(13:47)
Speaker in the audio file:
Tim Mackie
Tim: Hey everybody! I’m Tim Mackie, and this is my podcast, Exploring My Strange
Bible. I am a card-carrying, Bible, history, and language nerd who thinks that
Jesus of Nazareth is utterly amazing and worth following with everything that you
have.
On this Podcast, I’m putting together the last ten years’ worth of lectures,
and sermons where I’ve been exploring this strange, and wonderful story of the
Bible and how it invites us into the mission of Jesus and the journey of faith. And
I hope this can be helpful for you too.
I also helped start this thing called, The Bible Project. We make animated
videos, and podcasts about all kinds of topics on Bible, and Theology. You can
find those resources at thebibleproject.com.
With all that said, let’s dive into the episode for this week.
We thought we would start this first episode of Exploring My Strange Bible with a
self-introduction, so you can know a little bit more about me, Tim Mackie, and
why I’m doing a podcast like this. And a bit about my story that explains my
obsessions. So real time, right now, in April 2017, as we’re getting things ready
for this podcast, I have too many jobs. I’m a Professor of Biblical Studies at
Western Seminary in Portland, Oregon. Over the last seven years I served as a
pastor in two different local churches. First, at a Church in Madison, Wisconsin
called Black Hawk Church. And then for five years, at a church here in Portland
called, Door of Hope. And then the other thing was a few years ago, I started,
with a good friend of mine, Jon Collins, this thing called The Bible Project, and it’s
a non-profit animation studio that makes short, animated films about the books
of the Bible, and the themes, and ideas that unite the whole Bible. So those are
my jobs. And the common denominator underneath all of that is Jesus of
Nazareth. I am one of his followers. I can’t say I’m the most stellar or best one,
but I’m trying as are many of you. And by His Grace, just one day at a time. But
Jesus of Nazareth is the one who’s at the center of all my jobs. That’s such an
incredible privilege. And also, these texts that Jesus said bore witness to Him,
what we’ve come to call the Scriptures, both the Jewish and Christian Scriptures,
the Old and New Testament. And so why do I have these jobs that are all about
Jesus and the Scriptures, how did that happen? And it’s (not) certainly not
something that I planned like most of you. Life just kind of unfolds, and you find
yourself on this amazing ride. And so here’s a short version of mine.
I grew up in Portland, Oregon which is not known at an epicenter of anything
religious, (and/or) related to Christianity. My parents became followers of Jesus in
the 70s. The part of the Hippie Christian Movement that kind of started in
Southern California and made its way up here. And my first awareness of
anything called Church or to do with Jesus had to do with all of these people who
would gather in our living room on Sundays, that was Church. And then it got too
big for our living room, and so they bought a common house together in the
neighborhood that became what was called, Open Door Fellowship. But it was
kind of super chill, house church, Hippie Christian kind of that thing, but our
family eventually transitioned to another Church Community which I didn’t know
it at the time, but it was a part of the Pentecostal Charismatic tradition. I just
thought that’s what Christianity was. And for lots of different reasons, some of
them, the particular church, some of them my own selfishness, I just really
became jaded towards everything related to Jesus and was not interested, and
kind of actively opposing. And this is also closely connected to the fact my
parents, maybe against their better judgment, but they gave me a skateboard
when I turned eleven, and game over at that point. We lived right in the heart of
Portland, Oregon, the urban playground was just right outside my front door, and
I just fell in love with everything skateboarding. And it wasn’t just a sport. I have
never have been good at sports. But skateboarding wasn’t just about, you know,
an activity. It was an identity, and a subculture. And so I was all in for the clothing
that, you know, the styles changed every couple of years, and the music, it was
my community. It was everything. And that pretty much dominated my life and
world view, my rejection of Christianity which my parents, they really respected
that I was not into the Jesus thing for most of my teens, and they’d ask me to go
to church now and then or holidays but they gave me space to work out my—the
axe I had to grind against Jesus.
[05:00]
But there’s something interesting happening in my late teens. There was this
church in North East Portland that built this large, covered skateboard park in the
back parking lot. And the park was open multiple nights a week, and you could
go. Catch was that someone would shut down the park midway through the
evening and give a short talk about Jesus. And if you wanted to skate the second
half of the night, you had to sit through the talk. And if you skipped out on the
talk, then you had to come back next week and sit through the talk before you
could skate again. And that was the arrangement everybody respected it, and
deal. And so over the years, I started going when I was 16, but over the years,
Jesus became unavoidable to me. The stories about Him, the wisdom, and power
of His teachings, the way that He treated people... I was just like, I don’t
remember anything about Jesus like this from growing up. This guy’s incredible.
And so I was nineteen, about to turn twenty, living in parents’ basement, working
a couple of manual labor jobs, and had no aspirations to do anything except
skateboard. And a number of things came together all of a sudden, I was forced
with a decision about whether or not I was actually going to follow Jesus. And so
I made the decision to make Him the True North that I was going to aim my life
at, and accept who He was, and what He did for me, and allow Him to take
responsibility for me. So I made that decision, I was almost twenty, and man,
that’s half my life ago. An unbelievable ride since then.
There was a small Christian College across the street from the skateboard park.
And I started to teach, give the Jesus talk at skate Church. And I didn’t know what
I was talking about, I have never read the Bible at any length at all. And so you
could sign up for Bible courses across the street, and I was like, deal. I got to have
something to tell these junior high skaters at Skate Church. And so, I signed up
for classes, and I was introduced to these professors of Biblical Studies at
Multnomah Bible College. It’s now called Multnomah University. And dude, my
whole mind, my world view, my sense of self, and others, and God, just totally
blown apart and rebuilt. There were a couple of professors particularly, just
ignited my imagination as I was learning through the Scriptures. And in particular,
it was my professors who showed me that the Jesus Movement in Christianity is
not a modern, western thing. It’s a very ancient Jewish thing. And I was taught
from the very beginning how to read the Bible as part of ancient Israelite culture,
that the biblical text all came out of the story of ancient Israel, and the Jewish
people, that Jesus fit into the context, and history conversations happening within
the rabbis and Judaism, and so on. And so I started reading the Bible, and it was
incredible. But dude, what on Earth? The Bible was like a strange new world to
me. You guys, there’s a talking snake on page 3. Not to mention, all of the sex
scandals that follow in the book of Genesis alone. Animal sacrifices, these ancient
laws, what does all this have to do with Jesus? But I was convinced that it did.
And so that began twenty years ago. Just this obsession with the Scriptures and
how it is that they bore witness to Jesus. And so I was graced with amazing
professors, and teachers along the way. I ended up doing a Bachelor’s Degree in
Biblical Languages and Theology at Multnomah, and I was finished now, I was
like, what? I have so many questions, I’m just getting started.
So I signed up for classes at Western Seminary in Portland, Oregon. I met and got
married to my incredible wife, Jessica. She’s one of the most amazing human
beings in the world, and she helped me work my way through a master’s degree
there, and continued on in Greek and Hebrew. And I really became interested in
the questions about the History and the origins of the Bible itself. And I got
obsessed with the Dead Sea Scrolls, and how they illuminated the kind of Jewish
culture that Jesus grew up in, and shaped the Bible in His day. So I made the big
decision, I shipped off to do PhD studies at the University of Wisconsin in
Madison in the Hebrew and Jewish Studies Department there. I got to study in
Jerusalem, Hebrew University for a year, Dead Sea scrolls. Dude, I just nerded out.
[10:00]
As I was finishing my PhD there, I ended up in Pastoral Ministry at the church we
were attending called, Black Hawk Church, and I eventually, as I finished my
degree came on staff there as a teaching pastor, and I got to teach the Bible to
people in this church that was full of universities didn’t. I did that for a number of
years. Moved back to Portland to both teach as a professor at Western Seminary,
and then be a teaching pastor of Door of Hope Church here in Portland.
So here’s the deal, you guys, and this introduction’s almost over. It’s maybe been
too long already. I think Jesus of Nazareth is the best thing that’s ever happened
to the human race. I think that He’s alive, I believe and trust that He’s still at work
in the world, and inside of me. So I identify, and embrace the historical Orthodox
Christian tradition. I believe that there is a God, and that God is Knowable, that
that God’s revealed Himself through the story of the Scriptures of Israel. That that
God is the creator of all things. But then ultimately that God is uniquely revealed
in Jesus, and His life, and teachings as Kingdom of God Movement in His death
and resurrection. It’s become my conviction that much of Orthodox Christianity
has totally forgotten its Jewish roots. And I think that’s really messed up.
Christianity is a Jewish Messianic movement, and we should just never, never
forget that.
I’m also have a growing conviction and most modern Christians have no idea
how much their faith in Jesus is anchored in that Jewish tradition, but also that
they struggle to even know how these ancient texts, and ancient man, Jesus,
relate to the hardest, most difficult questions that we face living as modern
westerners in the 21st century. Also, a conviction of mine that grew through years
of pastoral ministry, is that most of the people I know that have walked away
from faith in Jesus, have walked away from a caricature or a distortion of Jesus or
Christianity that’s not actually the real thing. And so here’s what this podcast is
going to be all about. Mostly it’s going to start by gathering together and
curating about last seven years’ worth of lectures and sermons that I’ve given in
all kinds of different settings. So some are going to be exploring books of the
Bible, some will be series that trace through themes of the Bible. Others will be
more history and language oriented, exploring, and diving into the complicated,
and wonderful history of the Bible. But at the end of the day, when I turned
twenty and became a follower of Jesus. It’s like Jesus turned on my brain, and
who He was, and how He illuminated the Scriptures for me, it was like my mind
was opened, that I could finally begin to understand and make sense of the
world. And so I just want to pass on the gift of everything I’ve learned over the
last twenty years, to you all. And so I hope that the podcast can be stimulating,
and thought-provoking, and fun. Learning should be fun. It might be disorienting
at times. I’ve certainly been disoriented almost everyday since I said yes to
following Jesus. But we should constantly be reinforced to rethink everything that
we know in the light of Jesus. And so, there you go. As with all podcasts, you can
help Exploring My Strange Bible as we get out of the gate here by spreading the
word. We’re going to iTunes and leaving a review on the first series that we’re
going to do is a five-part series exploring strange, and wonderful book of Jonah,
but I’m really looking forward to what’s ahead.
Thanks for listening, and we’ll keep going onward and upward.
[End of transcription 13:47]