Spotlight Interview: JD Greear on how to be an Everyday Revolutionary for Christ
What Christians today can learn from Daniel about living faithfully in a hostile world
Are there times that you feel like you are living in a culture that is quite Babylonian in the way that it functions? And have you been wondering, how do I bring Christ to bear on the hostile and divisive culture that I’m living in? When we take everything happening right now in our world, it seems near impossible;
Well, consider Daniel—and the courage and the grace that he shows living in captivity, literal captivity under the Babylonians, and then also the relationships he developed there. The Babylonian king literally weeps for him! How can we become like that in the culture?
JD Greear, is a friend, pastor and host of Summit Life radio and television program. He spoke with me about his brand new book, Everyday Revolutionary: How to transcend the culture war and transform the world. Through the example of Daniel and others in the Bible who lived in exile, we can gain biblical insight for living faithfully and witnessing well in our divisive, post-Christian world.
This is an edited transcript of Carmen’s interview with JD Greear. Listen to the entire interview on MyFaithRadio.com or wherever you get podcasts.
Carmen: JD, Everyday Revolutionary how to transcend the culture war and transform the world, the culture. War language is out there. We are oftentimes in the midst of one side or the other pushing us or pressing us or saying we should be standing on one side or the other. I like this quote, “Many Christians,” this is you speaking, “many Christians feel leveraged as pawns in a culture war they never asked to be a part of.” So talk with us about the moment and how everyday revolutionary sort of answers the moment we’re in.
JD: Yeah. Well, let’s just be very clear. A lot of times when people think culture war, really what they mean is just boldness in biblical, biblical truth and standing for truth. I do not mean that Christians should just get out of controversial subjects and just preach love and peace and groovy vibes. What I’m saying is that faithfulness to Jesus in this moment is not less than clarity and boldness about controversial issues. It’s just a lot more, and there’s a lot of believers I think, who don’t quite know ‘what am I supposed to do in this moment?’ What is faithfulness to Jesus? Is it primarily Facebook posts and putting up signs in my yard and that kind of stuff? They kind of had this inward sense that there’s something more that God has called them to and so I build this book really around the story of Daniel in the Old Testament. Because here you’ve got the prophet Daniel, who is so bold, so bold in his truth, telling that he ends up in the lion’s den.
He ends up in trouble with the king quite often. So, he’s so bold that he ends up there and yet he is so beloved by the king whose decree put him in the lion’s den that the king stays outside the lion’s den all night long weeping and hoping against hope that Daniel will make it through the night. And so I don’t think the king did that because he just missed Daniel’s prophetic diatribes or he missed his yard signs that he put up. He did that because he knew Daniel was his friend. He knew Daniel genuinely cared about him, and he couldn’t imagine Babylon without Daniel. My question, Carmen, in the book is how do Christians become like that in our community?
Carmen: Well, let’s explore that. How do Christians become like that? We sometimes imagine that we are in control of a whole lot more than we are in control of— and we don’t always recognize that where we live today is Babylon.
JD: Yeah, yeah, great insight because in the New Testament, the writers, Peter and Paul, they pick up on this imagery of Babylon and they’re like, Hey, Babylon is not just a city over in Central Asia. Babylon is an entire world system, and that’s where you live now. And so Paul and Peter give the council to believers that is a little bit counterintuitive. In fact, when I say it, it’ll throw some of your listeners off. Paul says that the response that Christians ought to have there is to live quietly. Now, you’re like, “live quietly?” I mean this is from Paul. Isn’t Paul the guy who stood in front of an Ephesian amphitheater full of angry Ephesians and told them the gods they were worshiping were not really gods at all? Yeah, that’s Paul. And yet he tells believers to live quietly but not invisibly or not with their mouth shut.
He’s saying live in a way that so blesses your neighbors, so makes their lives better, so brings joy and peace to them that it will give you a chance to testify loudly. Peter brings these kinds of ideas together in his epistle, First Peter where he just lays out a number of ways that you’re supposed to live that will bring you to where the citizens of Babylon will say to you, what is this reason for the hope that is in you? And so what I’m trying to do is explore what those practices are. And I kind of walk through, whether you’re a teacher of third graders in an elementary school or whether you’re going to work every day directing as a CFO of a multinational conglomerate, there are things that believers God has called them to do that will live quietly but allow you the opportunity to testify loudly.
Carmen so JD, let’s talk about the dual temptations that you have in the book and how to guard against them, the temptations of assimilation and separation.
JD: So I grew up in a really conservative Baptist context, and by the way, I’m still a really conservative Baptist, so nothing’s changed on that. But the goal of our context was to try to stay as separate from the world as possible. I mean, we had a Christian version of everything. We were trying to live in small, just little cloistered communities where we did business with each other. We dressed a certain way and you could just tell looking at us from a distance that we were Christians. Are we supposed to be separate from the world? Yes, of course. But is that primarily what Jesus is talking about when he says that? No, it’s not.
The prophet Jeremiah when he was talking to Daniel’s generation tells Daniel, he says, Hey, this city where I have put you, this is Jeremiah 29:7, I want you to seek the prosperity of the city. I want you to live in it. I want you to make its problems your problems, make it a better place to live.
And so Christians run this dual temptation. One is they over-assimilate into the world, meaning they adopt the values of the world. They become virtually indistinguishable. Whereas the other temptation is to separate to where you’re just living, kind of in a, like I said, a Christian commune wearing tinfoil hats and waiting for the rapture. And Jesus calls us to neither one of those. He calls us to integrate into the community, but while staying separate. I mean we are supposed to look quite different in the values that we have.
And so Christians run this dual temptation. One is they over-assimilate into the world, meaning they adopt the values of the world. They become virtually indistinguishable. Whereas the other temptation is to separate to where you’re just living, kind of in a, like I said, a Christian commune wearing tinfoil hats and waiting for the rapture. And Jesus calls us to neither one of those. He calls us to integrate into the community, but while staying separate. I mean we are supposed to look quite different in the values that we have.
JD GREEAR
Everything about Daniel, everything about the apostles screamed, I am not really from here. I live under the rule of a different king by different values and different rules. And so there’s always two sides of temptation for Christians and our dispositions, our personalities make us kind of go toward one. And the temptation for some Christians is over assimilation and distinguishable from the world, and the other side is separation.
Carmen: I love the way Daniel approaches living in captivity as a believer in the midst of non-believers, and it’s infectious, it’s contagious. The testimony of his three friends confronted with being thrown into a fire. They’re like, whether or not God saves us from this, we’re still worshiping him. It’s up to him. Talk a little bit about that sort of like it’s up to God, the sovereignty part of this conversation.
JD: A lot of times we bemoan where we are in our country right now. We look at all the things that are happening and I know there’s some good things happening, there’s a lot to rejoice in. But what I became very convicted of personally, Carmen, is that Jesus arranged history. He says, this is Act 17, for us to be exactly where we are at exactly this time for the promotion of the gospel. And we look at some of the darkest days of church history and see that’s when God was doing his greatest stuff. I mean, in the Book of Acts, they’re constantly in the midst of unfortunate circumstances and it’s then that the Holy Spirit comes and shakes the room and makes them bold and it’s then that they turn the world upside down. I mean, we’re at a moment right now, and I know you’ve talked about this on your show where Gen Z is returning to church and every stat shows that they’re coming more frequently.
I saw yesterday that Gen Z Christians come to church substantially more times per month than their boomer grandparents or their Gen X parents. But that’s a lot to rejoice in. The question is what are we going to do with this moment? One of the things I’m concerned about is whether or not we take this kind of resurgence in their embrace of the Christian worldview. They’ve seen the emptiness of secular progressivism, they’ve seen the emptiness of woke ideology and they’re looking for something solid. Are we just going to turn that into a political moment where we turn ’em into a voting block or are we going to turn it into a genuine Jesus revolution? Because like I said at the beginning, faithfulness to Jesus is not less than clarity about controversial issues, it’s just a lot more. Jesus was someone who was filled with grace and truth, not just truth. Jesus was filled with grace too. Grace without truth is liberalism, but truth without grace is a deadly fundamentalism. And what Jesus is— He’s full of both.
Faithfulness to Jesus is not less than clarity about controversial issues, it’s just a lot more. Jesus was someone who was filled with grace and truth, not just truth. Jesus was filled with grace too. Grace without truth is liberalism, but truth without grace is a deadly fundamentalism. And what Jesus is— He’s full of both.
JD GREEAR
Carmen: Well, and everybody’s full of something. So we want to be full of grace and truth. So JD, when one of the words that you use here is this Greek word, I’m going to try to pronounce it Kalos, right, meaning the good, beautiful, the virtuous. And God’s plan to change the world is, I mean, as you just described, it’s not about political activism. It is about a life that is a living demonstration of the goodness, beauty and truth of the gospel, all of it, the goodness and the beauty. Let’s not leave those out when we’re proclaiming the truth.
JD: Yeah. Well, lemme be clear. I mean, I’m not saying it’s not ever political activism. I mean, good politics is a way of loving your neighbors. And so yeah, we want believers out there bringing the salt and the light of Jesus’s blessing into every sphere of society, and that includes how we vote. What I’m just saying in this book is it’s not less than that, it’s just more than that. And yeah, there is a time and a place where we say, yes, this gospel that we preach is not just for Republicans, it’s for Democrats, and it’s going to challenge their idols, our political idols on both sides of the aisle. I’m not saying both sides of the aisle are morally equivalent, I’m just saying that the gospel preaches something different. Our salvation didn’t come in riding on the wings of Air Force One, Jesus is not calling us to be the tribe of the donkey or the elephant. He’s calling us to be children of the lamb. So it is something different. It’s something different that Jesus is offering that’s not less than clarity about cultural issues, it’s just more.
Carmen: Can we pray for you as you head out into your day?
JD: That’d be wonderful.
Carmen: Father, we love our brother JD Greear. We thank you for the way that you have filled his life with your spirit. We thank you for every good and perfect gift that you have poured into his life. We thank you for the way you are pouring him into the lives of others. We thank you for the way that you’re using him as a conduit, as a minister of reconciliation, and as a proclaimer of the good news of the gospel. And so Father, equip him today for every good work that you know have prepared in advance for him to do. We thank you for his partnership in the gospel. We thank you for his presence here with us today, and we ask that you would bless him and protect his people as you send him forth to do the good work. In Jesus’ name, amen.
JD: Amen. Amen. Thank you Carmen.
Listener’s Guide: What’s Next?
After hearing an interview like this one, it can be easy to move on to the next thing on our to-do list, but instead, let’s take a moment to pause, reflect on what we have heard and consider how God might be asking us to respond.
Reflect
- What do you think it means to be a Christian in a post-Christian world? How is our culture like the Babylonian culture of Daniel’s day?
- How does Daniel present a challenge to perhaps the typical way we think about living faithfully? What about his example as a man of courage and love provides something that we could learn from today?
Pray
- Pray that God might show you ways to live out the directive of Jeremiah 29:7, to seek the good of the city where you live?
- Pray God would raise of Christians who are living quiet lives of biblical faithfulness and witness to both goodness and truth.
Act
- If you are interested in thinking more about the example of Daniel, consider how JD’s book, Everyday Revolutionary can provide practical ideas and conversation starters with a group of friends to make this idea real in your own life and context.
