The Laborers" Podcast- Discipleship in a Healthy Church

Hello, good evening, this is the Laborer's Podcast. Thank you so much for joining us and watching. We really appreciate it. We would appreciate a share, a like, and we would love to hear from you. Leave us a comment, say hello, let us know that you're watching.

Join the conversation. Ask a question, leave a comment, correct us if we need to be corrected. We are totally open to that. But we're thankful for you, and we're thankful for you being here with us. We've got Claude with us.

Claude from the Here I Stand Theology Podcast. We've got Jesse the Chicano Knox from the Bible Theory Podcast. We've got John with us, John Jones, and he is, John, tell us what church, are you at Real Life?

Yes, sir. Okay, John is at Real Life.

John is at Real Life, what's the full name?

Real Life Community Church, and my podcast is Real Talk with Big John.

That's right, and I need to add your podcast to the website and everything. Real Talk with Big John and Real Life Community Church. Thankful to have these guys with us, and we're gonna have a really good conversation, I hope, Lord willing, tonight, continuing our series on a healthy church.

What a Disciple Is and Why the Distinction Matters

What God says he is looking for in his churches, his local churches, and so tonight's conversation is gonna be on discipleship. I think we're all convinced that it's something that a healthy church is gonna have, so I'm gonna jump right into it.

Claude, let's start with you, since you're at the top of the screen. Define discipleship for us. Get down to the nitty gritty.

All right, so I'm gonna go to the text to define the word, right? Okay, okay. So the simple definition of the word disciple is a learner, a pupil, or a disciple. So we could add more to that. Really, I was so excited when I saw the topic when you sent this out, because when I was a teenager in speaker's tournament as a kid, one of the speeches that I wrote one year was called Too Many Believers, Too Few Disciples.

That is so important, and I believe it's important that we make that distinction tonight, that there's a difference between someone saying they're a believer in Christ and being a disciple.

Yeah, yeah, and this is really an important topic for me as well, because there are aspects of this conversation that I still struggle with that I have went back and forth in my studying, in my mind, and as far as application goes, what this really looks like, because in this subject, with this subject, and I think with many other subjects, we've got, this is how we've seen it in our church, or this is how I saw it applied growing up.

And then as we grow and we learn, we read scripture, we start to see different things from scripture than maybe what we've been seeing in our churches for 25, 50, 70, about 100 years. And so, I'm struggling.

What is the application? What does God mean by discipleship? How do we work that out in our lives and in our church? And yeah, I wanna get down to that tonight too. And we may not come to full agreement or full conclusions tonight, but I think the conversation is good.

Let's make a biblical case, because we're having this conversation because we think this is a biblical topic. Jesse, you wanna tackle that one, a biblical case for discipleship?

Discipleship as a Lifelong Biblical Calling

Yeah, absolutely. First of all, grace to you, peace to all my brothers and sisters, all the Bible theorists out there listening. Please share this link to all your friends and family members. So, first of all, yeah, a disciple is a mathetate in the Greek.

The New Testament uses the word mathetate. A student, a pupil, it applies to students, you know, students of Christ, followers, because that's where we're all at. And there's a concept of being a disciple where sometimes people think of it as like an early stage in your Christian life when you first hear the gospel, when you first hear the message of Christ, and then you become a disciple.

And then for some big evangelicals out there, sometimes they graduate so-called being a disciple and then they move on. And, you know, that is a myth. You know, we never stopped being a disciple of Christ.

I don't care if you're like 53, 83, or just three, you're a disciple of Christ if you believe in Jesus and trust in him as your only hope for salvation. So that's just a disclaimer. Biblical case, we'll have to just go back to the scriptures.

There's like, you know, a bunch of scriptures, you know, like Luke 14, 33 here, it says, so therefore any one of you who does not denounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. Another one, John 13, 35, by this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.

You know, it goes on and on. John 13, 15, for I have given you an example that you also should do just as I have done to you. You know, so, and it goes on and on. You know, Galatians 5, 24 could be connected to the aspect of being a disciple, John 6, I mean, Galatians chapter six, chapter six, verse six.

So, you know, there's a long list of discipleships, disciple making, you know, different aspects of disciple making, the cost of being the disciple. There's different scriptures that point to, you know, what it means to be a disciple, how do you become a disciple?

So there's a lot of different verses out there. So I guess, you know, I would point to the fact that, you know, we never graduate from being the disciples, a lifelong endeavor, biblically speaking, there's no, you know, graduation from the university of being, university of discipleship.

Amen.

Yeah, that's right, that's right. And Jesse, if I were to make this claim, let me know if you agree with this or not. So in church, hopefully in some of our churches or all of our churches, we're teaching and we're using some of these big words and defining them and letting the people know their biblical relevancy.

But like you talk about starting with the message of Christ, justification, when we're justified before God and we're made right before God. And then we use the word sanctification where the God through the Holy Spirit grows us.

And would you think that discipleship is God's means here on earth of sanctifying us, growing us in Christ's likeness?

Yeah, definitely the, you know, sanctification is a lifelong process, you know, and justification is alien righteousness to use that terminology from Jonathan Edwards. That alien righteousness that comes, that originates from outside of us and it has nothing to do with anything that's good inside of us, right?

And so, yeah, I guess there is an aspect to justification or no, sanctification to, because, you know, sanctification is the work of God's grace, right? It's not what we do, it's God's grace, you know, in us, it's working in us.

You know, so, and that's something has, you know, sanctification has been predestined since before the creation of the world for us as well. So, you know, bearing with one another's burdens, I guess I could see that as an aspect of, you know, discipleship, patience, long suffering, you know, loving your brother, loving your enemies, you know, those type of things that a true community of Christ would do, the marks of a disciple, right?

Yeah, I guess some of those things would apply to being mature, you know, getting mature in Christ. But even if you do all those things, I wouldn't say those things necessarily are your grounds and foundation for sanctification, because once they become our grounds, our ground for sanctification, then we go back, we do, we basically great violence to the reformation.

And we go back to the Roman Catholic doctrine of sanctification, which is not necessarily a work of the Holy Spirit, but mostly on what we do to, you know, make ourselves holy.

So could you sum it up this way in some degree? Could you say that sanctification being a work of grace is where obviously by way of the Holy Spirit that the believer is made more Christ-like out of the abundance of grace that he has received while he's alive on this earth?

Does that make sense that way? Yeah. Because we recognize the grace and the kindness that Christ has given us, that the things that make us more Christ-like are the things that kill our flesh, we actually want to do more than we're fortunate to do.

I don't wanna be, I wanna be careful not to make this sound like it's some kind of a personal work, but rather it's more of an evidence of salvation as opposed to a work of salvation. That makes sense at all?

I'll tell you that way. Amen. I find it more often than not, what we refer to as sanctification is more like what Paul's talking about when he says fruits meet for repentance or the fruits that are worthy of salvation.

These are the things that are the natural by-product of salvation, of a work of grace in our life. And that's why they continue. That's why it's something that you never achieve on this side of glory.

Right.

Is that kind of what you're trying to say, brother? Yeah, you know, to get it clear, what is sanctification? You know, for the record, the Westminster defines it as sanctification is a work of God's grace, whereby they who God has before the foundations of the world chosen to be holy are in time, right?

Through the power of the operation of his spirit applying the death and resurrection of Christ unto them, renewed in their whole man after the image of God, having the repentance unto life and all other saving graces put into their hearts.

And those graces so stirred up, increased and strengthened as that they are more and more die unto sin and raise unto newness life. So yeah, it's a process. It never gets fully realized on earth, has something to do with us.

It's an application of God's application of Christ's work in us. And, you know, and, you know, that's evident too, you know, cause you're right. We do need to work in a sense that proves our faith, you know, like loving the brothers and all that stuff.

But we gotta make sure that discipleship doesn't become our, you know, to use the theological word, our evangelical good works, our evangelical charitable works, to use a Puritan word. Because even though our evangelical charitable works are good and necessary for the marks of a disciple, they in themselves do not save us.

They in themselves, like Paul says, I count all as done, even all the good, even all the good works I have done.

Salvation, Lordship, and the Cost of Following Christ

Yeah, and to jump in real, I wanna jump in real quick. Jesse, you had mentioned it earlier. I wanna quote the passage that you had mentioned in Philippians earlier, right? Paul said in Philippians 2, 12 and 13, therefore my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now not only in my presence, but much more in my absence.

And then Paul said this, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, right? If we were just to stop there, then there would be a lot of folks that would base their sanctity. And I know we're talking about discipleship, but we've got on to sanctification here as the actual producer of an evidence of being a disciple.

But Paul goes on to say this, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is him, Christ, who works in you, both to do and to will of his good pleasure. And you're exactly right. Good works aren't the basis or the standard on which we determine if someone is saved or lost, but good works are the evidence.

In other words, we don't work to be saved, but we do good works because we are saved. And really it comes down, this comes down to a great big issue right here. I'm gonna use my old school communication, lordship salvation versus no lordship salvation.

This surprising, you'd be amazed at how many of the church will run against lordship salvation. Those who will say, I'm saved, but I'm not a follower or disciple of Christ. I accepted Jesus as my lord or my savior, but he's not my lord.

I didn't make him lord till down the road. But that goes completely contrary to the scriptural and the biblical call to salvation. Because the biblical call to salvation from Jesse quoted a little bit of that earlier.

I'm sorry for talking to you, but man. Go ahead, yeah. No, thank you. Go back to Luke 14, right? Luke 14, 25. Jesse quoted verse 33, I believe, but Luke 14, 25. This is the biblical call to salvation.

Salvation, the gospel call is not come to Jesus so your life can be better. Come to Jesus so your marriage can be fixed. Come to Jesus so you can be a better boss. Come to Jesus so you can be a better this or a better that.

Come on, brother. Because you are lost and you stand in need of salvation. And outside of Jesus Christ, there is no hope. The gospel call is a hard call. Here's what Jesus said. Great crowds accompanied him.

This is after he healed the man on the Sabbath day. Great crowds accompanied him and he turned aside and said to them, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, Jesus said this, he cannot be my disciple.

I wanna know where the numbers like Rick Warren quotes, right? We've had this, we've baptized this many people, 55 ,000 people. We trained this many pastors. Where are they now? Salvation isn't a temporary, doesn't have a temporary effect.

Biblical, I mean, Holy Spirit imparted regeneration will change you your entire life. There is nobody in the gospel accounts, nobody in the Acts accounts, where we read them encountering Christ savingly, where they walked away and were not completely changed.

As a matter of fact, Jesus said, if any man be in Christ, he's a new creature. Old things are passed away and behold, all things have become new. But he goes on, he goes on and says this, which of you desiring to build the tower does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it.

Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying this man began to build and was not able to finish. Or what king going out to encounter another king in war will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with 10 ,000 to meet him who comes against him with 20 ,000.

And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and ask for terms of peace. So therefore, any of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be a disciple. So maybe back to that definition, the disciple is not only a pupil and a learner, but it's someone who has renounced all confidence in himself.

He's renounced all confidence in his flesh and he has fallen, I mean, collapsed on Jesus Christ in the work that he did on Calvary. His death, his burial and resurrection. And when it comes down to the end of the way, if somebody says, how can you be absolutely certain that you are a Christian?

We can say this, not because of any good works that I've done, but because of the great work that Christ has accomplished for me and for my sin, I can say without a doubt that I'm saved by the grace of God.

It comes down to that and nothing else.

That's right, amen, amen.

And I think right now is a good time to bring into this another good point from my perspective. One of the things that you guys were talking about was the Philippian verse where it's not by man's will, not by my will, but to will and to do is God's work.

And so here's a word for anybody that's on this road of discipleship, you're discipling somebody else, you're working with somebody else or you're reflecting on your own life of discipleship and you can reflect on that verse and say, I don't have to be discouraged.

I don't have to compare myself to somebody else because this is God's work and he is working in me. It's not something that I need to accomplish or achieve on my own. God is doing this work and you don't have to be discouraged where you are.

Just get up and be thankful for what he's done and in Christ and in your life so far, but there's no call or no reason to be discouraged because God is working and God will continue to work and God will never stop working as John and Jess and Claude both have said thus far.

So don't be discouraged. God will always work in you if you are his, if you are his, your Lord and savior. And I appreciate you guys chiming in whenever you feel led, that's fantastic. Just moving right along to the next question, John, it's gonna be yours.

So pulling from scripture in your experience, your studies and reflections, what would you think are the goals from scripture of discipleship? I think we've touched on.

The Great Commission and the Goal of Making Disciples

Well, I think if I'm following your, I'm gonna have to blend the next two questions together to give my answer. Because I believe that the goal of discipleship is to be a disciple maker as well. One of the things that as our, we're not being called to make converts.

Let's go to the text. My favorite portion, one of my favorite portions of scripture, Matthew 28, I'll start in 16. 11 disciples proceeded to Galilee to the mountain which Jesus designated and they saw him, they worshiped him, but some were doubtful and Jesus came up and spoke to them saying, all authority has been given to me and heaven and earth.

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nation, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

We just call this the great commission. But oftentimes, and I've been guilty of this. I'm not throwing rocks at a soul. Oftentimes I have treated this as though it said, make converts. And that couldn't be farther from the truth.

I don't think of discipleship as being something that you hold a man's hand through. If a man has been saved, then there is a desire for him to become more like Christ and you shouldn't have to call him up and talk to him on a daily basis.

So if we're looking at what are the goals of discipleship, the goals of discipleship should be that as an individual, I've become more like Christ and in doing so, I make other disciples by way of teaching them the things that he has taught us through his word.

Amen. And I see this carried out the way the church should be ran. I've taught this several times. It's very simple. But Ephesians chapter four, God has gifted us by his Holy Spirit. I wanna say the text starts in 11.

We'll read it because I don't know if everybody who's watching online can just go for it. So we'll start in Ephesians. So we'll go, yeah, we'll just start at 11. Everybody understand the context that we're talking about and Paul's dealing with the church as the body, right?

And he gave some apostles and some prophets, some evangelists and pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of service. Now, this is something that I think we've really messed up.

For the equipping of the saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of faith and the foreknowledge of the son of God to a mature man, to the measure of stature, which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

As a result, now we'll get to the results in a second. If we do, that's fine. If we don't, that's fine. Oftentimes we've confused this bracket of people that Paul calls here in verse 11 as the bulk of the ministry.

All right, how often have we really done this? You know, we call it ministry. We call it service. The fact remains is that the church as it is set up by Christ is to be a machine of sorts. That's really the terrible way of putting it, but to see the saints inside the body made more Christ-like so that they can go out and make disciples.

So that if looking at the next question, what does the Bible say who is responsible for discipleship? Every individual who's been born again is responsible for his own personal relationship with God and his own discipleship with God, as well as seeing others brought into the faith by either way of example, personal witnessing, or encountering, whatever way God gives you to share the gospel and the faith with these men and women that they might be grafted in.

And that's between the Lord and themselves. And it's really easy to say that. It's very hard in practice to see that done. But, and there's other things that I would add to it. I'm sort of spacing out on it at the moment, but I think about Richard Wurmbrand.

Richard Wurmbrand, whenever he was ministering to the Russians who'd come in and brought their communism into Romania, I believe it was Romania, wasn't it? Yeah. He found out really quickly that the converts that they were seeing in their home churches were being massacred by the communist party in such a number that he said, we found out very early on that it was not, it was not sufficient to simply make converts, but to take the converts and equip them to make converts.

We had to have a church that was growing violently because the world was being violent on it. And in short to me, discipleship is gonna be about becoming more Christ-like and seeing other people want to the faith and helping them become more Christ-like.

I'll close it with this. I tell my brothers and sisters all the time, whenever I'm teaching them, whatever it is I can do to help you get to heaven, that's what I'm gonna do. Now, there ain't much I can do really in the grand scheme of things, but if there's something you can think of that I can do to help you, it's my obligation to help you.

If I can lay down,.

If I can lay down on my stomach and you climb up on my back to see Christ clear, I'll do that. That's exactly where you're coming from, brother. I feel you a hundred.

How's that brother Rob? That's fantastic, yeah. Okay. And this next from here on out is the part that I was talking about for me that I've struggled with for years. It's the application part. What do we see in scripture?

What do we not see in scripture? And this is gonna be something because we've in my last podcast with Dan, we touched on this at the beginning. Some of the things that were going on with SBC. Okay, so some of them, well, there's Baptist churches that are ordaining women.

And this is, speaking from the Southern Baptist perspective right now, the standard is the Baptist Faith and Message 2000. It said that the role of pastor is only, is set aside for, from scripture, only for qualified men.

But there are Baptist churches in the Southern Baptist Church who are ordaining women as pastors. And the people who are in charge of deciding whether those churches should stay in good fellowship with the Southern Baptist Convention are dragging their feet and they are, they don't have a backbone right now and for whatever reason.

And so part of that conversation that's coming out of that is, okay, well, if they're the lead pastor, then it's only for men. We can have children's pastor, youth pastor, music pastor, audio pastor, facilities pastor, whatever kind of pastor you want.

And they can be a man or a woman, but as long as it's the lead pastor's a man, we're okay and we're aligning with the Baptist Faith and Message or we're aligning with scripture, whatever. And that's kind of where I'm coming from when it comes to the rest of the conversation here and my struggle with it is what's biblical and what have we twisted to create programs in our churches to fit our structure.

And we call it our vision sometimes so that we come up with plans, we come up with structures in making things successful in our eyes versus going back to scripture. And so who is responsible for discipleship?

And I guess we'll get back to, the next question was, what can the local church do to equip those responsible, but getting down to the bottom layer, who's responsible for discipleship? And I like what you said, John, there's a sense when we're responsible in the sanctification process for our discipleship and we're responsible for leading others to Christ.

But specifically, and the reason I say specifically because we've generated and we've created programs in our churches for discipleship. I know in the Baptist church years ago, they used to call it discipleship training.

That was our Sunday evening class discipleship training. And we have youth ministries for discipling young people, children ministry for discipling children. But in scripture, we don't see all these programs and we don't see all these different structures and we don't see all these different pastors, like youth pastor, children's pastor, we don't see all those things.

And so at this point, I'm just speaking out loud, I'm thinking out loud, I'm not going in one direction or the other. And you guys can join in this conversation too, I'm just telling you where

Go in that direction. Brother, this is your podcast. We got you.

We're in your house. That's exactly right. Well, I say it that way because I'm still open for correction, I'm still open for teaching. And so if the Bible does leave room for those things, I'm fine with that.

But if it would rather us be regulative and narrow and say, this is how scripture teaches us to go. And it doesn't say anything about youth pastor, youth ministry, children's pastor, children's ministry, and all these different structures and programs, are we usurping the authority of scripture in creating all these programs?

Because what I see in scripture is the parents are our youth pastors and children's pastors. That's their ministry of discipleship. And I use the verse, which I think we take it out of context, Titus 2, 4, we use that to say older women teach the younger women, but we don't read the whole thing.

And let me see if I can find it real quickly so you'll hear what I'm talking about. First Timothy, second Timothy, let's see here, Titus 2, 4, listen to the context of that verse because we usually just, so that they may encourage the young women to, let's see, verse three, older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious, gossips, nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands so that the word of God will not be dishonored.

So those verses are very specific. And we take out that one portion that says older women teach younger women. And we translate that to say, okay, okay, women, you have your discipleship class and we have this teacher for you.

Okay, is that necessarily what it's talking about? It's giving older women specific instructions on what to teach. Now the location may be different because it was, you know, back then they were probably closer in proximity to one another, but this doesn't look like a discipleship class.

This looks like life. Practical application. Practical application. So my question to you guys is, is where do you fall in that conversation? Am I tracking in the right direction? Do we need to have a hundred different kinds of pastors, a hundred different kinds of ministries and this can ruffle some feathers and we can land on different points.

This thought run through my head not too long ago. And I think when you guys quoted the verse earlier, but we are called to equip the saints. I think maybe you, John, that quote that verse. We are called to equip the saints for the work of ministry.

That's correct. And it's the saints who are to be doing the work of ministry. That's correct. It seems like our churches are creating programs to...

I don't know what you're saying. At least as best I understand it. I think in some ways it may be bad hermeneutics on this Ephesians chapter four, because in a lot of ways, at least it's been what I have seen.

Now, I wasn't saved as a young man. I suppose, relatively speaking, I was much younger than him. I was 25 whenever I was saved, right? But I wasn't raised as a Christian. There were Christians in my family and there were people that I knew that were Christian and I clearly knew that I wasn't.

No, I was... Anyway, so I think a lot of the things that I saw growing up and I still see today is this concept that the pastor of the church it's his job to do all the shepherding and that shepherding means teaching and discipling, as well as there's a whole host of things that are part of his application, his job qualification.

But it is so clear. It is so clear for he gave some as, and then there's apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. And I think the reason he worded it that way is because that leaves nobody out from the writing of scripture to the Sunday school class.

That is 100 of everybody that God has called to do some form of teaching. But it's for the equipping of the saints. The work of the service is for 100 of the church, not for what percentage of the church is leadership.

I don't really know, but I'm sure it's not that large of a... Even if there is a different pastor for every group of age group in a church, you're still talking about probably 5 of a church or 10 of a church makes up the leader.

No way in the world that all the ministry that Christ has asked us to do could be accomplished by 10 of the church, right? Yeah. So Go ahead. I think that a lot of times that's just bad understanding of this scripture, and scriptures like this has led men in our country to form an established religion like we have, and they all sort of fit the same criteria, whether they're Baptist or Pentecostal or Presbyterian, Episcopal, it doesn't seem to matter, that all our church gets done on Sundays and Wednesdays.

And if there's a small group day during the week, it gets tagged along in there. And that's a lot of folks don't crack their Bibles any days other than those days. And those folks, one could question their salvation if he wanted to, the other end of that is our church certainly hasn't, haven't forsaken everything to follow Christ, his brother Chicano, what was your name, brother Nassa?

How do you say that? You say it Chicano Knox. Chicano Knox. And your name is? My real name is Jesse. Everybody calls me Chicano Knox. That's fine. So they certainly haven't forsaken everything to follow Christ if they don't, if they're not leading their children, if they're not leading their spouses, if the men of the house aren't being priests of the home, then they haven't abandoned everything to follow Christ.

They couldn't have, they can't truly be disciples if they meet what we look at as a typical church service type of a member.

Is that fair? Is that kind of what you're getting at? Yeah. And you said something earlier that hit the nail on the head that said better than what the, how I was trying to say it. And let me try to repeat what you said.

You were talking about, if someone is in Christ, if they're a new creation, like Paul was talking about, then you don't have to coax them into having a desire to abhor discipleship. So you have churches with this dilemma within themselves that says, okay, how do we get our youth here?

Or we don't have people who have a desire to reach out to the neighborhood. So what kind of program can we create and how can we create this program in such a way that it entices our members to come so that they will reach out to the neighborhood, so that they will, so that the youth will come in.

How to get goat to act like sheep.

Exactly. Trying to figure out a way to get goat to act like sheep. You take a goat and you pin him up, you feed him sheep food, you get shepherd every now and again to come in there. You get him to jump over fences and you count him till you fall asleep.

He's still a goat. That's right. He's still a goat. What Claude was saying earlier is, it was so dead on, it's not even funny. You teach the gospel and you teach them Christ. Quit trying to make better husbands, better fathers, better students and children and happy wives.

Teach them that apart from Christ, they're dead. They're just dead. And if Christ be formed in them, everything else will fall into place. And you do not have to teach people to love Jesus if they already love Jesus.

You don't have to teach people to pray and to read their Bibles and to study their scriptures if they love Jesus. They'll do this out of the abundance of grace that's been shed on them in their heart because of what Christ has done for them.

So many parts of discipleship, we've tried to manufacture sheep from goats as opposed to just teaching them Jesus and letting them die. I think a lot of times we shield people from Jesus. I think a whole lot of times we try to put roadblocks up so that they don't really feel that bad about their sin because we don't want them to not come back.

We want them to show up to church and bring their kids to all the VBSs. And I love all this stuff. I help with piles of different things inside of churches that aren't mine because I believe that we ought to be investing in the church.

We ought to be investing in Christ's bride, our time and our finances and everything that's about us. But to some degree, I think, man, y 'all backing up? Yep. I'm sorry to interrupt.

Jump in there, Paul, Jesse. I'm a dude, I'm, again, amen, amen, amen, amen. So if we are following this logical train of thought, it comes back down to the fact, as John has just said, that churches aren't, the church themselves, the leaders, the ones that the Lord has put pastors and teachers in the church itself, that pastors and teachers aren't doing what they're supposed to do.

And that's teaching the scriptures. We're not teaching methods. We're not teaching programs, but we should be teaching the scriptures so that when God's people go out into the world, as they have to do every single day of every single week and every single month of every single year, when they're faced with these hard questions and these hard challenges, all these folks that are talking about deconstruction, they're saying they're walking away from the faith.

They were never in the faith because it's likely that in most cases, they've not sat under for a extended period of time. And here's gonna be a dirty word, doctrinal preaching. If we're not preaching doctrines, the doctrines of the scripture, sin, righteousness, heaven, hell, sanctification, justification, election, whatever you go on and on, these things that are glanced over and skipped because, oh, the common man won't be interested in this.