Latest / The Remnant Radio's Podcast / Is the Pastor Supposed to Be a Trainer? Examining Ephesians 4:11-12

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Is the Pastor Supposed to Be a Trainer? Examining Ephesians 4:11-12 · The Remnant Radio's Podcast

• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: Hey everybody, welcome back to the wonderful world of Remnant Radio.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: In this program, we're going to be talking about, well, Ephesians chapter 4, is it only the ministers who do the work of the ministry, or is it all of the saints?
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: We and found an article from 1994 that argues that actually it's just the ministers, and there are some interesting Greek arguments that are being uh invoked to say that, hey, this is only for uh the piety, not the laity, and not the not the everyday believer.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's gonna be an interesting program in case they didn't.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_02: We're back.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: Guys, lots of stuff happening here at Remnant Radio.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_02: We're super excited about the conference coming up just in a couple of weeks.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_02: If you haven't quite gotten your registration for that conference, make sure to join us October 1st through the 3rd.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_02: They're in Houston, Texas.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Michael Roundtree and Michael Miller will be with us, neither of which are looking at their camera, which is fine.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, you can't expect them to, you know, do things like that when I was reading the Bible, John.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, I'm sure you were, Michael.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure you were.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, join us for the conference.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: Check out my hairline.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I don't know what that was about.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: Uh anyway, without further ado, I've got my co-host with me today.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: I've got Michael Miller from Denver, Colorado, Michael Roundtree from Oklahoma City.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, guys, this is an interesting article.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, Roundtree, you sent this to us last week.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you found this at Academia, is that right?
• 2:10
  unknown: Yeah.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I mean the one that always sends me weird emails.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't know what you just said, but I'm gonna keep going.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I saw someone share it on X, and they shared it with a line that said something like, Um like pastors are not trainers and equippers.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, what?
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's weird.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Or uh pastors aren't supposed to train and equip others for the works of ministry.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, basically it it's denying, and we'll get to what the article is really denying, but it's uh it's really trying to create a pretty sharp divide between ordained ministers and those who are not ordained.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: So uh I I was really curious how he could make that argument, and now I know.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: So we'll Michael, would you say that like he's he's saying that like there's no place for any kind of service amongst believers?
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't quite get that vibe as much as it was like really preaching explicitly.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he denies that explicitly, but uh but he does make Ephesians 4 11 about when he's talking about like the equipping of the saints for works of ministry.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: He makes the argument that like you're you're not like it's not like you have these trainers and equippers, the quote unquote fivefold, who are equipping everyone else to do ministry.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: He says, No, not at all.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: The the fivefold are uh they're doing all three functions.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: So let me just read it.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: We're I guess we're just gonna dive in here.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um Ephesians 4, verse 11.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: It says, and he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for the build, so that's number one, for the building up of the body of Christ, until number two, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and knowledge of the Son of God, etc.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, there's there's three actually, Josh.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: What's the third one that I'm missing here?
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think we have it in our little diagram.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um so he um what he does is he actually takes the King James version and he says, so and he thinks that's more accurate.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so the problem he's trying to present is going to become clear in just a moment.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: And he gave some, this is King James, some apostles and some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of ministries, for the edifying of the body of Christ.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: So he takes it as if these fivefold so-called are uh are I'm saying so-called because I'm not trying to get lost in that debate, but are doing three things.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: They're perfecting the saints, uh that's normally translated equipping the saints, but in modern translations, for perfecting the saints and work of ministry and edifying in the body of Christ.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, there he's trying to say, hey, the ordained ministers, his version of the fivefold, are the ones who are doing all of this.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: And while it's true that other people are are serving in mutual love and edification, all that, he does acknowledge that, Josh.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: He says he he he seems to really have an axe to grind with ordained ministers not getting the attention or respect that they deserve.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's my read on it, but I don't know if that's how you read it.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: Is it yeah?
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think the Go ahead.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: I was gonna say, is it possibly a response?
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: Because he's he's writing this in the 90s.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: This is at the heyday of the vineyard, uh, a lot of that movement leading up to Toronto.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: Is it possible he's respond responding to the charismatic view of equipping, or do you think it's it's mostly just not feeling like pastors are getting their due from their congregants?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: I I think it's totally possible that some of that is incorporated in what we're seeing here.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think it might not be the whole sole factor.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: It could be not a target at John Wimber, but the target of every person thinking that they can exit Jita text.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because he, it seems like in the article is saying, look, um, those two are to be teachers, not many of you are to be teachers because there's a stricter judgment uh that some of this kind of ministry, the ministry he thinks is taking place in Ephesians 4 is explicitly for the minister.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I I made a graphic, and maybe it was already simple enough in Michael's explanation, we can toss up on screen that kind of illustrates what's going on in our show notes.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but David Gordon's position is that Jesus gives these gifted people, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, the job of perfecting the saints, the work of ministries, and the edifying of the body of Christ.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: So that's the job description of those three guys.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas the typical understanding ordained ministers, basically.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he he he is replacing apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher to say uh clergy.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: I I I would I would believe that would be an accurate representation of his position.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_02: And then we have modern interpreters and Bible translations that say that Jesus gave gifts, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, there to equip the saints, and then the saints are the ones who then do the work of ministry and the building up of the body of Christ.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_02: So that's essentially the kind of argumentation that's being put before you guys today is that there's two different interpretations.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_02: One says the minister does the work, the other is making the argument that actually uh it's it's all believers are co-laboring together.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Miller, you had something like that.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: Well, he's equivocating there.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: If he's saying that those five gifts are actually just ordained ministers, what he's also saying is that they're not gifts, but they're offices.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so he's like, he's kind of gnarly, if you ask me.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: I doubt he would agree with that.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like I doubt he is gnarly.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: You get my point.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like he's equivocating, he's taking away the meaning of those terms and replacing them with elder.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, which we would disagree.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: We would not say those are offices.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where we've seen a lot of abuse in the charismatic church is calling these offices.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, the apostle prophet gets the vision of the church and basically demands that you comply.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: And we've seen a lot of uh abuse there.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what Miller's responding to.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: And the direct language in Ephesians 4 is not office but gifts.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: And um, but yeah, uh so what I would say is like his main beef.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: I have kind of like a few notes here.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: One that he feels like the equipping reading, which is how most modern translations read, uh, where the these five are equipping others for the work of ministry.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, he says it reduces ministers to coaches whose main job is helping lay people do real ministry.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why I say it seems like he it seems like there's a I don't know.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't want to cast dispersion, so I feel a little guilty saying this, but it has the feel of like, hey, we're not getting our due.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I said that, Miller, is that it feels like they're like we're not getting respect we deserve, like we're reduced.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then he also points out it that it's a reacting against what he sees as egalitarian, anti-authoritarian culture that diminishes the distinct ministry of the word.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: So there you consider Miller on offices, like he directly considers these authoritative positions.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: But like I'm just asking, like, what is an what's an authoritative evangelist?
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like, get saved.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Right, what do you do?
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um so yeah, uh I didn't like it.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't like it.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I think if I'm going to be fair with him, he is saying in this passage, the uh ministry, the work of ministry he is defining as preaching.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_02: So if I'm taking his categories, apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher, that is referring to kind of a clergyed position, an office of some kind.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: And then two, he's going to say um that the ministry is actually proclaiming and teaching God's word.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um I understand how he understands that to be more of an elder's role, and that not everyone should actually do that thing.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_02: He'll go on in the article to say that there's various services for the body of Christ.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I don't think that his framework, if I if I adopt his framework, which I by the way I believe is wrong, and I think that we'll we'll do our best to kind of make the case for that.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um if we take his framework, then um I think he's only saying that lay people shouldn't be um doing the work of discipleship in the same way or this the work of teaching in the same way as an executive leader.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't think that he would even use the language of discipleship.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: But but I do think that the audience that's watching today would need to know that there is some ambiguous like language being used here.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I used an example uh in our notes that would probably be necessary to kind of make sense of.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um you could say a GM or general manager hired a carpenter to train apprentices for the building of a house for the finishing of the roof.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_02: The question is, did he train the apprentices?
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: So the apprentices would do two things, uh, you know, building the house, finishing the roof, or did he hire the carpenter to do three separate tasks?
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um because they are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: You you could read that in two different ways.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_02: The sentence itself is a little ambiguous.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I think that what the exact same thing is represented in Greek.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_02: It is somewhat ambiguous and could be read in a couple of ways.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_02: But I think that when we read contextual clues in the passage, when we look at some of the Greek argumentation that Gordon is making, I don't think it stands up and holds water.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: And then like when you look at the way that he uses the word ministry in a very reductionistic sense, uh, it doesn't seem to uh land in the same way that Paul's use of that word appears other places in scripture.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: So we'll look at his three-point argument and and kind of walk through that piece by piece.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: But Miller, it sounded like you had something you wanted to contribute to that.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I I guess I have a question, Josh.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: If he's saying that the King James version of the Bible is getting it right, whereas your ESV, NASB, NIV, any of them, they're all getting it wrong.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um correct me if I'm wrong, but the King James version of the Bible was that which was put forward in the Catholic Church.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Am I incorrect in that?
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: Or was wasn't King James commissioned to do that?
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: So I am under the impression that the King James Bible would have been commissioned by the Anglicans, and that's a loose phrase because King James would have been in charge of the Anglican church, right?
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um he um removed himself.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: I my my Protestant history is gonna be a little bit sketchy here, a little bit, a little bit uh mine's mine's lacking, obviously.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, on that on that specific issue.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: It feels very Catholic to me.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, you've got the ones who are the true arbiters of God's word, and everybody else is supposed to just come and receive it.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um I mean, it it almost makes it sound like the person, you know, the idea of perspicuity of scripture, not I mean, this guy is a Presbyterian, so I'm surely he thinks otherwise.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: But but it's almost like he's saying you shouldn't be reading your Bible on your own and interpreting it on your own.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I double checked.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's a Protestant Bible.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Josh is accurate that uh King James did commission the King James Bible, he was a Protestant, and it's like Church of England, very tied to Anglicanism, Anglican scholars, that kind of thing.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: So um, so yeah, I I mean I can see what you're saying because it seems like Miller, so he is arguing as a Protestant, so he doesn't see any any kind of weirdness to it.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: But I I feel the weirdness of making the ordained ministers uh I guess stand out too much, like as if they're kind of the the big deal main thing in this passage.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I think Paul's point is like the whole body, like each of us has received grace, everyone's built up.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: It seems to undermine the uh priesthood of all believers.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: Am I off on that?
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds like I want to try to priesthood is really just those yeah, yeah, he still believes at least push back.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: I I want to know.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so he he he's he still believes in a priesthood of believers.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: He's just saying that the ministry that is being recorded here in Ephesians 4 is just preaching.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_02: And when you do that, it it it it is saying that, hey, the proclaimed word is an exclusive work for the eldership, and the eldership, what they're doing, is equipping the saints when they're proclaiming the word.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_02: They are actually doing ministry when they're proclaiming the word, and they are building up the church when they're proclaiming the word.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um and he's saying, hey, that that's a responsibility for elders to proclaim.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: And we actually, I think all three of us would agree that the regular teaching on the Lord's Day in a local assembly should be done by the elders of the church, right?
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_02: We're not saying that no one else can teach.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_02: We're just saying, hey, that so if we take his framework, I don't think he is um I don't think he's trying to belittle everyday believers.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: And and I think one of the reasons it rubs us the wrong way is that it the article does have uh a kind of hint of uh uh a distinction between the piety and the laity.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_02: And that's a big fancy word to say the the the the preacher in the pulpit and the people in the pew.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: And we on this program are always trying to shrink that because that's our Protestant roots.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_02: Our Protestant roots say uh the priesthood of believers um sees that as a thinner line that our ontology, as who we are as people, is equal.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: The guy in the pulpit and the person in the pew, they're they're the same equal.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: They have the same level of reason.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_02: We don't need a magisterium to interpret the scripture for us.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I think all of these things um uh T.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: David Gordon would be able to affirm and and agree with us.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: I I think what he's doing is he is shrinking down what Ephesians is doing and what it's about, and then saying that's only for elders.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: And and and again, I'm using the word elder.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_02: He doesn't actually use that, I'm just assuming his his framework a little bit there.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um Michael or Roundtree, does that does that seem fair to you?
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_02: I'm trying to give his deal.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, because uh it it would be wrong for us to try to say, hey, uh what Gordon's arguing is against the priesthood of believers, or Gordon is arguing that people shouldn't be doing any kind of ministry.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he's not saying that, but it actually has that feel and sound sometimes.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'll say that.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: But he but he also at other at specific places in his article, he explicitly denies that.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna give him the benefit of the doubt.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what he means.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um so the the other thing I think one of my biggest beefs with it, like I think that his construction of the Greek is like feasible, and I'm not a Greek scholar, so like don't you know, like I have.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's feasible, it makes sense, right?
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: But like uh from from what I've read and researched and dug a little bit, it it's it's not like it's clearly and obviously an impossible reading.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: No, I think it's possible reading, but uh but possible doesn't mean inevitable and only like there are other readings, and I don't think the ESV scholars and others and modern translators made it up either.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like I think there can be a fair debate about text, but he makes a linguistic point as though it's a slam dunk, and I it's not a slam dunk.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: So that that would be kind of my thing, and then but yeah, I think the biggest thing, my biggest beef is I turning the uh apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher into this just means elder.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you're gonna sort of chide people for bad exegesis, like that's bad exegesis.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's not about elders.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: Paul could have said elders and he didn't.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um that's not what that's about.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so he's he's making it highly focused on offices of the church, and and to me it shows potentially some theological bias of uh of maybe a trumped up elevated view of who elders are supposed to be in the church.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I I think elders are worthy of honor, and Paul says double honor for those who preach and teach.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not suggesting otherwise, I'm simply saying um the linguistic arg argument doesn't hold, and trying to import elders into a conversation that doesn't mention it is not great exegesis, in my opinion.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_02: It sounds, you know, I think uh uh put my finger on it, it sounds a lot like the complementary and egalitarian conversation sometimes, um, because you can have a person say, We have the same ontology, we have the same dignity, value, and worth, we just have different roles.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_02: And and that's what I believe about like you know, the the proclaimed word, like we have a different role.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_02: Not everyone's gonna get up there and teach on on Sunday.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_02: So I I would agree with that, but then in practice, the way that it's worded, it does, it does word across like you are inferior.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: And certainly I think that there are complementarians out there who would make similar arguments, like, hey, men and women have distinct uh uh uh roles, but we have the same dignity, value, and worth, we have the same ontology.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but but then they'll be like, hey, you know, if someone pulls aside on the road and asks for directions, you have to you have to not direct the man.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_02: You have to say, well, my husband said, or the map says, or, you know, here are the 30 things that women are allowed to do in church.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, okay, there's a version of this that sounds condescending, and there's a version of this that can be communicated with the intent that it comes with, which is you have the same ontology, the same dignity and value.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that's what we're probably detecting, is that yes, he's probably saying the right thing with the argument, but the way he is saying it feels has a uh a condescending edge that's probably on a feels a little heavy-handed.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it seems a little heavy handed.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I think I have some slight reaction to it here.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: I don't, I don't like that, I don't like the tone of the article.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but should we break down the the three steps of his argument?
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think?
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I've I've got I've got three of them listed here.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Miller, do you have anything you want to add?
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_02: It sounded like you had a couple of ups and ahs.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: I I think the argument is gonna what I'm gonna have to say has to has to hinge on one of the arguments he makes.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: It specifically has to do with uh how he defines what works are in Ephesians 4.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: So why don't you go ahead and break down the argument, Michael, and then I'll respond.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, sure.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: So uh argument number one is the three phrases are built the same way, so the people are doing all three.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: So coming back to his preferred translation of the King James, God gave these fivefold for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: So he sees it, think of it like a three-legged stool.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: He's just listing the three things that these five individuals are doing, and he's saying this is their total ministry, and so the parallel of the different um clauses is indicative that they all belong together as part of the ministry of these fivefold, which is different than how modern translations make it sound, where these five are really just doing one thing, they are equipping others to do these works of ministry and to build one another up in love.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so so that's one argument is the three phrases are built the same way, so the same people are doing all three.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, number two, the word equip is actually perfect.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: So modern Bible, uh like in pastor uh my modern Bibles will say like they equip the saints for works of ministry.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: But if you notice in the version that I just read, it says perfect the saints.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: So it's uh so he he believes that it's like a bigger picture, more of a sanctifying kind of thing than it is like, hey, I'm just equipping you, I'm like your personal coach kind of deal.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: And last, he views work of ministry as meaning preaching, not serving.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I think when most Protestants are reading modern translations, it's like, hey, these five, they're equipping others.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and part of what they're equipping them for is the work of ministry, so that the whole body of Christ with every ligament and every body body part each doing its work and build itself up in love.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so the work of ministry, in other words, belongs to the saints who are being equipped.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas he says, No, the work of ministry belongs to the equippers, they are the ones doing work of ministry, and how are they doing it?
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: They're doing it by preaching and not serving.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the argument that he makes.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and so uh I think what we need to do is we need to kind of assess that.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: How do those three arguments actually play out?
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_02: So we certainly could go point by point through it, but I think there's probably a time where we can kind of pause in the direct exegesis of his individual points and kind of look more broad.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_02: Does this does this hold water on face value?
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I I think that when you just read the passage itself, I I'm not seeing those connections.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I don't think that it actually aligns up there, but but I'll give it a second.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_02: If you Millard, if you have something you want to weigh in, I know you had something earlier you wanted to say.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna wait until we get to the third point.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, let's go, let's go one point one first, then point two, then point three.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_02: I if it's okay, I'm I'm just gonna bolt out a couple of things here before we get into the nitty gritty.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_02: Ephesians four seven, by grace, he has given each one according to the measure of Christ's uh grace.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I'm sorry, Christ's gift.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_02: So here we see that the gifts are being given to everyone.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_02: To all in the body.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_02: And then he does specifically identify these four or five individuals, which is important to the text.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_02: But just remember that the context of verse 7, leading up into verse 11, is that he is giving grace to everyone.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_02: And then in verse 16, the whole body, I'm going to read this passage here, from whom the whole body is joined and held together by every joint which is it is equipped when each part is working properly, makes the body grow up and build up itself in love.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_02: Again, here's the argument that's that building language that we saw earlier in the text.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_02: So who's doing the equipping for the building up of the body of Christ?
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_02: Well, here, uh chapter 4, verse 16, just a few verses later, it sounds like it's not the apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher, it's actually the saints who are doing that thing.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: So for Paul to say, hey, uh, these five guys, these four or five guys, are doing this work, um, and then to go straight to saints who are actually doing that work in the next few verses, uh, it doesn't seem to hold a whole lot of water for me.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_02: And you have similar arguments in verse 15 and verse 29.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: In verse 15, rather speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up into him in every way into Christ.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_02: And then verse 29, let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only what is good for building up as it fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_02: So in all those accounts, well, it let's just say maybe it is preaching.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like I just the proclaimed truth of God's word.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_02: Well, here the saints are doing that to one another and building each other up.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_02: So I when I just read the passage in its context, this doesn't make sense.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_02: This doesn't work for me.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um but but I think that when we dive into some of the more granular, you know, Greek grammatical arguments that he puts forward, I don't think those hold much water either.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but you guys feel free to push back on anything I've said there if you think I've overstepped or have something that you'd like to adapt or add additionally to that.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: I I think it's good what you said, because you're really like uh I mean we can get into dividing the Greek words and that matters, but uh context matters too, and it matters a lot.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: And in context, each one receiving grace, and then it's ultimately driving toward each one doing its part.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it really does sound like all the people are doing works of ministry and not just the special paid ordained ministers.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: To me, that feels really important.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I think the contextual argument's pretty strong, but it is worth uh assessing some of the uh the Greek side of things too.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: Does one of you guys want to take uh that first argument?
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_02: Definitely not nobody wants to.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, I'll walk through a careful examination of point number one.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, remember that point one argues that all three uh equipping saints, work of ministry, building of the body are written uh in the exact same way for a specific purpose because each of them, because they're paralleled, because they're matching in the way that they're written, it points back to the four or five guys who are doing the ministry.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um the problem is that that's not actually the case.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_02: Uh in the Greek, there is an indefinite article uh in front of the word for equipping the saints.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's the equipping of the saints.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_02: Similar to the way that if I were to say uh I was outside of a White House, you would say to yourself, Well, which White House?
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_02: If I said I was outside of the White House, you would go, Oh, uh, you saw, you know, the pr El Presidente.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it it the indefinite article speaks of something specific.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: And Greek scholars who have approached this passage, I had uh a bunch of different research that I was working on to kind of make sense of this passage.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, quite a few of the Greek scholars say that there's something unique about the equipping of the saints because it has that indefinite article and it's written differently in a way that the other uh grammatical structures are for uh the building up of the body of Christ, for the work of ministry.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't say the, it doesn't have that same kind of indefinite article.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_02: So already the saints seems to have something unique about it.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: Is that our slam dunk argument?
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_02: Is that like a boom, ha, we defeated uh T.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_02: uh.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_02: David Gordon?
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_02: No, no.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_02: It's just to say that there is like one nuanced difference, and that might actually point to the fact that the ministers are supposed to minister to the saints.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's not a rock solid argument.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_02: Again, it's it's a kind of grammatical thing uh that you could argue works, but maybe it doesn't.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: Clint Arnold takes this idea and kind of runs with it with a similar pattern.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_02: He says Ephesians 4.12 uses this specific sequence and and then finds that sequence of that three patterning uh where one thing is mentioned and then three patterns follows and says, Hey, when you go to the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Greek Septuagint has similar listings that are present.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_02: He quotes Genesis 32, 3, Genesis 35, 25, Joshua 9, 6, Joshua 10, 6, and Jeremiah 40, verse 12.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_02: All of those seem to speak of a singular phrase, uh, not in plural with the latter two.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_02: He says, hey, there's there seems to be like an indefinite article with the first, and then the other two are referring to places.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_02: So he makes the argument that uh when someone says uh something in a neutral way, uh, that we are to read that construction not as three equal parts, but one significant part and then two subsequent parts.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_02: So uh I'm not a Greek scholar, I'm probably butchering Clint Arnold's argumentation, but that's kind of my best uh assessment of those two, is to say one, um, that uh there is something different about the saints being equipped.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: There's something unique about that.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_02: Clint Arnold says that when you take that pattern, you go back into the Old Testament, you'll you'll see that this doesn't actually hold up.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: It's not the same three consecutive equality across the board, but that first one seems to stand out, especially when it has this indefinite article.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um that same idea is carried on.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_02: Roundry, do you want to weigh in?
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I was just gonna jump to the next uh the next argument on the Greek whenever you're ready.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, uh I agree with everything that you said.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just gonna make an observation by Ernest uh best and Peter O'Brien um says that the Greek lists, if they are in fact Greek lists, as um uh Gordon is arguing they are, they wrote them the wrong way.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_02: Because Greek lists typically start broad and then they go very narrow.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_02: So if this was something that all of the apostles were supposed to do, or apostles, prophets, evangelism, pastors, teachers were supposed to do, it should start with building up of the body of Christ, and then it should be going into uh uh equipping uh no, how does it how does it actually go?
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_02: I want to make sure I get my order right.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it goes for work of ministry, building up the body, equipping the saints.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_02: It that would be the order it was written in.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, they are gonna argue this is a very uncommon layout uh to start with equipping saints, then the work of ministry, then the building of the body of Christ.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_02: They said that the order is exactly reversed if it was supposed to be a list of something that the apostles were supposed to do, because it would start broad and then go narrow.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_02: And again, that's a grammatical argument.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, for those who are out there, when you're getting in a debate or you're hearing a teacher say something and it violates the plain reading of the text, it's novel in church history, those kinds of things should have more weight than, oh, I I've discovered a new Greek syntax or this this new Greek rule that I'm applying to this text.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_02: I I value Greek and Hebrew, I think they're important.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_02: I think when you're reading scholarly literature and everyone agrees is what the Greek is saying, that's super great.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_02: But when someone comes on the scene, um, and I don't think uh Gordon's position is novel.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_02: I think there's some of this that's evident in church history.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_02: He quotes Christosom and Calvin and others.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm not I'm not accusing him of being novel, uh, but I would just say that the plain reading of the text holds more weight to me than someone says, well, the Greek says, uh technically.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_02: I think that we should lean into some of that plain reading.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and then when there are passages that are ambiguous, we should certainly look to Greek scholars to help us make sense.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_02: But the thing is, is the New Testaments that we have in front of us, the Bibles that we were holding, um, have been done really, really well translated by um the appropriate scholars.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Gordon argues Josh.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, sir.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I was just gonna say uh if you just look again, the context there says these gifts were given to equip.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't say offices.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: So even if you were to say that this was a specific equipping, that that only the uh those particular well again he he qu equ he seems to to remove what those gifts are, but even if you were to say that you were just those offices were the only one doing that job, the problem is it's not called an office, it's called a gift.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so who exactly has those gifts?
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: I I I don't understand how he gets there.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't provide an argument for that part.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: He leaves out he leaves out that the this is the idea of Christ ascending and giving gifts, but he suddenly turns this into these particular jobs are only done by these particular offices.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: But the office is nowhere in sight here.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: I just don't I don't I don't see how he even gets there.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_02: If I I think it's a um I want to be respectful here.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_02: Round tree, hold me back if I go too far.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um I I see this with cessationist readings of of passages like this.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't know, I've I went to, I think it was G3, I I think it was G3, I could be wrong on this, but I was listening to a teaching where a guy was like talking about elders, and then he went to Ephesians and says, the job of elders is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_02: And when you have these passages about equipping and building up the church, but then you don't have those gifts anymore.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: Not to say that there aren't pastors or evangelists or teachers anymore, but like that passage is about apostles and prophets, at least as well.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um they'd go, hey, look, this is their job, this is their responsibility.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that it has been assumed because pastor, the only time the word pastor is being used in the New Testament, um, and that is the word that we use for elder, is in Ephesians 4.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_02: They must go to this text to speak of ordained offices.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_02: And that's just a distinction that we've made to say, hey, I don't think this is the same.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_02: I think um uh, you know, women and children can exercise the gift of prophecy and get exercise the gift of teaching and evangelism.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_02: Why couldn't they exercise the gift of pastoral ministry?
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I go over here and go, I I just I don't think this is the same.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_02: This is gifting, this is an office.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_02: These are different, these are different on a qualitative level.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um so so I just I think that's their instinct.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_02: Browntree, did I overstep there?
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: No, you didn't.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think you're absolutely right.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I just I want to be careful not to view everything through our 21st century understanding of the way a pastoral quote office functions so that everything becomes this sort of hierarchy clergy thing.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think that's at all the point that Paul's making here.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh now, when he talks about pastors and teachers and the role of an elder is pastoring people and teaching them, I think they're certainly in mind, but they're not exclusively in mind, and to make elder an all-encompassing uh category for what Ephesians 4.11 is about, in my opinion, is going way too far with the text.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um so now I want to jump to the uh the next point that he makes, and that is uh to to examine like he he doesn't want these people equipping.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now, he would say that's not what the text is about, King James Version.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: Let me read the King James Version one more time for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: So the what he's trying to prevent here is he doesn't want to reduce the clergy to just being sort of come alongside coaches.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's like, no, we have the ministry of the word.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's very important, and we're gonna bring that to the people, and we're gonna bring perfection to the saints.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: That is, we're gonna have a sanctifying ministry and we're gonna do these other things.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where he's really trying to go with it.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but there are a few problems with this.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, I say all this with like, I mean, we're the three of us are pastors, like, and I do think there is a certain honor, and like I said, Paul says double honor for those who preach and teach the word.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not disagreeing with that, but um, but I think he's trying to root an argument in uh in in the Greek where other Greek scholars are saying that is absolutely not demanded by the text, it can be a possible reading, but he writes as though it's the only possible reading.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: So um the the standard lexicon, the the B DAG is the the short name for it, but it's a dictionary of New Testament Greek.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know how it defines this Greek word that modern translators render equip?
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: Equip.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_02: That's how it's not it's not purify, it's not perfect.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's not perfect.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: So so he's saying like it can't mean perfect, and then it like the go-to lexicon actually says it means what modern translations say.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: So like already we should have a little uh, I don't know, discernment light going off in our head.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then when we compare, how like if you were to take a concordance and say, well, how is this word used throughout the rest of the the New Testament?
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like, let's take Hebrews 13, verses 20 and 21, it says, Now may the God of peace who brought you again from the dead, our our our our Lord Jesus Christ, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, he equip you with everything good, that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: So uh the word there in Hebrews 13 is equip.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the word that actually makes the most sense there, because you're equipping them to do everything good, which agrees with what Ephesians 4 11 is about.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: You're equipping saints to do the work of ministry.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: So the way the word is used elsewhere in the New Testament agrees with how modern translators render it.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: Not saying that perfecting the saints is an impossible translation, just saying it feels more natural, uh, considering we've got the lexical, the the chief lexicon that people go to for New Testament Greek, we have uh cross-references.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: I just quoted one of them in Hebrews 13.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but then if we just want to just think logically, contextually about the point Paul's making, if if he says, like, hey, these fivefold are here to perfect the saints, let's follow that through from verse 11 and 12 and into 13, where in verse 13 it says that the goal of this equipping ministry is that we might reach the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ and to reach mature manhood.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, perfection, maturity, that's the goal of this ministry, but it suddenly becomes redundant.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like just imagine this wording.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, like, hey, God gave these five gifts for the perfecting of the saints so that you might be perfected.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's this repeat thing.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: You're perfecting, so you might be perfected.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: It feels like this circular idea, and that's what uh what Dr.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: Harold Hainer, if you say it that way, H-O-E-H-N-E-R says uh about it, is he says, like, this is a this is a circular argument.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: It makes much more sense to say, like, hey, you're equipping the saints for the work of ministry so that, hey, everybody's doing ministry now, they're getting equipped so that they can reach Christian maturity.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds a lot smoother than hey, the the role of these officers is to mature you because then when you're mature, you'll reach maturity.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's nonsensical.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: So uh so I think contextually that argument uh doesn't work for me.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think you're saying these words because in saying those words you explained it.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_02: Miller, um uh Miller, did you have any thoughts on that?
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh no, not on that part.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_01: You want to lead us through point number three?
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_01: So just a reminder here, he's saying that the word works of ministry is simply referring to preaching.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um okay, so that's the big question is does this mean preaching?
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh or is there another meaning for diaconia in Greek or diaconia in Greek?
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: I had to pull up the phonetic pronunciation of it because I wanted to make sure I wasn't getting it wrong.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and the problem is it's used in a number of other places to just talk about a number of different things, and it doesn't require that it be exclusively preaching.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I would say the text itself doesn't require that it be exclusively preaching in Ephesians.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: But in 1 Corinthians uh chapter 12, verse 4 through 7, it says, now there are a variety of gifts with the same spirit, there are a variety of service, diaconia, same word, but the same Lord.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: And there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them, all and everyone, to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this I think is a particularly helpful argument to make because it's kind of a parallel passage in that Ephesians 4 and 1 Corinthians 12 are both going to draw upon the same metaphor, that being the body of Christ.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: And you'll notice here he's not talking about a position, once again, he's not talking about elders, he's talking about various ministries that are given to the Corinthian church, along with various gifts that are given to the Corinthian church.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: This is the body at large, and he's saying you're the ones that are participating in these activities of the body.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh the fact that he calls it a variety of service, it doesn't require here in 1 Corinthians 12 to be that being preaching, especially if you consider the fact that it's given to the body and not particular leaders.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you've also got Luke chapter 10, verse 40.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: It says, But Martha was cumbered about much serving.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's again diokenia, diokenia.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: No, diaconia, mispronouncing again, and uh came to him and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone?
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: Did therefore that she help me?
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: So here once again you see the word serving being used, not preaching.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then in Acts 11, 29, it says then the disciples, every man according to his ability determined to send relief.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that word send relief is the same word, diaconia, unto the brethren which dwelt in Judea.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: So the word diaconia is being used a lot, and it just means to do ministry, and that ministry could look like a lot of different things.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the very fact that we're told that there's a variety of ministries tells you that it's not only one.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_01: And he's he's kind of mm requiring the text to mean, and I mean, I don't know how else to look at it, to mean what he wants it to mean.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I know he's trying to use the text itself to interpret it, saying, well, earlier on this word means preaching.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: But the problem is, earlier on, it doesn't just mean preaching as well.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you go to Ephesians chapter two, where he says, We are Christ's workmanship created for good works.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_01: Well, he's not just referring to the elders of that church, he's refer referring to the entire body and Ephesus and showing that they all have various works to do.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um now that's that's two different words being employed there, one of them being uh diaconia and the other being uh elgon or something like that.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm probably gonna butcher butcher that particular Greek word, ergon.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but both of them are used together to create that expression work of ministry.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_01: So it it it seems to be self-contradictory just in Ephesians.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_02: I would say tag me in, because uh, you know, when I did this study, a good chunk of these could be interpreted as like preaching ministry.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh but we ourselves are continually to pray into the ministry of God's word, Acts 6.4, that's the word ministry there.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the disciples, every man according to his ability determined to send relief.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_02: That one is not a good example.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_02: That one feeds into your argument there.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Barnabas and Silas returned from Jerusalem, and they when they had fulfilled their ministry and took with them John, whose surname was Mark, that's Acts 12, 25.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_02: Uh quite a few of the references here, you know, Paul wants to fulfill their uh fulfill his own ministry and end well.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I might finish my course with joy and with the ministry which I have received from the Lord.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_02: That's about that's clearly about teaching.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_02: So like quite a few times, this is like, you know, it can be used that way, but it's reductionistic to say it's the only way it's used when clearly it's used in other ways.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um so like I want to give him his his due and say, it's not you're not like entirely wrong that it can't be used this way, or you're not entirely wrong that it can be used in the way that you're saying it can be used, because yeah, it's definitely used that way.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_01: But he is wrong to say it's exclusively that, and that's the whole point I was making.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: You have other examples in scripture of diaconium being used differently to just general service, not necessarily the preaching of the word.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_01: And if general service is included here, then that would actually make a lot of sense because if you think of those gifts, not offices, equipping others to do the work of ministry, then what would those works be?
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_01: Not necessarily the preaching of the word on a Sunday service, but rather the various kinds of services that the body gives.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_01: What is an evangelist going to equip you to do?
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's it's it's gonna equip you to evangelize.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_01: One would think, one would hope.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Prophet, same thing, equipping you in prophecy.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I would hope teaching would equipping you in properly understanding the text and teaching the text, uh, pastoring, caring for, serving, shepherding.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think that the the various ministries that are a potential here uh all look like some sort of service, at least in 1 Corinthians 12, where he's employing Paul is employing the same metaphor or same analogy.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_02: I take it more broadly in that like I think that a teacher can equip someone to prophesy, and I think an evangelist can equip someone to get saved, like by the coming into the faith.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I I don't know that I necessarily want to think that there has to be a one to one correlation that prophets.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_02: Teach prophecy.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_02: I think that it could be included in that.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_02: But I but I'm going to take a look at the But either way, you're going to say it's a gift that's equipping, right?
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's equipping the saints.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_02: And that's and that's what I think is taking place.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_02: And the saints are doing the work of ministry.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's the plain reading of that text.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_02: But but I just the word ministry is broad in the same way that ministry is broad today.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_02: Like I could say Michael Rantree has a very faithful ministry.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_02: He's been faithful to the ministry that God has given him.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_02: The context preaches?
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I just think I think that the context clues of the sentence suggest that I'm talking about is preaching, leadership.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_02: Well, those kinds of elder-esque roles sounds like what I'm referring to.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_02: But if I were to say, hey, uh uh Reclamation Church, their ministry to the community is upstanding ministry to the community.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I'm clearly in that context using ministry in a much broader sense, but in the same way that I can use ministry to refer to anything going on in the church and a very specific thing going on in the church, Paul can do the same thing.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that my semantic range of the word ministry is the same as Paul's, you know, semantic range for diaconia.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_02: So he's being reductionistic here again.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_00: Can I share what what I have disliked the most about this article?
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_00: I've kind of already touched on it because we we've worked through the we've worked through the arguments.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_00: Josh and I have been struggling to be kind.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_00: And we want to be kind, but we also want to be truthful.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: And um the reason it's been difficult is because when you read this article, I just want to read you guys like a list of quotes.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this is just not the way to talk about Christian brothers and sisters.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's very condescending, and it reminds me of the Pharisees when they look out on the people and they say uh they're just cursed rabble who don't know the law.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_02: I mean this coming from the tongues Nazi, you know.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_02: Geez, Michael.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_02: Uh just kidding.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_00: Keep going.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, well, I think there's a way to bring corrective that's that's not being a jerk, right?
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_00: Speak the truth in love.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_00: And ironically, that verse about speaking the truth in love is in Ephesians 4.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_00: You just got to keep reading a little bit.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_00: But um Ephesians here are some quotes, you'll get a sense for what I'm talking about.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Ephesians 4, 11 to 12 was simply a convenient proof text for what people wished to believe anyway.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I'm not so cynical as to believe there are no practice, uh, there are no practicing Bible believers in the evangelical world.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_00: So he's like, I'm just a little shy of that, but not all the way.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he says the candid and unprejudiced reader will definitely agree with him.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_00: As long as you're candid and unprejudiced, you will agree with me.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh calling the opposing interpretation pure question begging, he says, we cannot account for the popularity of the equipping view on scriptural grounds.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's just literally no Bible case for it.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_00: He attributes its popularity instead to it gets worse and worse as I keep going.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: The egalitarian, anti-authoritarian, populist zeitgeist.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_00: Guys, this is so packed.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, I am unapologetically anti-authoritarian.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_00: Authoritarianism is bad.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now, biblical authority is a real thing.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_00: There are spiritual authorities, even in of the Pharisees who were horrible authorities.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus says in Matthew 23, I believe it's verse 2, he says, like, right after he's gonna rail on them, woe to you, woe to you, woe to you, he's gonna say at the very beginning, he says, They sit on Moses' seat, so do what they say.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, there's a real such a thing as spiritual authority, but Jesus says it's not to lord it over people, which is authoritarianism.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, I'm against that.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_00: I guess I went with the zeitgeist.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_00: I just I just went with the stream of populist egalitarian culture.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_00: He goes on.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_00: He describes diminishing ordained ministry as not merely mistaken, but a sin against Christ and his church.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_00: He says the proponents of the equipping view, you know, like modern teams of scholars and translators, uh he says proponents of this foot uh of this view, this isn't a footnote, are occasionally neither capable nor interested in determining what the text says.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_00: Josh, you're not even you're not just not capable, you're not even interested in what the Bible says.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_00: You just don't even care, bro.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then he he goes on here are so-called leaders in the church who do not even have the capacity to determine which English translation is correct or why.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sorry, that is so arrogant.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_00: It is gross and disgusting.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like this article needs to be repented of.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying his arguments are untenable at all, but you know, when you read a lot of scholarly books, what you find is scholars will tend to uh scholars are the they'll tend to say something like, This may mean this.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think it means this for these following reasons, but this could also be the meaning.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_00: They're very they tend to be very guarded in how they talk about things, and I appreciate that about them because it shows a theological humility.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, one of the things we're always talking about at Remnor Radio is we want to be uh I mean, we want to have a big tent.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_00: We want to uh yes, call balls and strikes, but uh but you know, we say we take theology seriously, but not ourselves seriously.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we don't want to just be out to dunk our Christian brothers, and it's like in the name of scholarship and quoting Greek words, he's dunking on his Christian brothers, seemingly questioning whether they're even Christian brothers, like you're not interested in what the Bible says.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's tantamount to calling someone an unbeliever.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't like it.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's really bad.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_02: This is me being nice again.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_02: Let's also acknowledge this was written in 1994.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, you're right.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's okay to be a jerk in '94.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, it's not that wasn't my point.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_02: But the zeitgeist has changed now.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_02: Michael, you should you should uh I all I mean to say is that uh uh T.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_02: David Gordon may have changed his views because there was not one or two, but quite a few articles in response to this one that exist on the webs.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_02: So um my expectation is that maybe he has softened his approach, um, at least potentially.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, I think we speak we speak on issues in a very intense way when we feel like we're on really solid ground too.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, if there wasn't a whole lot of work done on this prior, and there was some done prior, so I I can't I can't speak to that.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_02: But like um imagine like when we come to uh 1 Corinthians 13 when the perfect comes.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_02: We've looked at that and said, look, guys, this is the right interpretation.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_02: The perfect's Jesus.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_02: It ain't the Bible.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like it it's it, there's no like perfection of the saints that is in view here.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_02: The perfect that is coming is Christ.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_02: And we'll we'll make it grammatically, we'll make it, you know, we'll intertextual.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_02: It was a picture of like uh of like Christ, you know, seeing face to face, you know, okay, look at the face-to-face language in the Bible.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we'll we'll we'll quote scholars, and we're like, this is the interpretation.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_02: Now, I'm not gonna say all the other stuff, which is like if people don't agree with me, they're dumb and they don't care what the Bible says.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_02: That's like that's gross.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_01: But like, dude, I mean he's he's super dogmatic here.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it reminds me of like uh I'm sorry to say this.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_01: It reminds me of some of Joel's uh Webbins stuff, like when he's like, This is what I hear when I hear this person, I hear him saying, uh I know I'm right because people who are smart agree with me.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_01: And you know I know these people are smart because they agree with me.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_01: Because they agree with me.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's like that's that's what it sounds like.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like, man, there is no possible way this could be anything other than what I'm saying it is.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_01: And if you don't agree with me, that's because you don't actually take the Bible seriously.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds the exact same.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's such a circular argument.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm trying to be I'm trying to be cautious of like 17-year-old Josh, you said a lot of really dumb stuff.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't I know that T David Gordon wasn't so.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_02: This guy's the 17-year-old you, is what you're saying?
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just I'm just saying that like one, people can change, two, grammar, like the advancement of of of Greek grammar studies, like it has offered really important contributions to the conversation.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_02: So like there was a time where it's like uh what's the first Timothy usurp authority?
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_02: What's that word?
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's a hop pox legomena, it's a the only time it's used in scripture, uh authenteo or something authentic.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's authentane, yeah.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_02: There was there was a lot of Greek scholarship that was done on the egalitarian side, going, hey, look, um, this means to to murder, it means to take, it means to kind of usurp authority.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_02: And and then when recent, more recent, um uh Greek scholars have gone and looked at the use of authentane in the first century, realized that everyone who was using it in those ways were Attisists.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_02: They were using the ancient form of that phrase.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_02: And Adassist was a person who liked to speak in like ancient Greek uh syntax.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like if I were to speak in old English today, uh Michael, I pray thy passage coffee cup, you know, like like speaking in some kind of fancy King James English.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the same is true of Greek, in that there were uh there were groups of people who didn't like the new kind of crass Koine Greek, but they liked that old Greek, right?
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_02: So so the people who were writing in that style used Addisus to speak in those terms of murder and those kinds of things, whereas the the other uses of authentic uh spoke to exactly what we understand it today to be usurping authority.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_02: So um really interesting work.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_02: So I it's possible also that at the time of writing this, he felt like he was on more solid ground on Greek grammar.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_02: I I'm just trying to paint a charitable picture as possible for someone who like this might not be their shiniest moment in life, you know?
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I do appreciate that because I do think, you know, 1 Corinthians 13, love believes all things, which doesn't mean you like literally believe everything you've ever told.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_00: There's no way it means that.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but it does mean, like, in my opinion, that we want to strive to believe the best about people.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I I I can receive that.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think I I would stand by I would stand by this snapshot in 1994 of T.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_00: David Gordon is bad.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's really, really bad.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_00: And Christians shouldn't talk like that about other Christians.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I will say that.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, there was some sanctification that occurred.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, when I was young, I when you're young, you tend to be like, I mean, okay, I'm still people older than me are like, yeah, you're still young.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm 40.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_00: You're in your 40s.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_00: So um, but you know, I I remember this reminds me of uh if y'all remember like the night of eschatology, uh when I with Sam, Jim Hamilton, Piper oversaw it, and uh Doug Wilson was on.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think they had a Disby on there.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think they did, did they?
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, but uh like I remember Jim Hamilton like when I listed it, because I really wanted to hear what Sam had to say, and I feel like he he kept Jim kept interrupting.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, come on, Jim.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_00: But like Jim I mean, I don't know, that was a long time ago.
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_00: Was it 20 years ago?
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, it was a long time ago.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but Jim is like a super, I mean he's a great scholar, but like I've never seen him ever do that, you know, and I can just imagine, you know, you kind of get into a debate and it's just easy to talk over one another, and it's just like so I don't want to make too much out of it, but I do want to say this was a formal written paper that was released, and at that point in time it was bad.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_02: It's not it's not good.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_02: I think I think we can stand by it.
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_02: I just good job though, Josh.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_02: Really good.
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the Bible says not to rebuke an older man harshly, and I think this guy is in his 70s, and I'm going, hey, this was 30 years ago, and you know, he he's around the age of 40 when he writes this, so like he's old enough to know like you shouldn't probably talk that way.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but also, you know, we probably need to do a show on this idea of anti-authority, not authoritarianism, because we're all anti-authoritarianism, but there is like this really difficult line of like we don't want to be controlling, we don't be manipulative of people.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I think our response to some of that has been, well, we're exactly the same as everyone else, while simultaneously recognizing that the Bible does speak of leaders and elders in the church, and like they have a role, and there is a submission role amongst the congregation.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_02: So, like, we we can't go to the opposite nth degree either.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_02: So, like, maybe there's a you know, he's got some teeth in this.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I don't think rampant, rabid egalitarianism and like hyper-individualism and anti-leadership has actually done a lot of positive things, and he's probably seeing those sorts of things ramp up uh around the time that this interpretation is ramping up, and thinking to himself, these these two correlations are are causing a problem.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I do think there's probably a serious problem there.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um so so I'm not trying to uh I'm I'm trying to find all the little pieces of brownie with all that mound of poop.
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but if I was going to attack the anti-authority thing, I wouldn't use this passage to do that.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_01: For sure.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_01: There's plenty of other ways of going about it.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_01: And and instead he tried to make something mean what it plainly, well, more than likely doesn't mean.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_01: And and he makes he casts aspersions on anybody else who disagrees with him.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's the way he does his argument.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, well, I don't believe what you're saying because you're just dumb and you don't take the Bible seriously.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's it.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_02: It was funny because I was talking to Miller about this earlier.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, we should invite him on to talk.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, he's the only he's only gonna like me if he comes on to talk to us because you two are just having a field day with this poor guy.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_02: Uh okay, any kind of closing thoughts before we wrap up this program, guys?
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_02: Because uh I feel like I've landed the plane with as much content as I can contribute to you.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I we got a conference, dude.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, come out, come hang out to the conference, guys.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_00: Come to the conference, but I I did want to make a remark on authority because so I do agree that spiritual authority is real, and you know, Hebrews 13, 17, I think it is, says obey your leaders.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's a realness to that, but I like the story of John MacArthur.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody's asking him about you know, what authority do you have?
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, I love that story.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh when can you do this?
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_00: When can you do that?
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, the only authority I have is to speak and apply the word of God.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_00: So like I can't, I can't tell a congregant and be like, hey, you can't take that job.
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if they're taking a job as a pornographer, I can say you can't take that job because I have the word of God at my back.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_00: But if somebody wants to be in tech instead of education, I can't be like, hey, you know, God says don't do that.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like, no, the authority that we have as leaders is to shepherd people in accordance with the word of God.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so we can uh we can show them the way of obedience to scripture, but you know, like you had the shepherding movement, which was like controlling people's lives to the nth degree.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like you can do this and you can't do that, and like, okay, shepherd, what do I do next?
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_00: And like, okay, you can like everything was determined by the shepherd, and that's an abuse of authority.
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_00: I would call that lording it over, I would call that authoritarian.
• 1:00:24
  SPEAKER_00: Our authority as shepherds is the authority of the word of God itself, bringing that to bear in people's lives.
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_02: That's good.
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_02: That's good.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um and come to the conference.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_02: October 3rd through the fifth.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_02: Third through the fifth.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_02: First through the third.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know why I said third through the fifth.
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_02: First through the third, uh, just a couple weeks away.
• 1:00:43
  SPEAKER_02: So you guys come hang out with us.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_02: It'll be fun.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, yeah, guys, this is gonna wrap up that program.
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for tuning into this episode.
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_02: We will see you guys next week, uh, four to five p.m.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_02: Central Standard Time.
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_02: I did a really interesting episode with John Thompson on spiritual gifts.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_02: I planned on talking about some deliverance stuff, but we just hung out and talked about his book, Convergence, most of the time.
• 1:01:03
  SPEAKER_02: He like pastored me.
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I asked him a bunch of questions, and he like he, you know, he helped uh you know make sense of things for me.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_02: It was really cool.
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and then I've got an episode that I'm filming tomorrow with uh John Moffitt.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_02: And we're gonna be talking about Law Gospel stuff with John Bevere again because so many questions came in on that John Bevere episode.
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_02: People were saying, Hey, you know, are you guys saying that you can just live in rampant sin and like and still be a believer?
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_02: And like you can't like indulge in the lust of the flesh.
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, they thought we were overreacting to it.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, they they thought they thought we were just with it.
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because when I came into the charismatic world, I didn't know any any of these people.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know any of them.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, What do you think of John John Bevere?
• 1:01:45
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes, Oh, Severe Bevere?
• 1:01:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's hilarious.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so we're Josh, we're gonna be listening along gossiping.
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_01: What did John Thompson?
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_01: What questions did you ask John Thompson?
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_02: I'll talk to you about it later because we will uh can of worms on air.
• 1:02:01
  SPEAKER_02: There was one in the world.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_02: No, it sounds like a great conversation.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_02: There's one in particular Elder Authority.
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_02: There's one, there's one in particular about Elders Authority and like deliverance, which I think is like kind of fascinating.
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_02: So that's a bit of a cliffhanger for people to watch the episode.
• 1:02:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, he mentions in his book, and I caught it in his book when I read it the first time, the deliverance book.
• 1:02:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but he doesn't really talk about it.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I I I got him to unpack it, which was was pretty interesting.
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if I if I'm there yet, but it it's interesting.
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, anyway, guys, I I I digress.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_02: We'll see you next week.
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_02: Peace out, guys.