Dr. John M. Perkins | This Is What the Church Needs to Hear Right Now | The Unbound Podcast

About this sermon

Thank you for listening to The Unbound Podcast with Dr. Tony Evans. For more biblical teaching and ministry resources, visit www.TonyEvans.org, and if you’d like to go deeper in your study of Scripture, you can explore online courses at https://www.tonyevanstraining.org/ Love is heavier than anger. Forgiveness is harder than outrage. And John Perkins spent a lifetime showing what that looks like. In this special in-memory episode of The Unbound Podcast, we are sharing a previously unreleased conversation between Dr. Tony Evans and Dr. John M. Perkins, recorded a few years ago and now offered in honor of his life and legacy after his death on March 13, 2026. In it, Dr. Perkins speaks with the kind of clarity that only comes from suffering, friendship and decades of walking with Jesus. He talks about dignity, reconciliation, discipleship, race, forgiveness and why love is not weak at all. It is weighty. It is costly. And it is the only way forward. What makes this conversation so powerful is that it does not sound polished or distant. It sounds lived. Dr. Perkins reflects on his grandmother’s love, his brother’s murder, the torture he endured in a Mississippi jail and the hard-won realization that suffering can become a virtue when it drives a person deeper into Christ. Again and again, he returns to the same center: discipleship is friendship, the Bible must be embodied, and the Christian faith is the outliving of the indwelling Christ. Dr. Evans also makes this deeply personal. He honors Dr. Perkins not just as a public voice, but as a hero, mentor and living influence on his own life and ministry. What unfolds is more than an interview. It feels like a final charge. A conversation about what still matters when a life has been lived all the way down to the roots. This episode is for anyone who has felt worn down by anger, division or the shallow versions of justice and faith that dominate so much public life. It is for the listener who wants something older, deeper and truer. And it is for anyone who needs to hear John Perkins say one more time that love, dignity and the gospel will always belong together. ——————————————————————— The Unbound Podcast is a weekly space for conversations that don’t rush to conclusions. Each episode explores what it means to live free from what binds us—pressure, fear, reputation and the need to have it all figured out—through thoughtful dialogue and lived experience. Senior Producer & Creative Director: Heather Hair Technical Director, Audio & Lead Editor: Lee Sherman #TonyEvans #TonyEvansPodcast #UnboundPodcast

Topics

• Church & Fellowship
• The Church