Romans 13 and Race Protests

Let's see. Welcome to Theology Throwdown!

We, the Christian podcast community of podcasters, gather to discuss our theological differences with love and charity.

This is a ministry called Striving for Eternity. Alright, well welcome to another

Theology Throwdown. This is where all of the Christian podcast community podcasters get together.

We discuss different topics. Tonight we're going to be discussing something that's not controversial at all, in any way, shape, or form.

We're going to talk about, well, Romans 13 and what should be the Christian and the Church's response to government shutting down churches and not maybe opening up as quickly as we would like.

We'll also be discussing things about race and some of the protesting going on. And who knows what else, because we never actually know where this is going to go.

So, let me let everyone introduce themselves and their podcast and how folks can get a hold of them.

To start off, I'll start with Andy. Well, my name is Andy Olson and I podcast at EchoZooey .com.

I do a monthly show, usually roughly an hour, and I like to find some knowledgeable guests on a variety of topics to just talk about things that affect the

Church. I try to do timeless topics that you can pull out in 10 or 15 years and won't be obsolete anymore.

And we do positive theology, so we'll get into the root doctrines of the faith and then we'll also talk about heterodox issues and heresies and false teachings and cults and all things related to theology, both positive and negative.

You can find me at EchoZooey .com, which, if you're watching, is on the lower third there.

All right, Colleen, how about you introduce yourself, your podcast, how folks can get a hold of you. And I think you even have some products that are new for sale.

Yes, my name is Colleen Sharp and I host Theology Gals podcast. You can find us at TheologyGals .com.

And the products that Andrew is referencing, we just released kind of a series of books, not to sit and read, but journals and I'm kind of hearing an echo.

Yeah, I think it's Keith. Someone's end. I'll mute

Keith. Okay. Maybe I can't mute Keith. You've got to mute yourself.

Okay, okay, I don't hear it anymore. That's good. So we released a sermon notes notebook, two sermon notes notebooks for children, one for kind of mid that can read, and then some that are for learning to read.

And if you look on our social media, you'll see pictures of what the inside look like.

They're based on something I made for my own children when they were young. And then we also have a catechism and scripture memory books, three of those.

Those are also available on Kindle. And then we have a Bible reading journal based on a

Bible reading plan. My cohost put together and a Bible reading and prayer journal.

So there is, will be a post on theology gals .com with links to all of those.

All right. And next up we'll do Keith and Keith is probably got what we were talking before we went live.

Colleen was mentioning. Colleen. See my, my, my realtor is

Colleen and I keep getting screwed up now. For so many years, I pronounced your name, right? Colleen was mentioned before we went live about how everyone here has such a variety of types of shows, but I'll say this before Keith introduced himself.

I think his show actually has the most variety within one show because he's got a radio drama.

He does answering questions. He's he's got like everything in one podcast. So Keith, how about you introduce yourself and how folks can could find you and what your podcast is about?

Although you'll have to unmute. I don't know if I muted you that time now. Okay. There I am unmuted.

Sorry about that. I had some noise in the house or a moment ago. Yeah. This is Keith Helmsley from quest for truth.

My cohost is Nathan Caldwell. It occurred to me I've never really announced his name on our throwdowns here.

He can can't make it though. And as Andrew was saying, we do an audio drama once a month and I sometimes do interviews, not very often, but usually have a casual approach and conversation to various topics are going on such as, you know, virus and people going crazy out there.

But then once a month we do a in -depth Bible study. And so it's all, you know, to, you know, as the title says, quest for truth.

We try to figure, you know, maybe we're talking to people who are fairly new to the faith and try to keep it at a low level conversation.

And we try to avoid big words, but that's just what we're about.

Kind of a, we try to put a lot of different variety into it. All right.

Next up will be Anthony. All right. Well, I am

Anthony Russo and I am the host of grace and peace radio. You can find me at grace and peace radio .com.

And my show is typically under a half hour, let's say, and the tagline is applying

God's word to everyday life. Really what I try to do is just. That just apply the word, think of different issues, different, different items that we go through as Christians and help us to try to think biblically, because really that's what

I try to do in my own life, right? Is Lord, what does your word say about this particular topic?

So I'll discuss that. I try to break it up. I have some interviews at times and also try to make it evangelistic so that if anybody is listening and they don't know the

Lord, well, hopefully they'll hear it and they'll get saved. And that would be great.

So grace and peace radio. I hope you check it out. Would love to have you as a listener. So thanks.

All right. Next is probably the guy with the best voice here and that's Daniel Minnick. Well, thank you,

Andrew. I'm glad you like my voice, even though I probably would say that I have a face for radio, but my name is

Daniel Minnick. I am the host of the truth Spresso podcast where you get your espresso fix of truth.

And at truth Spresso, we cover topics ranging from deep theology to deep economics to politics.

And I would invite you to listen to truth Spresso recently. I've actually convinced my wife to come on and we're talking through the topic of abortion right now.

And my wife is a certified nurse midwife and worked at a, as a pediatrician.

She's also had years of experience working in a crisis pregnancy center and doing sidewalk counseling.

So she knows a lot about the politics and the medical issues surrounding the topic of abortion.

And I hope you enjoy those episodes where you get to hear my wife and I, and also

I'm really looking forward to in the coming month to be able to get into topics of Jehovah's witnesses and church history.

Cause maybe your book is going to come out soon. Witnesses just saying, just not, not, not putting any pressure on you, but you know, next week.

No. Yeah. The episodes with you and your wife were really good. Next up is the one person who

I think has not missed a single throwdown, even when we've had scheduling conflicts, but Eve Franklin.

Yes. It's so much fun to be here. Even if I don't have anything to add to the discussion, just to listen sometimes

I am a cohost of the book podcast. Are you just watching in which we take one movie or TV show a month and discuss it from a

Christian worldview. And we don't bash movies. We just try to pull things out that allows us to, to share the gospel and talk about theology in, in a way that is usually unintentional.

And I also have authored a book called, are you just watching and that you can get that on Amazon. And it is basically a really, a guided journal where you can help yourself learn how to watch movies.

All right. And I think either Eve or Andy, I'm not sure which one of you have been podcasting longer because both of you have podcasts that go,

I think beyond 10 years. And I do, I'm at one, you're at 11 or 12.

I think. Well, it's over 12. I just did 145 I think was my last episode and it's monthly.

So 145 months, which would be 12 years. I'm noticing and Eve is monthly too, huh?

Yeah. Except we missed a few months in a couple of years. So we were, when we went through like a near, near pod fade when

Daniel Lewis stepped down. So it, I think there was one year I only got three episodes out. Keith has been podcasting quite a while too.

Cause he has his other show. Oh, that's right. I don't know how long you've been going Keith. He's muted.

I did want to mention that even though I've like got more calendar time, a lot of you guys have more episodes.

By far. Well, but I was cheating. I have, okay. So I, my podcasts,

I have my daily podcast, which has 500 episodes, but it's Monday through Friday. Granted, it's only two minutes long, so it doesn't take as long to record.

But that one we is is Monday through Friday right now.

I'm just kind of doing some older shows as life has been hectic. I have my

Andrew rap reports rap report, which is my hour long show, which right now, anyone who has was listened to or watched the snatch them from the flames home edition that Justin Peters and I did.

That's the latest episodes we're going to go through except I am going to do something special or I already have it recorded actually on Joseph Smith's birthday or the day he died.

I mean for, and you want to do an anniversary on the day someone dies. Well, okay. But that's what we did.

Talked about Mormonism and the let's see, I got apologetics live

Thursday nights answering any apologetics questions you have. Just go to apologetics live .com. The links to join or to watch are there along with a link to subscribe.

I host this one for with you guys. And so that's a real privilege.

And then Coleen and I do one called so you want to be a podcaster where we really, we do that for, for all of us here at the

Christian podcast community. So with that, let's get into the discussion. Some of you, hold up, hold up, hold up.

How many episodes is that? How many episodes total? Yeah, I don't know. I got over 500 on rap report.

I got a hundred and you got homework for 30 some for the rap, the rap report weekly one apologetics live.

I don't know. I'm probably close to a hundred. I'm guessing. Theology throw downs.

Not that many. I think we're out. Eve could probably tell me we're probably at like six or seven. So, so that one's easy.

But so it's a few, but you've been podcasting longer. So yeah,

I can't hold a candle to the number of episodes you've done. Do two minute ones and then you can do more.

All right. So let, let's start with the topic for tonight. We want to do two different topics really is want to start with the issue of Romans 13 and what churches should do with the whole, this whole government shutdown.

I don't know how many of you guys are allowed to go to church. I started saying before we went live, but I'm not allowed to.

I was actually in this weird state where we thought I, my church is in Pennsylvania. I live in New Jersey and our governor was saying that, you know, we were not allowed to travel unless it was essential.

And so there was a point where there was talk that they, we might be able to open the church in Pennsylvania, but my governor wouldn't allowed me to drive to church.

And that becomes an interesting Romans 13 issue. I know what I was going to do. I was driving to church to preach.

And I would tell the officer pulls me over. I think it's essential. So, but.

President Trump agrees with you though. This was before president Trump announced that, which I was, once he did that,

I was like, okay, now our building, our building because we're a church plant is different than maybe some of you guys.

We rent a building from the community. And so it's a government, it's a senior center.

And so when they shut down, our building was shut down. We had, we had no choice as far as the building.

We've been creative with using zoom and we're, we try to see if we can get together the social distance, but we try to do fellowships and things like that where we can.

We're actually talking about the idea of just going to the building since it's public property.

And now public parks are open in Pennsylvania. And we're thinking of actually just setting up, like maybe just setting up church outside on a nice days and, and having church just outside.

So how many of you guys are have church that's open right now that you're back meeting again?

Yeah. People can't see you raise your hands. We just had our third in -person

Sunday of services yesterday, which what is that?

The 7th of June. So we had our, our governor in Kentucky was actually taken to court.

All right. Keith, I see you're unmuted. Did you, you, you, you meeting back at church yet or no?

Yeah, I was going to say, uh, we have our church did open this last

Sunday, uh, for extenuating circumstances where we couldn't make it, but they just started going this past week.

All right. And then I think Andy and Anthony. I thought I moved to a quieter, quieter part of the house. Oh, okay.

Anthony and Andy, you guys said you guys are meeting? Yeah. Uh, I'm here in South Carolina.

This is Anthony. And, uh, we've been meeting, I think when you've said about three weeks, I think here in South Carolina, we've been doing about three weeks as well.

Uh, we have, we have every other pew in the church, uh, blocked off.

So don't sit there. Uh, but other than that, it's, we're pretty much at business as usual.

Yes. We have the six foot poles in the, in the seats and every other pew so that family groups stay six feet apart.

They actually put the poles in there and we're supposed to all wear a mask. So I tell you after about the third

Sunday, most people are getting rid of those because it's really hard to sing with a mask on. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't think anybody at ours wears a mask. It's different States. So anyone here other than me, not in a state, that's not opening up to churches.

Ours is kind of easing in. So they're doing small gatherings.

I haven't even kept up with it because my mom and I are both high risk. So we're going to continue to do online.

Um, was that my, Oh, my husband is, uh, okay. I just hung up on my husband.

I'll send him a text message. Um, so, well, they just, they just, one of the things they just released about the virus is that they think it has something to do with the blood vessels.

I have an autoimmune disease that attacks the blood and I get blood clots really easily.

And so, um, they apparently the virus is causing blood clots.

And so anyways, I'm going to go talk to my husband now and let you guys know. Daniel, how are you?

We, uh, we rent as well. Oh, go ahead and say

Andy or Daniel. Well, we'll go with Andy since he's open and then we'll see where you're at.

Daniel. Oh, sorry. I didn't, uh, didn't hear that. Um, yeah. So we rent as well, but we rent from a

Messianic Jewish synagogue and, um, we, uh, here in Minnesota are there, they're saying 25 % of capacity and our congregation is, is small enough compared to the facility that, uh, we don't have any problems with, you know, the 25 might be kind of pushing it, but we got a lot of people that are, don't feel comfortable coming back.

So it wasn't really a problem, but this last Sunday was our first, and they're looking at, um, by next

Sunday, I think they're looking at moving on to phase three of the reopening. So we should be able to go to 50%.

So we're doing okay there. The synagogue has, it's kind of interesting cause this, this here, what do you think about this as a

Romans 13 issue? Um, so the government is saying we can come back, but then the landlords, the synagogue is saying they would, they really want masks worn and they're wearing masks and they're even providing masks, but the elders don't want to require it.

So they finally decided, well, we'll tell people that we want you to wear a mask, but we're not going to enforce it.

And then when I got there on Sunday, we had like maybe 10 % of the people there were actually wearing masks.

Yeah. So it's not really Romans 13 in the truest sense, but it is an authority, right?

That to me kind of falls under the category of, uh, what is it? If, if you're asked to walk one mile, walk two,

I know I'm misquoting that terribly. Sorry. And we've gone over some of that as a congregation and, uh, you know, that the first Corinthians 10, putting the others ahead of yourself too as well that, you know,

I'm like, I don't like masks at all. I just can't, I can't breathe very well in them. I think that I had the disease come through my house about mid -March.

So if that's great, then I should be immune and not prone to spreading it.

Of course, I haven't been tested, but, um, but as far as loving your brother. Yeah. I mean, the thing to do would be if, if they feel more comfortable with you wearing a mask, then the loving thing to do would be to wear a mask.

Daniel, how about your church situation? Probably about the same situation as Colleen's it's been the same state, but, um, so far we haven't been able to meet.

We also rent a facility, a school, and our church is growing too big for that school.

And so we're actually bought some property. We're trying to build, hopefully next year, we might have a facility that we can own so we don't have to rent.

Um, but, uh, the Sunday before this last Sunday, there was a drive in service that we finally got to have outdoors.

And unfortunately I was not able to attend that one. It was online this last

Sunday, but we're hoping that this Sunday we're working with another church.

Then we're hoping that we might be able to meet in that building.

We'll just see how that works, but, and I'm not sure what the capacity will be, but there'll be definitely be different.

So let me, let me ask this for each of us. We have church that, you know, we live in states where some of the states have locked down.

They have said that they're not specifically targeting churches. Um, however,

I'll give a scenario in New York city. Maybe this will spark some conversation as far as who agrees, disagrees that, uh, whether the church is being targeted, uh, in New York city mayor de

Blasio, uh, stated before resurrection Sunday that, uh, churches that do not close that he would, he threatened with closing them permanently if they did not close for good

Friday and resurrection Sunday. And the argument that people made was that was just,

Hey, everyone is being closed and it's not specifically targeting churches.

Uh, however, for Ramadan, mayor de Blasio sent people into mosques to tape off where people can kneel, sit down and kneel for prayer.

He also set up, uh, dozens of places around New York city where people could get halal food for Ramadan.

Now that was very interesting to me because I don't think there's anything stopping them from cooking on their own, but the city provided food.

The city workers went into mosques to map out areas when churches were not allowed to gather.

And I do find something interesting there when they talk about separation church and state. And yet it was city workers and didn't he shut down some kind of a

Jewish funeral or something? He, he did. He tried to the, and in that case there was the

Jewish funeral, uh, there was that they had in New York looked very much like the protests going on right now.

Uh, but that was bad. And, and I think his comment at that was that people that were going out and doing the funeral and people that were protesting for opening the government that that was, that was risking his, his health and everyone else's health.

Um, so yeah, so let's, let's discuss this is, are there cases that we see that it at least gives an appearance that maybe there, the government is picking and choosing which religious organizations can open.

And is it, you know, is there a point where we say we're going to rebel against a religious organization like Romans or you against like Romans 13, if that's the case to be able to meet?

What do you guys think? I think that the New York situation is unique. I haven't felt, and maybe

Daniel can speak to it cause we're in the same state, but I haven't felt in Colorado, even though our, our governor is extremely liberal and I'm unhappy with him on many levels, but I don't,

I think when they've done things here, they do things like, um, when they start easing down on the lockdowns, it was, you know, groups no more than 10, no one was really singled out in that.

And I know that we're in different situation with riots now and whatnot, which I think is another discussion, but I think

New York is, is unique. I mean, every, I'm sure a lot of people have seen the, the stuff that the

New York mayor has said that has sound sounded somewhat anti -Semitic and, and by his actions.

So I, I'm not sure. I think it would depend. Yeah. I would agree with Colleen.

Like, it doesn't seem like Colorado has been that extreme. I mean, I know we have that, um, restaurant that, um, open on mother's day and, uh, that made, you know, basically worldwide news about over that issue.

But, um, it, yeah, it does seem like actually no matter where you are, at least in my mind, there is that in.

There is that inconsistency of even the idea that people who are trying to worship and practice, you know, proper sanitation, social distancing, wearing masks were flatly forbidden to do that.

Yeah. And, and even without just the religious discrimination, you have this so -called essential work of, um, you know, people flocking into Walmarts and, um, other department stores.

And to me, it seems inconsistent there where there's a lot of people who won't even aren't even wearing masks there, but that's okay.

But somehow, you know, you can't have more than 10 people in a place of worship that can accommodate that amount of space, but you, you know, you have department stores that have, you know, thousands of people in and out during a day touching things and not wearing masks.

It just doesn't seem very consistent to me in that regard. Do you guys think that Romans 13 even applies to this situation?

I was going to bring that up. I was going to say, I think in a lot of ways we're more governed by Romans 14 as a church than we are

Romans 13, especially with the controversy over, you know, there's such a wide variety of opinions as far as, uh, is what's this virus is doing and, and what kind of a threat it is and how people feel personally threatened by it.

And so I think we're governed more by Romans 14, which is, you know, to let each person, uh, be governed by his own conscience.

And when, when they start reopening churches, let people continue to stay home.

You know, we're, we're working as a church where we're scrambling right now, because we've never done live streaming from our building.

And so trying to get the equipment to work with that, um, so that people that, cause we've got a lot of, a lot of older people at our church that feel like they're in that.

Vulnerable population that want to stay home. And even one of our preachers are, we've got two preachers in the younger of the two

Scott, uh, some asthma issues and some, some respiratory issues and stuff, and he doesn't feel comfortable coming back. So he actually prerecorded his sermon last week.

And, um, but we're governing our own body by Romans 14 and letting people decide on their own, how much risk they want to take and if they think there's a risk at all.

Interesting. Cause my pastor actually preached on this. He had been before COVID going through a first Peter.

And, uh, when COVID the lockdown started, he switched to a series on, um, you know,

Just Christian living and in times of stress and stuff. But then when he finished that series, he decided to go back into first Peter.

And it was very interesting because the next passage that was on the agenda for first Peter was, uh, you know, the part that's actually very similar to the

Romans 13, which is, uh, the first Peter two 13, the subject for the

Lord's sakes to every human institution. And, and he dealt with that in one sermon and then everybody kind of got riled up because it was, you know, some of us had just attended a protest at our state

Capitol the day before. And, um, it was interesting to find out that he then followed it up with the next

Sunday saying, pointing out the fact that we live in a democracy or a Republic, however you want to talk about it, where the government is by the people and that we elect our politicians and that it is necessary as free

Americans to defend our constitution and to, to stand up and be vocal when we see things going wrong and not in a violent way, but because it behooves us as good citizens to, you know, defend what makes our country great.

And I thought it was interesting that he balanced that out, that we don't live under an emperor. We don't live under a

King. Uh, we are as a, as a nation, we govern by the people.

And so it is necessary for us to, uh, to have the

Christian attitude of submission, but at the same time, be willing to speak out when our voice needs to be heard.

And I, I liked the way he balanced that, but in our state, it has been an issue because, uh, back before the federal court ruled against our governor, uh, we had a,

I think it was actually the mayor of Louisville, uh, had his police ticket, uh, people going to a drive in church.

So they were just staying in their cars, in a parking lot, socially distanced. And they had troopers come and take everybody's, uh, license plates down and they find them.

I think it was, um, I think it was like a thousand or $500 per person, not per car, but per person that attended that service for being there.

And, uh, so it has been an issue in our state. I mean, actual follow -up with punishment kind of stuff.

But I don't think that's right. Uh, I think it should have been suggestion and let people weigh the risks so that like in Andy Olson's case with his church, that people could, could make the decision whether they wanted to come and risk it or not.

Eve, you meant, uh, you brought up what I wanted to bring up, which is even the question of how do we apply

Romans 13 and Romans 13. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, that leader says is law?

Or are there, you know, powers that are, are there, you know, constitutions that actually limit the powers of the elected officials?

And then, you know, because when the President Trump says something, does that take precedence over, you know, what a governor says?

And does the governor have the authority to, like, declare an executive order?

And is that law? So I think that's, that's probably a discussion that we could have to understand exactly what are the powers and how do we apply them from Romans 13 in our constitutional republic.

That's a big issue that I've been weighing on in so many different areas. There's a lot of rabbit trails I could go off on this.

But one that I've been pondering is, is that I'm thoroughly convinced that there is rampant voter fraud all over the country.

And, and a lot of places where Democrats hold a lot of power, it's because they've stolen that power through the ballot box.

And, and where I'm coming, at least theologically on that is that God ordains everything, and he is sovereign over all of it.

And, you know, he's put some rather nasty people in power in different empires throughout history, and through different means.

And if he's ordaining some rather nasty people here in our own country, and doing it through voter fraud, one way or another, he's ordained it that they're in power.

And, but we do have such a sticky system, where no one person really has total power, like, like an emperor would.

And so we, but we've, we've got a system that we work through. And, and if we don't like what the governor says, or what the president says, we go to the courts, and we have them try to mitigate the situation, or we go to the legislature and have them change the laws.

And, and I think we just got to keep all of that in view that God has ordained all of that in our country.

I know, I was, I was really unclear about this myself. I mean, when things started out, my take was, okay, look, you know, we, we closed church for when it's bad weather, we don't want our elderly slipping into falling on the ice, or whatever the case may be.

So I was, I was good with it for a few weeks, I understood, because at the time, initially, it was, you know, two or three weeks, we got to flatten the curve, flatten the curve.

So I was good with it. As things went on. And then especially the one day when my wife and I were sitting, eating our takeout at the

Dairy Queen, looking at a very full Lowe's parking lot on one side of the highway, and a very full

Home Depot parking lot on the other side of the highway. That's when my thinking kind of shifted. And I started saying, especially when the numbers weren't quite adding up, and that sort of thing,

I started thinking, okay, this is, this is ridiculous, is what I began to think. And that's when

I started thinking that, okay, we've got to, we got to do something here. You know, this doesn't, this doesn't add up.

Now, I'm not a pastor. So there's a little bit of armchair quarterbacking that can go on.

So I needed to be sensitive to that and not, not be the pastor, because if the church had opened up,

I wouldn't have been the one that would have been fined or arrested or whatever. So I had to be careful about that. I did kind of wonder too, at what point would, especially as we saw that this wasn't the plague, at what point do we go into house church mode?

You know, at what point do we say, look, we're going to follow our Chinese brothers and sisters and get into house church mode.

So I kind of wrestled with all of those things. And then I'll just say, as far as my research, even for this episode, one of the things that really helped me out was

I read Martin Lloyd Jones's exposition on Romans 13, which is about half the book.

It's really excellent. I definitely, definitely commend it. I learned a ton. So those were just some of the issues

I had to work through. One of the things he points out, and Daniel kind of touched on this, is it's the powers.

God has instituted the powers. I mean, yes, the people also are put in there under the sovereignty of God, but ultimately, it's those powers and the offices.

I think particularly when the churches or when those offices are not, when they're violating what

God decrees, when God decrees that we worship Him and He created the church, in that situation, we then have the

God -given right to violate those laws and policies of men to meet.

But again, I'm not making that as a decree. I don't want to sound like I'm armchair quarterbacking any pastors in any states or any areas.

Well, here, let me throw a different angle at it. My view actually is, I don't know if Romans 13 applies the way people have been using it.

What do I mean by that? Well, the law of the land of the Constitution states quite clearly that the government cannot create a law to impede our religious freedom.

And yet, they did. And so the question is, is the law when, and remember, this wasn't an executive order from the president.

It was something that he recommended for two weeks. And people now, in hindsight, everyone's forgetting this, but go back during those two weeks.

As Anthony mentioned, it was to flatten the curve. Why? So that the hospitals weren't overrun.

It wasn't a cure. Everyone's talking now as if staying home is the cure. No, it was never a cure.

It was to not overrun the hospitals. But what we end up seeing in this is these rules of where you have to be restricted to a certain number of people and all that.

The question is, is that really unconstitutional? In other words, by me saying I can gather and meet,

I'm actually just honoring what the Constitution says. I'm within the law because the other law is unconstitutional.

It just hasn't had a chance to get tested yet by the legal system. And in some of these cases, as Eve said, when it is tested, it's ruled that we meet.

And so I actually wonder when everyone uses Romans 13 if it applies, because I think that I'm following what the

Constitution and this law of restriction is illegal itself.

So which one are you obeying in that sense? Well, how about in this that it's my pastor and elders that have authority over me, and I'm going to go with what wisdom that they have.

That's where I'm at with it. I'm not going to debate all of this that you guys are talking about because I'm not going to place any judgments upon the decision that my own pastors and elders have decided.

And I don't feel like I've faced any religious persecution. I feel like our state, maybe our country said, here's some,

I mean, they said, yes, you need to do this. And if my pastor and elders said, we think this is religious persecution, and it's far more important to obey

God, then they would probably tell me to stay home though, because they know that I'm also high risk.

So that's where I'm at with it. I'm going to trust my own pastor and elders.

We're in uncharted territory. We're figuring out how to navigate this.

It's not black and white. There's a lot we didn't know going into this. We knew

China wasn't telling the truth. That's about all we knew. We knew Italy had a rough time. And so a lot of it was guessing and that it could be really bad here and overwhelm our hospitals and decisions were made based on that.

I don't feel like it's been religious persecution because my son can't go to prom either. So I don't know what kind of persecution that is or graduation.

So I'm just at the point, I'm going to trust my pastor and elders, the ones that have spiritual authority over me to make wise decisions for our church and congregation.

I like that, Colleen, because when we opened our church back up, we actually are following, still attempting anyway, to follow the regulations that the governor set on the opening back up of churches, even though the courts actually wiped out that entire suggestion regulation, whatever it is that our governor did.

We're still, my pastor, the leadership of our church have determined that we will still do whatever we can to protect the body of Christ that's coming into the church, even though we could just do whatever we wanted because the court overturned the governor on all of that.

And I wanted to add, just because we are talking about this from a negative point of view, I kind of want to spin this positive because I think that as Christians, we need to be looking at some of the positive fruits that have come out of having the churches closed down.

We've had tons of sermons being broadcast, either live or recorded on Facebook and YouTube and all the other various outlets for video and audio, just a massive resource of good teaching that has suddenly flooded weekly basis, the channels where people who might not necessarily ever walk in a church door are having access to good biblical teaching that is not normally available.

And it's forced a lot of churches to take steps to get that kind of teaching out to their body.

And this is in addition to the fact that most churches do have shut -ins, people who on a regular basis, regardless of whether there's

COVID, are not able to get out of their homes. And now we have richer resources to reach out to those people because we had to suddenly change the way we were doing church and get the ability to actually broadcast our sermons out and find new ways to reach out to the body.

And I think that's a real positive thing that's come out of this. And a second positive thing that's come out of this is that the church thrives under persecution.

And I think that's something that Western Christians have kind of lost sight of. Our Christian brothers and sisters in countries where they've been heavily persecuted, their faith is very strong, and they know how to stand up against all kinds of things that come against their faith and stand against their faith.

And we've had it so easy here. And being able to kind of like get rid of the chaff from the wheat and find out who is really consistent in their

Christian walk to be able to do church and do Christian life, even if they're not meeting in the fellowship.

And there's other reasons for being Christians and not just the country club atmosphere of being in church every

Sunday. So I just thought I'd throw out a couple of positives. Yeah, I mean, one of the things that I think...

Keith, go ahead. This is Keith. Keith, can you hear me okay?

Yeah, you're breaking up a little bit. I'm trying to find a quieter place in the house. It's just so noisy. Yeah. Well, I would agree if I can keep from breaking up.

Something that I was thinking of too is the early church for about 300 years,

Christianity was not legal. And yet they met. They're persecuted, fed lions, but they met.

And we're not quite there here. And I feel like there is room to obey the government in that people are going back to me in limited amounts and varying capacities.

And I think that it'd be better to me in the church for the government to take a hands off approach and let people do what they feel comfortable with.

But even so, as someone pointed out, there have been times when there have been bad leaders, bad governments, bad policies.

And I've always had to be flexible with the support of those leaders.

But still, even if it comes down... I don't want to be the one going to jail myself.

I think it's what Anthony said. But if it comes down to it,

I mean, it's happened before. I don't know if there's any advice or suggestions, just some observations.

Yeah, I mean, I think the way Anthony brought it up, and I had said this to a group of pastors that we've met on Zoom to discuss some of these issues.

But I take the same position, I think, that Anthony said is, you know, here in the Northeast, when it's really, if you get a really bad snowstorm, we have canceled church for safety issues.

And when it was two weeks, I was fine with it. But I think it was around, you know,

Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday, where I started to see, as Eve was mentioning, that they were targeting churches.

They were going into church parking lots. They were looking to arrest people at churches.

I even saw a news program that even though the church changed their position, they did a program saying for, you know, seven, eight minutes about how the church was open, and everyone was upset with it, and everyone was basically, you know, threatening them and things like that through social media.

And so they changed their position. And I think that that's where I started to notice that they were targeting churches, because they weren't doing that same behavior and having the same restrictions as some of the guys have already mentioned at Home Depot and places like that.

Although some of the states have, some states, I think it may, Wisconsin or Minnesota, I forget which one, that had the rule that you could go into Home Depot, but you couldn't buy paint.

Like, there were certain things you could buy. I thought that was Michigan. Yeah, Michigan had that. You couldn't buy seeds, you couldn't buy a flag, that kind of stuff.

But don't you think, this is the thing, I don't, you would have to, besides New York City, you would have to tell me where churches are specifically targeted, where other gatherings aren't.

And I'm saying separate from Home Depot and the grocery store and whatnot, because in Colorado, like I said, it's, or Daniel mentioned, that big, big old deal, because some restaurant, so are they target, are they, is there persecution against restaurant owners too?

And that's the thing that I think, I think that what we do see is whatever state or town you're in, it's inconsistent.

There's not a consistent policy. So I also could say it's specifically targeted, like I don't think it fits under persecution.

I disagree. I think there's consistency in my state, but. Yeah, I agree. I think like my next door neighbor had, he's got a beautiful garden and he decided to host his niece's graduation party because they weren't allowed to have graduations.

And that's a big thing right now. In fact, it's really kind of sick because Minnesota has had bodies piling up, not only from the virus, but just through the normal course of life, people are dying and they've said no funerals.

It doesn't matter if it's a Christian funeral or any other kind of funeral or secular funeral, you're just not allowed to have funerals.

So they, why I say it's sick is because they went out and spent several million dollars to buy a warehouse so they can store bodies until they decide that it's okay to have funerals again.

But, and that's why I think it's, it's kind of hard to argue that it's a persecution issue here because there's a lot of graduates right now that are really feeling a lot of pain because they didn't get to experience having that graduation party like everybody else gets.

They didn't get to have the prom and they didn't get to have all that other stuff. And you know, that has nothing to do with, with persecution.

It's just people trying to be consistent. But the right to gather, to worship is protected by the constitution.

The right to prom, the right to funerals and all that, that's not, that's the, I think that's the difference.

And that's kind of what Andrew brought up earlier as well. Yeah. And I wanted to address that because I think I agree with you, that's our right, you know, under the constitution and that is supposed to be the

Supreme law of our land, but it's not quite as cut and dry that it's really sticky. I mean, you gotta pick a fight in order to exercise that right.

Are you willing to pick that fight? The law is whatever you're willing, whatever you're able to win when that fight is picked.

And until that fight is won in the courts or through the legislatures or elsewhere, the law is whatever the guy with the ticket book or the gun says the law is.

Well, and I do think that, and this is where I'm not fully saying that, you know,

I'm not saying, I think there are areas where there is some persecution going on. I think it's in specific areas and specific governors or mayors, things like that, or policemen.

And there are people that are using it, but they're using, we're seeing this being used by different people differently.

And that's where I'm saying it may be consistent in Colorado, but there are places where you're just seeing, you know, there are some places where you can have a

Home Depot open, but not a mom and pop, you know, store that does, sells the same hardware.

So, you know, we're seeing things like that throughout the land. So I don't think it's a religious persecution.

However, as a religious leader in my church, we're gonna, our concern is the health of our church.

So even when we do, when we are allowed to meet, we're going to continue to make it possible for those who can't or don't feel comfortable.

Well, we're going to try to satisfy that. It's no different than what churches do with shut -ins today. A lot of churches do online services, so their shut -ins can be part of service.

And I think that that is where, and this is where I would agree with Colleen, is we go to our local church leadership.

Yes, we have the, we could say we have the right to meet, and I think we do, but that doesn't mean we have to meet.

And this is where I was with a different group of pastors than the one that I mentioned earlier, but we were discussing this on a, just with a group of pastors and people in ministry, and it was recorded.

And the thing I had there that I saw issue with is that they were very much saying that we had to meet in person or it was not church.

And there I get into an interesting thing, and maybe we could discuss this for a minute or two, but does face -to -face, is that required for church?

Now, there's some, and I think Colleen would probably agree with me on this, is I didn't feel comfortable in our church leaders we've discussed doing communion online, because I don't think that matches what communion is.

I think that is better done face -to -face. I have kind of issue as well when shut -ins, when if a pastor goes to a shut -in to do communion, just the two of them,

I understand the idea to, so they don't miss out on things, but it doesn't have the same idea of what communion is, that it's the body coming together as a unity in Christ.

So I don't like the idea of doing some sort of online communion, but do you guys think that we have to meet face -to -face to be able to say that we're honoring the assembly together?

Or is it that by doing it on Zoom, and I know my position on this, but I'm asking it as a question to get discussion.

If we're doing it on Zoom, are we forsaking the assembly together, as it says in Hebrews? Well, let me kind of spin the question and serve it back.

If there was no virus, if there was no pandemic, if none of that, and you had members that said that they're totally healthy, they just don't want to get up and get out of bed and go to church, they'd rather just sit home and watch it on the couch every week, and that was their position.

Would you counsel them that that's not really appropriate as a church member?

Yeah, and that's what I think the Hebrews passage is talking about, people who are just refusing the assembly.

I think if you have someone who, for health reasons, cannot gather, I don't think that's a forsaking the assembly.

We have people who, for health reasons in our church, they can't make it to church. They want to, though.

Excuse me, and I think that's the difference. Don't worry, that wasn't coronavirus coming through the microphone, sorry. But I think of, not to put

Colleen on the spot, but she has health issues that could stop her from going to church.

Well, that's not forsaking the assembly, because knowing her, she wants to be with the gathered body.

No, I agree. I mean, if somebody's sick, that's a totally different thing. Yeah, I agree. Well, and I think that, obviously, a good shepherd is going to be in touch with his people.

He's going to know if somebody in the congregation just isn't wanting to be there, and he can deal with that.

And by the way, I have been the recipient of communion in my home from my pastor, but it's never been just me and my pastor.

The way our churches have always done it is, there's usually not more than one person in the church in that situation.

The mic just switched, Colleen. Okay, is it back? Okay, sorry. Anyways, but usually a few of the families come over, which is nice, and do a small worship service, not just me.

That's a good idea. I never thought of that, but that would be more fitting with what communion is in my mind.

Yeah, that's what our pastor has done for me before, comes over on a

Sunday afternoon or evening, and a couple other families come. See, leave it to the

Presbyterians to figure all that stuff out. Hey, Andrew, I've got a little bit different angle on this.

We've been talking about the mishmash of different regulations and rulings that we've got across our country, both state and local level.

And I think we've been consistent in this discussion and how a lot of it doesn't make any sense.

We talk about the Home Depot parking lot being full, but the church parking lot's supposed to be empty and whatnot.

You're really strong on presuppositional apologetics and presuppositional thinking.

Do you want to talk a little bit at all about how that worldview thinking is making a mishmash and causing some of that cognitive dissonance in people where they realize that they're, at least subconsciously, they're being inconsistent and they're trying to scramble to change rules a little bit to get what they want, but yet not be so inconsistent?

Okay, well, since the question was directed to me, I'll try to answer. It sounds like you have something specific in your mind, so I may not answer correctly.

Yeah, I think presuppositionally that we would say that we're going to look to God and his word.

We should be balancing out the issues of we should be meeting.

We shouldn't be using it as an excuse to get up late and have church in our pajamas, though for some maybe that's nice.

I still in my church, and actually all of our leadership, we're still in jackets and ties, even though we're sitting at home.

So I was glad it was just neat to see that first week all of us without talking to each other had done that.

And it was the slacks too, so it wasn't like we were just doing it for show, because that was actually a question that was asked and all of us were like, yep.

But here's the thing. I think that there is a balance like Colleen was saying.

I want to make sure that we're taking care of our church. My focus is going to be that. My focus for if it was up to us to meet, like if we had our own building,

I think the issue that I would be focused on is our local body and what we think is best for our local body.

I would be probably less concerned about what the government is saying should and shouldn't be, just because like you said,

I'm seeing the inconsistencies. Basically, CDC is almost saying now everything against what they said in the beginning.

I mean, now they're saying, yeah, it's not contagious on surfaces, that the death rate is 0 .23%,

which is less than the 0 .3 % of influenza, where before they were saying it was over three, maybe 5%.

So they're reversing like everything. And so part of me,

I'll admit, part of me, the more rebellious side of me, especially when these protests started, that's actually when

I had the shift. For me, when I would see these protests being allowed and saying they're actually good,

I mean, they had one doctor that said that the protests are helping to create the herd immunity.

And so that it's actually helping to cure COVID. And I'm like, but yet we can't have church, we can't go to work, but protests are good.

We even had a thousand healthcare workers sign a statement requesting that the protesting over George Floyd not be stopped because of COVID concerns.

Now, that's crazy that we shut down the entire economy. This is where for me personally,

I see that inconsistency and I say enough's enough. Now, does that mean

I'm saying enough's enough, let's meet at church? No, I'm saying enough's enough. I see that the world is being inconsistent in the way that they're handling this, that they're trying to promote something that has nothing to do with people's health.

They're, it has now morphed into a political agenda for many, but not all.

There are several that are high risk, like Colleen was saying earlier, and for them, they're going to have to deal with that differently.

I think as a culture, we're going to have to think about how we deal with things. We shouldn't send people back into nursing homes with influenza or COVID, since that's where the majority of them would have 42 % of the deaths were in nursing homes and nursing home residents make up 1 % of our culture.

That's a problem. Here in Minnesota, it was 80%, 80 % of all the deaths.

Most of them were in two nursing homes. I will want to point out, you were saying that they're allowing the protests.

It's a specific kind of protest because we've been protesting in our state almost since the beginning and every single time that we protested at the

Capitol, we were openly condemned by the governor for ever getting together. You can't be doing that.

You're getting too close together. There's no social distancing. People are not wearing masks. You shouldn't be protesting.

And then suddenly - You're killing people. You're killing people. Cuomo in New York said that you're killing people by protesting.

And if you look at those protests, they were social distance for the most part. Not all of them, but there were a lot that I saw that was at least more distancing than you normally see at a protest.

Far more, I would say, than what we see in the protesting, if we can call it protesting, going on now, because a lot of it's more looting and rioting.

I wouldn't say a lot of it. There's a lot of it when it's at night. I mean,

I have an issue - Okay, I'm just saying, two of my sons have been in the protests here.

One of my sons, his group of people has been going around putting out fires that some people have set and working in the medical unit.

But the majority of the people are peacefully protesting. From what my sons have seen, it's a small percentage that are behaving badly.

And one of his friends, actually, every single night has been out there with a video camera walking around the city, and that seems consistent, at least what's going on in Denver.

Yeah. I mean, I think that what's getting all of the attention is going to be the rioting and the looting and things like that.

That's going to overshadow the whole thing, because what was it? I think it was

Minneapolis, they said 500, I think the mayor said $500 million worth of damage. There are businesses that are never coming back from this.

I mean, this is right after COVID. And where I see an issue is when, like Eve, you were saying, when people are protesting to open up the government, something that our country allows for.

I'm not against protesting on either side. If you want to protest for what, even though I don't know that we know that George Floyd's death was specifically racist.

It was a white officer. I think that looking at the video, having a background in martial arts, that officer was not struggling on George Floyd's back.

So, he looked in way too much of a relaxed position. They're telling him to get into the car when they got two officers on his back legs and a guy on his neck.

He's saying, I can't get up. Well, duh. I mean, it's like, so definitely that guy and I haven't heard,

I have yet to hear anybody, anybody argue that what that officer did was a good thing in any way.

There hasn't been anyone doing that. I think there's been some people that are asking, is it actually racism? That is a different thing.

But they could and should be protesting what they believe, just like Eve was saying people were doing in her state.

However, what we saw was when people were protesting the opening of the government, that was killing people.

And now all of a sudden, it's helping to cure COVID. Just critical thinking, 101.

There's something wrong here. There's a contradiction. What I'm seeing amongst unbelievers around here is that people are wise to it.

For so long, they've gotten away with that kind of stuff, where they can say one thing, one minute, and then the next minute, they say something totally different.

And people are just like, yeah, it makes sense to me. And finally, they're waking up. I mean, I don't want to get too much into politics.

But here in Minneapolis, I watched during the riots, I was watching Twitter lists of local media. And I was shocked.

I've never seen the local media go after the Democratic leadership in this city and state as hard as they were.

They were furious. I saw a fury that I'd never seen before. And I think this is an opportunity,

I think, in a lot of ways, both politically and ecclesiastically, to show people they're seeing this shift.

And their eyes are opening. They're seeing that the worldview they've been living under forever is just crumbling around them.

And it's a great time now to show them a consistent worldview and show them a consistent legal basis, that our historic legal basis is based on the

Christian worldview, and that it's going to make so much more sense to people right now.

And I just pray that the Lord uses this time for some harvest, both here in Minneapolis and around the country where this is going on.

I think that would be a good thing to talk about, maybe real quick. Yeah, I was going to end with that, but let's start.

I wanted to end on a good note. Well, we're getting close to the end. I know we talked about this on our last one a little bit, but one of the things that I'm seeing, we had a, now

I forget what it was called, it's not a tornado, but something else ripped through our town the other night, and half the trees in our town, even our huge, really old 70 -year -old tree in front of City Hall, just completely uprooted.

And there was already, because of everything going on, neighbors getting to know each other in a way they hadn't before.

Watching, my little street is like one of the only ones in our neighborhood that didn't lose electricity, even the people across the street.

We got zero damage. It's crazy that it just missed us, but everyone around us, and to watch the people who didn't get any damage go to the people that did and say, how can

I help? And it's, because usually we live these busy lives, at least here, you barely get to know your neighbors, you barely talk.

And now we're having these opportunities. And for us as Christians, it's gospel opportunities, because I also know my neighbors are suffering.

Some of them have lost their jobs. Some of them are trying to figure out how they're going to pay their mortgage next month. And it's maybe seeing that positive thing, that we have opportunities one -on -one to share the gospel and have conversations that maybe we didn't before.

Okay, so Daniel, what is this thing? I never heard of it before. I had never heard of it until recently, but yeah, it's basically hurricane force winds through the

Rocky Mountains, which is, I guess, the first time in recorded history that this has happened, but it's called derecho, which

I mean, from the little Spanish I know, it has to do with right versus left, at least in the masculine and gender there, but whatever they call it,

I don't know why they call it a derecho unless that's the direction it moves, but yeah, I'd have to do more research on it.

But yeah, I definitely heard the strong winds and wondered if any windows were going to break.

In our town, they did. A restaurant, my dad was friends with the owners, all their windows are blown out.

My friend has a big hole in her wall. Lots of cars crushed because of how many trees were ripped up.

Almost all the trees in the cemetery completely just ripped out of the ground.

Brighton got it really, really badly just from where we're at. If anyone wants to see, you can go to my

Facebook or my Twitter. I have a whole bunch of pictures of all the damage. So here's the thing with what

Andy was saying that I have been thinking through is, if we remember back September 11th, before that event happened, there was this post -modernism that denied that there was evil in the world.

And then they got face -to -face with genuine evil, and all of a sudden people's worldviews were shaken.

Well, we're now like 20 years later and you're seeing people who, again, their worldview is being shaken by the virus, then by what many see as the hypocrisy with this virus and the protesting, and how suddenly the virus is almost off the news for the most part.

Not completely, but it's amazing how quick it the virus and now that's just gone.

And the thing that I think Andy's right is, it's shaking people's worldviews.

And that is an opportunity, just like in 9 -11, for us who are Christians, I believe, to take the opportunity to share the gospel.

This is a time where I think there's, I mean, suicide is up since this virus, people being at home.

I think you have a lot of people who are realizing their worldview has no answers for these things, and they're searching.

And we have answers. I mean, I think this is an opportunity for us as Christians to get out into our community and share the gospel.

And I think people are going to be more open than they were for the last few years.

Back to where I think people were open after 9 -11, people were very open in discussing these things, and then it shut down again.

I think, I believe, and I don't know what you guys think, I think it's an opportunity for us to share the gospel.

And I'm praying, I hope you guys would as well, but I'm praying that the Lord will bring a revival.

That maybe this will be something that God uses to bring a worldwide revival from this worldwide pandemic.

See, that's interesting because I haven't seen that. I don't see, granted,

I work from home, so I don't get out much. But it seems like here in South Carolina, anyway,

I don't see people really clamoring for, they don't act like their worldview has crumbled.

We haven't seen a big uptick in, as far as I know, in our online sermons.

We haven't seen any new people in our church. I haven't been asked. And that's been kind of the strange thing to me because, yeah, after 9 -11, yeah, everybody was open, and the churches were full, and all this sort of thing, and people were seeking.

I don't see that this time. And so, yeah,

I don't know. Well, I see it because I'm watching. I'm sorry.

As I said, I fall back.

There was a tweet on Facebook, and I had commented on Twitter thinking, you know, what do people do when they riot?

They break in. They steal. They burn. What would it look like if churches rioted? Would it be fixing things and putting out fires and sharing and love with people?

Maybe that could be a thing. And from what I think it was Colleen said, her son sort of doing that, putting out fires, was going out to protest.

Yeah, and I was just going to say that the worldview shaking that I'm seeing is because the areas in Minneapolis that were hit by rioting were pretty rough areas.

They were the low -income areas, the parts that typically suffer with poverty and crime, and all that stuff that you expect for an inner city.

And a lot of those businesses that were burned were owned by minority people who worked their hides off for decades in some cases to build what they had.

And it was just burned to the ground because somebody took an opportunity to, you know, there's a riot going on.

Let's just, you know, we're not going to get caught, so let's do it. And they're seeing like things like Black Lives Matter come through and talk about how racist things are, and yet they're black themselves and had their businesses burned down.

And they're wondering, well, I mean, if this is all racism, why are black, why are these people who are supposed to be fighting the racism burning my business down?

And then as the rioting kind of peaked, we saw that the governor and the mayor were so reluctant to call in the

National Guard. And even after they got them called, they took their time getting things organized and in position and stuff.

And so then we start seeing people, some of them from the suburbs, showing up with their

AR -15s to stand out in front of those businesses and say, look, I have a different political and worldview than you do, but I'm here to protect you.

You know, those people clearly don't care about you. They're ready to burn your house down or ready to burn your business down.

I'm here to help. And that has just shaken people to the core. The people that we've all been taught by the secular left that you're supposed to hate each other, and they're not doing that.

They're coming out and saying, no, we're going to support you and we're going to defend you. I don't know who you are, but I'll stand here with a rifle and I'll protect your business for you.

And that is, it really has shaken people more than I've ever seen in my lifetime here in Minneapolis.

How many of you guys have, I know my church, we've actually grown. The church has gotten larger.

We've had people that have reached out and contacted us and have been joining our Zoom meetings that didn't attend.

I mean, we're kind of curious to see what's going to happen when we get back together, how many people are going to continue. But have you guys seen growths in your church?

People that just are reaching out? One interesting growth we've seen in our church is our giving has increased.

And we were, I happen to serve on the stewardship because I'm Baptist, so we were committee led, but I serve on the stewardship team in our church.

So I get weekly updates on our giving. And I was, we have been in a church that's been in financial trouble.

We've had to reduce our budget year after year after year because our giving just doesn't meet the needs of the church.

And just since COVID started, suddenly, not only are we meeting our budget every week, but we're actually exceeding our budget every week.

And to us, that was kind of a sign of spiritual growth in our church that even in hard times, people are willing to give.

And they give generously.

And every week, because we were concerned about paying bills when people were in the church and making sure that, you know, the bills got paid, we were going to have to start scrapping together money to figure out how we were going to pay our bills.

And it never came about because people were giving so generously to the needs of the church that we've actually have a surplus, we're able to help our community and the body within our church much more than we were before.

And it's just been a massive blessing to have a church, you know, meeting last week in which we were able to give money to a missionary that we didn't have before, and that kind of stuff.

So God has blessed us. And I don't know necessarily, because we don't know who's attending or who's watching our meetings.

We don't know the numbers of people that we're reaching outside of our church doors. And coming back to church, we're only seeing probably about half of our actual church body attending our in -person services.

But we have seen a spiritual growth in our church as demonstrated through the church's financial support of our ministry.

I have a brother actually up there, Andrew Bayou up in New Jersey, and he hosts an online ...

no, a telephone, not even Zoom or anything like that. Yeah, don't even get on their technology.

It's a telephone Bible study. It's just a conference line. And he has had a lot of growth in that.

I think at one time he had almost 70 people on the call. And just this last week, he had people from six different states, one as far away as Nevada, calling in to his

Bible study. So that's not a church example. That's just a lay believer doing a

Bible study. But that was one encouraging story I'd share. I know my church hasn't been using

Zoom for the main message, but the life groups in the church each use

Zoom for their members. So I don't know of new members who are attending the main service, but I have heard some church members talk about other people, like new people, hearing the messages or watching the messages and getting blessed and getting interested in joining the church in person once it actually starts to gather.

So that's definitely a blessing. Yeah, I think that that's something that we may have just a human tendency to look at the negative.

We can look at the restrictions with not being able to meet. We can look at the protests that we might agree or disagree with, especially if we disagree with it, then become somewhere we could look at the negative.

But I look at all this, and I still see God at work. I still see things that we could use to further the gospel, to further the kingdom of God.

So even though we could tend to be complaining, and I'll give you what I think helps. What helps me to not be complaining as much, stop watching the news.

I'm so depressed when I watch the news all the time. I've been so much better when I don't watch the news. Yeah. Yesterday, I had my time with the

Lord, and because it was Sunday, I had extra time. And so I really enjoyed it.

And I spent, I mean, I'm not trying to brag or anything, but it was an hour plus, whatever, of just reading and praying and just enjoying the time of learning things.

Anyway, I spent 20 minutes after that on the news, maybe a half hour, just reading through different websites.

Totally killed everything as far as the peace and remembering

God's sovereignty and all the faith and the grace and all that. The guy who had

Grace and Peace Radio had no grace and peace after the time in social media. So I hear you on that one. So any,

I mean, as far as either Romans 13, churches meeting, the protests, these things were really what, you know,

I mean, I wanted to end the show with the idea of how we could, we see the gospel going forth even in this.

I mean, I do think that there's great opportunities, but any final thoughts that anyone has? I have one thing.

Everyone should listen to the two episodes that Stephen from Doctrine Matters did about like the race stuff.

As Christians, so we have two things here. We have, you know, how we're responding as Christians and then as Christians, how we're responding to the world and bringing the gospel.

But I think as Christians, sometimes when we have these discussions and especially when we start talking about race and things like that, they're often not fruitful discussions.

There's kind of two camps. There shouldn't be only two camps, but there kind of is two tribes.

And there's a lot of talking past each other. And I hope that one thing we're able to do, I'm glad we're able to bring the gospel to our neighbors more, but I see a lot of ickiness between Christians, at least online over some of these things.

And I hope that we find ways as Christians to have more unity.

I think sometimes in our discussions, we're talking past each other. So anyways,

I'd like to see more unity among Christians through all of this, just as much as I'd like to see the gospel going out.

Well, I mean, that is also one of the reasons we do this podcast, right? I mean, because we want to be an example of how people could disagree without the ickiness.

I mean, I think this has been, Colleen, you know me, that this has been a frustration. I think, Andy, you and I have spoken about this a lot, is the frustration with social media and the way

Christians behave. It's frustrating how un -Christian -like professing

Christians are online. That is an episode. Yeah, well, I talked with Chris last month,

Chris Honholtz, another member of the Christian podcast community. We did a kind of a dual show where we did some stuff that I posted as an episode and he posted.

And part of our discussion, we talked a little bit about, it's been kind of on my forefront of my mind, kind of the soft,

I call it a soft legalism. And I'm seeing it a lot through this issue where, you know,

Andrew, you talked earlier about each congregation really needing to work out on their own.

I'm sorry, I'm seeing you talk and then not hearing anything. You hear me all right? Okay, sorry.

Yeah, so you talked about congregations needing to work out on their own. Like, do we open?

Do we not open? Do we ask people to come back? Or do we kind of give people the option? You know, that whole Romans 14 thing that we talked about earlier.

And where I see a soft legalism is people aren't necessarily coming out and saying, thus says, you know, me, you have to do one way or the other.

But they kind of will be a little bit more manipulative in their legalism. And they get into like, well, you know, does it really glorify

God to do things your way? Or maybe, could you think maybe if you did a little differently, that might bring more glory to God.

And they do it on things that are totally adiaphora, where it really is, you know, up to your own conscience,

Romans 14 and deciding what's the right way to proceed. I wanted to mention a conversation that I had with another church member, when they started having church again, she messaged me as he says,

Are you going to church? Because that they had put out the requirement that everybody wear a mask and sit six feet, she says,

I feel like we're bowing the knee to the to the injustice of our government and statism to be forced to wear masks at church.

And I just don't feel comfortable going. And I had been vocal about not wearing masks in public, because it's not something

I feel is necessary if you're already doing social distancing and what have you. But I told her

I replied back, I was like, this is our pastors who are asking us to do this.

And I feel that if, if our pastors ask us to do this, this is a they have thought this out, they've discussed it, they have reasons.

And I think that we should step in obedience to our, our governing people within the body, and do it for the sake of our, our, you know, gathering together as a body, and not strong arming our pastors by saying, you know, well, we're not going to go as long as you're requiring us to wear a mask, because that's for one thing, it's the wrong attitude of a

Christian to have towards their Christian leadership. And I, I had to, you know, like, change my own thinking on that, because it was something

I kind of had felt the same way, too. But I had already decided in my heart that I would do what the pastors asked me to do as much as I'm able.

And so yeah, I'm, I'm very happy that that is, you know, that we have to be able to speak to one another in Christ and have that very gentle reminiscent between believers on this topic and not make it public as well.

Yeah, Eve, thanks for bringing that up. I, I really liked the way you put that in. And it's been that's another thing that's come up with me is somebody tweeted out a little graphic that really hit home with me on how much we really need to just have patience with our pastors on this particular issue, because they're getting pulled in all directions.

You know, you've got everything from this is nothing, just let's get back to doing life as usual to if you have anybody back at church, people are going to die, and everything in between.

And they're really under a heavy burden in this time. And, and I think it's really important to be praying for your pastor, and just be patient with your pastor and understand that no matter what he does, he's, he's gonna have people upset with him, and just support him.

He needs it. Well, I'm in agreement with that.

I know that, yeah, pastors don't often think about how pastors are being pulled in different directions, and the struggle that they have.

Anyone have anything else to bring up? Could I read a passage of Scripture that I think?

No way. Never. What version? Oh, actually, it's the

King James. I'm not, you know, I'm just stuck, you know, stuck about that. But I'm just kidding.

I was gonna say yeah, but that now I'm a no. Okay, well, still the throwdown mentality.

So, this passage, I think, kind of sums up 2020 in a way, and we're talking about Christian unity.

And so, I like to read Isaiah 59 and verses 13 through 16.

It says, in transgressing and lying against the Lord and departing away from our

God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood, and judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off.

For truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter. Yea, truth faileth, and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey.

And the Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no judgment. And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor.

Therefore, his arm brought salvation unto him, and his righteousness, it sustained him.

So, I see, like, it seems like a description of all the oppression and revolt, and the lack of justice, and how so many people are, like, you know, we talked about inconsistency.

This seems to describe that there's a lack of justice, and truth fails, and then what we see there is the need for an intercessor, and so we see the hope from the

Lord that he brings salvation through the intercessor, and righteousness sustains us.

So, I hope that that would be an encouragement to us all. Well, it sounds like a good place for us to stop this throwdown.

We, you know, we, again, haven't had much disagreement, but maybe it's because all of us are very focused on that, which is biblical, and we focus more on, you know, what we have in common and whatnot.

I blame your rigorous vetting process. Yeah, yes, that could be too, but folks, you know, this is some, we want to encourage you guys to check out all the podcasts at the

Christian Podcast Community. Just go to christianpodcastcommunity .org, and you'd be able to see the podcasts that we have.

We've mentioned several of them here. Several of them are represented here, but there's over 30 of them, and so it's a growing list.

There's something for everyone. We have one podcast for women, podcast now coming on for dads, and so, you know, we have that.

We have some homeschool podcasts. We have ones that are going to be more based on theology, some that are more based on evangelism, some that are interviews.

So, we got a little of everything. So, go to christianpodcastcommunity .org, check out all the podcasts there.

You could subscribe just to the Christian Podcast Community feed and get everyone that is there, or you can go to the individual ones and subscribe.

So, I want to thank all you guys for coming on. I think it was a good discussion, and we'll see you next month.