The American Churchman: Sin & Restoration in Pastors and Leaders

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Welcome, welcome, welcome to the American, uh, what was I, I was going to say

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American Reformer. It's the American Churchmen. Those two organizations are very similar, but they are different.

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And the American Churchmen actually exists. It's brought to you by TrueScript and it's dedicated to inspiring

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Christian men to embrace their divine calling, exploring a range of topics today. We're going to be talking about some theology.

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We're going to be getting into some of the attributes of God. Today, our subject is the incomprehensibility of God.

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And then we're going to talk about, uh, pastoral qualifications. When, uh, does a pastor, when he does not meet those qualifications, when should he step down?

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When can he be restored to ministry? What does that ministry look like depending on the egregious way that those qualifications are violated?

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And of course, always with me, Matthew Pearson, my cohost. And today we have a special guest.

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We have Tom Rush, Pastor Tom Rush, who is also one of the board members for TrueScript, which sponsors this podcast.

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Thank you for joining us, Tom. I really appreciate it. Hey, glad to be here, John. Thank you for having me. And for those who don't know

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Tom, he is retired from actually a few different, uh, branches of the military being a chaplain.

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And he's been preaching for, I guess, around 50 years now, almost right. 49 years. Almost. Yeah.

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And, uh, the bio on TrueScript says you have 12 grandchildren. I don't know if that number's changed, but five children, 12 grandchildren.

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Still the same, fortunately. Still the same. So, uh, so anyway, welcome and thank you for joining us, everyone who's coming into the live stream.

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Uh, just a reminder that TrueScript is funded and, uh, the American Churchman podcast is funded by your generous donations.

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So if you go to truthscript .com, scroll down to the bottom, there's a donate tab. It is 501C3. If you want to submit an article to TruthScript, you can also do that there.

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I'm going to be showing you, uh, Tom's article later on in the podcast, but before we get to that, let's talk a little bit about the incomprehensibility of God.

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That is our attribute today. You don't hear about this attribute a lot, the incomprehensibility of God.

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So as I have the last two podcasts, I fund it to the seminarian first, Matthew, what's the incomprehensibility of God?

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You're on mute, Matthew. Thank you. I unmuted myself here, but I'm not, did not.

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You were incomprehensible. I could not. I was. Yes. Yes. But, um, anyways, as I was saying, illustration, right?

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Yes. Yes, exactly. Yeah. There we go. I, I did that on purpose. Anyways. Um, the incomprehensibility of God, John, like you said, uh, with a saty last week, this and with incomprehensibility this week, this is one of those attributes that is not talked about the most, uh, in the church, not for any malicious reason, necessarily just doesn't come up.

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Um, but before we even define incomprehensibility, we have to define like, what does it mean to comprehend something?

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And a lot of these notes, some of these notes I gleaned for myself, someone who I have benefited from, uh, with the topic of incomprehensibility in the past is, um, pastor

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Matt Marino, who he's the pastor at grace ARP, uh, here in central Florida.

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And he also has a wonderful YouTube channel. You all should check it out called reformed classicalist, but he brought this point up about what it means to comprehend something to comprehend essentially is to have a complete and exhaustive knowledge of an object.

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So we don't have comprehensive knowledge of all things, but it is possible to have a certain extent of comprehensive knowledge.

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So if you really want to learn about, I don't know, say you really want to learn about Nietzsche and philosophy, you can pull up Nietzsche and read him.

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You can also look at secondary sources. You can look at his life, his situation, all those things you can learn all that you want to know about Nietzsche.

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You can have a comprehensive knowledge of, uh, of Nietzsche because it's all right there. Um, can we say the same thing about God?

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And to answer to answer that is no, God is in a sense incomprehensible.

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Now there's a sense in which there are these things we can know about God because he has revealed them to us.

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And there are two verses I want to read from scripture, which kind of bring these points out. Uh, the first would be

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Deuteronomy, uh, chapter 29 verse 29, which reads the secret things belong to the

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Lord, our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever that we may do all the words of this law.

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So notice the first part of that verse, the secret things belong to the Lord, our God, the next part, but the things that are revealed belong to us.

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So there are these secret things of God, but then there are these things which he reveals to us.

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Another good point that we can go to within the scriptures is Psalm 145 verse three, which reads great is the

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Lord and greatly to be praised and his greatness is unsearchable. So again, as we've established, there are secret things.

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There are also revealed things. And what we have to realize is that what incomprehensibility really gets down to is another attribute of God, which is his infinitude, the infinity of God.

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And the fact that we as creatures of the creator, we are finite beings.

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We have finite minds and in principle we cannot comprehend or know that which is infinite.

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The finite is incapable of the infinite. So because of that, God reveals that which he providentially knows is for our good.

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So God can be known. We can know God in a certain sense, insofar as he's revealed certain things about him.

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We can know God, but this does not mean that we can know all that is true concerning God.

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And now what it comes down to is we cannot exhaust God because he's infinite. And to end my little spiel about incomprehensibility,

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I have to be a good, a good reformed person and read from the institutes very quickly.

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There's a brief little section where Calvin gets into the incomprehensibility of God in regard to creation.

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And this is what he says here. And I really like the latter half of this is very funny. Calvin writes this, for it is neither lawful nor expedient for us to inquire why

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God delayed so long, referring to creation, because if the human mind strives to penetrate thus far, it will fail a hundred times on the way.

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And it would not even be useful for us to know what God himself to test our moderation of faith on purpose willed to be hidden when a certain shameless fellow this, he actually gets this from Augustine's confession that I love this part.

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When a certain shameless fellow mockingly asked a pious old man what God had done before the creation of the world, the latter aptly countered that he had been building hell for the curious.

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And that is how I will end my spiel on divine incomprehensibility. But I would love to hear your thoughts on this as well.

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Well, that was pretty comprehensive there, Matthew. You always do a good job with that. I have one quick question.

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So you mentioned the attribute of infinitude being an example of his incomprehensibility.

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And I'm wondering, does this mean because there's two things I'm thinking of and maybe it's both. Could he have attributes we do not know about?

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Like my daughter knows me, but she doesn't know everything that I am capable of doing because she's a little baby, but she knows some things.

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Are we like that where we don't see every side of God? There's other sides and attributes he may have.

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Or is it that the attributes that we do know we can't comprehend because I can't comprehend eternal or even all knowing.

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I don't understand how that's possible. So is it both of those things or one of the other? Yeah, I believe there's a certain sense in which we can answer.

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God has either revealed to us all of his attributes and we just can't fully comprehend them.

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Or, I mean, it's fully within the realm of possibility that perhaps God does have certain attributes that we may never know about or will not know in this current life.

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I haven't thought about it before, but based off of our knowledge of incomprehensibility,

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I think it's fully possible that that is the case. And again, that's just something all that we know about God is all that he has deigned it meet and right to reveal to us.

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But that's a great question, John. You know, I'm just a seminary student. We have a pastor right here.

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I know. Do you have any thoughts on this or on John's question in particular? Well, let me just jump in here from a pastoral perspective and maybe look at it a little bit from how worldly, secular people might view this.

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You know, Isaiah 55, 8 is where the Lord says, my thoughts are not your thoughts nor my ways, your ways, says the

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Lord, as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.

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I think what people do when they come up with a concept of God is they create a

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God in the image of man and the man that they that they use is a good man.

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You know, if we were to if we were to analyze human goodness now, we know that there's no one who does good, no, not one, because God's comparison is

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Christ and none of us measure up. But from the from a human perspective, you know, we we could analyze and say,

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OK, well, that's good. So what they'll do is they'll conjecture a view of God. And oftentimes this

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God is very interested in fairness and equality. And so what they've done is they have created a

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God out of their own model and sentimentality, if you will. They have created a God in the image of man.

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And what that does is it turns the whole thing on its head, because scripture tells us that man was created in the image of God, not the other way around.

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And a young friend that we had a number of discussions about this because his concept of God was very humanistic.

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Now, he gave to this God a lot of the characteristics that he himself had as a good human being, as much as one could be that.

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And what I told him was I said, the problem is, is that the God that you're trying to describe is infinite and you are finite.

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He is eternal and you are not. And so we need to be very careful about conjecturing an image of God that we make up ourselves.

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And we just have to accept the reality that he is incomprehensible. And what he does want us to know about him, he has revealed in the word.

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And that brings us right back to where we get our theology, where we get our doxology, where we get our faith and practice.

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It all needs to come straight from the word of God. Excellent.

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Excellent. Yeah, this is one of those attributes that I find comfort in, and it's not usually the one you bring to people,

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I suppose, when they're in a challenging trial. But for me, this is one of the top ones, because it means that God is so much beyond me and his ways are so much higher than mine that if I can trust the other things, that he's good and that he's all powerful, then

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I can also trust the things I don't understand. He's got it taken care of. So this answers the question of why, you know, because people are like, why did the baby die?

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Why did the evil occur? Why did the shooting happen? Why? It goes back to the very question of evil.

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And if we understand the incomprehensibility of God, we have to say, well, God is higher.

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He knows more. He knows the beginning from the end. And he has a purpose for everything he does.

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And so God is both good and he is able to do, he is omnipotent. He is powerful enough to do whatever needs to be done.

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And what God calls for throughout the scripture is for us to put our trust in him, not just to believe in him, not just to believe in his existence, but actually to trust him with the circumstances of life.

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Good word. Well, thank you, Matthew and Pastor Tom. I really like starting off the podcast with a discussion of God directly.

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Absolutely. I do want to switch gears and talk about this article. But before we do, there are some questions coming in.

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I want to let everyone know who's live streaming right now that I would love to take your questions and ask

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Pastor Tom or if you have a question for Matthew, whoever, just put them in the chat there.

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There's two that I want to point out quickly. First is from Alex Kramer. He says, any comment on the lack of specificity on the offense referring to Steve Lawson?

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I'd be curious to hear your thoughts. And actually, Pastor Tom does talk about this in his article, and we actually talked before we hit record and we are going to share a little bit more with you about what happens so that we'll give the reasons as we go through it.

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But John Taylor, just to get your wheels turdy there, Pastor Tom, he says, what about Joseph, who thought

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Mary cheated on him but sought to put her away privately? Should the elders not have done the same?

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So you don't have to answer this now unless you want to, but I'm seeing a discussion develop in the chat about Joseph and Mary, and maybe this just should have happened quietly, which

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I don't know how that's possible with Steve Lawson as a conference stage, but that's a question. You have people ranging from hush hush to blurt it from the mountaintops, and I guess we're going to navigate that.

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Yeah, we're going to have to navigate that. You know, it's two different situations. It's almost like comparing apples and oranges.

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The situation with Joseph and Mary, we don't have angels intervening, giving messages to clarify in this situation.

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And so I think that's a very unfair comparison. There is a public aspect to ministry, and I think that when we're dealing with sin, when we're dealing in the area of church discipline, that matters ought to be kept as private as they can, and they should go no wider than the audience that knows.

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Unfortunately, when there is egregious sin among ministry leaders and the word gets out about that, truth is always the best way to deal with it.

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And so this is something that's public knowledge, and we have very clear scripture in Paul writing to Timothy, who was the pastor at Ephesus in 1

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Timothy 5, that the elders that sin, let the elders who rule well be counted double honor.

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Let's put it first, the ones that are doing a good job, we need to recognize them for that, especially those that labor in the word and doctrine, and then do not receive an accusation against an elder except from two or three witnesses.

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Those who are sinning rebuke in the presence of all. So we have direct scriptural instruction that this needs to be dealt with publicly.

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Now, I don't think that the gory details need to be shared, but the basics of what happened probably do so that there's understanding.

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I think there's people that are really confused about what happened, and I really feel like that the elders at Trinity Bible Church should be a little bit more clear about what we're dealing with here.

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I think they could go a long way in clearing up some of the confusion. Yeah, yeah,

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I do agree. This is the article for those who are curious. You can go to TruthScript .com.

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It's on the front page right now. It's entitled A Closer Examination of the Concept of an, quote,

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Inappropriate Relationship, unquote. And so this is what we're going to be discussing today.

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It's not a very long article. Most of the articles on TruthScript are pretty accessible, but it's a good article and it's going to be dealing with what we just brought up.

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And I'd invite Matthew, if you have any questions or anything you want to jump in with, please do so.

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Let's start here. Since you're here, we don't need to read it. We usually do that, but we have the author with us.

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So wherever you want to start is fine with me. I think maybe it would be good to lay a foundation here for the qualifications of ministers and why violating those qualifications is particularly egregious.

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It's maybe, I don't know if you would phrase it this way, but different than a layman who has a private sin that doesn't affect many people.

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So we're already going down that line. Why don't we just keep going? Well, James 3 .1 certainly lays out a foundation that those that teach the word have a higher accountability for that.

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You know, we're the shepherd. We're the leaders of the flock. And of course the qualifications in 1

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Timothy 3 and Titus 1 have to do with being blameless. Now being blameless doesn't mean that you're perfect.

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It means that if there were any accusation thrown against you, it wouldn't stick.

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I like to use the term, you know, the old term of Teflon, you know, be a Teflon man. Don't have anything in your life that would stick.

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No one's sinlessly perfect. But the scriptures are very clear about what the qualifications are and the whole set of qualifications in 1

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Timothy 3 and Titus 1 are explanations of what it means to be blameless.

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When you commit egregious moral infractions that are publicly known, you are no longer blameless.

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You have accusations that will stick. And that's why Timothy was told when you're going to receive these accusations and it's obvious that he's talking about something that we're not talking about gossip here.

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We're not talking about something. Well, we think you did it. We're talking about where we know a transgression has occurred.

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Then in the presence of all means that this needs to be brought out before the congregation and explained.

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If there's repentance, that repentance certainly can restore one's relationship to the

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Lord, but restoration to the ministry is another matter because what we've done is we've lost confidence in one's ability to counsel by the

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Bible and to preach by the Bible because we've made it obvious we're not living by what we've been preaching.

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So here's a question I guess I would have. You mentioned if it's publicly known, does it change if it's a private sin?

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If a pastor has disqualified himself and no one knows about it.

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And in the case of Steve Lawson, I know that this was an ongoing thing. This was a relationship that had developed over the course of years.

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I think about five years is what I understand. Yeah. And I've had multiple people reach out to me with the story.

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It's making its way out there. And I know it's frustrating for a lot of the people who respect

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Steve Lawson and feel like he's just been erased and they don't have any explanation. But the thumbnail is that this was a relationship that developed over the course of years with a woman who was in her twenties and it was a compromising relationship and Steve Lawson did not come forward of his own accord.

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He was essentially, it was found out and the father of this young lady ended up going to the elders and telling them, this is what's going on.

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And, and that was on Tuesday. And then by Thursday morning, everything's gone from a number of different ministry websites.

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Right. And, and so that's, and I don't know if I want to get any more details than that. I think that's probably enough, unless you want to say more, but that's a private thing.

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No one knew about it until the father of this young lady came forward. So is that disqualifying?

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I would assume so. Well, it is disqualifying. But again, when you say that no one knew about it, then no one knew about it.

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So it's not true. God knew about it. That's true. And the person that committed it knew about it.

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The persons and directly involved knew about it. And so it's certainly disqualifying, but you know, the

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Bible's very clear that we need to use a process, a due process kind of thing.

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Everybody needs to be heard and the investigation needs to be made. In this case, we're not getting any pushback that this is something that, you know, somebody's making a false accusation.

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It seems to be pretty clear on the surface. So it can't be dealt with until it is known.

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But it was always disqualifying in the sense that, you know, God is going to hold us accountable.

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And so I think that what has to happen then is as soon as it is known, that appropriate steps need to be taken.

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And one of the reasons that I wrote the article is, as pastors, let's guard ourselves, this is a very dangerous and subtle temptation that, you know, we need to be on our guard.

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You know, we don't need to be following our hearts. We need to be guarding our hearts and leading our hearts and, you know, maintaining our right walk with the

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Lord on a day by day basis. And we know what's right. But again, God knew throughout this whole process, but there's nothing that elders or, you know, whoever the governing body of a church might be, there's nothing that they can do about it until it is made known.

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You mentioned John MacArthur saying that you can be restored to fellowship, but not to ministry.

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And so what would restoration in a situation like this look like? Well, you know,

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I think that repentance is a very key component in all of this. And again, you know, one of the things

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I talk about in the article is it's easier to repent when you get caught because you don't have any other choice.

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You know, once you're caught, once you're exposed, the problem with that kind of repentance is, is that you can't have, there's no quick way to know whether that repentance is genuine.

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Repentance is something that has to be demonstrated over time. Confession is easy.

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I can confess that I have sinned. Repentance is a different story. You know, you know, the

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Proverbs 28, 13 is, is a good one that, you know, whoever covers his transgressions shall not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will find mercy.

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But you can't know that someone has forsaken it, you know, in a 24 hour period, it's going to take time.

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And, and so, uh, the, the genuineness of repentance and I, and I, so let me just say it, this whole thing is heartbreaking.

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This was a very difficult article to write. I take no joy in,

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I took no joy in writing the article. I take no joy in what's happened with Steve Lawson. He had, uh, an amazing ministry and a tremendous impact, uh, for the cause of Christ and all of that's been tarnished.

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It's been hurt and it ought to break all of our hearts anytime that we see this. And there are certainly no, uh, feelings of, on our part of animosity toward brother

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Steve. I still consider him a brother. I think he's genuinely saved. I, I don't know his heart, the

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Lord does. I hope he's broken over this. I hope he's genuinely broken and that he realizes the, the damage that his actions have caused.

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Uh, and that would be the right response. And I, hopefully we will know that over time, that, that that's what's going to, uh, to come out.

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Um, and so he certainly needs to be under biblical authority. Hopefully the elders there of his church will put him there and that he'll submit to biblical counseling.

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But I think godly sorrow has to be observed over a long period of time and it has to be carefully guarded.

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Uh, there's a tremendous passage of scripture that deals with repentance and that's

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Paul's comments in second Corinthians chapter seven. He says in verse one, that our goal is to perfect holiness.

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And then he says this, and I think it's so critical in the fear of God. And I just want to say to any of my fellow pastors that are listening, men, let's fear

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God. I mean, let, let's, let's be afraid. Uh, let's remember that the reality is you can't sin in private.

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There is no private sin. If, if it is private sin, the only audience is

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God and it ought to bother me more, uh, you know, uh, that I sin against God than I were to sin against John or Matthew.

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You see what I'm saying? And, and remember what Joseph said, how can I do this great sin and sin against God?

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Now that was Joseph's response. His biggest concern was not that it would, uh, defile his master,

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Potiphar, uh, not that it would defile Potiphar's wife, not that it would defile him personally.

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His biggest concern is, is that that action would cause him to sin against God. Well, I think we have to take it more seriously in, in that regard.

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But, um, I really think it's important to say that, that we believe that Dr.

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Lawson can be forgiven, uh, and restored to his relationship with Christ, his family.

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Particularly his wife. I think it's very appropriate for us to pray that that would be so, uh,

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I really hope that that will be the ultimate end of all of this, but when we, uh, when we come to the restoration to the ministry, that's a, that's another matter, uh, you know, we're, we're not being judgmental, we're not being harsh, um, we're not being vindictive or mean spirited, there are consequences to your actions.

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And I think the consequence of this kind of egregious error is that you have disqualified yourself from the ministry.

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And I have a link to Dr. MacArthur's article, um, in, in my article, and I highly commend, uh, that, uh, because Dr.

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MacArthur does an excellent job of, you know, just laying out the details of, of, uh, restoration and what's appropriate and what's not.

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Yeah. I do think of Peter and, uh, the example of David, obviously with failures there,

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David, not in a, an ecclesiastical position, but, uh, um, Peter certainly was, and his failures were not, uh, cultivating a relationship over the course of years with a younger lady though, you know, it's different, but, right.

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Um, I, I'm just trying to parse it there. If there's, you know, what's the difference? Why do we say, well, you know, Peter can be restored to a ministry position, but, uh, someone like Steve Lawson, he can be restored to fellowship.

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He can use his gifts perhaps in less influential ways, but he's not going to be a minister again. Well, that's, that's a difficult question for, for one in Peter's case, we know that Christ restored him.

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So whether we understand, we should go back to what we talked about earlier, the incomprehensibility of God, uh, we may or may not come up with a good answer to that question from a human perspective, but Christ restored

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Peter. So it's clear that, uh, that Christ felt like that Peter's denial was not a disqualifying factor.

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And then of course we see how, uh, the Lord turned that around in Peter's life and what a great, uh, and, and awesome, unbelievable ministry he had.

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You know, he's one of the elders on the 24 thrones in heaven. So, uh, you know, uh, that, that's, that should give us cause to reflect there.

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Uh, I, I would see, uh, Peter's transgression, uh, as a part of the sovereign plan of God, remember that Jesus predicted it ahead of time, told

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Peter what he was going to do, even after Peter had assured him that he would die with him.

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And so then as the church develops and as, uh, Paul writes, uh, his letters and the doctrinal foundation of the church has laid out the qualifications for those that would be the shepherds of God's flock of God's congregations, that those rules were laid down.

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And so Paul put in very clear terms, what was to be done with elders who sin and who sin is a public affront, uh, to themselves, to the church, uh, to the individuals they harmed and more importantly to the cause of Christ.

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Yeah, it seems like, uh, with the qualifications, if there was a pastor who let's say wasn't as hospitable as they should be, we would probably say, well, you need to be more hospitable, but if there's a pastor who picked up a prostitute,

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I don't know, it wouldn't be the same, right? There, there is this sense in which that's a sin that's more egregious.

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One of the falsehoods that we hear so often is that, you know, all sin is the same, no, it's not, all sin is not the same, never has been, never will be.

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Uh, you have, if you just look at the old Testament, there were 38 sins that carried the death penalty. So not all sins were the same.

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Uh, they're not all the same in consequence. Um, it, it is just as bad to lust after a woman because you have committed adultery in your heart in that sense, but that's not as bad as actually committing adultery because there's a lot more ramifications.

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Oh my soul, let's pray that we don't go beyond lusting, you know, because it's worse, uh, if you hate someone in your heart, in essence, you've murdered them in your heart, but if you don't actually murder them, they're still alive.

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I mean, the consequences are clear, you know, I mean, some sins are worse than others, certainly, uh, if we look at the consequences that unfold from those sins, and this has a far reaching, uh, a far reaching impact, you know, another thing that we think about is the example and influence as ministry leaders, where to set the example for those that are under our spiritual care.

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Uh, if we say, well, you know, what this person did in this area, and particularly if we're talking about sexual immorality, if we say that's okay, what we're doing is we're telling everybody else it's okay.

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You know, you can, you can do a little bit of this. You can go this far and you know, we'll, we'll throw you a lifeline and, and, and pull you back.

31:38

I think we just have to accept the reality that there are certain things that are going to disqualify you from the ministry.

31:45

And I believe that this particular situation that we're talking about falls in that category.

31:52

Yeah. I, when I did the podcast a few days ago, when I wrote my article about this, I didn't know how egregious it was, but I was thinking of this in terms of a prudential, in a prudential way that, uh, if you have a ministry as far reaching as someone like Steve Lawson, and then you fall in this kind of way, that will always follow you and that it would be, um, an inhibitor essentially, you know, even if you were fully restored and, uh, it would be a very hard thing.

32:23

Uh, not, not because it breaks some rule in the eyes of the world. It's not about how you're seen in the eyes of the world.

32:29

It's that, um, you've broken God's law. And so there's a hypocrisy that, uh, it, um, you know, putting the qualifications aside just for a moment though, um, you know, as far as like whether the

32:46

Bible says he should step down or not, I'm just saying like on a purely wisdom level, uh, you elevate someone like that at a conference or a church, then you're asking for problems and you're, um, you, you just won't get away from that distraction.

33:02

You know, I, I, I do a praise team ministry at my church. And one of the things we talk about sometimes is the way we dress and we don't want to bring distractions to the congregation as they're worshiping.

33:11

Cause that's why we're there. We're there for the Lord. We're not there to showcase ourselves and how good we are at playing an instrument or preaching or any of that.

33:19

We're there for the Lord. And so that's part of the problem. The practical problem there is it brings a distraction to otherwise people who should be focusing on the

33:28

Lord, you know? Um, that's a very good point, John. Yeah. Thanks.

33:34

Uh, Matthew, you had anything to add to this before we get to some questions? Yeah, certainly. Um, I really like how you had mentioned that, um, there's no such thing as private sin and that's something because, you know, we can go back to more attributes of God.

33:51

Um, God is not visible to us. He is an invisible spiritual being.

33:57

We can't see God. So oftentimes we feel like we're alone, um, with just ourselves or another party involved in a sin.

34:04

And, um, a particular, uh, you know, speaking of the example of David and, uh, his adultery,

34:11

I go to, I thought immediately thought of Psalm 51, which was pertaining to his adulterous relationship when, which is one of the, uh, greatest penitential

34:22

Psalms that we have. Um, it's, it's a delightful Psalm, but he says in it, um, you know, obviously

34:28

David had sinned against, he'd sinned against Bathsheba. He had sinned against her husband, but not only that, but more importantly, he sinned against God.

34:38

Um, and he says in verse four of Psalm 51, he says against thee, thee only have

34:44

I sinned and done this evil in thy sight, uh, notice he's saying against you have

34:50

I sinned and I've done this evil in your sight. So, uh, when you're alone, uh, sinning, whatever way it may be, whether it's lustful thoughts, whether it's hateful thoughts, um, unjust hatred, of course, uh, anything like that, you may think it's just you and your sins, but, um, it's the, this is the sort of thing that we all kind of intuitively know.

35:11

Like we know that God sees all things. We know that sin is bad. We know we sin against God, but it's when you actually phrase it as like, there is no such thing as private sin.

35:21

Um, it really helps to put into perspective, um, not even just for ministers, but just for anybody, um, the importance and absolute necessity of living a holy life.

35:32

Like, are we, are we justified by faith alone? Absolutely. Um, but does, does our

35:38

Lord not say, um, a good tree will bear good fruit. Um, if you love me, you will keep my commandments.

35:45

Um, does, does the apostle Paul in Romans two not say who will render to each one according to their works is

35:50

James two, not emphasize faith without works is dead. Uh, does John not say in first John, um, to, to be holy, um, to, if you have not loved your brother, you don't have the love of God in you.

36:01

You don't have the life of God in you. These things are, you know, these are important. Um, they're of the utmost importance.

36:07

And I also really love how you, um, bring up the fact that, because it is just a terrible misconception that all sins are the same.

36:16

And not only do certain sins have like worst temporal consequences, but even eternal consequences.

36:23

Uh, think of, think of this as an illustration. I like to use this a lot with people say that there's like a 12 year old, uh,

36:29

Hindu boy in India that he's trying to cross the street or something. And he gets run over by a car. Now he is without Christ and he sadly will go to hell.

36:39

Now think of Joseph Stalin and all the millions that died under his regime, his hatred of God, his wickedness.

36:47

Do we really think that they're suffering an even amount granted? They're both separated from God, but I think we can say that there are different degrees of judgment and suffering that people undergo for their sins.

37:01

And then when we put this in perspective of ministry and I, as I'm a seminarian, so I seek to go into pastoral ministry.

37:09

It's just always a reminder of like. The intense and important requirements for someone to be a minister of God, because you will be a public person, um, in an ecclesial sense, and you will be looked to as someone who guides the sheep and you guide the sheep because not only can you exposit the word of God, while you read the word of God, well, but you are supposed to be someone of virtue that is of the utmost importance.

37:37

What does Paul say? Paul says, follow me or imitate me as I imitate Christ. Paul said,

37:42

Hey, you can look at me as an example of how to act. Can someone who is a minister say to their congregants, follow me, imitate me as I imitate

37:52

Christ as of the utmost importance. And it's just, it's a really big thing that I, I consider as I go into ministry,

37:59

I say, am I being, am I being holy? Not just for the sake of, Oh, I want to make sure

38:05

I don't go to hell. Like, no, that should never be your primary motivation for being holy. You ought to ask, am

38:10

I being holy first and foremost? Because I love God. I love his law. As the

38:15

Psalmist says all throughout the Psalm, Psalm 1, Psalm 119, everywhere. Like, do you delight?

38:21

Do you love the law of God and seek to please him in that regard? And actually too, when you look at the law, you see the

38:27

Lord of the law, Christ Jesus, do you follow that? But not only for that either, but for the sake of being upright, being an example before your congregation.

38:35

Those, those things are just so important. And, um, whenever you see you, you, uh, you have, uh, you've stopped preaching and gone to meddling, my friend, because the sad thing is,

38:47

I mean, let's just be honest, there's way too many, uh, of us in the ministry who allow that, um, level, if you will, of private sin, we need to keep short accounts with God and let's, let's get practical about this.

39:04

There are some things that you can do, uh, to keep, you know, because here's the thing, if you allow private sin and let's just put it in the, in the realm of thoughts, you know, there's a, there's a thought process in progressive

39:16

Christianity now that you're not accountable for what you think. And I want to say, oh yes, you are. And what you think determines what you do.

39:24

Belief predicates behavior. And so we need to be very careful about that.

39:30

One of the things that I do that helps me from a practical standpoint is I read from the Valley of Vision, that's part of my prayer life every day and the

39:38

Puritans, if you know, for all their apparent foibles that somebody, some people want to place on them, uh, they certainly had an awareness of private sin and they abhorred their sin before God.

39:50

I think we can remember that Paul, when he wrote to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 13, he said, examine yourself, whether you be in the faith.

39:57

I would say maybe we could take a track on that as those of us that are ministry leaders, particularly pastors, uh, examine yourself as to whether you ought to be in the ministry, you know, look at your own life.

40:09

And, you know, uh, it's not just gross, immoral sin. Certainly we want to stay away from that.

40:15

And I think if we, again, lead our hearts, guard our hearts, you know, uh, that we, if we keep short accounts with God, if we're in the word, if we're praying on a regular daily basis, if we're keeping our walk with God where it ought to be, our concern should be more than just whether we would egregiously sin, but, you know, my prayer is

40:34

I don't even want to disappoint God. I don't want to disappoint him. You know, and I think how many times

40:41

I have, and we need to repent from disappointing God, from not just doing wrong, but from not doing our best.

40:48

But sometimes we allow, uh, good things to get in the way of best things. And so I think that it's a matter for those of us that are ministers, we have got to be disciplined and, you know, at True Script, we're, we want to encourage men to be the godly men, the godly husbands, the godly churchmen that they need to be as pastors.

41:10

We have a really high responsibility to set the bar high. Um, when

41:17

I did my doctoral work, uh, at Emmanuel Baptist seminary, our president, Dr.

41:22

Stewart said this, he said, no church will ever rise above its pastor.

41:28

And that is a good statement. And he was absolutely right about that. Uh, so, uh, let's men, let's be careful, particularly those of us that are in the ministry.

41:38

We have got to set a high bar, a high example, uh, for those that are coming behind us and those that we are trying to lead.

41:48

I want to get to some of these questions. Good talk. Uh, I want to just real quick, one story that it sparked in my mind that when

41:54

I was in seminary, I probably shared this before. There was a, uh, small group that I was part of.

42:00

And I remember one day I went to the small group and these are pastors. Some of them are aspiring pastors are going to graduate.

42:08

And I remember the topic of pornography came up and, uh, we had a seminary professor leading this conversation and I was shocked.

42:17

I did not expect, uh, I think it was just about every man in that particular, uh, setting all had a problem with it.

42:26

And then there, you know, they made this accountability pact more or less. And I just remember thinking, um, with, with utmost compassion,

42:34

I, obviously I have that. I, I am a man I understand. And, um, but when you take the ministry, you are,

42:42

God's going to bring a stricter judgment, it says. And, um, so I just want to encourage people who are listening to this.

42:49

If you have those private sins, they have a way of rising to the surface and coming out eventually.

42:54

And the devil would love to use that against the reputation of Christ. And so, uh, make sure that you find, it says those who are spiritual should restore such a one, no matter what the sin could be gluttony could be whatever, but find someone who's, uh, had some victory and get some help.

43:12

That's what I would suggest. And then proceed to that pastoral ministry. But you want to make sure not that you have to be perfect, but you got to make sure that these aren't habitual things in your life that, uh, are going to, devil's going to use as a hook, you know?

43:25

Um, so anyway, uh, some, uh, questions. We have a lot coming in and I would encourage people ask your question now.

43:31

Uh, Justin Peters said no more, no one should read Steve Lawson's books or commentaries ever again.

43:38

There seems to be a lot going on that is yet to be released. Uh, man, that's a, so should anyone use

43:45

Steve Lawson's commentaries? That's a good question. Oh, that's a, it is. I love

43:50

Justin Peters. He is one of the finest men alive. He has a tremendous ministry. And, uh,

43:56

I, but I have to say, I disagree with him on this. I said in my article, anything that Steve Lawson said that was true is true.

44:03

Anything that was biblically correct is still going to be correct. Um, I do believe that, you know, he's, he's tarnished his reputation.

44:11

I think that, um, you know, Matthew's a seminary student. If he's going to the bookstore and he's looking at books on a particular subject, then, well, there's the, you know, there's one by Steve Lawson.

44:23

He might, there might be a little check, you know, as to whether he wants to get that or not. But if whatever he wrote was true, it's still true.

44:31

Um, you know, there was, uh, uh, a Greek scholar, William Barclay that, uh, he, he was a liberal and a lot of what he said was incorrect.

44:41

But he knew the Greek and that you could use Barclay's, you know, studies of the New Testament if you wanted to understand

44:47

Greek, uh, but it turned out he had some very serious moral problems in his life.

44:53

So there's a lot of materials out there that you, I think you can glean from. Um, and I think that, that Dr.

45:00

Lawson's work that's already done as a matter of record. Um, I think it's a bit harsh to say, never ever read anything that he, that he wrote.

45:10

Um, you know, and, and of course we've mentioned David already. Um, we know that David's repentance was genuine and Psalm 51,

45:19

Matthew that you mentioned earlier is one of the proofs that we know that David's repentance was genuine.

45:26

Um, and so we hope that one day that, uh, that, uh, brother Steve's repentance will be genuine and there'll be evidence of it, but I don't think that, uh, you necessarily, if you've got, uh, you know,

45:38

Steve's work on your shelf that you need to take it down and throw it away. Yeah. Good word.

45:44

All right. Quiana Shaw says, thank you, pastor. I have said the same thing. We have scripture and the statement was vague.

45:49

I think she's talking about the statement that the church made about his inappropriate relationship.

45:55

And as Christian, she says, we shouldn't be unclear about sin. It's the vagueness that invites gossip and speculation.

46:01

Thank you. Quiana. That's a good. Yeah, that's a, that's a great statement. It, it, it does.

46:08

It, it, it invites, uh, uh, you know, could invite gossip, uh, about it because we're unsure about what happened.

46:17

And I've, you know, as I said in the article, um, I think biblical terminology is best and I've searched the scripture high and low and I can't find inappropriate relationship, sinful relationships.

46:31

I can find adulterous relationships and I can find numerous commands against sexual morality, sexual immorality of every kind.

46:41

Uh, you know, Paul told the Thessalonians that, uh, the will of God is, you know, that, uh, we abstain from sexual immorality.

46:50

So clearly the will of God that we do that. And I think that means not only an action and word, but in thought.

46:57

Uh, so, um, I think that we need to say, uh, that this was a sinful relationship.

47:04

Um, it may well have been, and it may well fit into the category of an adulterous relationship.

47:11

Uh, but it was certainly sinful. It was certainly wrong. And, uh, I think we, I think we're just better off if we use

47:18

Bible terminology. Um, and if you look at, uh, if you look at how Jesus dealt with these things, uh, you know, one of the classic examples of the woman caught in adultery.

47:30

And I think that Jesus was very gracious and kind with her. And I think that he clearly recognized that the greater sin was on the part of those that dragged her before him and basically threw her on the ground and said, this woman is an adulterer.

47:44

And, you know, you're wondering, well, where's the man? It obviously was a setup on their part.

47:50

And, uh, but you know, while Jesus was gracious with her, he said, go and sin no more.

47:56

He didn't refer to what happened as an inappropriate relationship. The woman had committed adultery.

48:02

She was caught in the act. I don't think there's any, there's no, um, ambiguity about that in the scripture.

48:09

When Jesus was at, uh, dealing with the woman, uh, at the well in Samaria, you know, he didn't say, well, you're in an inappropriate relationship and you have a history of inappropriate relationships.

48:19

Now that wasn't the deal. Uh, she was in a relationship with a man that she wasn't married to. It was sinful.

48:26

And so I think we're just better off if we deal with these issues, uh, with biblical terminology as best we can.

48:35

Yeah, I agree. Trudell says inappropriate relationship is a phrase from your HR department. That's a good comment.

48:42

I agree. Travis Holmes says, what about if a Christian commits adultery before becoming an elder? Is he disqualified for, from ever becoming an elder in the future?

48:52

Well, that's a can of worms. I don't know if we want to open all that. Yeah, I don't really think it's that big of a can of worms.

48:59

Uh, you know, uh, I think there's a lot of considerations that have to be taken and every situation has to be judged on its own merits.

49:07

Uh, I think the qualifications for pastors, you know, do you meet them at the time?

49:12

So are we talking about something that happened before someone was saved? Then, uh, if, if they've got, if they've given clear evidence of genuine repentance and they're right with the

49:23

Lord, uh, I don't necessarily think it would be disqualifying, uh, elders when they consider people for the office need to look very carefully at their background.

49:34

I think one of the mistakes, particularly, I know I'm, uh, I've grown up and been in Baptist life, all of my ministry.

49:41

And I think one of the things that we have been remiss in doing is, uh, or deigning people, putting them in the ministry without proper consideration of their qualifications.

49:53

So let's, let's make sure that we properly qualify, but I would not say that it is an absolute disqualifier.

50:00

Yeah. Has Steve come out with his own statement? Not to my knowledge, Brian, I haven't seen that, at least not publicly.

50:07

Uh, Brutus says, unless we are members of Mr. Lawson's church, most of what is, uh,

50:13

I guess we are saying is pure speculation. The Bible is clear about elders of a church. Church discipline is about how these matters are dealt with in a church.

50:21

You know, um, he, he left a few, I'm assuming it's a he, sorry if you're a she, uh, that this person left a few comments along these lines that this is engaging in gossip and so forth.

50:32

And, um, I will say, and then let you talk, uh, Pastor Tom. And if you want to say anything you can to Matthew, but, uh,

50:40

I had, um, numerous people on Sunday, clarify this with me. And, uh,

50:46

I, it doesn't matter who I was satisfied with. Uh, this wasn't speculation anymore.

50:52

I knew at the end of my conversations, uh, that this is what had happened. And, um, and it's just sad.

51:01

And I wanted to give room. I, some people I think would get that information and run to a camera somewhere and get a bunch of views, you know, to say,

51:09

I know the truth about what's going on and I've seen people trying to speculate on some of this, but we're not speculating.

51:16

And we have given, um, as much as I think is reasonable, the church and opportunity to say some of these things publicly.

51:24

Um, and, uh, so yeah, I mean, I don't know if you have anything to add to that, Tom. Yeah. Let me, let me just, just to add this, uh, quite apart from the fact,

51:33

John, that you and I both have had a collaboration of these things and it's just not speculation, but just let's set that aside.

51:43

When you consider that the elders of his church have removed him and he's no longer on the payroll.

51:50

One passion ministries has removed him. And that was Steve Lawson's ministry.

51:55

His own board has removed him. Uh, the master seminary grace to you have removed him.

52:02

Uh, then that means that there's something pretty serious here. We're not speculating.

52:08

Now, we said earlier that when we're dealing in church discipline, the primary responsibility falls on the elders of, uh, brother

52:16

Steve's church. And I would agree with that wholeheartedly. They're the ones that need to do church discipline. And let's simply say,

52:23

I'm grateful that they are, they are exercising church discipline, and that is a very positive thing.

52:30

I do wish they would be more clear. But the, the, uh, dealing with this sin publicly, we're talking about a public servant whose sin has now gone public.

52:43

And I think there's a responsibility for us to speak to the church at large. Um, and I think it gives us an opportunity.

52:50

What we're doing here is trying to, uh, say to our fellow pastors, let's wake up and pay attention here.

52:57

You have a serious responsibility. Uh, if you're going down a track that could end up here, don't, don't think that you're above the law.

53:06

You know, uh, don't, don't, don't rely on the there, but by the grace of God, go. I, you need to be disciplined in your life.

53:15

Uh, you need to, you need to get those spiritual disciplines and keep them on track, uh, because I, again, it's heartbreaking.

53:22

I'm broken over this. I hate to see it. And, and I don't, John, I don't want us to have to come back and have another podcast like this in six months over somebody else who's done it.

53:34

Although, you know, you made the point earlier that, that the devil likes nothing more than this, uh, you know, than to bring reproach on the cause of Christ, because one of its, you know, leaders, ministry leaders has fallen.

53:50

And what like, well, let's remember the standard is Jesus. The standards, not Steve Lawson standards, not

53:55

John Harris, Tom Rush. The standard is Jesus. And that's who we're all trying to follow. Hmm.

54:02

This was an interesting comment. Uh, it's an all caps. So I guess it's shouting, but, uh, why is, why, why is not anyone talking about the woman and praying for her?

54:12

What makes Steve Lawson more valuable than this poor woman? There's an assumption there that obviously, uh, we wouldn't agree with, which is the woman.

54:18

Let me just, uh, let me read a statement from the article, John, uh, about that.

54:24

And I agree with that statement because it does seem like in, in so many, uh, circles that, um, we're kind of ignoring the other party.

54:35

So this is a, this is a statement from, from the article. Some seem to forget that sexual sin takes two in the moral morass of the me too movement.

54:44

The assumption made often placed the woman in an automatic, not guilty position.

54:50

This is unwise. The Lord was clear in his condemnation of sexual sin and left no doubt that the guilt of a woman, when she is a willing participant, our prayer should certainly extend to the woman for her repentance and full restoration to fellowship with the

55:07

Lord, her family, and her church. So I absolutely agree. Uh, she is not a public person.

55:14

Her name doesn't need to be brought out in public. As far as I'm concerned, I was going to say, yeah, but, but.

55:19

You know, and I don't see her as a victim in this case. I don't know enough details to know whether or not that might be the case, you know, that needs to be investigated by the elders.

55:31

Uh, but certainly we should pray for her. Uh, she has, uh, she has not only been violated, she has committed a violation of God's law.

55:41

She needs to repent just like Steve Lawson does, but we shouldn't care about both of these individuals and.

55:49

Yeah. And the father and the parents and the family member, I just can't imagine. I mean, my daughter's so little, but, uh, just even as a father feeling that weight of, if I found out

56:00

I couldn't protect my daughter and she had something like this happen, I don't know if I could live with myself. I would be, it'd be the worst thing, you know?

56:08

So, uh, pray for the family. Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I understand. I mean, particularly from a dad's standpoint, uh,

56:16

I, I had boys, so it's a little bit harder for me to, you know, think through that.

56:21

But, um, I, I, uh, there's, there is a case out there. I can't remember where it's from, but a sheriff, uh, shot a judge in his own chambers.

56:32

And the allegation is, is that, uh, the judge had raped his daughter. And they had,

56:39

I guess they had known each other from, you know, court proceedings and whatnot, and had been to lunch together and had gone back to the judge's quarters and, you know, there's not a lot of details there.

56:50

Uh, but you can certainly understand how, uh, this impacts it. It's the ripple effect.

56:56

Um, let's remember that even if we want to classify our sin as private, and as we've said, there's really no such thing.

57:05

Uh, there's a ripple effect. Yeah. There's always a ripple effect with sin.

57:13

Um, let's, yeah, let's keep going. This is, we were 57 minutes in and let's, let's try to keep it short.

57:18

If we can, some of these responses, hopefully we can do that. Drew Collins, David Collins. I do think it's interesting that pastors are almost always dismissed for sexual sin, but not for other qualifications in scripture.

57:29

Uh, and I'm going to couple that with this should gluttony and being morbidly obese, disqualify a pastor or an elder.

57:37

Well, that is a sin. At least, um, gluttony is a sin according to scripture.

57:43

So I would say, yes, I guess. I mean, if that's a sin, then that needs to be repented of,

57:49

I don't know, you have a different view either. Remember we said earlier, John, that not all sins are the same.

57:56

And there's a great, there's a, there's a much larger impact with sexual immorality than there are with some of these other sins.

58:03

Uh, however, uh, that doesn't mean that we should ignore other sins.

58:08

Uh, and I've known of pastors to be removed for extortion, you know, theft, stealing money from the church.

58:15

Um, and that has certainly happened. So there are other sins for which pastors have been removed from office.

58:23

Um, I think that the notoriety comes with the sexual sin and just the cultural climate they were in with the

58:30

Me Too Church Too movement that has created a greater sensitivity, I suppose, to it.

58:38

Um, and you know, that, that again, every situation has to be taken on its own merits and, um, is it gluttony or does someone have a medical issue that causes a problem?

58:48

I've known people that were excessively overweight that were doing everything they could to lose weight.

58:54

They certainly weren't gluttonous, but yet because of medical problems, just could not get the weight off.

59:00

So again, uh, you know, you can't just look at somebody and say, okay, well, he's too big to be a preacher.

59:06

Yeah. I, I would say though, most of the time it's not a medical problem.

59:13

I would agree with that. I would agree with that. And, uh, and there again, you know, uh, we as pastors ought to, uh, you know, consider seriously our own health.

59:24

I mean, I want to stay healthy so that I can keep preaching the word until, until God's ready to call me home.

59:30

I don't want to, uh, hasten my, you know, entrance into heaven by being, uh, remiss in my own health.

59:37

Yeah. Yeah. Uh, all right. John Taylor says, do you think a divorce pastor should lead?

59:43

We actually kind of, well, maybe we didn't answer this. Charles Stanley was divorced. I don't know whether he did. Was that before he was a

59:49

Christian or after? I don't remember. No, no. It was after. Yeah. Hmm. Yeah, it was.

59:54

In fact, uh, I, if I remember correctly, Dr. Stanley, um, at one point offered his resignation.

01:00:03

Again, I want to say every situation needs to be taken on its own merits. And there's a lot of details about, uh,

01:00:11

Dr. Stanley's situation with, uh, with his wife that I don't, I don't think we need to go into detail about, but you, you need to take every situation on its, on its own merits.

01:00:22

Uh, that is a question that has plagued the church, you know, for years is divorce disqualifying.

01:00:29

Well, I think it depends on whether or not you believe that there are, uh, biblical reasons for divorce.

01:00:37

Now, is there a biblical reason for divorce? I think there are some. Um, and again,

01:00:42

I think each of those situations has to be taken. And if you're talking about a pastor who is divorced because, you know, he struck up a relationship with another woman in the church who was married to another man in the church and they ended up, you know, divorcing and marrying each other, you got a problem because you have a pastor who has committed sexual immorality.

01:01:04

Uh, and that's not always the case, you know, when someone is divorced. So again, that's just something that I think every church, some churches, that's their policy it's in their bylaws.

01:01:14

And that's what they believe that the Bible teaches. I think that it's pretty clear, um, that the, the

01:01:22

Greek is that you need to be a one woman, man. Um, and I think that, you know, if divorce occurs after you've come into the ministry, then even greater scrutiny needs to be placed on that determination as to whether you are still qualified to serve, uh, that's a really tough question.

01:01:44

Yeah. Uh, let's just run through a few of these really quick. Uh, cause we got to end the podcast and we may not get to all of them.

01:01:51

My apologies. I know there's a lot of people weighing in on this. Oh man. And there's other good questions coming in.

01:01:57

What if, what if a pastor's wife commits a sin? Does that disqualify her husband? Um, I don't know.

01:02:04

Uh, well, I mean, that's, that's her sin, but, uh, it's the answer to that is no. And it's interesting in scripture.

01:02:11

I think that you can lay out the qualifications for a deacon's wife because the deacon's wife can assist him with the ministry that he has called to do, but the pastor's wife cannot assist the pastor with pastoral ministry.

01:02:28

Well, the reason I say, I don't know is cause I can think of circumstances in which, you know, it's like Adam and Eve, the husband was shirking and the wife fell into a sin because that would wind up in the, it's the husband's sin also.

01:02:40

So again, every situation has got to be taken on its own merits and we can't run down every one of those rabbit holes.

01:02:48

Uh, one day for four 99 says, appreciate your work. Thank you. One day. I really appreciate that.

01:02:54

Um, we don't know if she is a believer. I I'm assuming the person that Steve Lawson was with. Um, I, I don't know.

01:03:00

Uh, my understanding is this is a Christian family and I'm sure that's probably the claim, but, um, you know,

01:03:07

I don't know if that makes a difference. It's a sin either way. Right. Um, Lawson is a public person, but if her name isn't also public, isn't that somehow imbalanced?

01:03:15

Well, it is imbalanced cause she's not on the conference stage going around the country and the world marketing materials that explain

01:03:22

God's word. So that, that would be an obvious imbalance that, uh, I think we should respect to be honest that she's not, uh, influencing people and he is.

01:03:33

So I agree with you a hundred percent on that. Yeah, go ahead. No, no. Well, I was just going to say that someone put up a video that, uh, there was someone questioning

01:03:43

Dr. Lawson about, I think the question was along the lines of how, how can young pastors, you know, maintain purity.

01:03:51

And in his answers that he gave in that short clip were right on the money.

01:03:58

Unfortunately, he apparently wasn't following his own advice. And, and I don't say that in any way to make fun of Dr.

01:04:05

Lawson, he knew what the truth was. And, uh, in that case, he spoke the truth and I'm glad he did.

01:04:10

He was right about what he said. He gave some good advice in that situation. It's heartbreaking that, uh, a weakness in his life.

01:04:19

We don't have any idea what might have brought that on. Uh, but it's just, uh, again, it's a very sad, heartbreaking type of thing.

01:04:27

Well, we're going to have to, I think, end the podcast on that note, right? When someone left a Samuel Rutherford comment,

01:04:33

Matthew, someone literally, I didn't know. I just noticed that. Yeah. I, I, yeah.

01:04:39

Well, Matthew, you've been talking so much. I don't even know what to do with you. There's just been a fountain of wisdom.

01:04:46

I'm just, I'm listening and learning, you know, you know, so it's okay. In addition to all your classes, uh,

01:04:52

I'll give you the last word here. If you have, as you've been absorbing all of this, what are your observations or takeaways?

01:04:59

What are my observations or takeaways? Um, my observations and takeaways is that the ministry is a very high calling with very high standards.

01:05:07

And it's something that we ought to, um, always keep in mind, uh, that we were held to very high standards.

01:05:14

And especially those who seek to pursue something like that. And, uh, I did have a thought earlier about, um, you know, the nature of like, oh, is this gossip or not?

01:05:24

Or does this fall under that category? And I think what we need to keep into account is that obviously the role of the pastor is very public, especially in an ecclesial context, but in the age of the internet and, you know, back when, you know, you could distribute

01:05:38

VHS tapes, but now we have Twitter and Facebook and YouTube and all these sites where these things are uploaded.

01:05:45

I think it's perfectly fine to discuss these things when they have broader implications for, uh, for the universal church, because we don't have like this idea of, well, if we're not an institutional communion with him, it doesn't really matter.

01:05:58

No, we're all part of the body of Christ. Whether we are, whether we're Presbyterian like me or whether we're

01:06:04

Baptist or whether we're Methodist or whether we're this or that or whatever, we're all a part of the, if we believe in the

01:06:10

Lord Jesus Christ, we are all joined to his body, regardless of institutional unity. And, uh, again, like Baptist gleaned things from Steve Lawson, not just, um,

01:06:20

Presbyterians gleaned things from Steve Lawson, not just, uh, Baptists. Like there's plenty of people that glean those things from him.

01:06:27

And so this, this has impacts, uh, for the church broadly, the church Catholic. Um, and so discussing these things is important because of the public nature of it, and that's why it's important for, um, us to, to know what's going on to the, to know the nature of these things.

01:06:44

So real gossip and speculation does not ensue. So, um, I've definitely appreciated this conversation.

01:06:50

Paul only corrected sin, uh, at the churches, right? He didn't write letters that everyone, uh, yeah.

01:06:57

I mean, we all have, we're not, I'm not Corinthian. I don't know if you guys are, but I have access to first and second

01:07:02

Corinthian, so there's that. Yeah. Hey, John, if, if people have questions that didn't feel like they got answered, you're welcome to put my email address out there.

01:07:12

They can send a question to me, you know, read my article and fire away.

01:07:17

You know, I'll be happy to respond as I have opportunity. Yeah. I was going to say that if people want to get a hold of, um,

01:07:24

Tom, uh, what's the easiest way I know you're on X. I'm on X and, uh,

01:07:31

Facebook, all of that. Um, and you're teaching tonight on a theology classroom.

01:07:38

I teach on theology classrooms on, on, on Tuesday nights. Yeah. Uh, treadministries .org

01:07:44

is my website and that can get all the, you know, all my contact information is there.

01:07:49

Treadministries .org. All right. Excellent. And, uh, as always, you can find Matthew and myself on X.

01:07:56

Uh, if you want to connect with us or I know I'm on all the other social media websites pretty much as well.

01:08:03

And of course, if you want to support truth script, it's truth script .com. Uh, we do have now our own podcast feeds exclusively for the

01:08:11

American church, man. I'll be announcing some things in the next two weeks, Lord willing on that.

01:08:16

We have a website we're building and, uh, looking forward to some developments and some announcements. Um, but I thank you everyone who came in for the stream and asked some really good questions.

01:08:26

Uh, thank you, Matthew. Thank you, Pastor Tom. Really appreciate it. And God bless. Amen. Thanks for having me.