Show Notes
What happens when the foundational beliefs of your faith are suddenly up for debate? 1700 years ago, a fractured early church gathered not to innovate, but to confess—and to say something out loud, together, in public.
Understanding the nature of Jesus and the Trinity is the absolute bedrock of the Christian faith, yet many modern believers struggle to articulate it.
In this episode of Nuance, host Case Thorp welcomes back Dr. Jonathan Lett to explore the legacy of the Council of Nicaea and why a 4th-century debate still matters today. Jonathan unpacks the controversy surrounding the Arian heresy and clarifies how the Nicene Creed was ultimately about reading Scripture rightly. Drawing on his deep theological expertise, he makes the case that the doctrine of the Trinity isn’t just an abstract puzzle, but the very foundation for Christian prayer, worship, and vocation.
From navigating ancient theological debates to understanding complex terms like “consubstantial,” Jonathan helps modern believers see how the eternal relationship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit directly shapes our daily lives.
📚 Episode Resources:
LeTourneau University: https://www.letu.edu/
Jesus Wars by Philip Jenkins: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B095J2NQSL/
Theological Orations by Gregory of Nazianzus: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3102.htm
Faith, Science, and Technology Initiative at LeTourneau University: https://www.letu.edu/academics/faith-science-technology-initiative/index.html Nicea 2025: Why the Council of Nicea? – Dr. Jonathan Lett: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFqsqUCNZNY
Nicea 2025: What the Trinity Tells Us About Who God is – Dr. Jonathan Lett: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FO9Md6yYLx0
Nuance is a podcast of The Collaborative where we wrestle together about living our Christian faith in the public square. Nuance invites Christians to pursue the cultural and economic renewal by living out faith through work every facet of public life, including work, political engagement, the arts, philanthropy, and more.
Each episode, Dr. Case Thorp hosts conversations with Christian thinkers and leaders at the forefront of some of today’s most pressing issues around living a public faith.
Visit wecolabor.com for resources, events, and more.
Episode Transcript
Case Thorp
1700 years ago, a fractured church gathered to say something out loud, to say something together, to say something in public. They gathered not to innovate, but to confess, not to solve every problem, but to name what must not be lost. So last year, 2025, marked the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, an early council in the life of the church where major theological doctrines needed to be discussed, settled and hopefully agreed upon. Well, they tried and it works itself out even today. So I’d like to return to one of the most consequential moments in Christian history and ask why it still matters. Well, welcome to Nuance, where we seek to be faithful in the public square.
I’m Case Thorp, and please like, share, leave a comment. It helps our work reach even further. So last week, I explored with Dr. Jonathan Lett, the Faith Science and Technology Initiative at his school, LeTourneau University. And we asked foundational questions about personhood, flourishing, and society. Well, today we’re going in a completely different direction. And this is partly because I, in my research, came across a wonderful video where Jonathan speaks to the Council of Nicaea and goes back to that fourth century moment and helps us to frame Christian truth in an important way. Jonathan has degrees from Duke University, St. Andrews University in Scotland, and is an assistant professor of theology at LeTourneau, sort of as we discussed, the MIT of Christian universities in Texas. So Jonathan, thanks for being with me and welcome back.
Jonathan Lett
Oh yeah, it’s a pleasure Case, thanks.
Case Thorp
Okay, so give us just some of the historical understanding of what happened in 325 AD and why the group of bishops came together.
Jonathan Lett
Yeah, to understand that, we’ve got to back up a little bit because Nicaea is really the culmination of a slow-brewing debate, really. What’s interesting, and what I think people sometimes maybe miss is that this is fundamentally about how to read scripture.
So even though this is about how to define the Trinity, specifically how to think about the Son in relation to the Father, it’s really about how to read scripture rightly. How do we understand what scripture’s teaching us, showing us? And it’s also about what does it mean to confess that we worship Jesus Christ, the Son of God? And so this council is really downstream from Christian scripture, reading practices, and worship practices.
Case Thorp
Now somebody listening might go, what? Jesus? Like I understand Jesus. Why would we need to discuss the nature of Jesus?
Jonathan Lett
Yeah, so I mean one of the things that if you look at the actual scripture passages that people are arguing about, there’s a really good case to be a heretic. What we would say now is a heretic. Part of the issue comes from the Old Testament, the Jewish monotheism or monotheisms.
And that’s just the idea that there is one God. So you can think of Deuteronomy 6:4, the Shema, Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one. And that’s not a kind of like a mathematical statement. It means there alone is one God. All other gods are false gods. So there’s one true God.
Case Thorp
All these other pagan idols or gods like an Egyptian religion elsewhere. No, no, no, no. There’s one.
Jonathan Lett
Just one. Everyone else is playing. This is for real. And then Jesus basically, in different ways, says, I am that one God. And Scripture attributes that to him. But it’s certainly not cut and dry. So for example, one of the really important passages is Colossians 1:15 about Jesus being the firstborn of creation.
So if he’s the firstborn of creation, it sounds like he’s the first created thing. And if he’s created, then he’s not God.
Case Thorp
He’s coming from a creator.
Jonathan Lett
He might be, yeah, He might be divine, like a divine human type of thing, but He’s not God in the same way that the Father is God. He’s not divine at that level. And so the church knows in some sense that there’s the Father, there’s the Son, there’s the Holy Spirit, and they’re all God. How to explain that is part of the question.
Case Thorp
Especially if you’re an outsider, you’re thinking, wait a minute, y’all say God was one and now it seems like you’re talking about three gods. Muslims today, that’s one of their strongest accusations on Christians that we worship three gods.
Jonathan Lett
Yes, and one of the, you know, for Christians in the Roman world, the Romans think that the Christians are atheists. And they think they’re atheists because they worship Jesus. And we know who Jesus is. We crucified him. No one doubts that Jesus lived and that he was crucified. Like, no one. The historical record is just overwhelming. No one anywhere doubts that, right? And so they’re like, you guys don’t believe in God, you believe in Jesus. And gods can’t die. And that was just a human. And so, you know, when I teach on the Trinity and people and my students maybe get, you know, a little, it’s difficult, you know, like a little tired, I go, well, blame Jesus because it’s really all about Him.
Case Thorp
Well, when I was in seminary, I very distinctly remember when we were in the Trinity portion of our Theology 101 class, I was so confused and overwhelmed by the various approaches and understandings of how to understand Trinity 1 and 3, 3 and 1, that I literally threw the book on the floor and said, you know, I can get by with confessing it and not fully understanding it.
Jonathan Lett
So, you know, back to that question to get to Nicaea. A question is, does the Son have the same status as the Father? Does He have the same origin? So we saw He might be the firstborn of creation. That would be a different origin. We see all sorts of passages where the Son is obedient to the Father or the Son does not necessarily know the Father’s will or the time. We see that the Son submits to the Father. We also see passages that look like the Son gets elevated to a higher place than He had because of what He did like in Hebrews 1 after purification for sins He’s exalted or in Philippians. Or you just think of Jesus’ baptism scene.
Why is Jesus getting baptized? Doesn’t he already know that He’s the Son? And so all of these sort of suggest it’s not straightforward. We have to have some kind, they don’t just interpret themselves. You’ve got to have some way of holding it all together. So there’s a pastor with a large following named Arius, and he’s a bad guy.
You notice there’s not many children named Arius. I mean, none that I know of. So I did have a friend who named his, he had some chickens and he named his chickens different heretics and they were all the chickens, yeah, the chickens were all the heretics basically.
Case Thorp
I love this. Dude, we have chickens and it’s widely known that I’m not a fan. So my wife tends to name them all Southern ladies’ names. So we have May and Grace. We got one with a big puff on her head. She’s kind of snobby looking. So we named her Coco Chanel. So maybe I go around and rename them amongst the heretics of chickens. I love it.
Jonathan Lett
There you go. Pick Arius as a chicken that would be seen like it’s a great chicken, but actually it’s not because…
Case Thorp
Well, this is funny. So for my wedding, I made the bulletin and the literature. I’m a nerdy pastor. I want to make sure it was perfect. So I put this beautiful quote on the inside cover from a theologian. And frankly, at the moment, I can’t remember who. And I found out later that he was declared a heretic. I didn’t do my research. Okay, pick back up with Arius, but I want to set the scene for folks.
Nicaea is a town to the west of Constantinople, what is now Istanbul. And Constantine, correct, Jonathan, is sick and tired of everybody arguing and calls a meeting for everybody to talk about this. And they all meet in this resort town.
Jonathan Lett
Yes, well, the person who calls it is gonna be Alexander of Alexandria, but this meeting is impossible without Constantine going, let’s have this meeting. And he does decide where that meeting is taking place. He’s certainly, yep, which is sort of like, this is the most important place for Christianity. This is sort of being the top bishop is if you’re the…
Case Thorp
And Alexander is a bishop in Alexandria, Egypt? Okay.
Jonathan Lett
Yes. You’re overseeing all of the churches in northern Africa and Egypt. And not incidental to the story, Alexander beat out Arius for that position.
So as Alexander is shepherding his churches, these churches and these pastors, he keeps encountering some Arian ways of thinking about Jesus, which means, and here’s the Arian way of thinking about Jesus.
The Son is divine, but He’s created. He’s created before the foundation of the world, and through the world, the Son creates the world. So God uses the Son, but the Son still has a beginning.
Case Thorp
In a distinct essence or ontology.
Jonathan Lett
Yep, and He’s radically, He’s a perfect image of God, but He’s not God and He doesn’t even know God because God is completely different because God isn’t created. But it does seem to make sense of some scripture passages and it does seem actually, you know, there’s been some surveys done and there’s a lot of evangelical Christians who might accidentally subscribe to this kind of view that He’s sort of the, yeah, the first greatest.
Case Thorp
All the time.
Jonathan Lett
He’s divine, He’s special, but it’s Jesus and God. Right? Jesus and God. So Alexander, he’s very smart. He says, all right, everyone needs to submit to me, all these pastors, you need to submit to me a writing sample and tell me who the Son is. You need to write a little theological paper for me. So all the pastors turn in their little theological homework and…
Case Thorp
Do we have any of these left today?
Jonathan Lett
You know what, that’s a great question. I don’t know. I really don’t know. He looks at it and goes, yikes, it’s worse than I thought. We’ve really gotta get a council on this. And the idea of a council is we need to get all of the people who have been trained, who have been appointed and called to the position of leadership to argue, discuss, and come to agreement on how to talk about who the Son is in relation to the Father.
Case Thorp
And why? Why can’t we just have different views on that? Why does this matter?
Jonathan Lett
Yeah, well, part of the, one of the things that’s just different for us and them that is hard to get back into their sort of frame of mind is that they really think eternal salvation is at stake. And so if you don’t know who Jesus is, well, actually, if you don’t know who Jesus is, but the only way you can affirm who Jesus is is if you have the doctrine of the Trinity.
So probably many Christians tend to think Jesus is the thing that makes Christianity what it is, which is true, but it’s the doctrine of the Trinity that’s actually the foundation for who Christ is. So it’s the Trinity that is the bedrock for the Christian faith. This is who God is: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is the God who’s revealed through the life of Jesus. And if you think about the life of Jesus, His conception happens with the Holy Spirit overshadowing Mary. He’s always in obedient communion with the Father. He’s empowered by the Spirit to do his work. He’s raised by the Father in the Spirit. And so all of his life, you can’t even talk about Jesus’ life apart from his relation to the Father and to the Spirit.
We tend to maybe bracket that out and just think, it’s Jesus. He’s God. But pay attention to the story. More is going on. And that’s who God is. That’s the foundation of Christianity. That’s the identity of God. And that allows us to speak about how Jesus really is fully human and fully God. That this really is the Son who became incarnate. This really is God.
Case Thorp
Well, I want to read the first few lines of the Nicene Creed. Folks, you may be more familiar with the Apostles’ Creed, a shorter thing, confession that we’ll say in worship. The Nicene Creed is the longer one that sometimes folks can go, oh my goodness, why do I have to get so wordy and long? But I just want to read the first few lines to illustrate how they settled this debate.
“I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages. God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father. Through him all things were made for us….”
And he goes on. Whew, that’s a lot of words because I think it really had to be nuanced and clarified.
Jonathan Lett
Yes.
Case Thorp
Before you speak into that, let me hear, why does this matter to get this right? How does it impact other doctrines or even Christian practice if you have a Alexandrian or an Arian view?
Jonathan Lett
Maybe the place to start is just with the name Jesus. Emmanuel means “God with us.” And so if this really isn’t God, but the first creation of God, or the perfect image of God, then we don’t really have God. So here’s a picture of my family here, and this is a perfect image of them.
But what kind of relationship do you have with them? And they’re not here. Like I have an image to remind me when they’re absent. Right? And so the whole claim of Christianity is that God has dwelled among us in fullness in Jesus Christ. And this has to do with redemption and salvation. And that was really important for Nicaea in the way that they talked about this because God had to take on creation. God had to, not some other thing, not some third thing. God himself had to take on creation and by uniting creation to the divine nature of the sun, it stabilizes, it heals, it reorders human nature. So sometimes we have a little bit too much of a transactional view, I think, of salvation where it’s kind of like there’s debts that have to be paid and once you get your account squared, then you’re right. And the scripture uses that language because that’s an important way to think about what happens. But the key thing is that we, even if our debts are settled, I’ve gotta love God and I don’t. I need a new heart.
I need transformed desires. And let’s say I got those two things, all right? Got my account settled, my heart’s transformed, I really do love God, and then I die. So I need a renewed body. I need decay to be done away with. I need eternal life, and that always means dependence on the Word. The world is made through the Word and dependent on the Word to take its form and shape. Yeah. And so it’s no surprise that the Word becomes flesh to reorder it back to God and reestablish eternal life through dependence.
Case Thorp
I also see the connection and believe it was Luther that said that which is not subsumed is not redeemed. Do you know if that’s what Luther said? So on the cross, if it’s not truly God, the grace is not that amazing. It’s amazing grace because God of the universe died for us, not this created thing God made.
Jonathan Lett
Exactly. Yeah, if God doesn’t assume my body, my body’s not healed. If God doesn’t assume my mind, if God doesn’t assume every aspect of being human, if there’s something, some part of being human that God doesn’t take on, then that part isn’t healed.
Case Thorp
Now, when you said Arian was the bad guy, I was like, well, come on. I mean, just because he had different views, is he necessarily a bad guy? Are you familiar with the work of Philip Jenkins in The Jesus Wars? He’s got a number of fantastic books on parts of Christian history and theology that aren’t necessarily in the mainstream. And I love and recommend his book, The Jesus Wars. Now, I also say to folks, if you’re young in your faith, don’t read it. Be pretty mature in your faith because it’s kind of sad and scary to hear what occurred at some of these councils. I don’t know if you know, but remind me, Arian, who was one of the bishops who brought his monks with him and told them, y’all protest in the streets while I’m in these meetings because it can be heard and it’ll help me win this debate. And it comes off a little political, more so than theological.
Jonathan Lett
Yeah, I think that part of what something like Nicaea, which is a council, pushes to the forefront for Christians is that there has to be a belief in the Spirit’s work in the Church. And this actually even gets to Scripture, because you have the church, in the Old Testament scriptures before you have the New Testament. And it is the Spirit working in the church to produce what we call Holy Scripture, like truly Holy Scripture from God, set apart from God, God breathed. But also in the canonization process of picking out which scriptures, of discerning those, that was also a church work. And so there has to be some conviction that the Spirit is at work in the people of God in a special and unique way, not completely unlike Israel. If you think of the story of Israel, whoo, it’s political, it’s messy, it’s, I mean, it’s a total train wreck in many ways. And one of the amazing things is that God uses that. I mean, starting Matthew’s gospel with the genealogy of like a Game of Thrones Netflix show with the kind of incest and murder and like those people are in there and they shouldn’t all be there.
Case Thorp
Right. Genesis is tough. Yeah, I mean, not so appropriate, actually in seminary, I’m reading through parts of Genesis that I had never come across in my children’s Sunday school because it’s pretty rough. And I threw the Bible down. I’m like, these people are just a bunch of white trash. And because of the incest and the murder and it’s tough, but yet on the other side, it’s real people, it’s real life. And that to me accentuates the amazing part of the grace.
Jonathan Lett
Yeah, and I think it’s true for every Christian too. Our motives are mixed, our best intentions, we can’t even see those through sometimes or we don’t have the best intentions, we don’t have the wisdom we need, and God works through us. And in spite of us to bless people. So I think, you know, it might not be tabloid type of stuff, though it could be. God’s at work in similar ways in our own lives. I think that’s kind of the point of the story. It’s all about God and God’s working through people who really aren’t worthy or capable of being God’s covenant partners.
Case Thorp
You and me. Now some of the key terms in the Nicene Creed that were most contested, the idea that Jesus is begotten, not made, and then the word consubstantial with the Father. I want to reflect on those, but let me first share this and see if you agree or have heard the same. One time a very respected professor of theology said to me, in our case, part of the dynamic of that council that made it hard for them was the language barrier where you had Greek, certainly well known in the Roman language of choice, but transitioning to Latin. And then you had other local languages. So understanding fully what is consubstantiation or what is homo ousios and all these ontological controversy as well. You know, if they just had a better common understanding of where they were coming from in their language, it might’ve been easier. You heard that?
Jonathan Lett
Yeah, the main, I think the main issue that both sides had was that they wanted biblical language. So it didn’t seem like these were arguments necessarily made in good faith from the Arians because they were saying homo ousios, which means of the same being, homo ousios is not in the Bible. So you’re like importing this philosophy. You’re adding metaphysics and ontology and philosophically freighted concepts. And then Athanasius is responding, well, your key term is unbegotten or unoriginate, we should say. Like for God is unoriginate, has no beginning. And that’s not in scripture either. So why are you starting with these concepts? Athanasius, who’s post-Nicaea, so one of the key things here is the creed that you read.
That final form wasn’t at Nicaea in 325. It was, we got the basic terms, unbegun, and we got homo ousios or consubstantial, and then there were debates about whether those words worked and what they meant, and so the full version is at Constantinople in 381. And also there’s like nothing about the Holy Spirit until then. I mean it just says, and the Holy Spirit too.
Case Thorp
Oops. Yeah, how did we forget that?
Jonathan Lett
Part of that was just if we can get the Father-Son relation right, then we’ll be able to get the other relations in the Trinity correct as well. I think that language issue is a real one in terms of the Greek, Latin, and the different localities. But maybe even more fundamentally, just we want a biblical word.
And that word, homo ousias, also had a little bit of a checkered history because a condemned heretic from the second century used it. And so they’re like, but this is actually kind of true. We always pick words that have a history and a context. And it’s up for the church to define them. I mean, take a word like freedom.
We Christians need to give that word its true meaning. So what Athanasius, kind of Orthodox, the heroes, so to speak, what they were saying is, look, we’re defining this word based on the life of Christ. We’re not going to import Greek ideas. What we’re going to do is we’re going to work from Jesus Christ out and we’re going to say our language.
We take the revealed names, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and then we try to work it out from the top down. We don’t take a word from the bottom, which would be, God is un-originate, or something and then try to take it up into God and fit God into that. What we have to do is just start right at the top and begot…
Case Thorp
Is that a Barthian approach, I believe? Did he add to our understanding of Nicaea?
Jonathan Lett
It’s definitely Barthian. It’s definitely, Karl Barth is very keen on this idea, but I think it’s much older than him. But we can’t help but hear things through Barth.
Case Thorp
And if this is your first time to hear my conversation with Dr. Lett, it was our episode last week where we established he’s quite the Barthian scholar, Karl Barth, a 20th century theologian. Well, I’m touched by the way in which the Creed begins, “we believe,” not I believe. It’s very intentional, I imagine.
Jonathan Lett
Yeah, yep, it is. It’s signifying that this is a communal faith. This is something that we’ve received. And I would say it fits with scripture in that pretty much every time you see in the New Testament, if Texans had translated it, I’m in Texas, they would have said, y’all, “you all,” right? And so we believe.
And so it definitely gets, this is a communal confession. This is something that’s received in and through community. And if you can just think of where do we say creeds? Typically, I mean fundamentally they’re in worship. Right? So the setting matters and makes sense of that pronoun “we.” And so yeah, we receive it and it’s bigger than myself.
I’m inhabiting something that exists before me and that exists beyond me right now. Part of the amazing thing about the creed, the Nicene or the Apostles creed, is that it’s been recited by Christians all over the world throughout history. One of the, I asked my students, how many of you have said this creed? And I teach at an inter-denominational evangelical institution. So not many have, right?
Case Thorp
Heard from their non-denominational background.
Jonathan Lett
And so for them it’s, yeah exactly, so most of them it’s kind of strange and foreign. And I just provocatively say you’re probably in the minority of Christians who globally and historically who’ve said this. And so it shows something about the church as the center of the Christian life in the center of God’s activity in the world.
Case Thorp
Yeah. Okay, so I’m going to tell you how I explain something often in my teaching settings, and I want you to tell me if I’m a heretic, okay? To put it lightly, right? So, I will say that sometimes our language, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is limiting in the way in which it suggests the birth of a second entity, such that I am the father of Alexandra, Charles, and Brooks. And so our minds go towards the Father being separated from the Son in that Arian sense. However, it is biblical language and the language given to us by scripture in Jesus. So therefore we do need to use it, but we don’t need to think of the biological model, but rather this sort of begotten and consubstantial model. Do you think that’s fair?
Jonathan Lett
Yeah, no, I think, I mean, what’s so great about that too is, I sort of forgot to mention this, but like, Arias is pointing, like, Father, Son. We know how fathers and sons work. Like, first there’s a father, then there’s a son. And the father exists, and then the son has a beginning in the father.
I think one of the amazing things about the Trinity, Christian theology is like this, as most of Christian theology is like this too, because we’re dealing with revelation and trying to appropriate that into human speech. And so the way that I kind of describe begotten, which means basically, generate, birth, to create, to conceive, is this is like technical language. There’s like a little asterisk by it. This language only works for God and it really doesn’t, it doesn’t make sense for anything else and it forces us to kind of leave everything we know behind and try to think about God that way. And that’s the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit language. It’s interesting, I have my students read The Theological Orations by Gregory, and in it he just talks about how no one thinks that this refers to God, Father, Son refer to gender or body. He’s just like, I mean, of course no one actually even thinks this right now, so I don’t even really need to go into it. You know, which I think about our day and age, and that’s the first place our minds go. And for them, they just knew, you know, it’s harder to explain what you mean by, theology is often harder to explain what you mean than it is what you don’t mean.
Case Thorp
Yeah, sure, sure.
Jonathan Lett
It’s a little easier to say what this does not mean. It’s a little harder to say what it does mean. And that’s because theological speech really says that which is, not how it is. So we sometimes want a how explanation, like you would for creatures. And we just don’t have access to the how. We can describe it, that it is this way, but the how is beyond human comprehension and a proper mystery.
Case Thorp
Well, so I found that I can confess something that I don’t understand. Why must I insist on intellectually processing it and understanding it? Well, that’s the ways of the world. Can I come under the authority of Christian tradition and biblical witness that I just can’t fully explain? And that’s okay.
Jonathan Lett
Can I, yeah, that just reminds me, can I just say the doctrine of the Trinity is about relationship with God and how you live your life. And so part of what I’m thinking of here is Anselm because he has that famous phrase, faith seeking understanding. Now what he means by that is you receive the faith and you put it into practice. As you live with this idea, this doctrine, the faith, it makes sense to you because it works, kind of. Think of a theorem. Your teacher gives you the Pythagorean theorem, A squared plus B squared equals C squared. You’re like, okay, now what? Well, solve these equations.
See how it makes sense of these shapes and of these problem sets. So you accept it, you put it into practice, and you go, I see. It makes sense of it. Now if you asked, well, how is it true that A squared plus B squared equals C squared? That’s a different kind of question. Then this is what it means to receive it and to understand what it means.
We receive that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And then we live our lives in Christ, empowered by the Spirit to live the life that Christ lived already in our place on our behalf. To join into the love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Or you think about prayer. So this is a great example because sometimes we think if prayer is me saying, God, I gotta get the ball rolling, you know, and I’m a little stressed or I need to have a nice cup of coffee. I need to have everything just so, beautiful place. But the reality is that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are an eternal relationship. And Jesus Christ as our great high priest is interceding for us right now. He’s praying for me and He’s praying for you. And so prayer is joining in to that life that’s ongoing already and regardless of your attentiveness to it, it’s the same thing for praying for someone else. If I’m to pray for you, I know that Jesus Christ is praying for you. He’s ministering to you. And so in prayer, I ask the Spirit to give me the words that Christ is praying for you, to see you the way that Christ sees you or that the Father loves you. So prayer is fundamentally Trinitarian. The Christian life is fundamentally Trinitarian. And that’s the real, I mean, that’s the heart of the doctrine. It’s not just trying to solve a difficult concept. It’s trying to read scripture rightly and say, this is what it really looks like that God relates to us as God. It’s worship. It’s obedience.
Case Thorp
What you’ve described there is so helpful because I make the connection between this complicated doctrine but in my very specific Christian life. Last question, on the faith and work front, what difference does the Nicene Creed make to my vocational enterprise?
Jonathan Lett
A lot. Almost the question’s overwhelming.
Case Thorp
That’s a whole episode.
Jonathan Lett
Yeah, I think one thing just to continue that idea that I was working on is that whatever it is that we’re called to do, we are participating in what God is already doing. We are sharing in the life of God and what God is already up to. So God has been relating eternally in himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and God loves the world that way. God opens his life out to the world that way. And so as Christians working in the public sphere, we need to be attentive to the fact that it’s not up to me to sort of establish something or to discern something, but I need to attend to the God who is active in the world as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Who is at work and what does the Spirit do? The Spirit is drawing people to face the Son. Drawing people to the Son to worship the Father. So the Spirit is at work pointing to Christ and Christ is at work pointing to the Father. And the Father is sending the Spirit, the Father is sending the Son. And so if you could sort of imagine reality, God is already there at work and what we need to do is attend to the way that God is already active in the world. So it’s not up to me. The buck doesn’t stop with me. I need to join in. I need to come to a place and go not, huh, nothing’s going on here. What can I do? But how is God already at work here? What is God up to? And so, you know, that would be one thing. Another thing just briefly, and we talked a lot about this last week, last episode, is that if God is eternally the communion of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, then fellowship, community are so important for flourishing and for a Christian life, for the public sphere, and that human beings aren’t into these sort of like autonomous individuals. And that self-giving is the heart of living. It’s the heart of a good life. And all of that makes perfect sense in light of the God who reveals himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the life of Jesus.
Case Thorp
So good. Jonathan, thank you. I really appreciate you being with us.
Jonathan Lett
Thanks for having me. This has been a lot of fun.
Case Thorp
Well, listeners, just so you know, this anniversary of the Nicene Creed, it’s not about nostalgia. It’s about remembering who we are and what we confess and why it still matters for how we work, live and build our lives. So for more information on Dr. Lett, you can go to LeTourneau University’s website, letu.edu. It will be in our show notes. I’m also going to post a link to his lecture that he gave at their recent Nicaea Council Forum. We’ll have that link in our show notes. Well, that’s all for today. Thanks for joining us, whether you’re on your commute or you’re working out. If something here clarified or steadied your thinking, share this episode with a friend. Join us at wecolabor.com or across the social media platforms. If you go to our website and drop your email, I’ll send you Zeitgeist, our latest journal on faith, work, and culture. Many thanks to the Stein Foundation for making today’s episode possible. I’m Case Thorp, and God’s blessings on you.
