More Christian than Black or White | Rapp Report Weekly 0006 | Andrew Rappaport | SFE | Striving for Eternity

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more christian then black that is a recent article by isaac adams from nine marks ministry and we're going to talk about that here today on the rap report welcome to the rap with andrew rapaport we provide biblical interpretations and applications this is a ministry of striving for eternity more content request a speaker or seminar for your church go to strivingforeternity .org

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welcome to another weekly edition of the rap report and today is going to be a little bit different than typical usually i'm on here talking with either a topic or with uh...

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the bible discussing different scriptures but this is going to be different because we have a well unfortunately a little bit of a heated issue so we have a special guest with us and he and i are going to go through this article that i mentioned earlier that more christian than black or white by isaac adams and this was put out by nine marks ministry and i have with me darryl harrison from just thinking podcast and darryl how you doing this evening and introduce yourself to my audience please hey andrew first of all thanks for having me on uh...

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doing really well uh... just off of a fresh treadmill workout man so i'm ready to go and talk about this article with you and uh...

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as you said man i'm a co -host uh... lead host of the just thinking podcast which is an extension of my blog which you can locate at just thinking dot me that's justthinking .me

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and the podcast i co -host with my brother in crime virgil walker and uh...

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virgil and i got together by i think a common friend of ours uh... dwayne atkinson who i believe you know uh...

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fairly well so we've been doing the podcast for a few months now and uh... it's going really really well so again it's a pleasure to be with you this evening well you you recently and i'm going to end up linking your podcast that you guys did on just thinking in the show notes here but you guys were dealing with some issues after the uh...

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MLK50 conference uh... fortunately for me my head was in the sand planning and wedding planning for my daughter and i didn't even know any of that happened till after after the event and everyone started sending me articles and things saying have you seen this have you read this uh...

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and the same thing happened again today a friend of a friend of mine i think the same person justin peters sent the same article to you but justin sent this article to me asking if i had read this and i had not i knew that you and i were recording tonight and was like wow okay this will this will be the thing we should we almost need to talk about so let's let's start off really quick uh...

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i will give my background let you give your background because i think our backgrounds will play into this i am what would be considered white and i'm really white like the i turn red when it's the sun is out right i i have a black and melanin uh...

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i'm from a jewish background and so i'm going to approach this very different coming from as someone who grew up a generation after the holocaust from in an anti -semitic area uh...

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i've been beaten up often because of my ethnicity so this is a thing that just because i may not be black or african -american doesn't mean i don't understand what it means to struggle as a minority you can also find when people ask me that i'm or you a messianic jew you completed you no i'm a christian that's what i am i'm a christian because i believe in jesus christ it's not that i gave up completely my judaism but i don't identify myself by my judaism i identify myself as a christian and i value the things of my jewish upbringing but i was seen as a traitor by my family my family as some know uh...

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when i became a christian my father went shopping for a casket he was going to bury an empty casket and i was going to be dead to him that's how serious it was i have family members that would i would not be able to speak to uh...

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about this i was told i would because certain things have been my family my parents did not bury that casket i am seen as a traitor to the faith to anyone that's jewish and and you i have seen where people will find out that i was once jewish and now christian and they will just walk away mid -sentence on me why because there is such hatred for someone like me i'm worse than a gentile for many jewish people that's my background and i grew up after the holocaust remembering very much what we're taught about the holocaust so that we would never let it happen again and i'm gonna say that as i did with the the episode we did in the past on guns and christianity or guns in the church i think that christians are playing to a playbook that is re going to rewrite history or re -encounter history again with what happened with nazi germany but it's not going to be the jews and it's not going to be germany it's going to be the christians in america and we're falling right into it that's going to be my position daryl what's your background yeah well my background i grew up in the 70s i grew up in atlanta on the west side of the city and probably what is still today one of the most impoverished areas of the city you know you can call it a ghetto you can call the inner city hood or whatever you want to call it but we grew up materially poor i mean there were many nights where we went hungry my parents worked very very hard to try to make ends meet but i can remember growing up as a boy you know some of the utilities not being on all the time the electricity would be out because you know my parents couldn't pay the bill or the gas would be turned off and you know we never lived in a house so when i say that what i mean is every address i remember ever living it had an apartment number so we never had a home of our own you know most of my life we grew up in public housing uh at times we would we would have to fend off of welfare and eat uh public food my mom would bring she worked for years at a public high school cafeteria and sometimes she would bring what many might call government food home for us to eat so if it weren't for that we may not have had anything to eat uh on some nights um so i didn't have the most opportunistic upbringing as it relates to opportunities and advantages what uh many might call by the buzzword today privileged i didn't have many privileges growing up but the thing about it is this may sound sort of cliche to folks i never uh saw myself as disadvantaged i really didn't i never saw myself disadvantaged not a single day of my life to be honest with you i only say that i grew up poor in hindsight because growing up actually in that uh in that uh experience never heard the word poor mentioned in my house never by my family we were never poor uh so we never were uh identified uh by our what many would call race and you know are already into how i feel about that word but i'll go ahead and use it for the sake of this uh interview but uh the the the descriptive by race never came up uh and i grew up i went to a predominantly white junior high school end up transferring to a predominantly black high school but for my junior high years i went to a predominantly white junior high school um after graduating high school i went to military where i did six years there and had very uh multicultural relationships uh in the military uh i grew up in what would be termed the black church quote unquote spent half my life as members of predominantly black congregation churches and then uh half my life in predominantly white congregation churches so i'm experienced on both sides of that sort of ecclesiastical uh uh you know background you might say but uh you know here where we stand today uh i just think uh you know looking back on my own upbringing and my own introduction to christianity which i credit with my mother uh my mother wore the spiritual pants in the family so she was the one that always made sure that my brother and sister and i were at church every sunday so you know you grew up in a if you were black growing up in the hood you probably attended a what may be called a pentecostal holiness type full gospel type church where the worship experience was very emotional very loud um very heavy on homiletics but very light on hermeneutics so you you didn't grow up uh you grew up reading the bible but you didn't grow up learning how to study it you read because you were supposed to read it uh you didn't read it because you wanted to read it um so then i learned that there's a distinct difference in that so uh so growing up in that experience i can still lean on that today to where uh you know i can relate to both sides so if someone wants to come and talk to me from the perspective of what it's like for a black person to attend a predominantly white church i can speak to that but if you want to talk about the quote -unquote black church experience i can speak to that as well um so you know i'm excited to talk about what we're gonna chew over in this uh interview uh because i think i can bring both experiences to the uh the question that isaac adams is raising in his uh mark's piece yeah and you know i was going to get to as we go throughout but that you you just raised one of the key issues is i think the big struggle is a lot of people view this from their own position and very few people can do what you just said be able to try to examine it from both sides most people view the other side but they're really viewing it from their own position yeah yeah and that's true that's very true so you can see that's what's so problematic in having conversations like this is that when you're coming from your own personal experience is intrinsically subjective even my experience is subjective which is why i have difficulty personally i don't know isaac adams i've read his material before he's an excellent writer very talented writer i don't know him personally but when you're coming from your own personal experiences and you're addressing a a certain question or issue to a certain demographic you're imparting your experience into the question that you're posing and that's problematic from the start uh for me i spent 20 something years as a member of a predominantly white church i was a member of first baptist church of atlanta for 23 years the experience there was different so you're not going to have as i said earlier uh dr charles stanley who's still the pastor there is a he's got more of a teaching style so his homiletical style is going to be completely different from what you will find in an inner city black church uh his homiletical style is not going to be attractive to many black christians uh and they'll decide either on that basis or maybe another aesthetical basis well i don't like the music i'm a gospel i like gospel music i don't like hymns i like somebody who is engaging from the pulpit i don't want somebody there who's more like a teacher you know so it's things like that but it was it was in those 23 years i learned how to i sort of graduated i like to say from just a reader of the bible to a student of it now stanley and first baptist atlanta they're not reformed you know they probably got more of an armenian soteriology but that's not the point the point is is i i stayed at that church for longer than i stayed at any other church because i was learning something there i left the black church that had been in my family for generations a small black church on north side drive near the mercedes -benz stadium in atlanta a little church called chapel hill missionary baptist church i was there until i was 23 years old and i left just all of a sudden because it just hit me as an epiphany that i'm not learning anything here i've got family members here i've got cousins and nieces and everything here my parents are here my siblings are here everybody i know who are close to me attend this church but there was something in me to where that wasn't enough and i ended up leaving ended up going to first baptist atlanta ended up staying there for 23 years and uh you know so so there's there's dynamics to play that come into play in each individual's experience and it's it's it's you know we really need to be hesitant to impart those experiences onto others either in the sense that they haven't experienced that so we count that as a deficiency in them or we use it as leverage to get them to see the world as we do because that's very very dangerous thing to do and you know one of the things for folks who listened to the episode i did you know with when you know we we discussed some of the differences with the black church and and as you brought out the the differences in the the way the worship the whole service is done on the last podcast that you guys did you dealt with the issue of language of racism the sin of of you know being a sin of proxy the thing that got me with this article so i'm going to read some some quotes so we could go through this but and i and i don't think that we will get through this whole article today i do know that a friend of mine tom buck has asked if he can discuss this as well so i may actually do two weekly podcasts this week and maybe through two of them we can cover the whole thing but but here let me read some of this he said he says brothers and and by the way just so for folks who don't know the author of this article isaac adams is an african -american he says that right in the front because he says i write to my white brothers who pastor churches in america i write as a black brother but he says this he says brothers i want to suggest that since our christian identity matters most our racial identity and other people's racial identities ought to matter more not less he says further since your christian identity matters most you should lay down the status your racial identity gives you for the sake of the gospel um you know one of the things because he ends up saying that's what paul did and i disagree that's not what paul did right i disagree as well yeah paul never gave up his roman citizenship he didn't give up his his jewish background but what he did is he didn't identify as that right um that's the thing i you know look i guess i should should say this i i briefly said it but i know that there's many who are going to listen and coming from someone who's white it's going to immediately get people upset they're going to be thinking that as a white person i shouldn't be be speaking on these things i shouldn't uh that my opinion may not matter i understand that for many people this is an emotional topic what i want to do is i would like us to get past the emotion and get us thinking because if we don't think rightly i mean according to the way god's word says about these issues we are never going to get past the emotion we need to think right about it do you agree with that there yeah i agree with you completely on that and i think uh you know there are two things there's two presumptions here two problematic presumptions that that i see adams uh making in this article in the paragraph specifically that you read um you know number one uh he he's saying that our racial identities ought to matter more not less and uh that's what that's what paul did that he laid down his racial identity uh and you're absolutely right about paul paul never did that uh but what's problematic for me in the the thesis that adams is presenting here is that he's presuming that the white pastors that he's addressing this this this letter this article to have no affinity whatsoever to the racial animus that isaac is is pointing to in this piece uh he's he's he's addressed a letter to white pastors he says as a black brother brother i write with two things i love you in christ a sincere question then he goes on to ask the question what's more important our christian identity or our racial identity i want to get back to that in a second i think that's a trick question i think that's the wrong question to be asking but to posit this argument in a way that you just sort of paint with a broad brush that because these pastors are white that you have to educate you're already assuming that they know absolutely nothing of the the paradigm that from which you're coming and making this argument so you're having to educate them using incorrectly using paul as an as an incorrect example of what they these white pastors in your subjective opinion ought to do you see and that's that that is significantly problematic uh for me that you're you're presupposing that these white pastors know nothing about this but but you're the one to educate them and and and and modeling paul as the example of uh laying down their privilege which they are afforded by virtue of their racial identity and there's another problem that i have with you're assuming that because they're white they're privileged and to go back to your point andrew about the podcast that we just did where the first thing we said off the bat was that what's not happening in all this discourse going back and forth is that nobody's defining the terms so you have a term here like privilege what what does he mean by that you see nobody's defining what privilege means you know so unless you define the terms to me it's a non -starter we have to define terms otherwise the context in which we're going to have this conversation is going to be non -existent and if there's no agreement in context there's no there's going to be no progress made whatsoever so he's presuming that because they're white they're privileged and then he's again wrongly using paul as an example that to point to the solution that that that adams thinks these these uh these pastors should adopt so i've got i got big problems with this well i'll tell you where i see a concern with that with what you're bringing up right there i have a real concern with this notion of privilege white privilege and even more so what's scarier is christian privilege yeah i said i come from a generation after the holocaust i i've had to in hebrew school in 10 11 years of school we watched every documentary on the holocaust i still to this day will read and anything on the holocaust here's the thing this is exactly what the nazis did to the jews is to say that they were privileged and then use the privilege to start saying they they shouldn't have a voice in this in teaching schools they shouldn't have a voice in in in the law they shouldn't have a voice these things have to be prevented and then eventually they were able to to when they no longer had a voice there was no one there that would defend them there's no one there that could say anything yeah yeah yeah that's absolutely right i mean i've not watched nearly as many and i know not nearly as much as you do uh about the uh the holocaust uh andrew but again it's to your point it's really it's really interesting if not concerning how when you go back to how subtly the nazis took power it was very subtle uh they presented themselves as friends of the german people which which is is which is the whole approach that was the whole idea to come across and disguise and mask what their true intentions were and i see the church specifically succumbing to that same sort of subtlety well see here's the thing that ended up happening with the jews is that when the when the germans started laying out their very well organized plan in in because you don't have across an entire country like a night of the long nights without planning i'm sorry you know yeah and you end up seeing this over and over again that these things will be planned out and then something triggers it and everything gets moved starts rolling into place so you end up seeing this that they were ready taking the subtle steps to get them out of positions where they could defend themselves in any way and they used them they used the the culture against them where what ended up happening was the jewish people started trying to to get along and give up some of their rights some of the things to just to get along because hey better that we're we're at least not being attacked right and they didn't realize it all along it was eventual going to be they're going to be attacked right this is exactly what we have we have we're talking about this privilege whether it be white and now being talked about christian privilege and eventually you're going to see if people you already see with bernie sanders saying well because someone's a christian they they can't hold public office if people don't see this and see this as a very serious thing and the problem is we have people in the church going hey let's let's give into this let's give into this this is where my real concern is and because as i look at this i see exactly what the jews did you know the jews were gathered up and thrown into the ghettos and they they what boggles my mind is people would still sit there and say oh but they wouldn't be killing us because they need us we're the workforce we were the slaves right and and it's like we're too civilized for people to be doing that and they were doing it right people just turned a blind eye because they couldn't believe a civilized country could do something like germany was doing and we're doing it and and my call is to the church to say wake up realize that we we should not be repeating history in this way and and trying to divide the church as we do and now i really think that we're in a serious stage in the american church where we are trying to now divide the church based on color yeah and the church i mean the church is already divided they're not even trying to divide us anymore we are divided and that division is even made is made even more sad because we're caught the church is cooperating in that division yeah listen every time listen this is not a personal attack against isaac adams correct what i'm about to say i speak in general terms is that when articles like this come out they're intrinsically divisive because the premise right off the bat you're you're addressing your article to one ethnic audience up against another ethnic audience so that's intrinsically divisive right there now you you may say well i come to you brothers my white pastors in love i love you uh in christ you may say that but you started the conversation off with a divisive tone and see here's what there's many things that disturb me about this what i call this sort of this sort of kumbaya movement that that sort of has the church thinking well we all need to get along it's not like rodney came back and we're all supposed to live in this sort of nirvanic state of uh ethnic unity you know as if we don't know what the scriptures say we just have forgotten what the scriptures say and we're trying to bring about our own uh sort of extra propitiatory uh salvation what i mean by that christ's work his propitiatory work on the cross is insufficient so we have to uh atone maybe sort of foster our own atonement at the socio -cultural level because this is really why christ died so we could all get along and that's not why christ died you know i'm looking at the text right now in revelation 22 verse 11 it says let the one who does wrong still be wrong and the one who is filthy still be filthy but that's in the last book of the bible still talking about people's sinful nature not changing even up until the point in time before christ returns the human nature is not going to change and yet here we are succumbing to this language of kumbaya and ethnic unity as if uh as if that in itself is salvific to some degree but that's not the salvation that christ died to bring about but you're absolutely right they're capturing the capturing the church with language like privilege uh equity reconciliation really nice feel good type words but nobody's defining them yeah nobody's defining them and we're we're just being sucked into it and it's the church itself that's helping to divide it you know and the thing is that this article here's the thing he's trying to make an argument with paul the difference with paul the jews and the gentiles a lot of people don't understand that distinction i mean a jewish person never entered a gentile home there was a hatred for the the gentiles from the jewish people i don't know that it was reciprocal but but the jewish people do not trust the gentiles they don't they're just they you know if you even today if you i happen to live in in what's the largest area of talmudic studies in the east coast okay a very jewish area and there's just no associating with with non -jewish people with with gentiles and this division is there and people want to appeal to paul here's the thing this article from isaac adams he appeals to paul over and over again but there's a difference in what he's doing and what paul did he's asking others to accept something he's telling others how to think paul made the choice on how to think there's a big difference of me deciding that i'm going to think differently as someone and me telling someone how they should think of me these are very different paul does speak about this and and this is one verse in any of the articles i've read from people on this issue they never want to address this verse when they want to talk about paul this is paul writing in ephesians chapter 2 verse 14 with specifically dealing with the jew gentile issue he's specifically talking and he makes it very clear you really should start from the beginning of context in verse 11 but as you look through this the issue for that that paul makes over the ethnicity issue is not ethnicity it's gospel right this is the difference when people like mr adams wants to appeal to paul they're doing it but i think it's it's out of context right they're doing it by saying that paul's saying that we we should recognize these differences and yet what paul says in verse 14 he says for he himself is our peace who has made us both one and has broken down in the flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in the ordinances that he might create in himself a new man in place of the two so making peace that might reconcile us both to god in one body through the cross thereby killing the hostility he's recognizing there's hostility between jews and gentiles at that time and what he's saying kills it is not trying to better identify one another or give up our background or somehow be more accepting of one another he says it is the gospel the cross it's what christ did that's what brings the reconciliation this is what the church of all people of all groups should be proclaiming loudly to the world because this is the message the world needs the world is saying that there's a division between black and white we're starting to see even in america now a segregation we're starting to see all black schools it's a it's the it's the reverse it's taken gone full course now and and we see as the church we should be the ones proclaiming the reconciliation the solution to this is the gospel not trying to tell others you have to think of me the way i want you to think of me that's the way of thinking yeah you're absolutely right andrew and what you're saying there goes back to my earlier point with respect to isaac's isaac's perspective on this is that he's trying to tell people how to think and that's coming from his own subjective paradigm his own subjective experience and i think what's interesting about the text that you just raised when you read through uh ephesians 2 verse 16 is that there are people out there who are among the sort of social justice uh demographic who will focus on the reconciliation aspect of that text okay they'll focus on that and they'll stop there so they will sort of spin the text uh by focusing on that reckons that word reckons reconcile or reconciliation and then they will there's two things that they miss i don't know if it's deliberate or not but there's two things about that number one that the reconciliation that paul is talking about there is a reconciliation that brings us into christ into right relationship with god through christ so the emphasis of the reconciliation is that the enmity the hostility is repaired in that we are brought into oneness with god in christ and then the second thing they omit is what paul emphasizes multiple times in this text is what was the cause of the hostility to begin with and that is the enmity that that existed between us and god so here you have brothers like uh mr adams focusing on as many others like him do the issue is is that we're not reconciled to one another that's the problem see that that's the problem that their property well blacks and whites need to be reconciled to one another we need to do x y z as he's suggesting in this article in the paragraph that you just read and i quote isaac here quote you should lay down the status of your racial i lay down the status your racial identity gives you for the sake of the gospel unquote so that's the that's what isaac is suggesting is the way towards resolving this enmity this hostility but that's not what paul says paul says that the gospel that christ accomplishes that and see here's the thing folks who are honest they would admit that what paul the kind of reconciliation that paul is talking about here that happens as the gospel penetrates one heart at a time if these people were honest they would admit that they don't want to wait for that kind of transformation to take place they don't have the patience to wait for the gospel to work in the hearts of people like talking about here and what's what's really hypocritical about that if i can be blunt is that this is the same gospel of grace that changed their heart and yet here you are essentially saying well no i don't want to hang around and wait for the gospel to change that white person's heart that white person that i just assume is racist because they're white now they haven't done anything to me to prove that they're racist but they're white so i'm going to have to assume that they're racist because they're white which really is an indictment against god himself who created them to possess that particular attribute about themselves so if you're going to default to someone and suspect or outright accuse them of being racist or suspect them of being racist because they're white you got a problem with god you don't have a problem with that white person you know god who made them that way would it be fair for me to say to mr adams or to you that because you're not jewish you're anti -semitic i mean it's the same thing so let's i'm gonna we're gonna take a quick break play a commercial after that i want to i'm going to address the thing that that there is a a contradiction that mr adams makes in his own argument that you just brought up ding dong java's witnesses ding dong mormons christian are you ready to defend the faith when false religions ring your doorbell do you know what your muslim and jewish friends believe you will if you get andrew rapaport's book what do they believe when we witness to people we need to present the truth but it is very wise to know what they believe and you will get andrew rapaport's book at what do they believe dot com can you prove that god is a trinity can you prove that jesus is god can you defend the christian faith and what is it that christians truly believe the new book by andrew rapaport what do we believe will answer those questions and more some people just don't understand what the church is today but this book will go through the history and meaning of the church and what's more important than to understand man's sinfulness and god's salvation get your copy at what do we believe book .com

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or at the striving for eternity .org store you know that's actually what we are talking about the importance of man's sinfulness and god's salvation i mean that's that's part of what i cover in that book but the thing is that's exactly what's coming up here is that people are losing track of what is the issue you know the the issue for paul the reason he had an issue with the gentiles and the jews really he had an issue with his own people the jews okay he so so we're going to take the analogy right that mr adams is saying paul had an issue with his own ethnic people okay because they were adding to the gospel they were they were corrupting the gospel message by saying you had to be circumcised to be saved that was the issue was works and that's not what mr adams is doing he's not doing what paul's doing he's he's not saying hey let me talk to my own people about this because the simple reality is the issue that he's raising is not one of a gospel issue it's whites are not changing the definition of salvation blacks are not changing the definition of salvation and you brought up this thing that he ends up talking about about the the whiteness about giving giving this up you know in one of these things he he right in the same paragraph he does he gives a contradiction of what he's saying he says i'm asking you to reckon with the fact of how tightly you cling to your whiteness sorry let me read that i'm asking you to reckon with the fact that how tightly you cling to your whiteness matters to christ and then just two sentences later so he's saying that we cling to our whiteness i cling to my whiteness by being white and then he ends up saying two sentences later but how can you submit something to christ and there he's referring to submitting my whiteness how can you submit something to christ you don't believe matters that much if you don't believe it even exists his argument is that i i as a white person don't even believe this is an issue that it's just normal life to me but then at the same time he's saying i cling to it those are contradictory statements i can't cling to something that i don't think exists right see here the presuppositions just ooze from this article i mean they really do number one he doesn't define whiteness okay so no again i hate keep beating a dead horse but you got to understand the language here that's where it starts he uses a term that goes undefined uh and number two again uh he assumes again presumes upon you because you're white some you because you are of a certain shade of melanin that you had absolutely nothing to do with that that in and of itself is a a privilege that you have above others and and number three a third presumption that he makes is upon black people like me that because i'm black by virtue of my ethnicity that i don't hold to my blackness in the same way that he's accusing you of holding your whiteness you see but because i'm black see i'm the victim you know i'm always the victim here i'm always the one who's being downtrodden by people like you andrew and i think we need to take a second and remind folks the question there's a predecessor question that that adams bases everything else that we've been talking about from his article here in this uh discussion let's revisit that for a second because the question he asks at the top as i said earlier i think it's a trick question it's the wrong question you really have to give it time to digest it to understand what's going on here so the question he asks is quote what's more important our christian identity or our racial identity unquote so if you consider that a legitimate question you've already lost number one that's not even a legitimate question how can anything be at the same level of your christian of your identity as a christian how can anything be at that same level andrew there's nothing what does paul say in uh colossus three he says for you have died and your life is hidden with christ and god so whatever else there is about your quote -unquote identity that's dead nothing else about you matters either equally or above your position in christ okay so again he asks the question what's more important our christian identity or our racial identity now i commented earlier on i think it was on my facebook page earlier i said well it seems like to me it isaac has already answered the question within the question because let's say for instance if you're black and muslim again he's asking the question what's more important your christian identity or racial identity the question has to be answered your christian identity because if you're black and muslim then you're on your way to hell and if you're on your way to hell what good does your racial identity do you then it does you absolutely no good so obviously the answer is intrinsic to the question your christian identity is more important nothing else matters nothing is equal to that or above that because i'm if i'm black and i'm any other i hope to any other faith or religion other than christianity intrinsic to the gospel is john 644 that christ is the only way to god so if another black person out there believes you got a black muslim a black hindu a black kabbalahist or wherever you want to call it black jehovah's witness and they're going to hell what do you think how important do you get racial identity is to them you see we have forgotten what's being lost in this whole conversation about racial reconciliation is that christians are totally starting to forget that people are dying and going to hell paul said in first timothy 115 that christ came to save sinners and i've caught so much flack about this and do that i've said many times christ didn't come to save society he came to save sinners and what we what we've seen in this whole social justice movement is people trying to twist christianity twist the gospel into sort of a socio -cultural soteriology whereby when white pastors cooperate in doing what isaac adams is suggesting that they do then that salvation will come to fruition see that's that social cultural salvation i'm talking about it's not the spiritual salvation uh that changes hearts that it's not the romans 12 1 and 2 type of salvation that paul writes about uh the renewing of your mind it's not that kind of salvation that they're concerned about right now and that's really sad because that's primarily what the gospel is it is a gospel of salvation saving of souls from hell from the wrath of god where is that message today i'm not hearing that anymore are you i'm not here and we are totally forgetting that while we try to uh hold these racial reconciliation roundtables and conferences and everything how to get along like i said the whole rotten king kumbaya kind of theology going on out there people are dying and going to hell and you know the thing is you know so i'm i'm a jewish kid jewish guy who who becomes a christian who marries a chinese girl you know the reality is he ends up saying this mr adams said given how long african -americans have been silenced and marginalized in american history many have often felt if they're consistently fighting to be seen as equals you know i said this to my wife and her first reaction was what about the chinese oh yes absolutely the chinese have a have a gripe the absolute chinese have an amazing uh historical argument to make but see here it is again see i'm glad you brought that up because this whole uh discourse is predicated upon only two ethnicities having a legitimate uh place in this discussion blacks and whites where are the where do where do asians come in yeah where do uh hispanics and latinos come in where do native americans come in do you see how circular this can get you know so so so you get a statement that you just read from adams uh see this is this is i'm going to repeat that a second given how long african -americans have been silenced and marginalized in american history many have often felt as if they're constantly fighting to be seen as equals well you know that hasn't happened to me i'm sorry but that hasn't happened to me you know this is the thing you know where where when you on your podcast were reviewing the the thing with the from mlk 50 right and you know i was sitting there and saying well wait a minute wait a minute is he going to take responsibility for the fact that america did nothing for a while while jewish people were being killed they weren't interested and people were they were losing their homes they were all of their valuables were just being taken over families had years of of inheritance being passed down was just taken away by the by the germans overnight and and then they six million jews killed and i could say hey where were the african -americans in america why weren't they doing something do they owe something to me right no i don't i don't ask others to say you owe me something because of something that you had nothing to do with right and that's what i termed sin by proxy so you have people like uh mr adams here and others holding you accountable for generational sins that your ancestors they just assume committed against them against blacks now okay so asians every other ethnicity sorry you guys are out because you have no say so in this because your of the atrocities that your uh ancestors experienced on this soil don't amount to anything close to what blacks experience on this soil so that's the argument so only blacks have a right to speak out in this so that's what i call sin by proxy andrew so you're you're accountable you're guilty you need to repent of the ancestral sins committed by and here you are jewish but you're white see you see how you see how stupid this whole conversation about race would be white too right she'd be white too because she's not black exactly and but see i could do the same thing with you and say well you're you're gentile you're not jewish this is the same thing you know this is the thing going on in in israel with with palestine right it's not who controls the land today it's who did control the land well we owned it before well we owned it before you well we owned you know bingo you know when does it stop at what point do you say we have to we have to move on it doesn't stop yeah because listen listen the gospel is clear okay and see here i just wrote a blog article yesterday just published it yesterday uh and the title of it is the problem is enmity not ethnicity enmity not ethnicity it's the same exact word that you quoted from the apostle paul in ephesians 2 2 14 he uses the exact same word and why did he use that because paul got to the point he knew that the problem wasn't racism the problem is what causes the racism that's what paul understood and that's what people like mr adams and others refuse to accept you this is going to be what i call we're going to continue on this ethical treadmill trying to fix a spiritual problem with a cultural and social solution and to your question it's never going to end before christ comes back because we refuse to acknowledge that the way to remedy this sin the sin of quote -unquote racism is the same way you remedy and rectify and kill as john owen would say mortify every other sin it's through the gospel and the power of the gospel changing a person's heart not by reparations well and and that the where do the reparations then end can i go can i appeal for reparations for for my people no you can't no no can can the chinese who were slaves even when slavery was outlawed in this country out in california nope here's the difference that i always notice and and i know that when i say this people get upset because i'm white saying this you know jewish people came under persecution chinese people came under persecution and you know what they did they educated their children education and family became the most important things because they realized that if they have educated children they can get good jobs but they knew that everything had to be with the family the thing that no one wants to talk about is the breakdown of the family and that's where i think so much of this ends up residing yeah you're absolutely right especially you know that this is this should be especially a concern and i'm not saying it's not but you're not seeing any evidence that it is a concern among many black americans i think it's really interesting you know not to turn this political but i think it's really interesting that the vast majority over 95 percent of black voters support the political party that's most responsible for destroying the black family yes but they they they are myopic almost robotic in voting along this singularly political line that is totally whose policies are totally irrefutably historically responsible for destroying the black family yet they go out and buy the tickets of millions 95 96 percent of black voters vote for this one party whose policies have have been decimating black neighborhoods and black families for almost 60 years now but you're not hearing anything about that nothing that's right because this is you know i know that i'm going to say this and people are going to get upset with me please understand that this is not an emotional thing for me but people get upset when they hear this look the reality is there are black african -american however you want to refer to yourself there are african -americans who profit from racism if you want a perfect example you could look at like a devin jackson and and look at things like that but i'll give you the clearest if you read barack obama's book you'll see that he realized that if he could get white votes as a black man then he could be in office forever he never thought he'd get the president he thought he'd be in the senate for life yeah because of his the color of his skin and being able to speak as a white man that's that was what he said recognizing it in someone else that was black and could get white votes and here was someone that knew he could use hit the color of his skin to gain him power you know what barack obama was just as much white as he was black in fact i would argue he was more white because he was black skin but he was raised in a white family he had but from his mother how to be black yeah and and this brings up something that you said earlier you when you speak out like this you're against your own people they'll call you an uncle tom yeah that shows that this has nothing to do with color of skin in my mind this has to do with a belief system you have to toe the line and if you don't tell the line you're against your own people or you're you're an uncle tom oh yeah i mean i get i get all kind of vitriol and i tell people all the time uh you know the the most heat i take is from black people i take a lot of heat from black i don't listen no white person has ever called me a coon okay no white person has ever called me a house negro no white person has ever called me uncle tom but you know what black people have called me all those things you know and to your earlier comment andrew i'm reminded of a quote uh from booker t washington in his autobiography off from slavery washington says this you know and people like jesse jackson al sharp and even uh barack obama come to mind washington said this he says there's another class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles the wrongs and the hardships of the negro race before the public having learned that they are able to make a living out of the troubles they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays some of these people do not want the negro to lose his grievances because they do not want to lose their jobs i need you to send me that quote i'll send you that quote i'll send you that quote because that that right there nails the issue look i have said for a long time people get upset with me if you want to end slavery or sorry slavery if you want to end racism you have to end all racism you cannot allow reverse racism look if i took this article that mr adams wrote and i replace every word that's white with black and black with white would he believe that it was racist absolutely not well i think he absolutely would if it if it was that that i'm saying that whites that blacks have a privilege yeah you're reversing it yeah if i reverse if i reverse those if i reverse all of the white with black black with white i bet he would say that it's a problem and i'm being racist sure sure he would but see listen here's the fallacy of why do you never hear anyone talking about well let's end adultery let's let's end all adultery let's end all lying let's end all murder you know let's end why is it that racism is is a uh i don't want to say sin because people don't look at it as a sin but that's what it is but they don't look at it as that as that why is it that people believe racism can which is hatred which is what the bible call hate why do they believe racism can be ended why is that well the reason they believe that is because they think the genesis of racism is structural that is institutional that is something that there's something deficient legislatively something that can be fixed you see something that can be fixed uh externally uh if we if we just make things fair then people will start to change the way they think or change the way they behave towards people of different ethnicities if we can just fix these things that are around us in society make everything fair and equal then everyone will treat each other treat one another right you see yeah but that that's always puzzled me why is racism the one behavior that people think can be ended unbelievable well it's it it can't it will never end the reality is it will never end if we make excuses for reverse it's not really reverse racism it's still racism people call it reverse racism as if racism can only be one direction i've had plenty of people tell me i'm like i can't be racist right that that that you you dealt with that that is so stupid i mean i'm sorry that that's just stupid to think that well let me ask you i know you had a hard stop and i don't want to i don't want to take up more time than than you have do you have more time to continue if not yeah i got i got a hard stop here so so so usually let me let me let you close out we're not going to close out the the this podcast because we have another guest that just came in that's going to want to continue this so um so daryl how could people get a hold of you and and give us any any closing things that you have for us yeah so if they want to uh get a hold of me you can go out to my blog again that's just thinking that's one word just thinking dot m e you can click on the about page and i have contact information out there i'm on facebook as well i'm on twitter uh you can look me up there on but on my blog on the about page i have links to both my facebook and my twitter if you want to connect with me out there uh as well and again andrew i just want to thank you man for having me on uh i don't want to necessarily close with anything uh other than listen we've got the church has got to recapture a love for the fundamental gospel which as paul said again that christ came into the world to save sinners and there are people who are going to hell while we're out here worrying about what's fair and what's not that's right i mean and that that was really a summarization of your podcast that you guys did was it's about the gospel it's about the gospel and that's what uh that's what virgin life try really hard to do every episode you know the podcast is a weekly podcast uh if you want to hear it you can go out to the bar podcast that's t -h -e -b -a -r podcast dot com slash jt you can also search on apple and android for just thinking just go ahead and search for that podcast and you can subscribe to us but every conversation we have uh is centered on what the gospel says we we literally we open the bible up on the podcast and we read what thus says the lord because it's all about christ it's not about us yeah and i mean you know i do notice that your your website is very narcissistic you want everyone to think it's about you you're just thinking dot me you know yeah i thought that i thought that extension was really really fitting because the the articles that i write i'm just telling you what darryl thinks about telling you what i think so let me go with the dot me i think that's really cool it should have been you know just thinking at me or about me just thinking about or something like that yeah yeah so we're going to put all the links to the bar podcast to your podcast all those will be in the show notes so folks can quickly get to those darryl i want to thank you you've been your podcast just thinking has been a breath of fresh air to me i listened to it uh i actually when i first tuned in i actually went back to episode one and binged so i could catch up um it's it is a refreshing podcast to listen to and the last one really was one where i was i was jumping to hear you and virgil talk because it was things that i know i would get crucified for saying well don't don't think we don't don't think we don't get crucified oh i know you do it well thank you for coming on i i wish i wish we could have had more time but uh we could do this again sometime again brother i assure you we can do it again i have a sad feeling to believe that this is not the last time we're going to see this issue rise up yes i am mourning with you on that no thanks all right before we bring the next guest on i'm going to play a couple commercials and then we'll have another guest and so we thank daryl for joining in i do encourage you to go to just thinking and listen to that podcast you will learn a lot the good news is striving for eternity would love to come to your church to spend two days with your folks teaching them biblical hermeneutics that's right the art and science of interpreting scripture the bad news is somebody attending might be really upset to discover jeremiah 29 11 should not be their life first learn more go to striving for eternity dot org to host a bible interpretation made easy seminar in your area striving for eternity is a christ -centered ministry focused on equipping people for eternity and they provide speakers and seminars that come to your church with expertise in theology hermeneutics world religions creation science evangelism presuppositional apologetics church history and expertise in sexual abuse in the church for details on their seminars and to request a speaker for your church go to striving for eternity dot org striving to make today an eternal day for the glory of god all right so i said we had another guest and as you heard earlier i said that i might do another podcast this week with my friend and brother tom buck and he was able to join in since darryl could not be here for for longer than the one hour and i said hey you want to just join in we're trying to see if we do something tomorrow but uh this topic is some that's quite important and wanted to get him in so figure why don't you just join in now and so brother tom is here with us so how you doing brother i'm doing fine i assume you can hear me unfortunately i can no um so you'll see that with a brother who i know well i can joke around a lot more some of you'll see my own personality come back coming out a little bit more now but tom for folks who don't know who you are um would you be able to introduce yourself and you know where you're a pastor some about your background and you've recently wrote two articles on this and we're going to include those in the show notes but talk about those as well uh well um first of all you've taken a huge dive of having me come on right after darryl i mean that's uh that's not even fair for me but that's okay um i'm the pastor at first baptist church in lindale texas and um i have been senior pastor here for 12 years i've been been a senior pastor for 25 years in two different churches um i am uh just passionate about i'm part of the southern baptist convention and passionate about seeing churches within the convention be reformed more and they're not using reformed in the sense of of theology but reformed more to aligning itself with practicing uh exactly what the word of god says is the rule over the church and and so i've been passionate about this for some time and revitalizing churches i revitalized one in in florida and i'm now here in a small rural town of east texas all right and you and i got to to kind of well i guess we first met at g3 and then really got to to sit and get to know each other more at the shepherds conference and i i know let's get the elephant in the room out of the way right off the bat you've been you you i mean seriously there are people who will reject everything you say because of one thing one incident that had happened and there are people who want to use that you something you did in your church where you had a memorial uh service for the mil for a police dog and people always go after you for that as if nothing else that you ever do could ever count for anything because of that one act um do you think that's fair well no it's quite unfortunate i mean especially since if anybody is would listen to the sermon that i preached um it was um and people don't even understand ultimately what it was it wasn't a memorial ultimately for the dog um when a fallen officer and in the state of texas a dog that dies in what they would say in the line of duty as an officer and receives the same type of memorial that a human officer would receive and in gratitude for the service of that animal and so um i had an opportunity to preach the gospel i did that and uh anybody who listens to it in fact everyone who has listened to it has said that it was handled well and and the gospel was clear so you know i i hate to be famous for something of that nature but i guess there's worse things to be famous for yeah you could you could be famous for being like me and just being a heretic and everything you believe but hey that's all right so so let's you know let's continue on you you've written some articles so uh in and this is an issue that you you know are passionate about um because of of the same issue that daryl and i were talking about you you came in and heard the tail end um you didn't get to hear the beginning part um because we weren't live streaming this but um you know so so let's let's first i want to talk about the articles that you have have written and um and then what if you could do is i'm going to keep going through this article because i really want to get to his nine points and address them okay so so you you got an article out well let me clarify that i don't have an article at this point i'm i'm oh you're in an article but i have written uh privately concerning this on some issues regarding this so i and i have an article will be coming out in a few days on it so to clarify that but i i am concerned deeply about uh any time that god's word is mishandled and i believe that uh you know at t4g with the handling of amos 5 is a perfect example of that if i think was isa jesus on the part of david platt with that but in this article i am extremely concerned with how the word of god was handled i certainly have issues with many of the applications they're being made and regarding what would be called racial reconciliation um racial societal injustice whatever it may be but i'm particularly concerned in this article about how the word of god is being used yeah and this is this is the thing we were we were talking about with daryl so i'm just going to keep going with just giving some of the quotes from this and and you and i could go through this because he ends up giving uh nine ways of kind of fixing the problem type of thing right um but you know he ends up in this article he ends up saying um that you know he's it's like who to blame for this right and he's he's blaming whites he's blaming america saying that that americans white americans forced blacks to think about color that we forced this upon them and now now they have to think about it and we tell them just to forget it um and he ends up saying the blame often sounds like quote you always talk about race unquote or quote jesus is more important can't you just get over it unquote this reflects how many american christians largely have two speeds when dealing with the issue something is either completely important or it's completely unimportant color you color used to mean everything but now folks want it to mean nothing and and this is the thing i say that's just like what paul did paul said you know what i have all this pedigree and it means nothing in fact his word was it me it's dung that's what paul said about his background he didn't post about his background unless he unless he was being challenged to say hey you know who do you think you are and he could say well you know my pedigree is better than yours but he didn't hold to his pedigree but more importantly what the difference with paul is that paul did not demand others to accept his pedigree that's the main difference that i see in this article this is not this is not mr adam saying hey i'm gonna give up my background my ethnicity for the gospel no he's telling me as a white person and and you bucket tom buck as a as a white person how you should respond to him there's a big difference there yeah and and listen i don't know i honestly don't know of anyone who is saying uh you always talk about race can't you just get over it i honestly don't know anybody saying that uh where i what i would say is is i i don't even have a problem with having a discussion about these particular issues um i i don't i want to listen and i have several um men that i'm talking to and listening to regarding their concerns about race and things of that nature race relations in our country but there is a very one -sided conversation and that's what is even taking place in this article um and it's being framed and this is how you should think about it this is exactly what you should be doing and i am extreme i'm troubled by that but i'm even more troubled by the points that he immediately gets into such as calling out ethos uh ethnocentric sin and using galatians 2 11 to 14 to support uh that proc that proclamation or suggestion or whatever you may want to call it yeah and we're going to get there but here's the thing when you just said this is the real this is the heart of the issue okay he's not only telling us he's telling us what to think and how to behave he's not he's not doing what paul's doing this is the thing that i guess upsets me with this article and with articles like this is there he's approaching me as a white person because he's saying he's a black man speaking to white pastors so that's you and i and he's telling us what the solution is he's telling us what we have to think this is how you have to think you have to think the way i want you to think that's intolerance well do you think that he would say though um i gave you nine suggestions so i'm not telling you how to think i'm just simply giving you suggestions of how i think you ought to approach this yeah but here's the thing he has a presupposition that is in this throughout that you have to accept that somehow me as a white person i've i'm responsible for this and you know i know you didn't hear the beginning part but i pointed out that as a jewish person i i could say the same thing to all gentiles i mean it was my people that were being killed in in germany and you know people in america weren't doing anything they're just sitting in and living their life they weren't they weren't doing anything are they responsible do they owe jewish people around the world do they owe us money for for not stepping in and causing the government to do something to to react to this well i certainly would say i think we certainly could say that there are a good amount of jews that died in the holocaust during our period of complacency that could have potentially been saved sooner so if we had engaged sooner so there's no doubt that you could make a similar argument along those lines and and if you want to make the argument of money for you know reparations and stuff like this look jewish people lost their homes they lost their their inheritances families that had homes for generations just gone because romans just came the the germans just came and said it's ours done over so so let's i mean let's go through some of these um some of these issues he brings up he's he says this because i want to get to those nine points before we get there he says you know i've written this brothers to ask you to reckon with the fact that you are white and to consider how that factors in to how you see the world how you think others see the world and how you treat others including people under your care and i just see this there are so many assumptions in here you know it's like if whites can't understand the black experience and we always hear that that as a white person i can't talk to black issues but yet he's talking to white issues he's he's he's implying how whites are going to view things but it's true about everybody not just by by the race but i'm from tennessee and i'm from east tennessee i'm a hillbilly from up in that area and there's a certain way that they view the world i mean that's and that's just true of all people no matter what their race and it's not a limited race yeah you know and he says this he says but there can be no reconciliation without a reckoning right you know but the author does not you know mr adams does not want to reckon the white experience he only wants to assign the blame and you know this is the thing that i see with a lot of this it almost as if people don't want equal rights because he's going to end up saying he wants a place at the table right you know that's not the case it's not that there's a want a place at the table it's not equal rights it's extra rights you know this is how i end up seeing this over and over it's people that they they you know they don't want to see it from both sides look i know this is an emotional issue for many and many are getting really angry at me being a white person saying this and they're thinking to themselves that this is the problem when white people think they understand the black experience but you know i i meant to ask darryl this but i know what the answer would have been but you know darryl's grew up very different than me you know in you know as he described in in the black uh inner city and you know what he couldn't at all understand the experience i had as a jewish kid growing up being attacked for my jewish faith he couldn't understand that at all i mean he could understand to a certain level and that same level that he can understand my jewish upbringing by me explaining my experience is the same way that i can understand a black person's upbringing experience well and as christians the gospel is what is primary that brings us all together at the foot of the cross on level ground and there's a reason why that when we come to christ that these things our worldly identities are become secondary to our primary identity in christ and i don't see why that that is diminished uh in these in these arguments when it ought to be first and foremost in our conversation because scripture makes it so and and the scripture that we read earlier is ephesians 2 i mean ephesians 2 11 and following and specifically in in verse 16 he's talking about the hostility between the jews and the gentiles and what's the solution the gospel it is by the cross of jesus christ that jews and gentiles will become one body and thereby killing the hostility how do we kill the hostility in the the church in america today through true reconciliation we come to the cross and we we don't ask others to to have to accept us i don't i don't go to church and and demand of people to accept the fact that you know the way i grew up there were hardships the way that i grew up i had to struggle with things that maybe as as someone that would be raised in a christian or catholic uh family uh in in a in a predominantly uh catholic type of area you know they didn't have the problems that i had they were the ones that were going after me so how do you you know how are you going to reconcile that you reconcile it by becoming a christian i'm i don't call myself a jewish christian a completed jew a messianic i'm a christian period and yes my background i bring that into my life in every area just like every other individual person does absolutely let's look at ephesians 2 since you brought that up what is the what is the wall of hostility of which he speaks here because this passage ephesians 2 11 and following uh was used at um i think it was i believe it was uh mlk 50 it may be in another place that it was used but it was specifically used to say that this is about uh ethnic relations and that we could actually i i think it actually was used i'll take that back at a g at the g3 conference and it was used to say that this is about ethnic relations between that we can apply now between blacks and whites and races within the church but the wall of hostility if you look at the text is talking about the law and the and the regulations and the commands that divided jew and gentile this was not about some type of ethnic issues between the two regarding jews hatred for gentiles in some kind of a racist way what paul's addressing there and i'm not saying those things didn't exist i'm saying what paul addresses here in the context is that jesus came listen to verse 14 he is our peace who made both groups one and tore down the dividing wall of hostility in the flesh he made of no effect the law consisting of commands and expressed in regulations so that he might create in himself one new man from the two resulting in peace what divided jew and gentile theologically in that passage was the law that made it impossible for jew and gentile to come together and so that's what paul is dealing with there he's not talking about generalized racist attitudes between jews and gentiles no he's talking about adding to the gospel adding circumcision and things like this to the gospel adding the law to corrupting the message of the gospel and and we're where this where i you know i think ephesians 2 does come into play with all this talk that we end up seeing with the social justice movement because i believe that at its core there they are corrupting the gospel they're they're starting to say that the gospel is is about how we treat people not what we do with christ or more specifically what christ does with us well i completely agree with you that ephesians 2 comes into play my my uh clarification i'm making is where it doesn't come into play is saying that what ephesians 2 11 and following is doing there is talking about generalized racial conflict between jew and gentile what's a what's being addressed there in ephesians 2 is that jesus the wall of hostility that was torn down was the law that separated jew from gentile that didn't even allow them to eat together that's even fits into what galatians 2 is dealing with that isaac adams tries to say that ephesians 2 11 to 14 is dealing with ethnocentric sin it's not killing no you know and and you know let me let me address one more thing and then let's get to his nine points because here's the thing earlier i mentioned that that i believe that mr adams has a presupposition that you can see throughout this article but if you want me to show it to you he ends up saying white pastor this is the paragraph white pastor i fear you might think that submitting your whiteness to christ ought to result in deeper racial apathy you do you don't think this is due to your conscious deep deeply rooted racist spirit instead the thought comes from ignorance not knowing what you do not know i mean he it's the assumption that being a white pastor you have if you don't if basically i think if you don't agree with him you you're deeply rooted white you know or a deeply rooted racist spirit in you and you just don't realize yeah the way i read it let me read this maybe i'm misreading it but he doesn't think say you don't think this due to uh this he's saying you don't think this because you're some kind of consciously deep really rooted race in person i think i think you're just you're just ignorant yes but but i think it the underlying thing is it's one of two things you're either you you have a deep rooted racism that you can't recognize or you're ignorant or you're ignorant yes yes i would agree with that okay so so either way the assumption is he's right you're right you're absolutely right we we are we either are are racist which he says he doesn't believe we are or we just don't know what we don't know correct so so either way you have to accept accept that his position is the only right position by the setup that he's done and and he's saying this just before he gets to his nine points you're you're absolutely right that's the presupposition because he later tells us to read white awake yes and white awake is completely from that that we are all subconsciously racist and don't know it and uh and and that's that is the presupposition from which he's coming based on the very books that he suggests we should read and so here's his nine points his first point of the nine calling out ethnocentric sin and he he this is where as you said he references galatians 2 11 to 14 so he he says we should call out ethnocentric sin now the thing is how do we define that sin because because race does not change the definition of salvation circumcision was adding to it because he's going to argue from galatians about paul and peter but the issue there was about the the issue of the gentiles and the jews and whether he was going to to be you know basically kowtowing to the to the jewish people with the issue of circumcision and and separating because a jewish person could not eat with a gentile that's part of the law exactly that's he's that's why he ties in there yeah he's he's separating because of the fact that it's like hey jewish law you know i gotta follow the jewish law i can't eat with these people right he's not choosing to not eat with them because he doesn't want to be seen at mcdonald's with them he's not eating with them because he he is following the law and if he's going to follow the ceremonial law he has to separate from them correct and he was fearful the text says of the circumcision party because they were demanding that they lived not distinctively jewish per se but distinctively connected to the law even if they became a christian yes they had to be circumcised they had to follow the rules of the law it was all about law versus grace it has nothing to do with ethnocentric issues and if it did then why doesn't paul call peter out to confess his ethnocentric sin well and that and here would be the thing if i am if number one is that i am to call out ethnocentric sin then i'm i see no other option there for me to say mr adams i am calling out your ethnocentric sin you are making a division based on ethnicity and you're saying that we have to accept that that is the sin that you say we have but you're just as guilty so if the first step is calling out ethnocentric sin mr adams i'm calling you out well but i would encourage you andrew and i think for all of us here to even stick just to not accept that premise because the text does not say that exactly the text there is nothing in the text that other than isa jesus where you put your framework upon the text you cannot extract from that text what he's saying and if i can't extract it from the text i have no right to bind your conscience to anything that scripture doesn't bind your conscience to because this was about the gospel the message of salvation was being altered that's the thing that people have to realize in galatians 2 this was about the message of the gospel having something added to it jewish law fundamentally changing the message of the gospel absolutely that's what the text is dealing with and just ask the question are you relegating members in your church to second class status because they don't meet a certain cultural expression that is not what this text is about and to say that it is isn't a gross abuse of that text it's look it's it's a very bad handling of the text it is it's taking it out of its context and trying to give it a new meaning just because the issue of jew and gentile ignoring the context in which they're used and and that is why i would say if you're going to use that text to try to argue that not only are you twisting the scriptures but you are you're you are being me making yourself guilty of the very thing you want to call people out on i mean he the way he want if you hold him by his own standard the way he wants to hold this up he's guilty of his own standard but he but he's calling us white people to have to be called out and and yet doesn't this work both ways shouldn't then we also be calling out people that are causing division and separation in the church over ethnic issues one would think so yeah and and so his his second point confessing ethnocentric sin and i think the author should do that i think it would be good for him well i see your point but again let's go back to the text why doesn't peter call upon or paul call upon peter to confess his ethnocentric sin that's not what he does what he calls upon peter to do is to acknowledge his hypocrisy in that he lives under the law when it suits him or excuse me he chooses to not live under the law when it suits him and then he goes back to the law when it suits him to look good in the eyes of the circumcision party so that's what he's telling him to confess is his i'm sorry about that it's to confess his hypocrisy regarding um the the issue of obeying the law that's what he's telling to confess he does not tell him to confess ethnocentric sin yeah and and you know this this goes both ways it goes with you know african -americans that have racism that that has to be confessed as well this is i mean i am against all racism not just one directional i'm not just against whites that are racist toward blacks or or jews that are racist toward toward gentiles all of it all of it is a sin and the only way we are going to end racism is by ending all racism well let me go back and say one thing about or let me say one thing to that i think we need to start using biblical categories and i talked this to this with about this with daryl a few days ago and i believe that we need to be using the category of enmity and hate rather than using the category of racism for one thing when we accept the world's terms like racism we're pulling all the political garbage in that comes with it as well so if you hate someone because of their ethnicity then that is sinful and christ provided atonement for that let me give you an example when i have somebody come in my office as a pastor and they say pastor i and i hate obviously god forbid this happens but it does in most pastors ministry and they'll say i had an affair with someone i immediately address that issue and say we're not going to use that terminology we're going to use biblical terminology you committed adultery christ provided atonement for adultery he didn't provide atonement for an affair and we need to be specific about what the sin is i think the same thing is true here we get muddied down a lot of the waters here because we use categories of the world rather than talking about the biblical categories and then applying the biblical answer to those things which is the atonement of jesus christ that's right that's right so okay so let's look at number three fellowshipping widely and letting your people see it and so here's the thing i thought about this right he he's saying the fellowshipping wide widely and letting your people see it so pastors are to to be basically on a show to be doing a show rather than being real i mean isn't it that we we say that everyone wants to be you know real they want everything to be you know to to be authentic and here what they're what he's trying to argue is no you got to put it you got to show it you have to you have to openly be trying to have a diverse elder board because he ends up asking about that brothers do you have a diverse elder board who leads your service on sunday who participates in front is it only people who look a certain way you know and and that's the thing the thing i see here is should we be forcing people to be in a position just because of the color of their skin or should we let god grow his church his way i mean absolutely what does scripture say that god was adding to the church they're not even applying their own theology that they claim that they believe christ builds the church we don't build the church and where do you see anywhere in scripture that we need to have diversity why didn't paul tell timothy that in first and second timothy and titus he did not say diversity he said we look for the quality of the man not the color of his skin well and and if you're going to say that we have to have a diverse board of elders what i think you end up doing is when you're looking to do that you're going to be looking to put someone on who's not qualified instead of saying let's make sure they're qualified for that position you're going to be likely to put unqualified men on the board just to be diverse or you're going to be looking to go into an area to try to get we got to make sure we have enough people of diversity to come in here instead of just opening the doors to anyone who god brings in and saying you know we're not going to look at the color of skin if you start saying that we have to be diverse well now people have to start saying okay we got to make sure we get certain certain people of color or certain things you know in okay so i work with a very large software company and they're going to have a conference with all of the software engineers in a company of 300 ,000 people okay i help to organize this conference you know one of the things they do when they look for speakers they specifically say well we don't have enough women speaking can we maybe take some of the the talks and we want to try to make sure there's enough women what are they doing that's what's being done here and now in a business sense fine that's their choice because they're saying we this is what we want to represent so they could go and do that it's not an issue of qualifications they're saying hey here's a talk that didn't get voted as well as others but we're going to bump it up because we want to have a certain diversity that's a choice they make but we can't make that choice with the church god has given us standards of qualification for who should be on the elder board who should be a pastor who should be a deacon that's given by god and we shouldn't be saying okay but let's we got to make sure we have enough people of this background or that background because i think once you do that you are going to human nature you're going to once you put that as one of the standards you're going to start lowering the standard to make sure you have people come in that fit that you are absolutely right what and in two thoughts one is what about pastors who pastor in communities where the the community isn't diverse and we wouldn't apply i mean these standards they apply only work in america i mean would we go over to another country would i go to africa which i have gone and ministered to churches there and tell them wait a minute there's too many black people here why don't you be more diverse i mean diversity is not an issue of scripture that'd be one thing secondly i would say that if if a church is ignoring godly men who meet the qualifications of first timothy and they are ignoring them because of their race then that is utterly sinful and we would decry that if that's what's taking place uh if we were refusing men of other than white men in a church to become an elder in the church that would be grossly sinful but to say that what needs to happen is the pursuit of diversity you cannot find it anywhere in scripture which is why he doesn't have one verse to back it up well and the thing is is that this may work very well in washington dc but it's not going to work in it's not going to work in idaho you know idaho you you travel through idaho and you're not going to see very many african americans what are you going to do you're going to say to a church you must have a certain number of of african americans on the on the pastoral board but there there aren't any in the community i mean what are you going to do are you going to say that a church like that is somehow in sin and and but the thing that gets me with this is here's the thing is this not that remember this is the point of this is number three fellowshipping widely and letting people see it is this not exactly what james condemns that's a good point that's nice is this not james saying hey you have someone rich come in don't give them the good seat and say to the person that that's smelly and hasn't showered in a long time don't be to the back so let's change that so you have someone black come in suddenly you're going to show off that you're you're going to be with them so that everybody can see how good and diverse you are is that not condemned by james i think it is yes i would go one step further with what you're saying with james paul uh the answer that james gave there was not therefore give the poor person the prominent seat in order to reverse yes the situation the answer is not reverse the discrimination in order to show that you really care for poor people the point is is that you should look uh here we go have blinders on regarding that issue and that you don't treat people uh either well or poorly based upon their status so i don't get this whole thing that we shouldn't be blind when it comes to how we treat people even according the race there was one other thing that he says here if you're only quoting white people what's that teaching your people i have preached for 25 years and i've never identified the race of somebody i'm quoting i was thinking the exact same thing i don't think anyone ever knows the the color of the skin of the person that i'm quoting in fact i don't even know some of the commentators what color skin they are yeah i would be concerned if the pastor said i'm to quote so and so the great african -american whatever or so and so the great white and by the way i would contend to say that if the pastor said african -american so and so everybody'd be okay with it but if they said the great white preacher x they'd have a problem with it this is not right you know i'm gonna date myself but i remember that there was a commercial when i was a kid growing up on tv when you only had like three channels anyway and every saturday morning we i'd see the same kind of commercials you know you had the schoolhouse rocks and those things and you had one commercial with a guy with his i think it was his grandfather they're fishing a kid i'm sorry kid fishing with his grandfather and he's asking what prejudice means he says his friend said he was prejudiced why why did he you know well how did you refer to your friend why i said he's my jewish friend and they're trying to say that by identifying him as being jewish that was prejudiced this is the thing and this thing i've been saying throughout what you said with james is exactly it james doesn't tell us to reverse with that we have to reverse this to make up for it he says just don't pay attention to it you treat everyone equally that's what the church should do absolutely well let's cover those last few doozies yeah so acts he said he he says if you look at act six right you see the ethnic conflict that we can learn from the apostles and and so here's his number four in his list is they heard the voice of ethnic minorities number five i'm gonna i'm gonna deal with these these three together okay they they then gave voice to the ethnic minorities and number six they thought of the solution okay so let's let's deal with those three they heard the voice of the minorities they gave a voice to the minorities and then they they thought of a solution what are your thoughts because i'm gonna i think can i can i okay let me just put it in okay let me be careful that's why i'm letting you go first because i know what i have in mind he's gonna get me in trouble it is very very very sophomoric treatment of the text and it is not exegesis so let me let's just say okay first let's take the statement they didn't deny the complaint that was brought to them or ask for them to prove it uh okay you talk we we don't have any idea of whether that's true or not uh maybe they did come and say is this really true what that this is going on we don't know the narrative doesn't tell us it's not he is reading into the narrative something and he's he's saying because this isn't there i can make a point out of it we don't know it's no different than people that take old testament narratives and read into what they want to in the story this is that is 101 of how to how to poorly preach or teach a narrative passage poor exegesis an f on number four number five they gave a voice to ethnic minorities now i don't listen to the text they didn't you know they certainly were concerned let's not let's not diminish the fact that the apostles were dealing with this issue that was a problem we don't know why the they the uh hellenistic jews were being overlooked we don't know that the reason it was was because that the hebraic jews hated them or were practicing racism we don't know the reason but here's what we do know the 12 verse 2 summoned the whole company of the disciples and said we need to give a voice to the ethnic minorities who are being mistreated is that what the text says no the text says it would not be right for us to give up preaching the word of god to wait on tables now if anything they gave a voice to was anything in the church that distracts from the studying and the preaching of the word of god yes that's what the text is about when it ends it doesn't say let's go down to verse 7 and let's say so the voice to the ethnic minorities prevailed and ethnic harmony came to the church and therefore people got saved that's not what it says it says so the word of god spread well how did the word of god spread because the danger was the word of god getting derailed by this conflict within the church so this passage is not about giving a voice to ethnic minorities it's about giving the word of god a voice of rule and authority over the church it is turning the text upside down it number five is an f in hermeneutics and exegetical work then number six they thought of a solution they most certainly did think of a solution there's no doubt of that it's uh that they wanted to fix it but what were they wanting to fix asking how can i fix and he says this can show a mindset that thinks racial reconciliation is an event instead of a lifestyle they didn't think how can we fix ethnic uh racial racial issues there the very text says what they were trying to fix was how they could continue to study and preach the word rather than wait on tables now it seems to me not that they're diminishing the care of the widows but they're magnifying the importance of the word of god exactly and that's what's going on in the text if this were today we would need to stop everything that's going on in the church and do a three -day seminar with roundtables talking about how everybody felt regarding the ethnic racial relations and the church the word of god wouldn't spread because the solution would not be let's fix it in so the word of god can be central it would be let's discuss it until we all are at each other's throats over race i mean that would be today's modern thing yeah and you know number five he ends up saying here the the apostles gave minorities a seat at the table authority to make decisions and answer divisions and that didn't happen that didn't happen what they did was they created deacons this idea and we you brought it up we don't know why the hellenist widows were not being cared for could it be could it be that the the hebrewic widows were known by the people because they lived there and as the the hellenist came in and got saved and remained there their needs weren't known there's nothing in the text that says that that can't be the possibility it's exactly right we don't know and to say that somehow by by giving by having the deacons by by the pastor saying let us get some people to take care of these day -to -day things so we could be about the business of the word of god studying and praying that somehow that's giving them a voice and he ends up saying you know to to go and why not you know listen to to the you know to to this um i i can't pronounce the the name you know the talk by to the body right from you know the the to bd yes i can't break but he's like go listen to him have your your that your staff listen to him and discuss it well you know mr adams how about you get your staff to listen to the just thinking podcast that was put out by by daryl virgil listen to that and discuss that how about that are you asking for to hear that side and those are from people of african -american descent you know you're absolutely right and at the end of the day they're reading into the text what they want to see now they may say tom you're reading into text what you want to say no i'm not because i'm not reading anything into the text i'm reading out of the text and the text now the point that he makes is that the deacons chosen were primarily greeks and that that's how they gave them a seat at the table by making the greeks most most of the deacons greeks but you know one of the things we know from church history is that jewish individuals many of them even had a greek name that they went by as well as a jewish name andrew is a greek name he was one of the jewish disciples so we do is another so we do not know that because all of these people had greek names that they were hellenistic we don't know that they could have been jews and most likely were if we know the early church when it was when it was founded so um i mean it's just absurd to make these quick flyby statements and say this is this is how it was one other thing about this and because i think they would look and say some of them would look and say come on now you know with the tension between jews and gentiles you can't tell me that it wasn't an issue of race between these two and the problem with that kind of a statement is the same thing that we're having with this situation up at starbucks the guy who was arrested who was an african -american came out and stated that the cops did not treat him the way they did because of it wasn't racist he said that but yet everybody's saying no it had to be racist they they they are denying them and treating them the way they did because they're black we read into these circumstances with the lens that we're wearing and they're doing the same thing in acts chapter six and that is one oh a class 101 in hermeneutics that you do not do that with god's word yeah and and this is you know this is the thing you know he ends up saying in point number six that they fixed it and yeah they fixed it they didn't tell others what to think they did something about it they changed they didn't ask others to change that is an essential difference that i see throughout this entire article that mr adams is asking me to change how i think based on his presuppositions and yet if i do that to him he would say that's the problem he would say either i'm ignorant or i'm racist those are the only true choices he allows and yet i'm not racist and i'm not ignorant i think that this is this division is the very thing that that was used in nazi germany to cause division to silence a group of people so that you could take advantage of them and eventually kill them yes and he would i think he if you take the words of his article he's telling you how to view the world he's saying you this is the way you view the world put off your whiteness the way you view the world this is how you do the world i i want to hear i do want to hear how my african -american brothers and sisters in christ view the world for one thing they don't all view the world the same daryl harrison doesn't view the world the same way isaac adams views the world and they're both black but there is nobody that has a corner market on the view of the world that is why god's word is the only lens by which we are to view the world if i view the world and especially view scripture through my lens we are going to have all kinds of conflict but when i begin to view my brothers and sisters in christ not through the lens of my world view whether white or black or whatever but through the world view of scripture then we have a common ground by which upon which we can build and work but that's not what they want us to do they want us to read act six from the world view of of this particular black individual's worldview and that's where the conflict is coming instead of saying we're going to start with scripture and that's going to be the way i view my world yes so let's let's we got three more let's see if we do because now he's going to leave act six number seven is leaving act six i want to highlight that paul didn't scorn his jewish culture or forget it but he did know it and this is you know my notes here my comment here is and he also never asked others to remember it ever he didn't i mean the only time that he brought up his background is when others were questioning his his status as an apostle or his status as a jew then he brought it up just to say no i this is who i am but he never said to people you have to you have to accept this about me you have to you have to know this you have to think this way paul's you don't see paul defining things the way that this article is because this he ends up saying brothers our congregation need to be taught on these matters did paul even understand race the same way we do the answer is no no he didn't see race that way his issue was not over race it was over the definition of salvation i agree to the gospel i agree hardly i have nothing to add to that i would like to say one other thing before back if you don't mind back six he said earlier that we should confess ethnocentric sin if that is so predominantly true in scripture and this passage if we take his interpretation is about ethnocentric sin why in galatians 2 nor in act 6 do they command do not command them to confess their ethnocentric sin in addition if you notice in act 6 the apostles don't say that there was any sin at all involved in this he does there's no did the apostles ever shy away from confronting when there was sin and calling upon people to repent so apparently in act 6 we have a huge sin that was the first sin that could destroy the church that was going to divide the church and destroy the harmony and the apostles never even address any sin at all yeah don't you i mean i think that's stunning don't you yeah number eight i guess yeah because i want to see if we could this is this is a mega our weeklies are usually one hour and we're going on too so okay so number number eight going off that suggestion read with your elders so what does he suggest we should read read both sides of the issue what do you think no one side yeah and by that as somebody that's not even a believer yeah yeah i didn't okay i didn't know that he wasn't a believer i'm not afraid of the book i don't think he is based on what i read maybe he claims to believe but i've read the book and it's uh uh well i'm in the middle of it and so the sociology uh sociology is good in the book the theology is horrible yeah well the issue there i say is why don't you read both sides i mean you know like like i said earlier why don't you go listen to to podcasts like just thinking you know and and get the other side of it too get you know but here's the thing you know that i mentioned earlier you know for a guy like daryl if if he takes the position he has they'll call him an uncle tom he's not allowed to think that way because it's it's not the right way to think and that's the presupposition that you have to think the last that way lastly he says number nine pray about this you know i i have been praying about this and i pray that people that hold to this view that somehow i have to be held to their standard what whatever it is when they set a standard and tell me that i have to hold to that standard i pray that they would repent that's called legalism yes i agree i would add to that that we need to what need what is it that should guide our prayers what should direct our prayers the truths of scripture that's right if i am getting galatians 2 and act 6 wrong then my prayers no matter how much i pray are going to be misguided and are going to be untruthful and i'm fearful that there are going to be a lot of pastors who are going to read this article and they're going to both interpret and preach galatians 2 and act 6 in this way this is a serious serious issue that goes far beyond our simple discussion of what we believe about reparations or whatever uh that can be talked about from you know in our culture regarding our politics we are to be men of god and in the church who hold up the word of god and do so to study it and to divide it rightly as men who are unashamed i say this with with great careful thought when i say this the handling of the word of god in this particular article that the author should be ashamed of how he handled and i have no ill will to mr adams i don't know him my comments even though directed toward him are based on what he has written correct me too i know that people are emotional in this you know i've pointed out logical fallacies where he contradicts himself within the same paragraph i'm i'm pointing out another side of this one that in this article if you read it is missing is you know i could take this same article and make the same case that he should be viewing things through my judaism because he is a gentile this has this never ends so you know we're gonna we're gonna end up closing out i i hope that folks maybe this is the first time you've listened to the rap report i encourage you to subscribe we have a daily two minute podcast that comes out five days a week usually this would we try to drop this one on saturdays because of this article because of the topic we're going to drop it in midweek but we usually will give you six episodes we give you a one hour typically around one hour podcast on the weekend but we have a daily two minute podcast you can subscribe to the rap report we try to give you biblical interpretations applications to all things in bible and culture and we try to help you uh through you know this past week we've been discussing the the definition or this week we are discussing as you say the definition of a cult so we give you five points in two minutes that's 10 minutes for the whole week and we'll give you an understanding of how to identify a cult between a christian religion so encourage you to do that you can go to striving fraternity to find out more about the ministry that i work for and you can find me there tom how could people find you well the main way they could find me is on our website of fbclindale .com

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and the only thing i really have up there is my sermons and preaching the word of god is what's central to my life and and so if they want to know me better the best way to know me better is to hear me preach the word of god all right and they can hear a you know a message about we're talking about a dog and transitioning to the gospel well i actually don't that is that isn't even on there so i mean out of the we can't even hear that out of 12 years of sermons that you don't even get the privilege of that but if they'd like it they can email me from there and i'll be glad to send them a copy of that sermon too hey you know one of the things the reason people came to ask me about that is because and we don't have time to do this but every episode we usually do is a game called the spiritual transition game where i would have my guest if we have a guest on to give me something to transition to the gospel and that was one of the things with that you did a good transition from the issue at hand to the gospel in a very natural way and we're not going to play that game because this is a long enough episode but if you listen to the other weeklies you're going to hear that game and and that's something that might help you to be able to start gospel conversations so i want to encourage folks if you want to learn more about striving for eternity go to our website strivingforeternity .org

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we've got a couple conferences that are going to be coming up july i think it's 21st in new jersey is was formerly known as jersey fire now being called the equip new jersey why did we change the name because there was something called the strange fire conference and now everyone thinks our conference is charismatic no it was using it in a biblical sense warning the loss of the fire to come we were we were talking judgment fire but but because of that confusion we decided we would change name to be really what we are about equipping people so that information i don't know if it's up on the website yet but that will be up there there might be we might continue our one in ohio and in northern california so get if you are on the website you can get the newsletter find out more about that because we will notify folks through the newsletter we thank you guys for listening we'll be back with a daily podcast next morning and we'll have another weekly next week this has been a difficult topic this is one that is very controversial and very emotional i ask that if you want to challenge me i'm fine but challenge me with scripture not your emotion that's my one request i've tried to address this by showing a different side also tried to address this by dressing it with what scripture actually says and where i think this scripture is is dealing with this and so i want to say that if we look at that that we end up looking at this we have to think our way through this issue not feel our way through this issue so i challenge you to please consider thinking your way through this issue thanks for listening subscribe and share with your friends and write some a review on itunes for us if you would all right thank you very much this podcast is part of the striving for eternity ministry for more content or to request a speaker for seminar to your church go to starting for eternity .org