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Discerning the Call to Ministry with Eric Attinger · Ministry Minded

0:16
SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of the Ministry Minded Podcast,
0:19
SPEAKER_00: a show that seeks to marvel at the mercy of God that meets us in our messy ministries.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: I'm, of course, your host, Pastor Brad Gray.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: I serve as the senior pastor here at Stonington Baptist Church in Pax Sinus, Pennsylvania.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: And I'm so excited to share another conversation between my assistant pastor and I, Pastor Eric
0:38
SPEAKER_00: Addinger,
0:39
SPEAKER_00: and we get to sit down and talk again about the ministry,
0:43
SPEAKER_00: about the pastoral call to ministry specifically.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: I think this is a topic worthy of consideration because the idea of being called to
0:53
SPEAKER_00: ministry is somewhat nebulous.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: How do you define that?
0:57
SPEAKER_00: This spiritual calling of God on one's life.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: How are young ministers supposed to discern this and distinguish this?
1:07
SPEAKER_00: And again,
1:08
SPEAKER_00: also too,
1:08
SPEAKER_00: what happens if a pastor who isn't genuinely called by God is in a place of ministry?
1:15
SPEAKER_00: What are some of the side effects of that?
1:18
SPEAKER_00: So, we take that as our topic of consideration today as we're looking at considering
1:25
SPEAKER_00: how Paul terms it in 1 Timothy chapter 3,
1:28
SPEAKER_00: that,
1:29
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:29
SPEAKER_00: if anyone's aspiring to the office of overseer,
1:31
SPEAKER_00: pastor,
1:32
SPEAKER_00: elder there,
1:32
SPEAKER_00: whatever you want to fill in there,
1:34
SPEAKER_00: he desires a noble task.
1:35
SPEAKER_00: So,
1:36
SPEAKER_00: clearly there's this calling to ministry that is imbued with a sense of significance,
1:41
SPEAKER_00: weightiness,
1:43
SPEAKER_00: and seriousness that I think is worthy to
1:46
SPEAKER_00: to be examined.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's especially pertinent in the modern church context.
1:51
SPEAKER_00: So, we take that as our primary topic of consideration today.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: How do you discern, how do you distinguish a call to ministry?
1:59
SPEAKER_00: What does that look like?
2:01
SPEAKER_00: And what happens to a church body or to
2:06
SPEAKER_00: the body of Christ if their pastor is not genuinely called.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: So,
2:11
SPEAKER_00: we also talk about some of the qualifications for ministry in 1 Timothy chapter 3
2:16
SPEAKER_00: that Paul lists and generally understanding the sufficiency of scripture.
2:22
SPEAKER_00: So, it's a full episode, one that I think is greatly pertinent to our day and age, but also hopefully
2:29
SPEAKER_00: encouraging and relevant and applicable to your situation or context.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: So,
2:35
SPEAKER_00: sit back,
2:35
SPEAKER_00: relax,
2:36
SPEAKER_00: enjoy this episode between Pastor Eric and I as we talk about a call to ministry
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SPEAKER_00: and what it means to be genuinely drawn to the pastoral ministry by the Holy Spirit
2:47
SPEAKER_00: and the Word of God itself.
2:51
SPEAKER_00: All right, so we're back with another episode talking more about preaching and ministry.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if we've hit this topic before,
3:02
SPEAKER_00: but I want to hit it because,
3:04
SPEAKER_00: and maybe we should have hit it a while ago.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: But I want to talk about the topic of, at least starting off, the idea of a call to preach.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: Because I think maybe we should try and start there as like,
3:19
SPEAKER_00: How would you define that?
3:23
SPEAKER_00: Maybe just in your own life or whatever, when did you sense this call?
3:26
SPEAKER_00: Because I think it's so amorphous.
3:29
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like nebulous.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like some other things within our spiritual lives where it's hard to really nail down.
3:36
SPEAKER_00: How do you know what a call to preach is and how do I...
3:41
SPEAKER_00: As a young guy in ministry,
3:42
SPEAKER_00: if you could speak to your younger self,
3:46
SPEAKER_00: what kind of advice would you give him?
3:48
SPEAKER_00: Or how would you tell him to sense the Lord's call on his life in terms of,
3:54
SPEAKER_00: hey,
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SPEAKER_00: you're going to be a preacher one day.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: How would you define that?
3:57
SPEAKER_02: That's a really great question, really broad and deep, which I really like about it, too.
4:02
SPEAKER_02: Because,
4:03
SPEAKER_02: you know,
4:03
SPEAKER_02: technically they'll say,
4:04
SPEAKER_02: you know,
4:05
SPEAKER_02: everybody's called to preach the gospel to people or share the gospel.
4:07
SPEAKER_02: We're all called to be witnesses.
4:09
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
4:10
SPEAKER_02: But here we're totally talking about like the office here.
4:13
SPEAKER_02: And it's different from,
4:15
SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: telling your neighbor and stuff to having this,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: calling from God to focus your whole life and energy on preaching.
4:22
SPEAKER_02: And it definitely is a call.
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SPEAKER_02: Just like a lot of other occupations, there are calls.
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SPEAKER_02: God calls us everywhere.
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SPEAKER_02: There's people that are teachers.
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SPEAKER_02: There's people that are doctors and things.
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SPEAKER_02: they have certain callings in their life to it.
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SPEAKER_02: And I think you'll have the same kind of issues in those fields as you do here.
4:38
SPEAKER_02: There are sometimes preachers who aren't called to be preachers because they wanted
4:41
SPEAKER_02: maybe the occupation,
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SPEAKER_02: which is different than people being called.
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SPEAKER_02: So I don't even think all the preachers out there in America today or the world are
4:47
SPEAKER_02: even technically called.
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SPEAKER_02: I think that's true with every industry.
4:51
SPEAKER_02: So then it asks, well, how do you know somebody's truly called?
4:55
SPEAKER_02: And I think it has a lot to do with, and if, you know,
4:58
SPEAKER_02: I was asking my younger self, if my younger self was asking me, am I even supposed to do this?
5:02
SPEAKER_02: I think it's some natural desire and passion has to be within you.
5:07
SPEAKER_02: Um,
5:07
SPEAKER_02: and it's that old adage,
5:09
SPEAKER_02: you know,
5:09
SPEAKER_02: um,
5:10
SPEAKER_02: uh,
5:10
SPEAKER_02: you know,
5:10
SPEAKER_02: things don't count as work if you like doing them.
5:13
SPEAKER_02: So as people who love what they do, honestly, don't feel like they, they don't ever know.
5:17
SPEAKER_02: Obviously there's stresses in every,
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SPEAKER_02: every field or whatever,
5:19
SPEAKER_02: but you don't feel,
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SPEAKER_02: um,
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SPEAKER_02: like,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
5:22
SPEAKER_02: you're dragging yourself to your nine to five kind of cause of,
5:25
SPEAKER_02: Oh,
5:25
SPEAKER_02: I got to go to church.
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SPEAKER_02: I got to go preach on the Sunday morning.
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SPEAKER_02: I got to go do this thing again.
5:29
SPEAKER_02: Um,
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SPEAKER_02: Obviously, that wouldn't be a calling.
5:30
SPEAKER_02: It's almost like I've talked about this before,
5:33
SPEAKER_02: I think with you,
5:34
SPEAKER_02: is like sometimes,
5:35
SPEAKER_02: as you know,
5:36
SPEAKER_02: preachers hardly work only their hours.
5:39
SPEAKER_02: A lot of times it goes over because there's so many extra things that pop up.
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SPEAKER_02: And I think a true preacher and a calling,
5:44
SPEAKER_02: I've noticed this myself before,
5:46
SPEAKER_02: is where I'm up late at night and it's like 11 or at midnight.
5:48
SPEAKER_02: My wife says, oh, hey, you should come back to bed.
5:50
SPEAKER_02: But I don't even want to.
5:51
SPEAKER_02: Because I have a passion to get this word out,
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SPEAKER_02: and I'm focused,
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SPEAKER_02: and it needs my time,
5:55
SPEAKER_02: and I can never let it have any less time than what's in my heart.
5:58
SPEAKER_02: And it's something within me.
5:59
SPEAKER_02: And I'm sure you have the same kind of thing.
6:02
SPEAKER_02: And I can think this is really wild.
6:05
SPEAKER_02: I think God planted in us, even when we're younger, even when we're not even aware of it.
6:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, definitely.
6:10
SPEAKER_02: Because personally, this is really wild.
6:12
SPEAKER_02: I only told a handful of people this.
6:13
SPEAKER_02: My family knows this.
6:14
SPEAKER_02: But when I was a kid,
6:15
SPEAKER_02: my gram going up her stairs,
6:18
SPEAKER_02: there was this little landing area,
6:19
SPEAKER_02: and there was this little cutoff.
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SPEAKER_02: And I used to use it.
6:22
SPEAKER_02: When I was like four or five,
6:23
SPEAKER_02: I'd make my family go sit in her back room,
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SPEAKER_02: and I'd stand up there and just talk about the Bible to them.
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SPEAKER_02: And they'd clap and cheer.
6:29
SPEAKER_02: They thought it was hilarious.
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SPEAKER_02: Like, you're going to be a preacher one day.
6:31
SPEAKER_02: Well, that was when I was like four or five, and I completely forgot about it, actually.
6:34
SPEAKER_02: actually.
6:34
SPEAKER_02: Never really ever revisited again, but I always had the urge to talk to people about God.
6:39
SPEAKER_02: There was always this urge in me.
6:40
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
6:42
SPEAKER_02: I was like, you know, we're Christians.
6:43
SPEAKER_02: We all just have these urges or whatever.
6:45
SPEAKER_02: But then I started to realize God really started to work with me and things.
6:47
SPEAKER_02: But again, I was going down the field of education, kinesiology.
6:50
SPEAKER_02: I was a
6:50
SPEAKER_02: going down all these other places that I was going to go into business,
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SPEAKER_02: all this stuff,
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SPEAKER_02: and then it wasn't until like seven years ago,
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SPEAKER_02: and I had already been doing it.
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SPEAKER_02: I had started to almost do little preaching,
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SPEAKER_02: almost like Bible studies that started turning into me almost preaching in a way.
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SPEAKER_02: It started to happen a little bit,
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SPEAKER_02: and I could feel this urge,
7:07
SPEAKER_02: and then I started to pray about it,
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SPEAKER_02: and then I was like,
7:09
SPEAKER_02: maybe this is actually what I'm supposed to do.
7:11
SPEAKER_02: Maybe I'm supposed to forego with a secular world that I was working in.
7:13
SPEAKER_02: I was working in education administration with a pretty good future with a, you know,
7:18
SPEAKER_02: the retirement, the pension, and all that stuff, and summer, you know, all that kind of stuff.
7:22
SPEAKER_02: And then I had this passion that maybe I should leave.
7:24
SPEAKER_02: And it wasn't until,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
7:26
SPEAKER_02: I started to do it and I started to love it is when I started to reflect backward
7:31
SPEAKER_02: and be like,
7:31
SPEAKER_02: wow,
7:31
SPEAKER_02: I used to do this as a kid.
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SPEAKER_02: And it's like one of those columns.
7:34
SPEAKER_02: I just always had a passion to stand in front of people and talk to people.
7:37
SPEAKER_02: And I also get in trouble a lot with my loud voice.
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SPEAKER_02: And I honestly think it's because of my calling.
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SPEAKER_02: It's a blessing and a curse.
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SPEAKER_02: Like,
7:45
SPEAKER_02: if you want to have a sleepover and not get in trouble with the parents,
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SPEAKER_02: you don't invite Eric over.
7:48
SPEAKER_02: But at the same time,
7:50
SPEAKER_02: I'm the same person that if at a holiday event or anybody,
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SPEAKER_02: like,
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SPEAKER_02: hey,
7:53
SPEAKER_02: Eric,
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SPEAKER_02: do you mind making sound,
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SPEAKER_02: calling people together?
7:55
SPEAKER_02: It's his voice.
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SPEAKER_02: But I think it was designed for my calling.
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SPEAKER_02: So I think a calling is desire and design all the same.
8:01
SPEAKER_02: Because God wouldn't design you differently than your calling would.
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SPEAKER_00: I think that's a really good point that God is going to use the natural gifts that
8:12
SPEAKER_00: he has given you,
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SPEAKER_00: that he has created in you,
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SPEAKER_00: in order to fulfill his purposes.
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SPEAKER_00: Which isn't to say that if you're naturally...
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SPEAKER_00: Or you're more inclined to be introverted that he won't put you in a spot where you
8:26
SPEAKER_00: need to be extroverted in some senses.
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SPEAKER_00: But by the same token,
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SPEAKER_00: I think the big thing that you hit on that I think is true,
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SPEAKER_00: especially for me,
8:34
SPEAKER_00: is like this idea of a message kind of bubbling up in you that you can't not preach
8:40
SPEAKER_00: in a way.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: That it would be almost insane for you.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: It would almost drive you insane to like not preach.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: preach this.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: And I think that that's,
8:50
SPEAKER_00: that's the thing that I keep reserve reverting back to in,
8:54
SPEAKER_00: in the sense of like,
8:56
SPEAKER_00: that's where I can definitely sense my calling is like,
9:00
SPEAKER_00: I can't imagine not preaching this message.
9:02
SPEAKER_00: Like I can't imagine as I'm studying in the word and,
9:06
SPEAKER_00: and I can't imagine not being able to deliver this and proclaim this in,
9:11
SPEAKER_00: in,
9:13
SPEAKER_00: And again,
9:13
SPEAKER_00: I think there's a lot of different nuances that we have to kind of understand because,
9:17
SPEAKER_00: and I don't mean to rabbit trail us,
9:22
SPEAKER_00: but I think another thing that you hit on that I think is so important is there's a
9:27
SPEAKER_00: lot of preachers that are standing in pulpits that may not be called.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: And you kind of hit on this last night in our discussion at church, which is,
9:35
SPEAKER_00: Hey, and we're not going to defend the rapture in terms of... I don't want to go on that route.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: Let's just assume that there's a rapture for anyone listening.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: And then you said last night that there's going to be some preachers that aren't raptured.
9:51
SPEAKER_00: And I think that that's a really stark point to realize is that there's some pastors,
9:58
SPEAKER_00: preachers,
9:58
SPEAKER_00: Bible teachers that are standing behind lecterns that...
10:03
SPEAKER_00: won't be raptured and that that should be a really sobering like just that should
10:10
SPEAKER_00: be something that should really just stop us in our tracks oh yeah absolutely to
10:13
SPEAKER_02: think and then because it is so true and again nothing's you know it's been like
10:17
SPEAKER_02: this forever i talk about even in paul's time there were false that's like the new
10:21
SPEAKER_02: testament like if you're new testament 101 a lesson would have
10:25
SPEAKER_02: have something about,
10:26
SPEAKER_02: hey,
10:26
SPEAKER_02: false preaching,
10:26
SPEAKER_02: you always got to be on the lookout,
10:27
SPEAKER_02: because that's pretty much the main overtone in those letters.
10:31
SPEAKER_02: And why are they there?
10:32
SPEAKER_02: It's because they've always been around, which means...
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SPEAKER_02: They must be here today.
10:35
SPEAKER_02: And we didn't even need the New Testament to know that.
10:38
SPEAKER_02: They are already here today because of things that we've talked about even in past
10:41
SPEAKER_02: episodes of things that are going on.
10:42
SPEAKER_02: But it's so terrifying when you think about this that there will be people left
10:47
SPEAKER_02: behind in some state or fashion.
10:50
SPEAKER_02: Whether you believe in the rapture or not,
10:51
SPEAKER_02: there will be preachers that will not end up in heaven as people see it.
10:56
SPEAKER_02: And it's so wild to once you consider this and consider they're out there,
11:00
SPEAKER_02: how terrifying that is when you go,
11:02
SPEAKER_02: because I've heard of people,
11:03
SPEAKER_02: people will always say,
11:03
SPEAKER_02: you know,
11:04
SPEAKER_02: there'll be people in churches.
11:05
SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, that's, you know, that's of course true.
11:07
SPEAKER_02: But when you start talking about there'll be pastors that won't even, now it's hit another level.
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SPEAKER_02: Like, oh, isn't just Joe Schmo who wasn't really tapping into his Bible during the week.
11:15
SPEAKER_02: This is something else.
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SPEAKER_02: And what's the problem?
11:18
SPEAKER_02: And it's not even always, like I said last night, like,
11:20
SPEAKER_02: I've seen them preach right out of the Bible,
11:23
SPEAKER_02: but it's a twisting and self-help message,
11:27
SPEAKER_02: or this is what the world says now,
11:30
SPEAKER_02: and this is why the Bible was kind of outdated here,
11:32
SPEAKER_02: but God is love and he still means this.
11:35
SPEAKER_02: And it's scary to think this stuff because you have somebody who definitely didn't
11:38
SPEAKER_02: have the calling from God here behind a pulpit.
11:41
SPEAKER_02: telling people all these worldly things to make everybody feel good about what the
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SPEAKER_02: Bible says and not,
11:46
SPEAKER_02: you know,
11:46
SPEAKER_02: call it for what it is,
11:47
SPEAKER_02: which calls out sin.
11:48
SPEAKER_02: And then you think, oh, how awful is this?
11:50
SPEAKER_02: You have these people here, which means people are sitting under it every single week.
11:54
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, it actually makes me sad.
11:57
SPEAKER_02: Somebody local I know,
11:58
SPEAKER_02: I actually just talked to my one prayer partner about it because we know her and
12:01
SPEAKER_02: her husband,
12:02
SPEAKER_02: and they used to be in a church.
12:04
SPEAKER_02: They grew up in the church,
12:05
SPEAKER_02: whatever,
12:05
SPEAKER_02: and now they go to,
12:06
SPEAKER_02: like,
12:07
SPEAKER_02: a more of a universal,
12:08
SPEAKER_02: Unitarian situation.
12:09
SPEAKER_01: Hmm.
12:10
SPEAKER_02: and shared recently that there's one preacher or reverend,
12:14
SPEAKER_02: whatever they call them,
12:15
SPEAKER_02: would be meeting up,
12:16
SPEAKER_02: and you can meet and talk to them,
12:18
SPEAKER_02: all those things.
12:18
SPEAKER_02: And we started to look into this,
12:21
SPEAKER_02: and it was the poster child of just like wokeism and a lot of sin and promoting
12:28
SPEAKER_02: transgender equality and love is love.
12:30
SPEAKER_02: And we've seen this couple...
12:32
SPEAKER_02: who were so loving and sweet and truly had the love of Jesus,
12:34
SPEAKER_02: at one point you could tell their faith wasn't so deeply rooted.
12:37
SPEAKER_02: When they walked into this place, they have now been fully convinced.
12:40
SPEAKER_02: Why?
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SPEAKER_02: Not because they heard this person once,
12:42
SPEAKER_02: but because they've apparently been sitting under this person for like five plus years,
12:46
SPEAKER_02: hearing this over and over.
12:47
SPEAKER_02: And it's sad to think there's somebody who, you know...
12:50
SPEAKER_02: And,
12:50
SPEAKER_02: of course,
12:50
SPEAKER_02: none of us would end up in those kind of places,
12:52
SPEAKER_02: but there are real good people that they call themselves pastors or reverends,
12:55
SPEAKER_02: even when they're not.
12:56
SPEAKER_02: Because I would say that person was not.
12:57
SPEAKER_02: And then they sit here and spew this stuff,
12:59
SPEAKER_02: and you take it as,
13:00
SPEAKER_02: oh,
13:00
SPEAKER_02: they're the holy man or holy woman,
13:01
SPEAKER_02: how people think of pastors sometimes.
13:04
SPEAKER_02: Like,
13:04
SPEAKER_02: oh,
13:05
SPEAKER_02: they're up there,
13:05
SPEAKER_02: and they take everything,
13:07
SPEAKER_02: and they swallow everything in because nobody's a Berean anymore in Acts 17.
13:11
SPEAKER_02: They don't sit down and say, wait a minute, I don't remember...
13:14
SPEAKER_02: that in scripture and go and actually find it.
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SPEAKER_02: So it's really dangerous.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: There's so many,
13:19
SPEAKER_00: yeah,
13:20
SPEAKER_00: there's,
13:20
SPEAKER_00: man,
13:20
SPEAKER_00: there's so many different ways that we could approach this topic too,
13:22
SPEAKER_00: because we've hit on the subject and I think it's worthy of hitting again is the
13:29
SPEAKER_00: sense of scriptural authority being the primary.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: And I would say the preeminent authority when the church gathers, but when that gets set aside, um,
13:42
SPEAKER_00: What ends up happening – that's where you see all those different like cults being
13:48
SPEAKER_00: formed is because you have a speaker and leader who is touching on people's spirituality,
13:57
SPEAKER_00: which is always sensitive but always something that is easily swayed or sometimes
14:02
SPEAKER_00: even manipulated.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: So when you have someone who is there who is not –
14:07
SPEAKER_00: doing so in a divine authoritarian sort of position,
14:12
SPEAKER_00: but their own,
14:13
SPEAKER_00: they're sort of making up their own authority,
14:15
SPEAKER_00: then that's when you see,
14:16
SPEAKER_00: man,
14:17
SPEAKER_00: all those crazy organizations get formed that lead people off into so many
14:23
SPEAKER_00: different horrible places.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: But it always comes back to, I think the sense of call is also a sense of understanding that...
14:34
SPEAKER_00: The message isn't yours, which again is downstream of the authority isn't yours.
14:41
SPEAKER_00: So we have to understand like a call to ministry is actually a call to absolute
14:49
SPEAKER_00: surrender and sort of like...
14:52
SPEAKER_00: submission and laying laying your own ambitions down like we can be ambitious in
14:57
SPEAKER_00: terms of like what we're striving after in in the ministry but it's this idea that
15:02
SPEAKER_00: like our our own personal agendas or ambitions are set aside in order that gods are
15:12
SPEAKER_00: the ones that drive us right is that yeah yeah
15:16
SPEAKER_02: I would say that's the great way to do it.
15:17
SPEAKER_02: I actually see it as a relief.
15:19
SPEAKER_02: I remember when I was younger, even in college, when I was in this battlefield of,
15:22
SPEAKER_02: You know, being out at Penn State, like, there's not a lot of Christians, like I said.
15:25
SPEAKER_02: And it's like,
15:26
SPEAKER_02: it almost made me feel like I have to figure out a way that the Bible would also
15:30
SPEAKER_02: relate to them and their thing.
15:31
SPEAKER_02: You know, if you have this urge, like, these people would want you to.
15:34
SPEAKER_02: And without knowing that, wait a minute, hey, the Bible is the Bible and what it says it is.
15:37
SPEAKER_02: You don't have to guess what God meant by it.
15:39
SPEAKER_02: It's pretty straight and clear if you really look at it.
15:41
SPEAKER_02: Now, obviously, there's nuances and things like that, but sin is sin.
15:45
SPEAKER_02: And the reason these kind of preachers are so dangerous, I think...
15:49
SPEAKER_02: is because we all know that every human at one point,
15:54
SPEAKER_02: even as a good Christian,
15:55
SPEAKER_02: they'll look through the Bible,
15:57
SPEAKER_02: no,
15:58
SPEAKER_02: you'll read the Bible,
15:58
SPEAKER_02: but you'll use the Bible to look through,
16:00
SPEAKER_02: how can I justify my sin?
16:02
SPEAKER_02: Which is usually where these things that I'm talking about,
16:05
SPEAKER_02: wokeism and transgender stuff,
16:06
SPEAKER_02: is birthing out of.
16:07
SPEAKER_02: It's somebody who says, you know, my...
16:09
SPEAKER_02: family member deals with this one thing that everybody's telling me is a sin.
16:12
SPEAKER_02: Can you show me in the Bible how it's not a sin?
16:15
SPEAKER_02: And that's not, that's only the only one, but that's not the only one.
16:18
SPEAKER_02: Obviously it's the most obvious one for us to use today,
16:21
SPEAKER_02: but it's this whole thing of,
16:22
SPEAKER_02: and you get,
16:23
SPEAKER_02: you know,
16:23
SPEAKER_02: where is this and is this a sin or is this not a sin?
16:25
SPEAKER_02: And I love this one guy said, you know, one of my obviously top questions I get from my congregation is,
16:31
SPEAKER_02: Is it a sin, too?
16:32
SPEAKER_02: And they proceed to say something.
16:34
SPEAKER_02: And they say, if you're asking me, it's most likely a sin.
16:38
SPEAKER_02: And it was funny.
16:38
SPEAKER_02: It was a real rule he used.
16:40
SPEAKER_02: And he said it checks out most of the time.
16:41
SPEAKER_02: Obviously, people get legalistic.
16:43
SPEAKER_02: But it's really the reason people ask you that is because, like, can I still do this or not?
16:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
16:48
SPEAKER_02: It's a small piece of what it is because these people will justify sin.
16:52
SPEAKER_02: But not only that, what these preachers are going to do, it's even worse.
16:56
SPEAKER_02: I don't know what worse.
16:57
SPEAKER_02: They're just awful.
16:59
SPEAKER_02: They're never going to point to the cross.
17:01
SPEAKER_02: These preachers are never going to sit the congregation down every time and say how
17:05
SPEAKER_02: this came back to what Jesus did for you and how without him you wouldn't.
17:09
SPEAKER_02: You're not going to see a lot of that.
17:11
SPEAKER_02: Why?
17:11
SPEAKER_02: Because the cross is offensive.
17:13
SPEAKER_02: The Bible clearly says this.
17:15
SPEAKER_02: And people do not like to be offended, especially at our day and age.
17:18
SPEAKER_02: I think that's where a lot of this stuff comes from.
17:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they don't like that offense.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: They don't like being confronted by that.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: But then this also gets to...
17:27
SPEAKER_00: So just to kind of connect some of these thoughts,
17:31
SPEAKER_00: these unraptured preachers,
17:33
SPEAKER_00: if you will,
17:35
SPEAKER_00: could be...
17:37
SPEAKER_00: we could identify them as not really called,
17:40
SPEAKER_00: which then I think my mind immediately goes to second Corinthians chapter two,
17:44
SPEAKER_00: where Paul ends up at the end.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: I think we've touched on this verse before,
17:46
SPEAKER_00: but it's worth pointing out again,
17:49
SPEAKER_00: which is where he,
17:50
SPEAKER_00: he uses that word peddlers.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: Like we are not peddlers of, of God's word, but we are men of sincerity.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: So there, there's this sense of there's a sincere, authentic, genuine, and I would even say divine, uh,
18:06
SPEAKER_00: work that's being done in you, which is, we could say, God's call on you.
18:12
SPEAKER_00: So if that is not happening and you are still standing up and preaching,
18:18
SPEAKER_00: you are in no better way than a peddler or like the image that comes to my mind is
18:24
SPEAKER_00: like a snake oil salesman.
18:26
SPEAKER_00: Like in the old days, you know, they're selling this magic elixir that's going to fix people's problems.
18:31
SPEAKER_00: And that's where you get, I think, a lot of
18:34
SPEAKER_00: Like, it's so fascinating to me how all of these different
18:39
SPEAKER_00: issues within the modern church are so interrelated.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: But if you're veering out,
18:46
SPEAKER_00: like we've talked about multiple times here and then in other venues,
18:52
SPEAKER_00: if you're making all of the preaching all about you or,
18:55
SPEAKER_00: like,
18:55
SPEAKER_00: you're making it man-centered,
18:57
SPEAKER_00: that's peddling the Word of God,
19:00
SPEAKER_00: which might be downstream of the fact that that individual is not technically even
19:05
SPEAKER_00: called to preach the Word of God.
19:07
SPEAKER_02: Right.
19:08
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and peddling is such a good way to put it, too.
19:11
SPEAKER_02: That's really what they are.
19:12
SPEAKER_02: They're peddling something to you.
19:13
SPEAKER_02: And as a salesperson, what are you supposed to do?
19:16
SPEAKER_02: You're supposed to make this product their solution, right?
19:19
SPEAKER_02: And make them feel good about it.
19:21
SPEAKER_02: And obviously, like, the people don't know they need Jesus at first.
19:24
SPEAKER_02: You know, some of these people don't even know, especially when they're completely lost.
19:27
SPEAKER_02: Like, hey...
19:27
SPEAKER_02: Jesus is the answer to all your problems.
19:29
SPEAKER_02: So if the people say,
19:30
SPEAKER_02: oh,
19:30
SPEAKER_02: I don't like the Jesus thing and kind of whatever,
19:32
SPEAKER_02: they're going to find a way that the Bible makes you feel good without stepping on
19:35
SPEAKER_02: your toes.
19:36
SPEAKER_02: Because no salesman wants to go up there and stomp on your toes before they try to sell you a product.
19:41
SPEAKER_02: And because they see themselves as,
19:43
SPEAKER_02: I need to sell this idea,
19:44
SPEAKER_02: I need to sell this concept to continue to create this revenue,
19:49
SPEAKER_02: that's what you're going to get.
19:50
SPEAKER_02: And I love that you pointed out in 2 Corinthians here because
19:54
SPEAKER_02: It again shows the patterns like, you know, the televangelists that are that are not a true believers.
19:59
SPEAKER_02: And again,
19:59
SPEAKER_02: I'm not saying all televangelists,
20:00
SPEAKER_02: you know,
20:01
SPEAKER_02: they're I believe Billy Graham was a good guy and stuff,
20:03
SPEAKER_02: you know,
20:03
SPEAKER_02: but they're some obviously a lot of them can really push things that maybe aren't true.
20:07
SPEAKER_02: And they're maybe making a lot of money because it's more self-help.
20:10
SPEAKER_02: But this is nothing new.
20:12
SPEAKER_02: And this is a thing that will always be around,
20:13
SPEAKER_02: which,
20:13
SPEAKER_02: again,
20:14
SPEAKER_02: is something that we always have to be watchmen for,
20:16
SPEAKER_02: keep our eyes out for who's – and it's really crazy because you start getting down
20:20
SPEAKER_02: to – some people I don't think – I think are less dangerous in their calling,
20:24
SPEAKER_02: meaning I knew people in the education system who weren't called to be teachers,
20:28
SPEAKER_02: but they weren't awful.
20:30
SPEAKER_02: And they didn't have a bad...
20:30
SPEAKER_02: And they weren't trying to get rich off the system completely or anything like that.
20:33
SPEAKER_02: They had a good heart.
20:34
SPEAKER_02: They were just maybe in the wrong spot.
20:35
SPEAKER_02: It didn't work out.
20:36
SPEAKER_02: I think that can happen at places.
20:38
SPEAKER_02: But when you start talking about this kind of stuff,
20:40
SPEAKER_02: where these people have ulterior motives of peddling the gospel,
20:43
SPEAKER_02: it's not...
20:44
SPEAKER_02: They didn't land in the wrong seat by chance.
20:46
SPEAKER_02: They took that seat on purpose.
20:49
SPEAKER_02: And they're looking about how to monetize it.
20:51
SPEAKER_02: And I mean, you and I can just probably go on a testimony.
20:54
SPEAKER_02: We'd probably agree on... If you're ever thinking, how can I make money...
20:58
SPEAKER_02: At the same time, you're thinking about how can I get this message across?
21:01
SPEAKER_02: You're in the wrong spot.
21:02
SPEAKER_00: You're in the wrong spot.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: I've always, yeah.
21:06
SPEAKER_00: If you're thinking about how you can increase your profit and you're thinking about ministry,
21:11
SPEAKER_00: you're in the wrong game.
21:13
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: But also, too, it's somewhat easy to understand how someone can...
21:25
SPEAKER_00: utilize the platform of ministry for his own endeavors.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: That goes into the peddling thing,
21:31
SPEAKER_00: but that goes into a disingenuous call is sort of the fruit of that is treating the
21:41
SPEAKER_00: ministry as a platform for either,
21:44
SPEAKER_00: again,
21:44
SPEAKER_00: personal ambition or for acclaim or notoriety or any of those things that seem to
21:50
SPEAKER_00: be
21:52
SPEAKER_00: self-aggrandizing.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: And I think that this is what makes,
21:55
SPEAKER_00: so the passage that of course,
21:57
SPEAKER_00: everyone's going to want to go to and like we'll go to is first Timothy three,
22:03
SPEAKER_00: which Paul again is writing to Timothy,
22:07
SPEAKER_00: which,
22:07
SPEAKER_00: and I think it's interesting to,
22:09
SPEAKER_00: to note that,
22:11
SPEAKER_00: Just the fact that when Paul is writing this, Timothy is already in ministry.
22:16
SPEAKER_00: He's reminding him of his call, but also equipping him to call others and to solidify their call.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: So it's almost like...
22:28
SPEAKER_00: In a way, Paul is worried about his spiritual grandchildren, if you can think about it that way.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: He's worried about who Timothy is going to disciple and raise up.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: And so, hey, here's kind of the way I looked at you.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: Here's how you can look at others.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: And he clearly identifies the idea that in the ESV it says a noble task, but there's like this...
22:49
SPEAKER_00: incredible sense of value and humility and just a sense of, I would call it,
23:01
SPEAKER_00: significant resonance to the fact that you are...
23:07
SPEAKER_00: Whoever individual is being empowered but drawn by the Holy Spirit to lay down his
23:17
SPEAKER_00: own message,
23:19
SPEAKER_00: agenda,
23:19
SPEAKER_00: dream,
23:19
SPEAKER_00: all those things that we've hit on,
23:22
SPEAKER_00: in order for the gospel to become preeminent.
23:24
SPEAKER_00: Like, that is truly...
23:26
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: A task that is noble,
23:29
SPEAKER_00: especially if that's being done genuinely for the sake of the Lord,
23:33
SPEAKER_00: but also genuinely for the sake of the Lord's church.
23:36
SPEAKER_02: Right.
23:37
SPEAKER_02: And I think that goes hand in hand, which is not ironic at all.
23:40
SPEAKER_02: It's just all woven and designed by God.
23:42
SPEAKER_02: That's another version of laying down your own life, basically dying to yourself and going to Christ.
23:48
SPEAKER_02: It's the whole gospel story in there.
23:51
SPEAKER_02: You need to die to yourself even in your preaching.
23:53
SPEAKER_02: Even if you want to get your agenda,
23:54
SPEAKER_02: like I've talked about before,
23:55
SPEAKER_02: there's preachers that will come out,
23:56
SPEAKER_02: and you can hear there's maybe a good sermon in there,
23:58
SPEAKER_02: but underlying was some kind of other undertone message for people out in the
24:01
SPEAKER_02: audience who knew it,
24:02
SPEAKER_02: these encrypted things,
24:03
SPEAKER_02: and that's somebody who had an agenda and didn't say,
24:05
SPEAKER_02: hey,
24:06
SPEAKER_02: listen,
24:07
SPEAKER_02: I'm just going to let God be God,
24:08
SPEAKER_02: what he wants to say.
24:10
SPEAKER_02: you know he's going to say and yeah not put your own spin on it even not whatever
24:15
SPEAKER_02: just let god be god and let him guide you and i think um it's really great point we
24:19
SPEAKER_02: said you know verse one where it talks about he desires a noble task and this is
24:22
SPEAKER_02: just more um evidence of why context matters because those people that are peddling
24:28
SPEAKER_02: you know it's you know they aspire to the office of overseer but
24:31
SPEAKER_02: not for the noble task because of all the things that follow,
24:34
SPEAKER_02: you know,
24:34
SPEAKER_02: they're,
24:35
SPEAKER_02: maybe they're not sober minded or they're obviously a lover of money is a,
24:38
SPEAKER_02: is a big one here.
24:39
SPEAKER_02: So all these things in context, um, but it is, it's one of those things.
24:42
SPEAKER_02: And the reason it's like you said, it's so noble because there's so much that goes into it.
24:46
SPEAKER_02: It's so important.
24:47
SPEAKER_02: And like,
24:48
SPEAKER_02: It's unlike any profession.
24:50
SPEAKER_02: I thought about this and it's so funny because the world would first look at,
24:53
SPEAKER_02: you know,
24:53
SPEAKER_02: doctors and lawyers and CEOs as maybe the successful positions and,
24:58
SPEAKER_02: you know,
24:58
SPEAKER_02: pastors who maybe not,
25:00
SPEAKER_02: you know,
25:00
SPEAKER_02: aren't the richest people.
25:01
SPEAKER_02: Maybe like,
25:02
SPEAKER_02: you know,
25:02
SPEAKER_02: that's a nice little noble,
25:03
SPEAKER_02: almost lump us in with like nonprofits or something like,
25:06
SPEAKER_02: well,
25:06
SPEAKER_02: they do a lot of good things for people.
25:08
SPEAKER_02: But if you think about it,
25:09
SPEAKER_02: like this job,
25:10
SPEAKER_02: a noble task,
25:11
SPEAKER_02: the fact that this job can literally,
25:14
SPEAKER_02: it changes eternity.
25:15
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't change their retirement or what's going on today so much as it changed
25:19
SPEAKER_02: the eternity,
25:20
SPEAKER_02: which is way better.
25:21
SPEAKER_02: That's why it's such a noble task.
25:23
SPEAKER_02: I just talked about all these bad actors.
25:25
SPEAKER_02: That person up there,
25:26
SPEAKER_02: this husband and wife that I know are listening to,
25:28
SPEAKER_02: has really rocked their eternity in a way.
25:32
SPEAKER_02: It's an eternal issue, eternal situation.
25:35
SPEAKER_02: which is why this office needs to be taken so seriously,
25:38
SPEAKER_02: which is why Paul's like,
25:40
SPEAKER_02: Timothy,
25:40
SPEAKER_02: listen,
25:41
SPEAKER_02: look for these kind of people,
25:42
SPEAKER_02: because if you get the wrong kind of people,
25:44
SPEAKER_02: all my,
25:45
SPEAKER_02: I love how you put it,
25:45
SPEAKER_02: spiritual grandchildren,
25:46
SPEAKER_02: all my grandchildren will end up in hell.
25:49
SPEAKER_02: They'll end up lost.
25:51
SPEAKER_02: If we don't look for these kind of people who are called,
25:53
SPEAKER_02: and here's how you know they're called,
25:55
SPEAKER_02: here's what they're going to look like,
25:57
SPEAKER_02: and this is how you do it because it's so important.
25:59
SPEAKER_02: This is the one job.
26:00
SPEAKER_02: You can't put the wrong people in these positions.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
26:03
SPEAKER_00: the seriousness of this position is something that I don't think that people often consider,
26:11
SPEAKER_00: either in ministry or people who are on the receiving end of ministers.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: And I've often said that it may not seem like it,
26:20
SPEAKER_00: but I think that pastors are in a,
26:24
SPEAKER_00: they have one of the most dangerous jobs.
26:27
SPEAKER_00: Not in terms of all the time physical danger.
26:32
SPEAKER_00: I've often made the joke,
26:33
SPEAKER_00: our job is not as dangerous as the dude who's cleaning the windows of the Burj Khalifa.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: There's this old picture I found one time of this guy washing the windows of the Burj Khalifa.
26:43
SPEAKER_00: I'm just like, that is a crazy job.
26:45
SPEAKER_02: I hope they paid him well.
26:47
SPEAKER_00: It's not quite as physically jeopardizing.
26:52
SPEAKER_00: However, it is dangerous because of the mere fact that when – let's say you're in an audience of 100.
27:00
SPEAKER_00: That's a nice, neat number.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: there's an audience of 100 congregants in front of you.
27:06
SPEAKER_00: That's 100 souls for whom eternity is in the balance more often than not,
27:13
SPEAKER_00: depending on what you say,
27:16
SPEAKER_00: how you say it,
27:17
SPEAKER_00: how it's presented,
27:18
SPEAKER_00: the way in which you've prepared in terms of
27:21
SPEAKER_00: Has it been a prayerful, spirit-driven preparation?
27:27
SPEAKER_00: Or is this just another message that's coming from you?
27:31
SPEAKER_00: So all of those factors that we can talk about,
27:33
SPEAKER_00: preparation,
27:34
SPEAKER_00: study,
27:35
SPEAKER_00: methodology of sermon delivery,
27:38
SPEAKER_00: all of those things,
27:39
SPEAKER_00: our theology of preaching,
27:41
SPEAKER_00: all of them come into this moment in which the sermon event happens and
27:46
SPEAKER_00: And eternity is on the line,
27:48
SPEAKER_00: which should be,
27:50
SPEAKER_00: again,
27:51
SPEAKER_00: and not to rehash other things,
27:53
SPEAKER_00: but should be,
27:54
SPEAKER_00: again,
27:54
SPEAKER_00: the most sobering reality ever given to us.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: Which is,
27:58
SPEAKER_00: again,
27:58
SPEAKER_00: why it's so,
28:01
SPEAKER_00: like,
28:02
SPEAKER_00: just mind-boggling,
28:03
SPEAKER_00: frustrating,
28:04
SPEAKER_00: but so...
28:06
SPEAKER_00: I can't even think of the right word,
28:07
SPEAKER_00: but...
28:10
SPEAKER_00: It's so unnerving when you see churches,
28:15
SPEAKER_00: like you've mentioned before,
28:16
SPEAKER_00: have these Toy Story-themed sermon series.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing wrong with Toy Story.
28:22
SPEAKER_00: It's great.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: But is that really reaching people's souls?
28:27
SPEAKER_00: It's hard for me to believe that it is.
28:30
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, because again, it's so superficial.
28:32
SPEAKER_02: They talk about any time.
28:34
SPEAKER_02: You're using an entertainment device.
28:36
SPEAKER_02: You're not getting into the true heart.
28:37
SPEAKER_02: You're tricking somebody into things.
28:38
SPEAKER_02: And it reminds me of when Paul basically talked about, we're not going to try to trick you.
28:42
SPEAKER_02: We're not going to con you into this.
28:44
SPEAKER_02: We're not going to use clever words or these divisive arguments.
28:47
SPEAKER_02: I'm just going to tell you the straight truth.
28:49
SPEAKER_02: And if the straight truth doesn't cut it, it doesn't.
28:51
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you're going to be in trouble.
28:54
SPEAKER_02: Because if I have to put candy on it and sugar and powder it up for you...
28:59
SPEAKER_02: And that's what's going on.
29:00
SPEAKER_02: Like, we talk about Toy Story, the same thing.
29:01
SPEAKER_02: The transgender and the Toy Story are the same thing.
29:02
SPEAKER_02: That's why it's funny because the people at those Toy Story Sunday things are like,
29:06
SPEAKER_02: I talk about how they crucify Simba at a Lion King one.
29:08
SPEAKER_02: There's people there saying, I can't believe there's transgender stuff being taught over here.
29:12
SPEAKER_02: Meanwhile,
29:12
SPEAKER_02: they're being entertained to the gills with bread and circus rather than on the Lord's,
29:17
SPEAKER_02: what's supposed to be the Lord's focus.
29:18
SPEAKER_02: And like, you get it.
29:19
SPEAKER_02: Like, Toy Story's not evil.
29:20
SPEAKER_02: Lion King, obviously not evil.
29:21
SPEAKER_02: But they have their time and place.
29:22
SPEAKER_02: If you want to do, you know, something you want to ever...
29:25
SPEAKER_02: I don't even know if I'd do it,
29:26
SPEAKER_02: but not on a Sunday and not as a main focus and an offshoot and maybe with a lot of disclaimers.
29:31
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
29:32
SPEAKER_02: And it's funny because you talk about the seriousness, and I wish people thought about it.
29:36
SPEAKER_02: Like,
29:36
SPEAKER_02: you think about,
29:37
SPEAKER_02: like,
29:37
SPEAKER_02: so right now,
29:38
SPEAKER_02: and you and I both hate getting into politics,
29:40
SPEAKER_02: but right now we're in political season,
29:42
SPEAKER_02: right?
29:42
SPEAKER_02: And could you imagine if we had somebody get up there and say,
29:44
SPEAKER_02: hey,
29:45
SPEAKER_02: I want you to give a speech for either Trump or...
29:46
SPEAKER_02: Or Harris, whoever you're for, whatever.
29:48
SPEAKER_02: And I want you to get up there in front of the world and give a speech.
29:52
SPEAKER_02: Those people would be sweating.
29:53
SPEAKER_02: They'd want to puke because they'd want to get their word out.
29:55
SPEAKER_02: But they'd be like, this is huge because of the election.
29:57
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, they're really wrapped up.
29:59
SPEAKER_02: Some people, by the way, disclaimer, think the election is very as significant as Christ.
30:03
SPEAKER_02: And it's completely not.
30:04
SPEAKER_02: And my point is there are so many people wrapped up into politics,
30:08
SPEAKER_02: especially believers,
30:08
SPEAKER_02: which really bothers me.
30:10
SPEAKER_02: Um, so obsessed with it.
30:11
SPEAKER_02: It's okay to be your civil,
30:13
SPEAKER_02: do your civil duty or whatever,
30:13
SPEAKER_02: but,
30:14
SPEAKER_02: um,
30:14
SPEAKER_02: so obsessed with it that they would lose their mind and they'd sweat like this is
30:17
SPEAKER_02: the most important thing in my life to give this speech about because of this,
30:20
SPEAKER_02: whatever.
30:21
SPEAKER_02: But never think of that when they walk in the church, the pastors up there doing the same thing.
30:25
SPEAKER_02: And I don't like, if you ask some of these people, Hey, could you go up there and fill in?
30:28
SPEAKER_02: They'd think of it as almost an afterthought or they were subbing for a class in a way.
30:32
SPEAKER_02: And it's like, you have to, that's what I love perspective.
30:34
SPEAKER_02: A lot of times we're doing a lot of things.
30:36
SPEAKER_02: We don't realize the perspective of,
30:38
SPEAKER_02: when we just start considering all these things.
30:40
SPEAKER_02: And it's funny because it ties into every facet.
30:43
SPEAKER_02: I was actually just thinking,
30:44
SPEAKER_02: even like,
30:45
SPEAKER_02: I think Sunday school,
30:46
SPEAKER_02: somebody came in a little bit early and they asked me,
30:48
SPEAKER_02: this couple asked me a question.
30:51
SPEAKER_02: And I,
30:51
SPEAKER_02: you know,
30:51
SPEAKER_02: we were getting ready to start and I gave them a quick,
30:53
SPEAKER_02: like,
30:53
SPEAKER_02: you know,
30:53
SPEAKER_02: 30 second,
30:54
SPEAKER_02: one minute answer.
30:54
SPEAKER_02: And I said, you know, that's the short answer.
30:56
SPEAKER_02: And I was being dead serious.
30:57
SPEAKER_02: But I felt it was so crazy when I got home.
31:00
SPEAKER_02: Because I take even preaching and even teaching and counseling,
31:02
SPEAKER_02: everything that is strictly to the Bible,
31:05
SPEAKER_02: I was like that one-minute answer.
31:06
SPEAKER_02: It ate me up all Sunday until I emailed them at 11 at night and said,
31:11
SPEAKER_02: I have to give you – and I gave them a five-paragraph breakdown to go deeper into
31:14
SPEAKER_02: what I said.
31:14
SPEAKER_02: Because I was like, I do not want them to get – I didn't want them to get the wrong idea.
31:17
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, just to clarify why I even said that.
31:20
SPEAKER_02: And then I was like –
31:21
SPEAKER_02: I can break that.
31:22
SPEAKER_02: And I almost went to another section.
31:24
SPEAKER_02: I was like, this is almost midnight.
31:26
SPEAKER_02: But I can't let this couple just live with this one story.
31:29
SPEAKER_02: Because they were debating some topic.
31:32
SPEAKER_02: And it's like, I don't want somebody to think they won one way or the other.
31:34
SPEAKER_02: I don't want to take sides.
31:35
SPEAKER_02: I have to explain why I even gave this one.
31:38
SPEAKER_02: simple answer, and you have to unpack it to really know what I actually meant.
31:41
SPEAKER_02: And then I'm thinking, man, how did Jesus feel?
31:43
SPEAKER_02: I'm nobody, and I'm unpacking his word, and his parables get twisted and turned, and I felt overwhelmed.
31:50
SPEAKER_02: I literally couldn't go to sleep until I was like,
31:51
SPEAKER_02: I have to email this couple,
31:52
SPEAKER_02: and in five paragraphs I can explain it.
31:54
SPEAKER_02: And literally after I sent it, I was like, I should have taken the Romans and also explained this.
31:58
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, well, if they ask any questions...
32:00
SPEAKER_02: You'll have a follow-up conversation.
32:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but it's because of the severity of it.
32:03
SPEAKER_02: It's like,
32:04
SPEAKER_02: even though I believe those two are both saved,
32:06
SPEAKER_02: it's still like,
32:07
SPEAKER_02: I want them to live like believers and I don't want them to take something I said
32:10
SPEAKER_02: and to live in some kind of a sinful way by taking it the wrong way.
32:14
SPEAKER_02: And I really wanted to clarify because I felt very responsible.
32:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
32:17
SPEAKER_00: and that's a really great illustration,
32:19
SPEAKER_00: but also a really great point to make,
32:21
SPEAKER_00: which is,
32:22
SPEAKER_00: again,
32:24
SPEAKER_00: what Paul says to Timothy here,
32:26
SPEAKER_00: this idea of a noble task,
32:28
SPEAKER_00: is kind of the umbrella statement for all the other qualifications,
32:32
SPEAKER_00: where it is noble,
32:34
SPEAKER_00: it is,
32:35
SPEAKER_00: as we've said,
32:35
SPEAKER_00: it's serious,
32:36
SPEAKER_00: which,
32:36
SPEAKER_00: again,
32:37
SPEAKER_00: doesn't mean we're stoics.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean that pastors are emotionless automatons, but it does mean that there's this sense of...
32:46
SPEAKER_00: priority.
32:47
SPEAKER_00: There's a sense of that what is happening when the word is opened is a matter for eternity.
32:55
SPEAKER_00: It's not just a temporary transient thing that's happening.
33:00
SPEAKER_00: It's something that is happening spiritually,
33:04
SPEAKER_00: faithfully,
33:05
SPEAKER_00: and can lead to people having radically transformed lives,
33:09
SPEAKER_00: which
33:10
SPEAKER_00: Again,
33:10
SPEAKER_00: as you sort of intimated with this conversation with this couple,
33:15
SPEAKER_00: it is really serious business enough to where we want to make sure that we're being accurate,
33:21
SPEAKER_00: we're being biblical,
33:22
SPEAKER_00: and we're being truthful to kind of how God has designed our lives to unfold.
33:29
SPEAKER_00: And I think that this, again, you can see all of those traits happening.
33:33
SPEAKER_00: Within Paul's wording here, you know, he says, you're sober minded, you're not puffed up with conceit.
33:41
SPEAKER_00: And all of those things tend towards this idea of a pastor,
33:48
SPEAKER_00: again,
33:49
SPEAKER_00: understanding the sense of calling is understanding the authority and the grace and
33:56
SPEAKER_00: the truth of the word,
33:57
SPEAKER_00: right?
33:58
SPEAKER_00: in a way in which he can't help but get that word out to others.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: Like, if I were to define a sense of call, I think that that's how it would be defined.
34:10
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
34:10
SPEAKER_02: And it takes me back to the Old Testament where the prophet,
34:13
SPEAKER_02: I can't remember if it's Jeremiah,
34:13
SPEAKER_02: maybe,
34:14
SPEAKER_02: or somebody says,
34:14
SPEAKER_02: like,
34:14
SPEAKER_02: it feels like fire stored up in my bones.
34:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
34:16
SPEAKER_02: I must get this out.
34:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
34:19
SPEAKER_02: Man, I couldn't have said it any better.
34:19
SPEAKER_02: Probably because you're the prophet.
34:20
SPEAKER_02: I'm not.
34:21
SPEAKER_02: But that was a great way to put it.
34:22
SPEAKER_02: But sometimes, that's the feeling.
34:25
SPEAKER_02: It's like you have this urge just to say it.
34:28
SPEAKER_02: And even again, I kind of felt that way even that evening going back to talking to that couple.
34:33
SPEAKER_02: I was like, I have this urge because I need to make sure it was clear and concise.
34:37
SPEAKER_02: And I don't want to give them the wrong impression of God because this is God's
34:39
SPEAKER_02: character we're messing with here.
34:41
SPEAKER_02: And if I mention one thing or another, that could really mess with it.
34:45
SPEAKER_02: But yeah,
34:45
SPEAKER_02: you can totally see with all these characters like you talked about,
34:49
SPEAKER_02: not quarrelsome,
34:50
SPEAKER_02: not a lot of money,
34:51
SPEAKER_02: able to teach,
34:53
SPEAKER_02: all these things you'll be able to recognize in somebody.
34:55
SPEAKER_02: And they have a passion to do it.
34:57
SPEAKER_02: Not like you have to drag them out like, hey, can you teach this person?
34:59
SPEAKER_02: Like, oh, I guess.
35:00
SPEAKER_02: If they're grumbling about it, they don't want to do it.
35:03
SPEAKER_02: If they're a quarreler, if they're going to be somebody who's quarrelsome...
35:05
SPEAKER_02: Um, even though they look, maybe they know the Bible and I know people like this.
35:08
SPEAKER_02: I know people who know the Bible,
35:09
SPEAKER_02: but they'll sit here and debate about eschatology with us and be very radical until
35:14
SPEAKER_02: the point where like,
35:14
SPEAKER_02: until one of us leaves here,
35:15
SPEAKER_02: one of us will leave wrong and one of us will leave correct.
35:18
SPEAKER_02: And you're worse off for not being mine, you know?
35:21
SPEAKER_02: And that's quarrelsome.
35:21
SPEAKER_02: I'd be like,
35:22
SPEAKER_02: okay,
35:22
SPEAKER_02: that person,
35:22
SPEAKER_02: you know,
35:23
SPEAKER_02: if they need to back off because they still have the quarreling issues,
35:25
SPEAKER_02: but they have everything else.
35:27
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't mean to say that over time you can mature and things like that either.
35:30
SPEAKER_02: But one of the most interesting things,
35:31
SPEAKER_02: I think,
35:32
SPEAKER_02: in 1 Timothy 3 that gets me,
35:34
SPEAKER_02: because everybody knows,
35:35
SPEAKER_02: like,
35:35
SPEAKER_02: oh,
35:35
SPEAKER_02: if they love money,
35:36
SPEAKER_02: you know,
35:36
SPEAKER_02: or,
35:37
SPEAKER_02: you know,
35:37
SPEAKER_02: they're cheating on their wife,
35:38
SPEAKER_02: they don't have a wife,
35:38
SPEAKER_02: you know,
35:39
SPEAKER_02: okay,
35:39
SPEAKER_02: like,
35:40
SPEAKER_02: these are pretty easy ones.
35:41
SPEAKER_02: But the verse 7, and I always love this and consider this, because...
35:44
SPEAKER_02: Some pastors, I think, would fit the bill, except for some people I know even here.
35:48
SPEAKER_02: It says, moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders so that he may not fall into disgrace.
35:54
SPEAKER_02: That's a really interesting thing.
35:55
SPEAKER_02: It's like, oh, wait, wait, then you got to see how does he do with the world?
35:58
SPEAKER_02: Like, how do the people out there think of it?
36:00
SPEAKER_02: It's like,
36:01
SPEAKER_02: man,
36:01
SPEAKER_02: if it wasn't hard enough to not be a drunkard and not love money to be,
36:05
SPEAKER_02: you know,
36:06
SPEAKER_02: to see all these things like,
36:07
SPEAKER_02: oh,
36:07
SPEAKER_02: yeah,
36:07
SPEAKER_02: by the way,
36:07
SPEAKER_02: even if I'm one of those really good guys.
36:09
SPEAKER_02: You know, they have to be, whatever it meant, well thought of by outsiders.
36:12
SPEAKER_02: Obviously, it doesn't mean they're going to, and atheists are going to be like, I love this Jesus guy.
36:17
SPEAKER_02: You know, obviously, it doesn't mean like that.
36:19
SPEAKER_02: But you don't want to have them to have a bad reputation outside.
36:21
SPEAKER_02: You want to be able to get along with the secular world.
36:23
SPEAKER_02: Because how are you going to have conversations if your pastor is the guy that
36:25
SPEAKER_02: butts heads and tells them in the wrong way,
36:28
SPEAKER_02: you're going to hell with that shit.
36:29
SPEAKER_02: And they're pointing the finger and not showing the love and the grace.
36:31
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
36:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
36:32
SPEAKER_02: And I know because I've seen this before where it's like they actually,
36:37
SPEAKER_02: they were doing really good up until verse 7.
36:39
SPEAKER_02: And then I actually might be disqualified.
36:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
36:42
SPEAKER_02: And it's an interesting thing to consider.
36:45
SPEAKER_00: I think definitely verse number seven in the qualification there,
36:49
SPEAKER_00: well thought of by outsiders,
36:51
SPEAKER_00: is one that is not given enough attention.
36:55
SPEAKER_00: And again,
36:56
SPEAKER_00: as you mentioned,
36:56
SPEAKER_00: it's not that he is beloved by outsiders or those outside of the community of faith,
37:04
SPEAKER_00: but it is this sense in which he...
37:07
SPEAKER_00: his his when his name is dropped it's not like this controversial or scandalous
37:13
SPEAKER_00: sort of um tale that's kind of coming after him so to speak you know what i mean
37:18
SPEAKER_00: like it's not like his name is followed up by like oh yeah that guy right right and
37:24
SPEAKER_02: it's cool because i've seen it in action like even locally it's really interesting
37:27
SPEAKER_02: um because i know a handful atheists um and agnostics and you know i'm polite to
37:33
SPEAKER_02: them because i always look at everybody as you know
37:34
SPEAKER_02: I know a lot of people that used to be atheists that are Christians now,
37:37
SPEAKER_02: so I can't write them off,
37:38
SPEAKER_02: even though sometimes we have them.
37:39
SPEAKER_02: urged to,
37:39
SPEAKER_02: but I've seen these atheists who hate,
37:41
SPEAKER_02: they'll be openly hateful about churches,
37:44
SPEAKER_02: but there'll be these pastors that every once in a while they'll do something good
37:46
SPEAKER_02: in the community,
37:47
SPEAKER_02: and I'll hear something like,
37:49
SPEAKER_02: I don't agree with all that Jesus stuff,
37:50
SPEAKER_02: but the fact that I at least know that guy cares,
37:53
SPEAKER_02: and it's because they're called to pastor,
37:55
SPEAKER_02: somebody who might actually be called,
37:57
SPEAKER_02: and because,
37:57
SPEAKER_02: again,
37:58
SPEAKER_02: you don't get paid $100,000 to start these little volunteer projects,
38:01
SPEAKER_02: you know what I mean?
38:02
SPEAKER_02: Like, these things that, to go forever, and people will see in the community that
38:05
SPEAKER_02: when a pastor actually cares, when they're sincere.
38:09
SPEAKER_02: Again, yeah, somebody they'd be okay with talking to.
38:11
SPEAKER_02: Again, they don't have to be the best fan or the biggest fan or anything like that.
38:14
SPEAKER_02: But it's something I see as like a positive,
38:17
SPEAKER_02: you know,
38:17
SPEAKER_02: they have a positive,
38:19
SPEAKER_02: like everybody thinks of them positively,
38:20
SPEAKER_02: whether you are a believer or not.
38:22
SPEAKER_02: Somebody that they wouldn't mind being around and think as a good,
38:25
SPEAKER_02: you're not going to worry about your kids being around this person,
38:27
SPEAKER_02: obviously.
38:28
SPEAKER_02: You know, that kind of situation.
38:30
SPEAKER_02: And then once you look at those lists and define somebody who fits all of them,
38:34
SPEAKER_02: there are people out there.
38:35
SPEAKER_02: But it is hard because you start going down the list.
38:37
SPEAKER_02: Like, well, that's hard, that's hard, that's hard.
38:39
SPEAKER_02: And then you get down,
38:39
SPEAKER_02: like I said,
38:40
SPEAKER_02: to that one,
38:41
SPEAKER_02: which I always think is so dangerous,
38:42
SPEAKER_02: that seventh verse.
38:43
SPEAKER_02: I like to really focus on those because...
38:46
SPEAKER_02: So many people can sometimes just be focused on the church.
38:49
SPEAKER_02: How am I doing here?
38:49
SPEAKER_02: How am I doing with that?
38:50
SPEAKER_02: It's like there is that outside component because we're supposed to be growing,
38:53
SPEAKER_02: which means it's supposed to affect the outside.
38:55
SPEAKER_02: And if we don't have,
38:57
SPEAKER_02: and if your pastor butts heads of the communities out there waving the finger and
39:00
SPEAKER_02: saying you're all going to hell and everybody laughs at the guy or hates the guy or whatever.
39:04
SPEAKER_02: That means all those people in that congregation going back, circling back.
39:07
SPEAKER_02: This is a calling, and that preacher has now demonstrated this is the way I deal with outsiders.
39:12
SPEAKER_02: I yell and shout and wave my finger,
39:14
SPEAKER_02: and I would imagine that a lot of them will do that or leave the church.
39:16
SPEAKER_02: And again,
39:18
SPEAKER_02: obviously not saying that you go out there and coddle the outsiders in their sins
39:22
SPEAKER_02: or anything like that,
39:23
SPEAKER_02: but I think you go and prove to the people that you could be somebody that can talk
39:26
SPEAKER_02: to people that are not of the faith and have a conversation with them and then
39:28
SPEAKER_02: respect you,
39:29
SPEAKER_02: leaving,
39:30
SPEAKER_02: like,
39:30
SPEAKER_02: hey,
39:30
SPEAKER_02: that was a really nice guy,
39:31
SPEAKER_02: whether they knew you were a pastor or not.
39:34
SPEAKER_00: I think that's a really good point.
39:35
SPEAKER_00: Another thing that jumped to my mind that I wanted to touch on is – and these are
39:41
SPEAKER_00: kind of interrelated sort of –
39:44
SPEAKER_00: things that we can jump off on is the fact that...
39:47
SPEAKER_00: So you have all these qualifications here in 1 Timothy 3.
39:50
SPEAKER_00: You can go to Titus where they appear again.
39:53
SPEAKER_00: They appear in Peter too, right?
39:56
SPEAKER_00: 1 Peter 3, I think.
39:58
SPEAKER_00: But regardless,
39:59
SPEAKER_00: so you have these qualifications listed a couple different times about an elder,
40:04
SPEAKER_00: an overseer,
40:05
SPEAKER_00: whatever sort of name you want to put in there for a pastor,
40:08
SPEAKER_00: a preacher of the word.
40:10
SPEAKER_00: I think there's two things that are...
40:13
SPEAKER_00: tethered together that often give us give the church itself and the church at large
40:20
SPEAKER_00: a lot of questions or cause for concern which is the fact that how do you know if
40:27
SPEAKER_00: someone has disqualified themselves according to these qualifications but then also
40:34
SPEAKER_00: too how do you know like okay
40:39
SPEAKER_00: you have all these listed of qualifications.
40:40
SPEAKER_00: I think what I'm trying to get at is that all of these qualifications aren't like a sort of pass or fail.
40:47
SPEAKER_01: Right.
40:48
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, no one is going to be all of these things 100% of the time.
40:55
SPEAKER_00: Because if these are 100% like without... Flawless.
41:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, if these are like flawless qualifications, there would be no preachers.
41:06
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
41:07
SPEAKER_00: So how do we navigate that with understanding that even for myself, I am...
41:15
SPEAKER_00: Lord willing, fulfilling these qualifications by faith alone.
41:21
SPEAKER_00: And then how do we understand when or how someone disqualifies themselves?
41:27
SPEAKER_02: That's a really great question.
41:28
SPEAKER_02: It gets really murky, and obviously there's going to be all different kinds of answers.
41:32
SPEAKER_02: I think it has to go with habituality and what 1 John talks about.
41:36
SPEAKER_02: Ironically, this is where the whole couple conversation came out of.
41:41
SPEAKER_02: They listed a certain sin and said, if this person commits a sin, can they be a Christian?
41:45
SPEAKER_02: And if this person commits a sin regularly, can they be a Christian?
41:48
SPEAKER_02: If this person lives in this sin, can they be a Christian?
41:50
SPEAKER_02: It's like, this gets really dicey because it's faith alone.
41:54
SPEAKER_02: But it says, hey, he who lives in sin is not fooling themselves.
41:58
SPEAKER_02: They think they are a believer.
41:59
SPEAKER_02: So it's this thing.
42:01
SPEAKER_02: And then you look at,
42:02
SPEAKER_02: again,
42:02
SPEAKER_02: you look at these qualifications because you don't expect every other believer to
42:06
SPEAKER_02: be 100% on the Ten Commandments.
42:07
SPEAKER_02: Right.
42:09
SPEAKER_02: But the passers have to.
42:11
SPEAKER_02: And it's like, well, yeah, well, then you have to ask questions.
42:13
SPEAKER_02: All right, well, they're not perfect.
42:14
SPEAKER_02: Well, how many tick marks do you get until you're disqualified?
42:18
SPEAKER_02: Is there one bigger?
42:19
SPEAKER_02: And it gets murky, as I know.
42:22
SPEAKER_02: What I can see is it's one of those things in life.
42:26
SPEAKER_02: Um,
42:26
SPEAKER_02: kind of like,
42:26
SPEAKER_02: it reminds me of somebody says,
42:28
SPEAKER_02: Hey,
42:28
SPEAKER_02: how will I know when I get to your,
42:29
SPEAKER_02: you know,
42:29
SPEAKER_02: this,
42:29
SPEAKER_02: whatever.
42:30
SPEAKER_02: And my one,
42:30
SPEAKER_02: you know,
42:31
SPEAKER_02: my one friend lived by a house that had this like half,
42:34
SPEAKER_02: half brown paint,
42:35
SPEAKER_02: half teal paint.
42:36
SPEAKER_02: It was awful.
42:36
SPEAKER_02: Like somebody bought it mixed in the middle or whatever.
42:38
SPEAKER_02: And they just say, you'll know when you see the ugly house.
42:41
Yeah.
42:42
SPEAKER_02: And they're like, what do you mean?
42:43
SPEAKER_02: I don't have to tell you anymore.
42:44
SPEAKER_02: Just come down the road.
42:44
SPEAKER_02: You'll know.
42:45
SPEAKER_02: And nobody would miss it.
42:46
SPEAKER_02: You'd see this thing.
42:48
SPEAKER_02: And I think it's kind of like that.
42:50
SPEAKER_02: It's like, you will know this person is living against these things.
42:55
SPEAKER_02: This person is not remorseful.
42:57
SPEAKER_02: And one I run into that I thought somebody was disqualified for,
43:01
SPEAKER_02: along with the elders with me,
43:03
SPEAKER_02: is this person was...
43:05
SPEAKER_02: Not denying the thing,
43:06
SPEAKER_02: they were doing mental gymnastics and word salads with me of how it was not a disqualification.
43:12
SPEAKER_00: And that's what I knew.
43:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's kind of like that thing where it's hard to define.
43:19
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's part of, I think, part of the human condition is...
43:27
SPEAKER_00: We want really clear lines.
43:30
SPEAKER_00: We like things black and white.
43:32
SPEAKER_00: And unfortunately, that's not always how this works.
43:36
SPEAKER_00: And so to say that someone is disqualified,
43:39
SPEAKER_00: sometimes there's very demonstrable things like,
43:41
SPEAKER_00: okay,
43:41
SPEAKER_00: this person has disqualified themselves.
43:43
SPEAKER_00: But then, like you're saying, sometimes...
43:47
SPEAKER_00: it's you'll just know it when you see it yeah it's kind of one of those yeah it
43:51
SPEAKER_02: really is because obviously you can tell a lover of money you know i mean you can
43:55
SPEAKER_02: see that i've seen it you can tell yeah this person has some kind of even if they
43:58
SPEAKER_02: say they don't it's the fruit is coming out right yeah or if they're in you know
44:03
SPEAKER_02: that you know say somebody the big one now that we've seen we can use bigger names
44:08
SPEAKER_02: you got like ravi zacharias or tony evans those guys you
44:11
SPEAKER_00: You know,
44:11
SPEAKER_02: they knew the Bible really well,
44:12
SPEAKER_02: but they got into some real,
44:14
SPEAKER_02: you know,
44:14
SPEAKER_02: some of those guys got into sexual immorality.
44:16
SPEAKER_02: Like those things seems disqualifying.
44:19
SPEAKER_02: But then you say, well, that person was, you get in these debates.
44:22
SPEAKER_02: It's like, well, can they be restored?
44:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
44:24
SPEAKER_00: Well, that was my next question.
44:25
SPEAKER_00: So is it disqualification?
44:29
SPEAKER_00: A death sentence for, in a way, for that minister from ever ministering again.
44:36
SPEAKER_00: Right.
44:36
SPEAKER_02: And that's a really great question.
44:38
SPEAKER_02: I think if you believe the gospel, you have to say no.
44:40
SPEAKER_02: They can't be completely, permanently disqualified.
44:43
SPEAKER_02: Just like, I mean, the way to think of it is Paul.
44:47
SPEAKER_02: So when he's on his way to Damascus,
44:50
SPEAKER_02: obviously he wasn't in the preaching at the moment,
44:51
SPEAKER_02: but you know what I mean?
44:52
SPEAKER_02: Imagine somebody who did something terrible and they're remorseful.
44:55
SPEAKER_02: David, for example.
44:57
SPEAKER_02: Say David, you know, with the Bathsheba thing.
45:00
SPEAKER_02: He wasn't necessarily disqualified as king, although that's a completely different office.
45:04
SPEAKER_02: But what I'm getting at here is David repented of it.
45:07
SPEAKER_02: The difference between David and Saul.
45:09
SPEAKER_02: Saul justifies why he did what he did, why he let the king live.
45:12
SPEAKER_02: And David immediately repents.
45:14
SPEAKER_02: So I think if you caught somebody in this whole immoral act,
45:17
SPEAKER_02: There'd have to be a whole restoration process.
45:18
SPEAKER_02: I'm not saying they can come back tomorrow.
45:20
SPEAKER_02: I'm not saying anything like that.
45:21
SPEAKER_02: It'd probably have to be a real process.
45:23
SPEAKER_02: And I think what you'd have to see is just like what the gospel says.
45:25
SPEAKER_02: I'd have to see a change in you.
45:27
SPEAKER_02: Because I've had a lot of people tell me, I believe in Jesus and I just got saved.
45:32
SPEAKER_02: And some of them are out at the bars getting drunk every night.
45:35
SPEAKER_02: They don't go to church ever.
45:37
SPEAKER_02: And the other ones that told me have,
45:39
SPEAKER_02: you know,
45:40
SPEAKER_02: quit their jobs to do this,
45:41
SPEAKER_02: become a better dad,
45:43
SPEAKER_02: volunteer at this.
45:45
SPEAKER_02: And I can just tell by looking at them.
45:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
45:49
SPEAKER_02: The one that was sincere.
45:49
SPEAKER_02: And I think the same thing with restoration.
45:51
SPEAKER_02: You'll be able to know when the pastor is truly, you know, and it's something that's hard to tell.
45:55
SPEAKER_00: It's hard to tell if each situation is probably unique.
45:57
SPEAKER_00: It comes back to,
45:59
SPEAKER_00: and you'll probably know this from an Old Testament perspective,
46:03
SPEAKER_00: which I'll get to in a minute,
46:04
SPEAKER_00: but it comes back to what Paul says about
46:06
SPEAKER_00: in 2 Corinthians 2, where he's like, we are men of sincerity.
46:10
SPEAKER_00: You can tell there will be a demonstrable, very telling, sincere...
46:17
SPEAKER_00: repentance that happens.
46:19
SPEAKER_00: And it's not like I'm trying to tiptoe around my sin.
46:23
SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to explain it or gaslight it away.
46:28
SPEAKER_00: Rather,
46:28
SPEAKER_00: I'm openly admitting and repenting,
46:32
SPEAKER_00: and I'm okay with receding into the background while the restoration happens.
46:37
SPEAKER_00: And I think...
46:40
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you can jump off on this like that's the big difference, right?
46:44
SPEAKER_00: Between Saul and David, like Saul's repentance is either a little too late or it's not genuine.
46:52
SPEAKER_00: Whereas David's when he's confronted by the word of the law through the prophet Nathan.
46:58
SPEAKER_00: there's a genuine repentance that happens.
47:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
47:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
47:02
SPEAKER_02: And that's, and that's what you see there because that's people.
47:05
SPEAKER_02: The big question is how come David got so much, you know, slack and sold in.
47:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
47:10
SPEAKER_02: But it's always, you can always just look at the heart.
47:12
SPEAKER_02: It's that true, that true repentance.
47:15
SPEAKER_02: You don't see afterwards David going to have another Bathsheba moment.
47:19
SPEAKER_02: Even though he could have maybe still and truly repented of it,
47:22
SPEAKER_02: but you see his respect for the Lord and that's what you'd see.
47:28
SPEAKER_02: You'll be able to tell again these false preachers who fell and got disqualified
47:31
SPEAKER_02: from a church and weren't restored again.
47:33
SPEAKER_02: You'll see again this fruit.
47:35
SPEAKER_02: A good tree can't bear bad fruit and a bad tree can't bear good fruit.
47:39
SPEAKER_02: So again, you'll see it.
47:41
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't mean it doesn't happen again.
47:42
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't mean that
47:43
SPEAKER_02: somebody gets disqualified they get caught in it by some real good people people
47:46
SPEAKER_02: leave the church this is really possible by the way people leave the church they
47:49
SPEAKER_02: admit their sins whatever and they convince and fool the next group of people that
47:53
SPEAKER_02: they've overcome it because that also happens i can guarantee that also happens um
47:58
SPEAKER_02: where they can be really it can be deceitful to to groups of people but i think
48:01
SPEAKER_02: anybody would call again a true believer if you're really in there for the right
48:04
SPEAKER_02: intentions the god will give you the spirit of discernment
48:08
SPEAKER_02: for the most part, to know.
48:10
SPEAKER_02: But I do believe,
48:10
SPEAKER_02: because there are people out here that are going to say,
48:12
SPEAKER_02: being a pastor is different,
48:13
SPEAKER_02: and you stand in a different line.
48:15
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, if you do something like that, you're disqualified permanently.
48:19
SPEAKER_02: But,
48:19
SPEAKER_02: again,
48:20
SPEAKER_02: you can use,
48:20
SPEAKER_02: and I know people make the argument,
48:22
SPEAKER_02: David wasn't,
48:22
SPEAKER_02: you know,
48:23
SPEAKER_02: he wasn't a preacher,
48:24
SPEAKER_02: he was a king,
48:24
SPEAKER_02: so you can't be disqualified as a king and replace,
48:27
SPEAKER_02: like,
48:27
SPEAKER_02: oh,
48:27
SPEAKER_02: it didn't work like that.
48:28
SPEAKER_02: I get it.
48:28
SPEAKER_02: However, if you looked at David as a preacher, you know, say he were a preacher,
48:33
SPEAKER_02: and these kind of things happen.
48:35
SPEAKER_02: I truly believe David would have been removed from the pulpit that Sunday,
48:39
SPEAKER_02: and probably for six months to a year,
48:41
SPEAKER_02: two years,
48:41
SPEAKER_02: I don't know what the timeline looks like.
48:43
SPEAKER_02: Some kind of process,
48:44
SPEAKER_02: the elders would probably have to sit him down,
48:46
SPEAKER_02: talk to him,
48:46
SPEAKER_02: Nathan,
48:47
SPEAKER_02: all the guys,
48:47
SPEAKER_02: they'd have to sit with him and say,
48:48
SPEAKER_02: hey,
48:48
SPEAKER_02: here's how we're going to do this.
48:49
SPEAKER_02: And they probably would have seen day one, David in tears, saying, you know, Lord, forgive me.
48:54
SPEAKER_02: And they would have known, all right, that was a mistake.
48:57
SPEAKER_00: Well, it is interesting that people might...
49:01
SPEAKER_00: resist the notion of using that as an example for preacher's restoration because,
49:06
SPEAKER_00: as you mentioned,
49:07
SPEAKER_00: David's a king.
49:08
SPEAKER_00: But we could say he was also a prophet because Peter calls him a prophet in Acts
49:13
SPEAKER_00: chapter 2,
49:14
SPEAKER_00: which is just to say the office of preacher is,
49:18
SPEAKER_00: in a way,
49:19
SPEAKER_00: sort of in the line of the prophets.
49:22
SPEAKER_00: So I think the argument still stands.
49:26
SPEAKER_00: And regardless of what you think of...
49:29
SPEAKER_00: of of that illustration I think it I think it really does help us understand the
49:34
SPEAKER_00: the nature of restoration is kind of dependent on the genuineness of the repentance
49:41
SPEAKER_02: right no absolutely and I mean you can even just see this again I'm a big believer
49:44
SPEAKER_02: in patterns in the bible and you see these patterns live throughout you see David
49:48
SPEAKER_02: you see you know Saul becomes Paul and he converts but you even see Peter and I
49:52
SPEAKER_02: mean I talked about even last night like Jesus built his church on Peter and
49:56
SPEAKER_02: And Peter's out here denying Christ.
49:57
SPEAKER_02: Could you imagine a preacher who said, you know, I don't believe in Jesus.
50:00
SPEAKER_02: I don't even know who that guy is.
50:02
SPEAKER_02: And again, different.
50:03
SPEAKER_02: He wasn't a preacher, I get per se.
50:05
SPEAKER_02: But you just see these patterns over and over, like even these best guys.
50:09
SPEAKER_02: That's what I love about the Bible.
50:10
SPEAKER_02: They give us the best ones.
50:11
SPEAKER_02: Some preachers want to hide the bad stuff and elevate them.
50:14
SPEAKER_02: And they don't even try to hide it,
50:15
SPEAKER_02: but it's just like a lot of people,
50:16
SPEAKER_02: I guess,
50:17
SPEAKER_02: take it and they're like,
50:18
SPEAKER_02: well,
50:18
SPEAKER_02: these are the heroes.
50:19
SPEAKER_02: They are biblical heroes, but they're also the biblical failures.
50:22
SPEAKER_02: Equally, at the same time, it's that sinner-saint thing.
50:25
SPEAKER_02: And if you understand the sinner-saint dilemma,
50:28
SPEAKER_02: that we're in the sanctification process,
50:30
SPEAKER_02: some people have this idea,
50:33
SPEAKER_02: even though on paper they'll tell you,
50:34
SPEAKER_02: I don't believe that.
50:35
SPEAKER_02: But to believe it on paper and to believe it as in living it is another thing.
50:39
SPEAKER_02: And they will believe that a pastor should have surpassed sanctification and should
50:43
SPEAKER_02: have now entered the glorified state.
50:44
SPEAKER_02: That as if the believers,
50:46
SPEAKER_02: all believers,
50:46
SPEAKER_02: go from justification to sanctification instantly,
50:49
SPEAKER_02: and you stay there and let them become a preacher once you get glorified,
50:52
SPEAKER_02: and it's like some weird thing,
50:52
SPEAKER_02: and I'm sure there's some...
50:55
SPEAKER_02: Churches out there that teach this kind of stuff somewhere that a preacher,
50:58
SPEAKER_02: and this is why they have to follow all these things because they've now achieved a
51:00
SPEAKER_02: new status,
51:01
SPEAKER_02: but the Bible doesn't teach anything like that.
51:03
SPEAKER_02: I think anybody goes through and honestly, and wants to reflect on it, is going to find that out.
51:08
SPEAKER_00: Those are our Westlands, right?
51:09
SPEAKER_00: Those are our Westlands.
51:10
SPEAKER_01: I'm just kidding.
51:12
SPEAKER_01: You never know.
51:15
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, yeah, we won't name drop that.
51:17
SPEAKER_00: That's right, that's right.
51:20
SPEAKER_00: All right, let's segue really quick.
51:22
SPEAKER_00: I think we've kind of teased out the call for ministers, for pastors preaching the word, but let's...
51:33
SPEAKER_00: for a few minutes, focus on the Word itself and the ministries of the Word.
51:38
SPEAKER_00: So Paul in 1 Timothy 4...
51:43
SPEAKER_00: kind of,
51:44
SPEAKER_00: this is not directly after the qualifications,
51:48
SPEAKER_00: but in verse six of chapter four,
51:51
SPEAKER_00: Paul says,
51:51
SPEAKER_00: if you put these things before the brothers,
51:53
SPEAKER_00: you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus,
51:55
SPEAKER_00: being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed.
52:00
SPEAKER_00: So clearly what he has in mind,
52:02
SPEAKER_00: I think,
52:03
SPEAKER_00: of course,
52:03
SPEAKER_00: all throughout the letters to Timothy,
52:05
SPEAKER_00: but in terms of the conversation of identifying potential elder candidates and then
52:12
SPEAKER_00: sort of
52:13
SPEAKER_00: using those qualifications as a grid to sort of decipher who is and isn't a good candidate for that.
52:19
SPEAKER_00: And then he says here that either it's kind of a both-and thing.
52:23
SPEAKER_00: You've been trained,
52:24
SPEAKER_00: and also you can train others in the words of the faith and the good doctrine that
52:28
SPEAKER_00: you follow.
52:29
SPEAKER_00: And this kind of thing, I think, is further teased out by Paul himself in the next letter.
52:36
SPEAKER_00: So 2 Timothy 3, we have that famous phrase,
52:41
SPEAKER_00: statement by Paul,
52:43
SPEAKER_00: where he says in verse 16,
52:44
SPEAKER_00: So,
52:44
SPEAKER_00: let's kind of unpack some of what's going on there from the standpoint of
53:04
SPEAKER_00: a minister using the,
53:06
SPEAKER_00: not using the word,
53:07
SPEAKER_00: but unfolding the word,
53:10
SPEAKER_00: or we could say using the word in all of these different sort of venues,
53:14
SPEAKER_00: because clearly there's a difference between teaching and correction.
53:20
SPEAKER_00: So how should a minister understand that as they are being trained in the words of the faith?
53:25
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's a really great question.
53:27
SPEAKER_02: I think it goes back to, it almost seems like a common theme,
53:31
SPEAKER_02: Everything's downstream of the Word of God, downstream of what the Lord has.
53:35
SPEAKER_02: And everything here, you can utilize the Word.
53:38
SPEAKER_02: The more you know the Word, the more you're comfortable with it.
53:40
SPEAKER_02: It actually helps you in every other facet.
53:42
SPEAKER_02: So if you're a man of God and you become an elder, you're a preacher, you should also have the ability.
53:47
SPEAKER_02: That's why it goes through.
53:48
SPEAKER_02: You should also be able to listen later on somewhere.
53:50
SPEAKER_02: The elder should be able to teach and all these things, go to reproof, all these kind of things.
53:54
SPEAKER_02: Because if you have the Word of God and you have the Holy Spirit, it's all in there.
53:59
SPEAKER_02: Which is really interesting because when you get to,
54:01
SPEAKER_02: you know,
54:01
SPEAKER_02: counseling,
54:02
SPEAKER_02: you'll have some preachers even say,
54:04
SPEAKER_02: you know,
54:04
SPEAKER_02: well,
54:05
SPEAKER_02: I don't really like the counseling.
54:06
SPEAKER_02: And you don't have to love everything equally because there all are different things.
54:10
SPEAKER_02: I'm not, you know, I'm better in certain areas than I am in others of these things.
54:13
SPEAKER_02: But you have to have some kind of a capability there.
54:16
SPEAKER_02: But you get into counseling and some Christians,
54:18
SPEAKER_02: you know,
54:19
SPEAKER_02: again,
54:19
SPEAKER_02: people argue about all kinds of stuff in Christianity.
54:21
SPEAKER_02: Some, I know a guy will say, I don't believe in counseling.
54:25
SPEAKER_02: But what he means, I know what the guy means, he doesn't believe in secular counseling.
54:29
SPEAKER_02: Why?
54:30
SPEAKER_02: Because when you talk counseling to the world,
54:33
SPEAKER_02: they think go to some guy who went to some science school,
54:36
SPEAKER_02: and we're going to give you the best studies on what the brain does with this kind
54:39
SPEAKER_02: of stuff,
54:39
SPEAKER_02: and psychology says that you'll behave this,
54:41
SPEAKER_02: and if we give you this med,
54:43
SPEAKER_02: or we give you this kind of thing,
54:44
SPEAKER_02: you think about this,
54:45
SPEAKER_02: it'll fix it.
54:46
SPEAKER_02: And the problem that the guy doesn't believe in counseling,
54:48
SPEAKER_02: he doesn't believe in secular counseling,
54:49
SPEAKER_02: is because there's no word of God there.
54:51
SPEAKER_02: And the reason you're able to counsel,
54:53
SPEAKER_02: even if you've never done a counseling session before,
54:55
SPEAKER_02: but you're a preacher or an elder...
54:58
SPEAKER_02: is because you have the word of God.
55:00
SPEAKER_02: So when somebody brings a problem to you, I guarantee it's somewhere in the Bible.
55:04
SPEAKER_02: Maybe that not exact issue they're bringing to you,
55:06
SPEAKER_02: but there is something of the sort in the Bible and there's some kind of answer in there.
55:10
SPEAKER_02: And it doesn't mean you have to know the answer, you know, right out the gate to the solution.
55:14
SPEAKER_02: But what it means is you can counsel this person just by going right to the word of
55:17
SPEAKER_02: God and teaching what the Bible says.
55:19
SPEAKER_02: It's not too much different than preaching in a certain way.
55:22
SPEAKER_02: It's almost like one-on-one preaching is what these things become because it's more tailored to
55:27
SPEAKER_02: Really, I see counseling as a tailored preaching approach in a way.
55:30
SPEAKER_02: Here's what the Word of God says.
55:31
SPEAKER_02: Here's how we can apply it to your life.
55:32
SPEAKER_02: It's more of a life application.
55:35
SPEAKER_02: Reproof, same kind of thing.
55:36
SPEAKER_02: Hey, this was clearly done wrong.
55:39
SPEAKER_02: Well, let's go to the Bible.
55:40
SPEAKER_02: What does the Bible say about sin?
55:41
SPEAKER_02: What does the Bible say about how we should handle this?
55:44
SPEAKER_02: It's all in there.
55:44
SPEAKER_02: That's what I love.
55:45
SPEAKER_02: It's literally a manual from God.
55:46
SPEAKER_02: I think what he's basically saying here is,
55:48
SPEAKER_02: hey,
55:49
SPEAKER_02: when you're a preacher or elder,
55:50
SPEAKER_02: this is your manual,
55:51
SPEAKER_02: and you're going to be the guys that have this manual.
55:53
SPEAKER_02: Everybody has it, but you're going to use this.
55:55
SPEAKER_02: To do all these things,
55:56
SPEAKER_02: this is how I've equipped you with your abilities,
55:58
SPEAKER_02: your voice,
55:59
SPEAKER_02: and this,
56:00
SPEAKER_02: and you're going to take this,
56:00
SPEAKER_02: and this is going to help you with everything,
56:02
SPEAKER_02: all these lists,
56:03
SPEAKER_02: all these job descriptions,
56:04
SPEAKER_02: things in your job description.
56:06
SPEAKER_02: As long as you have this, you can actually do all of them.
56:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
56:09
SPEAKER_00: I think that's really what it is.
56:09
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think that's such a great point because...
56:14
SPEAKER_00: I would be the first to say that the Bible is not a manual for life.
56:18
SPEAKER_00: It's a revelation of God and his Savior.
56:21
SPEAKER_00: But it's not one at the expense of the other.
56:25
SPEAKER_00: They're both at the same time.
56:27
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, we'd say the Bible is the revelation of Jesus Christ.
56:30
SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, in the midst of our daily lives and daily ministries, it is our resource for...
56:38
SPEAKER_00: handling conflict or navigating questions or decisions.
56:44
SPEAKER_00: And as we know, counseling, teaching or discipling believers in the faith.
56:51
SPEAKER_00: And so I think it's important that we don't like kind of bifurcate the Bible into things
56:57
SPEAKER_00: um, like binary categories, like it has to be one or the other.
57:00
SPEAKER_00: No,
57:00
SPEAKER_00: it's,
57:01
SPEAKER_00: it's all of the above,
57:02
SPEAKER_00: which is why we can say the Bible is a great historical book,
57:06
SPEAKER_00: even though it doesn't cover every piece of history,
57:08
SPEAKER_00: but it is historical.
57:10
SPEAKER_00: It is, you can't negate that.
57:12
SPEAKER_00: Just like it is,
57:13
SPEAKER_00: um,
57:14
SPEAKER_00: a book that's filled with,
57:15
SPEAKER_00: with science that we now are catching up to scientifically in the 21st century.
57:22
SPEAKER_00: But all of that to say that I think it's,
57:25
SPEAKER_00: vital that we understand that in terms of these different ways in which the word ministers,
57:33
SPEAKER_00: it ministers the same message in different avenues,
57:38
SPEAKER_00: if we can say it that way.
57:39
SPEAKER_00: So what we can kind of understand that when we're preaching the word from the pulpit,
57:45
SPEAKER_00: it's going to sound different than if we have,
57:47
SPEAKER_00: like you said,
57:48
SPEAKER_00: like a one-on-one conversation,
57:50
SPEAKER_00: but the end point is still the same because it's always about Jesus.
57:53
SPEAKER_00: And it's always like him that we're kind of driving the people to see,
57:58
SPEAKER_00: but the way in which we get there may be different.
58:01
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if we're going to be,
58:04
SPEAKER_00: maybe you can,
58:04
SPEAKER_00: maybe it would be fine to,
58:06
SPEAKER_00: but like the same sense of like,
58:10
SPEAKER_00: like expositing the word isn't going to come in a one-on-one counseling session.
58:15
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
58:16
SPEAKER_00: Right.
58:16
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
58:17
SPEAKER_02: And that's, what's so great about the Bible.
58:18
SPEAKER_02: And that's why I always try to get people out of dichotomies because we live in a
58:22
SPEAKER_02: black or white,
58:22
SPEAKER_02: yes or no,
58:23
SPEAKER_02: good or bad.
58:24
SPEAKER_02: We live in that thing.
58:25
SPEAKER_02: So it's actually programmed the human mind.
58:27
SPEAKER_02: We all think this way,
58:28
SPEAKER_02: but once you enter,
58:29
SPEAKER_02: I always love called the interdimensional message of God,
58:32
SPEAKER_02: which is the Bible,
58:32
SPEAKER_02: which is literally the only book we have,
58:34
SPEAKER_02: not from space and time.
58:35
SPEAKER_02: I say as an origin outside of space and time,
58:38
SPEAKER_02: It's going to be different than the rest of the books we have.
58:41
SPEAKER_02: And the reason I say that is because every time I go up there and preach, I see it as three.
58:46
SPEAKER_02: It's almost like layered, like a projector almost.
58:49
SPEAKER_02: There's a projector,
58:50
SPEAKER_02: and it's shooting out the light,
58:51
SPEAKER_02: and I have to lay three layered transparencies on top of each other,
58:55
SPEAKER_02: and it can shoot out.
58:56
SPEAKER_02: And there's three different ways.
58:57
SPEAKER_02: You can pull off this one and say, hey, what you said.
59:00
SPEAKER_02: Hey, this is the history.
59:01
SPEAKER_02: of this.
59:02
SPEAKER_02: This is a historical event that happened where Joshua walked around.
59:05
SPEAKER_02: This is walls.
59:05
SPEAKER_02: We have archaeologists that dug that out.
59:07
SPEAKER_02: That's history.
59:07
SPEAKER_02: And then you put that one down.
59:08
SPEAKER_02: You say, hey.
59:10
SPEAKER_02: here's where uh here's where your personal you know you could though there's a
59:13
SPEAKER_02: personal application if you're an accountant here's your personal thing hey just
59:16
SPEAKER_02: follow the lord what the bible says don't matter how crazy it sounds no matter what
59:20
SPEAKER_02: just if you have faith anything's possible then you put it down say here's the
59:23
SPEAKER_02: important one though and you pull it up and you say and how did this point to
59:25
SPEAKER_02: christ oh christ fights fights your battle you know christ is the one who fought
59:29
SPEAKER_02: for you on the cross he's the one that and you go and i believe that all those
59:33
SPEAKER_02: layers are in every single story there's a real historical when you get to
59:36
SPEAKER_02: narratives anyway yeah
59:37
SPEAKER_02: There's a historical narrative piece.
59:39
SPEAKER_02: That's actually historically – that's a good history lesson.
59:41
SPEAKER_02: And then you have how could this apply for your life.
59:43
SPEAKER_02: That's always going to be true, and there's always going to be Jesus in there.
59:46
SPEAKER_02: Yes, always.
59:47
SPEAKER_02: And what happens is – it kind of reminds me of – I forget what it was.
59:53
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to butcher it, so I won't even say it.
59:54
SPEAKER_02: But basically this whole concept of a poem or this concept where basically there's
59:58
SPEAKER_02: three blind people or whatever,
1:00:00
SPEAKER_02: and one of them touches –
1:00:03
SPEAKER_02: uh the you know the trunk of the you know the oh it's the elephant yeah the this
1:00:08
SPEAKER_02: and the tusk like no it's pointy no it's sharp no it's this but they were all right
1:00:12
SPEAKER_02: yes because it was all of those things yeah and that's what's so amazing about the
1:00:16
SPEAKER_02: bible because you have so many people saying no this is all about jesus by the way
1:00:19
SPEAKER_02: that is the most one true important thing i would elevate that one over the rest is
1:00:23
SPEAKER_02: if you're not going to know any of it you have to know that um
1:00:26
SPEAKER_02: But then you have other people saying, no, it's just, this is all about you and how to navigate.
1:00:30
SPEAKER_02: This is a stupid thing that people say.
1:00:32
SPEAKER_02: It's the basic instructions before leaving earth, I've heard people say.
1:00:35
SPEAKER_02: It's your basic instructions before leaving earth.
1:00:37
SPEAKER_02: This is your book.
1:00:37
SPEAKER_02: That's what the Bible stands for.
1:00:38
SPEAKER_02: It's all about you and fixing your life.
1:00:40
SPEAKER_02: It's like, well, that's in there.
1:00:41
SPEAKER_02: That's great because this is a great little instruction book for me.
1:00:44
SPEAKER_02: This is great.
1:00:45
SPEAKER_02: But then, like I said, and then the history part.
1:00:47
SPEAKER_02: So it's always in there and what happens is so many people fight about, is it this or is it that?
1:00:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:00:52
SPEAKER_02: Is the elephant soft or is he sharp?
1:00:55
SPEAKER_02: He's everything, depending on where you're at and what you're focusing on at the moment.
1:00:58
SPEAKER_00: Correct.
1:00:59
SPEAKER_00: And I think another good point to make, too, is... I...
1:01:06
SPEAKER_00: The Bible is sufficient for all things,
1:01:09
SPEAKER_00: but that doesn't mean that every situation calls for just a scripture to be slapped
1:01:15
SPEAKER_00: on it.
1:01:16
SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by that is,
1:01:17
SPEAKER_00: I think there's this notion that pastors get sometimes that with a Bible in hand,
1:01:23
SPEAKER_00: they are qualified for every scenario in which their congregants find themselves.
1:01:28
SPEAKER_00: And the one big thing, of course, that is pertinent to me and my family history is just
1:01:35
SPEAKER_00: I believe in the sufficiency of Scripture,
1:01:37
SPEAKER_00: but I also don't believe that mental illness is always something that can be just
1:01:45
SPEAKER_00: excised out of one's life just because you slap some Bible verses on it.
1:01:49
SPEAKER_00: And I think that that's where we make this mistake between the sufficiency of the Bible and sort of...
1:01:58
SPEAKER_00: our own lives and the issues that we sometimes are confronted by.
1:02:03
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
1:02:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, it definitely makes sense to me.
1:02:05
SPEAKER_02: And this is where,
1:02:06
SPEAKER_02: so I'm thinking of legalistic people I know who hate the counseling process,
1:02:10
SPEAKER_02: but they also hate,
1:02:11
SPEAKER_02: or also maybe the thing is mentally ill things is the deception of Satan.
1:02:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
1:02:15
SPEAKER_02: Those kind of people.
1:02:16
SPEAKER_02: And you have to be very cautious in that kind of living because just again,
1:02:19
SPEAKER_02: like what you said,
1:02:20
SPEAKER_02: is the Bible is obviously applicable to life.
1:02:23
SPEAKER_02: But it doesn't mean we cancel anything out that wasn't written in Scripture.
1:02:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:02:27
SPEAKER_02: And I do believe God gives us, you know, our brains and our logic to figure some of these things out.
1:02:32
SPEAKER_02: We've developed some things now.
1:02:34
SPEAKER_02: You know, God forbid.
1:02:35
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you don't even have to go back that far.
1:02:37
SPEAKER_02: I'm a psychologist.
1:02:38
SPEAKER_02: I love this kind of stuff, actually.
1:02:39
SPEAKER_02: But you don't have to go back that far to realize we were cutting out people's brain lobe.
1:02:42
SPEAKER_02: We were giving people lobotomies.
1:02:44
SPEAKER_02: Actually, less than 100 years ago, by the way.
1:02:47
SPEAKER_02: That's insane to me.
1:02:49
SPEAKER_02: And we were doing that, and we've progressed so much further in to find new ways.
1:02:52
SPEAKER_02: But there's real issues, right?
1:02:53
SPEAKER_02: There's real issues.
1:02:55
SPEAKER_02: What bothers me about when we talk about mental illness,
1:02:59
SPEAKER_02: and it's because there's all kinds of stuff that goes into it,
1:03:01
SPEAKER_02: and people think there's witchcraft or anything like that.
1:03:03
SPEAKER_02: But what happens is somebody is puking and throwing up.
1:03:06
SPEAKER_02: We don't say, where in the Bible can we fix this?
1:03:08
SPEAKER_02: Right?
1:03:08
SPEAKER_02: We don't.
1:03:09
SPEAKER_02: We don't say, how do we fix this?
1:03:10
SPEAKER_02: They broke their leg.
1:03:11
SPEAKER_02: Hey, where's the verse on helping your son with a broken leg or something?
1:03:15
SPEAKER_02: There's not,
1:03:16
SPEAKER_02: because we say,
1:03:16
SPEAKER_02: well,
1:03:16
SPEAKER_02: we have medicine,
1:03:17
SPEAKER_02: and we'll numb it up with this Novocaine,
1:03:19
SPEAKER_02: and we'll do this stuff.
1:03:21
SPEAKER_02: And what people have to understand is there is invisible illnesses.
1:03:23
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
1:03:24
SPEAKER_02: Because your mind is a muscle, and your mind is invisible, and it's the most important thing about you.
1:03:27
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
1:03:28
SPEAKER_02: It controls our functioning, right?
1:03:30
SPEAKER_02: So...
1:03:30
SPEAKER_02: And you have to understand that if there are illnesses of the body and the mind is
1:03:34
SPEAKER_02: part of the body that God created in your brain,
1:03:36
SPEAKER_02: there must be invisible illnesses.
1:03:37
SPEAKER_02: Because he didn't make that part so that that part wasn't affected by the fall.
1:03:41
SPEAKER_02: Correct.
1:03:41
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
1:03:42
SPEAKER_02: So even our minds must be affected by the fall.
1:03:44
SPEAKER_02: There must be an illness.
1:03:45
SPEAKER_02: And if you don't go to the Bible to fix your kid's broken leg...
1:03:49
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
1:03:50
SPEAKER_02: You don't have to go to the Bible all the time to fix it.
1:03:53
SPEAKER_02: And I'm not saying to neglect the Bible either, obviously.
1:03:56
SPEAKER_02: But what I'm saying is like what you're saying is you can't say,
1:03:59
SPEAKER_02: well,
1:03:59
SPEAKER_02: it's not in the Bible,
1:04:00
SPEAKER_02: so we're not putting her on the meds and we're not doing this therapy.
1:04:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:04:03
SPEAKER_00: And I think this comes from another sense of
1:04:06
SPEAKER_00: Being confident enough in your call, but also humble enough to know what's outside of your purview.
1:04:12
SPEAKER_00: Like,
1:04:13
SPEAKER_00: I think there's some times where pastors get themselves into a lot of deep water
1:04:18
SPEAKER_00: when they think that just with the Bible in hand,
1:04:22
SPEAKER_00: they can conquer any...
1:04:24
SPEAKER_00: any counseling or,
1:04:25
SPEAKER_00: I would say,
1:04:26
SPEAKER_00: therapy session that's in front of them,
1:04:28
SPEAKER_00: when sometimes the wise,
1:04:31
SPEAKER_00: humble,
1:04:32
SPEAKER_00: and I would even say the godly decision to make is to understand that this is
1:04:37
SPEAKER_00: outside of their scope.
1:04:38
SPEAKER_00: This is outside of their purview.
1:04:41
SPEAKER_00: Not outside, we could say, of Scripture's sufficiency, but maybe outside of theirs.
1:04:47
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and what's really interesting is it takes me back.
1:04:49
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I've had this conversation with my wife.
1:04:51
SPEAKER_02: She worked in the medical field.
1:04:52
SPEAKER_02: And her big concern was,
1:04:54
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:04:55
SPEAKER_02: Eric,
1:04:55
SPEAKER_02: some of the people you talk to want to make everything is the demons.
1:04:58
SPEAKER_02: You know what I'm saying?
1:04:59
SPEAKER_02: Like everything is the demons and it could be an illness.
1:05:01
SPEAKER_00: It could be an illness.
1:05:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:05:03
SPEAKER_02: And then the same thing is though you have the people that are like,
1:05:05
SPEAKER_02: hey,
1:05:05
SPEAKER_02: there's,
1:05:06
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:05:06
SPEAKER_02: it's really mental illness.
1:05:07
SPEAKER_02: We used to call it demons.
1:05:08
SPEAKER_02: Like, well, no, no, demons are still real too.
1:05:09
SPEAKER_02: And it's like this whole thing of everything can be real at once.
1:05:12
SPEAKER_02: And then it's able, then people ask me, well, how do you know?
1:05:14
SPEAKER_02: What if it's spiritually messed?
1:05:15
SPEAKER_02: And it's like, well, you can tell mental illness, but sometimes it gets a little weird.
1:05:18
SPEAKER_02: But what I'm saying is like, there's mental illness and it's real.
1:05:21
SPEAKER_02: And it's not taken seriously enough.
1:05:23
SPEAKER_02: And that's like the big thing right now.
1:05:24
SPEAKER_02: When you go so legalistic is I'm going to reject all counseling that's worldly.
1:05:27
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to reject all of that.
1:05:28
SPEAKER_02: If you start going legalistic, you might cut off things that God designed to allow, allowed us to have.
1:05:33
SPEAKER_02: Like I talk about these medical facilities.
1:05:35
SPEAKER_02: I mean, look at our age or lifespan.
1:05:37
SPEAKER_02: You know, if we wanted to do what the Bible said and didn't want to, we'd all die by age 40.
1:05:40
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
1:05:41
SPEAKER_02: Honestly, because God has allowed us to, you know, progress or whatever in certain ways.
1:05:45
SPEAKER_02: I do believe it.
1:05:47
SPEAKER_02: My wife would always talk about it with me about how people sometimes want to over-spiritualize.
1:05:51
SPEAKER_02: And all that goes to say is I think some of those people who are maybe legalistic
1:05:56
SPEAKER_02: or whatever,
1:05:57
SPEAKER_02: they obviously haven't encountered a real situation with somebody who's had maybe something.
1:06:01
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
1:06:01
SPEAKER_02: They haven't encountered that ever.
1:06:04
SPEAKER_02: And I think they're coming from a spot where maybe it's one of those things that
1:06:07
SPEAKER_02: until you know enough about the Bible,
1:06:09
SPEAKER_02: you think you know.
1:06:09
SPEAKER_02: And it's like, you're probably like me.
1:06:11
SPEAKER_02: The more I know, the more I'm like, I'm less sure about all these other things now.
1:06:15
SPEAKER_02: I feel like I lose surety about all these things.
1:06:18
SPEAKER_02: I was like, I'm definitely sure about that.
1:06:21
SPEAKER_02: And I think it comes to the point where you realize there are so many of these things.
1:06:24
SPEAKER_02: I believe there are actual demons out there that possess people still.
1:06:27
SPEAKER_02: But I also believe there's mental illness that's actually a real problem and on the
1:06:30
SPEAKER_02: rise because of the way our society runs.
1:06:32
SPEAKER_02: Definitely.
1:06:32
SPEAKER_02: So I believe in both of them.
1:06:33
SPEAKER_02: So then you have to say, people will ask me, well, Eric, how do I know which one?
1:06:36
SPEAKER_02: And it's the answer we should probably get for everything.
1:06:38
SPEAKER_02: Pray about it.
1:06:39
SPEAKER_02: Pray to God.
1:06:40
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
1:06:40
SPEAKER_02: And don't eliminate anything.
1:06:42
SPEAKER_02: Because of your own thing that you know you know.
1:06:46
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
1:06:47
SPEAKER_02: Be open and be discerning too, obviously.
1:06:50
SPEAKER_02: Correct.
1:06:50
SPEAKER_02: Don't get talked into some,
1:06:51
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:06:52
SPEAKER_02: wild yoga getaway because there's mental health thinking about,
1:06:55
SPEAKER_02: obviously,
1:06:55
SPEAKER_02: within guidelines.
1:06:56
SPEAKER_02: But again,
1:06:57
SPEAKER_02: if you're a true believer and you're sticking to the word of God and you pray and
1:06:59
SPEAKER_02: you have the Holy Spirit.
1:07:01
SPEAKER_02: He'll give you the discernment if you're open to him.
1:07:04
SPEAKER_02: And there's definitely going to be times where you're going to say,
1:07:06
SPEAKER_02: hey,
1:07:06
SPEAKER_02: this person has a mental illness.
1:07:07
SPEAKER_02: It's a sickness, like the sickness of the body.
1:07:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:07:10
SPEAKER_02: The same way.
1:07:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:07:11
SPEAKER_00: And it's such a great point.
1:07:13
SPEAKER_00: And I won't name John,
1:07:15
SPEAKER_00: but there was that recent,
1:07:16
SPEAKER_00: very notable,
1:07:17
SPEAKER_00: very famous pastor who said from a platform that,
1:07:22
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:07:22
SPEAKER_00: things such as PTSD,
1:07:24
SPEAKER_00: OCD,
1:07:25
SPEAKER_00: and ADHD are just nothing but noble lies that have been invented by...
1:07:31
SPEAKER_00: A society in which it's populated by people who haven't been able to navigate grief.
1:07:36
SPEAKER_00: That's not an exact quote, but that's the gist of what this pastor said.
1:07:40
SPEAKER_00: And to me, what that is, is that's almost lionizing...
1:07:47
SPEAKER_00: what you think the Word of God can do in every single medical situation,
1:07:51
SPEAKER_00: which is exactly what we're talking about.
1:07:52
SPEAKER_00: Just as if I wouldn't run to a pastor because I tore my ACL,
1:08:00
SPEAKER_00: there are occasions,
1:08:01
SPEAKER_00: and I'm not saying that every single instance of mental illness is the same,
1:08:04
SPEAKER_00: but there are occasions in mental illness where...
1:08:07
SPEAKER_00: Running to your pastor is not the best move.
1:08:11
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes I think pastors want it to be where they get all of that.
1:08:17
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if that's just feeding their ego or whatnot.
1:08:20
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure where that comes from, but...
1:08:23
SPEAKER_00: saying that is not a denial or that's not undermining the authority in the sufficiency of the word.
1:08:30
SPEAKER_00: I actually think what you're doing is showing the wisdom of the word,
1:08:35
SPEAKER_00: showing the wisdom that the Holy Spirit gives you,
1:08:37
SPEAKER_00: like that here's a situation that needs to be
1:08:42
SPEAKER_00: be handled in a way that's perhaps beyond you.
1:08:47
SPEAKER_00: And I think that that's okay.
1:08:50
SPEAKER_00: Pastors should be free and able to admit that.
1:08:54
SPEAKER_02: Right.
1:08:55
SPEAKER_02: And that's what I think a lot of them aren't willing to admit.
1:08:57
SPEAKER_02: And it's one of those things too.
1:08:58
SPEAKER_02: I wonder how many pastors say the wrong things because of this unknown pressure of
1:09:02
SPEAKER_02: why have congregation members,
1:09:04
SPEAKER_02: and if they hear I told somebody they had a mental illness,
1:09:06
SPEAKER_02: They might leave the church because they think, I'm leaving the Bible.
1:09:10
SPEAKER_02: And they'll write off these categories.
1:09:12
SPEAKER_02: And it's interesting because once you really start going... I love that God gave us all logic.
1:09:17
SPEAKER_02: Because then we can just analyze these things and go deeper.
1:09:19
SPEAKER_02: Because if you actually just analyze it, it's like...
1:09:22
SPEAKER_02: They accept some things and not others because the Amish,
1:09:24
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:09:24
SPEAKER_02: would look at them and say,
1:09:25
SPEAKER_02: well,
1:09:25
SPEAKER_02: I can't believe you guys even allow electricity in your place.
1:09:28
SPEAKER_02: Like, wow, you think mental illness is bad?
1:09:29
SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, I see what I found about electricity in the Bible.
1:09:32
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
1:09:32
SPEAKER_02: Like,
1:09:33
SPEAKER_02: you can go down these depths and depths of,
1:09:35
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to write this off because the Bible here and there,
1:09:37
SPEAKER_02: like,
1:09:37
SPEAKER_02: the Bible didn't say electricity and we should be hard at work toiling in the ground.
1:09:40
SPEAKER_02: You're breaking God's law.
1:09:42
SPEAKER_02: Like,
1:09:42
SPEAKER_02: It can go endless,
1:09:44
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:09:44
SPEAKER_02: and you can look at the other people and say,
1:09:45
SPEAKER_02: well,
1:09:46
SPEAKER_02: I looked in the Bible,
1:09:46
SPEAKER_02: and it can just keep going more and more legalistic to the point where you're
1:09:50
SPEAKER_02: getting back to everybody,
1:09:51
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:09:51
SPEAKER_02: stone everybody who doesn't follow the 613 laws exactly.
1:09:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:09:54
SPEAKER_02: You get to all these points,
1:09:55
SPEAKER_02: but it's the pressure of,
1:09:56
SPEAKER_02: I don't want my congregation to thinking I approve these things,
1:09:59
SPEAKER_02: or bad,
1:10:00
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:10:00
SPEAKER_02: bad teaching philosophy,
1:10:01
SPEAKER_02: or what you were getting at,
1:10:02
SPEAKER_02: you know.
1:10:02
SPEAKER_02: Do they want to be the person that says,
1:10:04
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:10:04
SPEAKER_02: the medical teams couldn't figure out anything,
1:10:06
SPEAKER_02: and the Lord Jesus,
1:10:07
SPEAKER_02: through my healing,
1:10:08
SPEAKER_02: when I laid hands on,
1:10:09
SPEAKER_02: there are people,
1:10:10
SPEAKER_02: I know there are people like that.
1:10:11
SPEAKER_02: And it's a dangerous thing because there goes the ego and there goes pride,
1:10:14
SPEAKER_02: which is the complete opposite of selflessness.
1:10:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:10:18
SPEAKER_00: A silly example,
1:10:19
SPEAKER_00: but I think an applicable example comes from the letters that Paul wrote to Timothy themselves,
1:10:28
SPEAKER_00: which is in 1 Timothy 5 where he tells him,
1:10:31
SPEAKER_00: hey,
1:10:32
SPEAKER_00: for your stomach,
1:10:33
SPEAKER_00: drink some wine.
1:10:35
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't tell him just to pray about his stomach issue.
1:10:38
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:10:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:10:39
SPEAKER_00: Of course,
1:10:39
SPEAKER_00: in those days,
1:10:40
SPEAKER_00: that was more of like an anesthetic or something like that for whatever condition
1:10:44
SPEAKER_00: that Timothy was going through.
1:10:46
SPEAKER_00: But it was more like a medicinal use of wine in that instance.
1:10:51
SPEAKER_00: But I think it is pertinent to showcase the fact that here's an issue that Timothy
1:10:57
SPEAKER_00: was having,
1:10:57
SPEAKER_00: whether it's just anxiety,
1:11:00
SPEAKER_00: whether it's just whatever issue was being caused in him physically,
1:11:05
SPEAKER_00: mentally,
1:11:05
SPEAKER_00: emotionally,
1:11:07
SPEAKER_00: or whatever,
1:11:07
SPEAKER_00: medically.
1:11:09
SPEAKER_00: interesting to note Paul's solution for that,
1:11:12
SPEAKER_00: which is,
1:11:13
SPEAKER_00: hey,
1:11:13
SPEAKER_00: I know you're praying all the time,
1:11:14
SPEAKER_00: but hey,
1:11:15
SPEAKER_00: you might want to think about doing this.
1:11:16
SPEAKER_00: It may help you.
1:11:17
SPEAKER_02: Right.
1:11:18
SPEAKER_02: And I really love that you're putting this out there because it ties all the way
1:11:21
SPEAKER_02: back because you can say,
1:11:21
SPEAKER_02: wait a minute,
1:11:22
SPEAKER_02: I thought I'm not supposed to be a drunkard.
1:11:23
SPEAKER_02: What are
1:11:24
SPEAKER_02: you haven't been drinking wine for i thought i'd be disqualified it's like right
1:11:28
SPEAKER_02: there you see within reading like hey you're gonna drink this wine because why i
1:11:32
SPEAKER_02: don't not hear the same party or you know but because you have uh these issues and
1:11:37
SPEAKER_02: this is how we get rid of these people knew that the water you get things in the
1:11:40
SPEAKER_02: water this would die you know clean it out like you said medicinal and it was
1:11:44
SPEAKER_02: almost like hey your body has an ailment and god has created this thing
1:11:48
SPEAKER_02: You know,
1:11:48
SPEAKER_02: whether it's wine through that way,
1:11:51
SPEAKER_02: our medications come from leaves,
1:11:53
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:11:53
SPEAKER_02: all kinds of different plants and stuff.
1:11:55
SPEAKER_02: Aloe we use for sunburn, something God gave us, you know what I mean?
1:11:58
SPEAKER_02: We don't pray about our sunburn and say we're in the Bible, you know?
1:12:01
SPEAKER_02: We take the aloe and say,
1:12:02
SPEAKER_02: hey,
1:12:02
SPEAKER_02: thanks God for this plant that has this juicy stuff that I can rub right on my skin.
1:12:05
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
1:12:06
SPEAKER_02: It's like the wine was.
1:12:06
SPEAKER_02: I think it's a really good example.
1:12:08
SPEAKER_02: Especially because it crosses right into the qualifications of,
1:12:11
SPEAKER_02: Paul's also not saying,
1:12:12
SPEAKER_02: hey,
1:12:12
SPEAKER_02: Timothy,
1:12:13
SPEAKER_02: drink this wine every night for the rest of your life,
1:12:15
SPEAKER_02: and if you want more,
1:12:16
SPEAKER_02: have some in the morning.
1:12:17
SPEAKER_02: Go on a bender.
1:12:18
SPEAKER_02: Go on a bender, exactly, because then, you know what I mean?
1:12:19
SPEAKER_02: So it even shows right there, Paul's telling Timothy, don't become a drunkard, also drink some wine.
1:12:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:12:25
SPEAKER_02: And Timothy wasn't a fool.
1:12:27
SPEAKER_02: He knew exactly what Paul meant.
1:12:28
SPEAKER_02: Oh,
1:12:28
SPEAKER_02: okay,
1:12:29
SPEAKER_02: don't be a drunkard,
1:12:29
SPEAKER_02: don't make this a habitual lifestyle,
1:12:31
SPEAKER_02: but I'm going to use this in a medical application in this area that God designed
1:12:36
SPEAKER_02: it to help with.
1:12:36
SPEAKER_00: And doing that,
1:12:39
SPEAKER_00: wasn't undermining his faith or his calling or anything like that he was following
1:12:45
SPEAKER_00: the word and I think I'm not trying to assert that what Timothy was facing was like
1:12:51
SPEAKER_00: just you know just blatant anxiety or something but who knows what it was we are
1:12:55
SPEAKER_00: not really sure but I think
1:12:58
SPEAKER_00: if it is that I think Paul's speaking from experience,
1:13:01
SPEAKER_00: like,
1:13:01
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:13:01
SPEAKER_00: as he says,
1:13:02
SPEAKER_00: I think it's always so fascinating.
1:13:05
SPEAKER_00: Like the,
1:13:05
SPEAKER_00: the other thing that he mentions in second Corinthians 11,
1:13:08
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:13:09
SPEAKER_00: where he's listing all of these things he's been through,
1:13:11
SPEAKER_00: he's been through the ringer,
1:13:13
SPEAKER_00: uh,
1:13:14
SPEAKER_00: shipwrecked,
1:13:15
SPEAKER_00: beaten,
1:13:16
SPEAKER_00: left for dead.
1:13:17
SPEAKER_00: And then at the end,
1:13:18
SPEAKER_00: he's like,
1:13:19
SPEAKER_00: Oh,
1:13:19
SPEAKER_00: and by the way,
1:13:20
SPEAKER_00: not to mention the constant anxiety I have over all the churches.
1:13:26
SPEAKER_00: And I just think like,
1:13:28
SPEAKER_00: The pit in Paul's stomach because of God's call on him.
1:13:35
SPEAKER_00: I don't necessarily think that he was always resorting just to reading the Old
1:13:41
SPEAKER_00: Testament scrolls just to get rid of that.
1:13:43
SPEAKER_00: You know, maybe in some cases he was following his own prescription for Timothy.
1:13:49
SPEAKER_00: Hey, drink a little wine to settle these ailments that you have in your stomach.
1:13:55
SPEAKER_00: And maybe that's surmising.
1:13:56
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's conjecture.
1:13:57
SPEAKER_00: But I think the point is well taken.
1:14:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I agree.
1:14:02
SPEAKER_02: And it's...
1:14:02
SPEAKER_02: It's just something to,
1:14:03
SPEAKER_02: again,
1:14:04
SPEAKER_02: to think about and to really analyze when you look at these things out in the world,
1:14:08
SPEAKER_02: especially when you get into these things outside of preaching.
1:14:10
SPEAKER_02: Preaching is easy.
1:14:11
SPEAKER_02: Well, not easy.
1:14:11
SPEAKER_02: I shouldn't say it's easy by any means,
1:14:12
SPEAKER_02: but it's easy as far as the fact is you're going to go out there and deliver this message.
1:14:15
SPEAKER_02: You don't have these.
1:14:16
SPEAKER_02: And I think sometimes is why sermons,
1:14:19
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
1:14:19
SPEAKER_02: they're designed the way they are for a reason,
1:14:21
SPEAKER_02: but why a lot of times you don't see question and answer.
1:14:23
SPEAKER_02: That's what I love about our church here is we do Wednesday night question and answer.
1:14:26
SPEAKER_02: It's because...
1:14:27
SPEAKER_02: when you open it up for things that are outside of the bible it gets a little murky
1:14:32
SPEAKER_02: yeah that's where i always say a prayer and discernment i loved even yesterday we
1:14:36
SPEAKER_02: had you know some visitors in town i really love they participated in the first
1:14:39
SPEAKER_02: question you know one of the questions i asked the kids first answer was great
1:14:43
SPEAKER_02: young teenager maybe early 20s and said first thing i would do is pray about it
1:14:46
SPEAKER_02: before i didn't it's like that's the greatest answer and
1:14:48
SPEAKER_02: It's maybe the answer for everything.
1:14:49
SPEAKER_02: Before you act, let's pray about it.
1:14:52
SPEAKER_02: Before we start telling people that these are noble lies.
1:14:55
SPEAKER_00: We should pray about the speech.
1:14:56
SPEAKER_00: Maybe pray about this first.
1:15:00
SPEAKER_00: Thank you as always.
1:15:21
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1:15:26
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1:15:26
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1:15:27
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1:15:32
SPEAKER_00: might need these words of encouragement throughout their weeks.
1:15:36
SPEAKER_00: Until the next episode, I'll see you then.
1:15:38
SPEAKER_00: God bless you.