Advent Through the Eyes of Augustine with Rhys Laverty and Mark Hamilton

[00:00:05] Welcome to Thatll Preach. We have got some special guests on today. We've got Mark Hamilton and Rhys Laverty from the Davident Institute. They handle Davident Press and all the good stuff that that institution's working on.

[00:00:19] And we've got him on the show today to talk about a book that's coming out. It's a collection of Advent sermons from St. Augustine.

[00:00:31] And it's really fascinating work. It's a bunch of homilies, I think 17 of them, talking about the Incarnation, talking about the purpose of the coming of Christ, and really, I think, illuminating what really made St. Augustine tick.

[00:00:48] I think you really get an insight into who he is as a thinker and as a pastor. So I appreciate you guys putting this work together, and welcome to the show.

[00:00:58] Thank you for having us. Yeah, good to be here.

[00:01:00] One of the things that I thought was really interesting about this book is the pastoral side of Augustine.

[00:01:08] And this is something that really comes out. You tend to think of him as this great thinker, which he is, and he's got these deep theological treatises and these long books.

[00:01:16] But these short homilies, I was reading them, and I was like, wow.

[00:01:20] It kind of showed another side of Augustine and how he really wanted to take theology and give it to the masses, give it to the ordinary common folk.

[00:01:30] And so it was inspiring in a lot of ways reading through some of these homilies.

[00:01:34] And I'm just curious, what was the genesis of this project?

[00:01:36] What inspired you guys to put together these homilies and to bring it into a condensed little compilation?

[00:01:46] Well, it's somewhat shamelessly stolen, actually, from another Davenant colleague of ours, Matthew Hoskin, who I think you've had on before,

[00:01:54] who teaches church history for us at Davenant Hall.

[00:01:58] And I took a class of his on Augustine sermons, or Augustine the preacher, I think it was called.

[00:02:05] And so that's going through some of Augustine's really well-known sermons, like his tractates on the Gospel of John,

[00:02:12] or sermons, sorry, on the Gospel of John, and a couple of others.

[00:02:15] But then one week was a collection of Augustine Christmas sermons.

[00:02:21] I think the term finished, I think it was the autumn term, and it finished towards Christmas.

[00:02:26] And so we finished with that.

[00:02:27] And I thought it was an online sort of collation of ones themed that way.

[00:02:35] And I thought, what a great idea.

[00:02:37] People would love that.

[00:02:38] I've loved that.

[00:02:38] And so let's republish Augustine's sermons that we know were preached around this time of year.

[00:02:46] The sermons that we've got, you know, these aren't translations original to us.

[00:02:49] They are from the New City Press works of Augustine, which I'm sure some people will be familiar with.

[00:02:56] And there's two of those volumes are sermons sort of on the liturgical years.

[00:03:00] So really, we've taken some of those with permission from New City Press and just put them out specifically themed around Advent.

[00:03:09] Yeah.

[00:03:11] Well, you guys include a lot of helpful editorial notes, you know, to the translation.

[00:03:15] And I think that there's little tidbits that I enjoyed reading.

[00:03:18] I thought that the foreword and the introduction that you guys had was really, really informative.

[00:03:25] Because you talk about a lot of the enduring relevance of Augustine and how he can inform maybe the way that we think about preaching today, the way we think about how we celebrate Advent.

[00:03:36] And so I'm kind of curious, what were some things, you know, as you were putting these together, what were some things you learned about Augustine that you didn't really know before as you were putting this together?

[00:03:46] Was there anything about his context, the way he thought that struck you in a new way as you were compiling these?

[00:03:54] I'll take this one, Rhys.

[00:03:55] I thought one of the most interesting things was the juxtapositions that he places basically everywhere through almost every sermon.

[00:04:04] Light and dark and things like this.

[00:04:09] These literary conventions, they draw the attention of the reader pretty or draw you to the sort of imaginative side that captivate the attention.

[00:04:19] I found that really captivating.

[00:04:22] It kept me reading through all the sermons until the end pretty quickly.

[00:04:27] Yeah, I think you get a real sense of the kind of religious community that Augustine was preaching in.

[00:04:35] So, yes, he is preaching to whoever is there in the church, in the cathedral of Hippo, whoever's turned up, the average lay person.

[00:04:45] And he's also, though, often exhorting members of whatever religious community or communities are present there as well.

[00:04:53] So there's all these references throughout.

[00:04:55] We'll get to this, I think, to the virgins.

[00:04:57] And these are, you know, nuns, effectively, you know, women who've taken a vow of chastity, whether that's in some kind of organized community or on their own.

[00:05:05] And that is Matthew Hoskins' area of expertise.

[00:05:08] Again, I've been doing a class with him on monasticism this time.

[00:05:12] But it, to me, vividly brought to life this bustling religious life that Augustine would have been at the center of as the bishop of a great city in North Africa at that time.

[00:05:23] And just in these little, these asides, these direct addresses that you get, again, gives you an instance of how these things have been recorded as well by someone there kind of transcribing a lot of what Augustine wrote.

[00:05:36] Famously, there's a time where he was preaching and the wrong psalm is read out before he's meant to stand up to preach.

[00:05:42] And then he gets up and said, well, that's not the psalm that's meant to be read, but I'll take this as God's will and I'll preach on something else instead.

[00:05:48] And it's amazing to think that the, it was a very charismatic, you know, move of a fourth century bishop.

[00:05:56] But it's remarkable to me, these little kind of real asides haven't been edited out, but are kept in the manuscript over centuries.

[00:06:05] That just really warmed me to find that.

[00:06:08] Well, you really see his mastery of rhetoric in these words.

[00:06:14] I mean, Mark, you're mentioning, you know, the imagery he uses, there's, there's these paradoxes.

[00:06:18] I mean, I'm just, I had one written down where he says that he took upon himself what he was not and remained what he was.

[00:06:27] And all these little like turns of phrases here.

[00:06:30] He remains in the bosom of his father.

[00:06:33] What was it?

[00:06:34] The whole world is his work as he remains in the bosom of his father.

[00:06:38] The miraculous childbearing of a virgin is his work when he comes to us.

[00:06:42] It's kind of this strange look at the, the mystery of the incarnation.

[00:06:47] And so what, what can you tell us about him as a preacher, as a master of rhetoric?

[00:06:54] What are some things that Augustine employs in the way that he speaks that, that made him an effective communicator?

[00:07:02] Rhys, do you want to take that?

[00:07:04] Yeah, well, I'll, then I'll kick it to you.

[00:07:07] We both have to answer this one.

[00:07:08] Okay.

[00:07:10] By the way, I'm sure we mentioned this before we started recording.

[00:07:12] I'm super glad to have Mark out in the open.

[00:07:15] He does a huge amount of work hidden away, directing things at the press.

[00:07:20] And he's a very, it's a big deal to get him out because he's great.

[00:07:24] And so few people know this.

[00:07:25] So I want to, I want to have as much Mark Hamilton content here as possible.

[00:07:29] I feel like the guy with it.

[00:07:31] No, I feel like the guy who takes the nerdy girl to prom, but then everyone realizes she's really hot.

[00:07:36] You know, that's what it's like getting Mark out.

[00:07:39] Fair enough.

[00:07:40] Okay.

[00:07:40] All right.

[00:07:41] There you go.

[00:07:41] We'll put that as the tagline for this episode.

[00:07:46] Anyway, so Augusta, what is that?

[00:07:48] Augusta's a preacher.

[00:07:50] Well, we're very thankful to have for our intro to this, our forward rather, Fred Sanders wrote a cracking little forward for us.

[00:08:01] And he points out in there, I think he uses the phrase that Augustin just piles up paradoxes.

[00:08:06] And I don't know how he composed his sermons and how much of this, as we've just mentioned, he clearly could just preach off the cuff.

[00:08:12] And so maybe this was very internalized by him, but there's clearly a huge amount of care in how he writes and how he wants his congregation to pick up on the miracle and the paradox.

[00:08:27] And the, but also the sort of symmetry and beauty of the incarnation, as you say, he will constantly, I think the big emphasis of it is, is, is the fact that even though Christ became man, he did not cease to be God.

[00:08:43] And all the things that that means.

[00:08:45] And he has an eternal generation and eternal birth and eternal begetting of his father.

[00:08:50] And yet he also has a temporal in time, physical birth from, from his mother without a father.

[00:08:58] And this constant kind of pairing and comparing of the two.

[00:09:01] And he said, he is holding all things.

[00:09:03] He's being born of the, of, of his mother.

[00:09:05] Yet he created his mother and is still in the bosom of his father.

[00:09:08] Just that.

[00:09:09] Um, I mean, Augustine's so good at it that I can't even rattle it off.

[00:09:13] And I've, I've just, I've edited a book of this and I haven't absorbed it yet, but he is so, he's so internalized the theology of the incarnation.

[00:09:24] Um, and then is able to bubble it up and pour it out in glorious Willy Wonka, delicious level preaching to people.

[00:09:33] Yeah.

[00:09:35] Willy Wonka, delicious level of preaching.

[00:09:37] That's a new category that I have now.

[00:09:42] Yeah.

[00:09:42] I know Mark, what, what, what, what are your thoughts back on Augustine as a preacher and how he brings all this stuff home?

[00:09:48] Um, I think maybe two principal observations come to mind, uh, about the, the sermons of these Advent homilies.

[00:09:54] The first would be, um, how rich they are, uh, laden with scriptural reference.

[00:09:59] I mean, it's, uh, in the actual text itself, certainly quotations from scripture that we reference, um, parenthetically, but you can see it.

[00:10:08] He's stirring scripture into the sort of, um, into the pot throughout, um, every paragraph there's, there's, uh, vernacular from scripture that seasons his admonitions of the church.

[00:10:19] Um, and the second thing I think I see, um, as a preacher, it makes me wonder, I, you know, I think about people in history and what their demeanor was like or whatever.

[00:10:29] And I, I, I wonder how happy they were.

[00:10:31] And when I see how much, um, reference there is or how many references there are, particularly, I think it's like Psalm one or I'm sorry, sermon one 84, um, lots of reference to joy and not just the joyousness of the season, but just, he seemed to be pretty thrilled as a guy.

[00:10:47] Uh, it makes me wonder, like, was he always smiling?

[00:10:49] Was he happy?

[00:10:50] How happy was he?

[00:10:51] Um, because it, it just comes through, uh, pretty much throughout every sermon.

[00:10:56] Yeah.

[00:10:57] That's something unique.

[00:10:58] Just picking up, sorry, on what Mark said, that, that scriptural knowledge, like there's, there's a point where he says, he's speaking on another verse.

[00:11:04] I can't recall now, but, and then he says, and let me mix it in here with, with, with some words from the Psalms.

[00:11:09] And there's this sort of midrash mingling of, of different scriptural passages moving from one thing to the other.

[00:11:16] And that in itself as a preacher is a modeling to your congregation, um, of, of how to read scripture.

[00:11:22] Um, you know, Augustine, these are short, very short things.

[00:11:25] They're more like a kind of, we call them homilies.

[00:11:27] You know, something short you'd have in maybe an Anglican or Roman Catholic service or a service that uses, uh, a, um, oh, I've gone blank.

[00:11:36] Um, a lecture.

[00:11:37] There we go with set readings.

[00:11:38] And then the sermon itself is not a lengthy exposition of one single text, which is what, um, I, and I think probably you guys and maybe most of the listeners will be used to.

[00:11:48] Um, but it's more of this sort of reflection and pulling different things together.

[00:11:53] Um, you really see that it's a different skill to being able to exposit one single passage of great length, which Augustine also can do.

[00:12:00] Um, but yeah, you see that side of him here.

[00:12:03] Well, I guess in, in these homilies, you get more of a sense of his personality.

[00:12:08] I mean, sometimes you think about the paintings of these guys, you think they're all just stoic and staring off into the distance.

[00:12:13] Um, but I agree.

[00:12:15] There is a lot of joy.

[00:12:16] And, and like you were saying, Reese, he's internalized these truths and it, it just sort of flows out of him.

[00:12:21] That's probably why he was able to speak extemporaneously, I guess, in some instances, because it was just, it was just in him.

[00:12:28] And, uh, as I was reading through these, they are shorter.

[00:12:31] They're homilies.

[00:12:32] Uh, you know, like you were saying that standard evangelical church, you looking at 35 to 45 minutes, you know, expository preaching, all these types of things.

[00:12:39] Um, was there a difference in the way that Augustine viewed sermons or giving a message on a Sunday than today?

[00:12:50] I mean, how would you like, did he, did he view it as a, as the sermon fulfilling a different function than maybe we would today?

[00:12:57] That's a great question.

[00:12:58] Um, I would imagine, and I'm strictly imagining, uh, that he saw other parts of the service as ones that had,

[00:13:09] an equivalent value or maybe even a superior value to just the homily.

[00:13:14] Um, I think in a lot of Protestant churches, evangelical churches, um, the sermon is the sort of bulk content of what you hope to get when you show up.

[00:13:22] And, uh, um, given the brevity of these in particular, um, that can be read just in a couple of minutes.

[00:13:28] It seems, um, they're just a few pages each.

[00:13:31] Uh, it makes me wonder whether the lion's share of the substance was attributed to something else than just the homily.

[00:13:38] Um, that would be my, again, I'm imagining, I don't know for sure.

[00:13:42] Yeah, I'm sure there are liturgy nerds, um, who can tell us maybe quite what the sermon, uh, and the structure of the, uh, worship service was like in Augustine's time.

[00:13:52] But yeah, safe to say, I think that the, the, the, the Eucharist would be, um, a big part of the service, uh, and a wider liturgy where a lot of scripture is read.

[00:14:03] It would almost certainly have been what the service was like.

[00:14:06] And I think this is, this is the strange thing in a lot of evangelical worship is that as evangelicals, we are the Bible people.

[00:14:14] Um, but actually it's almost certain if you went to an average Catholic service or, uh, Anglican parish, the six of the lectionary, um, you would have a lot more Bible read.

[00:14:27] But probably, uh, cumulatively actual amount of verses and length time spent reading it and variety of stuff read.

[00:14:35] Um, if you had all the different lectionary readings, which would specify a gospel and Old Testament and a psalm and such, et cetera.

[00:14:41] Um, so, you know, if we're meant to devote ourselves to the public reading of scripture, um, actually sometimes evangelicals aren't necessarily very good at that.

[00:14:49] We'd read it once and then devote ourselves to preaching it.

[00:14:52] Um, whereas in Augustine's form of service, I would imagine, again, I'm not an expert on liturgy in his time, but there'd be a lot of other, God would speak at a lot of other times in the service other than just his sermon.

[00:15:04] And so there's perhaps less anxiety about needing to say everything once you get in the pulpit.

[00:15:10] Well, you mentioned how he weaves in a lot of scripture and how that just seems to be part of his, you know, mental furniture.

[00:15:18] I mean, he's just thinking about scripture, but there are a couple passages that he goes back to over and over again.

[00:15:24] And you make the remark that usually people don't do this preaching the same or a different message on the same passage.

[00:15:29] But what was curious to me was the messages that he preached or the rather the verses that he preached from.

[00:15:35] I mean, you have 19.5, Psalm 19.5, uh, the son is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course.

[00:15:45] Uh, you know, you have Psalm 85.11, truth shall spring out of the earth.

[00:15:49] Righteousness shall look down from heaven.

[00:15:50] They're not exactly, uh, you know, you think, oh, he's not doing the beginning of Luke or the beginning of Matthew.

[00:15:55] Uh, why does he, it's kind of, it's kind of odd how he uses these passages.

[00:16:01] How do we understand the way that he's looking at scripture and drawing messages from them?

[00:16:08] Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's certainly what really struck me when I first came to these and thought, wow, this is something that people would, uh, I think really respond to.

[00:16:16] Um, and yeah, anyone who's been around evangelical churches for a while, and I'm sure pastors feel this the most when it comes to Christmas season.

[00:16:24] Um, uh, it's hard to think of something new to do, um, as you say, because you've, you've probably preached through the, uh, Matthew, Luke and John at different points.

[00:16:35] Um, and people feel a bit cheated if they get anything else.

[00:16:39] Maybe the other odd reading is I nine or something like that.

[00:16:43] Um, but, uh, it's hard to find other things.

[00:16:45] Whereas Augustine, I think because as we say, he's, he knows scripture very well, but doctrine, the core doctrines of the Christian faith are something so precious to him.

[00:16:57] Something so internalized that he will see those doctrines all over the place.

[00:17:02] And so we'll be able to draw them out.

[00:17:04] Now there are some places where he draws them out and as modern readers and partly as people with, uh, the privilege of having somewhat better biblical manuscripts.

[00:17:15] Some of the places Augustine gets things from do look a bit shaky to us.

[00:17:19] You know, the line with church fathers supposedly is sometimes they get the right doctrine from the wrong text.

[00:17:23] Maybe that happens with some of the expositions that Augustine makes here.

[00:17:26] But most of them, I think, I think hold, hold pretty firm.

[00:17:29] Um, the ones you've mentioned, Psalm 19, the bridegroom coming out of the chamber, um,

[00:17:34] or, um, Psalm 85, um, trees springing out of the earth.

[00:17:38] Um, I think they, they hold even in our kind of, you know, modern, uh, uh, uh, translations.

[00:17:45] Um, and so he's, he's so enriched with the doctrine that he can see how scripture speaks to those doctrines, um, in numerous places.

[00:17:54] Yeah.

[00:17:57] Yeah.

[00:17:57] The doctrinal focus, and this is something I think you guys mentioned as well in the beginning of the book.

[00:18:03] And maybe Sanders mentioned it too, but he's, he's not afraid to talk about, you know, eternal generation.

[00:18:10] And, uh, he's not afraid to talk about, uh, the incarnation in, in ways that are very lofty.

[00:18:17] And maybe, you know, you would think the average churchgoer might feel lost by, but, uh, it is kind of challenging.

[00:18:24] And, uh, you know, it's, how do you make something like eternal generation practical?

[00:18:30] I mean, it's kind of a, an odd thing, but he, he brings it up over and over again.

[00:18:34] Why do you think he's trying to bridge that gap, so to speak, and, uh, and get people to understand these kind of lofty doctrines?

[00:18:43] I wonder, is he doing it unintentionally or intentionally?

[00:18:47] Um, meaning bringing them up.

[00:18:49] Like, I wonder whether, uh, we just, um, we underestimate the degree to which these ideas, like you said a minute ago, like they're part of the furniture of his mind.

[00:18:59] Um, they're just part of the everyday conversation of the church.

[00:19:04] Um, they, they're much more, maybe not philosophically, but theologically adept, uh, and, and handling these concepts as a part of regular order.

[00:19:13] I would guess, um, um, how he would make them so practical.

[00:19:19] I don't know.

[00:19:20] Uh, I don't know that I could speak to that in particular, but, uh, but he definitely seems to be able to trot them out.

[00:19:27] Like you said a second ago, Reese, like doctrine is just part of part and parcel of what they did, you know, and during the Christmas season or Advent season, especially in American evangelical churches, you know, we've spent a lot of time talking about.

[00:19:38] The Lucan narrative and the, the Matthewan narrative, but mostly just narrative.

[00:19:44] Oftentimes I feel like sermons that are preached, um, are telling me what the text says and not maybe what it means.

[00:19:51] Um, and Augustine seems to be cutting through a lot of that and doing it with profundity and brevity at the same time.

[00:19:58] Um, yeah.

[00:20:01] Yeah.

[00:20:01] I think, I think he, he makes something like eternal generation preach, but it doesn't make, doesn't mean he makes it practical because I think he doesn't feel burdened by the need to do that.

[00:20:11] And probably cause it isn't, I don't think there is a practical like cash value of the doctrine of eternal generation other than worship and wonder.

[00:20:19] Um, which he's so often just happy to exhort people to do that, like wonder at this, be amazed at this.

[00:20:26] What can we say?

[00:20:27] Isn't it remarkable?

[00:20:29] Um, if he arguably, maybe a practical thing of it is he then, as we've said, he takes the sort of wonder of eternal generation.

[00:20:37] He mirrors it with the wonder of the virgin birth and then exhorts people to kind of believe that miracle against people who, who would naysay it.

[00:20:45] So that's a sort of practical thing, but there's no, there's no kind of go and go and do likewise.

[00:20:50] You can't get that from eternal generation.

[00:20:52] Um, but he's happy to just tell people to worship.

[00:20:54] But I think in, you know, Christmas time preaching, especially evangelicalism is, you know, one of its defining features per David Bevington, um, gives the four evangelical quadrilateral, the four things that define evangelicalism.

[00:21:09] One of those is conversionism.

[00:21:10] We're preaching for conversion.

[00:21:12] Um, and that's great.

[00:21:13] And at Christmas time, it's a great time to get people to come to church.

[00:21:15] It's a time where people who don't normally go the rest of the year might come.

[00:21:18] But so usually what happens is for four, you know, two, three, four weeks in December, um, evangelical preaching, which already skews heavily evangelistic, um, and less doctrinal and kind of feeding of the sheep becomes even more so.

[00:21:31] And you basically often have two, three, four weeks of guest services, um, where it's the most basic kind of level preaching.

[00:21:39] It's all very invitational.

[00:21:41] And yes, Christians need to hear the gospel week in, week out, but, um, it's also the duty of the preachers and the pastors to feed the flock.

[00:21:48] And so, um, I think another thing that struck me looking at these is, is this is the, this is Christmas time, Advent time.

[00:21:54] Yes.

[00:21:54] It would have been a very different feast and vibe and whatnot in Augustine's day, but he is using this to, to disciple people.

[00:22:03] There are exhortations here to, to holy living and to worship and to wonder.

[00:22:07] Um, it's not him saying, uh, if you're here at Christmas, come to our evangelistic course that begins in January.

[00:22:13] Um, which, you know, is a very valid and illicit thing to do when you've got non-believers coming in, um, at Christmas time as reading.

[00:22:21] Um, but just the idea that you would be disciples like rigorously through a Christmas sermon is, uh, an alien one to a lot of us.

[00:22:30] And I think is one of the reasons why my heart leapt out finding these sermons.

[00:22:35] Well, you guys write about how in, you know, modern Protestant churches, the focus is on what Christ does and not necessarily who Christ is, which I thought was a very provocative statement.

[00:22:51] But I can kind of see that in the way, even just the need for things to be practical or the conversionism, you know, it's, uh, I think at one point you guys were talking about how, you know, you're forgiven of sins so that you can go to heaven.

[00:23:03] And, and in, in this backhanded way, Jesus becomes just this instrument to get the actual thing you need, which is forgiveness and live forever and all these types of things.

[00:23:14] But I found it was, it was, it was compelling how Augustine is like, just telling you about Christ.

[00:23:21] I'm just going to tell you about Christ.

[00:23:23] I'm, you know, loving God for his own sake, talking about who Christ is for his own sake.

[00:23:26] And even if these things don't seem to have a practical thing for your marriage or, you know, isn't converting your uncle that you brought to church, it's still something to behold.

[00:23:35] And perhaps that's even an aspect of discipleship where we're just trying to behold Christ just to know who he is.

[00:23:43] And I don't, maybe you don't, I mean, that, that, that really is the end.

[00:23:47] Right.

[00:23:48] And I think that Augustine really seems to bring that out in some powerful ways.

[00:23:56] Mark, you, you, you drove that section of the intro, as I recall.

[00:24:00] So I would not say I, I put my, I put my name to it.

[00:24:03] What Mark has written, I have written.

[00:24:05] But did you want to, did you want to say any more on that kind of what Christ does versus who Christ is?

[00:24:12] Yeah.

[00:24:13] I mean, I think that we spend a lot of time talking about what Christ does specifically in his death throughout the year.

[00:24:23] This tends to, in fact, where I go to church, that's what we're doing.

[00:24:26] We are, we're going through the, the gospel of Luke and we are just, we're basically at the crucifixion.

[00:24:32] And here we are at Advent and as is pretty standard, it, it, we're just continuing with the narrative of his, of his death and burial and resurrection rather than an excursus on, hey, you know, this is a time to recall the, the incarnation and its significance.

[00:24:52] And putting a premium on the person over the work, or at least for a time over the work.

[00:24:58] Uh, that's, that's why we have, you know, Easter, um, to talk about such things or celebrate such things in a more formal way during the church calendar.

[00:25:06] So I, I, I think that, um, it's a really, it's something we dropped the ball on, uh, as Protestants.

[00:25:11] It's something that the Protestant reformers, or at least the post-Reformation folks picked up, um, maybe not precisely from Augustine, but it was part and parcel of what they, how they spoke.

[00:25:20] I mean, that we included that, uh, that reference to Thomas Goodwin in the, in the editor's introduction or to the reader section, um, as a reference point to that, it's like, Hey, this, you know, let's go back and remember what they, they told us.

[00:25:32] And, um, I think the, the precise quote is something like, uh, there's something more beautiful about Christ than that.

[00:25:38] He is a savior.

[00:25:38] So let's not reduce him to just the means by which we gain salvation, but, um, let's enjoy Christ for who he is and how we're united to him.

[00:25:48] Kind of like you were saying earlier, Brian, you know, it's yeah.

[00:25:53] That's what I thought about that Reese.

[00:25:55] Yeah.

[00:25:55] I remember reading that over.

[00:25:57] I was like, there's something more glorious than him being a savior.

[00:26:00] You're like, you're allowed to say that.

[00:26:02] I mean, that almost sounds like blasphemous, you know?

[00:26:05] Um, but then when you really look into it, you're like, Oh, okay.

[00:26:09] This is not obviously excluding the glory of him being a savior, but it is saying that there's more, more to the story than just that, you know?

[00:26:18] And then, and again, it's, it's almost an, you can run the danger of instrumentalizing Christ, uh, as opposed to seeing him as the end to which we're, you know,

[00:26:28] Maybe that's the most practical thing that Augustine does in these sermons is admonish us to enjoy Christ.

[00:26:37] Like you said, like maybe it's not gonna, you know, evangelize your uncle though.

[00:26:41] Perhaps if your enjoyment of God is so great that you're compelling him to, to, to, to believe, or maybe it's not going to fix your marriage by some sort of multi-step process.

[00:26:50] Well, if you're loving Christ, maybe that will do it.

[00:26:56] Uh, yeah.

[00:26:56] And I think it baked in there.

[00:26:59] And if, you know, if you were sort of, uh, if, if with a gun to your head as a preacher, you'd have to say, yes, I know the chief end of man is to, is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

[00:27:09] Um, but that's never what you were like selling to people to put it crassly.

[00:27:16] What you were selling to them was, was being forgiven.

[00:27:19] Why are you preaching to someone who's not yet converted something other than what their chief end is?

[00:27:26] You almost wonder maybe, maybe your uncle would be converted from something like this because it is profound.

[00:27:32] I think about how many sort of high profile thinkers are flirting with Christianity or thinking about Christianity and they're high powered intellectuals.

[00:27:41] And I think there's a sense where they've discovered that there is this deep intellectual tradition in Christianity that is speaking profound things about reality.

[00:27:50] And so I wonder maybe if we did, uh, you know, ratchet up our game, uh, like Augustine, uh, maybe it would be more compelling to people.

[00:27:59] Not sure.

[00:28:01] Is there any thoughts on that?

[00:28:04] Maybe in jest.

[00:28:05] I've, I've, I've often encouraged friends of mine who are ministers to preach, preach a five minute sermon.

[00:28:11] Like just to mix it up a little bit on a Sunday morning where the congregation, Hey, you know, I'm going to get my 35, 45 minutes, uh, of, of a lecture ish, um, sermon.

[00:28:22] Maybe it's, maybe it's five minutes.

[00:28:24] Maybe that's all you need.

[00:28:25] It's all Augustine needed.

[00:28:26] Um, in some cases, perhaps, um, maybe 10 minutes.

[00:28:30] Um, but thinking about the degree to which he, um, he stirred in so much substance in those five minutes.

[00:28:38] I, that, uh, it's a tall order to be sure, but maybe it's what stuff it's.

[00:28:45] And then, yeah, there is, there is justification in these sermons.

[00:28:49] And one of these, um, quite, quite directly, uh, one of the main verses we've been, um, quoting from Psalm 85 is truth is sprung out of the earth.

[00:28:57] Um, but justice has, uh, or whatever it's come down from heaven or, um, some, you know, oh, I've, some have gotten it there.

[00:29:06] But truth on one side, justice on the other.

[00:29:07] Christ is the truth who has sprung out of the earth, the eternal truth who is now born of the dust of Adam of earth and has sprung out of Mary's womb.

[00:29:14] Um, but he is also the justice that has come down from heaven to reconcile God to man.

[00:29:18] Um, so Augustine is driving at those, um, throughout, uh, even when he's often, like I mentioned, sort of exhorting people to holy living.

[00:29:27] Uh, he has this real emphasis on us as spiritual virgins and the church as a chaste virgin who's been wed to Christ from, uh, 2 Corinthians 11.

[00:29:36] Um, but all of that is on the, on the assumption that, or more than assumption, you know, but Christ does that.

[00:29:43] Christ ransoms you, brings you out, justifies you, um, for this enjoyment, for this spiritual fruitfulness, for this, for the virginity of your soul, um, to be chaste unto him.

[00:29:53] So it's all in there.

[00:29:55] Yeah.

[00:29:55] So let's talk a little bit about his fixation with virginity.

[00:29:58] I mean, he does bring that up quite a bit.

[00:30:00] Uh, he's talking about, uh, virgins.

[00:30:04] I assume he's perhaps talking about nuns at the time or something like that.

[00:30:08] And, and, uh, what, what is his, why is he fascinated with that?

[00:30:13] Uh, what, why, why Augustine in particular is fascinated by it is, you know, much ink to be spilt on Augustine and sex and, uh, and whatnot.

[00:30:23] Um, so, uh, you know, anyone who's, who's familiar somewhat with his life will know he's a very, you know, dissolute young man.

[00:30:29] Um, very much into the pleasures of the flesh and is then converted.

[00:30:33] Um, that all goes out the window and arguably to too great an extent.

[00:30:37] And some people think that the West has had weird hangups about sex ever since.

[00:30:41] And Augustine is entirely to blame.

[00:30:42] Uh, but that's, uh, that's a different podcast.

[00:30:45] Uh, so we won't talk about that too much, but, um, yeah, it's, um, so theologically, this is one of the, the, you know, sort of surprising things to us.

[00:30:53] But I think, um, Augustine is ultimately right in making the move, um, that, um, there's a parallel between the, uh, the virginity of Mary, uh, and, uh, the, um, the fact that the church, 2 Corinthians 11, is a chaste virgin who is wed to Christ.

[00:31:12] Um, and he has a high view of Mary throughout.

[00:31:18] He affirms repeatedly and preaches and tries to make this practical, uh, the perpetual virginity of Mary.

[00:31:23] Um, that's there throughout from the beginning.

[00:31:25] And we do touch on that.

[00:31:26] Uh, the awkward fact for a lot of modern Protestants is that the perpetual virginity of Mary was, uh, either it seems explicitly affirmed or assumed by basically all the reformers and all the reformed confessions.

[00:31:42] Um, and it just kind of quietly disappears a little bit from anybody mentioning anything after the reformation.

[00:31:49] And it only seems to be when the perpetual virginity of Mary is like officially made a dogma of the Catholic church in the 1800s that you get Protestants coming out and saying, no, that definitely didn't happen.

[00:31:59] Um, so anyway, that's, that's by the way.

[00:32:01] Um, but so Augustine affirms the perpetual virginity of Mary and kind of uses that, um, as, uh, as a, um, well, he says it theologically.

[00:32:10] He says if Mary gave birth and yet didn't cease to be a virgin in the same way, Christ can become man yet not cease to be God.

[00:32:17] Um, so that's a weird theological move he makes again, this parallel between Christ is God and Christ is man.

[00:32:24] Um, but yeah, often it is this exhortation to people to be, um, chaste, spiritually fruitful, to have a virgin soul.

[00:32:32] Um, uh, and then, and then to be fruitful afterwards as well.

[00:32:36] Um, Mary was a virgin and yet she was fruitful in, she bore Christ in her womb.

[00:32:41] This point we says she bore Christ.

[00:32:42] She was heavy with Christ in her womb.

[00:32:44] We should be heavy with Christ in our souls.

[00:32:46] Um, and Augustine here is throughout, he's doing what the reformers and Protestants all say you should do when you talk about Mary, uh, as, as a woman worthy of, worthy of honor, um, is use her as an ultimate example of obedience to Christ.

[00:33:00] And so, yes, he has this sort of weird focus on virginity and emphasis on perpetual virginity, which is not so popular now, um, among Protestants.

[00:33:09] But, um, he's doing it to make Mary an example, um, of faith rather than to make her the queen of heaven or whatever.

[00:33:17] So, with this perpetual virginity, because that was, I mean, a striking part of it and, you know, seeing that, uh, Luther held to perpetual virginity.

[00:33:26] But was this something that he viewed as central to what he was trying to prove?

[00:33:31] I mean, I guess you could say that, you know, Mary was a virgin, she had a virgin birth.

[00:33:35] Does she have to necessarily remain a virgin for this to work?

[00:33:38] Uh, yeah, I'm just curious about that.

[00:33:44] Yeah, I mean, he, um, uh, I think the, the, the point, the points that he wishes to make about, um, us, uh, imitating Mary by being kind of spiritually chased in our souls.

[00:34:01] I think that works whether she was, um, uh, a virgin at the time of birth, but then was, I would say, a good wife afterwards and, uh, honored her marriage, marriage covenant with her husband.

[00:34:14] Um, or if she did remain a virgin after, um, she gave birth to Christ, which, um, some large part of church tradition holds that she does.

[00:34:25] Um, I think the other points he makes about, um, is she, you know, Mary didn't cease to be a virgin.

[00:34:30] Um, uh, yet gave birth, uh, and in the same way Christ didn't cease to be God yet became a man.

[00:34:39] Um, I, I think that requires a belief in perpetual virginity to make that, that parallel.

[00:34:45] Um, so what, not necessarily because she doesn't cease to be a virgin because she's given birth, although he does at different points, uh, or what, at least one point make a point about her body not being affected by giving birth, um, physically.

[00:34:59] Um, if we don't want to get into too much detail.

[00:35:02] Um, so again, our aim in putting this out there, it was the vast amount of other stuff in these homilies.

[00:35:09] Um, but we felt comfortable putting it out there with these slightly odd things to us because they are things that Protestants in the time of the reformation either affirmed or didn't deny and didn't say you need to reject these things in order to be a Protestant.

[00:35:23] Um, I, I, I don't believe them.

[00:35:27] I think Mary was a good wife.

[00:35:28] Um, and, uh, that's that.

[00:35:32] So, yeah.

[00:35:32] Well, when you, when you read through these, uh, these different homilies, how did it affect the way that you approached Advent?

[00:35:40] I'm just on a personal level, as you're reading through them, were there any personal ways in which they impacted you?

[00:35:47] Maybe in a particular sermon, if you could suggest one or two of them that you're like, man, these are the ones that really, really, you know, changed the way I thought about Advent.

[00:35:56] It really encouraged me when it comes to observing Advent.

[00:36:00] That's a great question.

[00:36:01] I think I would say saw the, the sermon one 84, um, I can't remember what we titled it, or if, if you notice, as you read through the sermons, we've drawn out titles and ascribed those titles to the sermons from Augustine's own words.

[00:36:17] Um, but the sermon one 84 was particularly moving.

[00:36:20] I think, uh, they all were moving, but, uh, this one in particular, I think because of the references, uh, to joy and the joyousness at the time.

[00:36:28] Um, I don't think there's anyone that's a Christian who doesn't take stock of the rat race of at least American culture, um, uh, during this Christmas slash Advent season, if they even call it Advent season.

[00:36:44] Um, and it was a good reminder to me, uh, about the, um, the lack of substance and a lot of the things were encouraged to be joyful about.

[00:36:53] Um, and returning that, that substance to the forefront of my mind, uh, is something that that sermon in particular did for me.

[00:37:01] He says, hence, let us celebrate the birthday of the Lord with a joyous gathering and appropriate festivity.

[00:37:08] I thought that's a, that's a great line.

[00:37:10] I assume, I mean, these are done during Christmas feast.

[00:37:12] Do you have any background on what would have been going on?

[00:37:16] You know, would they've had a big dinner before he gave this message or do you have any idea?

[00:37:21] That's a great question.

[00:37:22] I don't know.

[00:37:22] There's, there's a, uh, the scholar had written an article on this, um, um, on, uh, the feast of the nativity and the sermons that were preached.

[00:37:31] Uh, I can't remember.

[00:37:32] It's, it's in the editor's introduction.

[00:37:34] Um, uh, he has a bit of background, but his, his sort of thrust of his argument is much more around, uh, the centrality of the Eucharist.

[00:37:42] And, uh, um, whether or not Augustine really cared about this season and so on and so forth.

[00:37:48] Um, and how his ideas changed over time and whatnot.

[00:37:51] But I don't remember him saying any, anything distinct about the actual, um, days of the feast, um, or any of that.

[00:38:00] Rhys, do you know?

[00:38:00] I can't hear you, bud.

[00:38:03] Sorry, I was muted, um, for something going on here.

[00:38:06] Um, I do not know.

[00:38:08] No, uh, get Matthew Hoskin back on and ask him.

[00:38:10] He'd probably know.

[00:38:12] Yeah, he's, I, I, I, yeah, he's, he's, uh, an encyclopedia of, of, uh, of knowledge.

[00:38:18] Rhys, were there any particular, uh, omelies in here that you were like, this was a highlight for me?

[00:38:23] Yeah, I've just, uh, pulled one up.

[00:38:25] This is, um, from Sermon 190, uh, which we titled The Glory of the Sexes, um, where it says, it isn't actually the point that I, I was gonna, I'm gonna draw out.

[00:38:37] But, um, where he, he says that the, the, the birth of Christ honors both of the sexes, uh, because Christ comes as man and, um, Mary, uh, is, is, uh, is the, the glory of womanhood.

[00:38:48] Um, but we've mentioned about the wonderful way that he piles up these paradoxes as he preaches and talks about theology.

[00:38:55] And just, I think one of the most beautiful passages about that is in here.

[00:38:59] Um, so I'll just, I'll just read a bit actually.

[00:39:01] Uh, he says, both nativities are marvelous.

[00:39:05] The one without a mother and the other without a father.

[00:39:08] If the one is incomprehensible, the other is inexplicable.

[00:39:12] Who could understand this strange, extraordinary happening unique in the history of the world,

[00:39:17] where in the unbelief, where, wherein the unbelievable became believable and in unbelievable fashion was entrusted to the whole world.

[00:39:25] Namely that a virgin would conceive and would bear and bring forth a son while remaining a virgin.

[00:39:31] What human reason does not grasp faith lays hold on and where human reason fails, faith succeeds.

[00:39:39] That just was one of my, it's one of my favorite bits where he gets to the wonder and the impossibility of these miracles that, um, we're called to hold onto by faith.

[00:39:52] Rhys, when we do the audio for this book, you should read it.

[00:39:56] Uh, uh, the audio book has been, has been greenlit, uh, via Amazon.

[00:40:00] Um, so I'm hopeful it will be available before Christmas, uh, so that at least some people can, um, get it in their ears this year.

[00:40:09] But a great thing about a thing like this is that it will come around again next year.

[00:40:13] Are you, uh, are you the voice?

[00:40:15] Are you going to be doing the voice for the audio book?

[00:40:17] No, not me.

[00:40:18] No, no, no.

[00:40:19] We'll have a, something resembling a professional doing it.

[00:40:22] But you got the accent.

[00:40:23] That's all that really, that's all that really matters.

[00:40:25] Yeah, it does gall me to hear church, um, historical sources read out in American accent.

[00:40:30] I must be honest.

[00:40:33] Uh, as you're reading through, I mean, he talks about a lot of, uh, you know, it's, it's amazing how each one of these, each kind of anchors it on the incarnation, the virgin birth, all these types of things.

[00:40:43] But then he kind of, you know, he talks about the glory of the sex is the glory of womanhood and manhood and all these types of things.

[00:40:49] And I'm just curious, as you were reading through this, how do you think his words could apply today?

[00:40:54] You know, I mean, what are some things that Augustine helps us see that maybe in our modern world we're not, uh, we're not as privy to?

[00:41:03] Yeah, I think they, the theme of spiritual virginity, um, which we've been touching on, um, is, is a big one.

[00:41:13] Uh, if, if only for, for using that imagery, I think, you know, talk of, of holiness and sanctification and being radical, you know, that, that's something we are, we're familiar with.

[00:41:23] But just Augustine is just very happy, perhaps because of some priors that we, we find a little weird, but, um, he's happy to make one of his big Christmas verses that he comes back to again and again, 2 Corinthians 11 verse 2, which is, um, Christ taking us as a, as a chaste, uh, bride for himself.

[00:41:40] Um, so just using that, that image, I think the, which is the, we find the word virgin cringe, like you think of the 40 year old virgin, um, and it just makes you feel a bit embarrassed.

[00:41:50] So talking about faithfulness or being chaste, you know, maybe, maybe there is a better way to, to, to pitch it.

[00:41:55] Um, but, um, using that as a, as a prevailing idea, um, is, and to do so at Christmas is, uh, definitely something we could maybe take a cue from, um, and adjust our preaching accordingly.

[00:42:08] Yeah.

[00:42:10] Yeah.

[00:42:10] I would agree.

[00:42:11] And building on that, I would say covering a lot of the vocabulary and, and protecting it almost, uh, so that it, the actual meaning that it should have.

[00:42:21] Um, and that these ideas that he's speaking of, whether it's virginity or something else, um, that they, they take a truly substantive, um, position in our minds, uh, to ward off inferior ideas about what those, those terms might mean.

[00:42:36] Um, so we talk about joy and happiness and these kinds of things.

[00:42:39] And these terms are often used so flippantly or, or they're bereft of what, what meaning they used to really have.

[00:42:46] And I think in part, as I have read through the sermons, this is, this is a very substantive or a significant thing for me is a recovery of, of language, um, rather than the abuse of it or, or the emptying of it.

[00:42:59] Um, that we so often do when we speak so quickly or, um, in haste, uh, without giving thought to what we're really saying.

[00:43:05] I mean, I think that's the, the magic is it were of, of these, these homilies is that they're so brief and so profound.

[00:43:11] Um, and so stock stocked with meaning and that, you know, he, he's not, there's nothing trivial in what he's saying.

[00:43:18] Um, uh, yeah, take, take some cues from that for sure.

[00:43:25] What, what, um, you know, you, so you talk about like joy and happiness and sometimes today we might have a, an impoverished vision of what those things are.

[00:43:38] What can you say about Augustine's interior life?

[00:43:40] I mean, you kind of read the confessions and it just feels like he has this deep experiential, maybe even, you know, you guys mentioned charismatic before, perhaps even a charismatic kind of leaning to him.

[00:43:53] And again, his multiple references to joy and the way that he's effusive in his like praise and way kind of like soars rhetorically about the incarnation and, and, uh, and, you know, all these things that he talks about.

[00:44:06] What can you say about his interior life that kind of comes through?

[00:44:10] Uh, maybe you can even build on you thinking he, maybe he was a jolly kind of happy guy smiling all the time.

[00:44:16] Sorry.

[00:44:16] It makes me think of Augustine as like, he's a Santa Claus figure or something.

[00:44:19] Yeah.

[00:44:19] That's the, that's the angle we should have gone with it.

[00:44:22] That's what jolly saint.

[00:44:23] Yeah.

[00:44:24] Yeah.

[00:44:25] Um, his internal life.

[00:44:27] I mean, doubtless looking at the confessions and some of the other writings, um, I think there's a complexity that we often don't come to terms with right away.

[00:44:36] When we read him.

[00:44:37] Um, but, uh, man, that's, that's a hard question.

[00:44:41] What was it?

[00:44:42] He prays without ceasing.

[00:44:43] I think his, is what I see, you know, you, you, you said you read confessions and it's a prayer from beginning to end.

[00:44:52] Um, and to, to live into what's like the phenomenology of that.

[00:45:01] I struggle to get my head around, you know, to, to, to live that unceasingly practicing God's presence.

[00:45:07] Um, to, to, to take from brother Lawrence.

[00:45:11] Um, I think that is what the apostle means really when he says pray without ceasing.

[00:45:15] Um, yes, it's these set aside times of prayer, but in that constant conversation with God who is, um, closer to us than we are to ourselves.

[00:45:25] Um, and that bubbles over in things like these sermons.

[00:45:29] Yeah.

[00:45:31] Why do you think people don't preach like this anymore?

[00:45:33] We talked a little bit about that earlier, but I'm, I'm, I'm kind of curious about that, that particular thread.

[00:45:39] What have we lost?

[00:45:40] You mean preach like this as a sort of extemporaneous go to the pulpit and just start pouring out whatever comes to mind or extreme of consciousness preaching?

[00:45:50] Or do you mean like, um, how is it that we've gotten so far from telling people, uh, things that are substantive?

[00:45:59] Yeah.

[00:46:00] The second one.

[00:46:01] Hmm.

[00:46:02] That's hard.

[00:46:03] I think it's hard.

[00:46:04] It's just hard work.

[00:46:06] Right.

[00:46:07] Um, rare is the occasion when you hear something, at least rare is the occasion when I hear something that I am, um, uh, I'm astonished by because it's substantive.

[00:46:19] Uh, one of, I heard somebody preach recently who, uh, was working through a passage in John and, um, and they, they sought to explain something very complex about the divine human relationship in the God man.

[00:46:33] And I went up to him afterwards.

[00:46:35] I'm like, wow, that was, um, that was a real risk.

[00:46:38] I mean, you, you, you know, way to go.

[00:46:41] Like you took a risk and unfortunately stepped on a landmine or two along the way.

[00:46:45] And that's okay.

[00:46:46] That's okay.

[00:46:46] But I applauded him for taking the risk.

[00:46:49] Um, uh, I wish it wasn't so risky maybe, uh, to, to, um, to say such things that are truly substantive, particularly about the, the incarnation.

[00:47:02] Um, I wish it was more commonplace and appreciable.

[00:47:06] Uh, yeah.

[00:47:08] Yeah.

[00:47:09] I think it's worth remembering Augustine is a genius level intellect and was a trained rhetorician before he entered the ministry.

[00:47:17] So, um, we shouldn't all, all hold ourselves up to his standards.

[00:47:21] But, uh, I think, uh, I reminded us, as you asked that of, uh, John Piper used to preach these, um, biographies every year at his pastor's conferences.

[00:47:31] Um, which, uh, I used to listen to on that with a car drive to university back and forth when I was an undergrad.

[00:47:37] Um, and they're great.

[00:47:39] And, uh, one of those, um, I think it was, this one was about George Herbert, um, great poets of, uh, the 17th century in England.

[00:47:49] Um, and Piper preaches from that, this idea of what he calls poetic effort, uh, looking at her as both a preacher and as a poet.

[00:47:59] Um, and there's just this, this bit of sweat and toil in how do I say this?

[00:48:07] How do I articulate this head scratching doctrine in a, in a way that is as fitting as possible.

[00:48:15] And we've talked about Augustine preaching these paradoxes and okay, maybe it's all bubbling up extemporary.

[00:48:21] Maybe he's written it all out beforehand.

[00:48:22] Maybe he's written it all out at some point elsewhere that is just to kind of describe in his mind.

[00:48:27] However it works, um, there's a poetic effort to what he says.

[00:48:33] Um, and I think that is possibly an emphasis that we've lost in the way that we tend to do preaching training, um, in whatever particular strand of evangelicalism you're in.

[00:48:44] It'll vary, but the idea that you are doing something that is something like poetry.

[00:48:49] Um, I think probably almost none of us in our subsections of evangelical world, um, have been taught when it comes to preaching.

[00:48:58] You mentioned John Piper makes you think about like, if you want to preach like John Piper, you need to pray a lot.

[00:49:04] You need to study your Bible and you need to be John Piper.

[00:49:09] You know, it's like, oh, that, that, that, that's the key part being John Piper.

[00:49:13] Right.

[00:49:14] But I think there's something to that.

[00:49:16] And when you talk about the poetic effort, uh, it was a book I read years ago in seminary.

[00:49:20] It was, I think it's called why Johnny can't preach.

[00:49:22] And, uh, one of the things the author mentions is how people don't really write letters anymore.

[00:49:28] Uh, they don't really think about prose.

[00:49:31] And so that turns preaching this very informal sort of, um, it just lacks the sophistication.

[00:49:39] Um, and, and maybe it'd be odd in a modern day if you, you know, it's like you can't, you know, it's like when people try to sound too much like Martin Lloyd-Jones and it's like 2024 and doesn't really work.

[00:49:50] But, uh, I think there is something to that.

[00:49:52] The, the, the crafting these words.

[00:49:54] I, I'm also struck by how Augustine doesn't, he doesn't like.

[00:49:57] He doesn't try to overly explain something.

[00:49:59] He just kind of like puts out the paradox and lets you just go, whoa, that's crazy.

[00:50:05] And he's, he's okay with just leaving you with that because it's fundamentally true, but also it's meant to evoke, you know, awe and wonder.

[00:50:12] And I think that it, that it comes through, uh, the words that he writes and that he speaks.

[00:50:18] What do you want people to get from this?

[00:50:20] If you're like, man, if, if people read this and this is the result, we're going to be real happy.

[00:50:25] What do you hope this does for people as they read through, uh, these, these homilies?

[00:50:31] Um, so Mark and I both just nodded at each other to go first.

[00:50:35] Um, yeah, I think, I mean, you know, in the intros we've touched on, we, we, we, we, we, we talk about wanting to push people to, to wonder at Christ himself for who he is, uh, rather than simply, uh, on, uh, terminating on what he's done.

[00:50:50] Um, and then I think, uh, well, one thing to, to, to go back to what we have just touched on to have that wonder at the sheer, uh, miracle of the incarnation and the incomprehensibility of Christ being the son, uh, who is eternally forgotten of his father, who is the eternal day.

[00:51:13] Who comes from day, who is light from light, God from God.

[00:51:16] Um, and for the, the way that catches out to just be wonder and worship, um, I think, uh, is one of the things I would really love people to, to take from this.

[00:51:27] Yeah.

[00:51:27] Mark, how about you?

[00:51:30] It's hard to improve on what you just said, Rhys.

[00:51:32] Uh, maybe the only thing I would say is I hope it compels people to go past these sermons, uh, or these homilies to the rest of Augustine's works.

[00:51:40] Cause there's just a feast there.

[00:51:42] Um, and I think a lot of, uh, maybe like Protestant cemeterians, seminarians, not cemeterians.

[00:51:48] Cemeterians.

[00:51:49] Gosh.

[00:51:50] That would feel like this.

[00:51:51] Freudian slip.

[00:51:54] I think, uh, but for those people, there's not a lot of Augustine familiarity.

[00:52:00] And I think that improving that for Protestants would be really, really great, particularly the confessions.

[00:52:06] Um, uh, for reasons like you said earlier, Rhys, about this sort of, uh, Brother Lawrence, um, practicing the presence of God, the prayer, a life of prayer, I think is, um, is really critical.

[00:52:19] And if this seeds that, then great.

[00:52:21] Uh, more than that, I mean, just, yeah, the enjoyment of the God man and, uh, the exercise of the imagination, I think.

[00:52:30] Um, yeah, that's what I'd say.

[00:52:34] Well, you know, you really see the love that Augustine has for God in these sermons.

[00:52:40] I mean, it's, it's, it's kind of weird.

[00:52:42] You're reading through them and I'm just, you know, you kind of imagine his voice or what, you know, what it would be like to hear him.

[00:52:48] And, and I'd have to think if you were there, you'd be like, this guy is pious.

[00:52:54] Like he's, he's really devoted.

[00:52:56] It's really kind of, this is something that he's, he's, he's, you know, authentic.

[00:53:01] He's really for real about all these truths and, uh, for who Christ is.

[00:53:06] And, uh, the stuff like this, you can't, you can't really fake.

[00:53:10] And so you kind of read that and you're like, man, I think it is inspiring to say you could have this.

[00:53:14] If you devote yourself to prayer, if you devote yourself to holiness, you can, you can push yourself to really, uh, start to have the same awe and wonder that, that Augustine had.

[00:53:25] But, but, uh, appreciate you guys for coming on the show and for putting this together.

[00:53:29] I will put a link to the book in the show notes.

[00:53:31] We make a great gift.

[00:53:32] And, uh, it's, I think it's a helpful guide for the Advent season.

[00:53:36] And really, I mean, they're, the sermons are so short.

[00:53:39] You really could, I mean, you could read a couple of them in one sitting or you just focus on one and just read in the morning.

[00:53:44] And it's a wonderful devotional tool.

[00:53:47] Uh, you know, you almost feel like Augustine just, he's just talking right there to you and you could sit down and really think through.

[00:53:53] And meditate on these words.

[00:53:55] And I think it's just a fruitful enterprise for anyone.

[00:53:58] But, uh, thank you guys so much, uh, for being on the show.

[00:54:01] Appreciate it.

[00:54:02] Thanks, Brian.

[00:54:03] Yeah, great to be with you, Brian.

[00:54:04] Thanks.

[00:54:07] Thanks for listening to this episode.

[00:54:08] If you liked it, please support the show and consider becoming a Patreon supporter.

[00:54:12] You can find all the links to our YouTube channel and our Instagram account in the show notes.

[00:54:18] Thank you guys for joining us.