Kendall Vanderslice (Baker & Theologian)

Today's episode will begin in three minutes. But first I want to tell you about something crazy I'm doing for my new book, five Mere Christians. I've never seen an author do this before, but I'm giving a money back guarantee on this book. I'm so confident you're gonna love this book that if I'm wrong, if you pre order the book, you don't love it, I'm gonna send you a $20Amazon gift card as a money back guarantee. Why? Two reasons. One, this is a different book for me, right. I know this is a very different biography. What is Jordan Rayner doing? And I know it's risky, so I'm going to de risk it for you. Because listen, in my other books, Redeeming youg Time, the Sacredness of Secular Work, Master of One, etc, etc, I am telling you and me how we can glorify God in our work, but in five Mere Christians, I'm doing something very different. I'm showing you what that looks like practically through these unforgettable life stories of five Mere Christians from history. These are the top men and women that I would love to have on this podcast today if, you know, they weren't dead, right? So that's the first reason this is a risk and I'm gonna de risk this book for you. Here's the second reason. I'm just confident you're gonna love this book. My friend Mark Batterson said, quote, five Mere Christians proves that biographies can be extremely entertaining, profoundly helpful, and mercifully short. If you're looking for a book that combines the punch of a great sermon with the pace of a great thriller, this is it. Highly recommended. End quote. But here's the thing. In order to qualify for this money back guarantee, you got to do two things. Step one, pre order five Mere Christians in any format, hardback, ebook, audiobook, whatever. And then step two, go to 5merechristians.com and fill out the form on that page. And that's it. But you got to do it by midnight Eastern Time on May 9. By filling out that form, you'll also get all of the pre order bonuses listed on 5meerchristians.com and be entered to win this crazy, epic trip for two to Europe. So visit 5meerchristians.com right now to sign up. Now, please enjoy today's episode. Hey everybody. Welcome to the Mere Christians Podcast. I'm Jordan Raynor. How does the gospel influence the work of mere Christians? Those of us who aren't pastors or religious professionals, but who work as Psychiatrists, postal workers, and veterinarians. That's the question we explore every week. And today I'm posing it to Kendall Vanderslice. She's a baker and theologian who wrote her thesis at Duke on a theology of bread. Believe it or not, Kendall and I had a terrific conversation about what it means for your work practically today that God never once rescinded his claim that the material world is good. We talked about how to think about your work through the Creation Fall renewal framework. And we talked about whether or not there's going to be gluten free bread on the new earth. It could be a lot of food for. For thought, no pun intended, as you imagine your work for eternity. Trust me, you guys are going to love this conversation with my new friend, Kendall Vander Slice. Kendall Vander Slice, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you so much for having me, Jordan.

And you insist that it's a coincidence that you're a baker with the last name Vander Slice?

Yes. I get asked all the time, is that your real last name?

Right.

I promise I did not make it up.

Geez. So years ago I read about this fascinating theory called nominative determinism. Have you ever heard about this?

Is it like the idea that your name somehow kind of shapes what you do or who you are?

Yes.

You know, it's crazy though. I am the only baker of all the Vander Slices that I know.

That's really funny.

I told them at Christmas this year. You know, I get asked all the time if Vander Slice is my real name because of my work. And everyone just kind of looked at me like it was the first time it had ever clicked to them, like, oh, slice like bread.

Right, Exactly. So for the benefit of our listeners, this theory called nominative determinism, it basically claims that people are drawn to jobs that match their names, right? So there was this one study done in the early 2000s that found that dentists, Right. As just one example, were way more likely to have names that began with the letters D, E, N. Really? And any other surname.

Yeah.

So like, if their first name was. Was Dennis, they were like disproportionately likely to be a dentist. So maybe your parents just, I don't know, just.

Yeah, yeah. Deep down it's just been like growing the need to become a baker. And finally, I have been the one that have lived. Has lived into it.

I mentioned you before we started recording. I have an 8 year old who wants to be a chef when she grows up and I asked her what she wanted me to ask you. And she just wanted to know, how did you get started in this? Like, what's, what's the career trajectory to, like, get into this field of baking? And I know you were a pastry chef. How did this all start?

Yeah, I always like to say it has been a very circuitous journey to wind up where I am. But I always loved baking. I always loved bread. I always loved food and being in the kitchen. And so I think from a very young age, something about bread really drew me in. I went on multiple field trips as a child to different bakeries. One with my elementary school, one while I was homeschooled. My. My mom set it up, and I was just always fascinated by kind of the movements of bakers, the transformation of this dough. And then by the time I was in high school, bread kind of became a source of rounding for me. I had a lot of anxiety. I was, as most teenagers, just trying to figure out, how do you figure out life and figure out who I was and how I navigated the world and this body that God gave me? And baking became sort of a source of joy and a source of grounding. And so I had many late nights in the kitchen where I would be making cookies or making bread or making cupcakes. And that was kind of a time for my body to. My body was working, and it allowed my brain to slow down a little bit and begin to really think and process. And so that's, I think, what really pulled me in. I also handily realized that when you bake a lot, people tend to like you.

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Because you always have, like, when you can feed other people, they're really drawn to you. And so I think I was a little socially awkward in high school, and it became a way of connecting with people. I wasn't quite sure how to connect with people, but I know if I, you know, brought food to school, then. Oh yeah, I made friends.

I was gonna say, you could be as socially awkward as you want. As long as you bring cookies, you're, like, good to go.

In retrospect, I'm like, how, how solid were some of those friendships? Was it a little one sided? But there were some very good friendships born out of that. And so then I really wanted to go to culinary school. After. After high school, I didn't really have any interest in going to college, and I just wanted to. To go on and work. And so I took a gap year and worked for an organization called Mercy Ships, which is a hospital ship off the coast of West Africa. And long Story short, I, two weeks from leaving, didn't have the money I needed for a plane ticket back and just decided I'm going to host a bake sale. And in the span of two weeks, I sold enough to buy a plane ticket home from Togo. And that was kind of the realization of, this is what I want to do with my life. And then got to the ship, ended up getting to bake. Throughout my whole time there, I had this very sort of strange culinary education, like Google searches based on what you could get on a ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Yeah.

Which is not much. And so that was kind of the start. Ended up going to college, and while I was there, I realized, like, oh, I love baking, and I can keep baking, but I can also explore food from a more sort of academic space as well. And so that was the, like, it's just been a slow build of, like, realizing these things that excite me and then realizing the ways that they can merge together.

Yeah. It's just like, a lot of small bets, a lot of small steps in this direction. I was really interested. I was reading your bio, and it said that your work as a baker really started to change the way you read scripture. Talk to us about that. How so?

Yeah. So after college, I was working in a bakery, working in bakeries and restaurants, but I was attending a church that met on Sunday afternoons. And, you know, when you work in the restaurant industry, you get very little control of your schedule, especially your weekends. And so I would work in the bakery on Sunday mornings, and then I would go from the bakery to church on Sunday afternoon, and I would go and receive communion every single week with bread dough still stuck to my arms. Yeah. And it really began to form this question in my mind of, you know, what is this bread that I have been baking all morning have to do with this bread that I am consuming on Sunday afternoon? And realizing there's. There's got to be a link between the two of these. And as I got deeper into sort of this line of questioning and as I got deeper into my baking, you know, while you're baking, like, your body is moving the whole time, but it's not brain work. And so you have a lot of time to think. And so I started thinking a lot about how. How do we see bread at play throughout the story of scripture? And it's everywhere. In fact, it's so common that I think we overlook it because it is such a basic point. Part of the sort of Christian, like, language almost. Yeah.

And then eventually, you wound up at Duke.

Yes.

Did a PhD writing your thesis on the theology of bread. I love this so much.

Oh, thank you. I have to Clarify. Not a PhD. It's an MTS.

Okay.

MTS people think I am a doctor all the time. And sadly, I cannot claim that.

What is the quick flyover version of the theology of bread as you put it in your thesis?

Yeah. So I start by looking at this kind of the relationship between the Christ's words in the temptation, the first temptation, which was to turn the stones into bread. And he responds saying, one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Now, oftentimes we look at that passage and tend to think that kind of food or bread or physical needs are secondary or are sort of not. They're like we. We create this dualism, almost a physical versus spiritual reality. So in the Gospel of John, it opens. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. So of course, we open with this vision of Jesus as the word capital W. Yeah. And then we look ahead to John six and we see Jesus describe himself as the bread of life, that Jesus is the bread. And so when we take sort of that. This relationship between Jesus as word, capital W and Jesus as bread, capital B, I think it. It makes us re. Examine what he's saying in this at the temptations, that Jesus is both the word that proceeds from the mouth of God and Jesus is the bread that we put into our own mouth. So when Jesus says man does not live by bread alone, we don't live solely off of these kind of our physical needs, but this spiritual reality is inherently linked to our physical world and our physical experience. And so when we consume bread, both the bread that we consume in communion, but also the bread, our daily bread, the bread we eat throughout our life, we are connecting with God. We're connecting with our creator in this.

Deep, deep spiritual way, because he's the one that's providing that bread through bakers. What do you mean by that? Go a little deeper.

Yeah, I mean, I think at the most basic, because that's just how God created the world to function. But also, you know, if we look at the story of Genesis, in the beginning of creation, God created humanity with two basic needs. The need to gain nutrition and energy from food and the need to share our lives with others. So there's only one thing that's called not good in all of creation, and that was a human being alone. But we see even before sort of that we See, this need to eat. Right. Like all these other things in creation, they're able to get energy from other sources. Like, plants have root systems that can draw up energy out of the sun. I mean, out of the ground or leaves that can convert energy from the sun. Humans have to eat. We have to consume something. We have tongues and taste buds to enjoy this process of eating. But also we have to share our lives with other humans. That it is not good for a human to being alone. And those two things happen at the same time when we're gathered together around the table. And so I think from the very beginning of creation, God designed us to need both this. This physical and this communal sustenance through food. And then, of course, I think God provides for us in a spiritual way in that same action as well. And so then bread, I think, is kind of this. I see bread as both. Like, very literally. I think we learn a lot from bread, and we see bread as kind of the imagery that's throughout scripture. But bread is also kind of a window into this larger reality of how God connects with us and communes with us through the act of eating.

Yeah. And also through the act of baking, I would imagine. Like, I'm really interested.

Yeah.

You know, I think our vocations are one of the primary means by which God shapes and sanctifies us and reveals himself to us. And it sounds like that's been part of your experience. I'm curious what God has revealed about Himself to you as you've spent time in the kitchen doing your work over the years.

Yeah, I think the most profound thing for me is just the nearness of God. That just knowing on a, like, physical level that God is near while baking, that it's when I have my hands in dough, this sense of calm, this sense of closeness with God exists that I have not experienced in any other way. And I'm sure others in other vocations have experienced experience something similar. You know, I hear from my friends that are farmers and gardeners something very similar about their hands and soil. And I'm sure the same is true for those who both have, you know, very tactile jobs and those who do not. But I think God. God is near, which is. It's. It sounds so simple, but it also is so profound. God created us in human bodies. God created us with senses. And these senses are the only tool we have really, to experience creation, which is then kind of our primary tool of knowing our Creator. And so it makes sense that God is near to us when we are engaging with this. This world that God made. So I think that is the biggest thing that for me and what keeps drawing me back to bread is this. This knowledge that kind of. Yeah, I know God most intimately when my hands are in dough.

Yeah. I think you're hitting on something really profound and applicable to all of our listeners, whether they bake or make widgets with their laptop. You mentioned dualism before. Yeah, Right. This, like, lie that is so deeply pervasive in the church that the spiritual realm is good, the material world is bad. Genesis 1 and 2 crushes that.

Absolutely.

Revelation 21 and 22 crushes that thinking, knowing that Christ will redeem all things, not just the spiritual realm, but also the material realm. And so if God deems the material world good, then our work with material creation, whether that's typing away at this laptop that was made from elements of the earth or you kneading your hands through dough, of course that's a means of communing with the Creator.

Yeah.

Because he created those things to be good, right?

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. It's so easy to look at sort of that Genesis narrative and see, like, okay, God called everything good in Genesis 1 and 2, but then we have Genesis 3. And I think so much of our reality is contending with the fact that, yes, we're living in a world that is broken, but God never called this world not good.

Amen.

You know, God never. God never rescinded the statement that. That this is very good. And so I think because we experience that deep brokenness, we almost want things to be not good. Right. We almost, like, we experience that brokenness. And so we want to think, like, okay, we can get rid of this entire. But the reality is, like, this is still how God created us and how God created the world. And the incarnation of Christ says amen. That God wants this to be good, that God wants us. Like, God wants us to know him in our bodies. God wants us to know him in bread. God wants us to know him in the world around us. And I think that that is so liberating and so delightful, but it is always done with the knowledge of, like, yes, this. This world is broken, and we can't. We can't experience that goodness kind of separate from the brokenness in which we also live right now.

Yeah, this is so good. And we haven't really dug deep into this on this podcast before, and I'm so glad you're bringing it up, but it matters greatly to the vocations of the mere Christians listening that God never once rescinded his claim that creation is good.

Absolutely.

Every square inch of creation. Right. And Jesus said he's coming to make all things new, including the material world. And if that's true, if we want to be theologically consistent, we have to value what God values as measured by what he's going to redeem. In the end, if he's going to redeem the entire universe, the entire material world, then our work with that material world must be good.

Yeah, right, Absolutely.

It must be God honoring.

And especially for. For those of us who work in food, I think it's especially delightful because thing that God gives us as this promise that God is going to continue in this work of redemption is a meal. Yes, it is. Specifically bread and wine, or bread and the cup. And so God gives us this meal. And this is kind of our. Both like our. Our. The story that is telling us again and again that Christ has died and Christ has risen and Christ will come again. But it's also kind of this taste of something to hold on to until that new creation. And so the fact that, like, what we have to help us kind of carry forward to that new creation is not just something tangible, but it is food. It is something we put into our bodies is amazing. And then when we look ahead at revelation, again, this imagery of food and a great garden comes up again. That it's, you know, the tree of life is a tree whose leaves heal nations and that bears its fruit all year round. That this kind of materiality, but especially in relationship to food, is everywhere in sort of both the story of scripture, but also in what we're looking ahead to in the new creation.

Yeah, that's beautiful. So we talked a few minutes ago about how God reveals himself to us while we work. But I also think kind of like a baker shapes dough with her hands. I think God also shapes us with his hands, maybe most frequently through the crucible of work. So I'm curious to hear from you, Kendall. Like, how have you seen God use your work as a baker to sanctify you, to mold you more into the image of Christ?

Yeah, Well, I think in one way, quite practically, I think the process of shaping bread has been a really beautiful sort of metaphor to me of how God shapes us. Like, very, very literally. The process of shaping bread is kind of this relationship between the baker and the dough itself. So all of bread making is about kind of developing gluten and understanding how this gluten is functioning within the bread. And so gluten, it is made up of two amino acids, glutenin and gliadin that have these opposing qualities. One wants to stretch, one wants to hold its shape. They form this bonds with one another. And then this tension develops between the two of them. And that tension is what allows you to have all your strength and structure in bread. So when you're shaping bread, you are having to both build strength and structure and tension, but you're also having to provide plenty of time to rest so that those proteins can relax so that they don't tear or fall apart. And so the process of baking bread is kind of this ongoing like learning to listen to and feel the needs of your dough and respond accordingly, and knowing when it's right to stretch it, knowing when it's right to strengthen it, knowing when it's right to let it rest. And so it is kind of this, this synergy between baker and bread that the baker has to slowly learn. But once the baker knows it, you just kind of feel it, you know it in your body. It's not something I can necessarily sort of explain very well. And I think that that to me, as I'm shaping bread and sort of responding to its needs, it feels like a very powerful picture of how God shapes me and how I think God shapes all of us. That kind of this, this, you know, there's all kinds of theological disagreements around, like, free will versus election versus kind of how God is involved in our lives. But I think this is a really helpful picture of. Of there is this kind of back and forth of God is shaping and directing. God is strengthening us. God is stretching us when we need to be stretched. And God is also giving us rest when, when we need to rest. And also we have this ability to respond to God, to make our needs known, to cry out in prayer when we need this time of rest or when we are exhausted or when we're feeling this sort of strengthening and shaping in a way that is uncomfortable, deeply uncomfortable. And so it has been helpful in thinking through, like, I don't know exactly how God is involved in this process of, of shaping me through both kind of really painful experiences or stretching experiences or times of rest. But I know that there is some sort of back and forth where God is wisely aware of my needs and how to sort of direct me in the direction I need to go. And also God listens to me and God provides me with rest in those seasons when I need rest.

That's really beautiful. Hey, so it's clear to me, based on your work developing this theology of bread, how your faith shapes what you Do. Right. I am curious how your faith shapes how you do what you do. Right. In what ways do you think you bake, bake and break bread differently because of your apprenticeship to the bread of life?

Yeah.

What does that look like?

So, I mean, this has been one of, I think, the hardest things in figuring out how to actually have a career in bread. And that is that everything sort of faith wise that I have learned through bread constantly points me back to this theme of rest and this theme of slowness and this theme of that God shapes us and God develops us and God flavors us through seasons of rest. And also the career. A career in food is the opposite of rest?

Yes.

A career in food is a career that, you know, is often 70, 80, 90 hours a week, all on your feet, really backbreaking, oftentimes really, really degrading environments, just culturally and oftentimes very financially unsustainable environments. And so it has been really hard to figure out how do I take sort of what this bread has taught me about what I believe is, you know, the life of faith and how God wants us to function in creation and how to actually, like, meet my financial needs and my physical needs through baking. And so that has been an ongoing tension for me for the last decade of how do I do this? Well, and so for several years it was working in bakeries and restaurants. And then for me, that that time had to come to an end. I realized that I could not be a healthy human being in that environment. And so then it became sort of, for a season, I ran a CSA style bread bakery. And I still, to me, that was the sweetest season. And still, still, I think, is a beautiful picture of kind of these rhythms at play. And I hope that one day something like that can come back. It was similar to a csa, which is community supported agriculture, kind of a farm share model that oftentimes farms use, I use that as a bread bakery. So people would buy a subscription, they'd get a loaf of bread every week. And the vision was that I would partner with churches as the pickup spots. And so people would come and pick up their bread every Sunday morning from the church. And. And then the church would also use the bread that I had made as their communion bread. So it would very distinctly link the communion table to the kitchen table or the bread that you'd receive on Sunday morning to the bread that you eat all throughout the week. So this, this vision was very beautiful. And I launched it right in the late fall of 2019. So within about six months, the churches were not gathering, and it became very complicated. And by the end of 2020, I had to go close this. This CSA down. But to me, that still, I think, sort of serves as an example of how this sort of life of a baker could also match what I think the bread is teaching us. So, yeah, it's. It's kind of a. It's an example of something that didn't. That didn't work. I. I don't necessarily use the word fail, but, you know, I think that's also an example of how God teaches us through bread that, you know, it's constantly praying for Our daily bread as a. Is a very real reality, a hundred percent.

But this is. You're thinking through your vocation in a rigorous way, through this kind of creation, fall, renewal framework. Right. We talked about how bread is good. Genesis 1 and 2. Adam and Eve were called to cultivate the earth, make bread, make food. Whatever fall sin has. The curse has made that work really difficult. In our current age, it's an incredibly difficult job to work in a kitchen. We're probably not designed to work 80 hours a week on our feet all the time.

And.

And so you're kind of step three, phase three, thinking through this renewal proposal. You're. You're using your biblically formed imagination of, what do I know work will be like on the new heavens and the new earth and working towards that. And even if it failed.

Yeah.

You're still taking steps to that. And I think honoring the Father as you do, that's a really beautiful example.

Oh, thank you. Thank you.

Speaking of the kingdom, you know, Jesus famously compared the kingdom of God to yeast being worked into dough. You've needed a heck of a lot more yeast into dough than I have. Being zero. What do you make of Jesus analogy, and what do you think it can teach us about how the kingdom comes? Because that's the context here.

Right.

He's talking about how the kingdom comes. He's talking about yeast working his way through dough. What does that mean to you?

Yeah. Oh, I love this parable so much. It's, you know, it's like one sentence. It is so short. But I think that that is actually very fitting that this is such a tiny parable and it contains so, so, so much. But so, you know, very, very practically. First, one of the things I love about this is that the woman. So she measures and it's. She mixes her yeast into. I think it's three measures of flour, which is about 60 pounds of flour, which means that she is mixing up over A hundred pounds of dough with her arms. So the first thing that we, that, that we see in this is first that like this is an extremely strong woman who is feeding a lot of people. And so I think we look at both like the smallness of the parable, because it's only a sentence, and the smallness of sort of the imagery, which is that yeast is microscopic and yet also at play here is this woman who is incredibly strong and feeding a lot of people. And then also it is about the slowness, I think, of this growth, that this yeast takes time, that the woman has a responsibility to mix the dough and to make sure that the dough is kind of in the proper environment. But then also the yeast is going to do its work over time of slowly working its way through this dough and slowly transforming this dough. And I think that that is also, it is a beautiful picture of how sort of the kingdom of God spreads throughout the earth, that we as Christians, I think, have a responsibility to do the work that God has called us to do. And also we trust that God is doing the slow work of transforming through us, but also just through God's own means. And so it is both kind of we have a task, but it's also a very humbling task, which is to largely sort of step back.

We have the task of renewal, but we know that consummation is coming and the God alone is going to finish the work.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. Man, I could go on about microbes forever because they are so cool. Microbes and yeast are amazing.

So that's what that sentence sounds like.

Yes, yes. But I mean, I think we are like research on sort of microbes and the body and how they shape us is like just on the cusp. And just what we have today, like completely, I think, reshapes so much of what we see in scripture. And I could nerd out about it forever. I have a friend who has ts theology of microbes and it's just amazing. It is, it is so cool.

I love introduction. Yeah, I think there's this lie that's pervaded much of the church that when Jesus, when scripture calls us to wait, it's kind of this like passive waiting. Like we are waiting for the kingdom to drop from the clouds. That heaven is this one time event in the future has nothing really to do with the present. And I think this parable of the yeast totally contradicts that thinking.

Right.

Jesus said the kingdom isn't going to come in one fell swoop. Yeah, yeah, it's going to come Slowly and at least in part, through the work that mere Christians do in the world. I'm curious for you as a baker, how does baking this can sound so amorphous, make this a little more practical, Kendall. Like, how does baking bread help the kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven? What in the world does that look like?

Yeah. So, I mean, on a very practical level, I could go into sort of the more theoretical level, but I think on a practical level, we have the reality that everyone needs to eat.

Yes.

And that throughout most of human history, bread has been the core of the human diet for most humans. And so, very practically, like when I bake bread and serve bread to others, I am stepping into a lineage of humans for thousands and thousands and thousands of years who have been sustained through bread. And so I think on a practical level, like, just feeding people is necessary to stay alive. And so, you know, we're stepping into that. Into that. That lineage. But also, I think bread is, again, this reminder of that God's creation is not just practical, that God's creation is delightful as well.

Yes.

Again, like, we were created with this need to draw nutrition and energy from food. We could have gotten nutrition and energy from a variety of different ways. We also, God chose to give us, you know, tongues and taste buds. But not only that, God chose to make food delicious. And so it is not just that, like, this practical need for sustenance is met, but this also ability to find delight and joy and pleasure in good food is part of how God created us. And so, as a baker, I am not only providing the sustenance that people need, but I'm also learning how to draw really delicious flavors out of this bread and make bread that brings delight to people. And I think that people experience, whether or not people can name it, I think people experience God through the delight and joy and pleasure of eating bread.

That's exactly right. And that's enough. Right. I want to read this quote from Luther. Where is it? Yeah. Luther's larger catechism. Luther says, quote, when you pray for daily bread, you're praying for everything that contributes to your having and enjoying your daily bread. You must open up and expand your thinking so that it reaches not only as far as the flour bin and baking oven, but also out over the broad fields, the farmlands, and the entire country that produces, processes, and conveys to us our daily bread and all kinds of nourishment. What's Luther saying? He's saying what he says elsewhere, that we are the, quote, masks of God. End quote. As we feed and heal and protect the world, we are the means by which God delivers that daily bread. It's him doing the delivery, and he's providing the daily bread, but he's doing it through the work of mere Christians in the world, right? And that's kingdom worth. Because when we look at the marks of the consummated kingdom, right, there's abundance, there is beauty, there are choice wines and the finest foods, right? And we're giving people a literal and metaphorical taste of that when you just bake good bread, right?

Yeah. Yes, absolutely. Which is also just so delightful. You know, it is. It is just really incredible to be able to see people's face and reaction when they eat your bread and to get to experience sort of a little bit of their joy when they experience the joy of eating and to realize, like man, this is a taste of the kingdom. Not just a literal taste in the taste of bread, but the joy that's shared between us is a taste of the kingdom. And it is. It's really incredible.

That's really good. Isaiah 65, Revelation 22, make it crystal clear that when the kingdom is consummated, we're going to have work to do for eternity on the new earth. And some of that will be Agricultural. Isaiah 65 talks about planting vineyards, right? I'm curious what job you want for eternity. Like, do you want to bake?

I would love to.

Yeah.

Yes. I want to do it all. So I want to. Ines de la Cruz was a early modern Mexican nun, and she wrote famously, if Aristotle had cooked, he would have written a great deal more. And sort of her work, she was sort of. She was a scholar, but she was also, as a sister, she had a lot of domestic duties. And in many ways, her scholarship was kind of a challenge to the Catholic Church at large at the time. The sisters were more seen as the ones who did the domestic work, and the men were the ones who did the more academic, scholarly work. And her sort of whole canon of work is this testament to the fact that our minds are renewed through this, like this domestic work, that through cooking, through baking, we are able to also think better and write better. And that has kind of been a hallmark for how I live my own life, that I think that it is in baking that I learn better how to think and write. And also it is this thinking and writing that allows me to bake, I think, with even more delight and pleasure. And so, for me, if that is what sort of the. The new creation entails is baking and writing. And thinking and sharing food with others.

Then you're all about it.

I will. I am all about it. And it's great because that's what my life looks like right now too.

I love that you brought this up. You're hitting on One of the 32 practices I share in my book, redeeming your time. It's my favorite. It's one of my favorite tips to give to mere Christians. If you want, work with your mind, rest with your hands.

Yeah.

And if you work with your hands, rest with your mind. And Churchill has this great quote explaining why Churchill said, quote, a man can wear out a particular part of his mind by continually using it and tiring it. Just in the same way he can wear out the elbows of his coat. The tired parts of the mind can be rested and strengthened not just by any kind of rest, but by using other parts of the body. That's exactly what you're talking about.

Yeah, absolutely. I have always loved that. But I think it's funny with the work of baking and I'm sure there are other tasks like this too. The two really do go hand in hand that like you're while baking, your mind kind of, I guess, is at rest.

Yes.

But for me, it is like when my mind is. Is at work that I get to do the two hand in hand and I think they feed one another. It allows the work to be rest in its own way.

My best ideas, my most creative connections happen when I wash the dishes. Yes.

I love that.

Consistently.

Yeah.

Wash the dishes or run. Because I work with my mind primarily. Right. And so when I'm rested with my hands or my feet, that's when I get those creative ideas. Hey, I'm curious. I want you to use your imagination here for a second. What do you think will be different about baking without the curse? Fast forward 5,000 years, Lord willing, right?

Yeah.

What's going to be different about that craft when all things are made new?

Well, I think the biggest thing that we experience right now is that there will be no more allergies, that people will be able to actually eat and enjoy bread thoroughly. And that I think is the. The biggest difference that of what we know right now.

No more gluten free bread is what you're saying.

No more gluten free bread is what I'm saying. Hopefully, you know, if someone can make a really delicious gluten. Gluten free bread in the new creation, then I think it could exist there. But I have not yet tasted one that I think is worthy of consummation. Of all things. But yeah, no, I think first and most practically that there will be no more allergies and people can actually enjoy, enjoy food without fear. But also, we don't experience as much kind of the reality of the brokenness of creation in relationship to bread because we can get flour very easily from the grocery store. We, we can mix it up at home with our hands, let it rest, and bake it very easily in our ovens. But for most of human history, the work of bread has been an incredibly laborious task. The work of growing wheat, of harvesting wheat, of threshing it, grinding it into flour, mixing in the leaven and turning that fl. That bread, that flour into dough, chopping down trees and building a fire to have the heat to bake the bread. There's been so much hard, hard, hard work involved in the process of making bread for most of human history that we can't fully fathom. But I think the, the pain of that labor and also the difficulty of access to those ingredients will be non existent in the midst of a broken or in the midst of a renewed creation. And so I think that the work of bread making will be fundamentally different as a result.

Yeah, that's a beautiful answer. I would encourage you listeners to go through this exercise. I've been doing it lately. Like, imagine your current work, work without the curse as a means of spurring your hope right for the future, when we will all, as Isaiah 65:22 says, long enjoy the work of our hands. Hey, Kendall, three questions we wrap up every conversation with. Number one, which books do you find yourself recommending or gifting most frequently to others these days other than your own terrific books?

Yes. So my go to is Robert Farrar Capen, Supper of the Lamb. Have you read it?

I have not.

It's brilliant. You're gonna love it. Capon was an Episcopal priest, but he was also a food writer for the New York Times, and he and his wife were satirical writers for a satirical newspaper called the Wittenberg Door. And Supper of the Lamb is kind of the culmination of all three together. It is theological, but it's hilarious. And it's also all about food. It's wonderful.

This sounds incredible.

Oh, it's amazing.

I'm reading done. It's on my list. I've also added to my list your new book, By Bread Alone. Can you give our listeners a quick overview of what this new book's all about?

Yeah. So I like to say By Bread Alone is a theology of bread as told through my own story. So it is kind of my story of how God has shaped me through the process of baking bread, how God has shaped my relationship to, quite literally, bread, as well as Christ, the bread of life, how God has shaped my relationship to my own body, and. And my relationship to the body of Christ, all of that through the work of baking bread. So it is a book about loneliness and hunger and longing and the ways that God meets us in the midst of that. So I am very excited about it, and I really hope that it speaks to the very real sort of visceral hungers that we see in culture today, both this hunger for community, this hunger for good food, and this hunger for a deeper, more robust and more, I think, gentle engagement with the church.

Yeah, man, that's good. I can't wait to read it. Hey, Kendall, who would you most like to hear on this podcast talking about how their faith shapes their work?

I would love to hear Tony Tipton Martin. Toni Tipton Martin is. She's a cookbook writer and a food historian. Her most recent book is called Jubilee, and it is a about the various ways that black women throughout the history of America have sort of redeemed their own agency through cooking. And her work is incredible, and I know has been shaped by her faith, although she doesn't talk a lot about how. How that has happened explicitly, and I would love to hear her talk about that more explicitly.

Man, I love this answer. Okay, great. We'll be reaching out to Tony for sure. Hey, Kendall, what's one thing from today's conversation you want to reiterate to our listeners, to these mere Christians listening before we sign off?

Yeah, I would love to reiterate again this focus on rest and the ways that bread teaches us to rest. I assume that a lot of listeners are probably like me in sort of the entrepreneurial. If you listen to a podcast about work, it's probably because you do actually like your work.

That's exactly right.

And I think for those of us in that vein, it can be really, really hard to take seriously the value of rest and the importance of rest and the importance of slowing down and remembering that God shapes us and transforms us in the slowing down, and that actually I think our work is more full when we take these times to rest and slow down.

I couldn't agree more. Kendall. I want to commend you for the exceptional work you do for the glory of God and the good of us. Thank you for reminding us of the goodness of the material world and thus the goodness of our material work, and for reminding us that is the work of mere Christians. That is part of how God spreads the kingdom of God in the present, makes it more real, more beautiful, more tangible on earth as it is in heaven. Guys, you can learn more about Kendall's great work@edibletheology.com one of the best domain names I've ever heard of. And you could also pick up a copy of her new book By Bread Alone. Kendyl, thanks again for joining us.

Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me, Jordan. It's been such a delight, man.

I love that episode so much. I cannot wait to read Kendall's book. Hey, if you've got somebody you'd love to hear on this podcast, let me know@jordanraynor.com contact and hey, if you're loving this show show, do me a favor. Leave a review of the podcast on Apple Podcasts on Spotify. Tell us what you love, tell us what you don't love so we can make this show better and better for you. Love you guys. So grateful we get to make this show. Thanks for tuning in and I'll see you guys next week. Foreign hey friends, this is your last chance to claim all the amazing pre order bonuses for five mere Christians before they go away at 11:59pm Eastern Standard Time on May 9. I've never offered this many pre order bonuses on a book before, so when you fill out the form@5Mechristians.com Number one, you're going to be entered to win an incredible trip for you and a friend to tour CS Lewis's favorite spots in Oxford, explore Olay Kirk Christiansen's former stomping grounds at Lego headquarters in Denmark, and much more. Number two, you'll be invited to join my first ever interactive reading, culminating in a Zoom call with me and my co author on this book, Kaylee Cox. Number three, you're going to be getting a money back guarantee to try the book risk free. And number four, you'll also get access to a free course I'm not selling anywhere called how to write a book 10x faster and better with an affordable co author. You can claim all these bonuses in just two simple steps. Step 1 Pre order 5 mere Christians in any format you want. It can be hardback, ebook, audiobook, whatever and you can order it from wherever. Doesn't matter to me. Step 2 Go to 5Mere Christians.com and fill out the form of that page and that's it. I'll send you all those bonuses. You'll be entered into the sweepstakes with one simple form submission, but hey, don't wait all of these off, all of these offers, all these bonuses, they're going away at 11:59pm Eastern Standard Time on May 9th. So visit 5Mechristians.com right now to claim your bonuses.