August 6, 2025 Show with Scott Aniol on “G3 Ministries: The Next Chapter”

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Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer

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George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend

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Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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

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And now here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon

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

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this sixth day of August 2025.

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I'm thrilled to have back a returning guest on the program with some great news that we are going to be hearing.

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Today we have the honor and privilege to have Scott Anuel on the program. He is president of G3 Ministries and professor of pastoral theology at Grace Bible Theological Seminary in Conway, Arkansas, the seminary where my very longtime dear friend

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Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries is also on the faculty. And he is an author and conference speaker.

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Today we're going to be addressing G3 Ministries, the next chapter, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Scott Anuel.

02:14

Thank you so much, Chris. Really appreciate to be here and have always appreciated partnership, many, many years partnership between your program and G3, so just glad to be able to sort of rekindle that today as well.

02:28

Oh yeah, I am filled with nothing but wonderful memories of G3, and I look forward to being a part of whatever future events and activities

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I can possibly, through God's providence, be a part of. By far, the most blessings

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I've ever received from any conference were at the G3 conferences, and in regard to not only meeting people who had been listening to my radio program for years, going back to 2005, that I never met face -to -face, who would approach me at my exhibitor booth to tell me how much they were blessed, also just meeting completely new people who had never heard of my program before, and meeting a whole bunch of folks to interview, including many of the speakers there, so it has always been a joy to be a part of G3 Ministries.

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Why don't you, before we go further, there may be some of my listeners who are unfamiliar with G3.

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I do have occasionally heard from people who just began listening to the program, who might not have ever heard of G3 before.

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I just became acquainted with a listener, a new listener in Australia, and another new listener in Cape Town, South Africa, and every week

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I hear from people that tell me how much they love the program that I've never heard from before, so there may be people that are unfamiliar with G3.

04:07

Tell our listeners about it. Sure, yeah. Well, G3 began simply as a conference out of Praise Mill Baptist Church in Douglasville, Georgia, just west of Atlanta, about 12 years or so ago now, just intended to be a theology conference to serve

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Christians, initially just intended to be for this sort of greater Atlanta area.

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From those early years, you know, men like Votie Bauckham and Joel Beakey and others were speakers, and I think it was just a time when there was a lot of need, a lot of thirst for theological teaching, sound biblical preaching.

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And so very early on, that first year and the first couple of years here at Praise Mill Baptist Church, people came from all over the country and it was a sold -out conference every year.

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And then in 2017, the conference, the 500 -year anniversary of the

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Reformation, they moved the conference to a convention center in downtown or by the airport in Atlanta, knowing that it probably would be a little bit larger, and it was.

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And then I just kept growing every year since then in convention centers in downtown

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Atlanta, to the point where our last national conference in 2023, we had 8 ,300 people there.

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And so, you know, just a great, great blessing. You know, you talk about just being able to see people, meet people, see old friends.

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The G3 Conference, in many ways, you know, is sort of a family reunion for a lot of people to be able to reacquaint themselves with people they don't see too often, but also, of course, meet a lot of new people.

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So for many years, it was just a conference. And then in 2020, the decision was made to branch out and expand beyond just a conference.

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And the national conference then moved to a biannual schedule instead of annual.

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And then on the off years, the decision was made to do some smaller regional conferences in other areas of the country.

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And that was why I was hired on, as well as Virgil Walker, and both of us came on in 2021.

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And I was specifically hired in the fall of 2021 as Executive Vice President and Editor -in -Chief.

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And I was tasked with expanding G3 Ministries to be more than just a conference, but to also begin producing resources and content and books.

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And so we started G3 Press and began to publish books. And now we're in the fourth year of that. We began to publish curricula and teaching tools, a regular blog, several podcasts.

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And then just a couple of years ago, launched a streaming service called G3 Plus that includes a lot of audio and video resources as well.

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We've got workshops, preaching workshops, and biblical worship workshops. And so we've really expanded now to be a content producing ministry with the desire to educate, encourage, and equip

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God's people with biblical truth for faithful living. Great. Well, if anybody wants to find out more information about G3 Ministries, you can go to g3min .org.

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Now let our listeners know about Grace Bible Theological Seminary in Conway, Arkansas, where you serve as the

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Professor of Pastoral Theology. And also, in addition to giving us details of Grace Bible Theological Seminary, tell us about specifically what you, as a professor of pastoral theology specifically, teach in that course.

07:58

Yeah. So Grace Bible Theological Seminary was started out of Grace Bible Church in Conway, Arkansas, by Dr.

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Jeff Johnson, very dear, close friend of mine. He and I connected, oh,

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I want to say maybe 2020, 2021. He also leads a publishing company called

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Free Grace Press, and they picked up one of my books on family worship, Let the

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Little Children Come. And so we sort of began to develop a friendship. And just about the time, just shortly after I came on with G3 Ministries in the fall of 2021, he and, at the time,

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Owen Strand was provost, invited me to join the faculty. And I joined the faculty in January of 2022.

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And I'm just so thankful for the seminary. It's a confessional 1689

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Reformed Baptist seminary, training men for ministry as well.

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James and I are two sort of distance faculty. I teach a decent amount online.

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I teach every year the Intro to Seminary course, where we talk about just productivity and spiritual life during seminary years, as well as considerable discussion of research and writing, which is one of my areas of expertise.

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And so I teach that online every year. And then sometimes we'll teach some online classes, and then sometimes we'll travel to Conway and do some intensive classes, which

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I know James White does as well. And so I teach a variety, really, of classes.

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I've taught a class on theology of worship, a class on the Psalms, just sort of filling in, even doing some systematic theology, just taught a class on Christology.

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So, you know, they put the pastoral theology tag on there, but it ends up being whatever they need me to teach, I'm happy to teach.

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Great. And if anybody wants more information about Grace Bible Theological Seminary, go to gbtseminary .org.

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G -B -T for Grace Bible Theological, gbtseminary .org.

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And God willing, we'll be repeating that later on in the program.

10:15

Well, can you tell us about some things that we have to look forward to as far as G3 ministries?

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And it may be too early to ask about upcoming conferences, but perhaps you know about things that I don't.

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And I don't want you to forget, obviously, about, I believe there's a workshop of some kind that you are involved in with several other speakers.

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Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, many of your listeners who know about G3 will know that we have gone through a couple months of some difficulty and some transition, but the

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Lord's been very good, and we've been very thankful, in particular, in many ways, very thankful for the outpouring of support.

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We've just received so many emails and phone calls and text messages and social media posts just expressing how grateful people are for the many years of faithfulness of G3 ministries and the resources that we have been producing over the last several years.

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And so we're just, in some ways, more excited than ever for the future. I was named president at the beginning of July of G3 ministries, and I'm excited about that.

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And we're continuing, in many ways, without taking a breath, many of the things that we've been doing, like G3 Press and publishing solid books.

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In fact, one of the things that we decided to do since we had to cancel our national conference this year, which was scheduled for September 11th through 13th, we're going to be announcing very soon a special online virtual event that week,

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September 8th through 13th. We're going to be doing an online virtual bookstore, and one of the best things about the

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G3 conference that people love every year is the bookstore. We have Reformation Heritage books and Crossway and so many different publishers,

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Banner of Truth, PNR, all the major Christian publishers are always at our conference.

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We have arranged to do a virtual bookstore that week with all of those publishers, deep discounts.

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We'll be doing live streams every day, highlighting various resources from each of those publishers, and so people should be on the lookout for that.

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That'll be a week to buy books. There'll be some great discounts that week, and we're continuing to publish some wonderful books through G3 Press as well.

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That's all continuing, and we're really excited about that. Then we're really doubling down.

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We have already been expanding our streaming platform,

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G3 Plus, which you can see at plus .g3min .org.

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That has just been growing and growing. We have about 10 ,000 users on that streaming platform now, and we're just continuing to add new content.

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All of the books that we publish through G3 Press, we have in e -book format on that platform, so that in and of itself pays for the subscription cost for G3 Plus.

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Then we've got audiobooks, and we have documentaries, and we have video teaching series.

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All of the video sermons from past G3 conferences are there. We've just got so many resources,

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I couldn't even begin to go through all that we have there. Things for children, things for women and men, pastors, just the average

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Christian, lots of things to help believers with their walk of faith.

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I was just saying we're expanding our streaming platform,

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G3 Plus, with adding lots of different teaching series. We're just doubling down on that to produce resources that people can stream through the

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G3 Plus app. We're just very excited about that. Then events as well.

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That's what G3 has sort of historically been known for, is our conferences and our workshops.

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You mentioned we do have a biblical worship workshop that is coming up in the month of November.

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It's November 4th and 5th, and it is in Clinton, South Carolina. We've got some men here from G3, Laramie Minga, Matt Sykes and I, as well as Scott Brown, who is with Church and Family Life, will also be involved in that workshop.

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That's a workshop for pastors and church leaders to help them understand the nature of biblical worship, but also to think through how to plan worship services that are regulated by the

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Word of God, filled with the Word of God, and that help to form and disciple God's people for His glory.

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Then people will be happy to know that we do have actually a conference in the works.

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It's sort of top secret right now. We've got an announcement coming in a couple of weeks, and so people can be on the lookout for that.

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So really, there's just a lot of excitement that we're seeing from people. Our staff is excited, our church here is excited, and we're just looking forward to seeing the way that the

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Lord will continue to use G3 Ministries in the months and years ahead. Now, is there any retooling, if you will, of G3?

16:14

Is there going to be any altering of any approach to anything that you do?

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I'm just curious, because sometimes when a ministry goes through a crisis, it's a time of reflection, it's a time to go over things with a fine -toothed comb, trying to discover what things may have led to certain errors and controversies, and so on.

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Is there anything that you believe is going to be a part of a new chapter of G3 that perhaps is an improvement of things before?

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Now, I don't say that because I have complaints about G3. I always loved

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G3 and never had a complaint when the events were over. The only complaint they ever had was, it was over too fast.

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But tell us about that. Yeah, absolutely. You're right.

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When a ministry or a church or even an individual goes through some sort of crisis, it's always a good opportunity to sit back and evaluate and think through the future, and that's exactly what we did.

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We've got a fantastic board of directors, some wonderful godly men, some businessmen, some pastors, and as well as we've got a fantastic staff.

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And so we basically took the months of May and June, we didn't publish any articles, didn't publish any podcasts, just sort of kept quiet during those months, and used that as an opportunity to just assess not only the state of G3 ministries, but also just look around at the state of broader evangelicalism.

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With some of the things that happened here, there was nothing wrong with G3 ministries as a ministry, nothing that happened in terms of scandal regarding G3 itself.

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In terms of the structure and things that we were doing and producing and everything, that was all sound and we knew that we could continue that.

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But we did look at some of the causes for some of the controversy, as well as looking out into broader evangelicalism, particularly

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Reformed evangelicalism, but even broader than that. And we said, there is a retooling happening,

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I think, even more broadly. We're seeing some trusted men who are falling into sin.

18:56

We're seeing, in some circles, just sort of backbiting and fighting over maybe secondary and tertiary sorts of issues.

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And so we, as we were meeting, thought, this is a wonderful opportunity for G3 ministries, which in many ways has always been a sort of convergence ministry.

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It's always been a meeting place of many different men and ministries in the

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Reformed evangelical world. And so we thought we could be, or could help to be, a stimulant to trying to fix or to encourage repair in some of these areas.

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Maybe a growing celebrityism within Reformed evangelicalism or some of the backbiting and fighting that we've seen.

19:52

So one of the things that we did in June, leading up to when we knew we were going to start publishing and really ramping up things in July, is we released a renewed vision statement.

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We also did a kind of a brand refresh, a new logo, and freshened things up a bit.

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And we really committed, in many ways, not changing who we are as G3, but with a little bit of a tightening of things.

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For one thing, we've determined that we want to sort of combat some of the celebrity -driven ministry that has plagued broader evangelicalism for many, many years, and perhaps has begun to negatively impact even

20:37

Reformed evangelicalism. And I say that not to criticize wonderful men who have platforms, who write books, who's preaching people love to hear at all.

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There are wonderful men, many of whom are regular speakers at our conferences, who are humble, they work hard, and they're just insightful, they're productive, and people appreciate their resources.

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The celebrity -ism is not their fault. But I think it's very similar to what

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Calvin said about our hearts being idol factories. It's sort of innate in our depravity and even the remaining depravity of Christians to idolize people.

21:18

And so, we want to sort of battle against that as we move forward. So, one of the things that we announced in July was what we're calling the

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G3 Pastor Theologian Collective. And this is a group of eight faithful pastors.

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Jeff Johnson is one of them, but really, other than Jeff, probably most of your listeners wouldn't recognize the names in this group.

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But these are faithful men who are simply serving their churches, working hard, counseling, preaching, teaching, doing some writing, some equipping.

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And we decided that we want men like that to be the face of what we do in terms of content production.

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We'll continue to publish and invite to speak some of the names that everybody knows because they speak a lot of conferences and that sort of thing.

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But we also want to just intentionally highlight and promote the content of faithful pastors.

22:23

And so, that's one thing that I would say is a little bit of an adjustment that we're working towards with G3 Ministries going forward.

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In fact, just yesterday, I recorded a podcast episode that will be released very soon with all eight of those men.

22:39

And it was just a real sweet time and a wonderful time to sort of introduce them to our G3 audience. And so, we're just very excited about this initiative to really platform these men who are just humble, hardworking men in their local context.

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So, that's definitely one area that we're making a slight adjustment. Another area is focusing more on just average, everyday

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Christians, which that has been a characteristic of G3 for a long time in terms of our conferences.

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A lot of people would often joke, historically, that you have ShepCon out at Grace Community Church in California, and then

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G3 was often referred to as SheepCon. We didn't just have pastors, you know, the

23:32

Shepherds Conference is for pastors, a wonderful conference. But G3, certainly, pastors came to our conferences and will continue to come to our conferences.

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But a lot of people who are not pastors would come to the G3 conference and have come to the

23:49

G3 conference. In fact, that's one of the things that struck me most. The first conference

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I attended in 2020 was just how many strollers and children and everyday people were at the conference.

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And so, that's always been characteristic of us, but we've decided to really double down on that in particular.

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Sometimes it can be easy for large ministries to end up being just pastors speaking to pastors, and there's a need for that, and that's a wonderful, wonderful blessing.

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But we want to make sure that we're speaking to the people, meeting the needs of average people, families, men, women, men who work long jobs and are just wondering how to be faithful in their vocation, mothers who are trying to rear their children, maybe homeschool their children, dealing with runny noses and disciplinary issues and all of that.

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And so, we are focusing a lot of our attention in what we're publishing going forward, in the kind of conferences we have, the topics, as well as things that we put on our streaming platform, to just really focus our attention on what topics and issues will be most beneficial and helpful for the average

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John and Mary in the pew and really, really focus on that.

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And then one final thing, adjustment, not necessarily adjustment, but one of these larger issues that we're going to try to help with is to try to help to combat the kind of online fighting over secondary and tertiary issues, but at the same time, without minimizing the importance of those issues.

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Because I think there's two ditches when we talk about doctrine, particularly secondary and tertiary doctrine.

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The one ditch is where we end up fighting over every little thing. So, certainly, we want to stand firm on the authority and sufficiency of Scripture, the

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Gospel, the Trinity, the fundamental doctrines of the faith. Those are worth fighting over, and those are worth standing firm and not compromising over.

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But secondary doctrines, one dangerous ditch, and we've seen this online, and to be honest,

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I've failed here, and we have failed at times in not just taking stands on secondary doctrines, but perhaps doing so in a way that is combative or sort of overemphasizes the significance.

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That's one ditch. The other ditch is what a friend of mine calls Gospel minimalism, and that's where we emphasize the

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Gospel, which is wonderful, but it's almost as if then nothing else matters. None of those secondary or tertiary issues matter.

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And we want to help to try to emphasize a middle ground between those two ditches where we say that the main doctrines are worth battling over, secondary and tertiary doctrines are not worth fighting about, but they are important and we don't want to minimize them to a negative degree either.

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And so, we're already doing some things to try to emphasize unity and healthy, charitable dialogue about secondary and tertiary issues.

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So, one thing that we've done on our website is we've launched a new series. We had the first installment in July, and we're calling it

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Conviction and Charity. And the idea is that for a whole week on our website, we will take one theological or practical secondary or tertiary issue, and I invite speakers who have differing opinions on that issue, and we just allow them to clearly articulate what they believe on that secondary or tertiary issue in such a way that shows charity to those with whom they disagree.

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And so, we had the theme of eschatology in July, and we had a representative of historic premillennialism, an amillennialist, a postmillennialist, and a dispensational premillennialist, each of whom wrote a brief article in answering some questions about their views and just as a way to show conviction.

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These men all hold to those convictions solidly, but at the same time showing charity and graciousness to those with whom they disagree.

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And even the conference we have in the works, I won't give too much away because we'll be announcing that in just a couple of weeks, but we have some plans to really emphasize this issue of Christian unity at that conference as well.

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So, those are just some sort of tweaks and kind of refocusing that we have committed to in the upcoming months for G3 Ministries.

28:49

Now, there was already an attempt at demonstrating something like that, in my opinion, anyway, from what you've just described, when the

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G3 conference might have been the last Atlanta conference, where you had a panel of people who had different eschatological views and different approaches to Christian nationalism all on the same platform to discuss these things.

29:19

Would you say that my comparison is accurate there?

29:26

Yeah, absolutely. I think Christian nationalism is one of these issues that has certainly been explosive in the last couple of years.

29:33

And once again, I'll be the first to admit that I've made some missteps and maybe we as a ministry made some missteps in kind of the spring of 2023 in sort of stating some positions and some things online.

29:49

And so, yeah, at the national conference, we did a pre -conference that actually was in conjunction with Grace Bible Theological Seminary, and we did it on the subject of Christian nationalism.

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And I would say most of us on the faculty of GBTS and the speakers in that conference have some concerns about Christian nationalism.

30:15

However, Dr. White, of course, is a post -millennialist and holds to a certain form of theonomy.

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And so that panel that you're talking about did give us, I think, a really healthy opportunity to model some disagreements.

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I mean, he and I were sitting right next to each other. I'm more historic pre -mill, and I think probably, well,

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I think we had maybe one more pre -mill representative on the panel and then mostly a -mill, and then

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Dr. White is post -mill. And we had a great time. We were able to clarify one another, ask questions.

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And that's the kind of thing we need. We need more of that, where we're not compromising.

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We're going to hold our positions. And we can even challenge each other. We can even say, hey, I'm a little concerned about your view and where it might lead, but at the same time, we don't have to treat one another as enemies.

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We don't have to caricature one another. We don't have to make fun of one another's positions.

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We can show true charity and love and graciousness and respect for those with whom we differ, while at the same time having healthy conversation and even debate about those issues.

31:29

Well, we have to go to our first commercial break. And if you have a question for Scott Anial, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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chrisarnson at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name, at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.

31:45

Don't go away. We're going to be right back after these messages from our sponsors. James White here of Alpha Omega Ministries announcing that this

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September, I'm heading out to Pennsylvania to speak at two events that my longtime friend,

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Chris Arnzen, has lined up for me. On Thursday, September 18th at 11 a .m., I'm speaking to men in ministry leadership at Chris's Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Free Pastors Luncheon at Church of the

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Living Christ in Loisville. Then on Sunday, September 21st at 1 30 p .m.,

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I'm speaking at Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle on the theme, Can We Trust the

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Bible is the Authentic and Inerrant Word of God? I hope you can join Chris and me for both events.

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For more details on the Free Pastors Luncheon, visit ironsharpensironradio .com.

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That's ironsharpensironradio .com. For more details on Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle, visit trbccarlisle .org.

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That's trbccarlisle .org. God willing, I'll see you in September in Pennsylvania for these exciting events.

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This program is sponsored by Hope PR Ministry. Hope PR Ministry is a podcast produced by Hope Protestant Reformed Church in Walker, Michigan.

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We are dedicated to sharing Reformed biblical content every Wednesday and Friday. Tune in for sermons, lectures, and interviews exploring distinctive

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I'm Simon O'Mahony, pastor of Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Originally from Cork, Ireland, the

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Lord and his sovereign providence has called me to shepherd this new and growing congregation here in Cumberland County.

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At TRBC, we joyfully uphold the Second London Baptist Confession. We embrace congregational church government, and we are committed to preaching the full counsel of God's word for the edification of believers, the salvation of the lost and the glory of our triune

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God. We are also devoted to living out the one another commands of scripture, loving, encouraging, and serving each other as the body of Christ.

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In our worship, we sing Psalms and the great hymns of the faith, and we gather around the Lord's table every

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Sunday. We would love for you to visit and worship with us. You can find our details at trbccarlisle .org.

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That's trbccarlisle .org. God willing, we'll see you soon.

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I'm pastor Bill Shishko of The Haven, an Orthodox Presbyterian church in Comac, Long Island.

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I hold the Iron Sharpens Iron radio program hosted by my long time friend and brother,

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Chris Arnzen, in the highest esteem. And I'm thrilled that you're listening today. I'm also delighted that Iron Sharpens Iron is partnering with one of my favorite resources for reformed

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And don't forget cvbbs .com is now shipping worldwide. We're now back with Scott Anuel, who is president of G3 Ministries and we are discussing the

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G3 Ministries, the next chapter. And if you have questions, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

41:56

Give us your first name, at least city and state and country of residence. And we do have Alexander in Bayshore, New York, who has a question.

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The question from Alexander is Scott, you have mentioned before that you're trying to less focus on tertiary issues that Christians in good intentions disagree with each other, but sometimes go through, go too far.

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Does that mean that perhaps the theological makeup of the conferences that you will hold will be a bit broader?

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Yeah, that's a good question. Number one, I wouldn't say that we're not going to focus on secondary and tertiary issues.

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That's not the issue because we have to. Right. I mean, secondary, like I mentioned, secondary and tertiary issues are important, so we don't want to fall off that ditch.

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What we are going to emphasize even more strongly is being willing to differ with grace and charity with one another.

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So that's really the main emphasis there. With regard to speakers, certainly there may be some broadening or some different speakers that we haven't had before.

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I would say, though, it's still going to be within a generally conservative, reformed sort of confessional basis.

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We've always had Reformed Baptists and Presbyterians and Bible Church, all agreeing on, certainly, the fundamental doctrines, but even agreeing on some other very important doctrines, secondary doctrines related to Reformed theology, expositional preaching, even things like cessationism, which we do believe is an important doctrine.

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It's not a fundamental doctrine, but it is very close to the fundamental doctrines. So we still will have appropriate boundaries and appropriate guardrails, and we'll still emphasize some of those things.

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But very, very likely, even in the Pastoral Theologian Collective that we announced a couple of weeks ago, we have men there that we're going to be promoting and bringing to our conferences that have never spoken at a

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G3 conference before. And so there definitely, in that sense, will be the broadening of new names, maybe, that people are not familiar with or names that have never spoken at a conference before.

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Yeah, that's refreshing. I have always made it a practice, for instance, on my program to not only have men of God who have blessed me enormously, like the late

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R .C. Sproul, who's been on this program, the late John MacArthur, who's been on this program, and many others whose name you would immediately recognize.

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But I've also had many local pastors on the program that the only people who know who they are are their own congregation and family.

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But they are very gifted men, like the hidden treasures that I've, by God's providence, unearthed just by providence in meeting them and introduced them to a wider audience.

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And I have noticed over the years that, unfortunately, there have been pastors who are intimidated to come on the show because they're like, what do you want me on there for?

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You've had R .C. Sproul and John MacArthur and all these other big names, Joel Beakey and on and on.

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I'm just a ordinary lowly pastor. And I've always said, look, you guys are in the trenches more than anybody else.

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And you're more than somebody who is exclusively dedicated to academics.

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You are crying with people and laughing with people and sitting at people's bedside in the hospital and weeping with people at grave sites and dealing with all kinds of conflicts that many

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Christians who are not pastors are not having to deal with. And I want you guys to be a part of my program more than anybody.

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So it is refreshing. Now, there is like this tension that exists.

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For instance, I remember being at a at a small conference once in,

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I believe it was New Jersey, in the Jersey Shore. And one of the speakers was talking about the danger of celebrityism.

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But at the same time, here I am manning an exhibitor's booth and I have a banner with guests that I've had on my program.

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And every one of them was globally famous. And I said, you know, do you think it's wrong for me to have this banner with all these famous people?

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Because how am I going to get people to listen to my program if they look at my banner and they don't recognize anybody and they don't know who these people are?

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And the speaker said, no, it wasn't wrong of me to do that. He was encouraged, though, that I didn't exclusively isolate my guest roster to those people.

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Do you have any thoughts on that? Yeah, exactly that. You know, I tried to emphasize that earlier.

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I don't want to at all, you know, fall into the the trap of of criticizing some of these wonderful men.

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I mean, it is a biblical principle to give honor to whom honor is due. It is a biblical principle to emulate those whose lives are worthy of emulating.

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I mean, you know, John MacArthur is a perfect example of a man who is globally known for sure, but not because he was seeking the spotlight, not because he was climbing over people in order to gain some sort of celebrity status.

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He was a faithful minister of God's word week after week in one local church for those many years, faithfully writing books, faithfully speaking the truth, and doing so in a winsome and insightful way.

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And there is absolutely nothing wrong with people appreciating that and growing to love that and then even, you know, wanting to meet him and wanting to be at a conference where he speaks and those sorts of things.

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That's a that's a healthy thing. It becomes a problem, I think, with one of two things.

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Number one, sometimes men really long for that celebrity status, and that becomes what drives them.

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And so they they're seeking after that. And in fact, often, you know, those kind of men aren't being faithful pastors.

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They're not actually producing, you know, they're not writing books. They're not doing things to serve the church.

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They're seeking to be a celebrity for celebrities' sake. They're seeking to become a celebrity simply by making the right relationships or making the right chess moves or, you know, developing the right kind of strategies in order to get it, you know, in the right place at the right time and these sorts of things.

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That kind of celebrityism by pastors, by church leaders, is something that we definitely need to warn against.

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And then, as I alluded to earlier, the other danger is when, you know, even just sort of people in the pew, when honor becomes idolatry, when, you know, loving someone and benefiting from their ministry becomes a sort of, you know, pop star celebrity sort of mentality.

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And so that's what I think we need to we need to avoid. You know, with what you're talking about, sometimes just having men's names on your ministry that are known is just a way to sort of affirm, you know, my theology is similar to their theology so that, you know, people can know that that's who you are.

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There's nothing wrong with that either. But we do need to avoid, I think, and again, it's just a natural, sinful inclination of our depraved hearts, any sort of desire to be a celebrity, particularly without earning that or idolizing someone in an unhealthy manner more than just giving honor to whom honors do.

50:45

Okay, we have Tina Marie in Arkadelphia, Arkansas.

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And Tina Marie says, One of the things that I know baffled friends of mine and myself is when a particular person that was very well known for speaking at G3 events and had high positions at very well -known and highly respected institutions like seminaries, seemed to be involved in things that should have been known, such as operating as if this person was a pastor but not having even membership in a church.

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Is there any kind of better vetting that could go on to prevent this kind of celebrityism that you are convinced that you don't want to repeat?

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Yes, yeah, absolutely. We've even talked about that. I would say what the individual mentioned there,

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I think some of the details might not be exactly accurate. I think it came out that he was indeed a member of that church.

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However, there are some things you can prevent, and there are some things you cannot. We definitely, whether it be authors that we publish, speakers that we invite to our conferences, people that we have on our podcasts, and so forth, we definitely have already, even within the last six, eight months, and will continue to put measures in place to as best as we can vet these individuals to make sure that they are living faithfully and not living double lives and that sort of thing.

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But there are some times you just can't prevent that. I mean, we know firsthand someone can live a double life, and the whole definition of a double life is nobody knows that second life.

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And some people get very good at hiding their sin. And so, again, that's just the nature of a sin -cursed world.

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So, I think it's incumbent upon, especially those of us who have been given ministries like G3 Ministries, it is incumbent upon us to do everything we can to avoid the celebrityism and to vet speakers and authors to be sure, just knowing that sometimes we're just not going to be able to know when someone has a hidden sin.

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Right. Yeah, we are not omniscient. Right. But thank you, Tina Marie, and keep listening and keep spreading the word in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, about Iron Sherpa's Iron.

53:23

We have to go to our midway break right now. And once again, if you would like to get in line and ask a question of Scott Aniel, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

53:34

Give us your first name, at least city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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U .S .A. Don't go away. We're going to be right back with Scott Aniel after these messages. Puritan Reformed is a

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Hi, this is John Sampson, pastor of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona. Taking a moment of your day to talk about Chris Arnson and the

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Iron Sharpens Iron podcast. I consider Chris a true friend and a man of high integrity. He's a skilled interviewer who's not afraid to ask the big penetrating questions while always defending the key doctrines of the

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Christian faith. I've always been happy to point people to this podcast, knowing it's one of the very few safe places on the internet where folk won't be led astray.

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I believe this podcast needs to be heard far and wide. This is a day of great spiritual compromise, and yet God has raised

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I'm pleased to do so and would like to ask you to prayerfully consider joining me in supporting

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I know it would be a huge encouragement to Chris if you would. All the details can be found at IronSharpensIronRadio .com,

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where you can click support. That's IronSharpensIronRadio .com. I'm Dr.

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Joseph Piper, President Emeritus and Professor of Systematic and Applied Theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

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Dr. Morecraft is pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, and I urge everyone looking for a biblically faithful church in that area to visit that fine congregation.

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For details on the eight -volume commentary, go to WestminsterCommentary .com, Westminster Commentary .com.

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For details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com,

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Joseph Piper of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary sent you. This is

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Pastor Bill Sasso, Grace Church at Franklin, here in the beautiful state of Tennessee.

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Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support Iron Sharpens Iron radio financially.

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Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, the end of which we strive is the glory of God.

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If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe 10 minutes, or you are visiting this area, or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will join us some

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This is Pastor Bill Sasso wishing you all the richest blessings of our

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I'm Dr. Tony Costa, Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary.

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It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God, like the dear saints at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Corham, who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the unfathomable riches of Christ in His Holy Word, and to enthusiastically proclaim

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Christ Jesus the King and His doctrines of sovereign grace in Suffolk County, Long Island, and beyond.

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I hope you also have the privilege of discovering this precious congregation and receive the blessing of being showered by their love, as I have.

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01:06:02

Before I return to my conversation with Scott Anial, president of G3 Ministries, I just have some important reminders for you.

01:06:10

Please, folks, if you really love this show and you don't want it to go off the air, I urge you to go to ironsharpensironradio .com,

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click support, then click, click to donate now. You could donate instantly with a debit or credit card.

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01:06:42

And if you would care to advertise with us, whether it is your church, parachurch ministry, your business, private practice, like a law firm, a medical firm, or maybe it's just a special event, whatever it is, if it's compatible with my beliefs,

01:06:59

I would love to help you launch an ad campaign because we're just as much in urgent need of your advertising dollars as your donations.

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So send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line.

01:07:13

And by the way, I'd like to excitedly announce that during this live program,

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I was contacted by Pike Lambeth, the president of the publishers of the

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New American Standard Bible, and they are renewing their advertising contract with us. So I am absolutely thrilled about that.

01:07:35

But we would love to hear from you at chrisarnsen at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line.

01:07:43

I want my listeners to always remember, I never want anybody giving their own church where they're a member less money than you normally give your church on the

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If you love the show, go to irontrippinzironradio .com, click support, then click, click to donate now.

01:08:24

Last but not least, if you're not a member of a Christ -honoring, biblically faithful, doctrinally sound, theologically solid church like Praise Mill Baptist Church in Douglasville, Georgia, I have lists of biblically faithful churches spanning the entire globe, and I've helped many people in our audience all over the planet earth find churches that are biblically faithful, sometimes even within just a couple of minutes from where they live.

01:08:50

So that may be you too if you are without a biblically faithful church home. Send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:08:58

chrisarnson at gmail .com, and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address to send in a question to Scott Aniel, president of G3 Ministries.

01:09:10

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence.

01:09:17

We have Marshall in Kilgore, Texas, who has a question for you,

01:09:23

Scott. Uh, Marshall says, do you know if there are going to be any fresh new topics that will be addressed at G3 conferences?

01:09:33

One that I had in mind is hyper -Calvinism. Yeah, that's a great idea, and I would say that anyone who has any topics of interest, suggestions, things that they would like us to cover on a podcast, at a conference, on a blog, or even one of these,

01:09:54

I didn't mention earlier, these conviction and charity series. We're going to be doing one of those a month.

01:10:00

Please don't hesitate to reach out to us. We'd love to hear those kinds of suggestions. Dealing with the issue of hyper -Calvinism would be a wonderful one.

01:10:09

Yeah, we are thinking about a lot of different things. I mentioned really what's in our mind and our heart right now is the issue of Christian unity, and so that's where we're headed for our next conference.

01:10:21

We'll have an announcement about that conference very, very soon. We're very excited about it, but again, that's a great idea and would love to hear from anyone who has issues that you're facing, theological concepts that you found challenging to wrap your mind around, anywhere where we can produce something, whether it be a video for our streaming service, a blog article for our website, or a session in our conference.

01:10:49

We would love to hear those kinds of ideas. Great. We have Laramie who is in Basler City, Louisiana, and Laramie says,

01:11:00

Are you eventually going to return to the previous format of G3 conferences where you alternated between the national conference in Atlanta and regional conferences in varying cities all over the

01:11:16

United States? Yeah, that's an excellent question. We don't know for sure what exactly things will look like.

01:11:25

We recognize the conference scene in Reformed evangelicalism is changing, and there's a lot going on that we love and want to support as well, and so we'll see.

01:11:37

We'll see what the Lord has. Part of the answer to that question is we definitely will be doing conferences around the country.

01:11:46

That's something we want to commit to continuing to do and to make it easier for people in different regions of the country and even the world.

01:11:55

We've got people in South Africa. We've got friends in Brazil, even

01:12:02

India. I was there in February, and who knows? We might end up doing UK. We might end up doing some conferences in different countries as well, so we definitely will be doing that.

01:12:12

Whether we do a strict structure of more of a regional conference one year and then national conference here in Atlanta the other year, we're not sure about that yet, but we definitely want to continue to do conferences.

01:12:25

We think that they are beneficial and helpful to folks, and we definitely will be doing them in different parts of the country.

01:12:32

Now, you just mentioned a couple of minutes ago that you have seen changes in the approaches to conferences across the country.

01:12:40

Can you be more specific about that? Well, actually, I'm more speaking of there's more and more conferences.

01:12:46

There's wonderful options of things for people to attend, and that's one of the things that we want to do, too.

01:12:55

I didn't even mention this earlier, but one of the things we've talked about internally is to very intentionally sort of fight against any sort of competitiveness between good, like -minded ministries.

01:13:11

We want to work alongside other ministries that we love and support, so we're going to be bringing

01:13:17

G3 Press, our publishing arm, we want to bring our publishing arm to more and more conferences, as well as having other ministries at our conferences.

01:13:29

So we want to encourage not only unity on a local church level and unity among believers, but also a unity of ministries and conferences.

01:13:40

I think sometimes there's a competitiveness that assumes that ministry is kind of a zero -sum game, like where we have to fight for market share with another ministry, and I am convinced that is not true.

01:13:56

The more ministries there are, the more conferences there are, the more publishing companies, the more colleges and seminaries there are, the better, just like the more churches there are, the better.

01:14:06

We can all work arm -in -arm, hand -in -hand, battling against those heresies that are out there and false teachings, to be sure, but also working alongside one another to spread the gospel and to equip and encourage

01:14:22

God's people for His glory. Yeah, I've even heard, and this may sound like a ridiculous comparison, but I've even heard from people who are involved in the restaurant industry that restaurant owners should not be dismayed when a new restaurant moves into town, especially if they're offering a different kind of cuisine and atmosphere, because that is only going to eventually draw attention to their own restaurants, and because people aren't going to go to the same restaurant every day.

01:14:57

So, I think that that is true, even in regard to conferences, when you even make your own conferences known at other ministries' conferences.

01:15:11

That's how they could be discovered, and the spirit of competition can get so ugly and disgusting.

01:15:20

I've seen it. I've experienced it in the church pastors who are overly protective of their churches to the point of being openly envious of other churches, not wanting their congregation members to visit other churches, and that's another thing that I want you to comment on.

01:15:47

There is an element that exists of anti -conference folk who have nothing good to say about conferences.

01:15:58

They act as if the only fruit of conferences is turning speakers into celebrities, and I've told people when they comment like that, well, you can turn your own pastor into a celebrity if you don't want to hear anybody else what they have to say.

01:16:19

And I have been so blessed by conferences, and that all started with my own pastor, my first pastor, when

01:16:28

I was saved in the 1980s, Mike Gados, who actually baptized me. He was so comfortable with his own gifts that he did not unnecessarily covet his pulpit to an extreme and had at least three conferences a year, eventually, at what was then

01:16:55

Calvary Baptist Church of Amityville and later became Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Merrick, Long Island, because nobody can be an expert on everything.

01:17:06

No pastor can exegete the Scriptures equally in every area like some other people who may have had more concentration on areas of the

01:17:19

Scriptures and the contents thereof than every pastor has.

01:17:24

So, am I making sense? Yeah, absolutely. So many things that come to my mind as you talk about that.

01:17:31

Number one, as I observe the sinful competitiveness that's out there, you mentioned your pastor, he just was humble and didn't think too much of himself and so was willing to share his pulpit and bring other people in.

01:17:47

Usually, the kind of competitiveness or envy that you see out there is because of a lack of humility and a pride, and these are the same sorts of people who are seeking celebrity and it's a very dangerous position to be in.

01:18:02

But you're exactly right. Pastors, by definition, have to be generalists.

01:18:08

Pastors have to have a handle on a broad range of doctrine and practical issues and all sorts of these things.

01:18:19

And so, by virtue of that, no one pastor can be a specialist in every area or an expert in every area.

01:18:28

I remember years ago, ironically, I was at a conference and I heard somebody talking about this, somebody was speaking about this, and he said he was just encouraging pastors and making the point that pastors have to be generalists.

01:18:40

And so, every pastor, it'd be good to choose one or two areas where you really dig deeper and become more of an expert and get more knowledgeable in one area, but you can't be knowledgeable in every area.

01:18:56

So, what that means is that things like conferences, workshops, these sorts of special events outside of the normal week -to -week ordinary means of grace of a local church are opportunities for us to benefit from others who have expertise in areas that perhaps are not the case within our own local church context and we as pastors don't have in our local church.

01:19:23

So, whether it's inviting a special speaker to come in for a weekend or a series of meetings to speak on a particular topic, or what a conference is, is just an opportunity for many people to come together and to bring in speakers with different gifts, different emphases, different areas of expertise to speak on topics for the benefit of God's people.

01:19:45

That's a fruitful thing. We've always said at the G3 Conference that conferences must not and should not ever replace the local church.

01:19:55

That has to be said. There are always, unfortunately, people who are kind of conference hoppers.

01:20:03

They hop from one conference to another and they aren't really settled in and rooted in a local church.

01:20:10

That's a problem. The local church is God's ordained means by which he accomplishes his mission in this age.

01:20:18

But that doesn't mean that conferences or workshops or other events like this have no place or benefit.

01:20:26

They can be very beneficial for a number of reasons. We've mentioned one, the expertise and giftedness of individuals that might not be…we don't have them currently in our own local church.

01:20:40

But there's also just a great encouragement that comes when you gather together with more believers than you're typically with.

01:20:50

You hear the singing of God's people. You're able to fellowship with people that you don't normally see.

01:20:57

There's just an encouragement and sort of an upliftedness that comes from that, where then we can go back to our local churches invigorated, equipped, and ready to serve

01:21:09

God within our local context. So, it is a mistake to say that there's no value whatsoever in anything outside of the local church.

01:21:19

There is, as long as it's understood in its proper place, serving the local church and not in any way overpowering or overshadowing the local church.

01:21:29

Amen. Yes, I've always made it a point to view my own radio program first and foremost as a platform for gifted pastors to reach the public and people that they otherwise may not be reaching just because of geography.

01:21:52

And that's why I repeat every day for people, if they're going to donate to this show, never to give their own church less money, because I always wanted to be nothing less than a helping hand and an extension and platform to the local pastor and local church who are biblically faithful.

01:22:18

And I never want to be of any harm to the local church, including financially.

01:22:24

So, that will always be of the utmost importance to me as long as the

01:22:31

Lord enables me to continue this program. And we have

01:22:38

Perry, and it's either Arkdale or Archdale, North Carolina.

01:22:45

And Perry says, I hope you wouldn't mind answering this question, but could you give us at least a small handful of people's names that you would love to have speak at G3 who have never spoken there before?

01:23:01

And of course, I'm assuming he means living people, not Charles Spurgeon or something. Right. Yeah. Well, for starters,

01:23:11

I'm thinking of these men that we've invited to be part of the G3 Pastor Theologian Collective.

01:23:18

A couple of them, I think, have spoken before. I know Michael Staton spoke.

01:23:25

In fact, we had a conference in his church in Mustang, Oklahoma last fall, and so he has spoken at our conference.

01:23:33

But other than him, Jeff Johnson, I'm not sure if Jeff Johnson has spoken at a

01:23:39

G3 conference. We certainly did the pre -conference. But Jeff, I'll just give a little teaser to your audience.

01:23:46

He will be one of the speakers at our next G3 conference that we are announcing soon. But then some of these men that you mentioned a moment ago, using your program to sort of platform men who people don't know and allowing their resources to spread beyond their own geography.

01:24:03

That's exactly what we envision with our G3 Pastor Theologians, and these men are men that I want to hear.

01:24:11

They're everyday, normal pastors. So, I'm thinking of, for example, David DeBrain.

01:24:17

David is a pastor in South Africa. He is—probably not many people know his name.

01:24:25

Is that a nickname, David The Brain, or is it DeBrain? It's funny you say that, because he is such an insightful, winsome speaker and author that actually a friend of mine, his wife, refers to him as David DeBrain.

01:24:43

So, that's not new with you. But he's fantastic.

01:24:51

And another little spoiler, we're bringing him all the way from South Africa to speak at our next conference.

01:24:57

And I doubt anybody in our G3 audience or your audience has ever heard of David. He's somebody that I want to hear.

01:25:05

Another pastor friend of mine who's part of the G3 Pastor Theologian Collective, Pouyan Mershahi, he has an

01:25:13

Iranian background. He was converted from Zoroastrianism to biblical

01:25:21

Christianity, but he pastors in Cheltenham, England. And another faithful brother who is—again, a lot of people don't know him, but I want to hear him.

01:25:31

I want him to be able to speak at our conference. So, it's people like that. It's faithful pastors who are serving the

01:25:38

Lord, who don't care to have any sort of platform. They're not seeking that, but we come across their teaching and their preaching, and we think, people need to hear what these men have to say.

01:25:51

And so, we want to invite them to speak at our conferences and put their resources on G3 Plus and those sorts of things.

01:25:58

So, really, the sky's the limit. And again, as I said earlier with topics, if anybody has a suggestion of a pastor, of a faithful speaker that they would love to see at a

01:26:11

G3 conference some year, please feel free to reach out, send us an email, let us know that. Well, a name that has immediately popped into my head that you know full well who he is,

01:26:22

I don't know if he's ever preached at a G3 conference before, but he is one of my favorite all -time preachers and authors whose fame, for lack of a better term, never has seemed, at least that I can detect, it has never seemed to affect his humility.

01:26:45

He's a very humble, gracious man that does not seem to have any fullness of self, and that's

01:26:54

Sinclair Ferguson. Has he ever preached at G3? I don't think that he has, no.

01:27:01

He's a wonderful, wonderful brother. I was just talking to a friend recently about how much we love both his preaching and his writing, and you're right, that's the thing.

01:27:12

You want men who are articulate, who are faithful expositors, who clearly proclaim the truth, but you also need men whose character we want to emulate.

01:27:26

There are sometimes preachers, they are fiery, they are articulate, but they're arrogant and self -centered.

01:27:34

Well, I don't care how good a preacher someone is, if you can't emulate their life, I can pledge, we're not going to invite to speak at G3 conferences men like that.

01:27:46

Yes, we want people who can clearly and articulately communicate the truth of God's Word, but we want to be able to emulate their character, their humility, their graciousness.

01:27:59

That's a high priority for us in who we platform through G3. Yeah, that's so refreshing to hear.

01:28:06

It reminds me of a number of years ago, a very dear friend of mine who was a pastor on Long Island, retired, and before he actually fully retired, he asked me, do you have any suggestions for men who might want to apply for the pastoral position here that I'm leaving open when

01:28:34

I leave? I thought of some, and there's one person that I was aware of—I'm not going to mention his name, obviously—who

01:28:45

I recommended come to that church and candidate. I had heard this brother speak at other conferences and so on, and he's really articulate and really has a great depth of knowledge of the

01:29:07

Scripture and all this, and profound homiletic skills.

01:29:15

So, this person, this brother, candidated at this church, stayed with them for a week,

01:29:23

I think, and preached, at least for one Sunday, maybe more.

01:29:30

I asked my pastor friend about it, about what were the odds of him being accepted into the church as the new pastor, and he said, it's not going to happen, brother.

01:29:43

And I said, why? He goes, we were all so impressed by his preaching, but I do more than observe somebody's behavior and abilities and skills behind the pulpit.

01:29:55

I observed the way that he conducted himself with the brothers and sisters in the congregation.

01:30:04

Never asked anybody about their life, never asked anybody about how they were doing, kept himself isolated during times of meals, and he just knew, this is not the man, no matter how gifted he is, there is a certain arrogance about this man that I just do not want to risk doing injury to my own flock here by inviting this brother.

01:30:33

He thanked me for the recommendation and everything, but that spoke a lot to the wisdom of this pastor,

01:30:40

I think. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And let's see here, we have

01:30:47

Timothy, who is located in Rochester, New York, and Timothy asks, you were speaking before about people being too cruel in regard to infighting online and other areas in regard to secondary and tertiary issues of faith, that we're getting too bold and mean -spirited in their behavior.

01:31:16

Are you speaking of men who were speakers at the G3 conference? Well, I wasn't, no, speaking specifically of speakers.

01:31:25

I'm talking more just about the general atmosphere online, on social media. Again, I've failed there.

01:31:33

I think we all have failed in various times with regard to that, but it would even involve how we interact with people within our own church contexts.

01:31:44

Can we be in the same church with someone who holds slightly different positions, and can we do so with charity, being able to have conversations about those differences without getting into fights, without mocking, without caricaturing?

01:32:01

Social media has many, many wonderful benefits, can be a great benefit, but of course, we all know that oftentimes social media can become a place,

01:32:15

Twitter in particular, I think, where people are quick to speak and slow to listen, don't give people the benefit of the doubt, immediately pounce on something that they don't agree with 100 percent without considering the context of what someone says.

01:32:33

And it's a problem, and I think we need to have some time for self -reflection and making sure that how we interact with other people online is the same as how we would interact with them in person.

01:32:50

Hopefully, we wouldn't treat people in person the same way that we often see people treated online. And so I think there needs to be some readjustment there.

01:32:58

And so in any way that we can facilitate and model differences of opinion handled with charity, with grace, and with respect, we're going to do that in the various channels that we have at G3.

01:33:14

Yeah, the old keyboard warrior syndrome of people who have testicular fortitude to be very bold in the way they condemn or ridicule others when they know they're sitting in the safety of their basements with nothing but the glowing light of the computer screen on their face.

01:33:38

And that is definitely a problem. And I'm not even saying that I am guiltless when it comes to falling prey to anger and my reactions to different people.

01:33:50

And do you have any counsel for those of us listening?

01:33:57

There is always and has always been a tension, and there has been a division in the body of Christ between people who fall, it seems, into one category or another.

01:34:18

You have the one category of Christians who are sinfully ecumenical to the point of not having any concern over the doctrine and theology of somebody who professes the name of Christ.

01:34:40

Some even go beyond that and obviously don't even care about necessarily somebody being a

01:34:47

Christian for them to link arms with them. As much as I have enjoyed listening to Glenn Beck—he's a

01:34:56

Mormon, and I've been amazed over the years by evangelicals who swear he's a

01:35:02

Christian just because of some conservative moral and social and political views that he has—but you have that on the one hand, and you have on the other extreme people who are sectarian to a fault and want nothing to in any way, shape, or form with anybody that disagrees with their narrow circle of associates in the faith.

01:35:34

I can even remember having friends who approached me at some of my pastor's luncheons over the years and have actually said, what do you invite them for?

01:35:48

Pointing over to some people who may be outside of Reformed Baptist circles or whatever, I'm like, well, because I not only want this to be a blessing to pastors—by the way, my pastor's luncheons were invented by my late wife in the 1990s, and I've been conducting them ever since she went home to glory in loving memory of her—but it's not only to be a blessing to the pastors, treating them to free meal, free books, and a guest speaker that will edify them, but I would love to see pastors that disagree with me strongly in some areas to discover truth, perhaps for the first time, because they've never been in an atmosphere where they're listening intently to a speaker who disagrees with them on theological issues.

01:36:50

And then at the same time, I have learned myself from people who are not from my specific theological background, but who have strengths in areas of the

01:37:02

Christian life that I don't have, and I've learned from them. So, there's a danger in being a hermit and living in the only isolated community that agrees exactly with you.

01:37:17

Am I making sense? Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the problems is not only do we need to learn to distinguish between primary and secondary doctrines—that's important—but we also need to learn to distinguish between different kinds of cooperation and fellowship.

01:37:38

Typically, I think both of those extremes or ditches that you're talking about, part of the problem is they tend to see cooperation or fellowship as a black -and -white, all -or -nothing sort of prospect.

01:37:53

So, the sinfully ecumenical kind of person sees it as an all -or -nothing and wants to cooperate with lots of people, and therefore doesn't put any guardrails whatsoever in place and ends up cooperating with just about anybody.

01:38:09

But the same problem is true of the more sectarian person who says, unless you agree with me on every jot and tittle,

01:38:19

I'm not going to cooperate with you. The problem with both of those extremes is a lack of understanding that there are levels of cooperation.

01:38:29

The most close level of cooperation is the level of the local church.

01:38:36

A local church has to have more narrow doctrinal boundaries than other areas of cooperation, because you're worshiping together, you're spreading the gospel, you're planting churches.

01:38:50

And so, this is why I have many, many wonderful friends who are

01:38:56

Pado -Baptists, but they're probably not going to join my church because our church has believer baptism as one of our distinctives, and so that's a narrowing.

01:39:08

But that kind of cooperation is not the only cooperation that exists. A conference is not the same thing as a church.

01:39:15

An educational institution is not the same thing as a church. Partnering with someone for the spread of the gospel is a different level of cooperation and fellowship.

01:39:43

I was just saying, the different levels of cooperation—coffee, having coffee with someone, calling someone a brother in Christ—the boundaries are much broader there, and so we need to learn to understand and distinguish different levels of fellowship and cooperation and know where the boundaries are in those different levels of cooperation.

01:40:09

Yes, and just to let you know, as far as the speakers at my pastors' luncheons go, they are never radically different from the theological background that I have.

01:40:20

But as far as people who attend, I don't micromanage that, and I am more than happy to see men who are not

01:40:30

Reformed Baptists and Presbyterians there. In fact, I would say at least 50 percent, if not more, of pastors who ritually come twice a year to my biannual luncheons are not

01:40:44

Reformed, and they leave with sacks of free books that are always by Reformed authors.

01:40:53

So you never know what God is going to do in that regard. I even know of some charismatic pastor, an

01:41:04

Armenian charismatic pastor, who said a young man in his church who is studying for the pastorate, who has come to my luncheons, has built his library from the free books he gets at my luncheons that are all by Reformed authors, and he said that this young man has grown leaps and bounds in his theology.

01:41:26

So that's kind of a fascinating aspect of these kind of interactions with people that aren't in lockstep with you about everything.

01:41:36

Right, absolutely. We need to be willing, we want people to learn and grow from one another, and that can only happen when we are interacting with one another graciously, explaining from the why we believe what we believe, not caricaturing someone else's position, not mocking other people.

01:41:56

No, let's have serious dialogue, let's open our Bibles together, and as your radio program says, let's have iron sharpening iron.

01:42:05

Okay, we have RJ in White Plains, New York, who says,

01:42:13

Are there any negative things that have been said about G3, as far as a reputation would go, that you think are total slander, as opposed to some things that you said were true that needed to be changed?

01:42:34

Yeah, well, I mean, there's always going to be, you know, things said out there. I seen, you know, nothing but encouragement.

01:42:46

That has been, you know, very, very encouraging, very happy to see that. I don't know, again,

01:42:55

G3 itself, I don't think, sort of, in terms of our DNA, had any serious problems that needed to be corrected.

01:43:04

And we praise the Lord for that. We always, you know, need to reevaluate. We always need to make sure that we're not losing our mission and that sort of thing.

01:43:14

And so, when crises occur, like has happened here a couple of months ago, it's always a good time for self -reflection.

01:43:24

So, I wouldn't say, as a ministry, I've seen anything that, you know, sort of accurately describes something inherent to our

01:43:33

DNA that needed to be corrected. Certainly, us as individuals, all of us as individuals, how we interact online, how we conduct ourselves.

01:43:43

The one I alluded to, the kind of interaction on Christian nationalism a couple of years ago, perhaps, is an example of where there were some missteps and, you know, definitely things that, you know, could have been done better in terms of interacting on that.

01:44:02

But we thank the Lord that, just in terms of the, again, the structure of the DNA, the main mission, the things that we've been publishing and doing, we praise the

01:44:12

Lord for, thus far, keeping us on mission and seeking to serve believers and churches.

01:44:20

Probably the biggest criticism we've had over the last year, that I would say is a wrong criticism,

01:44:27

I would disagree with the criticism, is some who would refer to G3 as being hyper cessationist.

01:44:34

We did have a, you know, we had a cessationism conference in the fall. And so, there was a lot of emphasis in books and articles and then certainly at the conference and social media on issues related to cessationism, just because we were having a conference.

01:44:50

So, for some people, they may have thought we made too big of a deal of that. However, I agree with my brother,

01:44:56

Justin Peters, that the doctrine of the Holy Spirit is a doctrine that is perhaps one of the most attacked doctrines today.

01:45:04

And the large influence and worldwide dominance of charismatic theology is dangerous for our trust in the sufficiency of Scripture and something that needs to be combated.

01:45:19

So, I think that was a needed conference, a needed help to produce the cessationist documentary that we have on G3+.

01:45:27

I think those were needed things. It's understandable, maybe people thought we talked too much about it because we were focused on it for the conference, but the charge of hyper cessationism simply is not true.

01:45:39

I wrote a book on the Holy Spirit and very strongly argued that the Holy Spirit is active today.

01:45:46

Nothing that happens in salvation or sanctification would take place without the active work of the

01:45:53

Holy Spirit. We emphasize strongly having an experiential love relationship, communion relationship with God through his

01:46:03

Spirit as believers. I've seen caricatures of G3 as being just sort of deist and intellectual.

01:46:12

Nothing could be further from the truth. I've personally written extensively on the need for us to pursue deep, heartfelt communion with God in which our affections are shaped by the

01:46:24

Word and love for God is the center of biblical Christianity. So, if I were to give one example of sort of an unfair criticism, it probably would be that we are hyper cessationist.

01:46:36

Well, we have to get to our final break. And if you have a question, perhaps we could squeeze it in before we run out of time.

01:46:43

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence.

01:46:49

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Iron Trip and Zion Radio. We're now back with Scott Aniel, and we have Audrey in Oak Ridge, North Carolina, who asks the question…

01:52:26

Let's see, where is Audrey's question? I was just looking at… Audrey's question is, oh, have there been any bridges that have been burned with wonderful men of God as a result of anything negative that has occurred with G3?

01:52:47

No, we praise the Lord that there haven't. Again, thankfully, the controversy really had nothing to do with G3 as G3, and none of the rest of us on staff were involved in any of that.

01:53:02

Of course, certainly there was some slander that took place, but that happened with one individual only, and so we praise the

01:53:11

Lord for that. Having said that, now in my new role here as president, I'm intentionally reaching out to some of the men in particular who were slandered.

01:53:20

I've got some trips coming up where I want to meet face -to -face with some of these men. Again, G3 had nothing to do with it as a ministry.

01:53:28

I had nothing to do with it as an individual, but I still want to just have conversations and reaffirm some of these relationships and seek to build those bridges once again as well.

01:53:43

Well, I want to make sure that for the remainder of the program, you highlight things that you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners about G3 and further whet the appetites of folks who perhaps either never heard of G3 and they want to continue to pursue investigating and even attending events that you put on and also making use of the resources that you provide, or perhaps even some of those that were overly skeptical and pessimistic about the future of G3, if you could bring to the forefront those most important things that you want to convey to our listeners.

01:54:29

Yeah, absolutely. I really appreciate it. I did see in the early days of the controversy some questioning, can

01:54:36

G3 survive? The beauty is, some ministries are intricately connected to individuals, and if that individual falls into sin or that individual has some scandal take place, well, then by definition, the entire ministry is going to crumble because the ministry was defined by that individual.

01:55:04

Thankfully, G3 Ministries has never been defined by one individual. G3 has always been broader than that.

01:55:11

G3 has always been about bringing people together. I've mentioned that the conference for many, many years,

01:55:18

I think one of its strengths has been that it is a convergence point for like -minded men and ministries to come together.

01:55:29

G3 itself was never identified with an individual. The same is true now for the past four years since I've been with the ministry in what we've published, our blog articles, sermons, podcasts, teaching series, and our streaming platform never surrounded one individual.

01:55:50

It was always much broader than that. I believe that for that reason, G3 will continue even perhaps stronger than ever, and so we're grateful for that.

01:56:02

I'll acknowledge in the first couple of weeks of May, I wondered, would we be able to continue? But we were immediately overwhelmed with positive and supportive and encouraging feedback from those who had been to conferences, those who had read books we've published, subscribers to G3 +, and we also have a church network that is a 1689

01:56:26

Baptist church network of about 215 or so churches around the country and even some in different areas of the world.

01:56:35

Within that first month at the end of May, we had a meeting with our pastors and they were all incredibly encouraged and encouraging.

01:56:43

As we began to refocus our vision in June and now into July, monthly meetings with our pastors were always encouraging.

01:56:55

For any who thought that G3 was going away, that G3 would not survive, nothing could be further from the truth.

01:57:03

In fact, just a couple of weeks ago, I had a phone call with a couple of pastors about how

01:57:09

G3 could serve them, and they were saying, we were hoping G3 is not going away, and the good news is

01:57:15

G3 is not going away. Our vision is tight, our mission is secure, and so I would just encourage people, visit g3men .org,

01:57:28

go to plus .g3men .org for our streaming service, visit our

01:57:34

YouTube channel, see the kinds of things that we're publishing, reach out to us with ideas, with suggestions, with requests, we want to hear from you.

01:57:44

Our goal, as I've stated several times now, our mission is to educate, encourage, and equip

01:57:52

God's people with biblical truth for faithful living. We're committed to that, we're committed to serving people, we're committed to promoting resources of faithful pastors, of combating celebrityism, and the combativeness and competition that we see sometimes in ministries today.

01:58:12

I'm very excited, our staff is excited, the church where our ministry is housed,

01:58:18

Graze Mill Baptist Church, we're all excited, and we just look forward to seeing the ways that God is going to continue to bless and use this ministry for his glory to serve his people.

01:58:29

Amen. And by the way, I don't know if you've had the opportunity to meet them yet, but I have decades -long friends that started a friendship with me in the 1980s when they were members of the same church where I was a member on Long Island, and they are now attending

01:58:47

Graze Mill Baptist Church. That's Lou and Karen Ivan, and Bosco and Heather Lau.

01:58:55

Yes, they're all wonderful friends, they're all in my Sunday school class, we love them to death.

01:59:03

Well, make sure you extend my greetings to them, and even though I hear from them almost every week anyway.

01:59:10

Well, I'll give them a shout out because they're probably listening, so hello to the Ivans and the

01:59:16

Laus. Amen. Well, I want to make sure that our listeners have your websites.

01:59:22

Once again, g3min .org is the website for G3 Ministries, g3min .org,

01:59:30

and also gbtseminary .org is the website for Grace Bible Theological Seminary in Conway, Arkansas, gbtseminary .org.

01:59:41

Scott Daniel, it has been a rich pleasure having you on the program, and I look forward to many return visits from you,

01:59:48

God willing, in the future. And I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who took the time to send in questions.

01:59:53

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