The spiritual impact of Nate’s meteoric success
What it means to Stephen that Satan had no idea what Nate Bargatze would become, how magic can create awe and wonder that leads to belief in God, and the gospel-centered mental shift he credits for the salvation of his mom on her deathbed.
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[0:00:05.4] JR: Hey friend, 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 critical care nurses, tile centers, and technical writers? That’s the question we explore every week and today, I’m posing it to Stephen Bargatze, the world-class magician who has spent 40 years mastering his craft.
Today, of course, Stephen is best known as the father of Nate Bargatze, the wildly popular comedian, whom Stephen has been touring with over the last year. Stephen and I sat down and had a terrific conversation about what it means to him that satan had no idea what Nate Bargatze would become. We talked about how magic could create awe and wonder that leads to belief and God.
And Stephen shared the terrifically emotional story about this gospel-centered shift he made in his mind that he credits God, using for the salvation of his mother on her deathbed. Trust me, you are not going to want to miss this episode with my new friend, Stephen Bargatze.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:01:28.3] JR: Stephen Bargatze, welcome to the Mere Christians Podcast.
[0:01:32.0] SB: Well, I’m glad to be here. I’m glad you can pronounce my name, that’s pretty good.
[0:01:35.5] JR: Well, there’s competing things on the internets about the pronunciation of your name. I heard do a whole bit on Borgetzi versus Borgatze.
[0:01:43.9] SB: Yeah, it’s actually a little bit of both, it’s Borgetze.
[0:01:46.5] JR: Borgetze?
[0:01:48.2] SB: But Jimmy Fallon messed it up and so, the whole family goes, “Well, I guess that’s what we are now.”
[0:01:55.8] JR: Whatever Jimmy Fallon says, that’s where you’ll be known as for the rest of your life. I told you before we started recording, I saw you in Tampa open for your son a few months back on this tour you guys have been on. I swear, you almost stole the show from Nate, it was just so wonderful.
[0:02:15.1] SB: I don’t think that. I hear that a lot, and I don’t. I’m a nice surprise. So, when I come on, the people will go –
[0:02:22.2] JR: The bar is low.
[0:02:21.9] SB: Yeah, yeah. They go, "Oh man, his dad is here, he’s real, though really he does magic too. Wow.” And then, they find out, I’m not as bad as they thought. They thought like, “Oh, we can put up with this for a little while.” And then go, so I’m the surprise but –
[0:02:37.4] JR: You’re the surprise. Surprise and delight.
[0:02:39.1] SB: Yeah, I’m not – I don’t think that I’m – I steal anything from Nate or anything like that.
[0:02:43.8] JR: I love it. Is there a story from this most recent tour that you’re like, “Oh man, I’m Lord willing, going to be telling this story until the day I die.”
[0:02:54.0] SB: It started off, it was great and it was everything I would hope it would be, and find I work hard not to be the old man on the tour, you know, but I’m not like them. They like – Nathan and them, they like to stay up late and fall asleep and wake up in the city, ready to go, lunch, and then do it all again. I don’t want to be asleep before the bus leaves and so, but I have – you know, I don’t want to be that.
You know, I’m just the old man with a C-pap on the bus. I don’t want to play games and do the stuff that they do. So, I did work on that. Then, Saturday Night Live came and that was a game changer.
[0:03:29.4] JR: Yeah, why?
[0:03:30.8] SB: It was a game changer because we would do one. God, I mean, God has just been so good to our family and our family, you know, I tell this out there, we can take no credit. I mean, we’re just a family, and everybody thinks Nathan’s very, very funny. He’s a great storyteller but he’s also just a reporter, everything he’s saying is true. He’s not making these stories up, they’re really there.
He just tells them in a good way but I have an above-ground coy pond and I did burn my house while he was in on a Saturday, you know all this stuff so – but we were working so hard, we were doing two shows a day everywhere. We go – or you know what? We said this, he started saying, “Well, I think I could sell arenas out, we only have to do, not necessarily sell them out, just do arenas and then, we would only have to do the one show on Friday and Saturday and that would be good for all of us.”
And then, Saturday Night Live came and we started doing two arenas a night, and then we’re just like, “Golly.” And so – and then everybody wants a piece of Nathan now, and all my people out there, if have prayers, pray for my family because I think so often, this is what I learned this week in my devotions and stuff I was looking at that satan, he’s not God. He didn’t know when Nathan was born what he was going to be today. God knew, satan didn’t.
If he did, he would have probably came after my family a lot sooner but now that Nathan’s getting all this success and he’s doing Nateland Production. Well, we’re trying to do a company where if you have that label, you know this is good, clean content, and know all that. So, that’s going to change everything, he’s been asked for movies and stuff and he’s telling them, “No, I’m not, these are roles I won’t do and this is what I” –
You know, he had an offer for a sitcom and they wanted to change everything, they wanted his brother to be gay, his brother is a missionary at that time. He wrote it as a missionary and it’s funny stuff in there. My son, the missionary has four children and he was in Uganda. I always said because there’s not a lot to do in Uganda, and they just have kids, and so there’s fun stuff, and even that life.
But they were going, “No, he needs to be homosexual and your daughter has to be a liberal.” And all that and Nathan stood up to that and said no, and he walked away from a sitcom and I have never been prouder at that moment for him to have done that but now, they’re back. We’re being hunted as a family. We’re being attacked all over the place and people are looking and it’s becoming very stressful. I ask for prayer for my family during this time that we can stay strong because I think we’re on Satan’s radar now.
[0:06:06.1] JR: Well, I will commit to praying for that. I’m sure a lot of our listeners will, and that is an interesting insight though. I love that inside of, yeah, God knew the plans he had for Nate, satan didn’t, God is sovereign, satan is not.
[0:06:20.8] SB: And that’s for every Christian out there. I mean, he doesn’t know what is in store for you but God does.
[0:06:26.9] JR: That’s right. So, Stephen, of course, today, you’re most well-known as Nate’s dad but you’re a world-class magician in your own right. I was reading your bio, you’re a “International Brotherhood of Magicians Champion” Which sounds fake but your publicist promised me, this is real. I mean, you spent 40 years mastering this craft, right?
[0:06:48.4] SB: I was a special ed student, I was attacked by a bulldog when I was little and some people will probably think, “Well, this connects and this guy talks, it sounds weird.” No, this is the way I sound, and I’ve always had a speech impediment and I had problems in school and stuff like that. So, I had a teacher that used magic as a way for me to read and want to do stuff like that.
So, it was just the one thing that I could do and I’ve always loved it and you know, I used to be, now, I started off as a clown. Nathan’s first stab was he got yelled at by a clown, that was all true. I had plastic surgery in my mouth and on my tongue from the dog when the dog bit me, and so I say, “Well, most of that is my butt now.” But it looks good, I just had bad breath a lot. So, what I did is when I first started trying to do this stuff, people would ask me, “Are you making fun or are you talking that way or did you know you spit on that lady?” And all that stuff.
I go, “Yeah, I know.” But – so, I just incorporated it into my story, and believe it or not, I had met several magicians, one of my good friends and a guy named Jason Michaels, who used to be another guy I used to talk to, one day, had Turrets syndrome and he grew up believing that he could never talk about it because it would be like a weakness, and I go, “No, you talk about it, you can help.”
“I mean, there’s people out there, it might not be Turrets but it’s something that we’re going to.” You may not talk funny but you can overcome and I mean, look at – I was a kid that wouldn’t talk in school, I wouldn’t do anything, and now, I entertain 20,000 people because of Nate, at one time.
[0:08:22.3] JR: It’s a very Moses-like story, right? Hey, I’m stuttering but God’s going to use me, and when He does, God’s going to get the glory, not me. Hey, I’m curious, I think you’re kind of going here already naturally, but why do you think God delights in the work you do as a magician? Because a lot of Christians are like, “Evil, get out of here.” Right? But I’m assuming, you believe, you’re a serious follower of Jesus. I’ve read your interviews before, why do you think God delights in your vocation?
[0:08:47.0] SB: You know what? Because of the path He took me to. When I first came to know the Lord, the pastor that the church I went for didn’t do it. I always said I went down more because of Price is Right than I did the gospel at that time. I just saw people going forward and I wondered what was going on. I didn’t really hear the gospel like they thought, or maybe I heard it because I felt the Holy Spirit but I didn’t understand it.
So, I went down in this church and they just said, “Okay, you’re a Christian, good job. No more cussing, no drinking, you got to quit wearing your clothes, cut your hair, take that earring out.” And it was all this stuff I had to do, and I thought, I was okay with that because I didn’t really have a regular father at home. It was a very alcoholic, abusive family, so I thought, “All right, this is what it means to have a father and I’ll have to do all this stuff.”
And so, I just spent a pretty good while trying to earn His love, trying to you know, be the perfect Christian and stuff, and the one thing He did was He told me magic was evil and wrong and you should get rid of and I had a pretty good collection of magic and I gave it all away. I just walked away from it, and I don’t regret it to this day. I know I needed to, at that time, I was young enough, I was putting all my resource, all my time, all my money into buying tricks and trying to get this thing going.
And it was very much an idol to me, without me knowing even what that means but I was just putting so much effort, everything was like thinking about that. God had to see if I would offer it up to Him and I was willing to do that.
[0:10:18.6] JR: So, how did you come back to it?
[0:10:19.8] SB: We were starving. There was a little restaurant called Bennigan’s in Nashville Tennessee and they had a Halloween thing for a month and it was just to come and do card tricks and I go, “I can I remember some card tricks.” But I also saw Andre Kole, which was, he did Campus Crusade for Christ. I saw him, I got his book and read that, and read a little bit about the true, you know, the word magician and how it got in the Bible.
And it’s really a sorcerer, someone that makes potions and drugs and did spells and stuff. We should be aware Walgreens, not magicians but he said that King James was fooled by a magician with sleight of hand and he thought, it was a trick I do with a ball up underneath, a big ball comes under a cup and he said, I must have been – put me in a spell, I woke up and the ball was there.
And so, he was the one who would say, “We’re going to put magicians in there with that.” But magicians weren’t called magicians, they were Legerdemain. This is off from Andre Kole, they were like jesters and they would actually go do a little bible school or whatever it is in the summer, I can’t think of now.
[0:11:23.9] JR: Vacation Bible School, yeah.
[0:11:24.7] SB: Vacation Bible School but they would have to explain and they would go, “Here’s a trick, it’s a trick, this is not real, and these people are not doing real things” and they –
[0:11:32.2] JR: This isn’t witchcraft.
[0:11:34.2] SB: Yeah, this is to share the gospel, and so it’s really – that’s what you know – so, it kind of opened my mind. I go, “All right, we need money.” And I went and did card tricks and was paid like a hundred dollars a night, which was a fortune back in the 80s, and so I got that and then I gradually, “Oh, maybe I can do children’s parties and do that.” And then, God just kind of carried me through all of this.
Now, with Nate, you know, he’s got a combo and this is – I think it’s interesting what’s happening and this is a story I’ll always tell. I have a good friend named Taylor Hughes who was doing a trick and I was looking at it and he was telling me, “Nathan started doing the shows in the round, and then, the round, that’s not great for a magician.” So, there was a lot – it eliminated probably 80% of the stuff I do.
Actually, I can’t do that, and people all the way around me, unless I say, “All right, section L, close your eyes for about 30 seconds.”
[0:12:28.0] JR: Kind or ruins the magic.
[0:12:28.6] SB: Yeah, you’re going to love this. He had a great trick but it’s not funny, I couldn’t really show off how the comedy in my act. I do a couple of tricks that are just very, very funny and people are – I think that I do the Rubik’s Cube when you saw me.
[0:12:46.0] JR: Yeah.
[0:12:45.9] SB: In the bottle. Yeah, that’s the new trick but I did it for the first time and I talked to Nate all about this, I said, “I mean, whether they’d understand or not, I’m telling them that this is the gospel, that we were made for a purpose and we are doing exactly what we need to do.” And it was, I said, “It’s not going to be as funny as anything else I do, but you know what? We have four – three comments on the show.”
I think that I can be a little serious and just kind of stand up for our family, and just say, you know, for the people that’s listening, the idea is a Rubik’s Cube in a bottle, it’s all mixed up, you allowed one to get mixed up in front of the audience and you fake solving it, and you talk about this is what life looked like on Instagram, on Facebook, and on podcasts, it sounds all great and everything but a show that I didn’t really fix the one they mixed up, pulling it out.
And I say, “But this is the Bargetze, this is our life and stuff, and you’re only here because – not because we’re perfect. You wouldn’t have bought those tickets, you’re here because my family is all this, and you just want to feel better about your family.” So, at least we’re not that but then, I say, “But God has a plan in all our unperfectness, in all the things going on, all the things that took me to this moment that brought me right here today.”
And now, you show that the one that they mixed up, matches the one that was in the bottle that’s been there the whole time, and every side matches and it’s just that there is a purpose, and I’m not trying to slap them in the head or anything but I know all the believers in the audience and I think there’s a lot that get it.
[0:14:19.6] JR: No, they get it.
[0:14:20.1] SB: That’s exactly what I – but I’ve had – those are – I want to say his name but I won’t, a very funny comic guy that were just wondering what’s God in this stuff and you know I said, “It’s a God thing.” And wrote and asked me, “You know, what is this God thing?” And I’ve been able to talk to him and exactly, he’s prayed, he received Christ and we talk almost every day and just that little comment.
[0:14:42.5] JR: I love it, I love how bold you are about your faith on the stage but you're not beating people’s head over a stick with the gospel. It’s not vacation bible school. I do think that in order for our hearts to even be receptive to the gospel, I think we must first be receptive to wonder and awe, right? Like, isn’t that what magic does, right? Like, you’re awakening people’s sense of what – a random question, did you watch “The Crown” on Netflix by chance?
[0:15:09.6] SB: No. I mean, it sounds like something I need to watch.
[0:15:11.3] JR: It’s really great, the story of Queen Elizabeth II and it’s season six, she has this line, I just pulled it up from my –
[0:15:17.0] SB: Well, you know what? My wife watches that.
[0:15:19.4] JR: Does she watch it? You should find this episode –
[0:15:19.5] SB: Yeah, my wife loves all that stuff.
[0:15:21.7] JR: I’ll send you this particular episode but Queen Elizabeth says, “Monarchy isn’t rational, and people brush up against this, they want the magic and the mystery and transcendent. They want to feel like they’ve entered another world. That is our duty, to lift people up and transport them into another realm.” And I think that’s what you do as a magician.
[0:15:42.5] SB: Yeah, you know what? It’s play, yeah, I am. I’m allowing that, we all want that, and you know, you said in the beginning, the joy and got to go back and to do magic for people, and what – does God have joy in us, yes, we have but I have joy in Him and I am able to share that joy in this with laughter and just a fun night out with your whole family. You can watch my son and you can watch my show and with your kids right beside you.
You can, this is comedy, this is what it’s about, I just spent a week in Vegas and I did a whole show but God can sit right there on that chair. He is and no matter, how ugly even or not, He is there but I’m not embarrassed, and as my, you know, my pastor came in, he came to one of my shows in Vegas, I just feel him but if he came there, I am not embarrassed, I am not ashamed.
[0:16:32.9] JR: I like that criteria, it makes God’s presence a little bit more concrete. It’s like, “Would my pastor approve of this show?” That’s interesting. Hey, you brushed passed something a few minutes ago I want to come back to, you talked about you spent a lot of time in the road throughout your career, right? And you talked about, you used the word pitfalls. So, how did you discern the right balance of being home with Nate, the kids, your wife, and being on the road and doing this work that God called you to do?
[0:16:58.9] SB: Yeah, that’s the most difficult thing and I’m never was on the level that Nathan is going and he’s right, he just have to – Nathan is changing the compass of our whole family. Sometimes I feel like he takes the responsibility that he has. I have a daughter, we have seven grandkids, I have a severely autistic grandson that’s going to always need help and is always going to need all this stuff and I think Nathan has taken all that on.
And I am not going to tell, it was such a – it was a relief to know that he’s got, my daughter. I go, “Good, she’s yours now.” God has taken all that worry out but when I was young, I couldn’t hardly find jobs now because it was, you know, it was a card payment. It was my house payment –
[0:17:37.5] JR: You needed the money.
[0:17:38.7] SB: Yeah, we had to go out then and do that. So, my kids just learned, well, there were certain sacrifices. The worst part in life for money was always the November and December, getting towards to Christmas but the Christmas was dependent on my show. So, if I had a lot of really good shows, they were going to have a great Christmas. I think they – the older they got, they understood that.
That dad is doing this and he’s doing this again a little bit for us but I took the time with Nate and Derek, I wish I would have done more with my daughter. By that time, we needed early to work when they were in school and all that stuff but I coached baseball for Nathan. So, I made sure, I missed games sometimes there, you know we’re booking bigger shows, and things I couldn’t do but for the most part, I was there for him, for both of them.
And so, I said, “This is it, this summer I’m not going to work this much, I’m going to coach baseball.” So, six to eight weeks, this is what I am doing, and I –
[0:18:31.5] JR: Yes, you thought about seasonally, you’re like, “All right, when I’m home, I’m home, I’m all there but when I’m on the road, yeah, I’m going to work hard to provide for my family.” I’m sure we have a lot of listeners, right? Who are in the shoes that you were in 20 years ago who have to be on the road a lot, away from their families in order to provide and they feel maybe some guilt about that.
They feel a tension between the call, the biblical call to be excellent parents but also the biblical call to be excellent at their craft. What encouragement would you give them, Stephen?
[0:19:01.9] SB: For me to do it all again, I think I would be so much more understanding of what my wife does and did and I think that you have to minister to her so she can minister to your children, and that does take time. I mean, we can’t – we have to but again, me and my wife, I mean, this is not good but me and my wife had never gone on a trip just me and her without a show in the background.
I’ve done shows in Paris, France, I’ve done shows in England and Australia, and we’ve gone to some awesome places and we always go early and stuff but still, and we were just talking the other day, “You know, we haven’t done something just me and you.” And I think you have to do that and that’s with your whole family. You have to just go, “All right, I am going to do something.” And spend that time.
A pretty famous comedian, a guy, Dusty Slay, I just heard him talk the other day, and he goes on the road for three weeks, and he stays home for one, and I thought, “Wow, that I wish Nate would almost adopt that.” I thought that’s a great idea and Nate is doing kind of what I did and I’m forcing him. That’s what happens sometimes. I mean, he work-work-work-work, and now, he’s taking the summer.
He’s taking, you know, six weeks off, and then you know, then gradually, he’ll be back out into that cycle. I wish – I’ve really liked Dusty Slay's model doing and that’s why you know you’re going to spend time but I would suggest when you are there, you get – I mean, the thing is you want to do fun stuff with your kids, you think that but if you can just probably do what’s fun for them, you got to get involved in their lives.
[0:20:29.7] JR: Yeah, yeah, that’s good.
[0:20:31.2] SB: And you know, what’s important to them. Well, that’s what I need to know.
[0:20:34.7] JR: You’re clearly so proud of all your children. I think I’d be able to remember for a really long time watching you on stage at the end of your set getting genuinely choked up talking about Nate and as I was watching you, I thought to myself, “Wow, if you and I as earthly fathers are capable of being this overwhelmed with love for our kids as we watch them do the thing God made them to do, in your case, to watch Nate on stage, how much love must our heavenly Father feel as he watches you, Stephen, do the thing He made you do on that same stage?
And so, you’re at the later part of your career, as you look back over your 40 years doing this work, what do you hope has brought your heavenly Father that deep kind of joy and delight?
[0:21:28.4] SB: The salvation of my – and you might recall, the salvation of my children, and this is to know that we shared that with them and that they know what a godly life and that I pray and that He’s just happy that – forget that I am doing what He created me to do, which is awesome but I really feel like yeah, we are but I also know that I’m more created to make sure that all my children and family’s names are written in the book of life, and that I have to tell them and I have to share that with it.
I also had a very rough childhood with my mother and me and her just never got along and she never liked me and it was always best for me to avoid her and I did that for reasons but she got really sick at the end and she was at a nursing home, and I went 12 years without talking to her because she didn’t want to and that she kicked me out and I mean, there was a lot of stuff with my mom and that’s a whole different podcast.
But I was able, my sister called. My mom really was abusive to me and then I ran away and then my mom was abusive to my sister after me and that was a terrible time in my life because I didn’t check on my sister. I never thought where mom might do this to somebody else. I just thought it was me and yet, she went after my sister but today, me and my one sister, we’re the only believers and so, you know again, God’s plan is in all of this stuff.
So, but anyway, I was able to go the day before she died, she was in a COVID ward, and she was dying with COVID, and I was able to go stand before and I always say this, and this is when I first tried it, when I first became a Christian, I went right to her. I went right to my whole family and I said, “Look, you’re all going to hell. You know, that doesn’t work.” Then the second time, I’ve tried to say, “You know, God loves you but you’re going to hell.”
And I thought if God loves you, and then that would be good but no, but my mom has never seen Nate, she's never seen my grandchildren, she's never seen my kids, she's seen them maybe and never really knew nothing about my life and my family and nor does she ever care but when she got sick, she was in the hospital, I couldn't get in but I go in and God allows me to get in because of my speech impediment that the kid at the thing to let people check on the list couldn't find my name and he said, "How do you spell Bargatze?"
And I go, “How it sounds, just like it sounds.” And I might have spit a little bit but he goes, “Just go.” So, he sent me in. So, I am walking up these steps and I’m going, “You know what? Isn’t God good?” I knew she was close to death and I said, “She’s going to get to tell me she’s sorry and she’s sorry she never knew my kids, that she’s sorry that she’s not a part of our life, and all of this stuff and then God, it’s going to be so great.”
And as soon as I walked in the room with the Holy Spirit and God, I didn’t need her to tell me she’s sorry. I needed to tell her I’m sorry. I wasn’t a great kid when I was young. Yeah, we had troubles but I made her life so bad and so hard. I always had grace for my mom but I never had mercy and my mom needed mercy. That is the forgiveness when you don’t even ask for it when you don’t deserve it.
I mean, grace is the free gift, and what you don’t deserve it. Mercy is not needing what you do deserve, that’s what my mother needed at that moment, and I was able to give her mercy and just apologize and say, “I wish I would have made you know my kids. I wish you’d known my children.” And I just talked to her about all of that and she’s crying. She can’t talk but she kept crying and crying and I just said, “You’re going to meet my Jesus and I love Him more than anything and you get to go first.”
“All you have to do is ask and would you like to do that?” And she nodded her head and I prayed for my mom and she died the next morning but I didn’t know my mom. She had so much trouble and I found all this out later and after her death and all this stuff that she went through and you know, we don’t realize that but I have always turned to Jesus to get to know her now and I think that’s meant He’s got my mom. I think that’s what it is.
[0:25:45.4] JR: No doubt and God used your humility, right? And kind of these years of internalizing the gospel clearly, Stephen, to lead you to that point of I would be the same way walking up the steps, what could I get for my mom before she goes, what could I give, what could I get? And then by the Holy Spirit’s power, transition that into, “What can I give her?” And I can give her mercy.
That’s what God used to show her a three-dimensional flesh-and-bone model of the gospel that made that winsome to her and those final hours and yeah, you will be able to spend time with her for eternity, which leads to one of four final rapid-fire questions I’d love to ask, you know Isiah 65 –
[0:26:25.8] SB: Okay, I know this podcast. This podcast went way off the rails of what you thought.
[0:26:30.4] JR: Oh no, it didn’t. This is incredible, oh my gosh, Stephen. So, Isiah 65 says that we will long enjoy the work of our hands with our descendants on the new earth, Isiah 65:17 through 23. If you think about that, what job would you love for God to give you on the new earth? You want to be doing magic? You want to be doing tricks and clean comedy with your son forever?
[0:26:57.9] SB: You know, maybe in a way I want a real job, maybe just to get up at eight and go there, you know?
[0:27:04.0] JR: I love that. Hey, Stephen, what books do you give away the most frequently? Like if you looked at your Amazon order history, what are you purchasing over and over again?
[0:27:11.9] SB: Yeah, I saw that question, I went, “Kelly, I was such an avid reader.” And again, I had a really difficult time reading, and then I got to where I was reading. I like Brother Lawrence, the book of Brother Lawrence, and just that the idea that this guy did what he did and then – and it makes me feel like I should be doing more, I should be doing more, especially if somebody’s a new believer, that’s what it is.
Today, I mean, just to be honest, I haven’t got anything that I’m reading a lot. I listen to a lot of the podcasts, I like the – you know, unfortunately, that’s taken over the reading. I try to read two to three chapters in the Old Testament a day and one New Testament, I do that. So, that’s where I’m spending most of my time that I have.
[0:27:56.1] JR: That’s really great. The Practice of the Presence of God is an exceptional book, that’s a great recommendation. Hey, Stephen, who would you want to hear on a podcast like this, talking about how the gospel influences the work they do in the world?
[0:28:06.6] SB: I like to hear people that you know when you hear my testimony, you go, “He needed God.” But when you hear their testimony, you just go, “He walked with Him your whole life and you never really.” They’re going to walk first.
[0:28:18.1] JR: That’s good, I like that answer. Hey, Stephen, you're talking to this global audience of Mere Christians who do a lot of different things vocationally. Some of them I know are magicians and entrepreneurs and baristas and accountants. What’s one thing you want to leave them with before we hang up?
[0:28:33.7] SB: Love one another and you know, it’s like what John – and I can’t even think what the apostle John is doing, they’ll wait and going to hear from him and he just says, you know, love your neighbor and love, you know, love. I mean, that’s it. The world needs Jesus and they need Him so bad but they have to see Jesus and sometimes, that’s us, that we have to represent him for other people.
I know, I mean, sometimes, when I do shows and stuff, people come up and the believers know, but the other people, they don’t know. Like, “I don't know what it was about you but you’re fine.” Even with Nate, when Nathan performs, he don’t want to be known as the clean comic necessarily. “Oh, he’s a Christian, clean, comic.” He just wants to know to be – he’s a very good comic.
[0:29:14.0] JR: He’s the best.
[0:29:14.7] SB: And then almost just let people go, “But yeah, I don’t think he – there’s something different.” And they don’t even know what it is, and stuff and so, we live our life that people look at us and they want to know what it is.
[0:29:27.0] JR: That’s good, that’s really good. Stephen, I want to commend you for doing that, for the exceptional work you’ve done throughout your career, for the glory of God and the good of others, and using your talents to evoke awe and wonder in your audience, and just giving us a picture, I think, of how our heavenly father delights in the good work of his children.
Friends, you can learn more about Stephen at MagicOfStephen.com. Stephen, this has been a joy, thanks for hanging out with us.
[0:29:53.4] SB: Ah, Jordan, you are awesome.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[0:29:55.9] JR: Man, Stephen was such a joy to hang out with, he wouldn’t let me go when he hung up, we just spent a lot of time together afterwards just talking about life, what a generous man and what a beautiful heart he has, for his son, for his kids, for his work, that was a lot of fun. Hey, if you're enjoying the Mere Christians Podcast, do me a huge favor. Take 10 seconds right now and go leave a one to five-star rating of the show on Apple, Spotify, wherever you listen.
You would be shocked at how important those ratings are, to helping us get guests, like Stephen on the show. So, take a second, go do that right now, and I’ll see you next week.
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