The Sin of Shyness (Respectable Sins Series)

[00:00:00] Did you know that Shyness is a sin?

[00:00:03] Well, technically the term is,

[00:00:05] I could get ready for this.

[00:00:07] Pew Salonimity.

[00:00:09] It's a smallness of soul,

[00:00:11] trying to say that ten times.

[00:00:13] Theologians of the past describe this advice

[00:00:16] as a particular advice that masquerades his humility.

[00:00:19] But in reality it's a failure to trust God.

[00:00:22] So you fear the opinions of others.

[00:00:24] So you shrink back.

[00:00:26] You don't take any risks for God.

[00:00:27] You don't want to serve other people.

[00:00:29] You don't want to stand up for your convictions.

[00:00:31] And that's all this advice that we're going to call shyness.

[00:00:35] And because it masquerades as humility,

[00:00:37] it's often hard to diagnose.

[00:00:39] But in reality it demonstrates a kind of self-focused

[00:00:42] that dishonors God and our own humanity.

[00:00:46] So Paul and I are going to look at this advice

[00:00:48] and maybe it's going to shed some light in areas

[00:00:50] in which you have a smallness of soul.

[00:00:54] Enjoy this episode.

[00:01:01] All right, we are back.

[00:01:02] And we are live.

[00:01:03] Me and Paul here in the studio,

[00:01:05] and we're going to be talking about our new series,

[00:01:09] though we've been doing for the past few episodes.

[00:01:11] And respectable sins.

[00:01:13] Sins that maybe don't really make the headlines

[00:01:17] or they're not as easily perceivable

[00:01:19] as the usual contenders of straight up

[00:01:22] by solitary sexual sin being super harsh.

[00:01:27] Only types of things being angry, being Southern Baptist.

[00:01:32] I feel like you just like,

[00:01:34] I jack a teleprompter.

[00:01:35] You know what I mean?

[00:01:35] I'm like, it beings Southern Baptist.

[00:01:36] We love our Southern Baptist, but we basically are Southern Baptist.

[00:01:40] I mean, you're not anymore because you've moved away,

[00:01:43] but I'm open to it.

[00:01:44] I'm just not creative Baptist.

[00:01:46] But that doesn't mean I can't work

[00:01:47] by Southern Baptist.

[00:01:48] That's true.

[00:01:49] Yeah.

[00:01:49] That's true.

[00:01:50] I'm just moved on to...

[00:01:52] Can I just say this too?

[00:01:53] I mean, I feel like,

[00:01:57] as if you're creative Baptist or your Baptist,

[00:02:00] if you went into the time of training,

[00:02:01] and went to the reformation,

[00:02:02] and you have to lose there and you'd be like,

[00:02:04] dude, I appreciate all of you doing.

[00:02:05] He's like, you don't baptize babies.

[00:02:07] He'd be like, you're a heathen.

[00:02:09] You probably, you know, nail you to the door, you know?

[00:02:11] And I'm just glad that Catholics and Protestants

[00:02:14] aren't killing each other anymore.

[00:02:15] And I'm glad that Protestants aren't killing each other anymore.

[00:02:17] And that Catholics aren't killing each other anymore.

[00:02:20] And all that stuff.

[00:02:22] And small victories.

[00:02:25] Anyway, I think we can all appreciate.

[00:02:26] You can have two Protestants together in 2024,

[00:02:29] doing a podcast series where they're constantly just mining

[00:02:32] a coin is for quotes.

[00:02:34] Yeah, it's amazing.

[00:02:35] Right.

[00:02:36] I wonder what a coin is to think about us.

[00:02:38] He'd probably be mining us for quotes.

[00:02:42] Yeah.

[00:02:42] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's some shows.

[00:02:44] I think you'd be looking at us being like,

[00:02:47] he would look at you and he'd be like,

[00:02:48] this is what a gusten looked like.

[00:02:50] He'd be like, you know,

[00:02:51] he'd be like, you know, that's probably not true.

[00:02:52] He was Roman.

[00:02:53] So he was African.

[00:02:55] He was Roman.

[00:02:56] Yeah, but he was like North African.

[00:02:58] I don't know.

[00:02:59] What?

[00:02:59] That could be a whole debate, who knows?

[00:03:01] Who knows?

[00:03:02] I just believe we didn't really like to claim him.

[00:03:05] At least you think like a gusten.

[00:03:07] Wow.

[00:03:07] So I think, unsistimatically, and like, you know,

[00:03:11] throw shade on a two-two verbose.

[00:03:13] They've not a systematic thinker.

[00:03:14] What do you think a gusten gets wrong?

[00:03:16] There's not a wrong.

[00:03:17] It's just he's all over the world.

[00:03:18] I mean, he's got his right things.

[00:03:20] He's like scatterbrained.

[00:03:22] He's verbose.

[00:03:23] He like he's super redundant.

[00:03:24] But that's part of what it was to write in the ancient world.

[00:03:28] You just like, you didn't have spell check.

[00:03:30] You didn't have like the beauty of typing something out and going,

[00:03:33] how you're describing a gusten is how you describe

[00:03:35] religious studies major, so my gosh.

[00:03:38] Now, at least the gusten was taking true things.

[00:03:41] Wow.

[00:03:42] Whereas religious studies is fake.

[00:03:44] I'm not going to record saying that.

[00:03:46] Actually, that's going to get me trouble.

[00:03:47] But that's okay.

[00:03:48] No one's going to listen to this.

[00:03:49] Well, that's true.

[00:03:50] Especially religious studies majors.

[00:03:53] So anyway, yeah.

[00:03:55] This is a we were already off the great start.

[00:03:57] So let's talk about these respectable sins.

[00:03:59] So we've been talking about how virtue is sort of the mean between two

[00:04:03] extremes, but even among those two extremes, one is closer to virtue than

[00:04:08] the other.

[00:04:09] So we've talked about cowardice, the virtue of courage and then

[00:04:16] rashness.

[00:04:17] And if you're going to pick one of the two, which you don't want to do,

[00:04:21] but if you have to pick one of the two,

[00:04:23] rashness is actually closer to courage than cowardice.

[00:04:26] But if you want to grow out of cowardice,

[00:04:29] if you struggle with that and you want to grow out of it,

[00:04:32] you want to over-correct.

[00:04:33] You want to actually want to push yourself to what you think is

[00:04:35] rash because you end up in the middle and courage

[00:04:38] and the same would be in the reverse.

[00:04:40] So today, we're going to talk about shyness.

[00:04:44] Or what's the actually the hoi-ti-toy term that you have?

[00:04:47] You still end up in a few silly and limited.

[00:04:49] You need to get checked out for that.

[00:04:51] You still end up, I kidding, it's interesting.

[00:04:53] It sounds like some kind of disorder, or some silly and limited.

[00:04:57] Or timidity, that's the other.

[00:04:58] timidity.

[00:04:59] timidity is the better way of putting it.

[00:05:00] Lack of determination.

[00:05:02] Okay, that's the...

[00:05:02] Lack of determination.

[00:05:03] I mean, it needs to be.

[00:05:04] Maybe colloquially we could call it shyness.

[00:05:10] Or a smallness of soul is one of your subtle qualities.

[00:05:12] Interesting.

[00:05:13] You see yourself as having a small soul.

[00:05:16] You see yourself as not having much to contribute.

[00:05:20] And the quietness thinks when Paul says colloquial fathers provoke

[00:05:24] not your children to indignation, less they be discouraged.

[00:05:28] That's timidity.

[00:05:29] That's the vice of smallness of soul causing someone to shrink back.

[00:05:32] And so your actions can have an effect on other people

[00:05:35] where you cause them to sort of close up and not...

[00:05:39] All the gifts and talents that got us given them their capacity

[00:05:41] they don't exercise those.

[00:05:43] They see themselves as small and spirit, not having to contribute.

[00:05:49] And so they fail to cultivate their talents and contribute in all the ways

[00:05:52] that God has from them.

[00:05:53] That's basically just a bit.

[00:05:55] So when I hear about...

[00:05:56] Here it is.

[00:05:57] I can see how people can misinterpret Bible verses

[00:06:00] to say, you know, when you think about count others more significant

[00:06:04] than yourselves, be slow to speak, you know,

[00:06:08] be tender-hearted, be gracious.

[00:06:10] People can interpret that as being a dormant or being

[00:06:13] small of soul as you're talking about.

[00:06:17] And it quite seems to say, well actually you're devaluing

[00:06:21] the agency and the volition that God has given you.

[00:06:23] We talked a little bit about insensitivity about how that's when you basically

[00:06:29] think that all pleasures bad.

[00:06:32] So the example would be you are eating dinner

[00:06:35] and you would want to numb your taste buds to the taste of it.

[00:06:39] Because you think enjoying eating dinner would be wrong.

[00:06:42] And in the same way, it's almost like...

[00:06:45] Well in that scenario God gave taste to food for us to enjoy.

[00:06:49] He wanted to be an effect of pursuing the good of nourishing our bodies.

[00:06:54] But he also gave us a will and we don't want to

[00:06:56] denigrate that as well under the guise of being submissive.

[00:06:59] So the insensitivity person thinks they're being disciplined

[00:07:01] and not being self-indulgent by hating the taste of food.

[00:07:06] Yeah.

[00:07:06] In the same way, the timid person

[00:07:08] or the proscum who personally live in the person, the promissuous person.

[00:07:12] No whatever you do.

[00:07:13] You still abuse a random person.

[00:07:16] You still abuse them of the lives of a person.

[00:07:20] Dente grates their own agency thinking that they're being humble.

[00:07:25] So they're actually misaligned and how they understand things.

[00:07:28] And I think that can be misused in Christianity

[00:07:31] with some of the phrases that we use or the verses that we use.

[00:07:36] But I also think too.

[00:07:39] Oftentimes today you say, you need to hear people's voices.

[00:07:43] And I think there's a truth to the sense of if you have authority,

[00:07:47] you don't want to crush people.

[00:07:48] So for example, your example of fathers don't

[00:07:50] provoke your children to anger or don't,

[00:07:52] don't make them discouraged.

[00:07:54] Don't make them discouraged.

[00:07:54] Don't make them discouraged.

[00:07:55] Don't make them discouraged.

[00:07:56] You don't want to crush them so they can never actually express themselves.

[00:08:01] But at the same time, if you are timid,

[00:08:04] there's a responsibility on you.

[00:08:06] In other words, you can't just look at somebody and go,

[00:08:09] they're forced me not to express myself.

[00:08:11] Now, there might be a case in which that's true.

[00:08:13] And that's an injustice against you.

[00:08:15] Somebody is being is brow-beating you,

[00:08:17] being oppressive against you and you can't express yourself.

[00:08:20] Think about the Israelites under Pharaoh.

[00:08:22] Okay, that's not right.

[00:08:23] Their agency is being suppressed.

[00:08:25] But timidity is you are suppressing your own agency.

[00:08:29] There's not an opposing force pushing you.

[00:08:30] Or maybe not a significant one.

[00:08:32] And out of fear of man or just a mistrust of God,

[00:08:38] you are not asserting yourself in a proper way.

[00:08:41] So this is actually saying,

[00:08:43] you can't look and go, it's the man holding me down.

[00:08:46] Even though that can be the case.

[00:08:47] But timidity is not that.

[00:08:49] timidity is saying, I'm purposely holding myself down

[00:08:52] because of my simple desires.

[00:08:56] It might be helpful to contrast it with the advice on the other extreme,

[00:09:00] which is vanity.

[00:09:01] So the small, sold person,

[00:09:05] the timid person is the exact opposite of the vain person.

[00:09:08] The person who wants glory for its own sake.

[00:09:12] The timid person is the person who shies away into the corner of the room.

[00:09:17] So much so that they don't contribute even the good things

[00:09:20] that God expects of them.

[00:09:22] And the virtue is just great soulness.

[00:09:26] Aquinas calls it magnetism.

[00:09:28] So the person who pursues honor and cultivates their talents

[00:09:33] and has proper ambition.

[00:09:36] So you want to will great things.

[00:09:38] You want to pursue great things.

[00:09:40] Not for your own sake,

[00:09:41] not for the sake of a claim.

[00:09:43] But because you see that God is giving us our intelligence and skills,

[00:09:47] and you have this sort of seize the day,

[00:09:50] but for the kingdom of God, type of drive.

[00:09:53] So this person has drive for the good things

[00:09:56] that God has placed in them.

[00:09:58] So it's not a sort of like conquest type personality,

[00:10:04] which just wants to go and dominate everything.

[00:10:06] But it's someone who sees where problems are

[00:10:09] and sees that God has given them skills to solve problems,

[00:10:11] for example,

[00:10:13] or God has given them musical abilities,

[00:10:15] or conversation ability,

[00:10:16] or whatever it might be,

[00:10:18] and you're not afraid to keep cultivating those,

[00:10:20] and contributing those for the sake of the common good.

[00:10:23] So now for the sake of the claim,

[00:10:25] and not for the sake of the vain glory itself,

[00:10:28] or just the honor itself.

[00:10:29] But it's using the talent for the sake of the common good,

[00:10:34] to glorify God, not shrinking back from it.

[00:10:37] And you're saying all this wearing a knowledge of the swallowing shirt.

[00:10:40] He's got its properties, he's rigged.

[00:10:43] Brocrates, brocrates,

[00:10:45] and he's curling weights,

[00:10:47] and he's ripped, and it says knowledge of the swallowing.

[00:10:48] So this is a very assertive shirt that you were wearing.

[00:10:51] You've got a little chicken, too.

[00:10:53] What is the chicken?

[00:10:54] The chicken is that Plato famously said

[00:10:56] that the definition of human is featherless biped.

[00:11:02] So basically chickens without feathers.

[00:11:06] All right.

[00:11:06] You gotta love the ancient philosophers.

[00:11:10] Some weird guys.

[00:11:12] So the apostle Paul, he tells Teethy,

[00:11:14] the Holy Spirit is given him power, love, and self-control.

[00:11:18] Power, love, and self-control,

[00:11:20] and those are together, and they govern each other.

[00:11:23] And I would say they strengthen each other.

[00:11:25] If you have power, it's motivated by love.

[00:11:27] It's shaped by love,

[00:11:28] and it's, in love is gonna be temperate.

[00:11:30] It's gonna be self-control.

[00:11:31] It's self-controling under passions,

[00:11:32] your sinful desires, all these types of things.

[00:11:34] It's gonna be ordered loves.

[00:11:37] So Paul is saying Timothy,

[00:11:38] I want you to go out there and go do this.

[00:11:40] I want you to represent me.

[00:11:41] You have my apostolic authority.

[00:11:43] You're gonna go out there,

[00:11:44] and you're gonna do what I'm telling you to do.

[00:11:46] And Paul himself has an ambition to plan churches.

[00:11:48] And I think the idea is that if you actually place your ambitions

[00:11:53] toward the kingdom of God,

[00:11:54] you actually become more ambitious in the sense that your world

[00:11:58] is not condensed to your Paul tree desires and dreams.

[00:12:05] And I remember hearing this as an old pastor.

[00:12:11] He had said something to the effect of the Christian life.

[00:12:15] It should be a great adventure.

[00:12:17] And that's always stuck with me,

[00:12:19] that some people, Christian life is just a solid and duty.

[00:12:22] It certainly is a solid and duty.

[00:12:24] And I think in correcting against this

[00:12:29] high-pea sort of superficial bubblegum evangelical property.

[00:12:34] And we have evangelicals.

[00:12:36] It's the quarter of the day.

[00:12:37] What I can respect,

[00:12:39] I don't know if I want to say respect,

[00:12:40] but I think there's something

[00:12:42] we don't want to over-correct and see the mega church movement

[00:12:47] and the ambition there as all bad.

[00:12:51] I think there is a drive there that is good,

[00:12:53] but maybe misdirected him as guided.

[00:12:56] And that there should be a sense of forward motion,

[00:13:00] a sense of, don't be timid.

[00:13:02] Don't think that by making yourself small

[00:13:06] that you're necessarily making God big.

[00:13:08] In fact, the reason that you shrink back

[00:13:09] is because I don't want people to look at me,

[00:13:11] it's me, me, me.

[00:13:12] You're actually still the main character on your screen.

[00:13:16] And there's this phrase, main character syndrome.

[00:13:20] People basically think that they're like self-nergating.

[00:13:23] They're all in their head.

[00:13:24] They think that everything is a very self-centered,

[00:13:27] it's the geekiest thing that they've ever heard you say.

[00:13:29] I didn't see a world that existed here.

[00:13:32] But I think that there is something like that.

[00:13:34] I think social media actually does that

[00:13:36] where we don't have a sense of

[00:13:39] the sense of the sense of the sense of the

[00:13:39] We sort of envision our lives as we're in these little bubbles.

[00:13:43] And where they're consumeristic bubbles,

[00:13:44] and we just consume,

[00:13:45] and we determine when we see people when we don't.

[00:13:48] When we do this, when we don't do that,

[00:13:49] everything's curated for us.

[00:13:51] And we bubble ourselves off.

[00:13:52] And what that prevents is we don't actually

[00:13:54] feel like there's a common world in which we can work

[00:13:57] together and actually impact and affect.

[00:14:00] Out of just meeting some kind of social,

[00:14:02] gospel type of thing.

[00:14:04] I mean, the sense of you have a local community that

[00:14:07] you can build.

[00:14:08] You have a family that you can build.

[00:14:09] You have a local church of people that you can serve

[00:14:11] and you actually need you to do that.

[00:14:13] And so I get people,

[00:14:14] not everybody wants to do public speaking.

[00:14:16] I get that.

[00:14:18] And I'm not saying that everybody has to force.

[00:14:19] That might not be your gift.

[00:14:20] It might not be your gift, right?

[00:14:22] But man, if someone needs your prayer,

[00:14:27] go do it.

[00:14:28] Go pray for somebody.

[00:14:29] And don't let your timidity prevent you from doing that.

[00:14:32] If somebody, if you have a skill and you can help,

[00:14:36] don't feel like you're always imposing on somebody

[00:14:39] but offering your help.

[00:14:40] And again, you have to know yourself.

[00:14:43] So if you're if you're a vein,

[00:14:45] then you've got to do that and check,

[00:14:48] put that and check,

[00:14:49] and then you've got to overshoot and say,

[00:14:50] okay, well, I know that I struggle with the vein glory

[00:14:52] and vanity.

[00:14:54] So I'm going to try to find ways

[00:14:57] to make myself smaller, but letting other people speak.

[00:15:01] Bye.

[00:15:03] Bye.

[00:15:04] Focusing and asking questions to people by not,

[00:15:10] you know, seeking praise, whatever.

[00:15:15] But if you find yourself being timid,

[00:15:16] then that means you actually have to force yourself

[00:15:18] into situations outside your comfort zone.

[00:15:22] Not in this sort of self-explortory kind of way

[00:15:25] you, you know, moved it in the end.

[00:15:29] Just find yourself or something like that.

[00:15:31] I mean in the sense of if you see that there are needs

[00:15:33] and you go, that's on me.

[00:15:35] I'm actually going to serve myself to fill that need.

[00:15:38] Even if it turns out that you don't have the skill

[00:15:40] and then maybe the feedback from the environmental,

[00:15:42] it's like, actually maybe you're not a great,

[00:15:44] right, piano movement.

[00:15:45] We were just thinking that, yeah.

[00:15:47] We're actually getting a piano movement later today,

[00:15:48] so we'll find out.

[00:15:51] You know, I've actually felt that because I'm not,

[00:15:56] I'm not a good singer.

[00:16:02] I mean, you don't give it or you don't receive it.

[00:16:08] All of it.

[00:16:09] I just don't care about it all.

[00:16:10] Now I thought you were, but I think that that's something

[00:16:14] I had to learn to grow in.

[00:16:15] And then I remember feeling this sense of timidity

[00:16:18] because I'm like, okay, people know that

[00:16:19] I don't naturally serve.

[00:16:21] So if I start doing this they're going to be like,

[00:16:23] oh look, I'm going to be like,

[00:16:23] look at that toddler walking.

[00:16:26] You know, and I'm like, oh, now it feels so soft,

[00:16:28] conscious, feels so weird.

[00:16:29] They're all going to be like, Brian's actually doing something

[00:16:32] and I'm like, you know, you know,

[00:16:33] I really, really, as well.

[00:16:35] Doesn't mean I shouldn't do it.

[00:16:37] I mean, that's, I actually have to,

[00:16:39] I can't be timid.

[00:16:40] I've got to actually throw myself into doing it

[00:16:43] and doing it poorly.

[00:16:44] And you find out that people have tons of grace.

[00:16:46] They don't actually say stuff like that.

[00:16:48] Who, at least not to your face.

[00:16:49] Maybe behind your back and just gossips

[00:16:51] and we even episode on that.

[00:16:52] But you get the sense of like, okay,

[00:16:56] a lot of timidity is fear of failure.

[00:16:58] Who is what I'm trying to say?

[00:17:00] And that fear of failure ultimately

[00:17:04] is, is a, that's a,

[00:17:08] that's a wrong way to look at things.

[00:17:09] It's not how God desires us to live.

[00:17:12] He actually wants us not to fear failure,

[00:17:13] not because we will always get it right.

[00:17:17] But because there's grace because we're finite.

[00:17:19] I think actually accepting that we can fail,

[00:17:22] who not even fail in a sinful way.

[00:17:24] But just we won't accomplish something we wanted to.

[00:17:26] It's part of recognizing our limits as human being.

[00:17:30] You know what I'm saying?

[00:17:31] And there's only one person that can't fail.

[00:17:34] He's, I said it right hand at the father.

[00:17:36] You know what I mean?

[00:17:37] And so I just think timidity is something

[00:17:39] that needs to be talked about.

[00:17:41] That in rightly going against our modern culture of vanity

[00:17:46] and self indulgence in just everyone look at me.

[00:17:50] That we may unwittingly be not helping timid people realize,

[00:17:53] no you actually do need to assert yourself.

[00:17:56] And speak your mind on things

[00:17:58] because what you think will be intrusive will actually just be normal.

[00:18:02] Yeah, right?

[00:18:03] Because you're already laid back by your own timidness.

[00:18:06] And we're just a bit of a finer point

[00:18:09] because it sounds, and part of this is,

[00:18:12] it's the nature of vice that it's not always easy to distinguish them from the vices that seem similar to them.

[00:18:18] We talked about cowardice, we talked about in order to fear,

[00:18:21] we talked about false humility.

[00:18:24] So there is overlap between all these vices between those and timidity.

[00:18:28] But timidity is very specifically,

[00:18:31] you mentioned power there.

[00:18:32] Someone not leaning into a recognized or power.

[00:18:35] Aquarius's timidity makes a man fall short of what is proportionate to his power or his abilities.

[00:18:41] And then he quotes from Matthew 25 and Luke 19.

[00:18:45] So it is that the servant who buried in the earth

[00:18:47] his money that he received from his master

[00:18:49] and didn't trade it and cultivate it

[00:18:51] because of faint-hearted fear he was punished by his master.

[00:18:55] So it really is about recognizing your abilities and your gifts.

[00:18:59] So having not an overinflated or underinflated sense of self,

[00:19:03] but a perfectly rational, sensible view of yourself with your abilities.

[00:19:07] And then cultivating those abilities and then using them.

[00:19:12] So, so, pucyletanimity is falling short of the power that God has given you.

[00:19:17] And then it leads to what he calls the four errors.

[00:19:19] The first is the timid man shrinks from great things

[00:19:23] because he thinks he has a little soul.

[00:19:26] Second, he has ignorance of his own qualifications or talents.

[00:19:30] Or he's lazy when he considers his own talents and abilities.

[00:19:33] So, if there's an ignorant, you're just not knowing yourself accurately.

[00:19:38] Third, you have a fear of failure in what you falsely deemed to exceed one's ability.

[00:19:44] So, you think that certain things are out of your reach

[00:19:46] when actually they're in your reach.

[00:19:48] And then last, you shrink from the great things of which God has made you worthy.

[00:19:53] So I mean, we could take those maybe a while at a time

[00:19:54] and just rip on them a little bit.

[00:19:56] But I mean, the first one is shrinking from great things out of littleness of soul.

[00:20:00] Like you have a, it's kind of tied to with the last one.

[00:20:03] You have a lesser view of what you're capable of.

[00:20:07] And so you shrink back from the things that God has for you.

[00:20:10] I feel like that's it captures a lot of, there's a little bit of,

[00:20:14] there might be cowardice there, there might be ignorance, there might be over humility

[00:20:22] or false humility because you think that in trying to avoid vanity,

[00:20:27] you jump to the other side.

[00:20:28] So the timid person there actually doesn't go out and receive all that God has for them.

[00:20:35] So that their life is kind of impoverished, they languish

[00:20:40] because they're shrinking back and they're not doing that

[00:20:44] for which God has made them worthy.

[00:20:46] That language of shrinking back isn't Hebrews.

[00:20:48] I mean, I think it's at the end of Hebrews.

[00:20:53] 12 or, I don't know, he says that something to the effect of,

[00:20:56] you're not like there's who shrink back, but those who by faith,

[00:21:01] which are their souls.

[00:21:03] Right? And the idea of that hall of faith and Hebrews 11,

[00:21:08] it's full of ambition.

[00:21:11] And they did not shrink back,

[00:21:14] but they pursued all the promises that God had made for them.

[00:21:18] God calls that faith.

[00:21:20] He sees that as a good thing.

[00:21:21] In Proverbs 30,

[00:21:24] it speaks about how there are,

[00:21:29] oh yeah.

[00:21:31] Oh yeah.

[00:21:32] He talks about how there are three things that are stately in their tread,

[00:21:36] four are stately in their stride,

[00:21:37] the lion which is my yes among beasts and does not turn back from any.

[00:21:41] The striding roost through the he go and a king who's army is with him.

[00:21:44] And he says this is a great thing.

[00:21:46] A king who knows he's got an army with him has a confidence

[00:21:50] with him that pushes him out into the world.

[00:21:52] Yeah.

[00:21:53] Just like a lion, the apex predator, you know all these things.

[00:21:57] And what he's saying is that's a good kind of confidence.

[00:22:01] Right?

[00:22:02] And we have God on our side, God is with us.

[00:22:05] And there's this not this prideful sense,

[00:22:08] but I think that's the trust that the Lord is with you,

[00:22:11] that him and his heavenly hosts is with you

[00:22:14] and that you don't have to depend upon your own resources

[00:22:17] that God is with you to accomplish these things that are going to be beyond

[00:22:20] what you think is possible.

[00:22:21] And it actually God is honored by that.

[00:22:23] This is not a health and wealth type of thing.

[00:22:25] In fact, one of the things is that this will actually prepare you to suffer well

[00:22:29] to say that I actually can endure this because God is with me,

[00:22:33] you know?

[00:22:35] And so there's a lack of faith in that there could be a lack of faith.

[00:22:38] Like a recognizing that God is on your side or you're saying all I have

[00:22:42] are my resources before I can't do it,

[00:22:44] but you're saying all I have is me which is saying God is not with me.

[00:22:50] And again, you had, I think with Vain Glory, which one's closer?

[00:22:54] Well this is what I mean, a clientist doesn't say it explicitly

[00:22:57] and I thought maybe we could even talk about this a little bit.

[00:23:00] I think Vainity's probably worse.

[00:23:03] I think more of us are actually trying to vanity.

[00:23:06] So it's actually so it's easier for the timid person to become

[00:23:10] to have the proper ambition to be magnanimous that it is for the Vainperson.

[00:23:14] What's the virtue?

[00:23:15] It's magnanimous.

[00:23:15] How do you define that?

[00:23:19] Actually pursuing the things that are in your power.

[00:23:21] So you're ambitious to the right degree to the right hand

[00:23:25] and you have an accurate grasp with your abilities

[00:23:28] and you pursue those and you bring others into that

[00:23:30] and you pursue the common good.

[00:23:32] So it's a great soul demand, that's what quite is called some.

[00:23:36] So someone who's not doing it for the limelight,

[00:23:38] but someone who's like the Hebrews Hall of Fame

[00:23:41] who sees that God has given him this ambition

[00:23:43] and is pursuing it.

[00:23:44] Who knows his abilities and his upper mechslums

[00:23:48] and doesn't try to do anything foolish or reckless

[00:23:50] or for his own glory, but he is,

[00:23:53] it's proper ambition or proper when he receives honor.

[00:23:57] He knows it's for the things that he's actually worthy of

[00:24:01] and the honor goes to God.

[00:24:03] So it's a combination of a lot of different virtues there

[00:24:06] but it's the in-between vanity and timidity.

[00:24:11] So you think that, but strictly speaking though,

[00:24:15] timidity is closer to...

[00:24:17] I think so. I don't know that sounds right?

[00:24:19] Because vanity is, it seems a lot more close to vain glory

[00:24:23] which is just attention seeking, which is pure emptiness.

[00:24:28] But I guess part of it is also what is the reason why you're being timid.

[00:24:34] Is it because you're trying to avoid vanity and you're just over-correcting?

[00:24:37] Yeah. Then there's something healthy and admirable about that.

[00:24:39] But if it's because you really lack of faith,

[00:24:42] if it's fear, if it's cowardice, if it's all these other things,

[00:24:46] then that might be worse too.

[00:24:48] So again, the vices don't just come individually

[00:24:50] that come in these clusters.

[00:24:52] So if you are a fearful person, if you are a person who lacks faith,

[00:24:57] if you're a person who's ignorant of self,

[00:24:59] if you're a person who's lazy, doesn't want to cultivate your tongue.

[00:25:02] All of those are horrible. I get all want to be that kind of person.

[00:25:05] But if it's just, I really don't like the light light.

[00:25:08] I really want to avoid vanity.

[00:25:10] Then that by itself, the error is like an admirable one,

[00:25:13] but you can do a little bit closer to get to the virtue.

[00:25:15] Maybe that's how I would think about it.

[00:25:19] I wonder if there's something like how Moses was timid, who's fearful,

[00:25:25] but he answered the call and maybe that's the being magnanimous.

[00:25:30] The ambition of what you see the need and you have the courage

[00:25:33] and the wherewithal to say, I will answer that.

[00:25:37] I think Moses was still timid and he obviously grew,

[00:25:42] but if he were to be great soul, I think upon receiving the call,

[00:25:47] he would go instantly.

[00:25:49] Or even he'd seek out the call.

[00:25:51] My people are danger.

[00:25:52] I need an eye of disability.

[00:25:54] I was the prince of Egypt.

[00:25:55] I'm going to go back to them.

[00:25:56] That's proper ambition.

[00:25:58] And he's putting his skills.

[00:25:59] If he was vain, he would have said this is going to be great.

[00:26:02] It would have been awesome.

[00:26:03] Or I can do this on my own.

[00:26:04] I don't need to go to God.

[00:26:06] I can do this on my own string.

[00:26:08] And I'm doing it because I want the acclaim.

[00:26:09] I want to be a leader.

[00:26:10] That would be over ambitious.

[00:26:13] Again, hitting the mean is really tough.

[00:26:15] You kind of have to calibrate and recalibrate and respond to.

[00:26:19] You put something out into the world.

[00:26:20] The environment gives you some feedback and you say, OK, well actually that was,

[00:26:24] I did that for glory.

[00:26:25] It's for glory say.

[00:26:26] That's not good.

[00:26:27] So you curve back and maybe shrink back a little bit.

[00:26:30] And then you, this constant feedback process hopefully gets your question to the virtue.

[00:26:35] But yeah, this shrinking back from great things out of littleness of soul.

[00:26:40] And then there's a quite a cycle of ignorance.

[00:26:42] So you can be a bad, diagonalistition of yourself.

[00:26:46] You don't really know yourself.

[00:26:48] That could be one.

[00:26:49] So you're not constantly taking stock of your abilities.

[00:26:52] It could be ignorance or a question is it could be laziness.

[00:26:55] It could be you don't want to do the hard work.

[00:26:56] It could interest by adding and seeing what your gifts are.

[00:26:59] Or you see what your gifts are and like the lazy servants in the parable.

[00:27:02] You don't want to invest in this burden because we think like this is easier.

[00:27:06] Because it's going to be hard to cultivate my musical abilities,

[00:27:10] Well my conversation abilities, whatever it is that I have,

[00:27:12] It's going to, it takes work to grow a garden into cultivate talents.

[00:27:16] And if it's out of fear or out of ignorance or out of laziness,

[00:27:19] those are all faces and those are all things you should get rid of.

[00:27:22] So again, it comes with a sweet or a cluster of other bad things in your life.

[00:27:27] There's a proverb where it talks with somebody who's too hungry and he won't lift his hand to eat.

[00:27:32] That just reminds you of the laziness that you're talking about.

[00:27:35] Yeah, yeah.

[00:27:36] So I wonder though if vanity is actually further or it's if vanity,

[00:27:43] if timidities to be preferred over vanity because I mean I imagine if a city gets attacked by foreign baiters.

[00:27:52] And you've got a bunch of guys who are like oh we can make an aim for a sell is by defending the city.

[00:27:57] Well okay, that's vain glory but also we're not getting killed because of them.

[00:28:01] Whereas if everybody is timid, you're done.

[00:28:06] Yeah, maybe they are, they are rash and vain.

[00:28:10] And so it's the rashness that's good.

[00:28:12] You can just hide up in your castle and see I'm not going to,

[00:28:16] Yeah, or just be the first one to leave because you don't want your clothes to be so hilarious.

[00:28:20] So those people in your example are exemplifying rashness which is closer to courage.

[00:28:25] And that's why we would think that we're admirable.

[00:28:27] But it's not because of the vanish root, right?

[00:28:29] You could actually, could you be, you can be vain and scared and cowardly.

[00:28:34] Well, could you be okay, you be vain and cowardly but you be vain and timid at the same time?

[00:28:39] No because those are opposite but it's of the same, those are on the same spectrum.

[00:28:44] Their opposites of each other.

[00:28:46] So the vain person wants the glory in the limelight, the timid person doesn't pursue any glory or limelight.

[00:28:55] And in the process, it doesn't even actualize their talent.

[00:28:58] But you could be vain and cowardly, you could, you could do a lot of examples of that.

[00:29:03] And you could also be, could you be rash and timid?

[00:29:07] Timid?

[00:29:12] Maybe those don't go together quite as easily.

[00:29:16] I don't think those go.

[00:29:17] I mean, it's true that some vices actually make you more.

[00:29:21] So some deficiencies, like in Kleinutort's excesses on the other, on a different virtue.

[00:29:29] So that might be one.

[00:29:30] So if you are very cowardly, then it might make you also more timid.

[00:29:36] Or if you're very vain, then it might make you more rash.

[00:29:39] So sometimes these go together.

[00:29:41] But it is possible to be vain and cowardly, for example.

[00:29:44] Yeah.

[00:29:44] But I don't think it's possible to be rash and timid.

[00:29:47] Unless you were, so how would you define rashness again?

[00:29:50] What would you, lack of fear at anything?

[00:29:54] You know, some fears appropriate, like you're supposed to have a kind of like,

[00:29:57] something is dangerous.

[00:29:59] I'm not going to dive headlong into it.

[00:30:01] So courage is, you know, having the right amount of fear and putting yourself in the right amount of risk.

[00:30:06] But not, you know, maybe a rash, timid person would be like, a person who doesn't want to be a center attention

[00:30:11] that they like will do a crazy thing to avoid attention.

[00:30:15] I guess they have positive.

[00:30:17] Yeah.

[00:30:17] Like if they're, if they're at a, uh, get together and someone wants them to speak, they crash to the window.

[00:30:26] Yeah.

[00:30:27] And you know, slide down the gutters and swim a mile away.

[00:30:31] Chargen to battle because you don't want to give a public speech.

[00:30:34] Like yeah, like you flee from that because you're hilarious.

[00:30:38] I guess those, did we rare psychologically?

[00:30:41] We don't find those.

[00:30:42] You just don't have to crazy person.

[00:30:44] We do, but people, and this is kind of tied into the, like, the vice of sloth is when you put off your spiritual obligations.

[00:30:52] Yeah.

[00:30:52] Because you're like, other busy work.

[00:30:54] So that the timid rash person here could be someone who, because they have a, they don't want to cultivate a certain part of their life.

[00:31:01] They have a wondrous or even rash sense of impulsivity and barashyness that, that helps them escape from cultivating their talents.

[00:31:08] I wonder if.

[00:31:08] This is partly gona.

[00:31:09] Maybe Jonah is the timid rash person.

[00:31:12] He didn't want to answer the call of gone.

[00:31:15] Right.

[00:31:15] And said goes on this ship.

[00:31:16] He rasps it, and then so for the story.

[00:31:18] Yeah, right.

[00:31:19] He's not afraid of the storms.

[00:31:20] Yeah.

[00:31:20] afraid of, you know, he just wanted to answer the call and said, yeah that's interesting.

[00:31:26] I almost wonder too if some of the escapism, whether it's fantasy worlds video games,

[00:31:34] online, is people can be actually, maybe this would be it. People online can be much tougher

[00:31:40] than they are in person. They can have this kind of persona. Yeah. And it's an escapism

[00:31:45] to avoid actually starting themselves in life. Yeah. So they're timid and they're rationed

[00:31:49] different domain. And their timidity leads them to have this online version of themselves,

[00:31:54] right? Because they're real life-day. They're avoiding ageing their own life by

[00:31:59] yeah. So I guess it is more common though. We're expressing it through a podcast. Yeah.

[00:32:03] Whoa. Who we just make super timid hand. Yeah. Exactly. This is what we do. We just avoid all the hard

[00:32:08] conversations. If you have a middle person we won't talk to you. We'll just, we'll just

[00:32:13] just scare you. Well run away. Well run into a battle for like academic theology bros. I think we're

[00:32:20] is that like a hard bar? No, that's really a low bar actually. Yeah. I think that that's good.

[00:32:28] No, I hadn't thought about the rash timid combo. Is that how you open up conversations at

[00:32:31] parties being like, you know for theology academic. I'm quite socially addict. Where are you going?

[00:32:38] Wait, wait, come back. Yeah. Listen to my podcast. Yeah, that'll be an open door for you.

[00:32:47] This is my way when we had Matt Lee, Anderson on. He's like, I'm really funny at parties.

[00:32:52] Yeah. You know, after he just like, I think he actually probably will be really funny. He's great

[00:32:55] that party since such a, he's a man. We're going to have you back on the podcast. Do you want to join

[00:32:58] the party? Matt, we want to go to a party with you. We want to host a party who bring Matt. Don't be timid.

[00:33:03] That's right. They'll be timid. Matt's not timid. Yeah. Did you think he'd rash? Should we just

[00:33:08] psychoanalyze him? No, I don't think Matt, um, that's courageous. I'm language to me what you really think.

[00:33:15] That's what I thought. Okay. So yeah, interesting stuff. I mean, at the case of your if you're if

[00:33:20] you're if you're timid how do you uh or some ways you can grow out of timidity? How can you cultivate

[00:33:26] magnum manate magnum magnum magnum magnum. I think the first get us a post-capital

[00:33:34] best immediately and get it to magnum and it is to diagnose your pucillin and the pucillin. There we

[00:33:43] mentioned this with the past spices just being aware of it and acknowledging that you have this.

[00:33:49] And then addressing the source of the timid is it ignorance of your own abilities? Is it laziness?

[00:33:56] Not wanting to cultivate. Is it fear of the future, the unknown, fear of failure,

[00:34:04] is it lack of faith? Is it, you know, a combination of these things? So diagnosing first where it's

[00:34:09] awareness first that you have the problem in two diagnosing asking yourself the hard questions of

[00:34:15] am I timid because I'm not introspective and I'm not taking stock of my abilities. And so I genuinely

[00:34:20] just don't know what my call is or is it? I'm lazy and I know what my abilities are but I don't want

[00:34:27] to do the hard work to get it done. Three is it fear? Am I afraid of the future, my afraid of failure?

[00:34:34] Am I afraid of people judging me or thinking well? Everyone knows I have this problem and

[00:34:39] moment I start stepping out. Everyone's going to notice that I'm stepping out and then like it's

[00:34:43] going to be weird and awkward and not want that. There's it lack of faith. Is it? I think that

[00:34:48] these tasks that I've been entrusted with, I have to complete them solely from my own resources

[00:34:54] and all of those. I mean, I guess dependent on which diagnosis you arrive at. The solutions

[00:34:59] go look at the differently if it's ignorance then introspect. If you have people around you

[00:35:05] try to tell you what they think your gifts and callings are and where they think you can grow and how

[00:35:09] you can grow and get that in the context of community. If it's laziness then it's just a matter

[00:35:15] of building discipline like try to try the hard thing, try the difficult thing. You've read

[00:35:20] done the hard work in overcoming the ignorance. You know what your abilities are. You know what

[00:35:25] your call is. We have some idea now it's time to put it in the hard work. If it's fear of failure

[00:35:30] then it's also similar to things. Do the hard thing, do the difficult thing. You can't overcome

[00:35:36] fear or cowardice unless you practice brave courageous actions. So it's not going to be easy but

[00:35:42] just a matter. You have to do the difficult thing to get better. It's not going to come magically.

[00:35:47] So if you have the virtue though, are you going to apply equally in all areas of your life?

[00:35:52] What do you mean? So for example, you could be timid in, I'll say about timid, being timid in generosity

[00:35:57] with money. You know you're the resources, you know that God will provide but you don't give.

[00:36:03] But you could be very not timid when it comes to building a business or confronting people or

[00:36:10] whatever. So if you truly have the virtue, we'll let express self in all areas of your life.

[00:36:14] It would. Yeah. If you have the virtue. So I think the person who's, I wouldn't even call that

[00:36:19] person timid with money. I'd just say that they're fearful. They be their cowardly. They don't want

[00:36:25] to give money because they're afraid of insecurity or they have maybe they have a too high bar

[00:36:33] of what they think comfort looks like. Right. So maybe a coin is called that sumptuousness

[00:36:38] or you know. So if you wouldn't call, but there's other vices involved. All it to say is if you have

[00:36:44] the virtue, you have it, it's going to express self in all areas of life. And that's a tell that

[00:36:49] you don't have the virtue in one area of your life. That's what we have it. And it might actually

[00:36:53] might not be virtue in those other areas. It might be masking twice. Yeah. It's something like that.

[00:36:57] Interesting. I mean, this is controversial. But I mean, some people, I think that all the virtues

[00:37:02] are they go together. Like you can't have courage and be not generous. You can't be temperate

[00:37:08] and be timid. Like once you have one virtue, it's because you've exercised everything. So in

[00:37:14] that way, it's different than working out. Like what do you ever see? Have a virtue or do you have

[00:37:18] to some degree? Well, I mean in our fall and stay, we have just imperfectly. But Jesus, for example,

[00:37:24] has all the virtue. He's the ideal human. The ideal human has all the virtues. We have them

[00:37:30] imperfectly. But the goal is to build up our muscles and get stronger in those. So this is different

[00:37:36] than like traditional working out of the physical body. You can see somebody who works out

[00:37:41] upper body and has got chicken legs. You know, we've all got that trope in our minds. But the

[00:37:48] virtue is person without having everything. The virtues don't come apart in the way that like,

[00:37:54] you can't like, you can like isolate certain muscles and work on them. But you can't do that with

[00:37:58] virtues. Like in working on your temperance, you'll also work on your courage. And you'll also

[00:38:02] work on your generosity. You'll also work on your magnet in the, and so they all do go together.

[00:38:07] And to some extent when you work out physically, you do that too. Like certain muscle groups go together.

[00:38:13] But virtues are more neatly packaged than the physical muscles of our body. Then what we

[00:38:17] can do a whole podcast on that. You should. Well, another way to grow if you're timid,

[00:38:23] I think it's too full. It's one for you. What are the needs? What are needs that I can fill?

[00:38:29] Yeah. Not making it this sort of like, again, you don't want to go into vanity and say,

[00:38:33] well, I'm going to like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

[00:38:38] People just call crazy ideas to break through. They're super timid and suddenly they like

[00:38:43] done their hair orange or something. I don't know. I just a secret pan, see if you

[00:38:48] offer it. Yeah, exactly. That was a terrible thing. You would. But you know, if I need and

[00:38:55] assert yourself to say, I want to serve in this way. I want to help in this. Another thing is the

[00:39:01] community that there's a wrongs. If you see somebody timid encouraged, I mean, Paul does that with

[00:39:05] Timothy. You say, look, you got power, love and stuff and you're always spirit with you. He's in

[00:39:09] 12. He's empowering you, he's giving you gifts. Go live the adventure of the Christian life.

[00:39:14] Yeah. Go take a risk. Don't don't play small. Yeah. You know, and you go, well, here's this

[00:39:20] example. This guy who he was vain and then he fell. He was like, okay, yeah, that's right. Don't do that.

[00:39:25] But you're not going to do that. That's not you. Yeah. That's not your advice. And we tend to always

[00:39:29] look at the opposite advice as what we're afraid of and in doing that, we're coddling the

[00:39:35] actual advice that we're dealing with. Yeah. So a very vain person might say, well, if you want to be

[00:39:43] small, who would do all these great things? And if I were to, if I acted small, then there would

[00:39:48] be no this or that or that and it's like, okay, yeah, that's true. But that's not your problem.

[00:39:55] You actually need to work on making yourself smaller. Or he might say, I want to become a dormant.

[00:40:00] You're like, yeah, you I don't think that's going to be a proper risk of that's going to be

[00:40:04] well, right? Or she might say, I don't want people to think on week. I don't think anybody thinks

[00:40:10] that. Right. You may, you might actually want to practice on doing things that actually reveal

[00:40:14] your weakness to peel. Right. I feel like in there's been a cultural pushback in Christianity,

[00:40:20] but also in cultural large against, like we realize that dream big was kind of, you know, it's

[00:40:26] right. We push back against that. Like, don't follow your dreams, don't dream big.

[00:40:31] And I remember even like when I was in college, like the Christian version of dream big was like

[00:40:35] the David plaid John Piper, like live radically, like do big things expect kind of do big things.

[00:40:42] And then the pendulum swung more of like, well, no, like there's a like praise of mediocre

[00:40:46] living, like ordinary lives, like just and maybe the pendulum is swung too far and we don't expect

[00:40:52] to do big things through us anymore. And maybe that can should be it's sort of spirit of

[00:40:57] timidity in our own Christianity or maybe there is a lot of big things that got has for us and

[00:41:02] we should have faith and we should maybe err on the side of a little bit of like maybe

[00:41:06] recklessness or, you know, see where the limits are. Don't like draw the line too early.

[00:41:11] I think the issue with Piper and plaid, which they're great, you know,

[00:41:19] is that they they defined ambition very narrowly to explicitly kind of Christian things,

[00:41:24] being missionaries. That's true, you know, being a pastor evangelizing only things, which are good

[00:41:29] and we should have ambitions for that. But I think they didn't see the ordinary life as having

[00:41:34] ambition in and of itself who and I do think that now people are thinking, oh actually if you launch

[00:41:40] a company and you provide a service that benefits a lot of people and you employ people and you're

[00:41:46] company and then you can support all these different types of things and charities. That's great.

[00:41:49] That's ambition. If you grow a family, if you disciple them, if you teach them what it means to

[00:41:53] follow the Lord, if you give them a good education, if you do classical education, like you know,

[00:41:57] you're liberal arts, you're doing and if you want to see to inform the minds of next generation,

[00:42:05] if you want to be a physician, whatever all these things are actually the ambition is great.

[00:42:10] And not to curb that, not to crush that in people. Because so I think that's the issue.

[00:42:15] It was just too narrowly focused on church planning to cycle here. Right, right.

[00:42:19] Which we should be ambitious about, you know, don't even be not saying that but

[00:42:22] but there are more gifts than just those. We can feel free to live into those and ambition can look,

[00:42:28] you know, it's much more varied and textured and just explicit Christian ministry. Right. Yeah.

[00:42:33] There you go. Like making a podcast. This is our, I mean, I think there's some ambition here.

[00:42:39] It was. Yeah. You know, it's going to win out on a land like man. Is this rash to think that

[00:42:43] is going to be a good idea? I mean, we mainly started for us. We just like this would be fun.

[00:42:48] So it was total vanity. It was just for us. This is just an exercise in our van. Or maybe it was just

[00:42:53] exercising strictly for friendship. Look at that. Look at that. It was through the friend of you.

[00:42:57] You're orange here. Yeah. There you go. I appreciate that. Which it's a, maybe we'll do a series on friendship.

[00:43:04] Ooh, we're good. We'll be good series. Yeah. That's all we got. Thank you guys for listening.

[00:43:09] Show notes, check it out. Check out our links, support us. We'll thank good stuff. I'll catch you guys next time.