Episode 16: Thanksgiving and Ephesians

The Rural Church Podcast, 2 .0. Just a couple of pastors discussing life, ministry, theology, and the gospel from a local church perspective. Eddie, what's it time for?

The Rural Church Podcast.

Welcome to The Rural Church Podcast, episode 16. Eddie, it's Thanksgiving week. Are you thankful?

I am very thankful, brother.

You're thankful to be on this podcast with me?

I'm thankful to be back on the podcast with you. You know, we didn't do it for a few years and now we've been doing it, has it been three months now?

I think so.

It's been about that, man. It's been great to be back doing the podcast and really just, I'll tell you, you know, I know we have a few people listening, but if nothing else, I'm just glad to get to talk to you every week, brother.

Amen. I need to make this shout out. I forgot, should have done it last episode, but my friend Michael Coughlin and I are also doing a podcast. We usually meet on Wednesday mornings before you and I meet, but anyway, things above round table and it's a good time.

Me and him just chat about things kind of similar to this one. And so I think if you enjoy this one, you enjoy that one. So check it out, things above round table. I didn't introduce us, but I'm Alan Nelson, pastor of Perryville Second Baptist Church, Perryville, Arkansas.

And this is my friend and co-labor in the gospel, fellow minister, Eddie Ragsdale. Eddie, what church are you at?

I am at Marshall First Baptist in beautiful Searcy County, Arkansas.

Thanksgiving, Family Gatherings, and the Local Church

Yeah. Can I tell you about something coming up?

Yeah, please do.

I'm not going to drop names. I'll tell you afterwards. We're looking to put together an association conference the weekend of March 5th. March 5th is the Sunday, so it'll be like the 3rd and 4th. And we're going to talk about the need for faithful pastors in the local church.

And this is going to be a local association conference. You're not going to want to miss it if you're any, with any driving distance of central Arkansas. And Eddie, don't let me forget to tell you who I've got on the docket, hopefully coming and some things that are in the works.

So y 'all mark your calendars for the weekend of March 4th is the, March 4th is the week is the Saturday. So, well, this is the week of Thanksgiving. So I don't even know if anybody listens to podcasts.

What do you do? What do you, what do you do? What are you doing tomorrow? I know tomorrow is not tomorrow, but what are you doing tomorrow? If you were in the same day that the podcast is airing.

Yeah. So we'll have a couple of different family gatherings, one with we'll go to my, I have an aunt in Clinton and she she's a great aunt. She'd be my dad's aunt.

A wonderful aunt.

She's a wonderful aunt. Yeah, she is. But she hosts a big family gathering and by big, I mean, my grandmother was one of seven. And so our extended family is, you know, somewhere around a hundred people.

So there won't be that many there, but there'll be 60 people, 70 people, maybe, I don't know, there. And so we'll have a big family gathering there for lunch. And then my wife's family normally has a meal in the evening.

So we'll a lot of times we'll make two this year. My mother-in-law is she is going through chemo right now. And so I'm not exactly sure what that's going to mean for that family gathering, but we're just thankful for how faithful the Lord is being.

Her surgeries went well, chemo's going pretty well, but we're just trusting the Lord. And so, but we'll, we'll eat and we'll all be together and we will be thankful for the things that the Lord has done.

And then, and then normally Thanksgiving weekend, Friday and Saturday are wonderful days to hunt. So usually we spend a lot of time in the woods on Friday.

And Saturday. Amen. We, we'll have a big gathering. It's usually my, well, my mom's side, my, my, my parent, my parent's side will be them and my sister and brother-in-law and their family on Thursday.

And then we'll actually have some church members with us as well. So look forward to that. And then Stephanie's side of the family will be, it'll be earlier in the week. So one thing I'm thankful for, Eddie, is the local church.

What about you?

Yeah, I love, you know, I was, I was just telling our church this last Sunday, you know, we're just off the heels of pastor appreciation month and our church done a few different things to show their appreciation, some gifts and things like that.

And, you know, I told them there's not another church around here that I could even possibly pastor, but there's a lot of pastors around here that could shepherd these people. It's such a wonderful church.

I told them I need you far more than you need me. Our church really blessed us too. I don't.

Know if I told you about that. Cause it was right, it was right before I got sick, but they blessed us with a surprise that I tell you about surprise pastor appreciation and very generous gift and some, you know, gift cards on top of that and just food.

I mean, they just bless us and not to talk too much about it, but you know, we've been going through a difficult time, but here's something that's going on at our church. We're experiencing, I believe, reformation.

And it's a weird thing, Eddie, that you pray for years and years for reformation and revival. And sometimes the Lord brings it in a way that you were not expecting. And so I'm just so encouraged by the unity of our church and just the direction right now.

And not that we haven't gone through some tough things and some difficult circumstances, but I'm so encouraged. So we've got, I would say,.

Reformation, Revival, and Providence in the Church

Of course, the situation in your church or my church are quite different, but I would say in the same vein, we're also seeing the Lord. Really, we're beginning to see the kind of the snowball begin to roll faster down the hill, you know?

And so changes are happening faster and that comes with some discomfort sometimes, but at the same time, we just really see God's blessing in it. And I know you and I will probably talk about that more sometime in the future, but it's an amazing thing, like you said, when you begin to see what really is the answer to prayers that we've prayed for years, but maybe not the way that we ever would have envisioned.

It ourselves. That's right. Lord, won't you do it my way? But I'm so grateful that he loves his church. There's no one that loves the local church more than our sovereign triune God. And so we can trust that he is working all things for her good.

And, you know, it doesn't mean that everything I was reading the post today, sometimes you can do everything right and lose your head, right, John the Baptist. So, but there are times of sweet providence that the Lord works in a beautiful and even miraculous sort of way, it appears in his church to bring about reformation, revival.

And, you know, we're actually recording this the day after the election and in Arkansas, things went pretty well, I think, but, you know, nationwide people are upset, you know, expected more of a red wave or whatever.

And one of my thoughts was, one of my thoughts was that the problem in our nation today, and I really got this from Dan Phillips, but the problem our nation today is not so much candidates, you know, right candidate, wrong candidate, we don't have good voters.

Right. And we don't have good voters because we're immoral. That's right. And we're immoral because we need the gospel. So, you know, me, I'm all for standing strong, culture warrior, all that. I think that's important.

Don't, don't go down sleeping, you know, or whatever. However, if, if your fight against the culture or whatever does not include intentional and persistent evangelism, then you're missing part of the issue here, right?

Yes. I think we need conservative leaders, but more like we need conservative leaders. And then more than just needing conservative leaders, we need a regenerate population. And the only way that we're going to have a regenerate population is a move of God and God is pleased to move through the proclamation of his gospel.

So we need to be, we need to preach his gospel. And I'm not just talking about in the church, of course, in the church, I'm talking about outside of the church and sharing the gospel and.

Being evangelistic. Yep. That's right. And, you know, tomorrow we're all going to eat a big feast. We don't eat that way every day. We would weigh 500 pounds a piece if we did, but we do all have to eat every day, right?

We have to have nourishment. We have to eat so that our bodies can be fueled and sustained. And I think, you know, the Lord has established that in his church, there would be a means for the spiritual nourishment of the body in the weekly gathering through the teaching and proclamation of his word.

And so I simply say that to say, we mentioned last week, last week we talked about Jonah. And so we mentioned that this week, we're going to kind of flip the script. And I was going to ask you a few questions about what you guys are looking at in Ephesians.

Preaching Through Ephesians: Why a Long Series?

So Ephesians, have you preached three, four sermons in Ephesians? Is that where you're at? We started Ephesians in September of 2020. So what are you on 83? Is that what I seen?

Something like that? Well, by the time this episode comes out, we'll have preached like.

I have preached like 96 sermons. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. So tell me a little bit, you know, you asked me last week, and I think it's a wonderful question. So I'm just going to throw it right back to you. What is your process, especially thinking about what we when we're looking at jumping into a book, oftentimes, you know, like I said, with Jonah, it is going to end up being kind of shorter for me.

But a lot of times we are looking at, man, we are making a commitment when we start a book of the Bible, especially a really dense book like a like an epistle, like Ephesians, there's just so much we can preach on there.

So how what is your process whereby you pick the next thing that you think is going to be a place where you're going to spend, you know, several months or even years expositing that text of Scripture?

I cast lots. Well, that way, you know, in Jonah, that's exactly what the what the.

Barriers did. Yeah. When you pick a book of the Bible. Okay. One time I preached like five messages in Titus. It was like my first sermon series here. So like five messages. And then I think in Jonah, I preached like eleven messages, you know.

So but other than that, at minimum, I'm probably looking at four to six months minimum in a book of the Bible, you know. So I think that's a good question. So for me, it doesn't have to be this way. I try to pick different genres.

I try to pick different books, different testaments. I don't necessarily, you know, stick with it. But I think if I can remember back, let's say I did like Titus and then I did Jonah and then I did James and then I did Ruth and then I did first Peter and then I did Genesis one through eleven.

And so then that brought us back around to Ephesians because it's like, first of all, Ephesians is a book that you want that everybody wants to preach. Every particular Baptist pastor wants to preach from Ephesians.

I want to preach Ephesians. I want to preach Romans. But Romans intimidates me a little bit, you know. Yeah. You're only going to get one chance at these books, really. So if so by the time, you know, halfway through Genesis or whatever, I don't know, it's fifty seven sermons, I believe, in Genesis one through eleven.

And I just picked Genesis one through eleven because I knew that going all the way through fifty would be a long time. And I just kind of picked that section and we'll pick up sometime on Genesis twelve through fifty.

But the point is. I felt like it was time, OK, now we can we can cover Ephesians because I hadn't, you know, my last two New Testament books had been First Peter and James. Excuse me. It's not like I'd just been going through all the Pauline epistles.

And so it just felt right. Timing was right. And I said, OK, we're going to go through Ephesians.

Expositional Preaching, the Whole Counsel of God, and Church Membership

So let me ask this question. A person might criticize, you know, spending a long time in a book, you know, years ago, and it wasn't helpful because my church wasn't ready for it. This church would handle it much better than the church I was pastoring then.

But I spent a long time in the book of Romans preaching through the book of Romans. It was helpful to me. It was less helpful to the church. But a person might say, well, how's your church ever going to really get the whole counsel of God?

So what would you say about your. Well, this is really what I want to ask, because I know part of the answer. Can you just give a rundown, maybe not of every single book, because you might not have it in front of you, but kind of how many books you guys have been able to go through at Second Baptist Perryville since you've been there?

Because I think a person might say, well, that Quatro, you know, he preaches so many sermons, they can't get through books of the Bible. But I know that's not true. So could you kind of share some of the, I mean, you shared a few already, but I know that you guys have actually covered so much scripture, even while you're preaching several sermons from each book.

Yeah, I would say a couple of things with that. One, when you're preaching, if you're preaching rightly, in my opinion, if you're preaching expositional sermons rightly, you're going to cover big portions of the Bible at times as you go through, like, how do you preach, for example, Genesis 2, 24, you know, a man shall leave his wife, without talking about Ephesians 5.

You know what I mean? So what happens is when you begin to preach expositionally, you are actually preaching big counsel, you know. Another thing I'll say this, unless you just think, hey, I'm going to preach through all 66 books of the Bible in a five-year span or something, and most people are not going to do that.

Some can, and that's great. If you can do that, praise God, I don't have a problem. But what I'm saying is good expositional preaching is going to cover large swaths of the Bible. Also, I hope, I mean, I don't know, we live in a world today, I guess, that the main gathering is, like, the only time that people, I guess, preach.

But, like, I'm preaching on Sunday morning. I teach Sunday school. I teach Sunday night. I teach Wednesday night. I go through a men's Bible study on Thursday morning. I have a lot of time that we're going through other books of the Bible as well.

Old Testament, New Testament, you know, I mean, lots of, lots of, I mean, with men's Bible study, we've been through a ton of the scriptures, you know, in five years. We're going through much faster pace, you know.

So, if the only time you're able to preach is on Sunday morning, well, maybe, I guess, maybe that's different. But for me, that's not. I preach Sunday morning, and then I have all these other preps that we go through.

Now, maybe it'd be a little too much if, like, every one of these I was doing Ephesians, you know. And let me also say this, Eddie. I'm not saying that I'm tackling Ephesians the quote-unquote best way.

I'm just saying I'm doing, this is the way we're doing it. We're in Ephesians 5. Well, I think we're week 94 this week, and I'm on Ephesians 5 -6. So, I'm not saying that what I'm doing is the best way, but it is, I think, a legitimate way and hopefully a helpful way as we've been digging deep into what the scriptures have to teach us.

And I hope that it's encouraged people, the comments I've had of loving the Bible. And, you know, one of the things they've seen, and this has been one of the most encouraging comments, a lady the other day said, I've never made the connection in reading the epistles like you keep pressing us toward.

And that is, these are local church epistles. Everything that we understand Paul exhorting these Christians to has a context of the local church. And she has just been, she was so complimentary and so encouraged by that.

Just saying, like, Ephesians is not just a book for you and God alone. I mean, of course, there is application there, of course, but the context of be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, God in Christ forgave you.

Like that's in the context of the local church. You can't really understand Ephesians apart from local church. In fact, let me just say this and then I'll turn it back to you. But people say, well, where's church membership in the Bible?

Well, it's like, it's everywhere. Like you can't understand Ephesians apart from this covenantal union that we have in Christ, which also means that we're members one of another. And it's just, so the context, so anyway, the encouragement, I'm not saying you have to preach to Ephesians slow.

Probably I'm preaching through too slow, but it's what we're doing. And the Lord, I feel like is blessed and we've.

Been encouraged. Well, and I don't think there's a matter of too fast or too slow. I think it really, there really is a sense in which what is the, where's the health of the church? What is the church ready for?

And what is the skill of the preacher? And what kind of a preacher are you? Years ago, I seen a video of, it was a group of pretty famous pastors, all guys that would have been considered expositional guys.

And they were asked about their sermon series and they were all like, oh, 20, 22 weeks. And the moderator of the discussion said, well, I would have thought you guys spent years in books. And they mentioned some of these other guys who do spend years in books, like MacArthur or Piper or whatever.

And they said, well, we're not them. And some, I mean, and you are a very gifted preacher, brother. And so I think that nobody should say, Allen Nelson's doing it that way. I should do it that way. Well, maybe you shouldn't do what Allen Nelson's doing, because you might not be geared like you are.

I appreciate the kind comment, brother. And you know, I'm not, I do not, I'm not in the same category as some of these preachers that you've mentioned, but here's the reality. I'm not trying to be those preachers.

And I'm just encouraging, who the pastor, who you should try to preach like is you. God has called you. There are certainly some things that we all have to do the same, but God has called you with your unique personality and gifting.

And so you should preach,.

You should preach like you. Yeah. And it can be kind of strange. I heard a preacher years ago, who had come out of the ministry of another man, and he sounded so much like the man whose ministry had come, that it was a little weird.

It was almost like an impersonation. And you thought, where's his own voice? So I did want to also ask this question. You were talking about different genres of books. So as you're moving from genre to genre, but especially thinking about the book of Ephesians, how have you really engaged with the didactic epistle as you've come to that, as opposed to dealing with Genesis 1 through 11, dealing with narratives like Jonah and things like.

That? Yeah. Yeah. To me, the difference is I can see it in my mind, and let me see if I can articulate it. But with the narrative, it's like you're preaching a story, and then you're pulling from that story, the principles, and the doctrine, and the truth, and the application.

And then from an epistle, it's almost opposite, because you're like, everything's so wound up tight, where sometimes Paul uses specific words that need mention. That happens too in narrative sometimes.

But sometimes there's specific words that you need to talk about. And so everything's kind of wound up tighter, in a sense, if that makes sense in an epistle. To prepare, I do, I think you mentioned this on the last episode with Jonah, but I actually do the Jim Eliff method, not just reading through it, but I print it out.

So what I do is I go to esv .literal .org, whatever it is. Yeah. Literal word. Literal word or whatever. Okay. It just comes up automatically, so I don't even look at the website anymore. But I type in Ephesians, and then I copy and I paste it into a Word document.

And I try to give it, you know, chapters and verses are not inspired, but it gives you a starting point. And so I try to kind of get where, I try to put, and it's different, I don't have a set thing for each book, because it just depends, but I try to give myself wide margins, and still where the word, where the font size is not too small.

Anyway, I will leave good margins, and then I'll start reading it, reading it. So, well, a couple of months before I'm through with Genesis, I'm reading Ephesians, and then I'm taking my colored pencils and pens and highlighters, and I'm just marking this sheet up, you know, marking, marking, marking.

I'm making notes. I'm kind of dividing things up. Probably what I could do better is actually outline my sermons, because if I was going to outline the weeks, that would keep me from, that would keep me from being 95 sermons in or whatever.

But I just try to get a sense of the book, repeated words, all those things. And then I'm, and then I move from that to starting to read commentaries. And I start to read commentaries before I'm even getting to the text.

I'm just wanting to know what are these guys saying the are, you know, and I try to, I try to look up, life's too short for the amount of commentaries that exist. So I, so I pretty much, I try to just do my research and try to see what people are saying.

Sometimes providential matters, you know, maybe I have already have a couple of commentaries and maybe they're not the best commentary per se, but I already have them. And so I'll use one or two of those and then, and then try to get, you know, as well, try to get, if I can, the best.

Commentary. It's funny, you mentioned that about commentaries because years ago, when I started pastoring for the first time, the church called me as the pastor and the pastor of the church where I had been at, he gave me a gift.

He gifted me a four volume set on Romans. And I went, well, this church needs doctrine. So week one as the pastor, I said, Romans one verse one, because I, and I will be honest, a big part of the, I thought, well, I've got this brand new commentary set on Romans.

And I did not even know at the time I was so, I was so green, I guess you would say, but I didn't even really realize what the commentary set was, but it was a wonderful set by Donald Barnhouse, four volume set on Romans.

And, and I'll be honest, the Lord used that to really impact my life. I didn't know who Donald Barnhouse was. He was a great Presbyterian minister there in Pennsylvania, but, but it was really a blessing working through that using that commentary set, you know, as a, as a work through that.

Commentaries, Personal Voice, and Next Week's Episode

All right, Eddie, we're going to have to make this one a two part episode, so we're going to shut this one down right here. What do you think? That okay with you?

That's good.

All right. Well, y 'all catch us next week on the Rural Church Podcast.

See you guys next week.