Mike: 00:07

Welcome to Speak the Truth, a podcast devoted to giving biblical truth for educating, equipping, and encouraging the individual in local church and counseling and discipleship. Hello. Hello. Hello.

Shauna: 00:19

Yo. There

Mike: 00:20

it is. Michael and Sean here. We are joined with a special guest. We've been wanting this individual on this podcast for quite some time. We finally got him because we are at

Paul: 00:29

the Yay.

Mike: 00:30

Biblical Counseling Coalition Canada annual conference at Hope Bible Church in Oakville, Ontario. And we are joined today with Paul Tautges. Paul, how are we doing?

Paul: 00:38

Great. And, hey, you said my name properly.

Mike: 00:41

So we're joined with Paul Tautges, and I've been really excited about this podcast for quite some time.

Shauna: 00:46

You have been wanting to have him on

Paul: 00:47

for a fact.

Mike: 00:48

I've been having this conversation with Paul for two to three years, I think.

Shauna: 00:50

You might be, like, a stalking fan of some sort, so you need to settle down, Michael.

Mike: 00:55

I really wanna do this

Shauna: 00:56

podcast. We're like, we want Paul in our life a little bit more on a personal level. So Yeah. Let's put that on the airways. So Yeah.

Mike: 01:03

Have to hold. Well, he's one of the speakers at this year's conference, I guess.

Shauna: 01:07

It's stuff identity. First. No. They've had it for a

Mike: 01:10

few years. Yeah. My first time.

Shauna: 01:12

Your first time.

Mike: 01:13

Yeah. My first time.

Shauna: 01:14

In Canada.

Mike: 01:15

But the

Shauna: 01:16

And we got to see Niagara Falls

Mike: 01:17

We did.

Shauna: 01:17

Which was really fun.

Mike: 01:18

We did. That was pretty awesome.

Shauna: 01:20

So if you haven't seen Niagara Falls on the Canada side, it's a must because you get to see it and, like, you get to see the waterfall, not like New York where you see

Mike: 01:28

it. Did they call it over there where you get to go sit in the ball and rotate while you eat and look over the

Shauna: 01:34

It's a observation tower. Yeah. So do that. That's fun. Anyway, okay.

Shauna: 01:37

Back to topic at hand. The topic conference there, it's on identity. And so Paul's one of the keynote speakers this year, which is really awesome.

Mike: 01:46

Yeah. So it made sense for us to have him on this podcast. He's written several books, but this one here most recently has been very instrumental in terms of just counseling for me and then even devotionally. And this book remade, which came out in 2023, I believe. Is that correct?

Paul: 02:01

Yeah. October 23. Yeah.

Mike: 02:04

Okay. So remade, I would encourage you guys to get it. I'll put in the show notes, the Amazon link, but it's embracing your complete identity in Christ. And, for those of you who may not be familiar with Paulser's as a senior pastor at Cornerstone Church, community church, excuse me, and having previously pastored for twenty years in Wisconsin. What part of Wisconsin?

Paul: 02:23

Sheboygan, Wisconsin.

Mike: 02:25

Sheboygan. Paul has authored or edited over 70 books, including, obviously, this one that we're gonna talk about today, Remade Embrace

Shauna: 02:32

$20. Like, how does that feel? Like, does that even feel real? $20?

Paul: 02:36

No. It doesn't. I don't keep track.

Shauna: 02:38

Do you have a favorite?

Paul: 02:40

Yeah. Remade. Oh, okay.

Mike: 02:42

Yeah. Be before we get into it, though, I do wanna share because I think for the last two years that I've been scouting Paul for this, one of the things that I believe I remember asking you, actually, Sean and I both asked is, how do you write so much? What's your discipline? And then one of the things that you said that that really stuck with us is the fact that and then even the summit that you were at in December, just the reality of because you're a pastor and you've got that discipline of reading the word and writing and journaling and doing all of that, that this I don't wanna get into that part of it, but being able to author or edit over 70 books is because of that discipline. So the fruit that's come out of that is just so I remember you sharing that because for us in ministry trying to figure out, man, sometimes there's so many things to do, what takes priority, and so just trying to remember the essentials in ministry where some of that fruitfulness comes in.

Mike: 03:31

So Do

Shauna: 03:31

you have any feedback to our listeners on that?

Paul: 03:33

Yeah. I find that if if I'm just faithfully teaching the word and feeding on the word myself, and I find ways that God's word speaks into my heart issues and then I minister to my flock, if I see that is fruitful, if that is helpful for them, then it seems like maybe it would be helpful for other believers, generally speaking. With the exception of my one children's book, I've never sat down to just write a book. It just all of the books that I've written have grown out of what I'm already doing.

Mike: 04:07

Like an overflow of just what you're doing.

Paul: 04:08

Yeah. I'm just trying to shepherd God's flock that he's put me in and help people find how applicable God's Word is our personal lives and to the soul struggles that we have.

Mike: 04:21

Yeah, which to that point with Remade, one of my leading questions obviously for this is what galvanized your heart to even write this book, Paul?

Paul: 04:28

Yeah, that's a hard question to answer because part of me feels like this book was growing in me for twenty to thirty years. I was blessed when I came to know the Lord in 1984. I was blessed to immediately be brought into a small group where I was discipled faithfully for two years, and was grounded and rooted in Christ, as Paul talks about in Colossians. So I feel like there was a foundation that I received that not all believers get in those early years. And so part of the passion of my ministry as the Lord then called me into pastoral ministry was to help believers understand who we are in Christ and that the Christian life really boils down to practicing our position in Christ.

Paul: 05:15

So how do we learn to do that rather than working for our identity, working from our identity?

Mike: 05:21

It's amazing how those prepositions change things.

Paul: 05:23

They do. Yeah. So I just was increasingly burdened that believers need to understand more about who they are in Christ, but I also wanted to give hope to believers in regard to how has the work of Christ given us all that we need to fight the sin struggles that we have and also to help believers to see God's good purposes and suffering. I feel like today's church is lacking and really an understanding and even an appreciation for suffering. I'm not saying suffering is fun.

Paul: 05:58

That's not what I'm trying to get. But we do need to have a proper biblical perspective of suffering and see how God many times, it's God's chosen instrument for sanctification in our lives.

Mike: 06:10

Yeah. That's really good. And I appreciate and I'll get into this a little bit more as we talk through. But so within that galvanization, what sort of led to you writing the book, I really appreciate how the book is structured. And just but structured in those three sections, which and this is what's been so helpful for me in my counseling ministry is what I've seen over the years historically as a counselor for the last ten years is a lot of Christians don't understand these positional realities that they have.

Mike: 06:38

And I I appreciate how you introduce it in the introduction with an iPhone that we all carry around with the three lenses now on the goofy way that it looks or whatever. But being able to have those three lenses as the saint, the sinner, and the sufferer, and being able to understand the reality of sanctification through those three lenses. Opening thoughts on that?

Paul: 06:58

Yeah. And obviously, one of those three lenses is bigger even biblically speaking for us, and it is the saint lens, which is this is our brand new identity, that we are not trying to become saints. We are called by God saints. We are called out by God, for God, to God. And so helping believers to understand this whole new this new creation identity that we have.

Paul: 07:23

And then how do we look through that at the sin struggles that we have and then the suffering responses that the Lord wants us to learn to have? So it's looking at everything through that whole new perspective that, of course, salvation brings to us. And then again, giving hope. Yeah. Because the hope is found in Christ.

Paul: 07:47

Christ in you, the hope of glory. That's a mind blowing statement from Paul and So how do we live that out as we fight sin? How do we live that out as we learn to respond in humility and teachableness to the suffering that God brings into our life?

Mike: 08:02

Yeah. That's really good. Paul's point in Corinthians where he's about to give a pretty strong rebuke and exhortation, but he calls them saints at the beginning of the book. Yeah. So he almost provides that positional reality right out of the gate so that they're able to just brace themselves for what he has to say in that vein, in that encouragement because he is about to address the sin.

Mike: 08:24

Yeah. And then the suffering that's involved in that. Paul definitely just so I appreciate how you gave just an a sharp illustration, high definition, pun intended, within those three lenses to bring about that trifocal reality of our position in Christ. I just I really appreciated that.

Paul: 08:41

It really is an apostolic pattern of discipleship. And that's another reason I just want to call us back to the patterns that we find in the New Testament in regard to discipling, grounding people in Christ. Paul does this in Romans, Ephesians, Colossians. Peter does it in his epistles. John does it in his where he starts by saying, this is now who you are, lifting up Christ, the glories of Christ, the graciousness of God and saving us before they get to the commands.

Paul: 09:12

I think that's just really important. Even in the biblical counseling world, I think I even for a time I think practices one of these counselors who was really primarily focused on commands and the put offs and the put ons. And that's very important and it's significant. But when we look at scripture, we see that there was a lot more groundwork that took place before the putting off and the putting on in all of those examples I gave to you. And so I think that getting back to that apostolic pattern.

Mike: 09:45

Yeah. That's really good. To that pattern, appreciate, again, going back to the structure and format, that it's functionally a ninety day devotion where you get thirty days of focusing on what it means to be a saint, thirty days on what it means to be a sinner, and then thirty days on what it means to be a sufferer. So ninety days of transformational focus. So it's really good.

Mike: 10:07

Shauna, you got some

Shauna: 10:08

And it's just rich in theology. I was picking up as a devotional. For some reason, I had I went in with a mindset. It was gonna be a trip book, very practical, and you have a lot of reflection questions in there. And so I was eager to do that because it's always important for me to read a book first from my own heart versus just, oh, how am I reading this for the person I'm counseling or leading?

Shauna: 10:27

And and then I ended up being pleasantly surprised with just how rich and deep you were on just your theological words, but explaining them. And so I just grew so much. And one of the one of the things that actually transitioned from the book on just the way that I am discerning in my counseling is your triple lens perspective. I got supervised in counseling by Randy Patton, and he was instrumental in my life and how I grew as a counselor. And one of the things that that I take away that I always teach is when someone's sitting in front of me, am I counseling them as a believer and unbeliever?

Shauna: 10:58

Right? And that impacts the direction I go. Am I evangelizing or discipleship? What scriptures I'm utilizing? And so there was passages he would hear after listening in my sessions that I was actually offering hope to an unbeliever that wasn't their hope.

Shauna: 11:11

And that was instrumental in me growing as a counselor. Well, now in your book, actually, the triple lens perspective has been incredibly helpful for me because looking at that from versus a single lens perspective of, like, when I'm discerning and hearing their story, how can I move forward in that? And the beginning of your book, I just wanna read it if that's okay for our listeners really But you say, this triple lens perspective is superior to a single lens view. And here's how you break it down. You say, if you look at yourself only through the center's lens, it's likely you'll feel defeated by your daily struggle against temptation.

Shauna: 11:45

You may lose sight of the reality that in Christ, you have been raised up with the one who already conquered sin, death, and the devil, and you may consequently forget that you can persevere in the spirit and walk on the newness of life. But if you peer through only the lens of your exalted position as a saint, then you may begin to think you are stronger than you really are, even invincible. You may forget you are a fellow struggler on the road to holiness alongside those who are ensnared by sin, and you may fail to remember the warning, keep watch on yourself, least you too be tempted. And if you think of yourself only as a sufferer, then you may fall prey to the crippling power of victimhood, and you may begin to see yourself as a passive pawn on the chessboard of life instead of as an active worshiper of your good and sovereign God who is always working out his wise purposes for your good and his glory. And that was your aim in your book is to look at that and how what Michael's pointed out of how you broke it down.

Shauna: 12:43

But what's been really helpful for me is now when I'm counseling someone who, hey, we have a believer, right? How am I actually looking at it from that lens but actually encouraging them and in offering hope in those three lens perspective, not just focusing on that one lane. And so I just wanted to like, it's just been very beneficial for me. And I actually use this quote in now some of the things that I'm teaching, including at the leadership summit that we were just at in December with the biblical counseling coalition. They asked me to teach on, and I don't know if you picked up on this because you're in the audience, but they asked me to teach on approaching the intervention.

Shauna: 13:16

So it's like, how do we care for the person who's saying, yes, I am struggling with suicidal thoughts. And my lesson was incredibly practical and knowing my audience of these are the professors and the pastors and people I'm learning from, how can I plus it in a way that would hopefully be helpful for them as they lead out? And Michael and I worked together, and I just used the story of Jonah to say, hey, how can I look at the story of Jonah who would rather die than to to go and talk to the Ninevites? And I looked at that from the three lens. I don't know if you noticed this, but I actually broke out and found the saint, the sinner, and the sufferer in that Bible narrative and used that thread throughout my lesson.

Shauna: 13:54

And it has just turned into one of my favorite lessons because now, not only when we're counseling people, but how are we also approaching God's word and the narratives and finding these truths in that as well. And so having that triple lens perspective.

Mike: 14:08

Go ahead.

Paul: 14:08

It's really encouraging. And no, I didn't pick up

Shauna: 14:10

on that. Did.

Mike: 14:11

Well, because I literally we obviously, to Shana's point, we talk together a lot about different things in ministry and things that we share. But when I taught on Jonah as well, and I was just expositionally going through Jonah four, but starting in Jonah one all the way through four and seeing that repetition of those three identities where you see in Jonah chapter one, you see the sufferers, which are the mariners on the boat, the captain, and freaking out. True. And then they call on Yahweh, the covenant god, because he's fleeing the just irony of self righteousness that picks up. And so I think that's where your book does a fabulous job of just really crystallizing each one of those identities and merging it into this one reality and one identity that we have in Christ.

Mike: 14:56

But then to Shana's point, the Ninevites, they were the sinners, and they repented. And it doesn't get till Jonah chapter four where you see the saint Yeah. Being the most self righteous, who's absolutely miserable, would rather watch a nation just be obliterated by God because he didn't believe that the repentance was real and just how God appoints certain things to be, like, real life illustrations to expose things to our hearts. You write really well, but just even the illustrative things that you use to really draw that out was just really helpful. So thank you for that.

Shauna: 15:26

Another thing I wanted to just ask you and maybe you can encourage our listeners is in the book, in your structure, you put that you put three things at the end of your lessons. Talk to yourself, talk to God, talk to others. Tell me why was that important?

Paul: 15:39

Yeah, I think it's really when I approach the scriptures for myself and feeding my soul each morning in the word that that is how I approach the Bible. I don't approach it as okay, what's the next sermon series? Yeah. There's a time and place for that in my planning, my morning devotional time is just selfishly for my soul. I am feeding my soul with God's And just seeing that the spirit of God working in my heart.

Paul: 16:04

It's amazing to me that we have the author of scripture living inside of us as believers. So who better than to speak to us as to what it means and how it applies to my life? So I want to talk to myself about that. I want to slow down and ponder, okay? Yeah.

Paul: 16:21

What does this say to me and my soul? But then I want to talk to God about that. Okay, what if the spirit has spoken to me through his word, which he promises to do, then I need to talk about what he just said to me. So I need to talk to God about But even more than that, then I need to talk to others. I need to perhaps share something that I've learned or perhaps I need to go and talk to someone and ask them to help me bear one of my burdens.

Paul: 16:48

Yeah. Because sanctification does not take place in isolation. When we get isolated in our approach to sanctification, then we become very narrow, and we become perhaps even focused on only one of those three identities, for example. God intended for us to be growing in Christ together in community. So obviously there's different levels of community.

Paul: 17:12

We've got our friendships, our personal relationships, our family. We've got our local church where I'm hoping that the Lord will use this book to get believers in local churches talking to each other about what they're learning. That this philosophy that I've been trying to teach for a couple decades now, just is counseling one another. I think that's where it's at when we look at the scriptures.

Mike: 17:37

Yeah, no, that's really good. What I appreciate about that again, Paul, is you're very in this. And I don't know if it was accidentally biblical or intentionally biblical. I think it's intentionally biblical, but that's exactly that that pattern of talking to yourself, talking to God, talking to others is quite functionally speaking what the Psalms accomplish. And the Psalms are external processing.

Shauna: 17:55

Yeah. Point out one thing too is the thought of talking to God and then talking to others where, I don't know, for our biblical counselors who are listening, the thought of you'll have someone come to you and say, hey. Here's my problem. Just fix me. Or, hey.

Shauna: 18:08

This is what I'm wrestling with. And they're seeking you for wisdom. And where I I love that. I love the fact that they're trusting me and they're wanting to go to God together and seek his wisdom and what's going on in their life. But what I don't want them to do is to seek me before God.

Shauna: 18:21

And so that order of talking God to talking others. And so as a biblical counselor, if you ever get into those types of conversations, one of the one of the practical things that I do is I just say, hey, let me ask you what how have you gone to God about this? What are you praying about? Have you been praying about that? What are you asking him?

Shauna: 18:37

How is that turning you to your supplication, your petition, or your thankfulness? And if they haven't done that yet, then that will be something that I'll put in their growth assignment. Right? I want them to my my whole goal is not to come to what does Shauna think about that first, but, you know, what and really, even our spouses. Right?

Shauna: 18:54

Like, we can go to our I can go to Michael sometimes before I'm even going to the Lord, and I need to go to the Lord first. And technically, that's like a circle, right? It's a it's all intertwined. It's we're talking to ourselves, talking to god, talking to others in this circle dynamic but the thought process is we're talking things on speak the truth. We want to make sure that our counselors and we're growing from a practical perspective to make sure that we're encouraging them to talk to god first before they come to us and then if they haven't, can even stop in the counseling room.

Shauna: 19:20

Hey, let's just go to God together. And I ask them to pray and lift that up. Like any thoughts on that?

Paul: 19:25

Yeah, I mean, that's a pattern even in my homework or practical growth assignment, whatever we want to call it. What we give the counselee to do in between meetings is I always have them interact with a portion of script and I want them jotting down what they're seeing about God, about themselves. Want them talking to themselves about what the Scripture is saying to them. But then I'll often follow that up then with rewrite what you've learned in the form of a prayer. And so just taking that step to help them to realize that, Okay, God is speaking to me through his word, and my response now is to speak back to him about what troubles me.

Paul: 20:07

Like recently I gave someone Psalm 46 as their assignment, and I said, I want you to read through and note all of the things that provoke anxiety and jot those down. And then I want you to think through how do those line up or sync with your particular stressors in your life. And then I want you to look for everything that the Psalm says about God and how he ministers to us in those moments of So there's that constant interaction with a living book. The Bible's the only living book on the planet.

Shauna: 20:40

Yeah.

Paul: 20:41

We have the Holy Spirit, the author of the Bible living inside of us. So Yeah. It's phenomenal what God can accomplish in our hearts when the spirit takes the word and does his work.

Shauna: 20:51

Yeah. Yeah. That's so great. Now you said counseling one another earlier, and some of our listeners might not be familiar, but you actually wrote a book counseling one another. So, you know, we're talking about Remade here a bit, and then he you also have anxiety, one of the thirty one day devotionals by PNR Publishing.

Shauna: 21:07

You wrote on the topic of anxiety, and our counselors might be familiar with those too, but you've written 20 books. Some of the books that we've grown from in the past of our ten plus years ago that we got started was Counseling One Another, Pray About Everything, some of your other books, right? You even wrote on grief, some books on grief. Thank you for speaking at our Call to Counsel Conference on grief when you and Tim Challies came in. But do you counseling one another.

Shauna: 21:31

You have a website still, right, on that. And do is that something you're still managing or updating? Can our listeners go to that?

Paul: 21:38

Counseling1another.com.

Mike: 21:39

Okay. Put that in the show notes.

Paul: 21:41

It's in its fifteenth year.

Shauna: 21:42

Yeah.

Paul: 21:42

I used to write a lot more faithfully, maybe two, three times a week. Now there are weeks that go by, I just don't get anything done. It's interesting because that's where I test drive a lot of my writing. Yeah. That eventually becomes a book.

Paul: 21:57

Yeah. Mhmm. All the anxiety devotionals that are part of that that thirty one day, I test drove those. Almost all of those were test driven on my blog site. And I get response from people and I see is really ministering to people and perhaps why.

Paul: 22:12

But I also continually update my resource pages. I have a topically created column in the right margin where you can look at resources for counseling a person in grief, resources for marital troubles, whatever. And then I just keep updating that with biblically faithful resources for counselors and disciple makers.

Shauna: 22:35

Yeah. Our listeners need to check that out for sure. Is there any of your books like Counseling One Another, any of your grief books, Pray About Anything that you would wanna encourage our listeners? What's ways that they could use it in the counseling room or pastors, how they can use it in caring for their church? Have you gotten any feedback from just any tips for us on that?

Paul: 22:53

Yeah. I would say pastors typically say my books on grieving account. I've got three grief. One is directed to pastors, and the others are directed to the person who's grieving. So a small book for the hurting heart is a fifty day grief devotional.

Paul: 23:07

I have a new one for teens in the Christian Focus track series. So, those all have things to think about as you're processing grief. But then, the anxiety devotional is used a lot for counseling homework. When I use those in the thirty one day devotional series, and I've worked through six or seven of those for myself just

Shauna: 23:28

on my

Paul: 23:28

own because I want to learn from others and be ministered to. But I'll typically assign two or three of those chapters a week. You'll always have your overachiever who

Mike: 23:37

wants to

Paul: 23:38

do a thirty one day devotional in thirty days. Yeah. I would I would rather them move slowly.

Shauna: 23:43

Yeah.

Paul: 23:43

Yeah. Sanctification is a slow process. Yeah. I just think we try to rush things too much.

Mike: 23:47

Yeah. Because it's totally, like, functionally falls into that. Just wanna fix it, and God's not really trying to fix it. Yes. He's trying to fashion it for a different purpose.

Mike: 23:55

Exactly.

Shauna: 23:55

Well, yeah. So when you have those reflection questions, it's actually reflect on them. Think about them all day, not just in that one minute. And talking about sanctification, that's what you're talking about here at this conference. Your session topic is our identity and the process of sanctification.

Shauna: 24:10

And so what are some of the things you're gonna share with them this weekend?

Paul: 24:13

Yeah. So I'm gonna I'm gonna reveal that apostolic pattern that we see that we work from our identity, not for our identity, helping all of us to realize that we need to help believers to see this is how God has designed his own word, to help us to see him first, the glories of his work on our behalf, and then flow out of that comes a life that is honoring to Christ. Yeah. Yeah. It's great.

Mike: 24:41

That's really good, Paul. Thank you.

Shauna: 24:42

Ugh. We could talk to you for

Mike: 24:43

a while. I I just it's like he's already had a long day. He started early this morning. I think you kicked this off

Shauna: 24:48

this morning. Right? Pre conference.

Mike: 24:49

Yeah. Yeah. Paul, thank you. I appreciate it, brother.

Shauna: 24:51

Thank you

Paul: 24:51

so much.

Mike: 24:52

Thank you for all the ministering you're doing in your books. I know it certainly serves our ministry, so we appreciate it. Thank you so much for just Being you. Faithful. Being faithful because I appreciate you also being vulnerable about the things that you're going through personally.

Mike: 25:05

You need to be ministered to as well. So I appreciate that. Thank you.

Shauna: 25:08

That's good. Any books on the horizon? Got anything coming up for us?

Paul: 25:11

I do have a new the second children's book is coming out this fall, and I do have two or three things that are starting to gel. Okay. I'm not actually writing it yet, but they're they're gelling to the point where I might be ready to talk to a publisher about Cool. About it.

Shauna: 25:27

And there'll be a lot of them wanting to grab a hold of that. Children's books gotta be fun. Right? To see it, like, your words become illustrated. Like, I when I've seen you post that online, I'm like, that's gotta be the coolest thing.

Shauna: 25:38

Yeah. Yeah. So that's awesome. Congrats on that. Thanks.

Mike: 25:41

Alright. Guys, thank you for listening to Speak the Truth. And, again, if you have any questions or topics you'd like us to talk about, please email us at topics@speakthetruth.org. Thank you for listening. We'll see you guys next time.