Serious Encouragement for the Brothers (Denny Burk, Jason Allen, Jim Hamilton and Others!)

AD Robles

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I'm not the kind of guy that uses expressions like this very often, but I, I finally figured out what it means in the past week or so to say, my heart is full.

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I'm just kidding. No, but, but, but seriously though, I've seen a lot of stuff online that has made me very, very encouraged.

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And I have to say, it all started with a Dr. Owen Strawn's lecture series and a lot of his tweets that he's been tweeting out lately.

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A lot of people were very encouraged by that. And I've seen people from, you know, big

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Eva institutions that are sharing it. And they're so encouraged. I saw Jim Hamilton coming out strong in support of Owen's series on wokeness.

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I saw, uh, uh, Dr. Jason Allen, uh, who's the, I guess the president of Midwestern Baptist theological seminary.

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I saw Denny Burke throwing a lot of support behind it as well. And honestly, like this is all a great, huge, gigantic, humongous step in the right direction.

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And I got to say guys, like if you watch this channel, you know, you guys have to understand that all the work that we've been doing and all of the conversations that we've had in person and all of the questions that we've asked online and all of that kind of stuff has had a dramatic impact on how things are shaking out, um, at the highest levels of big

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Eva. So I am very encouraged, but let me further encourage you because I think there's more needed. And I want to just nudge you in that direction because it's very, it's one thing to come out strong against critical theory, which we all should because it's very evil.

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It's another thing to come across very strong against, you know, woke ism and some of the excesses of the woke church movement.

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Definitely. We definitely need to do that as well. But there's one thing that we really need to do. We need to take it out of the theoretical and bring it to the streets.

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We need to start applying this to specific people's teaching. And I want to illustrate that, um, using a clip from this

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Jonathan Lehman interview because he actually says this exact thing. I, I commend this. I see, he says, you know,

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I don't want us to talk so much about labels. I want to talk about the actual teachings that are, um, that are, that are, you know, abhorrent or the actual teachings that undermine the gospel.

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So tell me about their, tell me about the person's actual teachings and we'll talk. And so I want to encourage that.

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I think that's exactly the right way to go. I don't have a problem with labels, but yeah, the teachings actually matter more than the label.

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Um, but the problem is that when tested Jonathan Lehman doesn't actually want to do this.

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At least it doesn't appear that he wants to do it. It reminds me of the scene in the office. I actually recently, I've been telling everybody

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I I'm watching the office for the very first time now. So like 10 years late and stuff like that.

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There's a scene in the office where Dwight gets a room and Michael asks to stay with him. Let me just play it right now.

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I need to stay in your room. No way. What if I meet someone? I'm staying in your, come on. I would do the same for you.

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You would. Yes. Really? Yes. Let's just go. Wait a second. Oh no, no, no, no. This must be some kind of mistake.

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This reservation is under an M Scott. Oh, this must be yours. Thank God. Oh no.

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Now that I don't have a room, can I stay with you? Um, no, no.

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You know what? I would say yes, but you can't. And I'll tell you why. If I have a woman up there and things are getting amorous, she's going to get turned off.

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If she looks in the bathroom and she sees you brushing your teeth with butter and clay. Okay. Okay. That was a test and you have failed, but this is my room.

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Okay. You would not share with me. I don't have a room. No, you do not. Okay. Oh, you must pass the dungeon wisdom test.

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And so you see Dwight tests Michael immediately and Michael fails the test. Let's let me show you what

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I mean here, guys, because I want to encourage you that it's not enough to refute the error in the theoretical. We need to help our people by seeing it applied to a specific teacher's teachings.

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And this is not to say you have to say that this teacher is horrible and you have to say, call them bad names and you have to, you know, cast them out into outer darkness.

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I'm not saying you have to do that, but you absolutely do need to refute specific teachers, specific teaching.

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Your people need to see that in action, because the theoretical with, if it's never applied to everyday life, it actually doesn't help your people as much as you need that as, as much as they need it to help them.

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Let me give you an example. Here we go. This is Jonathan Lehman. I support what he's saying here, but then let's watch him get tested.

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Right? Yeah. Well, they are. So instead of just slapping down these bumper stickers, like critical theorist,

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I just want to say, okay, can we talk about specifically what he has said that would jeopardize the gospel or undermine the gospel or the unique authority of scripture?

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I'd rather have a conversation. You're telling me for the first time that this guy is a self -proclaimed critical theorist.

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Two guys. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Two guys. Okay. A I've never heard that B I've never heard this one guy say anything that would make me think that C let's not use labels.

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Let's talk about specific things he has said that are problematic. That's, that would be how

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I'd want to respond to that. Right on. I I'm S I'm in support of that. Listen, I don't have a problem with labels.

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I think labels can be very helpful if used appropriately, but I would much prefer to have a conversation, not so much about labels, but rather about the specific teachings that undermine the gospel.

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And this next clip, this is, this is, um, five minutes later in this conversation. This is why

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I started thinking about that office clip a mere five minutes later in the conversation, the two guys that are interviewing

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Jonathan do exactly this. They bring specific teachings to bear. And, um, this is amazing to see how he instantly wants to move away from it.

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Let's talk about this. Honestly, you probably thought about it a lot more than if I thought about it, you probably thought about more than I, I just have a really hard time.

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I have a really hard time dealing with these jump drawer labels, right? These bumper sticker labels, like critical race theory, which is, can we, can we talk about something specific that he's saying and what doctrinal threat that specific thing he is saying is.

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Yeah, that's, that's helpful. Uh, one more question. You want me to take it? No, I'm sorry. I was just going to say, I think the thing that's so tricky right now is that so much of the conversation is bumping so close to what feels like has to be aligned.

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So I didn't, I didn't plan on bringing this up, but I will. The re the recent video of, uh, of Tim Keller saying, the

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Bible says that if you have white skin, that you are guilty of injustice. Right? So I don't know if that's like,

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Keller say that or did somebody put those words in? No, there's a video. Keller said it specifically. He really said it. We'll link to it in the episode description, just so you can all see it for yourselves.

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And I love Tim Keller. I give out Tim Keller books. I mean, he's, I've actually given out two

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Tim Keller books in the last month, uh, and, and, and some discipleship relationships. So I love

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Tim Keller. Nevertheless, whatever that statement is, it seems like it has to be bumping right up against a line where it feels like we're about to cross.

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He's actually who I was thinking of when I asked that question. Okay. Yeah. Same, same experience. And I'm not Jonathan, I'm not asking you to comment on Keller or that comment, especially since you haven't seen the video.

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That's just meant to be an example of like, I agree with you, brother. It's very hard to say where that line is, but it seems like the red, the rhetoric about this stuff is being ratcheted up to the point that I feel like guys are getting a lot closer to it a lot more frequently.

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Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I haven't seen that video. That's true. Let me say this. Okay. So, so how do we respond to something like that?

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I think it's our obligation as Christians to lean in and try to understand

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Keller on his terms for what he's saying. I think that if you worked to, I think if you, if you work to hear or read someone charitably from their perspective, giving them the benefit of the doubt,

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I think nine times out of 10, you're going to read them more accurately. Whereas if you go in cynically, you are more than likely than not to misrepresent them and misunderstand them.

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Guys, here's the reality. So, so, you know, we want to talk about specifics. You bring up a specific and the answer is,

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I haven't heard it. Okay, great. You haven't heard it. Go listen to it by the way. Go listen to Tim Keller say this because he said it, but his answer is, yeah, but just don't, you know, you read them charitably so that he actually isn't saying what he's clearly saying.

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That's not going to cut it, guys. We need to be able to fight this fight directly. If Tim Keller said that he was wrong, we need to be able to say that.

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We need to be able to say that unequivocally. It's easy to do this, Jonathan. And all of you brothers out there, look, all you have to say is this, look,

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I haven't heard the clip, but if Tim Keller actually said that, then Tim Keller was wrong about that.

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Does not require you to come out strong against Tim Keller's entire ministry and history does not require you to come out against calling or calling him names and stuff like that.

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It doesn't require any of that, but we need to see this applied in the here and now we need to hear it to see this applied to specific people's teaching.

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You need to go watch that Tim Keller clip right now because this is the problem that we've had. Jonathan Liebman hasn't seen the clip.

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Okay. I believe him. I have seen the clip and I'm willing to go out and say, no, no, no. Tim Keller was absolutely abjectly wrong about that.

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He needs to repent for teaching that wicked doctrine that if you're white in America, you're guilty of injustice.

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Even if you didn't do injustice, you're still guilty. That's absolute heresy. We need to absolutely call that out for what it is.

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And the thing is like what we get typically is, Oh, you're not reading him charitably from people who haven't actually heard it.

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Like that's the thing. Lehman is his assumption is we're not understanding Tim Keller even as he hasn't seen it.

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Guys, that's not going to cut it. You're going to need to start confronting this teaching directly. Brothers, let me encourage you because I'm so happy to see you come alongside

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Owen Strawn with his lectures on wokeism and some of his tweets and stuff like that. That is, it warms my heart so much.

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I'm grateful for a step in the right direction. Now let me encourage you to take that next step. The next step, you don't have to stop being friends with people.

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You don't have to hate people. The next step is you need to help your flocks apply this to specific people's specific teaching.

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We need it guys. We absolutely need you to do it. Let me encourage you in that. I hope you found this video helpful.