The G3 Interview | Josh Buice

We're back with another episode of the Room for Nuance podcast with a special,

I think to some people, maybe even a surprising guest, Josh Bice. Good to be with you. Will you open us in prayer, brother?

Absolutely. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we do thank you again for the privilege to come before your throne and to make our needs known and to praise you for who you are.

Thank you for the privilege to sit and to have this conversation with Sean and to be able to talk about gospel ministry and to be able to talk about the local church and to be able to talk about why it is that we do what we do.

And so we're so grateful that you have called us out of darkness into your marvelous light. You have redeemed us through the blood of Christ and it is indeed a privilege to serve you.

So we pray that you would use this conversation to help people in local churches far and wide, to be able to think critically about culture as well as to understand why it is that you have commissioned us to go and to proclaim the gospel, the good news of Christ, to the end of the world.

And we ask this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Well, brother, as we get started, I sent out a couple of text messages to some buddies and I said, what are some questions

I absolutely have to ask, Josh? And I thought the best one was this. Does your last name rhyme with juice?

Well, obviously that's the way people pronounce it often, but that's actually the U is just put in there to make my life miserable.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, let's do what we always do. Start off by establishing your spiritual bona fides insofar as we can as Baptists.

Brother, share your testimony. How'd you come down to the Lord? Yeah, so initially, you know, my earliest memories of life were tumultuous, broken home situation.

I was conceived out of wedlock. My parents ended up getting married and just a few miles actually from where we're sitting,

I remember just sort of like growing up in a home that was just full of anger and just a lot of confusion as a young boy.

My parents would divorce when I was about five years old. My mom would initially remarry a man who was very abusive.

He was abusive physically to her and as well as to me. And so my earliest memories of life were just dark and gloomy.

Yeah. And in God's providence, he put in my life a faithful grandfather who had just in recent months actually been saved.

And so he started taking me to church on Sunday mornings and I would hear the gospel preached and I made a profession of faith at about,

I don't know, I was about six and a half years old or so. In a, you know, really small church down the road.

And looking back, that's the very first time I can remember hearing the gospel. But as it would be, as I would grow,

I would end up, you know, through God's providence things would change. I would end up living with my father.

He would, he would in his kind mercy save my dad and my life changed at that point.

So when you were at six, the profession of faith, do you think that was? Yeah, so it wasn't genuine.

I think it was just really in many ways. It was a very Arminian church setting, you know, calling people to the front, pray this prayer.

And I was mainly just doing what I saw all of these other children doing at the time. And so,

But you did hear the gospel. I did hear the gospel and I was very grateful for that. So fast forward some time.

I'm, you know, here in this church at Praise Meal Baptist Church on the west side of Atlanta growing up in this church setting and very much involved, engaged in the life of the church as you would expect typical

SBC church at the time. Because your dad is here. Yep, my dad. Your dad's genuinely been saved.

Yep. And we have family history here. So my grandmother was a member of this church. And so at that time,

I'm just rocking along doing the typical thing. I'm going through children's ministry stuff, youth ministry, all of that, right?

Graduate from the University of West Georgia, and I am working a job in Atlanta.

I'm listening to a sermon, and it became very much just obvious to me that I was an unconverted church member.

Who was preaching? Um, so the man that was preaching was... And anybody that we would know?

No, you wouldn't know him. But it's interesting that you as an unregenerate person are listening to preaching while you work.

Yeah, because see, at the time, I thought that I was a Christian. Right. Okay. And so I'm just, I'm there at my place of employment, just rocking along doing life.

And I decided, you know what? This was just the providence of God. I said, I'm just going to listen to a sermon. And so, but I had been struggling, honestly.

With doubts. Yeah. And had been for a number of years. And every time

I would talk to a pastor, they would just tell me it was just some sort of satanic attack on my life.

And, you know, I was being robbed of joy, of, you know, and assurance. But the fact is,

I wasn't a believer. I wasn't truly converted. And it was at that moment that the Lord saved me and changed my life.

And so immediately... What were you doing? Were you stocking grocery shelves? No, I was actually, I was sitting at a desk and I was doing some print design work on a computer for a project for,

I was working for a printing company. Okay. And so I had the privilege to sit there for hours.

And so I just wanted to, instead of listening to music, I just wanted to, I decided I would listen to a sermon that day. And it would just be that the

Lord would use that to bring me to a saving knowledge of Christ. So you're sitting there under the conviction of sin.

You see the glory of God in the face of Christ as you're saved. Did you start weeping? I did.

But I was in many ways just thunderstruck. I mean, I got up from my desk.

I went down the hallway. I found my boss, who was a Christian man.

And I just wanted to talk to him. You know, and I said, I don't know how to tell you this, but this is what just happened.

I just now believe the Lord converted me. Wow. And so that really, in many ways, sparked a journey because what happened at that point was

I was not content any longer, really, over the next few months, just continuing down the pathway in the business world.

I wanted to pursue something that had genuine purpose, what I thought to be, you know, something that would be more fulfilling in life.

I had two grandfathers on both sides of my family growing up that were rather successful businessmen.

I thought that's what I want to do with my life as well. But at this point, things changed, and I wanted to do something different.

In fact, I wanted to serve the Lord. And so over time, I just could not escape this insatiable desire to preach the gospel.

And so I would end up quitting my job and pack up a U -Haul with my wife, and we would move to Louisville, Kentucky, and I would study for the purpose of gospel ministry.

You'd already finished college. So you go to seminary. How old are you at this time? So I'm 26 at the time that I moved to Louisville.

Okay. So you do your MDiv there? And then what? So I did an MDiv. I got a job like a lot of Southern seminary students do.

I got a job at four o 'clock in the morning at UPS. Which is good for you. It is good for you, actually.

And I love it. And I look back at that time in my life. I really, truly enjoyed it.

I put a ministry referral sort of resume out there because in orientation, they were saying if you would supply this little resume when smaller churches call the seminary, we could maybe send out a stack of resumes and that sort of thing.

So I did that. And at some point, my phone rings and this small little country church wanted to know if I would come preach for them.

So I did. And in God's providence, I ended up being called to serve as pastor of this church. So I'm working my way through the

MDiv and also pastoring a church at the same time. Which is also a pretty common experience for guys, especially around the area.

It was just a wonderful experience. Just treasured that time, honestly.

And at the time that I was studying there at Southern, there was a little sort of a policy that if you wanted to go into the

PhD, you had to live within 50 miles of the library. And there was a church that was calling me to pastor this church in Middle Tennessee when

I graduated with my MDiv. And so I had to make the decision whether I wanted to move forward with that or go into the

PhD program. So I decided, you know what, I know that I'm called to pastor.

I do want to further my education, but what that looks like, I don't know. So I decided to go that route.

And then I would, at that point, decide to go and do a DMIN. So I did a DMIN as well at Southern.

And looking back, it was just a tremendous opportunity, wonderful time of, you know, preparation for ministry.

And do you lord your Southern seminary education over Scott, who went to Southwestern? The Southern Baptist, he loves the seminary.

Come on, brother. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So you do that. You're pastoring the church in Tennessee.

How did you get there from there to here? Yeah. So went into that church.

I was pastoring a small country church with about, you know, 25 people, you know, on a

Sunday morning on a good day. And all farmers, that sort of thing. I go into a church in Middle Tennessee located about halfway between Chattanooga and Nashville.

And it was a church that had a multi -layered staff established, you know, two services in the morning.

So how old are you at the time? Yeah. So I'm like, I think I'm about 28 at the time, you know.

So I just dove right in, right? So we're just going to plant life there, no looking back.

And so we did. And so we're rocking along, serving a few years into that ministry.

And I get a bizarre phone call from my home church saying, you know, and I knew that they had gone through a really difficult season of ministry.

Pastor had left. There's, you know, some problems happening in the life of the church. And so I get this phone call and they ask, would you consider praying about maybe coming home to pastor your home church?

And so this would start a nine -month process of meeting with a search team, praying through this process, considering the cost of coming home, but not coming home to really good things, coming home to a really difficult ministry.

And it was undoubtedly the plan that God had mapped out for us.

And so we ended up coming back home. So the name of the church that I came home to is the church,

Praise Mill Baptist Church, where I grew up as a boy. Yeah. So your wife? My wife, Carrie, and I both grew up in this church.

And so we met in the hallways as children. People sometimes say, you know, how did you guys meet?

Well, we don't really know how we met or - We were in Sunday school. We were just passing one another in the hallway.

But yeah, so came back home and it was a very difficult ministry for eight long years.

It was really, really hard. Like a church revitalization. Yeah, yeah. I didn't know that at the time. Of course.

But that's what it was. It's more fun that way. You get here and you're like, oh, I'm not just pastoring.

There's a lot of work to do. Any stories you want to share from those eight years? I don't want to just breeze past them.

As someone who has done a church revitalization, I know that there are a lot of stories.

You don't have to. We can move past it if you want. Yeah. Well, you know, looking back, I mean, I think I was trying to be humble and careful.

And so during the whole process, I told the team I didn't want to know what the salary was going to be.

And so I wouldn't encourage guys to do that. Yeah, don't do that. For your wife's sake, don't do that.

Exactly. So I just decided that I would not allow that for good or bad to persuade me.

So the day that I said yes, when I preached in view of a call and I came back to meet with the team that evening, the church treasurer came in just with a handwritten note of a few little bullet points on a little scrap piece of paper and handed it to me.

And it was my salary. And it was basically far less than what

I was currently making at the church where I was. And so it really starts off from that point and just with a lot of difficulties.

And then, you know, early on, so I arrive in 2010 and 2013.

So that's August of 2010. January of 2013, we started this thing called

G3. And we basically just wanted to have a theology conference for local churches around the metro

Atlanta area, be a means of encouraging them and pastors as well. And we thought we would have a couple of hundred people that might come.

And year number one, we had to close down registration 30 days before the event and start a waiting list.

And that would be sort of the process by which G3 would start to grow, which was a complete shock to me.

So here I am with one tiger by the tail, you know, with this whole, you know, church revitalization work.

And then I have this other tiger called G3. And so for the first, you know, eight years or so, it was really hard.

Yeah. And how long have you been pastoring here now? 14 years. 14 years.

So yeah, I mean, that's a lot of patience, a lot of just trusting the Lord, preach the word, counsel with the word, teach the word, and just trust that God's word will do the work.

Absolutely. Yeah. So G3, for those who don't know, what does that name mean?

So we went into a whiteboard one day. We said we wanted to start a theology conference, go from Thursday to Saturday.

And we just wanted it to be that, just a theology conference. We didn't want it to be one of those more pragmatic sort of events.

And I said, well, why don't we just call it G3? You know, and so I went, I mapped it out on the whiteboard, sketched out some things, gospel, grace, and glory.

It was basically just myself and another staff member at the time, and just talked about the fact that, you know, it would be easy to remember.

And then people, when they're asked about it, they would say, well, it's just a theology conference. And they take a theme every year and they just unpack it.

Yeah, that's right. And so that's the way it started. So what made you, in the midst of a church revitalization, say,

I think we should do a theology conference. Was it because the pastors you knew were in the area were hungry for it, or what?

Yeah, partly so. Years ago, the church had this thing for just the local

Baptist Association here on campus. And I watched that. You know, I was a college student and I remembered the way that that whole thing functioned.

And looking back, I remembered not only was I hungry, I felt the church could benefit from it, but I thought maybe other churches could benefit from it as well.

And I looked at how that functioned and I thought, well, we can probably change that format and do it a little better.

And so that's what we did. Yeah. Okay. So you start off year one.

How many people were there year one? 750. Oh my gosh. I mean, you had to be thinking, what in the world?

I did. I did think, what in the world? Did you have like a massive web of relational connections?

I mean, how did you get to that many people? Not at that time. I think it was just looking back, I think it was in many ways the

YRR movement was starting to sort of peak out or maybe even somewhat decline a little bit at that time.

Not quite yet, but getting closer. But I think that sort of looking back, it seems as if it was a perfect storm where a lot of people were just starving for sound biblical theology, and they were just interested in going to an event that that's what they would receive.

It was just robust preaching of the gospel and not a lot of entertainment stuff.

Yeah. And so that's what we did. And so I remember taking, you know, my background was web development, print design.

And so I took all of the addresses, put them in a database and pinged, you know, all of the addresses after the conference.

And it wasn't just a localized group. It was all over the United States. The primary was, obviously, the cluster was there in the southeast, but it was all over the map.

And then, of course, there were a few international people as well, year number one. And that would be the sort of the pattern that it would follow.

January conference, close down registration around Thanksgiving or December, start a waiting list.

And, you know, we would just continue that pattern until 2016. We were planning for the following year, we were going to do a reformation conference because of the 500th anniversary.

I said, you know, why don't we think about maybe moving off campus? Yeah. Going to a convention center and having more people and then coming back home in 2018.

So we signed a contract, which was looking back, it was unbelievable. I mean, it was like 300 and something thousand dollars we ended up having to sign on the dotted line for.

And again, G3 is still sort of like a line item in the budget, but not really costing anything.

It's a zeroed out line item that's self -funded. So this is sort of a big step, right?

And, you know, we had 2 ,500 people that came that that year.

And so what we were planning to do is come back here. So you have 2 ,500 going to come back to the campus in 2018 and just continue doing business as usual, right?

And we open up registration every year for early bird registration the first day.

Say next year's theme is this, sign up. You know, we have just a block of, you know, seats that we're going to let go for the early bird and take advantage of it.

And so we opened up the early bird registration and every seat in our auditorium sold in two hours for the next year.

So we made an announcement that we would just pray and seek the will of the Lord. And as the Lord would have it, we decided it would be best for us just to stay at the convention center.

So that's what we did. So we went from 750 the first four years, 2 ,517, 2 ,818.

We went to 4 ,619. We went to 6 ,520.

We went to 8 ,300 or more, you know, in this last one that we had.

And so it just continued to grow all the way up to where we are present day. Let's go back and look at that first one.

Because in some ways it's kind of like the most special one, right? It's like this incredible thing that you didn't know was going to turn into what it turned into.

What was the theme that year? It was on the gospel. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. We just wanted to just say, you know, what is the true gospel?

Okay. And then after that... Did you do like God, man, Christ response or how did you break it down? Yeah. So actually it wasn't even that organized, honestly.

It was more or less just taking different aspects of the gospel and, you know, defining the terms, you know, preaching

Christ crucified, buried, resurrected, you know. And so sort of that first Corinthians 15, three and four short, you know, succinct message.

First important stuff, yeah. And then the next year we would go from the gospel to the foundation of the scriptures.

And then eventually we would go to the church and then the doctrine of the Trinity and then so on and so forth up to right now.

You know, we've unpacked a lot of those main major doctrinal themes and we're at a place now where we could easily start to repeat some of those.

Yeah, that's right. And just maybe take them from a different angle. Absolutely. How many speakers were there at that first one? There were probably seven speakers, it seems.

The number of completion. Yeah. Yeah, right. Okay. Who were they? Who were those first seven?

Well, intentionally we decided that I really honestly did not want it to just be sort of a

Baptist echo chamber. So I wanted to have friends like, you know, Joel Beakey was there.

There's a local pastor at the time. He's currently serving in Charleston, South Carolina now.

But John Payne, who's in the PCA world, he was pastoring a local PCA church here.

So he spoke in the conference as well. Paul Washer, Vodie Bauckham, Stephen Lawson, Tim Challies.

Yeah. And so it's a good group. Would you have a Presbyterian today at a G3 conference? Okay. You just haven't had one?

Or did you have one? No, no, no. We had, well, we had Joel Beakey. We did a regional conference on the

Reformation and we had Dr. Beakey was part of that. Nice. Okay. Let's just do the

Stephen Lawson thing. Let's just get that out of the way. We were in the G3 office downstairs, saw that picture from the first conference, and there you are looking like a 12 year old.

And then next to you is Stephen Lawson. Brother, just anything that you want to say.

I think that you have received, and I'm not just saying this because I'm sitting here with you. I would say this in any room.

I think you've received some unfair criticism about the Steve Lawson situation.

Yeah. Tell us what's going on with that. Yeah. Well, let me just say this. Massive disappointment to me personally.

Yeah. I don't know how else to say, but just confused, anger, pain, disappointment, discouragement.

Hope? Yeah. I mean, obviously there's hope in the gospel, right? Dr. Lawson, Steve Lawson, myself, we're not like best friends or anything, but he was a part of G3 from day one.

And to see what has happened has been a massive discouragement to me to see a man at this point in his life, literally waste everything.

You mentioned unfair criticism. I think we live in a world where when things like this happen, it's a natural thing for people to want to ask questions.

And here's a man who's more than sort of a minister in a local church setting.

He has a ministry that's very expansive. It's a global ministry in many ways.

So he preaches in conferences like we just preached together in a conference in Brazil earlier this year.

So it's natural for people in the public sphere to ask questions, to be confused and to be hurt.

Yeah. There's nothing wrong with that. But I think the problem is that people assume something that's not truly there.

In other words, they assume that we had prior knowledge at G3 of what was happening.

Or they assume that perhaps we were negligent in vetting him appropriately.

Or they assume that we were sort of like covering for this guy in his sin.

That's not what was happening. I'm sitting literally in a meeting with pastors for the

G3 church network and received a message. My phone was actually on do not disturb.

I had been reading all morning and that I noticed that there was some chatter around the room.

And one of our staff members gets up and walks out of the room. Then he came back in and sat down next to me and he sort of like nudged the phone over in front of me like, you need to see this.

It's kind of like the Bush reading the story of 9 -11 and the security guard comes and whispers in his ear.

I mean, I'm sitting there and I'm like, what am I looking at? Like, what is this? Well, it turns out he had gone out to call to verify with the church that it was legitimate.

And so I just went out in the hallway and I didn't even know what to say. I mean, it was just like I felt a flood of emotions.

But for people to ask us questions like, did you know or did you cover for him? Or were you negligent in vetting him?

I received those questions because I think that they're legitimate questions. And I think people should be able to ask those questions.

But the fact of the matter, simply this, we vetted a man when he was more than a decade ago, a pastor in Mobile, Alabama.

And we started a working relationship where he would basically come and speak as a guest in our event every year.

And so here's a guy who's showing up. We don't have lots of interaction throughout the year.

And he's rocking along. Well, then he moves from Alabama to Dallas, Texas.

And he's not hiding in the shadows. He's very visible and engaged in this local church.

He doesn't move because of a controvert? Like, you know, there was no moral failing? No. Interestingly enough, when he left there, he left because he left on good terms.

In fact, their elders actually came knocking on my door to ask if I would consider coming to pastor that church.

And I was not able to leave here at the time. We were just in the middle of this whole revitalization work.

And G3 was very young. And so just didn't feel like I could just abandon the work.

But again, my knowledge of that church at that time was that he was leaving on good terms.

And then he went off back to where his network of home base was, which was in Dallas.

And his children lived there in Dallas, Texas. And so then he's very active and engaged in this church that's planted there in Dallas.

And so everything seemed to be on the up and up. So there wasn't really a need for us to start vetting a man again at this point.

It seems like everything's legitimate. A man's living a double life. And it was a massive discouragement to not only me, but to many people within the evangelical world that we live in.

You know, in our local church, I'm sure the same is true for you, we often encourage people to assume the best of others and the worst of themselves, even in the midst of controversy.

Don't lead with accusations, lead with questions, because you might find out that if you ask the right question, things are actually better than they appear to be.

And we would just say like, let's extrapolate that basic Christian charity principle to stuff that you see online.

And I get it. We live in a world where people have been hurt. They're jaded. I mean, they are tired of pastors failing and they're tired of ministries failing.

But nevertheless, let's maintain those Christian virtues. Let's lead with questions. Let's assume the best.

Let's examine the evidence. Let's not speak before we have all the information. Be quick to listen, slow to speak.

Same thing with the police shooting. Same thing with the fallen pastor. All the principles still apply. Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Good work. Your first conference, Votibach and Paul Walsh, how did you, did you just know all these guys?

I did not. I knew people, had connections with these men. Tim Challies and I, I had a blog at the time.

And so we were connected just in the, in the world of blogs early on. He was sort of a pioneer in that space.

And one of the only ones to actually keep it going. Kind of incredible. Yeah. Yeah. That's really good. Yeah. So, so as you think about, you know, that, that whole, that whole scene early on,

I just started writing letters to men that I really thought I would want to speak in this conference.

And they started accepting these invitations. And then it just sort of became a theme, you know, and then the next year and then the next year.

And so we just, we just started just continuing to push the ball forward and think about how could this conference help local churches as we unpack this theme.

And then have breakout sessions as well that would be helpful, maybe off on the, on the sidelines, on other issues that could be helpful as well.

But yeah, so it wasn't like, you know, we were all in this friend circle. It sort of became that over time, but it wasn't early on.

In contrast to like something like T4G, to hear that story told, those guys were just buddies.

And they were like, let's get together and preach to each other and invite other people. I'm glad to hear that it has grown into friendship though.

Yeah. Okay. Let's, we're going to talk about the G3 church network here in a little bit, but let's stay on the

G3 conference thing, or I guess G3 more, more generally.

You know this as well as I do in the reformed evangelical world, which is once you get outside of a little bit, you realize how small it actually is.

There are different ministries that have different emphases, different flavors, different aromas, right?

So you kind of have the master's world. I guess I don't want to get into what each aroma each one has, but you know that there's the master's world, then there's like desiring

God, and then there's nine marks. And then there's, I guess there was T4G, there still is TGC.

I still think they're, they would fit in that bubble. Where, what would you say is like the defining characteristic, the main emphasis, the aroma of G3?

What is the, what are you guys trying to project out into the reformed world? Yeah, that's a great question. G3 is more baptistic than it is just in a general sense.

Yeah, broad reformed evangelical. Yeah. So we would lean to the baptistic side of the fence.

We obviously would lean to a reformed baptist sort of position.

But when it comes to the conference, that's a little bit different because, you know, we have overlap with Presbyterian friends who come and participate in the conference.

But again, the whole goal of G3, G3 exists for the purpose of educating, equipping, encouraging believers in sound biblical theology and helping to encourage pastors to persevere in the faith.

That's really the bread and butter, you might say, of G3 is that we exist for the local church.

So the way that I like to talk about it with the staff is like this. Instead of calling ourselves a parachurch ministry, a dime a dozen, but think of ourselves more of a sub -church ministry.

So we're not above the church where we have some sort of authority over the church.

We're not really in many ways alongside the church seen as an equal to the church, but we're beneath the church in a posture of service.

How can this ministry serve local churches far and wide? And that's really the purpose. I like that.

Yeah. Okay. So that's kind of the main emphasis of G3 stuff. Let's talk about kind of some of the things that you're known for.

So G3, I think is known for its staunch cessationism. Is that fair?

Well, I mean, maybe. I mean, it depends, right? So we did a conference on cessationism, but I don't know that that would be like the defining mark of us.

No, no, no, no. But it is one of the things I think in like the solar system, when people think of G3, what kinds of ideas come to mind?

I think ardent cessationism. Yeah, maybe. I don't know that I would actually think of us that way.

Yeah. From the outside looking in. Yeah. I don't know that I would think of us that way because like I've had friends and maintained friendships with, you know,

Bob Coughlin, you know, people like that through the years. Yeah. Okay. So because Devin Coughlin led at G3 for a number of years as well as Bob and others.

So we do hold to a cessationist position, but it's not this sort of angry cessationist where we demonize the whole world.

No, no, no. And I'm not saying that. I guess when I say staunch, I mean like there's not a—there's no doubt.

There's a little bit in which people just know like G3 in this debate has planted its flag kind of like on reform stuff.

Like, sure, we're not Arminian. Yeah. No, I'm not going to apologize for it. Yeah. Would you have a continuationist preach at a

G3 conference? We have. We've had John Piper preach before. Okay. Would you do it again? Probably.

I mean, I would have a continuationist preach because I don't think that that would disqualify him from proclaiming the

Word of God. Right. Yeah. So I would say that we differ on that. And if we're sitting here having a conversation, we're going to obviously be able to discuss the differences.

But yeah, I have friends who wouldn't agree with me on this, but it's not one of those things we're going to part fellowship over.

Good. Okay. Speaking of parting fellowship, one of the—I think

I told you already. I texted some people and said, hey, what are some questions I should be sure to ask the G3 guys?

One of the questions I got was about second -level separation. Okay. Sure. In some circles,

G3 is kind of seen as like quick to separate with people with whom they disagree on secondary or tertiary matters.

Do you think that that's unfair? I think maybe it might be unfair. Okay. I don't think that we're quick to separate on non -essential secondary matters.

Okay. I think we're willing to, but I don't think that we're quick to. So maybe you could give an example, and then maybe we could speak to it.

Sure, sure, sure. I heard that you guys—gosh, you know, I don't want this to be something—I want it in 10 years.

I want it to be evergreen, you know? But I'm just using this as an example. Go for it. So, like, would you guys partner publicly with Nine Marks?

So, we have in the past. Yeah. So, I would just say it like this. I would say

I think that there are some things that we disagree with as it pertains, say,

Lehman, Endeavor, and Nine Marks as a whole. Historically, I wouldn't have even blinked at a question like that.

Yeah. But I think that the social justice dividing lines—use

Vody's language of fault lines—has sort of changed the dynamic.

The working relationship is not the same. Sure. Yeah. And here's why. I think that some guys were entrusted with a vast amount of leadership opportunities.

And I think that, you know, we have to think about that, right? I mean, I think about that often, not only as a local church pastor, but also as president and founder of G3 Ministries.

There is a trust that's there that I need to steward that well.

Looking back at the whole social justice debacle, I think that some of these men got it wrong on these issues.

And I think that if they were honest right now, they would actually admit that they got it wrong on some of these things.

But as it is within evangelicalism, oftentimes because of the whole stigma of looking as if you're a failure, a lot of these leaders are unwilling to admit that they got it wrong.

I would say I would have far more respect for some of these men who are entrusted with all of this leadership opportunity that when they actually did get it wrong on really big stuff like social justice, like, let's just be honest, we exited the

Southern Baptist Convention because of— We being your local church. Local church. Because of the issues of the social justice movement and the whole

Resolution 9 on critical race theory and intersectionality, all of that stuff. And I felt as if the watchmen at that time should have actually been more vocal and standing in opposition for those godless ideologies instead of, in many ways, falling asleep at the wheel, or in some ways, as a watchman on the wall, just going to sleep and allowing a

Trojan horse to come right through the gate of the city. And so, it's not just the world of academia.

It's not just the world of the corporate structures of America. It's not just the world of politics or even athletics.

It's also the world of the church. We have seen the church greatly affected by these things.

And these ideas have, in many ways, harmed the local church. So, for that reason,

I think those men should actually admit where they failed, where they got it wrong. And I would personally respect them far greater than if you play the sort of like,

I'm just not going to speak to that issue because it's been five or six or eight years now. Interesting.

I think in light of your very thorough response, I do want to read this. This is a guy who comes from the

Nine Marks world. He comes from the T4G world as well. It's a little bit lengthier, but you're a sharp guy, but you can keep up.

And then I just want to hear your response to this. This is a reference to G3. It says, if there are differences with Nine Marks and T4G comes up, such as the fact that I believe they didn't want any

Nine Marks books being sold at their conference, true? Probably.

Yeah. I'd want to ask, I recognize you think that they went woke, but is it possible that you have overreacted?

Okay. So, maybe Platt gave a talk you didn't like. Maybe Mark Dever said nice things about a bad book, and we could probably find three or four more things across the range of men in this position.

But looking at the ministries as a whole and looking at what the Pipers and the Devers have been saying, since all this went down in 2020, is it possible that they took one or two injudicious steps, but to consign them to the category of woke is an overreaction?

Bear with me, we're halfway there. To me, it feels like the critics keep repeating the same three or four anecdotes because there really isn't that much material or new material.

And then also to some people, it looks like G3 has tried to build a platform. Now, this may be a little less than charitable, but I asked for his permission to read it.

Um, to some people, it looks like G3 has tried to build a platform precisely on rejecting the

T4G speakers as woke. For instance, I remember hearing a Jewish comedian joking about the fact that Jews can believe in anything,

God, no God, whatever, but the one thing they have to believe in is that Jesus is not the Messiah. Pretty funny.

When I read the G3 platform, it sounds like the T4G, it sounds like T4G except one additional not woke like T4G statement.

In other words, doesn't it serve the existence and growth of, of G3 to overplay how bad and how woke

T4G became? That's a lot, brother. It's unfair of me to ask you to, you know, pick that apart, but what are your general thoughts as you hear that?

Well, generally I would say, I don't think that, that we were just looking at one or two little things like one or two tweets out there on Twitter or maybe one book endorsement where Dever said something nice about divided by faith that I believed it was massively problematic.

It was, it was, it was a lot of things that sort of played into us making a decision to step back from a relationship that we would have previously embraced.

In fact, we had Mark Dever speak at. Yeah, what year was that? That was the 2019 conference.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So again, if you just, if you just think about a lot of the things that were happening, this is not from an outsider's perspective, me making just a sort of a reactionary decision based on a couple of Twitter posts.

This is something that I was watching as sort of a pattern of ministry that I felt like we couldn't continue to have a partnership with.

I had personal conversations with Mark Dever where, you know, again, I'm not going to get into all that in this conversation, but suffice it to say to that question, it's more than that.

So it goes beneath the surface quite a bit. I was speaking in Washington DC. I asked

Mark if he would go have lunch with me, but I didn't want any interns to be there. He agreed.

And so I pressed him on some of these things. And so this was fairly early on in the whole woke scene.

But still, even then, it was clear to me that he wasn't seeing it and he continued to double down.

So for that reason, we felt as if it would be best for us to just maybe put some distance between those relationships.

To be clear on that, do you think, we'll just use Mark since he's already here, but he can be a placeholder for insert any other name.

Do you think he's actually woke or do you think it's, it was a failure to recognize the danger of wokeness?

Because that is a pretty big difference. Yeah, I think so. Well, to be clear, I'm not super close with Mark.

Sure. So I want to be charitable in the way that I would respond to that question. I would think based on what

I see is that Mark himself may not be woke, but Mark was giving too much shade, if you would, to men who

I believe are actually woke within the SBC circles and some of those overlapping relationships.

So yeah. Yeah. I think that's where some of the second level separationist stuff comes in.

It's like, okay, and I'm not saying this is true of you guys, because to be honest with you, I just don't know much about, my world is the non -Mark's world.

If I'm going to find someplace to be a home, like a tribe, those are my guides. And there has been wokeness in there.

So I'm not going to sit here and deny that. But what was I saying? Oh, so like, okay,

Piper had Rick Warren speak at a pastor's conference and he had Doug Wilson speak at a pastor's conference.

Some people have said, by and large, when I look at Piper's ministry, though I disagree, and I think that's a pretty public and egregious strategic error,

I'm still happy to partner with him publicly. The Rick Warren thing, perhaps even worse than the Doug Wilson thing. Oh, for sure.

Yeah, that's right. But then some people have said, and these would be the people that would be labeled like second level separationists, like,

I'm never going to partner with Piper again, because he made that strategic decision I disagree with. What you're saying is it's not that.

It's a larger, deeper pattern. It's not that at all, in fact. I would also push back and say,

I think that this whole second level, second degree separation issue,

I think that that can be very problematic when you're just saying, if you disagree with me on anything, then we can't partner together.

That's very unhealthy. It's a very unhealthy position. I would say it like this.

There are hills to die on, and I felt as if, and I still do, in fact, I believe that the social justice issue was one of those hills to die on.

I was a part of, in fact, I was the one who organized the meeting in Dallas for the statement on social justice and the gospel.

So, I felt as if early on, I could see these things happening, and it was going to be massively problematic to the church.

So, just to give you an example, June of 2018, I think it was right about two weeks before the annual

SBC meeting, I wrote a little article on my blog, very superficial treatment of, but just stating the fact that the

SBC was at the intersection of intersectionality. An SBC professor sees that and tweets it out.

Well, then he calls me, he calls me, and he says, I just want you to know that I had to delete that tweet.

He said, Russell Moore, who at the time was serving in the role of the

ERLC, he calls his provost and had him rebuked, stating that my article has zero merit.

So, just think about that. That's June of 2018. The very next year in Birmingham, Alabama, you have the

SBC voting to adopt Resolution 9 on critical race theory and intersectionality as analytical tools for gospel ministry.

So, I'm not the prophet nor the son of a prophet, but what I will say is that I believed early on that those godless ideologies would be very much detrimental to local churches if we continue down that path.

And so, I think that it's a hill to die on. But let's just flip the script.

Let's just say I don't agree with every jot and tittle of Christian nationalism, but could

I partner with someone in ministry that embraces Christian nationalism? Well, I would say, yeah,

I could. If I say it depends. Yeah, and I would say it depends, right? But it wouldn't be one of these issues of separation and then second -degree separation issue playing its way out on every difference of opinion that we might have.

Gotcha. Do you think there's any hope? Well, I guess when I ask it that way, the answer has to be yes, because we're gospel people.

Do you think we have good reason to hope that in the next few years, some of these bonds that have been broken with our brothers, with whom we have so much in common, can be mended?

I would love nothing more. Yeah. I mean, do you think there's any merit to someone, somebody who knows all parties, to say like, hey, let's just all sit down in a room together, and brothers, let's figure out.

We don't have to do T4G again or anything like that. It doesn't even have to be some public grand display, but like, can we get together for like two or three days and try to hash this out?

Because the world is getting darker. We need more than ever now to have these bonds of affection renewed.

Do you think we could do that? I think we could. I've been a part of meetings like that. I've been asked questions. So they've already happened. Well, I mean, they haven't really happened.

I mean, I've been a part of meetings like that. Okay. I organized a meeting in Dallas for the statement on social justice and the gospel.

I was ridiculed basically by men in our orbit, stating that we didn't have a balanced table to have the conversation.

So I said, fine, let's have a balanced table. So I asked

Dr. Moeller if he would host it at his conference room. At Southern.

Yep. I was going to be speaking at an event there in Louisville, and I said we could do it the same week.

And so I invited a number of guys that are friends of mine. Some were actually at the table for the statement on social justice and the gospel, and some were not.

And then I, you know, extended invitations to Russell Moore, Moeller, Dr.

Akin, other individuals that were very much a part of the scene at the time that I felt, you know, was in many ways troubling in the

SBC. And a number of those individuals declined to come. One of those individuals was the

Bidionye Wile. Oh, so you invited to meet? Yeah, I did. Wow. So yeah, I invited him.

I invited, and he agreed initially. And then he stated that he didn't think that it would be wise for him to be in that meeting.

Russell Moore was invited, others, they declined. And then some, interestingly enough, some of the actual professors at Southern were invited, but Moeller didn't think that it was wise to have them come into that meeting because they were employed at the seminary, and then he was going to be a part of it.

Danny Akin came to the meeting. So we had a number of people there.

It wasn't as large of a meeting as it could have been. So we've attempted these things before.

So we could do it again. I would be willing to do it again.

But at the end of the day, I think that we would have to do it, and I would only be willing to do it if there's going to be an honest conversation that's had.

And so part of that is going to have to be wisdom and knowing the right guys to invite. Yeah.

Anyways, who knows what will happen? What is your favorite G3 memory?

You know, there are so many. I think some of the, I can tell you a couple of them.

Yeah, please. I think one of them was early on, college students coming and sleeping in the parking lot in January and didn't have a hotel room just to come to the conference.

And I knocked on their window and I said, hey, I said, you can't sleep in the car.

And so I've got an extra bedroom at my house. Just come and sleep there. That's awesome.

And then you woke up and they robbed your house blind. No, I woke up at five o 'clock in the morning and came and got ready to go for the conference that day.

And they made their way in much later than I did. I remember Paul Washer preaching, passionately declaring the gospel.

And I was on the back row of our auditorium watching the pastor of the First Baptist Church in our community, who had earlier accused me of being one of the problems in the

Southern Baptist Convention at the time because of Calvinism. And Washer's up there declaring the gospel passionately.

And this older brother who's at the very sunset of his ministry, just down the road in our community.

And I just watched him sit there and weep. And then he gave me this big hug at the end of the meeting.

And he said, can we go eat lunch this week? And we went and sat down at a

Mexican restaurant. And he said, I'm just sitting there weeping saying,

God, why did you wait until the very end to open my eyes to the truth?

And it was just a beautiful moment. Just really beautiful moment. I know we probably all have a thousand

Paul Washer stories, but I want to hit you with one real quick. So there's a guy in our church, dresses like a pencil salesman, has the haircut of a pencil salesman from the 1950s.

One of the most faithful evangelists, loved him to death. He's telling us about his dad, who is a pastor who's not saved.

Been a pastor for 30 years, not saved. Cheated on his mom, ruined the marriage, ruined the family, pastoring a

Methodist church in the country, not saved. One day his dad comes to church and go out, introduce ourselves, catch lunch with him.

And he tells us his testimony. Late at night, he's watching a

Paul Washer clip and he gets saved. And he immediately resigns from the pastorate.

He finally understands the gospel. You have to understand this guy was like a part of the conservative resurgence.

He was there on the floor when the inerrancy battle was happening. He was dragging people in to vote. He has a

PhD. He's pastored who knows how many churches. Gets saved, resigns from his church, takes a job working security at the mall, joins our church, and he's just been a faithful member for the last two years.

And every chance he gets, he tells people his testimony. Isn't that cool? That is really cool. Okay, back to you. More stories about G3.

One more. Let's go one more. So I have so many I could tell you. Here's a really good one.

My wife and I were college students, year 2000. Our former pastor moved to pastor the

First Baptist Church of Oxford, Mississippi. I was close friends with his son.

My wife was close friends with his daughter. And we were going to do a road trip out and see them, but we were going to go to this conference called a

One Day Conference. It was a passion conference in Memphis, Tennessee. Like the same passion that they do here in Atlanta?

Yeah. Okay. So we were going to go out. This big thing. It was an outdoor event. And so we traveled out and we sat in this big, huge field and sat there all day and listened to these preachers preach.

I have a grandfather on both sides of my family that are successful businessmen, and that's the path that I was taking.

And so this sort of not very...

How do you say this? This man comes to the podium to preach that was not very impressive.

And he stands up there with just this buttoned down shirt on, khaki pants, and he's declaring this, don't waste your life sermon.

And I'm sitting out there in this field of thousands of college students and I'm thinking, no way.

No way. Who invited this guy? Well, I'm just thinking, no way. I know my grandfather's a faithful Christian.

He has money. He uses it for the glory of God. That's the route that I'm going to go. Okay. I'm going to make a lot of money and I'm going to use it for the glory of God.

No way am I buying this idea of the seashell illustration and all that stuff.

And so we get back in the car, we're riding back to Atlanta. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

You're sitting at the thing where Piper does the don't waste your life sermon? Sitting out there in my life. I'm slow. Sorry, I had to connect the dots.

Okay. Okay. But as you're hearing it, you're actually suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.

You're like, no, no, no, no, this is whack. I am. Okay. In fact, I'm an unconverted church member. Okay. And so it doesn't resonate with me.

I'm almost making fun of him, mocking him a bit going down the road, like this nerdy guy up there with, you know, glasses and khaki pants.

And he's telling us, and I'm like, really? Like all these people are going to believe that, right? And so I traveled back home and ended up getting a job soon thereafter.

The Lord saves me. And then my life takes a drastic turn.

I end up pursuing gospel ministry, a desire, insatiable desire to preach the gospel.

I'm preaching in the jails around Atlanta. And so I decided to quit my job. My wife and I, we moved to Louisville and I get my syllabus from different classes and I'm going into the book tunnel there.

I'm getting all these books and throwing them in the basket. Yeah. And I go back to my apartment and I start looking at all these books and there's this book.

Now this is a few years later and there's this book and on the back, I'm like, that's that guy.

That's that guy. And so I read the book and never turned back, embraced it, loved it.

And so fast forward, God and his providence will bring us full circle back home and G3 starts.

And then 2019 Piper comes to preach at G3 and we're in the green room and I told him the story.

And it was just, it was a moment where I was like, you know, Dr. Piper, I want you to know that you probably don't know how many people you've touched in your preaching ministry, but I'm one of those guys.

Yeah. It's not many people get to sit down with them in a green room and tell them these awesome stories, but there are a million. Yeah. Praise God for John Piper, man.

Yeah. Yeah. And many other brothers like him, brothers who it seems like are making it to the end.

Interesting. On that same note is I'm driving up the road after a

G3 and we're going to go eat lunch.

Conference is over on Saturday. So we're going to go up and we're going to eat lunch and sort of just chill for a bit.

Yeah. And Vodie Bauckham is sitting next to me and I'm telling that story.

Yeah. And he goes, hey man, he says, I spoke in that conference too.

And I went, hey man, I didn't think that when you were up there, let's just be clear. But it was really interesting because it had not dawned on me, but he actually did preach in that same conference.

Wow. Do you remember him? And I do remember him. Okay. Yeah. So it was interesting. It's rough to have to go up at the same show as Elvis.

You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Okay. What about this? What about mistakes that you guys have made at G3 over the years?

I mean, things that as an older, wiser man, you're like, ah, wish you wouldn't have done that. Yeah. You know,

I think from a pastoral heart,

I mean, obviously I've made numerous mistakes, right? Just, you know, it's always easy.

It's always easy afterwards to look at life and say, you know, sort of Monday morning quarterback thing.

If I just think about G3 itself, some of the mistakes that we've made have been, you know, trying to move too quickly at times.

I think one of the things that I've been guilty of sometimes is maybe even moving too slowly because of the fact that, you know, you don't want to take a quote unquote risk or you don't, you know, you're not sure if everyone's going to really, you know, follow what you're trying to do or maybe embrace what you're trying to communicate.

But the Lord's like carrying you along and you're almost like trying to resist it. Yeah. So I think that that's been some of the things that I've personally struggled with is either being too speedy or maybe too slow.

Sometimes the fear of man grips you on one side and then on the other side, maybe there's pride or whatever else that leads you.

And so you have to be very careful as a leader to avoid both of those ditches. Yeah. Let's talk about G3 Church Network.

Okay. Born of the conference? It was. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Tell us the vision for the G3 Church Network.

Church Network was basically an offshoot of the conference. And then sometime around 2020, 2019,

I woke up in January and told my wife, there's no possible way I can continue to do this on my own the way we're doing it.

So hard press for 12 months, pull off the conference with a gracious group of volunteers from the church.

But leading up to the event, basically all of the admin work, all of the decision making resting on my shoulders primarily.

No way, no brother. And some people get paid a lot of money to do everything that you were doing by yourself.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I wake up in 2019 and say, there's no way I can do it anymore.

So work for 12 months to make some decisions. Would we close down the conference? Would we bring it back to the local church?

Or would we turn it into a 501c3 and then staff it? So we chose that route, but it would take time to build, you know, to where we could actually staff it.

Yeah. And then after we rolled into the 2020 and then we started to move into sort of the new era of G3 Ministries, we wanted to provide an opportunity for a network of churches that could work together for the glory of God, not a denomination, but a network to where churches can be connected.

We believe that that's important. You know, we obviously, when we read the New Testament, we see that you're sharing resources, you're sending money, you're planting, people are moving and mobilizing for the purpose of church planting.

We just felt that that would be a really important thing for us. Yeah. And then obviously with our personal exit at the local church level from the

SBC, we just felt like we couldn't just be an island. We wanted to have friends and to be able to engage in gospel ministry with brothers that we agree with on a lot of things.

And so that's how it was birthed. And, you know, at the time we were still a part of the

SBC. And then also, you know, the G3 Church Network was a thing and we were going to just sort of move in that direction.

Currently you have the G3 Church Network and people have all sorts of dual alignments.

Which is perfectly acceptable. We started the G3 Church Network with a desire to have a robust doctrinal statement.

So we chose the 1689 London Baptist Confession. And then we say, you know what, if you're going to be a part of this network, you don't have to say wholesale, we agree on everything.

You can provide some qualifications here and there. We just want to make sure that we have a general understanding that you're close, we're close enough.

Reformed Baptistic. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. How many churches are there? A little over 200 maybe.

Over the country or the world? Over the world, primarily the U .S., but we are growing outside of the

U .S. We have a good number of people in different locations that are starting, maybe chapters you might call them, little small groups in those different countries.

And one of those is going to be a growing place where we're continuing to do ministry on a regular basis is there in Brazil.

Ooh, a lot is happening in Brazil right now. Yeah. At some point,

I would love to interview Scott because I love the work he's doing, and I really mean that, the work he's doing on the regulative principle.

I love the work he's doing combating theonomy. I think that's very important. What are you most excited about right now in terms of G3 stuff?

Yeah. What I'm most excited about regarding G3 is how God has blessed this ministry and staffed this ministry to enable us to do exactly what we were talking about at the beginning of the conversation, which is to encourage pastors.

From the heart of a pastor, just thinking about other pastors and the statistics, so many pastors just throw in the white towel.

They want to give up. They're beat up. They're discouraged. Pastoral ministry is very hard.

And so it is an unbelievable privilege for us as a ministry to be able to serve pastors.

And so that's the heartbeat. But to think about the church as well, I'm a churchman.

So if I wasn't a pastor, then I would put a lot of emphasis on the local church for my family.

And so to think about the privilege that the Lord has extended to us to be able to engage in gospel ministry and to be able to help strengthen and encourage local churches, massively encouraging to me personally, to know that we're publishing.

So we're able to write books and we're able to provide an app that has at the push of a button has so many resources.

Every book that we publish in G3 Press, as well as documentaries and other ministries that we're connected with, we have some of their resources there as well in that app.

And so providing these resources to local churches is a huge blessing.

And something that I'm excited about every day when I wake up is to know that I get to come in and meet with these guys at the front side of the week.

They go and knock it out of the park. I'm down the hall doing pastoral ministry and studying to preach.

And just to know that I get to be a part of it is just a thrill. Nice. Is there anything coming down the pipeline that you want to get people excited about by talking about now?

Yeah. I mean, we have some projects coming down the pipeline for sure.

Some really encouraging books that we're going to be publishing as well as some different media resources that we're going to be, you know, unveiling, you might say, coming up at the conference.

But you're playing it close to the chest for now. Yeah. I'm going to keep the cards a little close right now, but just suffice it to say, we're working on some really big stuff, some good stuff.

Nice. This has been a pretty easy interview, brother. Yeah. I think I've really enjoyed it. Okay. Are you ready for this hard -hitting journalism?

Go for it. Go for it. Tea or coffee? Coffee all day long, man. All day long?

Yeah. All day. Okay. No diet Mountain Dew? No diet Mountain Dew. No, no. Fine. No. Favorite sitcom?

Favorite sitcom. Gosh, I'm going to have to go with Seinfeld. Keeping it classic. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like in another life,

I could have been a cranky Jewish guy from Manhattan. That's just right in my emotional zone, you know?

Yeah. Okay. So you're trapped on an island for the rest of your life and you can only listen to the sermons of one of these men.

And you can add another man if you want. Dever, Piper, Keller. I know that's probably going to be enough for you.

Sproul, John MacArthur. So how many do I get to choose? You get one. Oh, just one.

For the rest of your life, who's sermons are you going to listen to? That's a really good question because I would want to listen to more than just one guy.

Right. But you can't. But if I have to choose from that list, I'm going to go with J -Mac.

I'm going to go with John MacArthur. And here's why. So Sproul, I had the privilege to meet him.

I truly, truly appreciate Ligonier Ministries and what they do. I listen still to this very day.

I listen to Sproul's sermons, some of his teaching resources that they have put out. The sound of that chalk on the blackboard, it still does it for me.

Yeah. It's a wonderful thing just to see how this guy was raised up and used as a tool and a vessel for truth.

But if I'm honest, when I think about all of the men that you've mentioned, the one that is like the expositor out of that group that, in my estimation, has just continued to just beat the steady drum of faithful exposition in his entire ministry is

John MacArthur. Now, I would not agree with John MacArthur on everything. Sure. But obviously, the way...

Are you dispensational? No, I'm not. Yeah. So the way that he handles scripture, though, I think is critically important.

Yeah. Gotcha. We just did this with Aaron Minicoff, who, by the way, told me to tell you hello. Yeah. He's a good brother.

Yeah. He loves you, man. He had a very interesting answer. He was like, with John MacArthur, you get the most robust systematic theology, and with Keller, you learn how to do presuppositional apologetics, but you sacrifice a little bit on that.

And then with Piper, you get this, and with Dever, you get that. I mean, he had a really thoughtful answer, apparently, as do you.

Okay. Same question, but you can only listen to their sermons. Let's throw

Kevin DeYoung in there, too. Dever, DeYoung, Piper, Keller, Sproul, John MacArthur. Who are you picking? Yeah.

I mean, I think I'm probably... I mean, if I'm just talking about the content of what they're preaching...

But you have to listen to it. Yeah. It's not like sermon manuscripts. Yeah, yeah. I'm going to go with John MacArthur because of the content.

However, I listen to... there are a couple of sermons from John Piper that I listen to on a regular basis, and one of them is from an early

T4G before it was at the Yum Center, and he was preaching on two pastors, obviously, and he's preaching on why expository preaching is basically the way to preach the

Bible. And still to this very day,

I listen to that sermon. In fact, Virgil Walker, you met downstairs. We were at a shepherds conference a number of years ago, and one of the things that I typically do when

I go to LA, if I'm going to be there for like speaking chapel or go to a conference,

I'll go in, fly in. I go to In -N -Out. Classic In -N -Out style?

Double -double. All the way. All the way. Okay. And then I go straight from there, change clothes, and go to the park and run up to the

Hollywood sign in the back and just get it out of my system. And you listen to Piper? And I listen to that sermon because it's so refreshing as a preacher to hear a man talking about the importance of preaching, like just statements that he's making in that sermon, that there's a mantle laid upon the pastor who preaches the

Word of God, and that one end of that mantle is soaked in the blood of Jesus, and the other is singed with the fire of hell.

Just think about a statement like that. Yeah, yeah. I'm not surprised. Piper, I think to use a baseball analogy, which

I don't really know that much about, but with someone like Dever or John MacArthur, you know that you're always going to at least hit a double.

But with Piper, sometimes Piper is literally my hero.

But there have been certain sermons where I'm like, oh, that might have been a strikeout. But he hits home runs, man.

Always, yeah. Consistently. Consistently, yeah. Okay, Lewis or Tolkien?

Gonna go with Tolkien, yeah. Luke's celebrating out there, okay. Favorite novel?

Wow. Favorite novel. I don't know, man.

That's a good one. That's a good one. I might have to come back to you on that.

Okay. Favorite novel. You have any specific boundary on that? No, no, no, no.

I mean, yeah. From Cormac McCarthy to Old English, Jane Eyre kind of stuff.

I don't know. Whatever floats your boat. Yeah. So I don't know how to say my favorite novel.

Like what I would say is the absolute favorite. Is there a work of fiction you keep coming back to?

Yeah. I mean, I think I love to read stuff from Tolkien.

I love Lewis. In fact, when I'm in the UK, I like to go and try to find unique things from these different men who've shaped me and who have helped me.

But it's hard for me to really answer that question, honestly. To pick a favorite. All right. Well, text me later. Just let me know because I'd be intrigued.

Mountains or beach? Gonna go with the beach all the way. All day. Are you a sit in the sun kind of guy?

Yeah. Yeah. In fact, my favorite place to go on planet Earth is Aruba.

Yeah. Jamaica? Aruba. All day. Champagne or wine? So if I were gonna choose between the two, it would have to be champagne.

Okay. All right. Least favorite candy. Least favorite candy would be...

Wow. Gosh. Least favorite... I'm gonna go with...

What am I gonna go with there? Least favorite candy. That's a good one. I'll tell you mine.

It might jog you. It might spur you on. Black licorice. Pretty bad, right? Yeah. So yeah.

So I think the worst candy would probably be in that same...

So licorice. Yeah. I can't stand it, but I don't know that I would call it the worst. Yeah. The problem is

I'm asking the question in the most superlative way possible. Yeah. Yeah. Like a lot of people say like circus peanuts and...

Yeah. Yeah. So when I'm thinking of candy that I like, I like stuff that's more salty rather than overly sweet.

Yeah. I get that. So I don't like a lot of the... I'm not a guy that goes for dessert.

Like if my wife were sitting here talking, she would say, Josh hardly ever gets dessert unless it's a special occasion.

I would rather have seconds on the entree. Amen, brother. Rather than... Proceed more steak. Yeah. Absolutely.

Yeah. Okay. All right. Android or iPhone? iPhone all the way. Macaroni salad or potato salad?

We're going to go with potato salad. The potluck people rejoice. Mayonnaise or mustard? We're going to go with mustard.

Caviar or escargot? We're definitely going to go with caviar.

Okay. Night out or night in? We're going to go night out. Concert or football game? Football game.

You know, I don't know why, but I just knew that that was going to be the answer. Morning person or night out? Morning person.

Burger King or McDonald's? Burger King. Yeah. Mexican or Italian? Mexican. What's your least favorite race?

Least favorite race? Yeah. So, explain that one. Mine's NASCAR. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. So, yeah. So, I'm not a NASCAR guy. No. Yeah. So, I'm going to go with the

Indy 500 as the top rung in the ladder. There you go. Burger or barbecue? We're going to go with burger.

Okay. Chinese takeout, like the bad, like 2 a .m. Chinese takeout or sushi?

Oh, I'm definitely going to go with sushi, but it has to be good sushi. It can't be the cheap sushi. Yeah. Not Kroger sushi.

No, no. Okay. Which is a thing, by the way. Cold or hot? I'm definitely going to go with hot.

Rock or rap? Going to go with rap. Hey, let's go.

I don't think people would have seen that coming. Hey, do you remember the golden days of Christian hip -hop? Oh, of course.

How good was that, man? Yeah. So, I wasn't huge into hip -hop.

Okay. But again, I mean, I think if you were to just be honest with that question,

I think it would probably be a 50 -50. Sure. Sure. You know, for me personally. Yeah. But I'm forcing the... Yeah, you got a big one.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you could just listen to like one of Shy Lin's early albums, just all about Christology.

Yeah. So, I think that's probably the reason for the answer. Like, I'm typically a classical guy.

So, like, if you go in my office now and listen, right now there's classical music playing. But if you look back at just historically, rock, in many ways,

I never listened to rock beyond conversion. Yeah. Right. But I did listen to hip -hop beyond conversion.

Because of Christian rap. Yeah. But even now, I've sort of kind of moved on from it. Same here. Yeah. Well, I've moved on just because they've moved on.

Yeah. We were listening to some Christian rap, me and Luke, on the way up to Atlanta. And I was like, I'm a little bit in like dad mode.

I'm like, check out this band that I used to really like. And just so gospel -rich, saturated with Christ, teaching theology.

I just don't think people are doing that anymore. And so, I'm just not interested, because honestly, musically, it wasn't that great.

It was Christ that I loved in the music. Yeah. Exactly. Okay. I bet you don't get a lot of questions like this.

If you could only have a unibrow or no eyebrows for the rest of your life, which one are you taking? Well, I'm going to do the unibrow.

Yeah. Because I can actually fix that. Well, no, no, no. You can't. No adjustments. You got to keep it.

Yeah. It's still a unibrow though, right? No, I don't know. I think I might just go with nothing. Okay. All right.

You could get eyebrow wigs. I was going to ask classical or jazz, but you're classical. Classical. Okay. I'm trying to learn the piano right now.

Yeah. I'm going—my guy is like a classically trained pianist who's teaching me a church member. Interesting. I'm horrendous, but it's helping me appreciate at least classical piano more.

Yeah. And every time I look at it, my mind is even more blown, now that I understand what it is they're actually doing. Yeah. It's really interesting.

I love classical music. I'm a cello guy. I'm a strings guy. I love the deep, rich sounds.

Do you play, or is that just what you— I just listen to it. So, I can't play anything, unfortunately.

So, yeah. Yeah. There you go. But you can preach the gospel. Yeah. Trapped on an island with only one—we got three left.

Hang in there, buddy. You're doing great. Trapped on an island with only one systematic theology, which one do you choose?

Hmm. I'll probably go with Burkhoff. Yeah. You know, I'll probably go—it's a hard one.

Yeah. Yeah. That's probably what I would go. I would probably just choose something older, rather than more contemporary.

What hymn would you like to be sung at your funeral? Hmm. Interesting. If I'm only having one,

I mean, I want more than one. Right, right, right. Fire off a couple. Yeah. So, It Is Well.

Obviously. Come Thou Fount. Love it. I don't know.

There are a number of them that are so, so good. Speaking of Come Thou Fount, have you ever heard the sort of CCM version of Come Thou Fount?

I don't know that I have. Yeah. I hope you never do. Hmm. I hope you never do. Yeah. Some songs don't need to be fixed, but some actually—

It must not be fixed. They must not be touched. Right. But then there are some, just because they're old doesn't mean that they're gold.

They actually do need to be fixed. Yes, that's right. You know? So, I think if it's really good, let's just leave it where it is.

Yeah. Amen, brother. Final question. Maybe the most important question. How many holes does a straw have?

It has one hole. It has one hole. We are on a string, Luke, of really smart people in interviews.

You'd be surprised how many terrible answers we get. Well, brother, that's all I got for this interview. Thank you so much for making time for us.

I pray that the Lord blesses it. Let me just do that now. Yeah. Yeah, let's do that. Lord, thank you so much for our brother

Josh. Thank you for loving him before the foundation of the world. Thank you for loving him even when he was at war with you.

Thank you for calling him and saving him by the power of your Holy Spirit through the blood of Jesus. Thank you for keeping him by your grace.

In light of what we have experienced in recent days, we pray that you will give him an extra measure of protection.

Help him to walk with Jesus. Help him to pursue purity. Help him to love you and to know you more with each passing day so that he can minister from a position of true spiritual power.

We pray for G3 Ministries, Lord, help them to navigate the complicated landscape that is American evangelicalism in our own day and age.

Give them wisdom to make the right decisions so that they can be maximally fruitful, so that they can bring your son

Jesus the most glory, and so that they can do the most good for the church. We pray that you'll bless this conversation,

Lord. If either one of us have said anything that's unwise or incorrect or unhelpful, we pray that you'll protect our listeners from that.

But anything good and true and beautiful and biblical that we've said, we pray that you will use it to plant seeds and to water seeds in the hearts of your saints.