The Most Controversial Take On Romans 1 You Will Ever Hear

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Sean McDowell cannot believe what Brandon Robertson just said. Take a look at this. I honestly,

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I think that's crazy. That's crazy. Now I think you have to bite the bullet on that. But what made Sean react this way? They're talking about Romans chapter one,

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God giving people over to the dishonoring of their bodies. And Brandon has said something so shocking. I mean, even

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I can't believe it. So what are we waiting for? Let's get right into it. Welcome back to Wise Disciple.

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My name is Nate and I'm helping you become the effective Christian that you were meant to be. This one's what we technically call in the industry, a doozy.

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So don't forget to like, sub, and share this one around. I think you'll want to after this. The context of what would have, what his readers probably would have been thinking about were not

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Adam and Steve, the gay couple who live together. I'm glad you said that, not me. I think his readers thought, oh, he's talking about what my master does if it's a lower status

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Roman person reading that or a Roman man being convicted as reading it because he knows what he does with his house.

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Yeah. So they're having a disagreement over what Paul is really communicating in Romans chapter 1. Now, we've hit this before at this channel, but Brandon's about to come out with a book making a pro -LGBT argument, and it looks like he's going to incorporate a new reading of Romans chapter 1.

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Certainly something that traditional Christians would absolutely reject. For reference, I have the scripture pulled up here.

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Romans 118, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

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Now, I just did a Bible Night Live walking through this passage. Paul is referring to the consequences of a person's lifestyle choices and how that reveals either the righteousness of God or the wrath of God.

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You can take a look at the Bible Night Live for a more in -depth take. The point is, Paul is saying that the righteousness of God is revealed through a person's lifestyle.

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That's verse 17. And now he's shifted to say the inverse, you know, for the godless.

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The wrath of God is revealed through the godless person's lifestyle, and that's verse 18.

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For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them, for His invisible attributes, namely

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His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made.

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So they are without excuse. And that's the point. The ungodly cannot say that they were ignorant.

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They cannot say that they never knew. There is an aspect of every single person who can recognize

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God's eternal power and divine nature. Now, the Bible doesn't explain how this works epistemologically, but that's not the point for Paul.

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The point is, people know, which is interesting, you know, for me, having been both an atheist and a

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Christian myself, having lived in both worlds, I can affirm what Paul is talking about in Romans chapter 1.

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If you would have engaged with me when I was 26 years old, I would have told you with confidence a bunch of nonsense about how there is no

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God, and if He exists, where is He, you know? But guess what happened when push came to shove?

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I cried out to God in a crushing moment of suffering, and He revealed Himself to me.

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No one is immune. Everyone is without excuse in this area. So what does

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Paul do? Well, he hones in on pagans. He hones in on those who practiced idolatry.

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Why? Well, because their unrighteous lifestyles is revealing the wrath of God. Verse 22, claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal

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God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

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Now, at this point, notice there is no specific ethnic pagan that Paul has in mind here.

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He's not talking about just those crazy Romans, right, or merely those silly

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Greeks. He's talking about everyone who, in their rejection of God, turned to idols.

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So this is not simply an indictment against idolaters. This is an explanation for their behavior.

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They know God exists, and they reject Him anyway, and so their minds become darkened, and they become futile in their thinking.

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And then what does God do? Verse 25, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the

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Creator, for this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions.

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For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature. So notice here, Paul is talking about the dishonoring of your body in terms of bedroom behavior.

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You catch my drift? This can't talk about it on YouTube. This dishonoring is directly because they rejected

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God. There is a flow of thought that you have to track with Paul, and in their rejection of God, they became idolaters.

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In other words, their passion for bedroom gratification became their

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God. And guess what? When that's all you're looking for, when gratification is your top priority along those lines, guess what happens?

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Your mind becomes warped. Your thoughts become darkened. Isn't that precisely what still happens today?

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We don't have to go there, you know? I think you know what I mean. Some of the most disgusting, demeaning, and warped things are on full display when you travel to certain websites.

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Even today, this is Paul's point. The body was designed for a specific purpose according to God.

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I mean, you can even obviously recognize this when it comes to how the man's physical body complements the woman's physical body.

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I'm trying to be careful here. You know, and vice versa. I mean, this is what Genesis was talking about. Genesis chapter 2, becoming one flesh, right?

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You tracking all of this? This is all there in Romans 1. All of that is rejected, and instead you get this.

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God gave them up to dishonorable passions, their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another.

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Men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error, right?

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So when Paul talks about natural relations, he's talking about the natural function of a man's body and how it physically complements the natural function of a woman's body in the bedroom, right?

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By the way, Leviticus 18, Leviticus chapter 20 is all in there. It's the backdrop for Paul's comments.

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Why? Because Paul's a Jew who knows Torah, right? So he's reiterating what the law already says.

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He's not going to say something novel that challenges what the law teaches. Paul was a Pharisee of all Pharisees.

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Why would he do that? Now, again, this all of what I've just done, it's all underneath Sean and Brandon's discussion, and I think now we'll be able to keep track of it very well, right?

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Brandon at this very moment is trying to suggest that Paul's not talking about men with men. When we read

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Romans chapter 1, it's not about men with men, even though that's literally what it says, guys. No, Brandon says that Paul was talking about a

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Roman cultural practice of Roman rulers who sleep with their male slaves.

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Now watch how this plays out. Okay, so I agree with you that a lot of that behavior was taking place.

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In fact, maybe the predominant kind of behavior in Rome at that time. Paul was probably aware of it. We see him well aware of like poets in Acts 17 that he cites.

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The question is from the text itself. What are the hints that that's the background that informs what

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Paul is writing and why? If you can't make that connection, then I think the argument falls flat.

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I think the text itself is pretty clear. Paul is doing a unique thing, and the word is escaping me for the kind of argument he's making here, but he's listing a series of sins that are pulling the

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Roman people further and further from God, leading them to the debaucherous state that they now find themselves in. And right before he gets to, and men exchanged natural relations, he says, therefore men exchanged natural relations right after they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, worshipped created things instead of greater

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God, worshipped four -footed beasts and reptiles. He begins explicitly describing idolatry, and tied to the idolatry, he says, therefore men now exchange natural relations, women exchange natural relations.

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The process that the argument Paul is making is that the idolatry is what is giving birth to this giving into passions and sexual immorality, which is why the broad argument for Romans 1 is not just sexual exploitation, but the broad practices in the

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Temple of Aphrodite, and Bacchanalia, and all the other gods and goddesses. Paul's referencing this pagan behavior that encouraged the indulging of passions between the same sex, whether that was for worship or for pleasure, and I condemn that.

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If we're saying don't do that out of robust passion or idolatry, great, I agree with Paul, that's the same.

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So notice what Brandon is doing. He's actually saying something that I can agree with here, that Paul is concerned about idolatry.

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He is. What Paul is doing, though, is he's linking certain kinds of sin in the bedroom, right, with idolatry, and we just talked about this.

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When you prioritize the passion of the flesh over God and His commandments, you have made your passion your god, and that's the train of thought.

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If you follow the flow of Paul's writing, it leads up to men committing shameless acts with men.

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So far, Brandon's in agreement with traditional Christianity, but then out of nowhere, he wants to smuggle in this caveat, this little exception to the rule that there exists in Paul's mind a group of men out there who go to bed with other men who are exempt from this scenario altogether, what

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Paul's talking about here, especially in verse 27. There is a group that is exempt. These are men with men who go to bed with each other.

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They're exempt from Leviticus 18 and from Leviticus 20. Somehow, these men with other men, and by the way, women with women, guys, they get a hall pass so they can do what

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Paul clearly condemns in Romans 1, what the Word of God and God Himself clearly condemns, and the question is, where is that exemption?

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Where is this exception to the rule in the text? Let's see how

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Sean handles this. Okay, so I don't think you've made the case, if you look at the text, that the backdrop is this pagan behavior of sexual exploitation.

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So what does the text tell us? You look at 118 through 21, and I'm sure you'd agree with me, people know the truth about God because God has revealed it in creation.

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They can objectively see maybe the goodness, the power, the eternality of God. It's common to everybody.

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So the backdrop of this is creation, verse seven, ever since the creation of the world.

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Verse 23, what happens? People know this, but they suppress the truth in unrighteousness, and then what happens?

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Because they suppress that truth, they reject the Creator, they bought a lie, then they engage in this immoral behavior that is a kind of idolatry akin to rejecting the

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Creator. So Sean is making the same point, and this should be posed to Brandon in the form of a question,

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I think, right? What is Paul saying idolatry is? That's the question.

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How is Paul defining idolatry in this passage? The answer is same -sex activity, period.

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Same -sex activity is idolatry. Why? Well, because it is prioritizing the lust and the passion of the flesh.

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I mean, it's right here. Verse 24, look at this, therefore God gave them up in the what?

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The lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves.

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You see the direct connection between the lust to the dishonoring of their bodies. There is an implicit suggestion, right, that there is a design for bodies, and the lust that these people have have warped that design to the point where now they are dishonoring their bodies among themselves.

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Are you seeing the logic? So I'm trying to walk through it here. Verse 25, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the

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Creator who is blessed forever, amen. The direct link to same -sex activity, to dishonoring their bodies, is rejecting

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God and his desires and worshiping what is created, which again is this warped desire for their bodies.

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There is no mention of Roman male slave owners who control their slaves, take advantage of their slaves, right?

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There is no mention of the specific cultural phenomena that Brandon says Paul is referring to. I would ask, where?

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Where do you see that? Put your finger on the word or phrase. There certainly is no mention of an exception to a subset of same -sex couples who don't fit the category that Paul is identifying here.

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Paul is speaking categorically. All same -sex activity is idolatry and therefore reveals the wrath of God.

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Whether we like what that says or not, what we are trying to do at this very moment, if you are genuinely seeking truth and you are here at this channel, praise the

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Lord, right? And praise the Lord for Sean, by the way. But what we're trying to do is we're just trying to follow the flow of thought.

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We're simply engaging what the text is actually saying. These folks, these right here that Paul is referring to, they're giving up their natural, physical compliments to be with their own kind.

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And again, we land, we end up landing on verse 27. The men gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another.

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They commit shameless acts with each other. This isn't giving up natural desires for women so that they could perform some kind of loveless act to enforce power over a slave, which it sounds like that's what

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Brandon wants to suggest here. These are men who gave up what they should be desiring naturally in order to be consumed with each other.

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Men with men, and by the way, women with women. Both are equally indicted. That's the argument that's taking place here.

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So if you look in 23, it says they exchange the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

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Where does that language come from? He's talking about creation. He's talking about the creation account. That's the whole backdrop of this.

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And then he moves from the general creation down to our bodies, which also is Genesis tells us were created for a function and for a purpose.

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There's something natural about them. And we're talking about creation built into the world, not feelings.

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And they reject what is natural to them. That's what is idolatrous.

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So I think you have it backwards. There's no evidence here. Roman behaviors in the background. What's in the background? In a moment,

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Brandon is about to say something incredibly wild about Paul. And just track how he gets there, because we're going to call it out.

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Is the creation account in Genesis, just like in Matthew points back to the creation account in Genesis. But you certainly agree.

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Paul is writing to the church at Rome. And of course, that is precisely the context that he's referencing. And who are the people?

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Where in the text does it say that? So you've told me that Paul is aware of it. He's writing that audience. I get that.

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But he doesn't say it. I mean, if he writes an article to you and I, somebody does. President Trump does whatever.

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It was like, oh, this is in America. But then he writes something different in the letter. Okay, America is in the backdrop. But he makes a different argument.

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We have to look at the text itself. Again, I would say we've got to remember the audience who's reading this text.

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And it's very hard to do the scholarship of determining who exactly made up the churches that received each one of Paul's letters. But the

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Roman church was made up of largely Roman converts or Greco -Roman pagan converts. So the argument that this is meant to just be another appealing to the creation account,

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I agree that Paul's using some of that language. He's a Jew that's writing, of course. But Paul is speaking about things that the readers of the text would have known and understood.

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He wouldn't be saying this as a pastor. He wouldn't be quoting things that his audience wouldn't know anything about. Again, do you see what he's doing?

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Brandon is trying to use context, which we should all be careful to understand, right?

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What is that? That's seminary exegesis 101, right? We all need to be sensitive to the context in order to understand how the first -century audience would receive

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Paul's words, okay? Fair enough. But then he's smuggling in his

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LGBT presuppositions under the broader guise of context. You tracking me?

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The only way that you can identify what Brandon is arguing for is if you go back to the text and point to a word or a phrase that makes the connection

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Brandon wants. That's what John wants Brandon to do, right? What is the word,

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Brandon? Where is the phrase that supports the claim that you're making right now? I think that right there, what

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I'm highlighting, what John's doing, that's a great approach when having this kind of conversation. John is killing it.

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What I'll say here is this is the ambiguity that I do hope people see between our two positions, is to make the case of what

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Paul is referencing, there's a lot of conjecture that has to be made on both sides of who is Paul writing to? What is he referencing?

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What did he know about? And these are questions that ultimately we can debate about for a long time. So again,

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I hate to pause too quickly here, but I want you to see this. Notice the way that language is used very subtly here.

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Well, there's a lot of conjecture on both sides. No, there isn't.

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What Sean is doing, so what I'm doing in this video, he's giving an inference based on what the text actually says.

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He's walking through the text and letting Paul's flow of thought control the interpretation, right?

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This is called exegesis, you know? What Brandon is doing is he's claiming that Paul is exempting loving, consensual same -sex couples in this passage.

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Why? Well, because context, guys, right? The original audience thought like Brandon, they separated out loving, consensual same -sex couples from the other type of same -sex couples, right?

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Which, by the way, aren't couples, you know? Because what Brandon is actually pointing to is one man in a position of power are wording another man who can't fight back, right?

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That's not a couple at all. That's certainly not men—look at this, verse 27—men being consumed with passion for each other.

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That's literally what Paul is talking about. That's what he's describing. How is the one being r -worded consumed with passion for the one r -wording him?

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Do you see how ridiculous it makes Paul's words? Oh, but it gets even crazier than that.

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Watch this. So I don't want to say—and I say in the book—I wouldn't just say—I think it is possible that Paul is talking about all same -sex relationships.

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I think it's unlikely based on the culture and context that he was in. And it's nuanced, it's ambiguous, and I don't think drawing a black and white line on this on either side is actually the most helpful thing to do.

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Okay, so sometimes when I press you, you're like, well, scholarship and people disagree. There are footnotes in the book.

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Okay, I understand that, but I'm pressing for an example. So you're arguing that Rome is in the backdrop.

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I agree it's in the backdrop, but it's nowhere in the text. Genesis and creation is explicitly in the text.

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So yes, they're Romans, but you don't have to quote it for it to be there. Of course, you don't have to quote it for it to be there.

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He's speaking to the Romans, but they would, as believers, have known and studied and learned the story from Genesis.

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That's what it means to be a Christian. He's clearly referencing since the creation of the world and then cites images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

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The clear backdrop is Genesis. So if you're going to argue that he's speaking to the Roman sexuality, you're going to have to find that in the text at least to make it neutral.

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Well, no, again, I think that's absolutely clear. I think the opening of Romans chapter one, where he addresses the church at Rome and names people in the church at Rome, make it clear that he's writing to the

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Roman church. But my argument, and I think I may have been pulled by my own devices into, is not that Paul is not referencing or thinking about Genesis at all in this text.

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Sure, it's likely he was. He's a Jewish person writing this text. But to say that the behavior that he is referencing is loving consensual same -sex relationships or anything akin to the relationship that I would hypothetically be in, there is a lack of historical evidence.

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Why would Paul condemn something that was not happening all around him? Again, I hate to belabor this point, but notice

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Brandon's move here. He's not looking at what Paul is actually saying. He's smuggling in his own interpretation and then he's saying, look,

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Paul doesn't condemn my own exceptions to LGBT activity. Paul's thinking the way I'm thinking, guys.

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That's why he only condemns the wrong kind of LGBT activity, but not the right kind, right?

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And that's the point. This all trades on a concept that is not taught anywhere in the

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Scripture. It is Brandon reading into the Scripture what he wishes was there so that he can ultimately justify his own desires.

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Everything else in that letter was widespread in Rome. Idolatry was widespread in Rome. You could point to that everywhere. What was the same -sex relationships that were widespread in Rome at that time?

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Exploitative, idolatrous, abusive relationships, not consensual or loving. So the question is, if Paul is not specifically addressing those, is he sufficiently addressing those?

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We're back to the creation point again with Matthew. So if we read Romans very carefully, and I could read it again, he says a couple of things.

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He says, this reason God delivered them up to disgraceful passions. So it's the passion itself, the direction of the passion, not the existence of the passion that is disgraceful and wrong.

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And it says, their women exchange natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. The men in the same way left natural relations with women and were flamed with lust for one another.

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Men committed shameless acts with men. Now it's talking about certain desires, so to speak, and passions, the direction of them, and the physical behavior we do with our bodies.

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So if that's actually the case, then something being called loving and consensual is irrelevant, and Paul has sufficiently ruled out same -sex sexual behavior because it's not natural to the design that God has in creation and in our bodies.

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I would say you're missing two key points in what Paul wrote here. One, he's clearly talking about excessive lust, and again,

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I think that contextualizes what he's talking about. You would not describe a marriage relationship between a man and a woman ever as excessive lust.

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You would say that's what happens within marriage, sex happens in marriage. He's describing people that are unable to control their passions, which

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I would argue is what we see in the Roman culture in the exploitation of people of lower statuses.

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The other thing is, and you've heard this argument, many people probably have, I think you're using natural in a way that Paul is not using natural.

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What was natural in the first century Greco -Roman world, according to their standards, was for men who were

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Roman citizens to be at the top of the social hierarchy, and they were permitted in the mindset of Roman thinkers to engage sexually with anyone of a lower social status.

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That was the natural order. I think Paul is critiquing the Roman conception of what is natural and saying that is unnatural.

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Exploitation and abuse is unnatural and it's a result of your unbridled lusts, the passions you can't control, which

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I would say he links directly also to idolatry and turning from the truth of God to a lie. The problem is there's not a shred of evidence.

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If that is the case, Brandon should be able to walk through the text and follow the flow of Paul's thought in order to pinpoint exactly what he just claimed.

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Oh, it's the natural political order that trades on the exploitation in the bedroom.

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That's what Paul is critiquing, guys. Okay, show me in the text. Show us all in the text.

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Exegete verse 27, for example, and show us how you got there. Because again, look at this, verse 26.

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It says that women did the same thing. So are you suggesting, Brandon, that there was a widespread problem of female leaders in Rome that were exploiting their female slaves?

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Was that also a widespread problem in the same way that it was for male leaders? You see how ridiculous this can get when you try to bend the text to say something it's not actually saying?

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Evidence that you've given, he's referring to natural in the Roman context. But you're referring to natural as the modern word natural.

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No, I'm saying look in the context. He's talking about creation. That's the whole backdrop of this.

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What's built into the world and the creation account in Genesis. So natural is what is built into our bodies and the world.

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That's exactly what the context says. It's not my definition. That's creation as the backdrop. Okay, so let's flip this.

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I invite anybody to read it and ask yourself, what's the backdrop of this? Is there Roman ideas he's bringing in or is he talking about creation and how

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God has designed us to live and what's apparent to us about the world and our bodies and unnatural behaviors to suppress that?

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Now, I'd invite people to read it and ask that question. Thanks, John. We're reading it along with you now. Amen. But I actually think when you mentioned pederasty, that's going to be a real problem to find that in the text for a couple of reasons.

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Because it talks about men having sex with men specifically, men committing shameless acts with men.

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And so I understand that's a certain translation, but there's parity here. They're both being held accountable for this.

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And a second point on that one is that men are doing likewise what the women did. It says men are doing what the women did.

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There's no evidence of female pederasty in that culture. And so if the women aren't, the men clearly aren't.

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Pederasty is not my argument. I would say that is one of the possibilities. But what is more likely and probably... Okay, so well, you can see because it's in your book that it's not possible then because you cite it as the backdrop in Rome.

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No, I would contest that of what I wrote in my book. I would say pederasty is one of the options, but it is not the...

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Sorry, did he just say that he contests his own writings? What he just wrote in his own book, he contests it now?

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...primary option. My argument is always that what was happening, and I quote Roman law in the book, or I give a footnote for it at least, that talks about men being able to have sex with their slaves who were generally adult males.

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Pederasty was limited in the first century Greco -Roman culture. It existed, but it was not the widespread practice that some other affirming theologians have argued.

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And we do have evidence, scant, because women weren't talked about very much, but there is scant evidence of women engaging in same -sex sex with their women slaves.

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And I do believe there's a footnote for that as well. Okay, but not... There is scant evidence for female rulers having female slaves, doing things with female slaves.

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I mean, you can... I don't know about the latter, but you can count the examples on your one hand of female rulers having female slaves.

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But what I heard Brandon say earlier was, or at least implicitly suggest this was, this is such a widespread problem, guys, that everyone knew about it, so Paul felt the need to critique it.

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If it was, why does Paul spend equal amounts of time on what women do when they exchange their natural function, just as much as what men do when they exchange their natural function?

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Why not just focus and zoom in on the men, right, if he's really critiquing the political actions in Rome?

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Pederasty. There's not a shred of evidence for women engaging in pederasty. So you mentioned it's a possibility. You're right here.

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You said one disturbing yet common same -sex practice was pederasty. Fine. But if the men are doing what the women did, and there's not a shred of evidence that women did this, pederasty is not an option.

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So we can rule that one out. The problem with slavery would be that both are held accountable. If somebody abuses a slave, then the master is held accountable.

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God would not hold them accountable. Both are held accountable in this passage in Romans. It seems ridiculous if it's talking about slavery.

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No, because I... Did you catch that? And we're following Brandon's train of thought, right?

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There's consequences to the ideas that he's trying to further here now. Paul finds fault with both men.

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Look at that. Verse 27. Take a look again. He finds fault with both men. Men with men. Both consumed with passion for one another, right?

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If Brandon is right, and this is actually about male rulers are wording their slaves, why does

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Paul find fault with the victim here? That's the six million dollar question.

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Now watch how Brandon tries to get out of this one. Again, this is a thing that I... Help me understand where I'm not being clear on this.

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Paul, of course, would condemn both of them because in his mind, in the patriarchal framework of, and I think this is even in Leviticus quite clearly, if a man allows himself to be penetrated or is penetrated, masculinity was viewed as fragile in the ancient world in many cultures, and so you are emasculated, and to lose your masculinity would have rendered you less than human.

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Now, the problem with making these arguments, and I already see the critiques that will come in the comments, you do have to appeal to external sources to understand what is happening here, but there's a very clear, reasonable case why

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Paul or Leviticus would condemn both parties in a sexual relationship, even if it was exploitative, because of the way they understood how gender and status worked in their culture.

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Now, you're not going to find that in the pages of scripture itself, but you're going to find it when you read these sources of first century Jewish writers talking about masculinity.

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You think you actually... I guess I want to hear you say that. You're right. It's not in scripture whatsoever. Paul would blame somebody who was sexually abused and taken advantage of in their culture and hold them accountable for what a master forcefully did for them.

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Honestly, I think that's crazy. That's crazy. Now, I think you have to bite the bullet on that, because that's the only way to hold that he's talking about something that's exploitative here, so you have to concede that.

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I do concede that. I believe I talk about it in the book as well, because again, it sounds ridiculous in our day.

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It is ridiculous. I believe Paul is wrong. I believe Paul's wrong about a lot of things, but this is how people thought about gender in the first century world that Paul inhabited, and we disagree with it, and rightfully so, but Paul's also the same person who writes, slaves obey your masters, and we disagree with that.

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Paul's also the person that writes, women be silent and submissive in church, and many disagree with that. We have to understand Paul is a man of his times, and yes, some of their values and morals are reprehensible, and we should stand against them.

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Wow. Wowie wow. Wow. So not only is

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Paul wrong here, he's actually a despicable human being, right? To hold a victim accountable for doing nothing other than being a victim, you know?

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This is the same Paul who says this, repay no one evil for evil, this is Romans 12, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.

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If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, vengeance is mine,

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I will repay, says the Lord. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

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Oh, unless of course you are the victim of your master who R -worded you, in that case I condemn you as well, and the wrath of God is upon you too.

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Huh? Does that make any sense? Brandon Robertson, yet again proving why you should absolutely do two things.

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You need to reject his teaching, and then you need to pray for his soul. So we do a lot of this here on the channel.

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We walk this fine line between rejecting false teaching, and ultimately seeking restoration for even the false teacher, amen?

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And you know, it's a balancing act. I'm a human being, sometimes I don't get it right, sometimes I go too far, right?

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But the balancing act here, we need to maintain it. So I want you to hear me say this, when you see someone like Brandon, the last video

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I did was about Andy Stanley, right? Have compassion in your hearts, and pray for them, while at the same time, be ever watchful so that these kinds of lies take zero root in the community of God.

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They have no place there, amen? All right, well now it's your turn. What did you think of Sean McDowell versus Brandon Robertson?

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How did Sean do? Let me know in the comments below. As always, if you made it this far, and you're not a part of the

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Patreon community, what is going on? You gotta get over there, sign up. I've got an awesome Bible study. We're going to the Book of Acts right now.

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There's monthly trainings. I got another one coming up later today, exclusive live streams. You can meet up with me one -on -one and chat about whatever you want.

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Go check it out. The link for the Patreon is below. In this video, I used the Logos Bible app. I love this app.

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I use it every morning in my own Bible studies. You gotta go check it out. If you go to Logos .com forward slash Wise Disciple, you'll see some very cool features, including my special discount.

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So click the link in the notes below for that. Also, if you're interested in learning biblical Greek or Hebrew, you can check out the

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Biblingo app. They're offering a free week to try it out. Just click on the link below and use Wise Disciple 10 at checkout.