that journey for you from pain to grace.
PHILIP: I started where many of us start, with questions that I have, unanswered questions. I went through a period where although I was raised in the church, I distanced myself from the church. I went through kind of an agnostic phase where I questioned. And then I found that in my writing, I could explore those questions. You know, a lot of people think authors like me, we write things we know about. Actually, we write things we don't know about. And writing gives us a chance to find out.
So, I tied in with this Dr. Paul Brand, a wonderful man who influenced me more than anybody, and he taught me about pain. So, I started with my own questions. Where is God when it hurts? Disappointment with God? You know, why doesn't God act the way we want God to? And then gradually I started kind of feeling a little more comfortable in my faith and circling in toward the center. It's like I started out here and then spiraled in toward the center.
The Bible is very clear. Paul says in Ephesians, it's by grace that you've been saved through faith. It's not of yourselves. It's not something that you've done. It's a gift. It's a gift of God. And a lot of people don't experience that, don't feel that. We live in a competitive ranking society. We want to be, we're performance-based. And we act that way with God too. If I can just get God to like me and we miss the beauty of grace, that God already loves you.
And in the Bible stories and Jesus stories, it's usually the wrong person who's the hero. It's the good Samaritan, not the good Jew. It's the prodigal son, not the obedient older brother. And people miss that message of grace. And what concerned me, you asked me why I wrote the book, our society was growing more and, well, I should say, less and less graceful. We didn't know how to treat people we disagreed with. And some of the issues are very important issues, you know, they're very important, but we're much more divided now than certainly in my childhood growing up. And I wanted to explore for myself how should we as Christians living in a place where people are going to really judge us and disagree with us, how should we treat them, how should we handle them. And when I started asking people, when I say the word Christian, what's the first thing that comes to mind? They never mention anything like grace. They mention things like holier than thou or strict or devout, these kind of pharisaical characteristics. And that's the great danger that we face. The Pharisees in Jesus' day were the ones who were most Bible-believing, Bible-teaching, and yet they were missing that message of grace because they too started looking down on people who hadn't performed and achieved like they had. So I realized I was in danger of that. And I wanted to explore how do we in a society that is changing right before our eyes, how do we represent the gospel as good news and grace as God's love for the undeserving, not the deserving.
SHELLEY: That's so, so powerful. You know, another thing that I noticed just this morning, I was rereading your book on prayer. And you referenced this when you answered the last question is there are so many of your book titles pose a question. Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? Church: Why Bother? Where Is God When It Hurts? And this title for today, What's So Amazing About Grace? So where do these questions come from, and how do they drive your work?
PHILIP: A lot of them come from my readers. For instance, I started my career by writing the book, Where is God When It Hurts? And then people would write me and say, thank you, that was helpful, but you're mostly writing about physical pain. That's really not my issue. It's emotional pain. I just don't feel loved, or I've got a crack in my family that won't heal. And then I keep praying and praying and just God disappoints me. So I wrote the book, Disappointment with God. And then I started realizing, I don't know much about prayer. I don't feel good about my own prayer life. Again, writing gives me a chance to explore, to go to people who can help me, to go to sources that can teach me about prayer.
And this grace question came about simply because as I looked around me, people weren't viewing the church as a safe place, as a place to go when you're wounded. They thought the church was a place to go when you have everything together. And if you have everything together, you don't need grace. I think it was Henri Nouwen, the author, who said, Grace is an absolutely free gift of God. You don't have to do anything to earn it. You can't. It's impossible. But it's a gift. And the only way to receive a gift is to hold your hands open. If you've got your hands closed tight in a fist, like the Pharisees, grace falls to the ground unreceived. You have to open up your hands and receive that gift from God. And when I realized that and started studying the Bible, I thought, the only way to express that is not by a definition, it's by story, which is what Jesus did. And all through my book, I tracked down stories that I heard in person, especially in my travels, and also found ways to bring Jesus into modern times, into the 20th century. So I started with questions and because we all have these questions and I feel blessed to be able to full-time work and try to come up with some answers that satisfy.
SHELLEY: Okay, so to wrap up, you just revised and updated What's So Amazing About Grace, which is going to be coming out this October. Could you give us a sneak peek into what we can expect from this new and improved edition?
PHILIP: Yes, I can. Things have changed. The book, What's So Amazing About Grace, has actually been out for 25 years. And a lot has changed. When that was written, the biggest news on the front page was Bill Clinton having a relationship with a White House intern. It wasn't the war with Russia and Ukraine. In fact, things were looking pretty good on an international scale. The Cold War had ended, the Berlin Wall had fallen, South Africa had changed—they had this truth and reconciliation. There were a lot of good things going on in the world. Boy, you look at it now, and our country is so much more divided than they were in 1980s, 1990s. And the questions about What's So Amazing About Grace were more urgent. How can we tap into that force? I really believe that the force of grace is the most powerful force in the universe. And I believe it is going to be responsible for restoring the universe. So how do we tap into that power? And as Christians who believe in that power, how can we present it to the world in a winsome way? Because as I looked around me, we weren't really doing the winsomeness.
How did it change? We hired a millennial, Shelley, and said, go through this book and circle anything that you don't relate to, that you don't understand. And she came up with things like, Who is Al Gore? And why do you talk so much about Yugoslavia? And it was relatively easy to take out some of these older references and replace them with, say, the Russia-Ukraine war instead of Yugoslavia. So, we went through, updated, and added things. I added a new preface kind of setting up how things have changed. We added reflection questions and went through and just looked for anything that might be a confusing item for a reader, a modern reader, and just did an update, a new revised updated edition.
SHELLEY: Well it sounds like it's going to be so timely and the topic of grace so necessary for our highly divided and fractured culture. So, I'm really, really excited to see the new update. So, Philip, thank you for the work that you have done to help us understand the significance of God's grace and for taking the time to talk about it with me today. Thank you so much for being with me.
PHILIP: Well, I appreciate what you're doing because I believe that something as personal and emotional as grace, the way it works out, is best studied in a group setting. And whether it's in a church or a living room or wherever it is, I think it's best to go through these things with other people around you, give you a different perspective, and gives us a chance to actually exercise the grace that we're learning about with people who are different and may see things differently than you do.
SHELLEY: Very good point. Well, I am so excited to present Session 1 of What's So Amazing About Grace called, No Strings Attached.
PHILIP YANCEY: I live in Colorado in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. And when I think of the word, grace, two images come to mind. The first one is beauty. Behind me, it's rather barren right now. But if I come back here in July, this ground could be covered in a carpet of wildflowers.
I've climbed about 60 of the highest mountains in Colorado. And okay, I admit, several times I've gotten lost. I've strayed off the trail, and I don't know where I am. I'll look around me, and I'll see a field of beauty—wildflowers stretching in every direction. God lavishes the earth with beauty, whether anyone is there to notice it or not. To me, that's a vivid picture of God's grace. Even if we don't see it or choose to ignore it, grace is all around us, bringing beauty to barren places.
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The second image of grace involves water. I live right beside a creek much like this one that begins high up in the mountains. I've actually stood at the very place where Bear Creek begins. During winter, the mountaintop will be covered with ice and snow. But when spring melt occurs, a tiny little trickle starts and a flow begins. Here's a basic fact about water. It always flows down to the lowest part. In May and June, that little trickle roars into a stream flowing down, down, down. And for a few weeks it becomes more like a whitewater river.
Never underestimate the power of water. You may have visited the Grand Canyon, a spectacular landscape carved entirely by water. Grace is like that. It flows to the lowest part, to the undeserving. In the process, it completely changes the landscape of society. In this session, I want to introduce you to some people who have reached out to those considered undeserving, the needy and overlooked.
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I recently read the story of Dr. Will Cooke. He was an idealistic young doctor who opened a family practice in a small town in Indiana that had not had a doctor since mid-1970s. Suddenly, he found himself at the epicenter of the nation's most serious drug-related HIV outbreak. And soon he faced yet another crisis, opioid addiction.
First, Dr. Cooke had to deal with his own prejudice, a hangover from his fundamentalist upbringing that judged such people. Hadn't they brought on their own problems through bad choices? Next, he had to confront a stubborn medical establishment as well as judgmental people in his own church. So many of his patients were viewed as undeserving. Wasn't it their own fault that they had health problems as a result of drug use?
Dr. Cooke plowed ahead, though, believing it was his Christian responsibility to treat all people. As these two epidemics raged, Dr. Cooke welcomed anyone to his clinic who needed help, regardless of their illness or their ability to pay. He and his staff personally knocked on doors and made phone calls to enroll in their program every person with HIV, hepatitis C, or opioid abuse. In time, his team managed to get most of these cases under control.
As Dr. Cooke wrote in his book, "When they come meet with me in the office, they need to know that the relationship is safe and that they're not going to be turned away as less than human. They need to know that they are going to be seen as a person first, and then they'll be provided access to the care that they need." That commitment produced such spectacular results that in 2019, Dr. Cooke was named the family physician of the year for the entire country.
When I read Dr. Cooke's story, I thought back to another doctor I interviewed as a young journalist. At the time, C. Everett Koop was the Surgeon General of the United States, the nation's top doctor, one of the most famous people in the country at the time. Here's the profile I did with him and his cover photo in Christianity Today magazine. Dr. Koop, a devout Christian, faced a national health epidemic, a mysterious outbreak of HIV/AIDS. In those days, those early days, most of the infections came from behavior that he strongly disapproved of—drug addiction, promiscuous sex. Yet, like Dr. Cooke, Surgeon General Koop knew he had to respond with compassion and grace. Here's what Dr. Koop told me in my interview.
"When the AIDS epidemic came along, my obligation seemed pretty clear. I viewed the lifestyle with a certain revulsion, but as a health officer I had to look upon AIDS patients primarily as sick people. On the same principle, if an obese woman enters the hospital with a gall bladder attack, you can't refuse her treatment because of her lack of discipline in eating. I sit at the bedside of patients dying of AIDS. They remind me of kittens, so sick and so weak that they open their mouths to cry and no sound comes out. How can you not put your arm around that kind of person and offer support? Instead, to say something like, God is punishing them for their behavior, that's the attitude that makes me mad."
Dr. Koop also had to fight a stubborn bureaucracy—the US government—which was slow to act against AIDS. But he won that battle, persuading the administration to send an educational booklet on the disease to every household in America—107 million, the largest mass mailing in American history.
Doctors like Will Cooke and C. Everett Koop look to Jesus, the great physician, as their model. Jesus put it bluntly. He said, "It's not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I haven't come to call the righteous, but sinners." Jesus also faced resistance from religious leaders, especially the Pharisees, for reaching out to people viewed as undeserving. Jesus demonstrated grace by healing a woman who had been hemorrhaging blood for 18 years. In that culture, she was considered unclean and contaminated anybody that she touched. She was so ashamed that she didn't even identify herself. She simply touched the fringe of Jesus clothing, hoping to slip away unnoticed. But Jesus stopped what he was doing, and he healed her. He addressed her as daughter and treated her with dignity and respect.
Jesus also touched leprosy victims who were likewise judged unclean. He healed the servant of a Roman soldier viewed as an enemy by the people of Israel. And several times he touched corpses, restoring them to life. In each one of these cases, Jesus made himself unclean by the religious laws of his day, which meant he couldn't visit a house of worship. To Jesus, healing and loving people mattered more than his reputation among church people. That's what grace does. It goes to the lowest part, to those considered undeserving by the people around them.
[MUSIC PLAYING] SHELLEY: I love how Phillip is tracing the times when Jesus reached out and touched people that were considered untouchable, unclean. That is one of the most beautiful pictures of grace we can imagine. We’re listening to the first session of What’s so Amazing About Grace, by Philip Yancey. As a bonus for our listeners, we have unlocked this session on Study Gateway, so you can go there and watch the entire first session for free, and see Philip out in his beloved rugged Colorado mountains. What’s so Amazing About Grace is published by HarperChristian Resources and it streams on Study Gateway. For our First Listens listeners, when you use the promo code PODCAST15 at studygateway.com, you’ll get any size of plan – for yourself, your small group or your whole church, at a 15% savings for life! And, for a complete experience take advantage of our publisher-direct pricing on the essential Bible study guide designed to be used with the videos. You’ll get the group discussion questions and leader materials, and personal Bible study and reflection exercises to do between sessions. Get all the details at Studygateway.com.
And now, let’s return to Philip and learn about more examples of grace givers.
[MUSIC PLAYING] PHILIP: Because my books have been published in other languages, over the years I have traveled to some 85 different countries, every continent except Antarctica. I've seen in person a trail of grace left by missionaries and other Jesus followers. In each one of these countries, I've seen hospitals and clinics and orphanages and schools founded by missionaries who have brought grace to those in need. When a disaster strikes, such as an earthquake or a typhoon or tsunami, Christians are on the front lines, bringing practical help. Many thousands are serving around the world right now, digging wells, teaching agricultural techniques, freeing those caught up in sexual trafficking. In doing so, they're following the example of Jesus.
In the well-known passage from Matthew 25, Jesus identifies himself with the needy.
“Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?' The King will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.'"
By ministering to the undeserving, we are actually serving Jesus. In recent times, we have faced the pandemic of COVID-19. Every person in the world faced the risk. Yet it soon became clear that the elderly and the poor were most at risk. In a world run by the strict laws of survival of the fittest, we would have given priority to the young and to the healthy. But grace, like water, flows to the lowest part, the neediest and most vulnerable people.
I met a woman who graduated from Denver Seminary and became a chaplain at a memory care facility for people suffering from dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Tragically, such facilities had to go under complete lockdown, banning all visitors because of the risk of infection. The residents who were already confused had to carry on without any in-person support from families or loved ones. They couldn't comprehend the rules about wearing masks and social distancing. In 2 ½ weeks, this facility in Denver lost 22 residents to COVID-19. This chaplain, whose name is Diane Kamin, sat with some of these confused residents as they died, holding their hands, offering whatever comfort she could. Then she went out into the lobby where families had gathered and shared with them every detail of their loved one's last hours on Earth.
Why care about elderly people whose minds aren't really functioning? Why did Chaplin Diane put herself at risk of infection? Because God cares. Because Jesus says, whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me. Grace, like water, flows to the lowest part.
The best-known passage in the Bible sets out the pattern. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." Note the next sentence. "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." Jesus himself was God's gift of grace, a Savior who came to rescue people who, in response, had him executed. Undeserving people, like you and me. And now it's up to us to spread that message by demonstrating God's love for all people. The best way for people to learn what God is like is if we show them.
For years I've been conducting an informal survey among strangers, the person next to me on an airplane, for example. I ask, “When I say the word Christian, what's the first thing that comes to your mind?” Sadly, I often get responses like this. Oh, they're Christians. They're judgmental. They're holier than thou. They're morally superior. Very few people give a response that sounds like grace.
I remember a conversation I had with the author Henri Nouwen who had just spent a week ministering among AIDS patients in San Francisco. This was early in the days of the disease, and most of the men he talked with had contracted the disease through promiscuous sex. He told me, “Philip, these men were dying, literally dying, because of their thirst for love.” He went on to say that his prayers changed after that trip. Instead of praying for those immoral people or those irresponsible people, he began seeing them as thirsty people.
I sometimes imagine what it must have been like for Jesus living on planet Earth—perfect, sinless. Jesus had every right to be repulsed by the behavior of those around him. Yet he treated notorious sinners with mercy and not judgment.
By definition, we're all undeserving. There's no such thing as a person who deserves grace. Grace teaches us that God loves us not because of who we are but because of who God is. Categories of worthiness simply don't apply.
When I was writing the book, What's So Amazing About Grace, I came across this little verse tucked away that I'd never noticed before. It's in Hebrews 12:15 and goes like this, very simply, "See to it that no one misses the grace of God." That became a kind of motto for me. We're not going to convert everyone into becoming a follower of Jesus. He was clear about that, calling his way the narrow way, not the broad path. But here's one thing we can do. We can see to it that no one misses the grace of God.
I've described doctors and chaplains who put grace into practice daily. Most of us don't have a profession like that, but we do have family members, employees or employers, neighbors. Some of them aren't sure there is a God or have a hazy notion of a God way off in the sky somewhere. They may not know that God is full of love and forgiveness and grace. It's up to us to show them.
Over the next few sessions, we'll see that grace is not easy. It's not like spraying air freshener around the room. Grace is tough and difficult. It means showing love and compassion to people who may take advantage of it. It means forgiving those who have wounded us and sacrificing our own interests for the sake of others. The alternative, however, is worse. A world without grace is one in which we scorn those who disagree with us, grow hostile over differences in politics and religion, troll the internet and post nasty comments on other people's social media sites. It's a world of partisanship and division and anger. I don't know about you, but I've seen enough of that in recent times. I believe we need to find another way, the way of grace.
[MUSIC PLAYING] SHELLEY: This study on grace has never been more timely than now, wouldn’t you agree?
What’s so Amazing About Grace is a video Bible study by Philip Yancey, published by HarperChristian Resources and streaming on Study Gateway. Here at Study Gateway you can find your favorite authors, pastors and Bible teachers, all in one place. We’re the only streaming video subscription service that offers plans for individuals, small groups, AND has user-based pricing for churches, no matter what the size. And don’t forget, you can use the promo code PODCAST15 to get a 15% savings on the plan of your choice, and that discounted rate lasts as long as you keep your subscription!
With Study Gateway, you also get a direct link to our store, where you get publisher-direct pricing on the essential Bible study guide for What’s So Amazing About Grace. The study guide has exercises and projects and discussion questions to help you get the most out of this study. Is What’s So Amazing About Grace going to be your next study? Get started right now by going to studygateway.com, click start free trial, use the promo code PODCAST15 at checkout.
Make sure you rate and review this podcast so other people can find this show too. And join me next time when we’ll get to explore a wonderful place and discover something new along the way.
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