Episode 116 Gerald Griffin on the Already and Not Yet Kingdom of God

Updated: Sep 5, 2023

I am thrilled to kick of Season THREE of the Heal Podcast (can you believe it?!) with one of my favorite people! We’ll have ten episodes in this Season, and then we are planning to release a special podcast for my Bible study that's coming out in November! Mark your calendars: November 7, 2023 my Bible study, Through the Fog: A Bible Study on God's Goodness Amidst Physical Suffering, will be available for purchase! You'll hear me give some fun sneak peeks about what the study entails this season on the podcast.

In addition, a few things to note: 1) You may notice we have a new logo! We did a rebranding, and we LOVE our new logo - we hope you do too. The symbolism is for "proximate glory" - that God heals us in the way that brings Him the most glory and in the way that brings us closest to Him. The upside down crown is indicative of God's glory meeting us here on Earth, even as we may be traversing the mountains of trial life throws at us. 2) We have changed the name of the podcast to The Heal Ministry Podcast, just so that it is easier to find and doesn't get confused with other podcasts out there. There are good things to come, and we have a great season ahead of us.

So let's get to it! A couple of the episodes in Season Three come from my home church, Bridgetown. Bridgetown Church has a big reach and is well-known by many in Christian circles, so I feel like it is important to say that I am an active member of the church, but please don’t assume that my opinions or something I say in an interview is automatically the viewpoint of Bridgetown or anyone there. With that being said, God is doing some incredible things in the Bridgetown community, and I am fortunate enough that I’ve been able to have a front row seat to some incredible moves of God over the past few months!

Our church has been exploring what it looks like to walk in the gifts of the Spirit in a healthy way as a corporate body, and as we’ve explored the gift of healing (and talked about its nuance and complexity), there have been many miraculous healing stories that have come from our church. This season you’ll hear some of those, and you’ll also hear some other episodes where people are healed in one of the other ways we talk about at Heal (medicinally, sufficient grace, or ultimate healing in heaven).

I couldn’t think of a better way to start this season than with Gerald Griffin, a pastor at Bridgetown and now a personal friend of mine. If you hear one of his sermons you’d likely think Gerald is pretty legit, but who he is behind the scenes and off the stage as a Christ-follower is really where you see his faith shine even more. Gerald is a father figure at our church, shepherding so many into deeper relationships with Jesus like a kind, generous dad. That’s why I love that we talk a little about God’s heart as a Father in this episode.

We talk about what it looks like to view God as a good Father, to climb up into His lap and tell Him not only what you need, but also what you want, and then to be disappointed when He chooses something different for your life. In Gerald’s life, one season of trial came when he had many years of recurring sinusitis and horrible sinus infections. These sinus infections became debilitating, leaving him unable to breathe well and affecting his sleep and quality of life. Living as a missionary in Spain at the time, he had people he was ministering with pray for miraculous healing.

Miraculous healing wasn’t Gerald’s story in this instance, but he heard about a surgery (endoscopic sinus surgery) that had incredible success rates. He chose to undergo that sinus surgery, and God played out His healing in that way. Gerald and I talk about what it’s like to have a medicinal healing story amidst the societal Christianese pressure to receive a miraculous healing, how medicinal healing is still a part of God’s redemption plan for human flourishing, and how at the same time there is undeniable something special about true miraculous healing, too. I think you’re going to love this episode about how we can live in the tension of God’s Kingdom already being here among us, while at the same time the Kingdom and some of its characteristics (like full and complete healing and restoration of our bodies) is still yet to come.

Listen to learn more about:

· How we live in the tension between the already and not yet Kingdom of God.

· How God is constantly on the move to restore the human flourishing we lost at the Fall.

· What we do with disappointment when we’ve honestly told our Good Father what we want.

Listen now:

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Favorite Quote from the episode:

“This is God’s universe, and a plant that grows a healing, medicinal property within that plan, and a surgeon and all of his tools and science behind it, it’s all God. And the surgeon, whether he knows it or not, is created in God’s image, and he’s living out this beautiful design. If you think about what was lost in Eden, in Genesis chapter three, and what’s restored at the cross of Jesus, it’s human flourishing. That’s what the original design of humanity is – it’s to flourish. And so when a doctor is bringing healing through a scalpel and a surgery, that is doing God’s work; that is human flourishing.”