Responding to Viewer Emails about communion, calvinism, and more!

Your Calvinist

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

Sometimes I feel the weight of the world fall down on me

00:06

And I need a friendly voice with some good theology

00:14

So I mix a manly drink Then I hit the

00:20

YouTube link And I feel my troubles all melt away

00:28

It's your Calvinist Podcast with Keith Foskey Beards and bow ties

00:39

Laughs till sunrise It's your

00:44

Calvinist Podcast with Keith Foskey He's not like most

00:52

Calvinists He's nice Your Calvinist Podcast with Keith Foskey Striving for superior theology and denominational unity

01:01

One joke at a time Hey guys, it's Keith And today we're going to be responding to some viewer mail

01:08

If you go to keithfoskey .com There is a way to email us directly And if you do that Often times we try to respond to you as quickly as possible

01:17

I've started a new rule on my email It's something I learned from a friend It's called the three sentence rule

01:22

Which is I try to respond to emails In three sentences or less As a way to move through as many emails as I can

01:30

And not leave important emails to the side To be able to get through them as quickly as I can

01:35

So if you've gotten an email back from me It'll have a little disclaimer at the bottom It'll explain the three sentence rule And it's not that I'm trying to be rude

01:41

It's just trying to move through And answer as many emails as I can And often you can do it in three sentences or less

01:49

But there are some emails that come in And those emails are

01:54

Emails that I think would benefit a larger audience Not because their questions are any more important But the questions might deal with a subject

02:03

That more people might be concerned about Or more people might be interested in And so periodically what

02:11

I like to do Is just answer a few emails on the show And when I do that I try to reach back out to the person

02:16

And let them know that I'm going to do that In case they don't want me to So in the future if you do send an email

02:22

And you don't want me to address it on the show Please put that in the email That would be helpful And I don't give out any names when

02:28

I do this And sometimes I reword the emails If it's real specific I don't give out church names or anything like that So this is just to benefit as many people as possible

02:38

And try to answer genuine questions that people have And so today we're going to go through Three or four emails that I've received

02:45

Over the last few weeks Answer them as best as I can And maybe even inspire some more questions

02:51

So again if you have questions You can go to KeithFoskey .com You can send me emails there

02:56

And we'll try to get to you as best we can All right, so as I am pulling up the email here

03:04

Looking at each one We're going to start with one That I thought would benefit folks Simply just because of dealing with definitions

03:13

This says I was wondering what your thoughts were Concerning open versus close

03:18

Versus closed communion What does your congregation practice And why did you come to those conclusions?

03:25

I love that question I love the question How did you come to your conclusion? That's a terrific question It's a terrific way of getting

03:32

Really to the meat of something Especially when somebody's talking about a Bible verse And they're talking about how they

03:38

What they think about that verse A great question to ask is Well how did you come to your conclusion? So I want to give kudos to the person

03:45

Who sent that email in That is a very good question I want to read from the sbts .edu

03:53

So this is southernbaptisttheologicalseminary .edu On this subject of open versus closed communion

04:02

Because they give a good definition here Of what those terms mean And I'm not sure that everybody understands So let's walk through this real quick It says

04:09

Baptists have historically debated this question With three possible answers Open communion is the position

04:14

That all believers present When a local church observes the Lord's Supper May partake Alternately close communion

04:22

Without the D Close communion views Maintain that only those Who are saved, properly baptized

04:27

And in fellowship with a church Of like faith and order Meaning holding to the same basic doctrines

04:32

As the observing church May sit at the Lord's table Finally closed communion

04:37

With the D Is the most restrictive position Asserting that since communion Is connected to discipline

04:43

Only members of the local church May partake All right So this deals with Who is allowed to come to the table

04:51

Or who is going to be served communion In your church And in a church like ours Where we serve communion every week

04:57

This is a pretty important question Because it's not as if we have a particular Communion service that we do

05:04

Like on a Sunday evening And I know there are some churches That do it that way And they do it for the purpose Of trying to fence the table

05:11

And fencing the table Simply means to put a guard Around the table Because the Bible does tell us

05:17

In 1 Corinthians chapter 11 That this can be dangerous

05:22

That taking the table It says that some have gotten sick And even died from mistaking

05:28

Or taking the table In an unworthy manner I was going to say mistaking But I guess that's right

05:34

But you get what I'm saying By taking the supper In a way that is

05:40

It wasn't intended And so this leads to the question

05:46

Of what does our church do Because that's what the person asked Our church practices What I would say

05:51

Between the first two Between open and close communion We don't have closed communion

05:56

We don't limit it Only to members of our church Which typically is what Closed communion is I understand those who do

06:03

I appreciate what they're trying to do They're trying to put a fence Of protection around the table

06:09

But we allow believers From other churches To participate in the table with us

06:15

But we do have a word of fencing That we do at the table

06:21

That's what we call it When the deacons will come forward Right before we participate in communion

06:26

Four deacons will come forward This will be after I have preached the sermon After I have given The call to repentance and faith

06:33

And all of those things One of the deacons will say At this time we're going To participate in communion

06:40

And if you are a believer And you are coming from A like -minded church

06:47

Meaning a church that would Believe the gospel Now the definition from Southern Said that they would have A similar view of baptism

06:53

We would allow people Who weren't Baptists To share in the table with us As long as they understand the gospel

06:59

So a Presbyterian would be allowed To share the table with us So in that sense

07:05

This would be more of an open communion However, we do say this If you are not in good standing

07:11

With your own church If you are under discipline From your local church

07:17

Then we would ask you to abstain From coming to the table We would not allow someone

07:22

Who is under the discipline Of their church If it is unreconciled discipline For them to come to our table

07:29

So we are putting out a fence But that's where our fence is

07:35

It regards discipline But if a person is visiting us From another church Maybe they are in from out of town

07:41

Or some other reason That has brought them to us We would not forbid them To come to the table

07:46

We don't think that that is Something that is necessary For the sanctity of the table Or the sanctity of the meal

07:53

But there are those Who have differences of opinion That just happens to be where we are We believe that these people

07:59

Are Christians They are in good standing with God If they are in good standing With their church But we do also remind them

08:06

That the Bible says To examine yourself And so if there is some reason

08:11

Why they have determined It would be unwise for them To participate in the table

08:16

Then we would agree with that And ask them not to partake And certainly we would say If a person is not a believer

08:22

Then they are not welcome To come to the table either So that is our method

08:27

For fencing the table And I am sure there will be A lot of you who have Differences of opinion And this is a place

08:33

Where I do think Good godly people can disagree So if you have Differences of opinion You want to share them

08:38

In the comments I would encourage you to do so Alright so we are going to move on To our next question

08:45

This one deals with The subject of Being in a church

08:51

Where they are teaching things That you disagree with And particularly on the issue

08:57

Of Calvinism It says I would like to thank you For your recent podcast episode

09:02

Going over your experience When your church realized You were Calvinistic It was extremely informative And a blessing to me

09:08

And my family My question would be As a church member Should we worry about Causing division in our church

09:15

Over these biblical truths Or may it be best To leave quietly And not stir up trouble To make a long story short

09:21

We thought we were in a church That was non -reformed But have found out We are in an anti -reformed church

09:27

Sunday sermon a few weeks ago Compared Calvinists and reformed believers To the dogs and mutilators

09:33

Of Philippians 3 And need to be put Out of the church Your podcast was very timely for us

09:39

And helped answer some questions We had in our own home I hope you can share some wisdom with us

09:45

To help us with our decision Moving forward I also want to mention

09:50

I'm not going to read it But I did do a follow up email With this family To ask them If I could talk about this on air

09:57

They said yes But they also mentioned That they're in a situation Where they're not

10:03

They don't have a lot of churches To choose from So it's not as if They can just leave one And go to the other Based upon their second email

10:10

Which I'm not going to read All the way through But so this My response is going to be

10:15

Somewhat motivated By what they said In that regard But let me just start out

10:21

By answering the questions Sort of as they come First, I appreciate you being thankful For the podcast

10:27

I'm so grateful for everybody Who listens And the fact that this is Actually encouraging people Praise God From whom all blessings flow

10:35

I'm so thankful for everybody Who sends me a message For everybody who hits The like and subscribe

10:40

And all those little things That people don't think Really matters Those are very encouraging

10:45

And encourage me to keep Doing these things So thank you You said something here

10:52

I want to really mention How important this is You said As a church member Should we worry about Causing division in our church

11:00

Yes The Bible says That one of the things That God hates Is one who sows discord

11:05

Among the brothers And so it should never be Our desire to divide the church

11:11

And I want to mention Going back to my podcast Where I talked about Me being Calvinistic In the church

11:17

I had somebody make an accusation In a comment That I had done wrong in that Because I had not

11:27

That I basically Was a hidden Calvinist I was subverting And I didn't respond

11:34

To the comment Sometimes I don't Just because of time Sometimes I don't want to get Into a back and forth With somebody

11:39

With whom I disagree But it's important to understand The context I was in Is the church did not have

11:46

A particular statement of faith That it was holding It had left the old denomination That it used to be a part of And we were moving forward

11:54

As saying we want to believe What the Bible says And this is what I believe The Bible teaches And that's what I said When I stood up In front of the church

11:59

This is what I believe The Bible teaches Therefore if I'm preaching This is what I have to preach Because this is what I see The text preaching

12:04

And it's not as if I was going against The statement of faith Or against what the church Had formerly taught I was in a situation

12:10

Where I'd been in the church Since I was seven years old And had been called

12:16

To move the church In the direction of scripture And that's what I believed I was doing And nothing was hidden Nothing was subverted

12:25

Even though I wasn't using The language of Calvinism It wasn't because I was afraid of it It was because quite frankly

12:31

At that point I wasn't even sure That that's what I was going to call myself Or what I was So just going back to that show

12:37

For anybody who may Have thought about those questions But coming back to this I desperately did not want

12:45

To divide our church And that's what The conversation I had With Tom Askell I said I don't want

12:50

To divide the church Because I know that God In his word tells us

12:56

That we shouldn't seek To sow discord Among the brothers So right away I would say yes If you're asking

13:01

Should you be concerned about that Even over biblical truth You have to be careful Because these are

13:08

God's people And even if this church Is wrong on some issues I would not assume

13:16

This is a synagogue of Satan And so I would be careful But going on to your story

13:24

I do want to follow up Because you said that You thought the church Was non -reformed

13:30

But didn't realize They were anti -reformed And now they are basically saying That the position that you hold

13:36

Is a position which is Worthy to have you Put out of the church

13:41

At least if I read The email correctly It said that reformed believers Were compared to dogs, mutilators

13:48

And need to be put Out of the church If that was stated from the pulpit That would be really A struggle for me Now it would not make me want

13:56

To necessarily stand up And fight a battle Again I'm not looking To divide a church

14:02

But I would have a hard time Continuing in a place Where what I believe about God And about the scripture

14:09

Was being called heresy

14:14

Because that's essentially The simplified version of that As they've said That what you're teaching is

14:20

Or what you believe Is worthy of excommunication And the only thing

14:26

That's worthy of excommunication Regarding doctrine Is that which is heretical

14:33

I believe the issues of Calvinism Specifically, soteriologically

14:40

Regarding predestination And election Those things I believe those things Can be differed between brothers Who are brothers in the faith

14:45

This is one of the areas That I've been pretty honest about In my ministries I've said, hey I think you can disagree on this

14:52

And still be brothers in Christ And that's why I have conversations with people Who have various different views And still call them

14:58

Brothers in Christ I just had a brother on Last week I think it was Big John From the

15:03

Church of God He didn't agree with me On Calvinism But I think he's my brother in Christ And I'm going to treat him like that So it would be hard for me

15:13

To maintain the commitment To a church That was calling My understanding of God Heresy But what do you do?

15:22

I don't think you seek To divide the church I think possibly a conversation With your pastor If you are a member of the church

15:28

Specifically, if you are A member of the church Having a conversation With your pastor would be good And be honest with him

15:34

And at that point That may tell you more About what you really want to know

15:40

Because, you know, sometimes In the pulpit Men can be fiery And verbose

15:47

And say things that When you have them In a private conversation They may say

15:53

Well, I didn't really mean That you should be excommunicated I didn't really mean You were a dog Perhaps he would say that And at that point

15:59

Maybe you could call into question A little bit of integrity there But at least if he knows

16:04

And you have that conversation And he says Well, I think you're a heretic Or whatever At that point

16:09

You'll know whether or not It's continuing to be The best place to take you And your family

16:15

And it may not be I don't have a good answer For where you can go If there are no other good churches

16:21

In the area And, again, it's so hard Because, you know,

16:29

I'm in a situation In Jacksonville Where, you know, I know Several good brothers And good churches

16:34

That are in our area And, I mean, there's basically One or two on every side of town

16:40

Because we have And there's churches All over Jacksonville I'm talking about Solid, reformed churches

16:46

That I would be able to If somebody Because it takes an hour To get from one side of Jacksonville To another It's a big landmass area

16:54

It's not a big city But it's a big area And so sometimes People visit our church And I'm like Hey, man

16:59

This is kind of far for you There's a good church On the other side of town That's like right near you And like Pastor Kenny Roberts From Mission Way Church He's been on the show before And he's a great pastor

17:11

He's on the other side of town He's somebody I would certainly point people to In fact, he's going to have me Preach for him in July I think it is

17:18

He's taking a time off So I'm going to be preaching At his church And looking forward to it

17:23

So again, it's hard for me To give you a great answer As to what you need to do

17:30

But the first thing I would say Is have a conversation With your pastor Have a candid conversation Be honest about your understanding

17:37

Be willing to listen to him You know, you stick your guns On what you believe is true

17:45

And ask him if Ask him if he really thinks That what you believe about God Is worthy of having you

17:52

Put out of the church And if the answer is yes Then that may be an indicator That it's time to begin At least trying to search

17:58

For something that may work Better for you And here's something To think about I heard this years ago

18:04

And I think it's true A good church is worth the drive

18:11

So if there is a church That may be a little further But you have to make the drive A good church is worth the drive

18:17

That's number one Number two is A good church can also be worth relocating

18:26

And I don't know how realistic That is for you But I have been very encouraged To see people who were in areas

18:34

That didn't have solid churches And they were willing to move You'd move for a job

18:41

Most people would But they were willing to move Because they wanted to be

18:47

A part of a church That they knew was encouraging And pointing them toward What they believe the

18:55

Bible taught So I don't say that often But I have seen it And have been encouraged by it

19:01

So that's number two Hope it was helpful And may God bless you As you go through this

19:07

It's going to be a difficult time I'm sure Number three This one is very interesting

19:13

Because this one deals with The qualifications of a pastor And specifically A pastor's

19:21

How a pastor's family Is responding to his ministry

19:27

It says, I came up with a Excuse me, let's start over I can read, I promise I have a question for you

19:33

That came up with a pastor A pastor in our Non -denominational congregation He's currently finishing up His MDiv And has been in preaching rotation

19:42

In our church for the last few years And he's likely going to be Taking the full -time pastorate In the next few years

19:48

Okay, so he's moving Through the process We had a dinner With the congregation

19:53

And he mentioned that his parents Especially his mother Aren't enthusiastic About his call to the pastorate

19:58

And he and his own wife And kids are Let alone the congregation Who is glad that he's Taking the steps

20:04

To entering the pastorate And For some context His mother was not in the room

20:10

Lives hundreds of miles away And is currently Not involved in that church at all

20:16

So he She said his statement Confused me a little Because he seems

20:22

Or the person writing this said His statement confused me a little Because he seems to be Really enjoying preaching And offering what roles he can

20:28

As an elder in the church While waiting to become A pastor on his own And here's the question

20:34

What advice would you have For pastors in such a situation As this Where there May be some tensions

20:39

Between a pastor Who feels called to the pastorate And his parents Who may have their own opinions About his choice

20:45

In accepting his pastoral call And for the congregation Who would be On the receiving end Of his pastorship

20:51

All right Right away This is a Very interesting situation

20:57

Because If the man's parents

21:02

Don't recognize his call Or don't support His call to ministry

21:08

I would want to know why But if the reason is That perhaps His parents

21:15

In this case his mother If she's not a believer That would be one

21:20

Right away That I would want to know Is this person Not a believer Because If the person's not a believer

21:27

They're probably not going to support Any ministerial efforts Would rather they do something else

21:34

But there's also another reason Why parents may not support A man's call to ministry

21:41

And that is out of fear And I think about the story

21:47

Of Martin Luther a little bit In this It's not the same at all But you know Martin Luther's father

21:52

Had sent him to law school Because he wanted him To be a lawyer And when Luther chose instead

21:59

To be a monk And you know there's a whole story That goes with that There was a lot of consternation In the heart of his father

22:05

Because monks tend to be Relatively poor And All of the things that All the hopes and dreams

22:14

That he'd had for his son Are now Kind of out the window And so I think about this situation

22:24

With this young man Who's entering into the ministry One of the things that Is difficult about ministry

22:31

Is it's a hard life Ministry is a hard life It's hard on your family

22:37

It's hard on your heart I remember Spurgeon Talking about how

22:43

You know the position That men sit in When they study Is sort of a You know tend to be

22:49

Crumped over the book And pen in hand You know and this is before Computers and things like that Bad lighting and all

22:55

And he said these things Tend toward the Tend toward the

23:01

The discontent of the body I'm not saying it exactly As nicely as Spurgeon did But basically

23:07

It's a hard life All of it Just studying for a living Is hard And you know

23:13

That's why you have to As a pastor You have to make yourself exercise Get out in the sunlight Do things

23:19

Because you know If you sit in your office All day with your knees Under your desk That's tough And Spurgeon recognized that And I think

23:31

Mothers and fathers want The best for their children And they don't want their children

23:36

Necessarily to have hard lives And so I do think Trying to think the very best

23:41

Of this woman Because I don't know her at all It could be that She's just concerned That her husband's Going to live a life

23:47

Or excuse me That her son is going to live A life that's difficult That her son's going to live A life that's poor

23:52

You know ministers Don't tend to make A lot of money I remember R .C. Sproul In an early conference

23:57

I went to Where he said That you know As far as ministerial

24:06

Churches expect ministers To you know have degrees And have gone to school And have you know All this training And then the pay

24:13

That is usually not commensurate To that level of education Whereas in secular work It would be much more

24:18

If a person went And got a master's degree And doctorate degrees And all these things Tends to be The payment for that In the secular world

24:27

Tends to be much better And so Sproul was just saying You know understand men It was a room full of pastors

24:33

He says you're entering into a As it were a vocation

24:40

That doesn't have A lot of worldly benefit But you know We're doing this for God Not for Our paychecks per se

24:50

And so you know That's always been helpful to me Just kind of keeping in mind

24:58

That you know I went and did the degree I went and did all those things Because I knew I wanted to do a good job for God And but I'm just like I said

25:06

Trying to think of this mom The only thing that would give me Any pause about this man Would be if the mother

25:14

Knew something about his life That was being hidden And I don't think that's the case Based on the way

25:20

That this email is worded I don't think it's The mother is concerned About him being a minister Because he doesn't quite

25:25

Fit the qualifications And as you said His wife His children And the church Recognize him

25:30

To be a godly man And meeting the qualifications Of 1st Timothy 3 And Titus So I don't think

25:37

That's the issue I think mom's just concerned About her son And either it's from An unbelieving perspective

25:44

Or even as a believer We can still struggle With anxieties And maybe she just has anxieties

25:50

About her son's vocation And doesn't make it right But it does maybe give

25:56

A context of understanding That can help us to understand Where mom's coming from And if you're a young man If you're a pastor

26:02

And you're listening to this And you've struggled Maybe with not having All the support That you thought

26:07

You should get From your parents Maybe think of that As one of the potential reasons

26:13

As to why Maybe they were just Concerned for you Maybe it was Really was out of love Even if it's

26:19

Even if it's not Being expressed In the best way You know We try to think The best of people

26:25

Unless they Unless they force us To believe otherwise So I hope that was

26:30

A helpful answer To that question All right Let's go to our final question

26:39

And this one I reworded it some It was a little long But it was also

26:45

A little personal Because this one is about A man who sent this to me

26:52

Who is waffling Some in his In his theology

26:58

And when I say waffle That maybe is a negative term So let me back up He's struggling With a back and forth

27:04

In his theology He uses the word poser So I'll let him I will use that word He's worried about being a poser

27:10

And worried about waffling So I want to read Like I said I reworded the email here

27:16

A little bit Actually I'll tell you What I did I took it into chat GPT And I said reword this

27:22

A little bit It's a little too personal Simplify it some So yes Every once in a while I will use chat

27:28

GPT To simplify things So And I've done shows About it before It can be a tool

27:36

But I don't write My sermons with it Just so you know Okay So it says this

27:42

When I first discovered Reformed theology I embraced it fully And even saw Armenians And others as heretics

27:49

Over time Listening to Mike Winger Dr. Michael Brown And Leighton Flowers Changed my perspective

27:54

I realized they loved The Lord and the Bible And their views made sense For the past 5 to 7 years

27:59

I felt confused And conflicted Now I'm considering Returning to Reformed theology

28:04

Because I appreciate Its structure, clarity And its roots In traditional Historical Conservative Protestant theology

28:12

Are these good enough reasons To choose Reformed theology And if I do How do I overcome

28:17

The feeling Like a wishy -washy poser For identifying As Calvinistic Or Reformed again

28:25

One thing I guess it missed There is a part where he says That he had Well I guess

28:32

In the original That I changed it from Said he sort of had stopped Calling himself Reformed So he was

28:37

He was First he was Reformed Embraced it completely Saw Armenians as heretics

28:43

Then he began to listen To some people Who were not Reformed Mike Winger Who I really like Really appreciate

28:48

What he's doing right now With Benny Hinn He is nailing it I did a One of my very first videos

28:54

Back in like 2008 I did a Benny Hinn video Hit 250 ,000 views It was huge at the time

29:00

Because YouTube was new Back then And Maybe I should repost that video

29:06

If you'd ever like to see That video I could find it And repost it It's a little weird Because I But it's old

29:13

It would be old Keith So if you're interested Let me know But Got off topic there

29:19

But Mike Winger's great And obviously you guys know How I feel about Leighton Leighton's been on the show A few times We have a good relationship

29:24

And Dr. Michael Brown I think Is a Is good in many areas Even though Really felt like the

29:34

American Gospel thing With him and Justin Peters And Jim Osmond And Sam Storms Didn't really think

29:41

He did well with that But I will say this though His defense of penal substitution In his debate with Ryan Zahn I just listened to that again

29:48

Yesterday Because I'm Preaching on penal substitution This week Michael Brown did a great job

29:54

Of defending penal substitution And That's something we should Be able to defend

29:59

So Having said all that Kind of went off on a tangent there Let me get back to The email

30:05

So the question is You were You felt like you were Reformed Then you were not And now you feel like You want to be again

30:12

And You said you're considering Returning Because you appreciate Structure, clarity, and roots In the historical conservative

30:19

Protestant theology All right So I have a lot of thoughts On this

30:25

And I want to make them brief And I don't want to opine For too long But first of all What it seems to me

30:31

Is that You have had Some major Back and forth

30:39

And You mentioned these men Who have online ministries

30:44

Ministries like mine I have an online ministry And I think they're valuable And I think they can be very useful

30:50

But where they do Create a problem And I would say this to anybody

30:55

Even people who listen to my show Where this can create a problem Is on the issue of Receiving Multiple voices

31:05

In your discipleship You know You're not necessarily A new believer

31:10

If you've been a believer for You know Over seven years apparently Because you said This is all within Five to seven years

31:17

That you've been feeling Confused and conflicted But I would ask you The question of Who is discipling you?

31:24

Who in your life Not the online guys Not me And not Michael Brown And not

31:30

Mike Winger But who in your life Has invested in you personally?

31:37

And That would begin with the question Are you in a local church? Are you in a place

31:42

Where there are men around you Who are willing to invest in you? A pastor

31:48

Deacons Elders Just other godly men Who are willing to invest in you

31:54

And if you don't have that That would be my first Encouragement to you

31:59

Would be to find a church Where there are people Who are willing to invest In your spiritual growth

32:06

Because before Before I would say That you should worry about Whether you're reformed

32:12

Or not reformed Or any of those things And because, again Traditional, historical,

32:18

Conservative, Protestant theology I obviously believe that I believe reformed theology Well, I believe

32:23

Reformed Baptist theology Don't shoot me R. Scott Clark I believe What I believe and teach

32:29

Which is Consistent with Baptist theology

32:34

Particularly Calvinistic Baptist theology Is historical Is conservative Is Protestant I believe those things

32:41

I believe they're good things And I believe they're Wholesome and righteous So, you know

32:48

If I were being somewhat Selfish, I would say Yes, go after those things

32:53

Because that's what I believe But Instead, what I want to say to you

32:58

Is Having someone in your life Who loves you and will disciple you

33:05

Even if they were to disagree with me On a few of those things And how we formulate those things How we understand those things Would be so much more valuable to you

33:13

So, if you are not currently In a local church Where that's happening Please go to your pastor

33:18

Please tell him that You're yearning to be taught And to be instructed Don't feel like you

33:26

Know more than other people Therefore, you don't need To be discipled That is

33:33

And I'm not saying That's you, buddy Because, again I don't know you personally But I know that's a danger That some people fall into Is they say

33:40

Well, I've heard I've listened to every video Mike Winger's ever done Even when we did 36 Hours on Women Pastors I've listened to every

33:46

James White thing That he's ever done And therefore, I don't need Personal interaction

33:52

And discipleship You do We all do We need to be able to have somebody That we can work through These things with That we can struggle

33:59

Through these things with I'm so thankful I have one of my fellow elders I spend two or three hours a week

34:05

On the phone with him He drives a lot for work And so He'll just call me and say

34:11

Hey, I'm on drive You got time to talk? And we talk Sometimes we'll talk For an hour and a half And normally

34:17

It's theological Because I'm growing, too I'm still learning And I'm asking him

34:22

What he thinks about certain things He's asking me What I think about certain things We're going back and forth And it's one of the most

34:28

Blessed relationships that I have And both of my elders I can call them at any time I know that Both that I serve with It just happens to be

34:36

This one man Likes to talk on the phone And so First and foremost

34:43

That And if you're not in a local church I mean, obviously I would point you To a solid Reformed Baptist church

34:50

If there's one in your area I would point you there But I would say this I had an interesting interaction

34:57

With somebody recently Who said They went to a Reformed Baptist church And Immediately It was

35:06

They I guess they had lunch or something With the pastor And immediately It was It was What I Almost Hyper Focused On all of the

35:21

Reformed stuff It's important It's good stuff It should be

35:27

Talked about It should be discussed But Something else

35:33

When you're at a church And you're meeting a church Is listen to the sermons Are they Following The text of scripture

35:40

Are they preaching Through the scripture Are they preaching The truths of the scripture Or are they

35:46

Basically Topical Calvinism Which is A term I just invented

35:51

Topical Calvinism is Every message That's preached No matter where they are In the text They're gonna find some way

35:57

To go back And prove Calvinism From that text That That's Unbalanced And so If you can find

36:05

A really good Solid church That's balanced That loves you And Will invest in you

36:11

That's my recommendation First and foremost And I wanna Last question

36:16

When you said Are these good enough reasons To choose Reformed theology The only good reason To choose

36:21

Reformed theology Is if you believe That it's biblical I do I've heard the arguments

36:28

For both sides I've read So many

36:33

Books I've I've listened To so many people Preach I have discussed With some of the

36:38

Smartest people in the world On this subject And that's not to Elevate myself at all It's just by God's grace I've had the opportunity

36:43

To sit and talk with people That are That are On the front lines Of these issues And I am convinced

36:49

That Calvinism Calvinistic soteriology Is biblical I'm convinced That reformed theology

36:55

Is biblical But I'm convinced That it's biblical And that's what's Most important Not that it's Historic Or conservative

37:01

Or protestant Or that it has Great confessions And all those things Which it does But what's most important Is that this is

37:07

What the Bible teaches And if you are Convinced that this Is what the Bible teaches

37:13

That would be the reason To embrace it And if you're still not Convinced that that's

37:19

What the Bible teaches That doesn't mean That you can't Have a good Solid Relationship With the

37:27

Lord It just means You're still You're still You're still learning And that's why I go back to the Subject of discipleship

37:32

Please Seek to be Discipled By someone Who has Who has

37:38

Gone before you I kind of look At discipleship Kind of like a mountain Right And Um We all start

37:47

Our discipleship journey By Uh When we When we're regenerated

37:52

Right We begin the journey Of sanctification We begin this Learning process And we all start Going up the mountain And When you get to A certain point

38:00

On the mountain You look down And you say Hey there's some people Who are just starting And I'm a little higher I've learned a little bit more

38:05

I've gone a little further Does it make you more saved Does it make you more Uh A different quality

38:12

Of Christian But it does mean Okay I've learned A little bit So the people That are below me Now there may be

38:19

Some of them That I could Share some of What I've learned with And I can disciple them

38:24

And But then I look up And I say Oh okay There's some guys Who've been doing this A lot longer There's some guys

38:30

Who've really wrestled With these things A lot longer Than I have And those guys Have something to teach me

38:36

Those guys can speak Into my life And be valuable to me And so Uh You know

38:43

I How does How does it go There's an old saying Everybody needs

38:49

A Um Everybody needs A Timothy Everybody needs

38:56

A Barnabas And everybody needs A Paul I think is the way Maybe that's not it

39:01

But If I'm getting this terribly wrong Please correct me Somebody in the comments But basically it means Everybody needs someone

39:08

That they're trying to disciple That they're trying to bring along And everybody needs somebody That's basically on their same level

39:14

You know Sort of the You know Right there The Barnabas The person that's That's ministering Alongside of you

39:19

And this is sort of like My elder and me We're always We're challenging each other And And we You know We see each other

39:24

As very much as As peers and friends And best of friends And we love each other And so we We can talk about things

39:31

That are difficult with each other And we're both struggling through But then we also look up And we say Okay Who's Who's our

39:36

Paul Who's the guy teaching us Right Who is this Who's this person That That's still in my life

39:42

Who do I go to When I have these questions And And Who do

39:49

I Seek to be discipled by So discipleship

39:54

Is the answer my brother And More important than Identifying as a

39:59

Calvinist or not Is Being assured in your heart Where you are on these things

40:05

Before you worry about any labels I hope that's helpful for you I hope it's encouraging to you And I hope everybody

40:11

Was encouraged by this Hope that all of this Was helpful to you And If you want to send me an email

40:17

It might not necessarily Make it into a video But I'll at least Try to send you back Three sentences To respond

40:23

With With my new Email structure That I'm That I'm working through At least let you know

40:30

That I got your email And that I appreciate it So thank you for All For sending in these emails Hope these responses were good

40:35

And again If you liked this video Hit the thumbs up button If you didn't like this video Hit the thumbs down button