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The Steward of the Sword: The Elder’s Unyielding Grip on Truth · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome to Reformed thinking. It's good to have you with us.
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  Today we are opening a file that feels less like a theological
• 0:07
  treatise and more like an emergency broadcast system for
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  the modern church. That's a good way to put it.
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  We're looking at a stack of articles and essays that all
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  center on one very specific, very intense sentence in the New
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  Testament. Titus 1.9.
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  It is a single verse that, you know, essentially defines the
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  difference between a church that survives the storm and a church
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  that just collapses under the weight of the culture.
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  And to set the stage here, we need to be clear about the lens
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  we're using. We're both coming at this as
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  Protestant Christians. We hold the Westminster
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  Confession, so we're analyzing this material through that
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  specific Reformed framework. Right.
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  And the core tension in all these documents is, well,
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  startling. They argue that the church is in
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  a crisis. It is.
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  But, and here's a twist, it's not a crisis of money.
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  It's not a crisis of having enough cool programs or, you
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  know, a lack of social media engagement.
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  No, the sources are really adamant about this.
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  If you look at a church that's failing or a denomination that's
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  drifting, the root problem is rarely a shortage of personality
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  or resources. So what is it then?
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  It is almost always, at its heart, a word crisis.
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  A word crisis. That's a heavy phrase.
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  It sounds almost, I don't know, abstract.
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  It sounds abstract, but the authors treat it like a medical
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  diagnosis. The argument is that the visible
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  church today is suffering from, you could say, an immune system
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  failure. An immune system failure?
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  OK, unpack that. Well, when you see a
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  congregation fracturing, or when worship turns into a
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  performance, or when the gospel gets swapped out for just
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  general advice on being a nice person.
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  All things we see happen. All things we see.
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  The root cause, according to these papers, is a severed
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  connection to the text. It's a weakened grip on what God
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  has actually spoken. And that brings us right to the
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  hook of this entire deep dive. We're looking at the
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  qualifications for elders, for pastors as laid out by the
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  Apostle Paul. And the sources point out
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  something fascinating here. Paul doesn't say the top
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  qualification is being ACEO. He doesn't say it's being a
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  visionary or a master of logistics.
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  He lists Holding firm to the Trustworthy Word as the the
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  Battlefront qualification. Right.
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  It's not about administration, it's about warfare, and it's
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  about shepherding. The sources paint this picture
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  that an elder is not just a manager, he's a soldier and a
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  doctor. A soldier and a doctor.
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  And if he doesn't have a white knuckled grip on the Bible, he
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  is in fact dangerous to the flock.
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  I want to push on that for a second.
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  Dangerous feels like a strong word.
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  I mean most people would just say an unprepared pastor is
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  ineffective or maybe boring. Why dangerous?
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  Because of the context, you have to look at where this letter is
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  going. Paul is writing to Titus and he
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  has left him on the island of Crete.
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  OK, now when I think of Crete, I think of a nice Mediterranean
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  vacation. Blue water, olive oil, good
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  food. Sure, that's the modern image.
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  But that is not how Paul sees it.
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  Not at. All not even close.
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  The sources do a great job of stripping away that romanticized
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  view. Paul actually quotes a Cretan
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  poet in the text saying Cretans are always liars, evil beasts,
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  lazy gluttons. Evil beasts and lazy gluttons.
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  I mean, that is not exactly a slogan you put on a travel
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  brochure. It certainly is not, but Paul
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  affirms it. He tells Titus this testimony is
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  true. He's not being mean.
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  He's diagnosing A moral sickness.
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  He's being a realist. He is the culture of Crete was a
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  place where lying was normalized, where appetites
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  ruled the day, and where consciences were, you know,
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  completely dulled. And this is where the sources
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  make a really uncomfortable connection.
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  They argue that if you look out the window today in the modern
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  West, you are looking at Crete. That is the parallel.
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  We are living in a modern evangelical landscape that
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  mirrors that ancient chaos. Think about it for a second.
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  Go on. We are in a marketplace of ideas
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  where objective truth, what is actually real, is constantly
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  being traded for subjective experience.
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  It is the idea of my truth versus the truth.
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  Right. It's a culture where truth is
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  treated as a costume you can put on and take off depending on how
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  you feel. It's fluid.
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  It's personal preference. Precisely.
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  And in that kind of environment, appointing elders is not just
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  checking a box on a nonprofit organization form.
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  No, it's something much more serious.
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  The sources call it strategic defense.
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  Paul's command to appoint elders is a military move.
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  He's setting up a perimeter against moral chaos and
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  religious confusion. Because there's a threat.
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  It's not just a vacuum. You don't build a fortress
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  unless there's an enemy. So who are the bad guys in this
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  scenario? Well, the text calls them
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  insubordinate empty talkers, but don't let that fool you into
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  thinking they're just annoying people who talk too much.
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  It's more. Than that it's much more.
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  The sources point out that these false teachers are dangerous.
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  They overturn households. They defile consciences.
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  So they're not just offering a different perspective, they are
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  bringing ruin. They are destabilizing the most
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  basic unit of society, the family.
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  Ruin is the right word, and that is why the qualification we are
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  discussing today, Titus 1.9, is the battlefront.
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  You can't fight that kind of deception with a nice
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  personality. Or a good business plan?
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  No, you need a weapon, and the only weapon that works is the
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  trustworthy word. So let's get into the mechanics
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  of this weapon. The outline calls this the
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  anatomy of holding firm. We need to do some work on the
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  Greek here, but let's keep it accessible.
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  The word Paul uses is anticommonon.
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  Anticommonon. It's a mouthful, but the meaning
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  is incredibly vivid. It doesn't mean just agreeing
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  with something in your head. Not at all.
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  It means active adherence. It means clinging to.
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  The sources gave this great visual.
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  It is not a scholar sitting in a leather chair in a library and,
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  you know, calmly holding a book. No, the visual is a soldier
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  holding a shield in the middle of a battle where blows are
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  raining down on him. Or maybe a man clinging to a
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  rope in a hurricane. I like that one.
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  It implies that there's a force trying to RIP the word out of
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  his hands. The culture, the false teachers,
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  his own sinful desires, they're all pulling.
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  That changes the whole vibe of the passage.
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  It's active, it is resistant. It's not passive at all.
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  And here is where it gets technically fascinating and I
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  think really helpful. The sources highlight the
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  grammar. It's a present middle
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  participle. OK, let's break that down for
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  everyone. Let's start with present.
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  What does that mean here? Present tense means continuous,
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  habitual action. It's not that the elder signed a
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  statement of faith 10 years ago when he got hired and then filed
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  it away in a cabinet. So it's not a one time thing.
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  Not at all. It means he is currently, right
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  now, every single day, gripping the text.
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  It is a perpetual state of being.
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  It's his default posture. OK, that makes sense.
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  Now what about the middle voice? That's a bit more obscure for
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  most of us. This is the insult that really
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  struck me when I was reading through this material.
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  The middle voice in Greek implies that the subject is
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  acting for his own benefit. It's reflexive.
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  Wait, so he is not just holding the Bibles for the congregation
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  for their sake? That's the key.
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  He's holding it for himself first.
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  The elder must be a consumer of the word.
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  Before he can be a dispenser of it, he has to eat the food
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  himself. If he doesn't, he's trying to
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  feed the flock with a meal he hasn't tasted.
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  Exactly. Or he's trying to lead with a
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  map he does not personally trust.
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  He doesn't actually believe it will get him where he needs to
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  go. That is a convicting thought.
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  It means you can't be a professional pastor who just
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  cranks out sermons but has a starving soul.
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  You can't just treat it like a job.
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  You can't, because eventually your grip will slip.
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  The sources are clear on if you are only holding the word to pay
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  your mortgage or to keep your job.
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  The moment the cultural pressure gets too high, you will drop it.
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  Because it's not actually your lifeline.
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  It's not. You have to hold it because it
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  is your life. Think of the oxygen mask rule on
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  an airplane. You have to secure your own mask
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  first. Before you can help the person
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  next to you, if the elder suffocates from a lack of
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  spiracle oxygen from the Word, the church suffocates with him.
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  That's a powerful picture. OK, so now what is he holding on
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  to? The text says the trustworthy
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  word or in the Greek Tupistu logo.
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  Why is it called trustworthy? It's trustworthy because of its
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  source. It's God-given.
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  The logic is very simple. God is faithful.
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  God cannot lie, therefore his speech is faithful.
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  It's reliable down to the core. And the sources contrast this
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  with the liars of Crete. That's not an accident.
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  Is it not at all. It's a direct contrast.
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  In a world where everyone is lying, where the culture is
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  shifting sand, where scientific consensus changes, where
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  political promises are broken daily, Scripture is the
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  immovable rock. So this assumes a very high view
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  of Scripture. It absolutely does.
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  The sources argue that this phrase assumes the inerrancy and
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  sufficiency of the Bible. It assumes the Bible is the
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  final Court of Appeal. It's the standard by which all
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  other claims to truth are measured.
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  So if the Bible says X and the culture or even a popular
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  Christian author says why the elder doesn't panic?
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  He doesn't try to harmonize them, no.
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  He says I trust X because the source is reliable and he must
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  have the courage to stand there even if he stands alone.
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  Correct. And that brings us to the
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  standard Paul sets. He says the elder holds the word
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  according to the teaching or Katatan Dita John.
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  This seems like a constraint, A limitation.
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  He's not free to just come up with cool new ideas.
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  It is absolutely a constraint, and that's a good thing.
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  The elder is a steward, not an author.
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  We live in an age that loves innovation.
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  We want the visionary leader who disrupts the industry.
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  We celebrate creativity. We do, but in the Church, the
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  sources argue, innovation and doctrine is almost always
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  heresy. So he is not commissioned to be
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  creative with theology. His job is delivery, not
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  invention. No, he is commissioned to
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  deliver the package exactly as it was handed to him.
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  The teaching here refers to the Apostolic deposit, the body of
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  truth that the apostles delivered to the early Church.
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  The faith once for all delivered to the Saints.
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  That's the one, and the sources mentioned that this directly
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  rules out private revelations. It does.
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  It explicitly rejects the idea that an elder can stand up and
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  say, well, God told me this new thing that contradicts or goes
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  beyond the Bible. This is a major point of
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  contention in some circles. It is, but the sources we're
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  looking at take a cessationist framework here, arguing that we
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  don't need new prophecies because we have the finished
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  Apostolic instruction. The Canon is closed.
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  So the message preached today in a storefront church in Kansas or
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  a mega church in California has to be identical in substance to
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  what Paul committed to Titus on that chaotic island.
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  Identical. The delivery might change, the
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  language might be translated, the illustrations will be
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  different, but the substance, the dadasha, must be the same.
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  And if an elder starts teaching something new that doesn't align
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  with that ancient deposit, he has by definition let go of the
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  rope. He is no longer holding from
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  he's holding on to something else.
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  OK, so we have the man, the soldier clinging to the rope.
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  We have the object, the trustworthy ancient word.
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  Now we need to talk about why? What is the purpose of all this
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  intensity? The outline calls it the twofold
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  purpose. Feeding and fighting this is.
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  The so that of the verse, it's the functional output of this
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  qualification. Paul says he holds firm so that
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  he may be able to do 2 things and they're polar opposites in a
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  way. One is constructive and one is
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  defensive. Let's start with the
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  constructive exhorting and sound doctrine.
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  The word for exhort is paracoline.
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  It means urging, encouraging, appealing to the conscience.
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  It's a positive building up action.
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  But notice the descriptor sound doctrine.
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  That word sound is really important.
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  It is. The sources went deck on this
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  word Sound. It's a medical term, right?
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  Yes, the Greek is hujianuso. It is where we get our word
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  hygiene. It means healthy.
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  So doctrine is hygiene. That sounds a little sterile.
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  Well, think of it as medicine versus poison.
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  The theological implication is the doctrine is not just cold
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  data or a list of facts you memorize for a theology exam.
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  It's more than trivia. It is spiritual medicine.
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  It is what keeps the soul alive and functioning correctly.
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  Good doctrine promotes spiritual health.
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  And the opposite bad theologies is described in the Pastoral
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  Epistles as gangrene. Exactly.
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  Bad ideas don't just make you wrong, they make you sick.
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  They rot the soul from the inside out.
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  So the elder is a physician. He has to know the truth well
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  enough to apply it to real life problems.
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  Give me a practical example of that.
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  How does an elder use doctrine as medicine?
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  OK, let's say someone in the congregation is paralyzed by
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  guilt over a past sin. They feel like God can never
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  forgive them. They're spiritually sick with
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  shame. Common problem.
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  A bad doctor. A pastor who doesn't hold firm
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  might just say, hey, don't worry, you're a good person or
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  God loves everybody. That's a placebo.
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  It might feel good for a second, but it doesn't heal the wound.
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  Right, it doesn't actually deal with the sin.
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  The infection is still there. But an elder who holds firm to
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  sound doctrine applies the specific medicine of the
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  atonement. He explains justification by
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  faith alone. He opens the pharmacy of
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  Scripture. He does, he says.
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  You are right. Your sin is terrible.
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  It deserves God's wrath, but Christ paid for it fully on the
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  cross, and His perfect righteousness is now credited to
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  your account. That is a specific medical
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  intervention that heals the conscience.
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  I appreciate that example. It makes theology so practical.
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  It's not abstract, it's triage. It's life and death.
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  It is, but now we have to turn to the other side of the coin,
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  the side that makes a lot of modern people very
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  uncomfortable, the fighting. Refuting those who contradict
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  the word is Ellen Shine. Which means.
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  To expose, to convict, to shame, to reprove.
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  It's not a gentle suggestion, it's bringing a contradiction
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  and error into the light and showing everyone why it's false.
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  And the sources argue that we have a major problem with this
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  today because we have fallen into what they call the nice
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  trap. The nice trap, I know this.
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  One, we all do. Modern culture has decided that
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  the supreme virtue is tone. If you are nice, you are good.
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  If you are confrontational, your bad.
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  End of story. But the sources state this very
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  bluntly. One of them says we cannot truly
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  love the sheep if we do not hate the wolves.
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  That is a striking sentence. So refutation is actually an act
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  of love. Think about the medical metaphor
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  again. If a doctor sees a cancerous
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  tumor on your scan and he is too nice to tell you about it
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  because he doesn't want to upset you or sound negative, is he
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  loving you? No, he is killing me.
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  That's gross malpractice. It is in the same way if a
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  pastor sees a false teaching that is going to poison the
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  flock, something that distorts who Jesus is or what the gospel
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  requires, and he stays silent to keep the peace.
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  He is negligent. He is refuting error, is
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  preventing poisoning. It is an act of protective love
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  for the Church. But there's a right way to do
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  it. It's not just yelling.
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  You're wrong on social media. No, and the text is clear on
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  this. The ability is to refute using
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  the trustworthy word. The method of reputation is
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  demonstrating from the text why it is error.
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  So it's not based on his opinion.
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  Never. You don't just shout, you
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  reason. You open the book and say, look,
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  this popular idea contradicts what God has said here, here and
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  here. Here.
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  Here's why. So it's an intellectual and
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  spiritual dismantling of the argument, not a personal attack
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  on the individual holding. It ideally, yes.
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  The goal is to silence the error so it stops spreading into
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  deceiving people. It's a defensive military
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  action. This brings us to the
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  battlefield of today. The sources get very specific
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  here, identifying the enemy, and they list some contemporary
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  pressures that are specifically designed to make an elder loosen
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  his grip on that rope. This is where it gets really
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  practical for us. This is where the rubber meets
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  the road. The sources identify three big
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  atmospheric pressures. The first one is pragmatism.
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  The idea of what? Works exactly the belief that
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  the method is validated by the result if trimming a hard
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  doctrine like hell or God's wrath against sin increases
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  attendance and giving. Pragmatism says do it.
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  Look at the fruit the church is growing.
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  But the elder who holds firm has to reject that logic.
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  He has to define fruit biblically, not by numbers.
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  He has to care more about faithfulness to the message than
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  attendance figures. That's a huge pressure in the
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  modern church growth movement. The second pressure is mysticism
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  or subjectivism. This is the God told me culture.
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  It's the elevation of private spiritual impressions above the
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  objective written word of God. It sounds super spiritual
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  though. It does.
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  It's the impulse to say, well, the Bible says X, but I really
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  feel in my heart that God is saying why to me right now.
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  And that feeling becomes the new authority.
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  It can't be challenged. It does, and the elder has to
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  gently but firmly anchor the church in the trustworthy Word,
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  not in private spiritual thrills.
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  He has to say, your feelings are real, but they are not the
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  standard of truth. Scripture is.
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  OK. And the third pressure is
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  doctrinal minimalism. You hear this one all the time.
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  Doctrine divides. Love unites.
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  The idea is that if we just minimize our beliefs to the bare
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  essentials, you know Jesus is nice, and be good to people,
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  then we can all get along. But the sources argue that a
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  church without clear doctrinal boundaries is not loving.
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  It's vulnerable. One of the authors used this
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  analogy. A sheep pen without a fence is
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  not open and welcoming. It is a buffet for wolves.
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  Boundaries to find safety doctrine is the fence that
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  protects the sheep. OK, those are the pressures, but
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  the sources also get very specific about the heresies.
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  They name names and we need to walk through these because they
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  are hot topics. We do.
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  And just to be clear for everyone listening, we are
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  reporting on what these specific sources identify as errors that
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  a pastor must be equipped to refute from a Reformed
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  perspective. A very important clarification.
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  So first up on their list, Critical Race Theory and
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  Intersectionality. The sources addressed this by
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  arguing that these frameworks, when brought into the church,
• 18:01
  replace biblical anthropology. What do you mean by that?
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  The Bible teaches individual guilt before God and individual
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  responsibility. The argument in these papers is
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  that these ideologies introduce a system of group guilt and
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  ethnic partiality, judging people by their group identity
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  rather than their personal standing in Christ or their
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  moral actions. So the problem is a competing
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  definition of sin and salvation. That's how the sources frame it.
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  They argue. The elder has to be able to show
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  from the text why our primary identity is either in Adam or in
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  Christ, not in these shifting intersectional power dynamics.
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  OK, next one on the list. Egalitarianism.
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  This. Refers to the debate over the
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  rules of men and women in the church and home.
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  The sources argue, from a complementarian viewpoint, that
• 18:45
  egalitarianism denies the created order.
• 18:47
  So it's not just a matter of opinion for them, no.
• 18:50
  They say the elder who holds firm to the faithful word as
• 18:53
  taught must be able to defend the distinct roles that Paul
• 18:56
  lays out in the Pastoral Epistles.
• 18:59
  He refutes the idea that these gender distinctions are just
• 19:01
  cultural or merely a result of the fall.
• 19:04
  Then there is the prosperity gospel.
• 19:06
  This one is more well known. Yes, and it's a pervasive one,
• 19:08
  Yeah. It's the teaching that Christ's
• 19:11
  main purpose was to give you financial gain and physical
• 19:14
  health in this life. Jesus wants you rich.
• 19:17
  And the reputation. The elder has to dismantle this
• 19:20
  because it treats Jesus as a means to an end, a cosmic
• 19:23
  vending machine, not the Lord to be worshipped for his own sake.
• 19:27
  It turns the gospel into a transaction for temporary
• 19:29
  comfort. And therapeutic moralism.
• 19:32
  That's a more subtle one, this. Is maybe the most common one in
• 19:34
  mainstream churches. It reduces sin to just
• 19:37
  brokenness. You're not a rebel against a
• 19:39
  holy God, you're just a wounded person who needs healing.
• 19:42
  So it removes the category of guilt.
• 19:44
  It does, and salvation is not redemption from God's just
• 19:47
  wrath. It's about boosting yourself
• 19:49
  esteem. It makes the gospel about you
• 19:52
  feeling better about you, rather than you being reconciled to God
• 19:56
  and made holy. Finally, the sources mentioned
• 19:58
  Roman Catholicism and ecumenism. Right.
• 20:01
  And the warning here is against a push for unity that undermines
• 20:05
  the exclusivity of the Gospel. What do they mean by that
• 20:08
  specifically? Specifically, any movement that
• 20:11
  obscures the doctrine of justification by faith alone.
• 20:15
  If an elder sees a drift toward accepting A theology that adds
• 20:18
  human works or sacraments to Christ's finished merit for
• 20:22
  salvation, he has to refute it. He cannot compromise on the soul
• 20:25
  as of the Reformation. It is a heavy list, a very
• 20:28
  controversial list, and honestly, standing against any
• 20:31
  one of those things, let alone all of them, is going to get you
• 20:34
  labeled or at least yelled at. It guarantees conflict.
• 20:37
  That is why the soldier imagery from earlier is so important.
• 20:40
  If you go into pastoral ministry expecting to be liked by
• 20:42
  everyone, you will fold immediately.
• 20:45
  So where does the power come from to do this?
• 20:47
  Because if it is just my own willpower, I'm going to fail.
• 20:51
  I am not strong enough to hold that rope in a hurricane by
• 20:53
  myself. This leads us to the Theological
• 20:56
  Foundation section. This is the beautiful part of it
• 20:59
  all. It's the Gospel.
• 21:00
  The elders ability to hold firm is not just gritty
• 21:04
  determination, it's connected to what theologians call Gospel
• 21:07
  indicative. OK.
• 21:08
  Break that down, the indicative versus the imperative.
• 21:11
  The imperative is the command. Hold firm.
• 21:14
  The indicative is the statement of fact on which the command
• 21:16
  rests, and the sources make this point beautifully.
• 21:20
  Christ held firm. First talk.
• 21:22
  More about that. We'll think of Adam in the
• 21:24
  garden. God gave him one command.
• 21:26
  He did not hold firm to God's word.
• 21:28
  He let go. And the result was catastrophic.
• 21:30
  Then think of Israel in the wilderness, God's chosen people.
• 21:33
  They constantly grumbled and let go of his promises.
• 21:36
  But then comes Jesus, the true Son, the true to Israel, in the
• 21:39
  wilderness, starving for 40 days, facing Satan himself.
• 21:44
  What did he do? He quoted Scripture, it is
• 21:46
  written. He held firm.
• 21:48
  He clung to the trustworthy word when everything in his physical
• 21:52
  body was screaming for relief. Where the first Adam failed, the
• 21:56
  last Adam succeeded. So when the elder stands in the
• 21:58
  pulpit or counsels A struggling member, he's not standing in his
• 22:02
  own track record of holding. Firm no, thank God.
• 22:06
  He stands in the imputed righteousness of Christ.
• 22:08
  He stands in the strength of the one who never compromised.
• 22:11
  And there's more to it than that.
• 22:13
  There's the doctrine of union with Christ.
• 22:15
  The elder is united to the risen Lord.
• 22:17
  Yes, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, dwells within him.
• 22:21
  One of the sources had this magnificent quote.
• 22:23
  It said he holds the word because the word Christ Jesus
• 22:27
  holds him. That changes everything.
• 22:29
  It takes the pressure off in a way.
• 22:31
  It's not me against the world, it's Christ in me standing firm.
• 22:35
  Exactly. You are the steward of the
• 22:37
  sword, but the strength to swing it comes from the king himself.
• 22:41
  Let's look at a historical example of this that was
• 22:43
  provided in the text Athanasius. Yes, Athanasius, one of the
• 22:47
  great heroes of the early Church.
• 22:48
  This was in the 4th century during the Aryan controversy.
• 22:51
  Remind us what was the core issue there?
• 22:53
  A priest named Arius was teaching that Jesus was a
• 22:56
  created being, the 1st and greatest creature, but not
• 23:00
  eternal God. He had a catchy slogan.
• 23:03
  There was a time when he was not.
• 23:04
  It sounds like a technical theological point to some modern
• 23:07
  years, but it destroys the gospel.
• 23:09
  It guts it completely. If Jesus is not fully God, he
• 23:13
  cannot save us from our sins against an infinite God.
• 23:15
  And Athanasius stood up against. This he did, but the problem was
• 23:19
  almost everyone else was caving in.
• 23:21
  The majority of bishops and even the Roman emperor wanted to
• 23:25
  compromise for the sake of unity and peace.
• 23:28
  They said. Can't we just find a middle
• 23:29
  ground phrase everyone can agree on?
• 23:31
  And Athanasius said no. He said no, the famous phrase
• 23:35
  used to describe him as Athanasius contramundum,
• 23:37
  Athanasius against the world. He was exiled five times.
• 23:40
  He was haunted by the authorities, but he refused to
• 23:43
  relinquish one iota of the truth about the deity of Christ.
• 23:46
  And the application for the modern elder is pretty obvious.
• 23:49
  It is. You have to be willing to be a
• 23:51
  theological pariah. You have to be willing to be the
• 23:54
  only guy in the room or the only guy in your whole denomination
• 23:57
  who says no. The text says this and I cannot
• 24:00
  move. That requires a special kind of
• 24:03
  person, a special kind of character, which leads us to the
• 24:07
  really practical application. How do we find these guys?
• 24:10
  If I am sitting on a pastor search committee, or if our
• 24:13
  listeners are looking at their own church leadership, what are
• 24:16
  we looking for? The sources warned against the
• 24:18
  standard American metrics business success, charisma,
• 24:22
  social affability. He's a great guy.
• 24:24
  To have a beer with is not a biblical qualification for
• 24:28
  eldership. So what is the test?
• 24:30
  How do we vet a candidate? The first Test is basic but
• 24:34
  essential. Can he articulate the gospel?
• 24:37
  And I don't mean can he read a pamphlet?
• 24:38
  Can you explain the holiness of God?
• 24:40
  The depth of man's sin? The mechanics of substitutionary
• 24:43
  atonement? Can he explain why the cross
• 24:45
  works? And does he handle scripture as
• 24:47
  taught? Right.
• 24:48
  Is he confessional? Does he respect the historical
• 24:51
  boundaries of the faith? Or does he seem annoyed by them,
• 24:53
  like they're holding him back from being creative?
• 24:55
  And then there's the scenario test.
• 24:57
  I really like this idea from the sources.
• 24:59
  It is crucial don't just ask him what he believes in the
• 25:02
  abstract. Give him a real world scenario.
• 25:04
  Or exactly you could say a very popular teacher is saying that
• 25:07
  God's will is always for you to be wealthy and healthy.
• 25:11
  A member of our church is now confused because his wife has
• 25:14
  cancer. How do you refute that teacher's
• 25:17
  error using the Bible and pastor this hurting family?
• 25:21
  Wow, that's a test. It's a skills test, like asking
• 25:24
  a welder to Weld a joint. Before you hire him, see if he
• 25:27
  can actually do the work. Is he able to refute?
• 25:30
  If he can't dismantle the error in the safety of an interview,
• 25:33
  he won't be able to do it when the wolf is actually at the
• 25:36
  door. No chance and character matters
• 25:38
  too immensely. A.
• 25:40
  Huge. Point A man who loves truth but
• 25:42
  does not love holiness is a ticking time bomb, the source
• 25:46
  says. He will eventually weaponize
• 25:47
  doctrine. He becomes a theological bully,
• 25:50
  using truth to beat people up rather than to heal them.
• 25:53
  We need a soldier, not a bully. So once you find this guy, or if
• 25:57
  you are this guy, how does he keep his grip strong?
• 26:00
  The sources talk about cultivating the grip.
• 26:02
  They use a great old phrase from John Wesley Homo Eunius Libri, a
• 26:06
  man of one book. Meaning the Bible is his one
• 26:09
  great study, Yes. And this goes back to the
• 26:12
  private life, to that middle voice we talked about.
• 26:14
  Earlier, right? Holding it for himself first.
• 26:16
  The crucial question is, does the Elder study the Bible
• 26:20
  primarily to feed his own starving soul, or only to
• 26:24
  prepare sermons? That is the difference between a
• 26:27
  chef who passionately eats and loves his own food and a factory
• 26:31
  worker who just packages it for others.
• 26:33
  That's a great way to put it. If the Word is not his life, if
• 26:36
  he is not waking up in the morning desperate to hear from
• 26:38
  God and the Scriptures for his own comfort and conviction and
• 26:41
  joy, then he is a hollow. Man and hollow men crumble under
• 26:45
  pressure. They do.
• 26:47
  The warning in these papers is stark.
• 26:49
  If the word is not his life, he will drop it when the storm
• 26:52
  hits. He'll trade it for something
• 26:53
  that feels more stable at the moment.
• 26:55
  Cultural approval, job security, and easy life.
• 26:59
  This has been a heavy deep dive. We've gone from the shores of
• 27:02
  Crete to the grammatical structure of Greek participles,
• 27:06
  all the way to the front lines of the modern culture wars.
• 27:10
  As we wrap up, let's try to summarize the charge here.
• 27:13
  The summary is simple. I think the church does not need
• 27:16
  more innovators. We don't need more creative
• 27:19
  geniuses or marketing gurus in the pulpit.
• 27:22
  We need guardians. And the stakes are the safety of
• 27:25
  the sheep. That's what it all comes down
• 27:26
  to. That is what keeps me up at
• 27:28
  night. The sheep, the regular people in
• 27:31
  the pews are vulnerable. Their spiritual safety depends
• 27:34
  entirely on the elders fidelity to the map of Scripture.
• 27:38
  If the elder loses the map or decides to draw his own path,
• 27:41
  the sheep get lost. But the final encouragement is
• 27:43
  that the power is not ultimately in our hand strength.
• 27:46
  No, the hope rests not on the strength of the Elder's grip,
• 27:49
  but on the power of the word he grips.
• 27:52
  The word is alive, it's active. It fights for us.
• 27:55
  I want to leave our listeners with a final provocative thought
• 27:57
  from the sources. It is something to chew on as
• 28:00
  you go about your week. Go for it, The sources posit
• 28:02
  this. In a digital age, a pastor is
• 28:06
  essentially rewarded for saying what the moment approves.
• 28:09
  You get likes, you get shares, you get book deals.
• 28:13
  Instant validation. And he is punished, shamed,
• 28:16
  doxed, ignored for saying what scripture demands, especially on
• 28:19
  controversial topics. That is the reward structure of
• 28:21
  our world, no doubt about it. So here is the question for you,
• 28:25
  the listener. Look at your leaders.
• 28:27
  If they were forced to choose right now, today, between the
• 28:30
  approval of the culture and the plain reading of the text, which
• 28:34
  one do their current habits suggest they would choose?
• 28:37
  That is a chilling question. Current habits, you can tell by
• 28:40
  the little compromises, the things left unsaid.
• 28:43
  You can. And the follow up question is
• 28:45
  this, are you praying for them to have the courage to choose
• 28:48
  correctly because they are under fire in a way most of us cannot
• 28:52
  even? Imagine a sobering but necessary
• 28:54
  word. Thank you for walking through
• 28:56
  this with us. It's clear that holding firm is
• 28:58
  the only way forward. It's the only way.
• 29:01
  Thanks for listening to Reformed Thinking.
• 29:02
  We will catch you on the the next deep dive.