September 12, 2018 Show with Dr. George Scipione on “The Battle for the Biblical Family”

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

Now here's our host, Chris Arnton. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnton, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 12th day of September 2018, and I'm delighted to have as a very first -time guest today on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr.

George Cipione. He is director and adjunct professor at the

Biblical Counseling Institute of the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and today he is going to be addressing the theme of one of his books,

The Battle for the Biblical Family, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr.

George Cipione. Thank you. It's my privilege and honor to be here.

Great. Well, although we have had other faculty members of the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary as guests on this program, for those of our listeners who have not heard those guests and know little or nothing about Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary, why don't you let our listeners know something about that institution?

Well, it started in 1810 by the Scottish Covenanters that were in the United States. It's the fifth oldest seminary in the country.

I think one's dropping out, which will make us the fourth.

The first one was New Brunswick, it was the Reformed up there, the Dutch Reformed, and I think there was a

Catholic one. And PTS, which is Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, they're the ones in town.

They're not very sound biblically. They don't believe they're kind of UP, United Presbyterian, and kind of liberal.

Yeah, they did dismiss Robert Gagnon, didn't they? Yes, he's gone now. He was just the last remnant of conservative thinking and wrote that huge book on homosexuality.

So he's gone now. Anyway, we're the ones in town that actually still believe the

Bible. And this is a denominational seminary for the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America.

So the Scottish Covenanters, they sing psalms unaccompanied, a cappella. Exclusively?

Exclusively, yes. And for anybody who wants to investigate that seminary, to find out more about it, you can go to rpts .edu,

rpts .edu, and hopefully I will remember to announce that information later as well.

Well, since you are a first -time guest, Dr. Cipioni, what we normally do when we have a first -time guest is we take a portion of the time to have that guest give a summary of your testimony of salvation, the kind of religious atmosphere you were raised in, if any, and what the providential circumstances that our sovereign

Lord raised up in your life that drew you to himself and ultimately saved you. Well, that's very good.

I'm glad you asked that. That's where I would start. I was raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which is not mentionable in Pittsburgh.

It's a large urban area on the other side of the state. I was raised in a godly home.

My father was ninth -grade education, an immigrant family of eight kids.

He got saved later in life in his early 20s. His father got saved at a

Billy Sunday meeting, of all things, and my father was raised in an Italian Baptist church but was already going liberal at that point.

He was saved in his early 20s. My mother was Roman Catholic. Rita Immaculata Lero doesn't get much more

Catholic than that. She got saved when she was 15.

So I was raised in basically the group, if you know it, the conservative

Baptists. Yes, the church where I was saved in Amityville, Long Island, in the 1980s, was at the time in the

Conservative Baptist Association. There it is. That's where it was. But I grew up a typical kid.

I went forward and asked Jesus into my heart at 11. Nothing ever changed. I look back,

I don't think I was regenerate. But I went forward at Billy Graham Crusades. Kind of like a

Protestant version of confessional. Confess your sins, ask Jesus into your heart, and then you're back at it.

So what happened was I was working at Hilltop Ranch, which was a teenage ranch down in Colorado, Maryland.

I asked advice of Mark Glasser, who was a missionary, had been a missionary to India.

He taught out at Fuller, although he was conservative. I asked him, should I go to seminary, because I knew my life wasn't adding up.

Or should I go to law school? And he never pressed me on my commitment to Christ. So he said, well, if you were my son,

I would tell you to go to seminary, because law school is too limited in terms of missions, work, etc.

So long story short, I applied to Dallas Theological Seminary, because that's my background. I was accepted there.

When I was at the camp, I went to see Vernon Grounds, who was the head of Denver Theological Seminary, which was conservative

Baptist. We got talking and asked for a sign from the

Lord. I'm embarrassed to say it. Should I go to conservative Baptist, or should

I go to Dallas? He said definitely. I had to apply also to Westminster, because an inner varsity representative said there's more

Baptists than Presbyterians up at Westminster, and it's a good place if you want to apply. So all that's to say,

I get to Westminster Theological Seminary. That's the real conversion. I am so ignorant.

I mean, this is the truth. Guys, reformed Baptists and others would say to me, Scipione, you're an

Armenian. And I'd go, nope, I'm an Italian.

I had no idea. There was a good guy there, a reformed

Baptist guy. He told me, hey, you remind me of talkative in Pilgrim's Progress. Being so ignorant,

I didn't even know that was not a compliment. Jack Miller was there,

Jay Adams. Miller had me go out and preach before I was even a Baptist. But it was the doctrines of grace.

So that's the long story short. The doctrines of grace, the sovereignty of God, the absolute sovereignty of God and salvation.

Of course, I was so angry, I couldn't see straight. Who's God to do this?

I started reading my Bible, and I went through a stage, okay, wow,

I'm up a creek without an eternal paddle, because it's up to God to save me. Then I went through another stage of saying, boy, if I go to hell, that's what

I deserve, etc., etc. Eventually, I came down to, how will

I know I'm saved? One day, I think it was the Holy Spirit just said, look, you'll never repent enough.

You'll never believe enough. All these other prayers you've prayed, it's already been done for you.

You came to peace. So it's really the doctrines of grace. I tell people, Chuck Smith used to call them cemeteries.

I said, well, this guy got raised from the dead in a cemetery, so I'm eternally grateful for hearing the doctrines of grace at Westminster in Philadelphia.

Praise God. That's my conversion. And when did it become apparent to you that God was calling you into the ministry?

That's a very good question. First of all,

I have to even double back. I can tell you instances. I can remember playing the trumpet and doing stuff in Boy Scouts.

In school, I was very shy. It's hard for people to believe at this point. I'm such a talker.

But I grew up very shy, and I never would want to be in public and speaking in public. So there was never really a strong sense.

I was at seminary. I got saved. I knew the Lord loved me. And basically,

Jay Adams and others who were there said, you have gifts for ministry. And I go, well,

God hasn't spoken to me, so how do I know? So I did an interesting thing. I was going to the OP Church at that time.

I had become, you know, long story, I'd been Presbyterian at that point, joined the OP. I went up to my pastor, and I said, hey,

Tom, Tom Theismann, I'd like to run for elder. He looks at me.

He said, people don't do things like that. I said, well, it says in 1 Timothy 3, you know, if a man aspires to office of overseer, that's a good thing.

I said, look, if the people that I worship with don't see gifts and abilities, why would

I think that some strange group of people that never met me would want to call me as a pastor? He said, well, it makes a lot of sense.

So I basically, in a sense, I don't want to call a fleece or anything, but I said, providentially, if the people of God think

I've got gifts for the ministry, you know, then I'm called to the ministry. And so I became a ruling elder in that congregation, and only one person objected, and she said, well, he'll probably get a call six months down the line, so I don't know what's the use of calling.

I said, I have no intention to do that. Well, six months later, I got a call to the pastor.

But that's the process in terms of realizing the gifts. And part of my conversion was seeing

J. Adams counsel from the scriptures and seeing people's lives transformed through the power of the

Holy Spirit. And so he mentored me, and he was going to that particular

OP church at that time. So all that kind of came together that basically said, you know, you have gifts.

And Clowney's whole spiel was, at that time, if you have gifts, you have to use them. So that was my sense of the call to the ministry.

And then you obviously realized that you had certain either interests or gifts in the area of counseling, which led you into that field as well, if you could explain that.

Yes, well, that was part of it, like, you know, being mentored by J. Adams. I mean, you know, sitting there halfway into the night going, you know, what am

I supposed to do? What scripture should I go to? I mean, looking back now, I think I was a little bit green to be put into a position of authority like that.

But, you know, God blessed, and over the time, began to pick that up. And I became interested in that because I saw people transform, and I thought, wow, the

Holy Spirit uses the Word. At that time, I was, I'm so old, it was a B .D.,

Bachelor of Divinity. So I stayed on and did a Master's in New Testament. And at the same time,

I went to Temple University and did an M .A. in psychology, because I figured if I'm going to be interacting with this area,

I need to know it. I need to know it even from a secular perspective. So I got my

M .T .H. in New Testament, and I got my M .A. from Temple in counseling.

And so that was a lifelong interest in not only the counseling, per se, but J .J.'s

view of ministry and how you do ministry and how you apply the Word to people's hearts.

And that was the core of the way I was trained, and has always been an interest. When they started

CCF, started the National Association of Methodic Counselors, I was in on the ground floor on that and have been involved in that ever since in terms of the board member.

So it's a lifelong interest. And then, of course, I did teach part -time and then three years full -time in pastoral theology at Westminster, California.

And then I went down to Greenville for a church plant for almost two years and then came up here ten years ago to start the department for the seminary.

They knew here that things were good as far as preaching, but they needed help with counseling.

Praise God. And you used a phrase that some of our listeners might be unfamiliar with, a phrase

I believe that may have been coined by J. Adams, but I'm not certain if he coined it or not, but euthetic counseling.

If you could explain how euthetic counseling and the counseling that you personally subscribe to today and also the ideology of counseling utilized by CCEF, if you could share with us how those views, they might not all be identical to the 21st century,

I'm not sure, but how those views differ from your typical Christian counselor that may either consciously or unconsciously be using more pop psychology and secular ideology than he or his counselees are aware of.

Okay, good. What happened in the mid -60s toward the end,

Jay was being primed and eventually called down to Westminster, Philadelphia to teach at the seminary.

And he began to study areas, preaching and other things that he needed to do, and one of them was counseling.

And at that time, historically, Rogerian, non -directive, non -judgmental counseling held the sway, just as a parental in that.

Rogers went to seminary in New York City in a liberal seminary, and he went for one year internship,

I think a summer internship up in New England, came back, was disaffected with Christianity, gave up Christianity, and went and got a

Ph .D. from Columbia in New York City, and he developed basically what was a consistent application of liberal humanism, which is, man is basically good, it's the environment, non -accepting, harsh environment that holds him back from actualizing himself to his full potential.

So what he needs is a non -judgmental, accepting, reflective kind of environment.

And Rogers did that mostly with college students, I think, in Minnesota or Wisconsin, I forget which one.

But that was what he had developed, and that had come into the church, even the evangelical church, and that was the prevailing view.

And Jay, right or wrong, but he picked euthetic, which is a Greek word, and it's really a transliteration of that.

Eutheteho is the Greek verb, euthetesis is the noun, and he just picked that up and kind of used it as a loan word to say, euthetic counseling is what?

Verbally confronting someone for their good so that they would change.

So he developed that, and CCF, the Christian Counseling Education Foundation, which is literally across the street from Westminster in Philadelphia, out in the suburbs, he founded that with John Bettler and others and developed that whole program.

And in the middle of that they began to say, well, who's capable of doing this?

Well, we've trained people, but we need to test them and certify them. And that became the

National Association of Euthetic Counselors, which is now called ACDC, the

Association of Certified Biblical Counselors. So that's how that developed, and that's what

I was involved with. And it's a street caricature, which is false, is that it's harsh, it's blunt, it beats people over the head.

You know, you've got two weeks to repent. If you don't, we're going to institute church discipline. But a whole complex of things happened.

Jay said you have to be directive. If the scripture is directive, you need to have it in the church, not as an independent medical model.

You need a pastoral model. And church discipline is not punitive, it's restorative. So there's a whole complex of things that kind of go together.

The big boys on the block still are CCF, that foundation that he started 50 years ago.

They just are celebrating their 50th anniversary this year. Praise God. And so Dr.

Adams and CCF and you are basically still all saying the same thing in regard to the ideology of counseling?

Yes, I think there's nuances, and different people have different styles. But basically, you know,

ACBC and CCF are still carrying on that tradition. You know, as things develop, there's different, as I would say, there's emphasis on different syllables.

Basically, it really comes down to, if you want to put it in theological terms, it's a presuppositional, exegetical, biblical approach.

A Vantillian, you know, for people who are into theology, I try not to say that to the

Ligonier types out here, because they get really upset if I mention the word Vantill. I have a good friend who's an evidentialist, and I go,

OK, do you agree that we have to start with exegesis? Yes, OK, fine. And that's as far as we'll go with Vantill.

Forget the apologetics. We'll stick with scripture. We can agree on that. So it's really an exegetically based, sophisticated, hopefully more and more sophisticated application of the word of God to people's life issues.

It's really discipleship. Great. Well, I'm going to give our listeners our email address if you would like to ask a question of Dr.

Scipione on his book, The Battle for the Biblical Family, and any other area involving

Christian counseling, that would be fine as well. Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com

c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com And please, as always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence.

If you live outside the USA, please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter.

And obviously, since we have a biblical counselor on the program that would lend itself to people wanting to ask personal or private questions, so you may feel free to do so.

But please don't be anonymous unless it is a personal or private matter. Well, the book that you have written,

The Battle for the Biblical Family, why don't you tell us what the catalyst was for you to write this book to begin with?

Okay. I'll give you a complete honest answer. I'm God's child and I have to be honest. Someone asked me to write a book.

I had helped someone. It was supposed to be in a series edited by a well -known editor of World Magazine.

I don't know who that is. He was the editor of the general series. I'd helped this person personally and then did premarital counseling and had their respect and they wanted me to write a book.

So I wrote the book and I saw more red ink on the page than I have in blood in my body.

I did everything they asked me to do and they admitted that, but they said they didn't think it would make it into the series.

The reality is I put about six years into this in terms of writing, researching, and everything. I said, man,

I can't waste this. I said, okay, I'm going to impose it on my students for the marriage and family course.

Then I used it as my doctoral project for the Ph .D. program at Whitfield Seminary.

So that's the real story behind the story. The original main research was done in the 90s with a few stuff thrown in later on with all the stuff that's happened since the book was written.

That's the history of the book. Well, I want to read just a few endorsements for this book so our listeners have an idea of who has been applauding it.

First of all, we have James Neuheiser, Director of Counseling at Performed Theological Seminary.

He says, What makes this book unique is its covenantal perspective as it deals comprehensively with what

God's word says about the family. And that, as I said, is

James Neuheiser. And we have Samuel Lang, President of the

China Horizon Professor Emeritus of Systematic Theology at International Theological Seminary.

He says, Scipione lays out the biblical, theological, and cross -cultural foundations for rebuilding the family,

God's way, and gives practical strategies church leaders and families take up and read.

And then we have Jerry O 'Neill, President of Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary where Dr. Scipione serves on the faculty.

Scipione fills his book with personal anecdotes. Reading the book is almost as good as hearing him teach.

And that is the book that we are addressing, The Battle for the Biblical Family, published by our friends at Cross and Covenant Publications who have been very good to Iron Trip and Zion Radio and our listeners.

Well, this book is, as you know, broken up into five major sections.

The Family, Why Bother? The Family, Does God Care? Is the

West Best? Where's the Battle? And What's the

Strategy? If you could begin on The Family, Why Bother? What did you mean by that section of the book?

Well, I've come to realize, and God saves individuals, but the family, when

I got to thinking, when a person asked me to write this book, you've got to think, what's the family? The light goes on while it's on.

Obviously, God started with a family. It's the basic building block of society. It's very hard to have a solid church, and it's certainly hard to change a culture when you have a family all torn up, as we do some places like in the inner city, etc.

So, a family is where God places individuals.

He's concerned about individuals, but he doesn't immediately put people in a church. He doesn't put them into a state.

Those major institutions, the church and the state, flow out of the family, at least historically, because in the beginning, up to Mosaic time, the family was the place where the state, as far as fighting was concerned, and all those kinds of activities.

And worship was always in the family. The family altars. There wasn't any corporate worship, as we understand it, until Israel was called as a nation.

And then in the new covenant, of course, we have the church and the state as institutions that God still endorses, but they flow out of the family.

Of course, the flood was a prime example. God really restarts the whole creation through a family.

So that's why I think the family is so important. And what do you mean specifically?

This may seem like a no -brainer, but I'm sure throughout Christendom you might have different answers to this question.

But what do you mean by the biblical family? The biblical family is what

I guess sociologists might call the nuclear family. The father, the mother, and the children.

And in some cases it would be an extended household with older parents attached to it, or servants and sojourners.

So that is what I think the Bible means by the family. And obviously the next key word in your title, what is this battle about that you're speaking of?

Well, I mean, okay. In our context in 2018, you know, one day after 9 -11, 17 years, there are different views of the family.

There's the biblical view. There's the humanistic, secular view. It can be a mommy and a mommy and a daddy and a daddy, et cetera, et cetera.

Those kinds of things. You know, we have the

Islamic family, which is, what, a guy and maybe up to four wives if you're in Uganda or elsewhere.

You know, that that can be a family unit. So, you know, there's different views.

Certainly if you get into Eastern, Southeastern, Southeastern Asian culture,

Chinese and otherwise, you have an extended family that is the whole kit and caboodle. It's almost like the firstborn son has to burn incest on the altar because you've got all the ancestors that are dependent upon him.

So when you look at those things, there are cultural and religiously different definitions of what the family is.

Well, we are going to our first break right now. If you would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is

Please, as always, give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA, and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Don't go away.

God willing, we'll be back right after these messages with more of Dr. George Sipioni and the battle for the biblical family.

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Hi, Phil Johnson here. I'm executive director of John MacArthur's media ministry, Grace to You, and I'm also an occasional guest on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio.

So I'm delighted that my friend Chris Arnzen and I will be heading down to Atlanta for the

G3 conference, where I'll be joining James White, Steve Lawson, Vodie Baucom, Mark Dever, Conrad Mbewe, Todd Friel, Josh Bice, and a host of other speakers to address the topic,

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So keep praying for a rapid recovery for Mike Gadosh. And we are now back with our interview with Dr.

George C. Scipione, and he is discussing his book The Battle for the Biblical Family.

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com chrisarnson at gmail dot com and please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence.

We have a listener from Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, Gordy, who says, How can we most effectively guide our children in their understanding of and engagement with people who are in the

LGBTQ camp? It's getting harder and harder to remember that acronym.

Sure. It keeps expanding every day. Yeah. I would just simply say that the best way is to put them into the general category of non -believers.

They're people that we need to love and treat with respect, but we can't be friends with the world.

All the stuff that James says, the Epistle of James, and all the other things in the New Testament, where Paul finesses, you know, how do you react with non -believers when they ask you over to dinner?

All those general principles so that hopefully our children come out like Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

You know, when they're young kids and they're ripped off and taken to Babylon U, you know, they respond the right way.

Again, only by the Spirit's power, you know, can that really get down from intellectual, proper intellectual presentation to the kids to to the application of it, you know, in their own hearts and minds.

Of course, for the kids, a lot of it's going to be the same thing that the

New Testament had to do, teach biblical view of sexuality and family in the light of a

Roman Empire. I mean, I waggishly say the good news, bad news. The bad news is we've never been closer to the

Roman Empire than today. The good news is we've never been closer to the Roman Empire than today.

The gospel worked then, it'll work now. Now, it may take some of us to go to jail, it may take some persecution, but the bottom line, you know, those early

Christians had to teach their kids how to be pure in the midst of a utterly corrupt and pagan world.

So, I don't mean to be over -simplistic, but we need to teach those rules to the kids and just say, by the grace of God, you know, everyone has their different sin and, you know, cultures can go even further into sin like Romans 1 says, but we need to teach them.

There's a lot of good stuff. Generally, I like Peter Jones in general, but he's got stuff,

The God of Sex and other things in terms of trying to deal with the whole LGBTQ movement.

So, there's resources there. There's things that our group, ACBC, people in it,

Heath Lambert and Jeremy Pierre and others have written in terms of about homosexuality, the whole approach.

So, again, I know that may be too general for the listener to say, well, that's not specific enough.

There was a whole series in the past by Concordia, the

Lutheran press, and they had graded curriculum from kids in kindergarten on up on sexuality from a biblical perspective.

You know, there are things like that that parents, especially homeschoolers, should be aware of that they can use with their kids to try to teach them those parameters of human sexuality.

Well, thank you, Gordy and Mechanicsburg, and you have won a free copy of the book

The Battle for the Biblical Family by our guest, Dr. George C. Cipioni. Compliments of Crown and Covenant publications, and you can swing by, since you're so close, to Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com.

Since you're so close to them, geographically, they're right on North Hanover Street in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Why don't you swing right over there tomorrow or sometime this week and pick up your copy, which will be waiting there for you, so you can spare them the expense of mailing the book out to you.

And we thank cvbbs .com again, and Todd and Patty Jennings, the owners, for shipping out our winners.

They're free copies of Bibles and books that they win by sending in questions to our guests on this program.

You said something that I wanted you to clarify a bit. You were talking about the fact that we cannot be friends of the world, and of course, that can mean different things to different people.

Obviously, Jesus was a friend and is a friend of sinners. Jesus ate with prostitutes and tax collectors, and from my understanding of the

New Testament, the only ones that we are not to be seen eating with, especially in public, are those that profess to be our brothers and sisters in Christ who have fallen into egregious, perhaps scandalous, sin, and they are unrepentant over those sins.

But as far as your neighbor, who's an atheist and agnostic, a member of a false religion, aren't we to befriend people like that so that we can cultivate relationships with them and be better ambassadors for Christ to them, bringing them the

Gospel, as well as being just good neighbors and friends and loving representatives of God in their lives?

Yes. But I think, I'm not trying to disagree with you, I agree wholeheartedly. However, I think his question was about children.

So, again, I don't want to get into another issue in terms of education, but, you know, yes, we should be salt and light in all kinds of public venues.

That can even include public schools. I personally think that education is something that God wants done in the family, and they should control it, not the state.

That's another issue that's addressed in the book. Yes, being friends is one thing, but becoming,

I'm thinking in the James sense, we're not to become friends with the world where we get our perks, where we get our joys.

You know, we can be kind to people, we can feed them, we can visit them when they're in the hospital, you know, if they're dying of AIDS, we can still try to minister to them if they're willing to.

So, I'm not saying we should be enemies, but the issue of kids becoming friends with non -believers,

I'm not sure our kids really are meant to be evangelists, especially when they're down on the primary school level, because they can't tell the difference between a nice gay teacher and a sort of feisty straight teacher.

They don't understand. I don't want to complicate things, but there's an issue of age.

Our teenage kids, you know, befriending people, you know, they've got to be real careful before they're befriending somebody who is sexting, you know, over the internet.

It's those kinds of things. Does that make sense? Yes. There's wisdom in terms of what are you doing?

Are you doing it because you want to be liked, or are you really ministering to somebody that's hurting?

And I don't know. That depends on the child, too. Are they really committed to Christ, and do they really have the discernment?

Some kids, we have five, one in particular, that one would fight anybody.

If you're opinionated like that, you don't have to worry about that person rolling over. I got one other child that, you know, they're a follower, you know, and you don't want them listening to other people.

So it takes discernment. So I don't want to say, you know, eating with friends, we should have friends over, next -door neighbors, we should have them over, even if they're gay and lesbian.

We need to show them we're not afraid of them, that we still think they're image -bearers of God, but it can't be on their basis.

It has to be on the basis that we dictate, not everything, but we dictate that we're going to treat them as image -bearers of God, people to be loved, not people who are there to affirm us and be our friends and make us feel good.

Yeah, you just jolted in my memory here the connection between the

Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary and someone who I'm about to mention, Rosaria Butterfield, whose husband,

Pastor Kent Butterfield, is a graduate of Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and he is actually a covenantor or a member of the

RPCNA denomination, a pastor in that denomination. And Rosaria, for those of our listeners who don't know who that is, and if you don't,

I strongly urge you to go up to the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio archive, ironsharpensironradio .com,

and if you type in the name Butterfield into the search engine of the

Past Shows Podcasts section, where the recordings are archived, you will see several interviews come up that I urge you to listen to.

But she was a lesbian. She was not only a lesbian, but she was a very leftist, a very strongly leftist, tenured professor,

I believe it was Syracuse University. Yes, and she taught gay and queer studies. Yeah, and she was led to Christ by the neighborly friendship of a man that she thought that she was going to hate, had something to do with a conversation sparked by a newspaper article, and I believe it was the pastor that wrote a newspaper article, and Rosaria was responding to it.

And this pastor and his wife bombed Rosaria Butterfield with love, invited her over their home, and her original name,

I believe, was Rosaria Champagne, if I'm not mistaken, her maiden name.

And she was led to Christ by this family through their love and through inviting her over their home to dine with them, and then they eventually, when she got saved, they introduced her to Kent Butterfield, and they got married after her salvation.

And, of course, repentance from the whole lesbian and left -wing agenda.

But that is a remarkable example of a godly friendship extended towards a very lost individual.

She has three books that I know of. Yes. Crown and Covenant did two of them. The original one,

Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert, and then Further Thoughts, and then I think

Crossway did the last one, which was called The Gospel Comes with a House Key.

Yes, I'm looking right at it right now. And that's her story of how they do hospitality.

Right. Well, there you have a very, very happy ending, to put it mildly, in regard to someone being brought from darkness into light for eternity through a friendship.

And so, in regards to Christian parents who have children, when do you think that, parentally, those children should be given permission to have friends that are lost?

I mean, obviously, the Bible doesn't give age numbers for a lot of things. It's not that detailed a blueprint.

But I'm assuming from what you said that you would not want your little children spending a lot of time with the children of lost neighbors, then, until they are of an older age.

And is there an older age, or do you determine that by the behavior of your own child, or children? I think it's individual.

You know, where you are, if the kids have made a confession, faith, you know, that they, you know, in your context, would then be baptized.

I mean, the bottom line is, when that child evidences a love for Christ, you assume that they have the

Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit can guide them. You wouldn't just say, okay, you've got carte blanche. Everything's okay for you.

Because, again, there's individual differences. Some children are followers. Some are leaders.

And you don't want your kids who are followers being influenced by others. I would just simply say, anything overnight, especially with the sexual stuff that goes on, you would want the kids overnight at your place, not somewhere else.

Because you, especially the younger ones, you want to be able to monitor, you know, what's going on.

Oh, so you wouldn't mind, or you wouldn't disapprove of a Christian family with young children having the neighbor's children, who are the lost children of lost parents, over the home to, you know, spend a sleepover with your children.

A sleepover's a little different. I mean, I'd want to know these kids real well. I mean, my M .O.

would be, I'd want them to invite them to church. Take them to church. Expose them that way, and as they know the family.

Now, you know, if you've got two, let's say you've got two lesbians or two gay people next door who have adopted a kid, you don't want your kids over there, you know, living in that environment.

Now having the kid over at your place, that becomes an individual call in terms of wisdom, in terms of how you want to handle that.

You know, so, in most situations, I think, you probably wouldn't get the kids coming over unless, you know, those gay couples thought that you approved of what they're doing.

You know, if you had had a long -term friendship with them and they knew that you really did care about them even though you totally disagreed with their lifestyle, that might be different.

I mean, that would be very different in terms of the individuals and how they're responding. But I, you know,

I'm not sure that sleepovers are good for young kids anyway. Just, you want to be really careful what your kids are exposed to.

But I would simply say, if you make a choice to do that, it's better on your turf than somewhere else that you can't control.

Well, we have to go to our midway break right now. The midway break on Iron Trip and Zion Radio is longer than the other breaks because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

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Iron Trip and Zion Radio to Lake City, Florida. So please be patient with us as we take this longer than normal break and ask you to use this time wisely by writing down questions for Dr.

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S's in the middle. I hope to hear from you soon. God bless you. Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor, frequent co -host with Chris Arnson on Iron Shepard's Iron Radio.

I would like to introduce you to my good friends Todd and Patty Jennings at CVBBS, which stands for Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.

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And please always remember to mention Iron Shepard's Iron Radio. Then I need to announce a couple of things that are going on in the community that I hope that you can join me in attending.

The first is coming up right around the corner. November 9th and the 10th. That's the

QuakerTown Conference on Reform Theology. This year the theme is The Glory of the

Cross, and speakers include David Garner, Ray Ortland, Richard Phillips, Timothy Gibson, and Carlton Wynn.

That's being held November 9th and the 10th at the Grace Bible Fellowship Church in QuakerTown, Pennsylvania. To register, go to AllianceNet .org.

That's the website for the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. Then coming up in January, January 17th, which is a

Thursday, through the 19th, which is a Saturday, the G3 Conference returns to the

Georgia International Convention Center in College Park, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta. The theme in January is

The Mission of God, A Biblical Understanding of Missions. I will be there as well. Manning and Iron Sharpens Iron Exhibitor's Booth, God willing.

I hope that you join me there. This is an exciting conference. They're expecting between 4 ,000 and 5 ,000 people to be present.

Perhaps if the folks at Crown and Covenant Publishing, Crown and Covenant Publications, if they're listening, perhaps they will get a bug in their ear to man their own book table there or their own exhibitor's booth there at the

G3 Conference. It will be well worth anyone's while with 4 ,000 or 5 ,000 people there to register for an exhibitor's booth in addition to attending.

For our Spanish and bilingual friends, the G3 Conference is having an exclusively

Spanish -speaking edition of the conference on Wednesday, the 16th of January.

But for the English conference, the English -speaking conference, that includes such illustrious names as Dr.

James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, John Piper, Stephen J. Lawson, Voti Baucom, Mark Dever, Conrad Mbewe, who is my favorite preacher on the planet

Earth alive today. He is the pastor of Kabwata Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia, Africa, and chancellor at African Christian University.

He will be there. Tim Challies, Phil Johnson, the executive director of John MacArthur's ministry, grace to you,

Josh Bice, the founder of the G3 Conference, Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Wretched Radio, Stephen J.

Nichols, the president of Reformation Bible College, the Bible College founded by the late

Dr. R .C. Sproul and Ligonier Ministries, and many more are on that speaking roster.

If you'd like to register, go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com. Last but not least, if you love

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chrisorensen at gmail .com, and please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside the

USA, and please only remain anonymous if you have a personal and private question. We are discussing the battle for the biblical family with Dr.

George C. Sipioni today. And Dr. Sipioni, we do have a question from Bobby in Hartsdale, New York.

And Bobby in Hartsdale, New York, says, I understand that many advocates of nuthetic counseling frown upon using medication for one's mental problems.

Are you in agreement with this? Is there any time where medication is appropriate, in your opinion?

If you could please expand upon this. You have two hours?

Not anymore. We did it in the beginning. This is not an easy thing.

First of all, God has created us body and soul, and it's a unit.

And so the one really does affect the other. But biblically, our anthropology has to say that we're heart -driven.

Now, there are things that profoundly affect the body. My mom died of Alzheimer's.

My dad died of cancer. You know, those things, if we can treat them, we can, okay, and should.

But for good medicine, we don't want to, just generally speaking, you don't want to treat just symptoms if you can get to the root cause.

Understood? So if a person has cancer, you can eradicate the cancer.

That's better than giving them palliative treatment so that they die feeling better.

So the issue is, what is mental illness? Again, without going into a long argumentation, the mind, biblically speaking, can't get sick because it's part of the heart.

The brain and the body can be affected, the outer man. So the question is, good medicine would have to say honestly.

We have someone in our family who is on psychotropic drugs. We asked the psychiatrist.

His name was Dr. Funkenstein. With a name like that,

I had to be a psychiatrist. And, you know, a non -believer, a

Jewish guy, but very honest. We would talk with him and say, why do these work? He says, we don't know.

He says, we're doing the best we can. But there's a difference between treating a symptom. So, for example, if a person has a problem with their urethra and it doesn't produce insulin, and we can provide synthetic insulin, that's a case of helping the body to perform better.

If a person is, let's say, bipolar, there's lithium helps that, certain drugs help that, but those are not drugs, or I should say hormones, that the body produces.

So I have a friend, bipolar. He was on lithium, blew out his kidneys. He's on dialysis, doesn't have mood swings anymore.

But, see, in that case, you have to measure the good that you get from the medicine.

So when people say you have a condition, so let me go on and on. If a person's depressed because they have a brain tumor, then we need to diagnose the brain tumor and remove the brain tumor.

If a person has an endocrine problem, thyroid, then we need to diagnose that and try to deal with that.

If a person is depressed, like David was, because he had committed adultery and covered it with murder, then giving him drugs would not help him because what he needed was to repent of what triggered the depression.

I hope that makes sense to the hearer. So I'm a minimalist in terms of when it comes to drugs.

The less, the better. If the drugs are the only way that we can control the situation, fine.

But let's not say we're curing something because that's dishonest medicine. Does that make sense?

Oh, yeah, it makes sense to me. So, you know, this is complicated. Some people go, eh, no drugs.

But, you know, others go, fine, give him the drugs, but that doesn't get at it. If you're dying of cancer, if you have diabetes, if you have, like I do, bilateral pulmonary embolisms, you know,

I've got to try to be responsible to try to reduce the size and the existence of those blood clots.

For me to say, okay, I'm going to trust God to heal them, I could take that approach.

I don't think that's irresponsible. I need to treat a known physical problem that has a physiological cure that way.

If it's a complicated factor, for example, someone has bipolar because there is something wrong with their body, fine, let's give them the drugs, but that's not going to cure.

And certainly it doesn't excuse any sinful behavior, like going off and staying up all night, as I've had people who

I've counseled, they stay up four nights in a row because they're going to write the great American novel. And then they hallucinate walking all over San Diego, you know, thinking their husband's going to eat the kids.

Well, that's an actual case. Well, that person, look, we don't know what triggers that, but you can't lose your sleep.

So for you to stay up four days in a row writing a book is sinful because that's not responsible behavior.

You can't help the fact that your body responds this way. Other people who stay up four days might hallucinate but not do strange things.

So I'm sure that doesn't satisfy the listener, but let's not fool ourselves into thinking because we get a label, okay, a label is not the same thing as a disease mechanism.

So I can give you non -Christian psychiatrists and others that will make the same argument. A label is not the same thing as a disease mechanism.

We find out what the disease is and we can actually treat it fine. And now it's, again, a simpler illustration.

If a person has a fever, it is not wrong to give them medicine that will reduce their fever so they're more comfortable.

But it is irresponsible to give them that medicine and saying you're curing the fever.

You're not, you're controlling the fever. You better find out whether they have a bacterial or a viral infection or a fungal infection and go to the cause of the fever as opposed to just treating the symptom.

So when we think in those terms, I think people are much more sensible. So I teach most people in the biblical counseling that I know, if somebody's on drugs, you don't tell them to get off because you're not a medical practitioner.

You tell them, let's handle your life in a biblical manner and it's between you and the doctor to work out whether you do this.

I can give you personal examples from that person in the family that's on psychotropic drugs. Went to a doctor and said, your daughter has

ADD, ADHD, and you need to put her on Ritalin.

And I said, if I don't, am I a bad parent? Well, I didn't say you're a bad parent.

I said, by the way, can you run a test to prove that my daughter has this condition?

Doctor got all upset, but the doctor wasn't honest because there's no clinical test known to man at this point that can say, after this lab test, this kid has

ADHD. It's behaviorally defined. So there's a lot of sloppy medicine going on, and I have to say there's a lot of sloppy biblical counseling as well.

Take this verse with prayer and everything will be okay. No, no, no. Life is much more complicated than that.

But let's be fair that medicine, as I tease my

Christian doctor friends, why do you guys keep practicing medicine? Why don't you just go do it?

We just go do ministry, you know? And they laugh. They get the point. The point is that the

Bible is 100 % truth. Science, medical science, is always an admixture of truth and error, and we learn more and more.

They told me 30 years ago, don't eat butter. It'll kill you. Eat margarine.

Now they're saying, don't eat margarine, eat butter. There's less damage. So it's that kind of thing.

So we've got to be careful of worshipping science and medicine. But, you know, if it's a discreet problem, you know, you've got a poor thyroid, take

Siroxin. Again, it's much more complicated. We give actually in our

DEMIN program, we get a medical doctor to come in and give 20 hours on the human body and what pastors need to know about how people respond.

And today with sophisticated medicine, there are all kinds of medical ethics I can't get into now, you know, infertility, how do you handle that?

End -of -life issues, you know, so there's a lot of things with the medicine that biblical counseling and others have to work on.

Yes, and I wholeheartedly agree with you about people, the necessity of people consulting their physicians when it comes to getting off of drugs that they are already on, especially because I know of at least two people that I know personally that attempted suicide when they went off the drugs that they were on.

So there could be dangerous consequences to that kind of thing. Well, if people say, hey, I threw all my meds away,

I immediately say, please sign a letter so if you fall over dead, your family is not going to blame me for that action.

So even if a person shouldn't be on a medicine, they have to be withdrawn under medical care because it can be a very dangerous thing to stop doing drugs.

Right. We have Joey in Clifton, New Jersey. Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention to Bobby in Hartsdale, you've also won a free copy of The Battle for the

Biblical Family by Dr. George C. Cipione. So give us your full mailing address so cvbvs .com

can mail that out to you. Now we have Joey in Clifton, New Jersey who says, Dear Dr.

Cipione, it was very good to meet you and hear your talks at the last two

ACBC conferences. I would like to ask you about a trend that has significant potential implications for the family.

Specifically, it is the relentless attacks against gender complementarianism to the point that traditional biblical interpretation is being challenged even within some

Reformed circles. I am wondering what your view is on this problem.

Related to this, do you think there will be an eventful doctrinal schism among the Reformed over this issue as feminist views gain traction or will it continue to be avoided as many have sought to do?

That's Joey from Clifton, New Jersey. Okay, Joey, nice to meet you. Maybe if you're going to be in Dallas in a couple weeks,

I'll see you there. Yes, I think this is, I gave a talk recently in Japan and I gave it elsewhere in Ohio recently called

The Cult of Gay Christianity. So I think it's becoming clear that biblical exegesis is being replaced by sociological and psychological exegesis that's being read back into the scriptures.

Now again, we have to be gentle and kind. You know, this revoicing thing that just went on out in St.

Louis. He's probably referring to things like that. I think, again, we have to be kind.

I know feminists. Look at Rosaria Butterfield. I know people who were at Westminster Seminary.

One gal, a good personal friend, she came, I think, unconverted because her psychiatrist said some religious education might not hurt her.

She came on a rabid feminist to the Westminster West Campus and she got converted and ended up doing a lot of counseling with people coming off of drugs, kind of taking tough cases.

So, you know, those people need salvation. I'm not saying people who are confused on this.

We have relatives that are going to churches that take and say, you know, we believe you have to be born again.

We still believe the gospel. Jesus is the only way. But, you know, gay couples are okay. Well, you know, this is a real problem.

And then you just have to go back over the same things that the liberals did. Gee, Jesus isn't this sweet, gentle, kind person.

And, you know, Paul the rabbinic, you know, Genghis Khan ruined

Christianity. I mean, that's coming up in these circles, too. So, you know,

Joey, yeah, the feminist and the LGBTQ really come from the same issue, which is bad exegesis.

People get upset with me. I said, one gal out here, you know, comes from a tradition that has women pastors.

She said, you don't like me. I said, no, that's not true. How do you say that? She said, you don't like women pastors.

I said, no, it's not a matter of like. I said, when you prove to me that a woman can be the husband of one wife, know that I'm ready to work for a woman for Elder.

You got 1 Timothy, you know, where Paul argues from creation, fall, and redemption, you know, for male headship.

Now, the flip side is, Joey, we have to also stand against the kind of male chauvinism that's passed for biblical

Christianity in terms of where, you know, shut up, be barefoot, you know, pregnant, you know, in the kitchen kind of thing.

And we see that a lot of abuse cases in the church where elders basically say, you have no biblical grounds for staying away, and the woman goes back and she gets the snot beat out of her.

This is irresponsible pastoring. And so, you know,

I can tell you in reform circles there's big issues of this, you know, when do you tell a woman that she can leave?

What are the grounds for divorce? There are a lot of complicated things involved in all of this, but I do think that we're constantly going to see more and more people saying this.

It started years ago with alcohol. Alcoholism is a disease. The Bible says it's a sin.

It's a disease, and therefore the Bible's understanding of drunkenness doesn't apply to alcoholism because that's a medical, physical disease.

And I actually sat on a plane with the son of a Christian reform pastor who was gay.

We were going somewhere, and I got talking with him. He had just come from Pittsburgh. There's a gay

Christian conference every year. They've had it for 15 years. I said to him, you've got to explain to me.

You guys always used to argue genetics, genetics, genetics. Now sexual identity is a personal psychological construct.

So there are different things going on in terms of the arguments and how we as biblical Christians, the reform

Presbyterians, not in that denomination, but it worked for them. They have statements on sexual identity and et cetera that they've done biblical study and put it out for people to see.

So, yes, more and more this is going to become an issue, and it really is going to be what determines of what is orthodoxy and what's not orthodoxy.

Well, thank you, Joey. You have also won a free copy of The Battle for the Biblical Family. So please make sure we have your full mailing address in Clifton, New Jersey, so that CVBBS .com

can ship that out to you. We're going to our final break right now. It's going to be much more brief than the last one. So please, if you have a question that you'd like to send in, do it now, because we're rapidly running out of time.

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We are now in our last segment of our interview with Dr. George C. Cipioni on his book,

The Battle for the Biblical Family. Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com. We have

Ronald in eastern Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, who asks, Is this battle for the biblical family that you describe in your book not only a battle with outside forces, not only outside of the church, but outside of the home, but even a battle for the biblical family under the roofs of Christian homes who may be either consciously or unconsciously drifting into non -biblical models for family life?

Well, I think it's accurate to say that that happens. I do think,

I try to make a case in the book that the church and the state can step on the family.

The family itself also can become a problem. Again, we homeschooled. My wife ran a homeschool co -op and has done a lot of things and we're very for it, but there have been many cases, many maybe exaggerated, several cases all across the country we've run into where somebody gets into patriarchalism.

They want to go back to Abraham's day where they're prophet, priest, and king in the sense that they have family worship, they have a home church, the kids are homeschooled.

There's no church that's ever good enough for them. I've had to argue with men and with women saying your family need to be members of the church, you have no right to withhold your life from the church because you don't think the church is perfect.

It's your obligation to get her under elders so that the elders can protect from an overzealous follower or an abusive father.

I think the Puritans had it right. There's the family, the church, and the state. They each have their area of expertise and authority, and when the family tries to take over the state or the church's job, or the church tries to take over the family and the state's job, where the state, of course, is the biggest offender, they try to take over the family and the church and make both irrelevant.

Every totalitarian state in history has wanted to do that. So it's a tough balance.

The battle for the biblical family has to be won in the family and the church and the state level.

I think we're foolish for making an overall strategy to ignore any one of those areas.

Thank you, Ronald. You've also won a free copy of The Battle for the Biblical Family. Please make sure we have your full mailing address.

We have B .B. in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who wants to know, what do you think are the primary areas that this battle is being lost by many

Christian families throughout the United States and abroad? Well, I think the battle is being lost because they don't see the issue.

They think as long as we take the kids to church and their secular education is neutral, it's not neutral, that's a large area where people are failing,

I think. People are kind of naive, I think. On the other hand, in the United States, understandably, people are hitting the panic button.

Things are going down. We have to win at all kinds of levels. Again, I'm not saying that Kavanaugh is the answer to everything, or Gorsuch.

I would prefer to see real committed biblical Christians who think biblically on the

Supreme Court. But we lose the battle there, and that's why the progressives are so upset, because they believe they're going to lose the

Court, which has been changed. When the shoe was on the other foot, they could appoint all kinds of liberal judges, gay judges, whatever, and want to change the whole culture.

So I think Christians have to be involved at that level. I think the church needs to help and strengthen the family.

Some churches still, I think, have so many activities they tear the family apart and expect people to be there for witnessing and this, that, and the other thing, where they don't really strengthen the family.

I think one of the key areas, of course, is male leadership, where men have to become servant leaders, where they really are humble, and they really do sacrifice for their wife and children so that they have a

Christ -like model to want to follow. So again, I think there has to be coordinated efforts in terms of, of course, all you can do is what you can do.

I think all of us can work at least on the local family level because we have responsibility and authority there, and we have to get our families together if we're going to help the church and the state.

Well, thank you, B .B. You have also won a free copy of The Battle for the Biblical Family. Please make sure we have your full mailing address.

CJ in Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, wants to know, How much privacy do you think that our children are entitled to, especially in the day and age of the

Internet, when all kinds of horrific, nightmarish consequences have erupted in many circumstances when children are alone with computers?

But it's not just that. It's many other things in life that erupt when children are left unsupervised.

When do we cross the line between being loving, caring guardians of our children to becoming obsessive and obnoxious parents robbing our children of any kind of private life?

I think you've already answered it in the question. That's pretty eloquent.

I think it really comes down to the Psalms. Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain to build it.

Unless the Lord guards the city, all our efforts to save the family or whatever won't do anything unless the

Holy Spirit creates a revival in the family and in the church and then eventually in the state.

The Supreme Court's not going to save the United States. The bottom line is, we desperately need a revival that leads to a reformation, a third great awakening, or I think the country is going to be lost.

Of course, the problem is, if you run from here, where do you go? At least when the

European Christians wanted to get freedom, they came to the New World. Unless anybody wants to go up to Baffin Bay or to Antarctica, there's not many places people could run to set up a more favorable situation.

We desperately need to pray for God's reviving grace. I think, to be honest, kids don't need access.

I don't know why they have to have cell phones and the like. Parents ought to monitor what's going on on the computer.

This whole obsession with gadgets is just a whole different issue.

For example, when I was a kid, if you wanted to, you had to go sneak out of the house and go get pornography and sneak.

That's three clicks away now. We have to be even more diligent. I would simply say, whether the people think we're being overly cautious, that doesn't mean we have to be mean or nasty or always suspicious of our kids.

But it starts young. You have to have your child's heart, or no matter what you do, you're not going to be able to get through to them because God's got to change the heart.

In Ted Tripp's book, Shepherd and Child's Heart, you have to really think in terms of trying to reach the heart and have a relationship with a child that wants to be mentored.

I think that's, for kids in the Christian home, they have to buy into this.

I need the grace of God, and part of the grace of God is listening to my parents.

The church ought to help people to be able to minister to their kids that way, but I just don't understand why people allow their kids free access to the

Internet. Why? Until the child shows that he or she has a real proclivity for the things of the

Lord and loves the Lord, they shouldn't have the freedom to have that kind of access because they do not show that he or she does not show the wisdom to be able to handle these dangerous things.

We have a hard enough time with 30, 40, 50 -year -old guys handling the

Internet. Of course, there are things that parents can have software that prevents children from searching the pornographic and other types of sites.

The problem is that kids today are getting so savvy that they're finding ways around it.

Well, I know that kids today, a lot younger than me, that are probably not even teenagers, some of them, perhaps many of them, can use a computer more effectively and sufficiently than I can.

Sure. But that becomes, again, you have to know the individual child and you just need to say, no, you can't have that extra dessert.

No, you can't have that. This is not good for you. I know you're going to be upset with me. Well, my friends,

I would have kids say that to me. Well, Pastor Wagner's kids don't do that.

Well, look, you're not a Wagner. You're a Scipione. If you want to apply for being a Wagner and they're willing to put you through college, that's okay with me.

If you want to go over there and become a Wagner. But in our household, these are the rules that we're going to follow because the kids would always do that.

Oh, they don't do this, or they do this on the Lord's Day, or they do that. Well, that's not the way we do things here.

So you always have that balance, and it's difficult with kids. But I do think you don't want to be oppressive or mean.

Always be tender and gentle. But you do have to remember you're the parent, and you're going to have to answer to God for how you deal with your kids.

Well, I'd like you now to have five or six uninterrupted minutes to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners in regard to the battle for the biblical family.

I think, one, the battle is the Lord's. I think they need to remember that all the legislation in the world and all the proper people on courts or whatever, all these things are important.

But ultimately, unless the Lord builds the house, we're going to labor in vain. And so you've got to spend time in prayer, maybe even fasting.

We have to seek the Lord's face, and we have to be faithful to the Lord, whether the kids like it or not, so that we have to really set our goal of getting our kids in a good church, in a good school situation, and giving it the best shot that we can to get these kids raised to be

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and Daniel, as opposed to kids that are sneaking around and trying to undermine whatever

Christian input that the parents give to them. So the main thing is that the battle is the Lord. The second thing is that I think that churches ought to encourage parents, and parents need to sit down and really think through, where are the kids going to be educated?

When you give your kids over to somebody else for eight hours a day, they're going to start taking in those values,

Christian or non -Christian. So we really need to think about how we're going to educate those kids, and we need to also have churches that really give parents catechetical material and means to raise kids, how to discipline kids.

There are all kinds of books. Bruce Ray's book, Withhold Not Correction.

You've got Ted Tripp's book. You've got other things. But give them the good materials, and that the church ought to be there to support parents.

And when they get to be older, I think churches ought to sit down and think about, hey, what can we do to encourage a sort of a semi -courtship model?

Maybe no absolute ban on dating, but the bottom line is kids shouldn't be left to themselves.

How are we going to create an environment where our kids can go away on missions trips and they can be involved in ministry and pick spouses from their experience by seeing people who are actually willing to serve and making the choices there as opposed to some kind of false dating kind of situation where people are just kind of going out in a false kind of situation where they see the best foot forward and they don't see the person under pressure or in ministry.

So there's all kinds of things to think of what we can do for our kids.

And of course the best thing, I really should have maybe put that second, is we have to have good marriages so our kids can see how loving leadership, sacrificial leadership, leads to a joy in submission instead of fear and, oh, this is horrible, it's oppressive.

So those are some of the main things I'd like them to go away. And then there are those who are going to be in academics, that are going to be in medicine, that are going to be in law, that are going to run.

I still think Christians ought to be involved in politics as dirty as it can be to speak into the culture.

So I would just simply say being involved in this battle on whatever level you can, personal, church -wise, and also legislatively.

Great. Well, we do have time for a couple more questions. Let's see here. We have

Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who says, I see from the Crown and Covenant Publications website that Dr.

J. Adams wrote the foreword to your book. I was wondering if you agree with Dr. Adams about the controversial subject of forgiveness.

From what my understanding is, from his book From Forgiven to Forgiving, Dr.

Adams believes that forgiveness is only to be extended towards people who ask for it and are repentant.

It is not something that is just willy -nilly to be declared upon people who have no interest in repenting and do not even believe they are guilty of anything.

I think he's right. The short answer is I think he is right, because his premise is that's

God's forgiveness, and our forgiveness needs to be modeled on his. Whereas MacArthur and others say you have to forgive, and reconciliation is dependent on whether the person is repentant or not.

But God never, that I understand the scripture, God never forgives people that are not repentant.

Right. And I actually agree with that. I've read that book. It's an excellent book. And people, I think, on that issue, they misunderstand terms.

They think that if you are saying what Dr. Adams is saying, which we believe is what the

Bible is saying, that you're saying that we are supposed to be bitter and hateful, and we're always supposed to be waiting with open arms to forgive, aren't we?

Exactly. In other words, the point is, the free offer of the gospel comes from God to every person.

We know it only comes ultimately effectual in the elect. Since we're not

God, we offer forgiveness to everyone, and we need to be ready to forgive genuinely.

We want that person, for God's glory and the good of the person, to be repentant. So it's not a bitterness.

That's more of a psychological. If you don't forgive them, you're going to end up being bitter. But that's not what Adams is saying at all.

Amen. And we are always to be praying for and demonstrating love for those who are,

I mean, even our enemies. So that is not being ignored by not extending forgiveness.

No, we're to gently plead with them. You know, I'm willing to forgive you because God's willing to forgive you, but you need to get right with God.

I always tell people in my counseling, look, if somebody's sinned against you, you're number two or four, depending whether you want to give

God first place, which he gets, or the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, then you're number four. You know, get behind God, because if the person doesn't get right with God, they're not going to get right with you.

And I think that has a lot of connection to your subject of the biblical family, because don't parents have an obligation to even ask for the forgiveness of their own children if they realize that they were sinful in the way that they punished their children, or the way that they lost their temper with their children, or in other ways?

They have to humble themselves, even to a little child, and ask for forgiveness. Of course. Of course.

You know, because we have authority doesn't mean we're immune from criticism or repenting.

God is the only one who doesn't abuse his authority. Yeah, that's one of the fondest memories

I have of my father, who passed away in 1988, as stubborn as he could be.

He was a man that, when he lost control of his temper in some way, he was not a violent man, but if he yelled and used vulgarity or profanity in his yelling, or did something else that he realized after he calmed down was wrong,

I can remember him on a number of occasions asking for my forgiveness, which is something that I will forever remember about him.

Well, I want to make sure that our listeners know about how to get a hold of you.

First of all, the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary's website is rpts .edu,

correct? Yes. And if you want to get a hold of the book, The Battle for the

Biblical Family, you can go to cvbbs .com, it's Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, and make sure you look for the book,

The Battle for the Biblical Family, published by Crown and Covenant Publications and written by George C.

Scipione. Do you have any other contact information that you care to give? Well, if people have a particular question, they can get a hold of me at gcipione, all lowercase g -s -c -i -p -i -o -n -e, dot rpts, actually, at rpts .edu.

Well, I want to thank you so much, brother, for being on the show today. I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who wrote in questions.

I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.