The Next Step Podcast
Season 2: Ponder Anew
Episode 9: Come Unto Me, Ye Weary
Date: 5 August 2020
Guest: Leopoldo A. Sánchez M., Concordia Seminary—St. Louis
Also available on: iTunes
Season 2 of the Next Step Podcast focuses on the resource, Ponder Anew: A Hymn Journal of Trust and Confidence, brought to you by Next Step Press.
Episode 9 focuses on the hymn,”Come Unto Me, Ye Weary” and the Scripture, devotion, and faith experiment beginning on page 83. Leo Sánchez, Professor of Systematic Theology at Concordia Seminary—St. Louis, will open us with prayer and then share the readings on page 87 with author Justin Rossow. A conversation of Jesus asleep in the storm will lead directly into the devotion on page 88.
In the course of the conversation, you will hear Leo and Justin discuss “rest” in two senses: (1) literal sleep as an act of trust and (2) the spiritual rest of hearing the Word and addressing the Lord in prayer. You can see both kinds of rest in the life of Jesus. Jesus doesn’t live up to my standard of being busy all the time; instead Jesus finds time for work, rest, and delight in the Spirit.
Leo talks about these three areas of our Christian life as the Garden (where we labor), the Mountain (where we receive from God and worship), and the Playground (where we experience delight in God’s creation). Human beings were created in God’s image, and we image God not only as stewards of the earth, and so in our labor, but we also image God as people who delight in the creation.
All that talk of “delight” points back to the introduction of Ponder Anew, where we talked about the Hebrew word for playful delight: Sha-ah! You can hear Justin’s conversation with Lead Illustrator Valerie Matyas about sha’a’ in the first episode of this season of the Next Step Podcast, and you can hear author Justin Rossow read from his forthcoming book, Delight!–Discipleship as the Adventure of Loving and Being Loved in the special bonus episode 3B: Joyful Delight.
Dr. Sanchez was also our guest for Season 1, Episode 5 of the podcast: Go to Dark Gethsemane. Leo talks more about rest, work, and play in chapter 7 on the Devotional Model in his book Sculptor Spirit: Models of Sanctification from Spirit Christology.
This recording was made possible in part by the generous support of Next Step Patrons. Today we recognize Jon and Ken for their ongoing support of our mission and ministry. Thank you, Ken and Jon, for helping us equip others for their next step following Jesus!
If now is the right time for you to make a commitment to the mission of resourcing next step discipleship, please consider becoming a Next Step Patron today. To see different options for support, visit https://www.patreon.com/findmynextstep.
We follow Jesus better when we follow Him together, so we invite you to join the Facebook Pop Up Group sharing this hymn journal experience here: The Ponder Anew Facebook Group.
The intro and outro music for Season 2: Ponder Anew was arranged and performed by Brendan Knorp. All rights reserved.
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