Carey Griffel: [00:00:00] Welcome to the 14th episode of Genesis Marks the spot where we raid the ivory tower of Biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel, and this is my 14th episode. That's two times seven, for those who think in math, or maybe for those of us who like to look for number patterns in the Bible, of which there are plenty.
The number seven is of course, amazingly repeated, but we're not going to be talking about math today. We're going to get into another theme that is repeated from start to finish in the Bible, and that is about trees, and we're going to zoom in a bit on the idea of fruitfulness and multiplication. And when I say we, I actually don't just mean me and you, but I've got a wonderful guest on for this conversation.
So without further ado, Welcome [00:01:00] to Jon Dillon of the Two Trees Podcast. I really appreciate that you're willing to come and chat with me. And also, thanks a lot for the shout-outs to this podcast from yours. I am loving the fact that the podcasts have community and they interact with one another, and that's what makes podcasting special in in a lot of ways to me.
Jon Dillon: Yeah, it's, it's an honor to to be podcasting and I'll shout yours out all the time. It's good podcast. And so we, we enjoy your content and then we steal it all and pretend we came up with it. That's the d
Carey Griffel: Yes. It's a good way to do it. And it's great that we're having kind of a similar trajectory, but also very different trajectory as well.
One thing I really like about yours is how you really try so hard to bring in the pastoral elements into it and the application. Did you wanna give a brief introduction of yourself and who you are and what you do for those who don't know you?
Jon Dillon: Sure. I'm from West Virginia and I grew up, uh, up a holler.[00:02:00]
God has just been tremendously good to me. I've been in ministry for, coming up on 20 years. And, I kind of grew up in a tradition where you weren't supposed to have questions about the Bible that was really seen as not having enough faith or, you know, doubting your pastors, your teachers.
And so if you strayed too far with your questions, you'd, you'd get whacked pretty heavy. And, that, that was the case with most of the, the groups of people that I was running around with. But my father, who was a pastor, never quite fit that mold. And he taught me to ask questions. And one day he gave me a copy of Dr. Heiser's book and he said, read that and tell me what you think. And I read it and I was sure it was wrong because he wasn't saying what I would've said. And so I went back and read it again, and then I was convinced that I was wrong and I [00:03:00] needed to change a lot, and that that really shook me to the bottom of my theological core there that I had missed something.
And I had spent hours and hours reading Scripture. And then once he pointed it out, it was so clear and so plain, and the Bible Project came along and started really just planting where, where he had had created, that interest in my mind. And one thing led to another, and I began just to fall in love with my Bible in, in a much fuller way than I had been before.
And so I really have to, to say, you know, thank you to, to those two ministries for having stirred up in me the freedom to ask questions and also the love for being surprised at the mysteries of Scripture. Because when it doesn't say what you want it to say, or you think it's going to say, it makes you stop and just hold all the horses and think, well, what's going on here?
Carey Griffel: So how long between you first getting Dr. Heiser's book [00:04:00] and finally kind of conceding the point? How long did that take you?
Jon Dillon: Oh, it took me about a year because he has all those footnotes. Yeah. All those footnotes. And then I looked up as many of them as I could. But I was, I was already thinking that there was a lot more to the supernatural world than others were comfortable talking about.
And I was already down with the Genesis 6 sons of God and the nephilim and to hear somebody articulate it the way that he did was, was just, it was so helpful to me. And, and I'm just slow about things. I like to read. I enjoy reading, but I don't make up my mind quickly. And so I wanted to take my time and move through it, but it, it took me about a year and I wouldn't say I'm done.
When I listen to the Naked Bible Podcast, you know, I'm always like, man, I've read that. And I never saw that. That's awesome. Really, as a pastor, [00:05:00] there was a fear of not having answers or you try to present yourself as though you do have answers. And I think what he taught me was instead of having answers to love people and to love the text, and if you didn't have an answer, go find one and, and then engage in a conversation with that person following on. And so it, it really was just a, a radical transformation, in my mind that, that really changed what I was up to as a pastor. It wasn't just to, to have answers for everyone, but really to facilitate loving on Scripture and because we love Scripture, we're introduced to Jesus and the movement of the Holy Spirit.
And, it's just lots of fun. Anyone not enjoying this is doing it wrong,
Carey Griffel: Right? And what I love is how you can combine the idea of being able to ask questions with the fact that you still hold a high view of Scripture.
Jon Dillon: Yeah, Scripture. I'm so loving [00:06:00] Scripture. The Bible is it. I I want to see it in the text.
And for me, I had also taught literature for about a decade at several schools. I taught in Charlotte and I taught in West Virginia, and I love literature. But for me there was this disconnect between books. and my Bible. And when I started to see all those literary patterns in the Bible and that these ancient authors were using ancient literary techniques, man, that it was, it was like finding out that, you know, these two things that I loved were really, playing into each other.
And I, I remember sitting down and just really when I started realizing this and thinking, you know, Jesus, this is just a treasure, you know, I love it and I'm sure I'll spend the rest of my life, you know, not just kind of waiting around the edges of the pool, which is why podcasts like yours are fun because you really dig in deep and, and churn up the earth.
And it's, it's a [00:07:00] blessing for, for people who are teaching or Sunday school or, or pastors just to be able to talk with other people who are thinking about this stuff.
Carey Griffel: Have you had anybody ask the question of, well, if it's literature, does that mean it's not true? Or that I can't take it seriously, or, you know, anything along those lines?
Jon Dillon: Oh, for sure. So a lot of people dislike literature, . They think that it's not , they misunderstand it. And, and so for sure there's an element in our culture that there's truth and then there's literature. And that's just not, so, literature is a way of discussing the truth. And so I think those stories, like for instance, I really think there was a Garden of Eden.
I think there really was an Adam. I think there really was an eve, and I think the Bible is talking about it in a, in a figurative way at times. It's not one or the other. It's both. And it's, it's not video footage, it's literature. And [00:08:00] so then when they want to connect back to those ideas of Eden, they have these symbols set up ready to go numbers.
Like the number 10 is all through the book of Genesis. You've got rivers and gardens. And once or twice maybe would be an accident, but it was all over the place. And that was really what was kind of frustrating for me. And I was like, how did I not queue in on this? This is right up my alley, but it took somebody else helping me and, and just walking me through that.
Carey Griffel: So how did you settle on the theme of the two trees for your podcast?
Jon Dillon: Well before I loved Dr. Heiser and his teachings. I loved CS Lewis. Oh, and I am just a, a tremendous fan of, of CS Lewis and of JRR Tolkien and have always loved trees. I grew up in West Virginia. I spent my childhood chasing crawdads and creeks and climbing trees, and I've [00:09:00] always just loved them.
And, when I began to study the motifs of Scripture, the literary movements, I was just really drawn to the repetition of the use of trees, the idea of the tree, of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life. And I kind of thought that mankind ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and then suddenly we knew what evil was. And then that didn't make sense to me because if they didn't know what evil was, why should they not eat from the tree? It seemed like a really strange thing to say. And then the more I thought about it, I, I began to hear Dr. Hauser teach and, and lots of other people, and they began to present it not as a magical tree, but as a testing point, that this is where you either trust God or you define right and wrong for yourself.
And that motif, that theme is echoed throughout [00:10:00] all of Scripture. Trees are mentioned constantly. Gardens are mentioned constantly, and especially when you get into the Jesus story. And so I, I was kind of custom built to look at things through the lens of trees, I think just from my childhood and my love of the inklings of Lewis and Tolkien.
And so in my mind it's, it's a useful frame of reference for talking about the ministry of Jesus.
Carey Griffel: Why do you think trees are important? Why are they such a theme that Scripture uses?
Jon Dillon: Well, trees are, they're living beings of a completely different kind than us. They don't age on our level.
They, they almost, it's as though they're another type of life and they bring life to everything that's around them. We breathe the oxygen that breathes, that trees produce. We eat their [00:11:00] fruit. We live in their shade. And so for a being, for a thing who has no idea that I'm there, it blesses my life so much.
And when I began to read Scripture, I saw Jesus talking about people. As trees talking about kingdoms as trees. Sometimes he even talks about supernatural beings as though their trees themselves. And and that just fascinated me that this one thing, this picture of a tree could be a window into thinking about all these different types of, of questions and of mysteries.
And, and it fascinated me. And I, I really, I, I use that as my, my go-to touchpoint is when God made us, he made us to follow him. And we either choose to follow him or we choose to define right and wrong for ourselves. And, and that's, that is [00:12:00] what the trees of the garden seem to be about. Are you going to follow the Lord or are you going to pursue things your own way?
Because there is a way that sea right to a man, but the end thereof is destruction and, and. When I really started following it all through the Old Testament, it took me to Jesus on the cross. And that's a tree of death and it's a tree of life. And I was just loving it. And Jesus is in the garden when he's raised.
And I just had to really put the book down at that point and say, this is, this is beautiful and this is all connecting my favorite thoughts. And I, I'm just gonna, I, I'm a nerd. I can't help it. I love all this stuff and, and it, it's good for my soul. And I think Jesus made us that way to be, to be enraptured with his creation and to look at the things around us, not just as resources, but as wonder.
In West Virginia, [00:13:00] there's, a lot of mining. My family were coal miners and it's, it's, it's a very poor place and people do the best they can, to, to get by. And for most of my life, I watched places that, you know, that I loved kind of just disappear, as, as the mines expanded or as jobs dried up.
But the one thing that we had lots and lots of were these beautiful trees. And, and they were a stabilizing force in my childhood. And, and so I think that when I think of things that I love, the forest, the streams of the woods, all of that is, is special to me. And so to see Jesus treat it special in the Scriptures, just really resonates with me.
Carey Griffel: Yeah, that's really interesting. Like, so your, your experience with trees is going to be very different from mine because I grew up in the high desert. So to us, like there's not the, the wall of trees [00:14:00] everywhere unless you're going up in the mountains, then you do have the wall of trees. So here, if you have a tree, a tree is kind of a special thing, like it's noticeable.
And when you have a really large tree or a unique type of tree or a different type of tree, it really stands out to us here. So trees are just like, you can come from different climates, different cultures and trees are still so essential and important and really stand out.
Jon Dillon: Yeah. And, I think that that's definitely true even though when you're in a place filled with trees, There are certain trees that are special that Right.
Stand out to you and you can look up in the tree and there may be turkeys perched up there and under the ground. Oh, there's all kinds of, of little like chipmunks and things running around squirrels and, and it's, it's its own little world, right? And to think of that's what God has made also, that we are, we're in the garden of the Lord and he has placed so much good [00:15:00] around us.
But what's the expression? You can't see the forest for the trees. I think that we get in such a hurry that we overlook these things and we stop being amazed by, by the natural wonders that are around us. West Virginia is that way. Everyone in the mountains wants to vacation at the beach and everyone at the beach wants to vacation in the mountains.
You know, we all wish we were somewhere else, but I would encourage your listeners, you know, stop and go sit under a tree for a bit. I think Jesus told his people, you know, go be bird watchers. You know, go, go look at the birds and look at the lilies. There's a tremendous amount of peace to be gathered from just being in the creation that God made and, and really stop into look at it, because you're gonna notice the tree is, it's covered in ants.
You didn't even know those were there until you laid down. There's stuff going on all over that thing, and the more you look at it, the more you'll notice. And, and I found life to be that way, that if you just glance over things, you [00:16:00] miss a tremendous amount of the wonder that God is doing in our lives.
Carey Griffel: Right. Yeah. So for as far as trees and tracing those themes through the Bible, where do they pop up and what kinds of themes are they associated with?
Jon Dillon: Well, trees are, well, let, let, lemme share a story with you, and this may, may help a little bit. Again, I grew up in West Virginia and my grandparents had cherry trees in their backyard.
And, those cherry trees they used all the time. We would go out and pick the cherries, and we loved them. They were really, we weren't allowed to climb in them. They were for, for growing fruit. But, they were also picked over by bears. They were picked over by birds, and they brought all kinds of different things.
Into my grandparents' backyard. And just the fact that that tree was a tree and put out fruit brought critters from all [00:17:00] over the mountain to rest under its shade. It brought humans in to make pies and to, to pick its fruit from its branches. And, and the concept of being fruitful is also connected not just to the idea of having children.
That's what fruit is for. It's a carrier for a seed, but the fruit of a tree is far more than just the next generation of trees. It's joy, it's it's excitement. It's, it's bears in your backyard and birds in the trees and bees in the field, and it's, it's wonderful. It, it brings excitement and diversity to life.
And so in the Bible you'll oftentimes find that it talks about fruit. And that Christians in particular are to be growing the fruit of the spirit. Things like love and joy and peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, that these are the marks of a [00:18:00] fruitful Christian tree. And, and when I started to think about as a pastor, you know, what is it that I'd love to see my church become is, is orchard.
Like, I would love to see us become wandering trees, wherever we go. We bring goodness and we bring abundance and we bring love and joy and peace and, and that image of, of a tree that, that doesn't really ask a lot. But produces is radically different from the church culture that I experience in the world around me.
We've become a consumer culture. It's about give me this and what can I get for that? When what we see in Scripture is that Christians instead are called to be, the cause of joy and hope, and that the world where we find ourselves should be better and stronger because we're there. In Jeremiah, [00:19:00] it talks about when the children of Israel go into exile and, and he says, while you're there, pray for the peace of the city.
And that really struck me. I was like, you know, don't pray for it to be overthrown. Don't pray for it to be judged that wherever you go, love your enemies. Love your neighbors as yourself. And this image of trees as vehicles of. Shade and of providing food and fruit and sweetness and joy. That's all wrapped up in the concept of trees.
But you can also have bad trees that are just waiting to clobber you with a stick from up at the top of its branches, or whose fruit will, will mess you up. Not all fruit can be eaten and the Bible talks about the fruit of this world as well as though the, you have to decide which tree you will be like either to choose the [00:20:00] tree of life and grow the fruit of the spirit, or to choose to be our own masters and our own gods and to define right and wrong for ourselves.
And so I think probably the most applicable part when I see trees in Scripture, Is that immediate call to fruitfulness of being part of God's kingdom and, and really blessing others around us.
Carey Griffel: The first time we see this idea of fruitfulness, it's in Genesis one with the creation of man. Most of the time, in my experience, when I'm talking to people, when they're, when they're reading that passage, the thing that that they go to immediately is, well, Adam and Eve, were supposed to have kids.
That's all that this means. They kind of load the entire idea of biological reproduction into the idea and they, they don't take it anywhere beyond that part.
Jon Dillon: Yeah. Well, I mean, that's part of it. There's a great joy at having children. We're expecting our second child and we're [00:21:00] baby proofing our house as fast as we can.
And, I'm excited about it. There's, there's a tremendous amount of joy that comes with a child. But that's not all that it means to be fruitful. To be fruitful, isn't just to carry a seed. It isn't just to have a child, but the existence of fruit is, is there to feed that seed. That's what it's there for.
And so Adam and Eve are told, well, let me, lemme just read that. It says, and God blessed them, and he said, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. And subdue it. And so you can definitely see where Adam and Eve were supposed to have children, but did it matter how they raised them? Did it matter what they did after they had the child?
I think it does. And the Bible is pretty clear that even people who can't have children can still be fruitful. That there's a calling to garden to make things around [00:22:00] this better and brighter and more hopeful. And especially as our world grows darker and pushes itself further from the light of the cross, then the message of being fruitful becomes important in the sense of, of feeding one another, of protecting one another, of bringing joy to one another.
And so I think there definitely is the multiplication part of that, because that's where trees come from, is from seeds and people come from people. But I don't think that that's all that it is. I also think our culture is, and has always just put sex in its own category and emphasized it almost to like a God ship level.
Even if you're swearing like the, the biggest, you know, I'm not gonna curse on your show, but you guys know where I'm going with this. Like, the idea is that that element of reproduction becomes the whole point. And [00:23:00] in reality it's much more than that. It isn't just having a child. We, as a dad, like I want to be a good father and that doesn't just mean have a son or a daughter.
That means that I have to love and I have to be a protector and a provider, and I need to be a good husband. I need to be honest. I need to be truthful. I'm preparing a place for my child to grow up. . And so that fruitful concept is much, much more than just, Hey, have a baby. Well, you can kinda see that all through the Scripture.
David is a good example of this, just that, if we're going to be filled with fruit, the fruit of the spirit is what comes to my mind. It's that love and compassion. And so I know we, my wife and I didn't have children for almost 10 years. Well actually it was over 10 years and we just thought, you know, God wasn't going [00:24:00] to allow us to be parents.
We were educators. And so we were around children but none of our own. And I had to at times simply say, you know, God, if you would like us to be parents, we would love to be, but can you be fruitful even if you don't have children? I think so. I think for sure. I don't know if that makes any sense at all, but that's, that's what I think.
Carey Griffel: Yes, I agree. It seems like God has created something in creation for a purpose. If they're only having children, just for the sake of having children, that doesn't seem to fulfill any of God's purpose that he reveals in the text. Yeah.
Jon Dillon: And he says, you know, I want you to be fruitful and multiply. And then he talks about having dominion over the earth to be an imager, to shape it, to make it better.
And it's much easier to sit back and complain about how it is than to be the kind of person who makes it better. What comes to my mind is [00:25:00] Jesus when he talks about, you know, the, the be attitudes, and he says it isn't just the ones who are at peace, who are blessed, but blessed are those who are peace makers that see it as their calling to bring peace wherever they go.
And, and I connect all of that back to the. Of the Tree of Life to the fruit of the spirit. That it isn't just something that we do because we're good people, but it's something that we do because the seed of the kingdom of God is in us. And that it is his power. It is his love that fills us and overflows that you can drop a seed to the ground, but unless there's life in that seed, it's just a paperweight. It's just debris on the forest floor. But God brings about new life and new hope and, and inside of that little acorn is, is a great tree. And, and I think that this tremendous hope [00:26:00] for the Christian there, that our efforts, even if they're very small, are part of a much greater effort to be the garden, to bring about this love of God in a way that people can see and taste, what's the phrase, taste and see that the Lord is good.
You got me all riled up here. I could go on for a long time, but I, I better not. But it hasn't, I, I'm, I, I wanna say this, right? If you've got 25 kids, God bless you. That's great. Now, be a good mom and a good dad and love all of them like you should. It isn't just enough to be producing lots of children, that there is a call of how we should treat our children and how we should treat one another that's implicit in that call to be fruitful, to really be filled with fruit.
Carey Griffel: Do you think those two words are the same? Are they synonyms to be fruitful and to multiply? Or, or is there nuance there?
Jon Dillon: I think there's nuance [00:27:00] there.
But I think they build on each other. Hebrew poetry uses two ideas that are very similar, that help you walk around an idea. And so I, I kind of view this as walking around the tree. The tree is fruitful and because it is fruitful, it multiplies and it brings about more of itself, to others and to people around it.
And so, there they are not synonyms. There, there is difference in what they are. And, and I would encourage your listeners to stop and think about that. What does it mean for me to be filled with fruit? And what does it mean for me to multiply? Sometimes it can mean you should have children, but you can multiply without having children.
There are people who you try to be like, Or who try to be like you people who you are impacting on a [00:28:00] daily basis, and the fruit that you grow will affect them in the way that they live. If your tree is putting out bad fruit, it causes sickness to those around it, those that need it, that are eating from it.
And so it's a, it's a really subtle and beautiful way of teaching about the way we should be.
Carey Griffel: I think it's interesting that the term fruitful appears before the term multiply.
Jon Dillon: Why do you think that's interesting? What catches your attention about that?
Carey Griffel: Because if, if you're thinking, because I could see how people would attach the multiply idea more towards the biological side, right?
Like you're, you're multiplying humanity by having more children. Whereas it's a little bit easier to see how being fruitful is not necessarily all about having kids, right? So if they're supposed to first be fruitful and then they're supposed to multiply, there's kind of an idea of, of them maybe enriching [00:29:00] themselves before they can properly multiply, if that makes any sense.
Jon Dillon: Oh, for sure. I mean, how often have, have we passed on bad habits or bad character traits? Just because it, we, we didn't really think about it. It's one, one of the things that I hear as a pastor all the time is, you know, I'll preach on something and someone will feel convicted and they'll, they immediately try to find reasons why they're okay.
That's just how I am, or that's just how I was raised. And I'm not arguing that that probably is just how you are and that probably is how you were raised. But the seed of the kingdom of God, the fruit of the spirit calls us beyond what we can naturally be. It is to be filled with the fruit. And when the question becomes, why am I filled with fruit, I'm not filled.
I mean, we've all thrown away food of our, out of our refrigerator. That we paid good money [00:30:00] for, and you put it in your fridge and it went bad because you didn't get to it fast enough, or you found the like lunch meat in the lunch meat drawer and wondered, you know, when did that go in there? And you're questioning whether it's safe to eat or not.
It isn't about accumulating stuff. It's not about getting as much fruit as you can, but it's about the, the whole point of those cherry trees in my grandparents' yard was that they put cherries out. That fruit was not for the tree, it was for the bears, it was for the birds, it was for new trees. It was for my grandparents, it was for others.
And here the Christian needs to really stop and look at that and say, why do I want the blessings of God? Is it so that I'll be happier? Is it so that I'll be more comfortable? Or do I view myself like a tree? That is for [00:31:00] the garden, that is for others to come and rest under its branches. That is for the feeding of the multitude.
And I think that if we could think that way, not just about gathering more goods for ourselves, but about becoming part of this iic ideal of bringing abundance of love and joy and peace, hopefulness back into the world, that that is something that not only gives God glory, but is life changing to the communities that we live in.
Carey Griffel: Yeah. There's also a sense that both trees and fruit, they have mature seasons. They have time that they have to wait until they're ready. Right. And, and time in which they need to, in, in seasons where they're not ready.
Jon Dillon: Yeah. And when one is ready, that doesn't mean they're all ready. And I, so Jacob is my, my [00:32:00] host on this show, Jacob and Martin listener on the two trees.
And I tried to get Jacob to read Unseen Realm for like two years. And he would not do it. Eventually he found some YouTube videos and he liked that. But you know, I was ready to talk right there, right then. And it really wasn't until Martin, years later, wanted to do a podcast and started his own podcast that really God brought these things around.
And so just because I was already preaching Divine Council, and the imaging of God and on other things that Dr. Heiser has really brought to my forefront of my mind, didn't mean that I was ready to do podcasting. If you had called me last year, I'd have told you to go away. I was not ready to do that.
But it's, it's part of God's timing.
Carey Griffel: And also this can help us, I think, understand that we don't need to be pushing ourselves a as, oh, I [00:33:00] don't think I'm producing fruit, or, I don't think I'm doing the right things here. Or they're, and a lot of times we're not seeing the fruit we're producing even because it's being produced elsewhere, or people just aren't interacting with us to tell us, oh, you blessed me in this way, or I'm learning this from you, or whatever it is.
Jon Dillon: Yeah. So the, the Bible, when it talks about the fruit of the spirit, some, some of them are, are easily overlooked things like gentleness. It's, it doesn't say the fruit of the spirit is good. Preach. Or even good podcasting. You know, and those are good things, but the call to be gentle, the call to self-control, the call to faithfulness, these are the small things that bring about great change.
And the connection between the tree is that the whole tree works together. Without the leaves, there is no fruit. And the leaves, there's, there's lots of little ones. You know, [00:34:00] some, some are are, you know, fuller than others. But it's the fact that there are all of them together being tree ish, that is what makes the whole thing alive and awake.
And so as a Christian, I would encourage you don't, if you're not a preacher or you're not a podcaster, that's totally fine. I mean, there are days in, I'm not sure I'm supposed to do those things, but it's the call to be loving, to be compassionate, to be empathetic, to be gentle, against such things there is no law. And as a matter of fact, if you are those things, you, you're showing the love of Christ at work in you. Now, we have a tendency just to focus on big things. Days of graduation days, the day I get married, or the day I'll get this diploma or this, that, or the other thing. [00:35:00] But life happens not just on those days, but all the days in between.
It isn't just about the day when, you know, people finally realize how fruitful you are. It's just the act of being and the tree really doesn't mind me much. , but its relationship is with the sun. If there's no sun and there's no rain, that tree cannot be, it draws its strength from things that we barely even think about.
And the Christian will find the same. You can get the applause of men. Okay. You could get some awesome reviews on your podcast, but it won't carry you through dark times. That as soon as someone gives you a five star review, there's some jerk out there who's like, oh, two stars, . You know, and that's just people.
There are good ones and moon ones, but the approval of God, the blessing of God, that goes far beyond [00:36:00] what people are capable of doing. And I would encourage you, it's the small faithfulness, guys. That's, that's what this becomes about. Not just a mo the moments of big decision making, but about who you are when no one's looking the.
The book of Timothy, second Timothy has this great line. Paul says, what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust the same, to faithful men who are capable to teach others, also share in the suffering is a good soldier. And I, I think that's, that's so great. Like the whole point of this isn't that we're not replaceable.
The whole point is that we are replaceable because the fruit comes from God. He's capable of using. , all of us to do the mission that he needs done. I had a professor in college who used to say, your mission field is where your feet are. And that made a [00:37:00] big impact on me. I was studying to be a missionary. I wanted to go overseas. And God sent me to Ohio, which is overseas for somebody. So it's kinda like being overseas. But I always, you know, I was training for the day when I would be a missionary, and that idea of your mission field being where your feet are, gave purpose to even my trips to Walmart.
Suddenly everything became infused with meaning. And with purpose. CS Lewis has a great line, in one of his articles where he says that every moment is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan. There are no neutral moments and that hit me heavy. The first time I really thought about that and I thought, you know, today is the day that the Lord is made.
Let me rejoice and be glad in it. Let me be like a [00:38:00] tree that is planted by still waters and, man, you got me riled up again. This is good stuff. I, I just love it. I just love it. It's it, and it flows also to the way we use power. Like King Nebuchadnezzar is described as a tree and he's a bad tree, so God cut him down the size as the imagery that's there.
You've got instances in the minor prophets where some of the fallen Elohim are described as great cypress trees on the mountain and the wind of God blows them flat on their face and it's the image of the greatness of God and the smallness of our resistance. But when we think. , it's the other way around.
We think that this world is so real and the world that is yet to come is illusory. When in reality that is the true hope of glory. That is [00:39:00] where the vast majority of my existence will take place, is after I pass away, it, it happens. I mean, I'm not looking forward to it. I'd like to stay here a while and I will, but I don't stop having purpose just because I pass away.
God is using me and will continue to use me always.
Carey Griffel: Yes, definitely. And, and you're right. I mean, I think of Jonah with the plant that grows over him, at the end and, you know, it's like it that had such a small, small purpose in Scripture, a small thing to do, and yet it wasn't a small thing at all. Right.
This idea of, of fruit that grows other trees, but also just the, the moment that the, the tree exists.
Jon Dillon: And Jonah really is a great example of what not to be . Cause he, he enjoys all of the, the fruit of that plant. He enjoys the shade. He enjoys how it [00:40:00] looks. It's pleasant. He, he's loving it, but he refuses to love the people.
He refuses to love the place and he's cheering for its destruction rather than hoping for its deliverance. And then God teaches him this by taking away the tree. And suddenly Jonah is furious, you know, oh, you know, I, I hate being uncomfortable. And he more or less wishes he was dead. And I love the answer that the Lord gives and he, he leaves it with a question.
The Book of Jonah is the only book in the Bible that I know of that ends with a question, and it does that because you're supposed to answer it. And it's the idea of what is real and valuable. What is it that you're living your life for? And so I think that podcasts like ours are, are there to feed people to scratch that itch of, I wanna know about that, but then use it to deepen your faith in Jesus.
Use it to give [00:41:00] God glory and use it. If you're blessed to be a teacher, you know, weave it into your teachings. Tell other people about it, but don't let it just be another trophy on the shelf of things that, you know, put it to work and put it to praise and sing of it to God and bring it to him in whatever methods it is that you use to do that.
Because he's worthy and he is the gardener. He's from the very beginning all the way to the ending of Scripture. He's the gardener and we are the, he is the vine and we are the branches. If you chop the branch off, it can't produce fruit. It requires that connection to a truth deeper than itself. And as a Christian, it's the same.
It, it's not the pastors preaching. I can preach what I thought was a really great sermon, and everyone else will just carry on like nothing happened. And sometimes I'll preach a real dud and people are like, [00:42:00] whoa, the Lord really spoke to me. And I have to just stop and say, well, I'm glad he spoke to you.
But I don't think I had much to do with that. It's, it's God who is using even somebody like me to, to sing his glory and to talk about the goodness of his world and his kingdom. .
Carey Griffel: Here's a question I actually wanted to ask you. It's a little bit off from what we were just talking about, but, when I, I listen to you guys talking on the podcast and I think of all these themes of the trees and especially the tree of life in the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
And we tend to think of the tree of life as being, well, that's the good tree and the tree of knowledge. That's the bad tree. Ah, yeah. Do you see it that way or ?
Jon Dillon: No, I don't. I think they're both good trees. They're both from the hand of God and they're both placed in the garden of abundance. It's that mankind is asked, don't eat from this tree.[00:43:00]
It's set aside. It's special and mankind has to decide whether we're going to honor what God is asking us to do or whether we're going to seek to define right and wrong for ourselves. And so I think the view of seeing one tree as evil is a bit naive. I, I think that there are things you're not supposed to touch.
That's just part of growing up. I mean, surely every kid in in the world has had that. It wasn't that mom's dishes were evil, it's just that those weren't for your grubby hands to go messing around with. I, I remember as a kid, we were playing soccer in my grandma's bedroom, same house that had the cherry trees.
And I remember breaking a lamp, and having a real long conversation with her about why soccer was an outside game. And it wasn't that the bedroom was a bad place. It's just that's not, that wasn't where we were supposed to be playing soccer at. and the [00:44:00] tree of the knowledge of good and evil can become, like a boogeyman type thing for people.
And we just, in, we, uh, even the, the Bible project in their video, they made it look all twisted and gnarly and evil. I don't know if that's the case or not, what it looked like. Uh, I think when Eve saw it, she was impressed with it. She said, this is beautiful and its fruit is beautiful. And she wanted it.
And so, no, I don't think that it's an evil tree. I think that how we treated it was evil and we were supposed to respect it and leave it be because it was a a point of testing. God was asking us to be faithful and instead we defined right and wrong for ourselves rather than obeying his view on that.
What, what's your thoughts on that? Do you see it as an evil?
Carey Griffel: No, I don't. What I, what I've [00:45:00] been thinking of a lot is, uh, what the purpose of it was. Like God has had it there in the garden, and I, I think you're right in the fact that it was a tree of testing, but was it going to be a tree of testing forever for them?
Uh, or was there some other purpose it might have had? Ah, this last Sunday, my, my pastor was preaching through the end of second Peter, and in the end of second Peter, it says, uh, it's, it's talking about, uh, growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. and it's talking about growth and it's talking about knowledge together in one thing.
Yeah. And so that kind of makes me think of these terms of, well maybe the knowledge itself, was it bad? Was it good? Was it neutral? They weren't ready for the knowledge. That doesn't mean it was necessarily bad forever. Right.
Jon Dillon: So a really great verse that kind of goes along with what you're thinking about is in, [00:46:00] Revelation 22, where you have this image of the new heavens and the new Earth and you get, uh, it says that there in the middle of the street, that there is a river that flows and on either side of the river is the tree of life.
on either side of the river is one tree. And to me that's two trees, uh, on both sides of the river. And it says its fruit is for the healing of the nations. And so you kind of get this image that at that point, these two are one, that there's a sense in which, at least in, in the way that John was being shown, what's what's coming is that there's nothing unclean at that point.
There's nothing that God has left undone and there's this sense of fruitfulness, of fulfilled that the end is here and he's calling to [00:47:00] the people to come to the city and taste of the trees that it's there for the healing of the nations. But I've always been interested in that image of one tree growing on both sides of the river.
That there's this element, this echo back to the garden where there were two trees, but one was not to be eaten. It was for another time or for another purpose. And I don't claim to have answers for it, but I definitely have questions about it.
Carey Griffel: Oh, so many questions. Yeah.
Jon Dillon: You have to get Josh back on here to give you answers to stuff like that.
Carey Griffel: Right. We'll just, we'll just ask him all of our questions and he can tell us what's what.
So where is some of your favorite places in Scripture that talks about fruitfulness or trees in, in relation to one another?
Jon Dillon: Oh my goodness. I love the prophets. I love Isaiah. I love the minor prophets. I love the [00:48:00] way that they weave the poetry and the symbolism of the garden of God into the story.
I think that, the more I read places like Isaiah, the more interested I am in them. In, even in like Isaiah one, there's this really great place where he talks about the trees being ashamed, uh, because, uh, of the. Because we were valuing the wrong thing. It says, the you shall blush for the gardens you have chosen for you should be like an oak whose leaf withers like a garden without water.
And I just love the prophet's approach to visually showing the effects of sin and what it looks like to image God. And so I think Isaiah is way up on my favorite list. Zachariah is way up on my favorite list. Isaiah five talks about, [00:49:00] God is creating a vineyard on a hill and he dug it and he cleared the stones.
Uh, and it's growing all the wrong fruit . And it's, it's just such a clever way of talking about, uh, Intense theology. In a really interesting, and it's almost Jon Dillon-friendly. Like it's stupid-friendly, is what I would call, you know, I can, I can understand what he's visualizing here. And so sometimes the prophets kind of are, I don't know, people don't like them.
I love them. I think they're great and I think they're way underrated. And so everyone needs to go out and read the prophets. But, probably the clearest places to see it is in the crucifixion story, uh, where Jesus is, uh, hung around a tree, uh, and out of his side flows, blood and water. Uh, and that tree, uh, is a tree of death, and [00:50:00] yet it's a tree of life.
You see just a couple lines later that he's placed in a garden in a, in a tomb, and that is the place when they buried him in the ground and he rose again. Uh, and there's this real cool part where Mary is crying at the tomb and Jesus comes and talks to her and it says that she supposed him to be the, the gardener.
She supposed him to be the gardener. I love that. I think that's. I don't know, man. She, he, she was right. It is the gardener. Just not the one she thought it was, that this is God linking the stories together. And so I, I kind of viewed them as water running out of a pool, down a mountainside, and it connects to all these other places.
And, and ultimately the, the Bible ends in the same way it started talking about [00:51:00] trees. And so I know it may seem like a weird, random thing to have called a podcast, but, uh, but it made sense to me at the time.
Carey Griffel: well see you, I think of, when I think of two trees, I think of the trees of the garden.
But the more I think about it, there's two trees everywhere. There's the, the trees in the garden and then there's the trees in, uh, revelation. And then of course you have the, the dual nature of the cross, just like you said. Uh, so. A lot of times there's that dual nature that we are not seeing until we look a little bit closer.
Jon Dillon: Yeah. And it's sometimes it's not overt. Sometimes it's, uh, it's, it's there, but you have to really think about it for a minute. For instance, in the book of Acts, you have a guy called Barnabas. And Barnabas is a giver. He is sweet, he is, everyone loves Barnabas and he has great fame among the apostles.
He's a great friend and he is the image of what, [00:52:00] a life-giving tree should be. And then right after it tells you how great Barnabas is, it tells you about a family of Ananias and Safira. And they are sketchy. They are sneaky, like the snake in the Garden of Eden, and they try to use something good in an evil way, and the Lord strikes them dead. They reap what they sewed. And it's this, again, an image there where the people are, the trees. One of them is a tree of life, and the other of them is a tree of death. And if you weren't sure, just look at who survives the story. Ananias and Safira don't. And, and so you can look at that as, as the two trees again, it's all over the place.
This dual nature of one good and one that leads to death. And the, the Bible makes constant use of it [00:53:00] throughout the text. And so I, I get in the habit of just asking, you know, when I read those, like how does this help me understand? These other stories, don't read them in isolation, but how does this give me depth to the story of David or the story of Moses?
With the Moses story, you have, you have Moses and he compares with Pharaoh and Pharaoh's pride brings about great destruction. And Moses is a real stinker. I mean, he's a murderer, but the Lord, he, he humbles himself in the presence of God. It takes quite a bit of nudging, but Pharaoh's the exact opposite.
He, I mean, you, you talk about a guy who saw miracles, Pharaoh saw loads of them right up until the the Red Sea. Uh, but there's no humbleness there. He is the fruit of this world. And, and so yeah, if once you cue into it [00:54:00] and you start looking for it, you'll spot him all over the place. . Yeah.
Carey Griffel: Uh, I was just interacting with someone who said something along the lines of, oh, well, you know, that's all right.
For poetry to have those kinds of things, you're gonna expect imagery and poetry. But once you get to the historical books and other things, they describe things in different ways. It's, and it's not the same thing. So, you know, if Babylon isn't about chaos and this and that and the other thing, and I'm like, well, but what I love is that you just pointed out how much poetry is in the prophets.
Yeah. I use it all the time. So I don't see how you can separate these two things.
Jon Dillon: So I'll tell you a secret, and it's not really a secret. Most people who have been studying this longer than me are been well aware of this. But it was news to me, and that is that most serious literature in the ancient world took the form of poetry.
It just did. And so if you were trying to emphasize [00:55:00] something in your historical. You lent it poetic form. It may not be a book of poetry, but it will contain poetry. And sometimes it isn't necessarily a poem, but it's poetic. It's this moment where suddenly you get a little detail and you're not sure why it's there until you think about it through a poetic lens.
When Saul was hunting for David, it says that Saul was sitting under a pomegranate tree, and then it says, and in his hand was the spear that he had just tried to shishkabab David with a couple of chapters ago. I forget if it's a pomegranate tree or a... he's under one of the fruit trees. A a, a beautiful tree.
And the idea there is one tree that God made was a tree that was given life. , but Saul is like that spear. He's a, he's a stick [00:56:00] cut off from the tree that is just good for stabbing things. And he is an instrument of death and destruction wherever he goes. And so you have to ask yourself, why did the author tell me that he had his spear in his hand?
Because it doesn't tell me what he was wearing. It doesn't tell me if he had his crown on. It doesn't tell me how, what color his eyes were, doesn't tell me his favorite hummus. It doesn't tell me a thousand things that it could tell me. And so when the Bible does bring up specifics, ask yourself why.
Why is that there? And a lot of times you're going to find the answer in poetic speech, in poetic understanding. Babylon becomes a way of talking about evil. Period. There's this great line where the, it's in the Psalms where the [00:57:00] prophet or the psalmist is saying that we are sitting beside the waters of Babylon and we're weeping.
And it says though the tears that they're crying are extensions of the waters of Babylon. And so it would be totally fine for you to be in the middle of the desert and to say, the waters of Babylon are around me, or I sat beside the waters of Babylon. Ancient peoples would've understood immediately what you were talking about.
We just cut an episode, it won't release for a couple weeks. But we were talking about, the spot in the book of Revelation where it says that, it's, it's talking about the waters and God, there is this river that pours forth from the throne. And then it says, he dries up all the tears from our eyes.
And it's a almost as though the waters of Babylon, [00:58:00] there are, they're cut off and the goodness of God. It's this play on the waters there where the goodness of God overpowers the things that cause sorrow and that cause heartbreak. And so it isn't just trying to give you, geographic detail of what the new heaven and earth are gonna be like.
It's talking about so much more than that. It's, but I, I grew up with that, literalistic viewpoint. It says street of gold, so it means street of gold. It says river, so it means river. And I'm not saying it doesn't, but I'm saying it means more. It, it isn't limited to just that.
Carey Griffel: I mean, it gives measurements. Some people are like, well, how is everyone gonna fit there? And these kinds of questions, it's like, take a step back. What do you think it means? Do you think it really, [00:59:00] like what, what is the important element of what it's talking about Really?
Jon Dillon: Yeah. And that's overlooked sometimes because we are, uh, hunting for proof texts.
Instead of really just letting the, the, the Scriptures, wash over us and, and think about them, uh, as as they are, uh, I mean, Jesus was all about this, you know, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. Well, I really hope that doesn't mean what it seems to mean. Like that's, that's uncomfortable.
But he, he knew this, it was part of his tradition. He was well aware of what he was talking about and that image of running water. That comes right out of the Old Testament, out of the, the, the temple, the waters pour out and they bring life to the wilderness. That's not just talking about future, you know, waterworks.
It, it, it's talking about, it's a theology. It's talking about [01:00:00] the, the life giving power of the kingdom of God. It's that seed that is being cast, uh, by the sower in the parable. And I think Jesus all the time is the kingdom of God is like this, or the kingdom of God is like that. And that's, that's what it is.
You know, he's talking about it on a deeper level than merely physical appearance. And so I'm not saying that there isn't a physical appearance. But I'm saying that the Bible is talking about it in a deeper way than just its physical appearance. Somebody out there just tuned you off and they were like, this guy is nuts. I'll tune into you next week.
Carey Griffel: That's right. And, and sometimes I feel like poetry is the only way you can get to that deep level of knowledge or feeling or understanding or whatever it is.
Jon Dillon: Yeah, I would agree with that. I think there's a reason that the ancient world wrote its most important documents [01:01:00] in poetry.
There's a reason for it because poetry captures not only the story, but the emotion behind the story. You're capable of tasting poetry in a way that you just can't do with pros. Uh, and so those moments where you spot poetry, don't be offended by them, but realize that you just found a deep pool.
And so linger around that pool. It's not something, it's not a drive-through. Okay? It's not that kind of meal. It's something to be savored and tasted, but we're a very fast, fast society. We like to move on to the next thing and Scripture's just not made to do that. It's made to last you your whole life.
Carey Griffel: Definitely. That's awesome. Thank you so much for coming on, Jon. Is there anything else you wanted to finish up with?
Jon Dillon: Just that all you guys all need to continue to listen to Genesis Marks the Spot, because Carey is doing a great job. And [01:02:00] Carey, we appreciate you and we love the content you're putting out and we just pray that God continues to bless and open doors for you, my friend.
Carey Griffel: Thank you so much, Jon. Well, once again, this is it for the moment, but you can go binge other episodes of course, to your heart's desire, but do not forget to go check out the Two Trees Podcast and listen to them if you're not doing so. They have different types of episodes where they unleash Jon to get deep into content one episode and in another, they might have a type of round table discussion about what all this means for life. It's really great stuff and I think helps to see how this type of contextual learning in the Bible can really lead directly into application. Thanks, as always, for listening. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. If you've got a moment, I'd appreciate it if you'd share it with others and also if you'd rate this podcast wherever you listen. That's been super helpful to me. If you're interested in engaging more, there are discussion groups on Facebook for both my podcast [01:03:00] as well as the Two Trees, so feel free to check them out if you're there. And you can always email me at
[email protected], Hoping you are all having a blessed week, and we'll see you next time.
